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The Rise of the Next Human Capital Luminaries in 2004 |
Excerpted From Electronic Recruiting Exchange
Well, I'm back! After a little sabbatical from writing, today I thought I should share some of the wonderful encounters I've had in 2003, with whom I consider to be some truly incredible colleagues.
Before that, however, let me tell you about a great movie I saw. You see, I was one of the lucky few that attended the opening day movie premiere of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." For those of you that don't know, this movie is a wonderful, surreal, epic tale of a little person (Frodo), known in the movie as a Hobbit (a race of dwarves with big hairy feet). Despite his smallness and his humble, gentle demeanor, Frodo manages to save mankind from certain doom at the hands of the Orks (a race of monstrous humanoid mutants).
Now, I know this sounds weird, and you're probably wondering where the heck I'm going with this, but this story is truly a classic and really does work. Any time the unlikely underdog manages to save the world, audiences always cheer. Why? Because it teaches us an important lesson: great achievements can come from the most unknown and unexpected people.
The same can be said for human capital visionaries, the practice leaders that are truly applying innovative HR and recruitment strategies. They're not out teaching, talking, or writing, they're out doing, discovering, applying — and increasing the capabilities and expectations of our entire human capital domain. These unsung visionaries are typically too focused on their workforce projects to worry about telling others what they're creating. As such, many go unnoticed and unappreciated.
But there are indeed many notable, yet unknown, recruiters who are worthy of our attention. Some you may recognize, others you may not. Either way, they represent who I consider to be the "unsung" human capital luminaries who are achieving incredible feats.
So... (drum roll, please) for your edification, I hereby present this year's slate of six human capital luminaries to watch (three in Part 1 of this article series, and three more in Part 2). Each will be making continued and significant impacts in 2004. I thank them for their time, it was definitely gratifying to speak with them. I know you'll agree they're amazing and need to be watched in 2004!
Eva Sage-Gavin, Gap Inc. 2004 Human Capital Luminary
As you might expect, being the global executive vice president of human resources at one of the world's largest specialty retailers is a challenging task. One would think that frustration and stress would be common to anyone wearing the badge of EVP at Gap Inc. To understand the magnitude of this assignment, consider the fact that this year alone Gap Inc. served 1.3 billion retail customers with its 165,000 employees worldwide, and generated billions in revenue! Driving these numbers is critical, since the talent strategy will affect the company's workforce performance exponentially.
But when I had the pleasure of speaking with Eva, I sensed absolutely no stress at all. To the contrary, I encountered a true professional — refreshingly engaging, confident in where Gap Inc. is headed, and passionate about her role. She embodies the energetic presence of a seasoned human resources expert.
Eva has experienced 14 relocations in her HR career, and her words reflect a sense of confidence in both her past and present works and how they'll positively contribute to Gap Inc.'s bottom-line return on investment. To know Eva is to also know her conviction to be responsive to all clients, both internal and external. "It's critical that human resources be a key contributor to the organization's bottom line, and measure and report that ROI," she said. "People can tell if you're credible or not."
In order to orchestrate the tremendous cultural transformation the company is undergoing, key functions were either realigned or redesigned under Sage-Gavin to assure cross-company integration. Among them are global internal communications, creative transformation, and talent attraction and development.
Despite Eva's notable successes, both previously at Sun Microsystems and now at Gap Inc., she's still not heard from very much. But I predict that with all the positive developments now happening at Gap Inc., we'll be hearing a lot more about her. I was impressed to see that the Gap Inc. is loaded with Eva's human capital innovation and that she has added even more progressive objectives for 2004. She expects to drive a high-profile internal learning initiative with her new chief learning officer (her brainchild) next year. All this makes Gap Inc. a definite "must watch" for 2004 — and Eva a human capital luminary for 2004!
Donato Diorio, Broadlook.com. 2004 Human Capital Luminary
Donato is the founder and president of Broadlook technologies. I thought twice about making Donato a 2004 human capital luminary, mostly because I selfishly knew that once I announced to the world what Donato and Broadlook did, I would lose one of the most effective recruiting secrets we use here at Humanatek. Nonetheless, Donato is perhaps one of the most innovative pioneers behind Internet recruitment and CRM technologies today.
Having originally worked as a software engineer 15 years ago and then as a recruiter, Donato comes with a uniquely balanced background and perspective — not to mention actual software development capabilities — to create highly responsive technologies for the recruiting world.
