A Desired Employer

There was an article in today's NST in which Jack Welch discussed how an organization can become an employer of choice. Isn't it great? Companies and management gurus are actually talking about how they can manage and run their organizations in such a way that people want to work for them. Why should any organization bother to make it self desirable to the workforce? Why should it even try? If people want a job, let them come.Right? Wrong!

Today organizations take great pride when the international magazine, TIME publishes its list of Best of Employers of the year. Such a title has become a great source of pride and organizations use it in their marketing just like how ISO's are used. They hope that such accolades will attract the best minds from the market to seek employment with them. I was once told by a visiting management expert that Microsoft (USA), Infosys (India) and Lenovo (China) are so aggresive in recruiting from college campuses that they practically pay their young recruits forward so that they do not get attracted to the competitor! I am sure a Best Employer title will do great wonders too.

The thing is this : to get the best, an organization has to be the best. The more skilled the job is, the more the organization needs to do to make it self attractive for courting. How does an organization becomes a desired employer? The first step is for all senior managers to realize that they have to once in a while get away from the demands of their everyday tasks and responsibilities and spend time in developing and reviewing their strategic HR approaches. If there is a quarterly review of financial matters, I think there should be one for the most critical asset : human resource. This is People Management in the 21st century. The ROI from this will be tremendous.Just ask Microsoft.