Welcome back to another installment of Whitepaper Wednesday here on the Purchasing Certification Blog. Today, I\u2019ll be reviewing a whitepaper entitled \u201cManaging Talent in a Recession: Attracting & Developing the Right Staff\u201d from Denali Recruiting & Staffing.<\/p>\n
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This whitepaper starts out with a description of certain employment and economic conditions. It is a little bit dated (from June 2009), but the basic message is this: \u201cThere is high unemployment, so this is a great time to find talent if hiring new employees is in your near-term plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skipping ahead, the whitepaper profiles the four different generations in the workforce and their characteristics as well as their stereotypes. All of the information up through this point of the whitepaper is very generalized and not procurement specific. However, that changes about half-way through. The whitepaper says that \u201cthe landscape in procurement and sourcing has changed over the last 10-15 years\u201d and gives several examples of new processes, new tools and technologies, changing markets, and higher expectations.<\/p>\n
It goes on to address a topic that I\u2019ve always found interesting: hiring someone with procurement-specific knowledge and skills vs. hiring someone with collaborative and consultative skills and the ability to learn procurement skills. The authors say that they recommend seeking individuals with \u201ca blend of talent \u2013 those with consultative skills and those who know the business of procurement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though a procurement leader can easily be led to believe that it is an employer\u2019s market, the whitepaper wisely advises that while \u201cthe current market offers unprecedented opportunities to find great talent, it is imperative to keep the good people you have.\u201d The whitepaper includes a nice five-point plan for retention:<\/p>\n
The whitepaper elaborates on each of these points and addresses a few other topics, such as assessing skills, before wrapping up.<\/p>\n
What I like most about this whitepaper is that it really emphasizes the need to be strategic in thinking about how to staff a procurement department for the long-term. Too often, it is easy to get caught up in the priority-of-the-moment and not think about what you want your procurement organization to look like in the immediate and distant future. This whitepaper can help you focus in that regard.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re contemplating how to staff your procurement department as the economic landscape changes, I recommend giving this whitepaper a scan. You can download your own copy from Denali\u2019s Web site (no registration required).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welcome back to another installment of Whitepaper Wednesday here on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n