PODCAST: HR Happy Hour 400 - Building an Authentic Employer Brand - #HRHappyHour

HR Happy Hour 400 - Building an Authentic Employer Brand

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Mary Battle, Employer Branding and Campus Programs Lead, Panasonic NA

This episode is sponsored by PeopleStrategy. From intuitive, hire-to-retire HR technology to comprehensive benefits consulting and HR services, PeopleStrategy offers employers a single source for the tools and services necessary to attract, manage and retain talent

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This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish were joined by Mary Battle, employer branding and campus programs lead at Panasonic NA. Mary shared insights on how she approaches creating and sharing the Panasonic employer brand and keeping the company at the forefront of the candidate’s thinking about great places to work.

Additionally, Mary shared some ideas on organizations can begin to connect their employer branding and messaging to their own core values or principles - which helps keep the messages genuine, authentic, and consistent around the globe, and how these principles remain a part of the onboarding and ongoing employee experience at Panasonic.Finally, Mary shared the key pillars for success of their internship programs and how these programs support Panasonic’s employer brand, talent pipelines and strategic goals. Learn more about careers at Panasonic North America here.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This was a really fun show, thanks to Mary for joining us!

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts - including on Spotify.

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 385 - The State of Recruiting in 2019

HR Happy Hour 385 - The State of Recruiting in 2019

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Jim Stroud, Talent Acquisition Thought Leader

Sponsored by Culture Amp, the platform that turns your company culture into a competitive advantage. Your employee data tells you what's happened in the past, but what if it could tell you what might happen next. See how with your free Predictive Analytics report at www.cultureamp.com/happy

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This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by recruitment industry legend Jim Stroud, an expert in sourcing, recruiting, candidate attraction, branding and more to get the state of recruting in 2019 and the overall labor market and how that impacts organizations. Jim shared his insights on how the lack of candidates in particular industries like in trucking and in caregiving are impacting recruiting efforts for organizations in these fields. Jim also discussed how soft skills like empathy and interpersonal skills are increasingly important for candidates in almost all fields and especially for those in recruiting or who are aspiring to be in recruiting. Jim shared some tips for how to best improve and develop those skills as well. Finally, we talked about some of the newer tools and technologies that are emerging and evolving in recruiting in 2019 and beyond.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This was a fun show, thanks so much to Jim for joining us.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts.

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 371 - Modern Approaches to Candidate Experience

HR Happy Hour 371 - Modern Approaches to Candidate Experience

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Paul Wolfe, SVP of Human Resources, Indeed

Sponsosed by Panopto - For businesses and universities, Panopto is everything YouTube isn’t. With enterprise-grade security, built-in recording and live streaming, and a unique search engine that finds any word spoken in any video, Panopto is how professionals share knowledge.'

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Today on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve was joined by Paul Wolfe, SVP of HR from Indeed to talk about modern approaches to the candidate experience and how organizations can provide better overall experiences to their job candidates. On the show, Paul shared how he views the candidate experience, how the balance of information has changed and made providing a great experience to candidates has become more important for organizations, and some of the most important strategies and practices for creating better candidate experiences in 2019.

Additionally, Paul shared some insights from a recent research study Indeed conducted about what are the key drivers or reasons for positive candidate experience, as well as the most common factors that create negative candidate experiences. 

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This was a fun and informative show with some key and new insights for HR and talent acquisition leaders around what is driving the candidate experience conversation in 2019.

Thanks so much Paul for joining us.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts.

Dealing with 'Hard to Fill' positions? Don't forget about throwing cash at the problem

Quick shot for a post Super Bowl Monday - I have posted a few times over the last year or so about the US Trucking industry and the labor market for commercial truck drivers. I am fascinated by this sliver of the labor market as many of the big labor trends like increased automation, shifts in demographics, increased regulation, and employers struggling to hire enough new drivers (and retain existing ones), make this area really ripe for observation and analysis.

Having said that, I wanted to highlight one of the strategies that one employer, in fact the largest private employer in the US, is rolling out in an attempt to find more candidates and ultimately make more hires. Simply put, it is throwing more cash at the problem. Here's what Walmart is doing in order to hire more truck drivers from a piece on Fortune:

While some people focus on whether automation will kill long-haul trucking jobs over the long-term, Walmart is currently more concerned with its short-term reality. The company is once again raising truck driver salaries to try to correct for an ongoing shortage of drivers. Walmart needs to hire at least 900 drivers this year, according to the Dallas Morning News.

One reason: trucking tonnage is way up. The American Trucking Association, the industry’s largest trade association, says that tonnage hauled annually is up 6% is up even while the industry continues to suffer from nearly 50,000 unfilled long-haul jobs. The ATA’s chief economist Bob Costello notes that in 2018, truck tonnage hit its highest peak in 20 years.

In a separate change, Walmart also recently relaxed somewhat the candidate screening process for prospective drivers. Instead of a 'one and done', fail and you are out screen of driving skills, Walmart is now allowing candidates to attempt the driving capability screen, offer them coaching and suggestions on how to improve their performance on the test, and then the chance to re-take the test. 

The TL;DR summary of all this? Walmart has a problem filling an important job so they are taking major steps to increase the candidate funnel by changing a key element of the screening process, and are throwing more cash at the problem to try and convince more job seekers (who continue to enjoy a strong labor market), to accept and remain in these truck driver positions.

Let more people in the door, offer them more money to stay. Pretty simple, let's see how it works.

Have a great week!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 352 - Improving Diversity Recruiting in Technology

HR Happy Hour 352 - Improving Diversity Recruiting in Technology

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Kylie Gomez, Atlassian

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This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by Kylie Gomez, Senior Product Recruiter at Atlassian, a leading technology company to talk about how they approach the challenges of recruiting a more diverse set of candidates.

Atlassian has about 3,000 employees worldwide, and has plans to grow to 5,000 in the next few years. A big challenge for Atlassian, and for any company in growth mode, is to improve the diversity of their candidate pools, as well as the people they eventually bring into the organization. On the show, Kylie shared some specific approaches that have been working for Atlassian - thinking about the problem in a holistic way, using modern technology tools that support more diverse and unbiased candidate searches and assessment, and making sure that the company culture and mission are at the forefront in the entire recruiting process.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This is a really interesting and enlightening conversation with a recruiting leader at one of tech's most successful and innovative companies, and one from which any HR and recruiting leader can take away some important insights around improving diversity and reducing bias in the recruiting process.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour.'