Source: The Economist

When I think about winners in the ill-defined “war on talent”, a few attributes come to mind. First, you’re not apologetic about who you are and what makes your organization tick, so aspirational employee branding efforts are counter-culture and somewhat abhorrent. Second, you use research, data and analytics to study the real actions and resulting outcomes of your candidates and employees. Numbers aren’t scary but instead empower your thinking, decision making or overarching strategic plans. Finally, you are fully transparent about your goals and aspirations. You are running a business and can concisely convey your objectives and how each employee’s cog fits into your wheel of commerce.

A few weeks ago Bill Kutik and several other industry representatives (including yours truly) were invited out to Philadelphia to attend a fairly standard analyst briefing with Kenexa‘s leadership team. My expectations for these events are fairly straight forward – you meet with the executive staff, hear their predictions for the coming year and gather information on product releases, feature specifications, client successes, revenues, etc. It’s a fairly prescribed event and some leave more cynical, others more enlightened, and yet others indifferent to what they saw or heard.

And here’s my top takeaway from the day. Kenexa, if it executes successfully and stays focused, is about to crack the code in this area. This is not something I say lightly and is not guaranteed, so I’ll explain my reasoning below. Know that although my travel and expenses were paid (as they were for all attendees), I received no incentive (financial or otherwise) to write this post.

Back to Philly…

Mid-morning arrived and we were asked to split off into separate tracks depending on our areas of interest. I went with the much smaller recruitment process outsourcing group due to my personal and professional curiousity about this rapidly growing (yet highly confusing) market segment. If you’re interested in what happened in the other track, be sure to read Kutik’s column, Kenexa Puts Its Pieces Together by clicking here. He offered a terrific summation and I wholeheartedly agree with his conclusions.

About eight of us huddled in an extremely warm wood-paneled room in the Union League Club, a Civil War-era time capsule in downtown Philadelphia. Yes, they have a dress code and women’s restrooms appear to be a fairly recent addition. This is not your venue of choice for a diversity conference, believe me. I digress…

I won’t bore you with a lot of what we discussed. Yes, Kenexa is a player in RPO and talent management. Yes, they have a full service solution, global footprint, and so on. That you can find out by reading their literature or visiting their website and it’s all really table stakes for competing in today’s environment. The “Wow!” factor comes when you learn more about their research and how they are deconstructing data-driven market insights.

Kenexa’s Research Institute (KRI) is a bellwether of workforce analytics and an extremely small (but incredibly valuable) portion of Kenexa’s overall infrastructure. If you haven’t heard of them or studied their findings, you’re missing out on some terrific insights, including:

• WorkTrends Studies: KRI has been assessing U.S. employee opinions since the mid-1980s and global trends since 2007. For an example, see For the slim majority of women, work and personal lives are balanced, but not for all.
• The Employee Confidence Index: A forecastable construct for measuring and predicting organizational success. See their white paper here.
• High-Performance Engagement Models: Exploration of the relationship between engagement and financial performance. For an example, see Engagement Trends over Time.

Remember, I’m married to a researcher and understand the value these studies can bring to an organization. But for many, putting that content into the context of their specific organizational needs is a barrier to action and change. And this is where the secret sauce of Kenexa’s new strategy really comes into play.

For several strategic clients, Kenexa has applied its KRI team for the specific purpose of attacking the “quality of hire” question. The insights gathered in this initial consultative research fundamentally change the sourcing strategies and resulting screening and assessment process. The outcome is a “tunnel” versus “funnel” candidate experience with the explicit goal of supporting only quality hires. It is this piece specifically – including competitive market research, top performer research and company culture assessment – that could change the face of recruiting as you know it.

You’re thinking, “But Mark, this stuff isn’t new! I mean c’mon, seriously. They’ll ‘win the market’??” I think it is new, and let me give you an example.

Regeneron is a biopharmaceutical company focused on medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions. They worked with Kenexa to develop what was at the time a very controversial campaign to attack their market needs. Here’s an extract on the partnership from a recently published piece in the Journal of Organizational Excellence:

“A strategic partnership required that this successful biotech company add, in just one year, nearly 50 percent more employees, including top-notch scientific talent, and then do it again just two years later. A key challenge was to preserve, in the midst of high organizational growth, the unique cultural DNA that has been part of the company’s code for success. The authors describe a major employment branding initiative, which included a cultural assessment based on Jungian archetypes, that enabled the company to position its culture as the key differentiator in its recruitment strategy. They discuss the surfacing and articulation of five key cultural attributes that exemplify the culture and how they are used to attract and select new employees for a strong cultural fit; engage existing employees around the defining values and behaviors needed for success; and define the company’s external brand. They also describe how HR practices have been implemented or modified to sustain these characteristics as part of the organizational fabric.“

Regeneron and Kenexa named this initiative The Five and you’ll see that it’s an extremely candid and transparent representation of who they are, who they are not and what it takes to be successful at their firm. This campaign served as a screen to let candidates know that unless you’re comfortable with these five truths, Regeneron is not the firm for you. Beyond the “five things to know”, this also included a controversial list of reasons why you would not fit into their organization complete with a big DON’T APPLY graphic followed by… “If science isn’t your obsession”; “If you’re content being the smartest person in the room”; “If you’re afraid to fail”; “If you think good enough is good enough”; and “If you need a routine to define you”. I love this approach and you won’t be surprised to learn that scientists responded in droves, some enraged by the idea that they may not be the right fit for Regeneron. It’s brilliant and it worked.

And Kenexa isn’t waiting for HR and recruiting to wake up to their newer strategies. Instead they are forming CEO and board-level relationships to ensure that the criticality of discussions on talent and employee engagement see the light of day.

It’s rare for me to declare a winner and I remain very bullish on Kenexa’s chances of fundamentally changing the talent conversation. However, there are three challenges that they must immediately overcome:

1. Kenexa’s marketing budget is fractional compared to the competition. CEO Rudy Karsan is aware of this issue and knows that, in his words, Kenexa needs to address “how quickly we can expand the microphone“;
2. The Research Institute is thriving under top-notch leaders such as Dr. Anne Herman, but it’s an underfunded group and needs to expand significantly if Kenexa is going to fully capitalize on the opportunity; and
3. Kenexa currently houses a twenty-person employer branding group. I think this is a distraction as this is not (and should not, in my opinion) be a core competency of the firm. I think all stakeholders would benefit from an alliance strategy in the branding space.

I know this was a long one so thank you for hanging in there. Now it’s the time in our program for you to share your thoughts. What do you think of these initiatives? Are they ground breaking or am I ill-informed? What will it take to win the so-called “war on talent”? You’re smarter than I am so share your thoughts below and let’s keep the conversation going.