Fast forward 16 years to 2004. Although, applicant tracking systems have experienced an evolutionary advance over these last few years, Broadlook is NOT an ATS. Rather, Donato and Broadlook have created a powerful business and CRM research tool that empowers recruiters with the ability to create and obtain sales contacts, candidate lists, and business intelligence data. This data is transferable into any contact management software or ATS. It's a "bridge," a complement to applicant tracking systems and most contact software. Donato's software creations have increased my firm's productivity and continue to set the pace in the business intelligence software domain.
The fascinating thing about Donato is that he is a recruiter who now creates helpful software for our industry. Sensitivity to our industry is what has made Broadlook among the most sought-after business research technologies. Anyone who speaks to Donato quickly becomes impressed with his recruiting knowledge and technical ability. He's clearly a technology guru who speaks like a recruitment professional at heart.
Donato's grasp of both the world of technology and recruiting have helped him to successfully develop technologies that have made recruiting much more efficient and profitable for thousands of recruiters nationwide. Consider Broadlook's Rosetta tool, which extracts contact information from any source and transfers it to any CRM or ATS. Or Content Hound, an automatic newswire technology that updates online content with staffing and HR specific news feeds. And of course Broadlook, which is every staffing agency and solo recruiter's best friend.
Donato believes that "the future of human capital technologies will be predicated on their ability to increase effective interpersonal communications between business and clients." As such, Donato has positively impacted our industry with both his developments and perspectives, making him and Broadlook human capital luminaries — and a team to watch in 2004.
Scott Weston, Falcon Strategic Group. 2004 Human Capital Luminary
Another person to watch this coming year is Scott Weston, managing principal of Falcon Strategic Group. With prominent credentials in both HR and quality (Scott has an MBA, a CQM, a Six Sigma Black Belt, and an SPHR), Scott is definitely on a personal mission to improve the qualitative aspects of talent acquisitions and make them into a more strategic function. As a Six Sigma Black Belt, he is working hard to help people in the industry to understand process improvement and how operations can be made more strategic and customer-focused.
"The move towards better metrics is a great step in the industry, but that is still just keeping score," Scott told me recently. "Corporations have to go well beyond keeping score, to a true applied strategy, where recruiting and HR professionals will be required to take the next step to really improve their game." Somehow, Scott is able to continue writing, speaking, and consulting, while addressing industry-wide quality needs as one of our industry's emerging premier practice experts on quality issues in recruiting.
Scott is constantly researching, discovering, and applying the latest and greatest process-improvement practices like Six Sigma to common strategic staffing and HR projects. If it's quality improvement you want in your human capital endeavors, it's Scott that who make it work!
"The talent economy continues to unfold to the point where internal staffing professionals will take their place at the executive table through their improved demonstration of their strategic value," Scott says. "There can be no more throwing a candidate over the wall to HR and the hiring manager after an offer is accepted. Recruiters need to start tracking and tying themselves to more qualitative measures, including a candidate's success and longevity in the organization. Recruiting vendors and third-party staffing firms are also going to need to follow suit and partner even closer to be in line with this expanded focus on value and retention."
Scott's vanguard visions and abilities make him not only the premier Six-Sigma guru in the recruiting world, but also a human capital luminary for 2004.
Conclusion
Remember, you too can be an unsung underdog yet a vanguard recruiter at the same time (like Frodo). And perhaps in one way or another, you already are. So consider this our yearly traditional dedication to all of the unsung and true luminary practitioners! This is a new year dedication for those in the frontlines, working daily, managing, and driving the growth of our soon-to-boom business economy — those of you who go unnoticed, but deserve the greatest rewards nonetheless! May your work, passions, and victories be revealed to us all in 2004 and may the new year bring greater rewards for all in the practice of our craft!
Next week, I'll reveal the final three human capital luminaries for 2004, so stay tuned. In the meantime, remember, if I can be of assistance in anything, I'm here to serve.
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H. Martin de'Campo (
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) is the managing principal and founder of Humanatek.com, a professional human capital consulting firm advising the top management of start-ups and Fortune 500 companies on issues of recruitment strategy and technology, executive search, workforce development, Internet recruitment training, and HR consulting. He is also a popular speaker, author, commentator and expert human capital architect. Humanatek is known for its advanced and converged human capital and recruiting solutions, empowering companies to attract, develop and retain talent rapidly, strategically, and comprehensively. Humanatek's services successfully converge total quality management, benchmark staffing methodologies and computer/Internet technologies, rendering a new and synthesized approach to recruitment and HR consulting.
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