They seem to be the ultimate nuisance of modern society with their cool, self-focussed and pleasure-oriented lifestyle. They are criticised for being financially immature and unwilling to take on responsibility, and are accused of being obsessed with social networking, ringtones and credit cards. The list of allegations against teenagers and young people in their 20s, commonly known as Generation Y, goes on ad nauseam. None of the PlayStation generation’s bad habits, however, seem to cause so much public debate as their alleged snotty attitude towards work life. According to many employers – most of them quite obvious Gen Y haters – young staff are no more than a lazy, bored, demanding, fickle, lippy and over-indulged bunch of spoilt brats.

In the contact center industry, the biggest continuing struggles are recruiting, training and keeping qualified individuals who enjoy their job and deliver high quality customer service.To overcome this challenge and reduce the amount of financial strain that high attrition places on the contact center, many organizations have sought solutions that help to better identify qualified candidates, improve training and provide ongoing coaching to keep the agent happy and productive.Perhaps the most important area that should also be taken into consistent consideration is that of hiring the right candidate in the first place. A recent Jobfox poll found that Gen Y workers are perceived by recruiters as being the weakest performers among the four generations that now makeup the U.S. workforce.

It’s one thing to have a talent management plan, it’s another to be able to implement it, and according to a new study a growing number of companies are still struggling to consistently execute their talent management programs.

Rather than guaranteeing employment security, many firms now claim to provide opportunities for employees to accumulate skills and experiences that both improve company performance and enhance employees' employability in the labor market. This “employability approach” encourages and often expects individuals to take greater personal responsibility for their careers.

As companies focus more keenly on talent management and workforce issues, employee rewards play an increasingly important role in global, complex organizations. A new WorldatWork survey reports that consistency balanced with localization is key to compensating a globally dispersed workforce.

Generation Y workers are all too often written off as tree hugging, selfish, lone wolves, unable or unwilling to stick with an employer, poor at team working and demanding not just the earth but that the earth is looked after.Yet in many respects these 18-30 year olds are no different from previous generations, new British research has argued.

Globalisation will see the war for talent heat up over the next decade, and business will need to become more culturally aware to adapt to more people working across borders, recruiters were told at a recent RCSA conference. South African futurist and political analyst, Daniel Silke, said that the world’s emerging markets will change the way people do business in the coming decade. “The next 10 years will be the century for emerging markets, where the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will flourish, creating a second industrial revolution,” he said.

Organisations need to consider how they can use recruitment, development and retention strategies to effectively manage their talent, while keeping these strategies in line with overall business strategy. Talent management has risen to become a global issue, affecting more organisations than ever before. The world around us is changing, particularly through the significant technological advancements of recent years. As a result, the global market is changing along with the requirements to meet market demands: global economies are becoming intellectually based rather than commodity-based.

Organizations do not have much time to win the trust of younger employees, according to a new survey. Half the executives reported that they have generally less than six months to “prove” to Gen Y employees that the company is the best place for them. One-quarter of respondents indicated they have less than a month.

If you plan to ease into retirement rather than land with a "Here's your gold watch" thump, don't count on your company to be of much assistance, suggests a recent study. The study, conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), found that 77% of responding organizations do not currently have a phased retirement program in place. As its name implies, "phased retirement" allows an employee who is approaching retirement to continue employment with a reduced workload. Phased retirement takes many forms, including part-time, seasonal or temporary work, or even an extended leave of absence, but it typically involves having an older employee gradually reduce his/her work hours over time.

If a company is to leverage its workforce to create a distinct competitive advantage, it must develop a strategic talent-management function that can advance its employees faster and more reliably along a clearly defined path.

A survey of 775 recruiters and managers show that locating qualified candidates for key positions is a huge challenge. Hiring managers feel that recruiters don’t have enough job knowledge, and recruiters feel that each hiring manager has his/her own way of doing things, and most of them are pretty ineffective, according to The Adler Group, a training and consulting company. It’s hard to make hiring a core competency of an organization when there is no consistent process.

The future of the HR function still remains a matter of speculation for most companies worldwide, and as shared services take up more transactional HR work, the future of the function will rely increasingly upon its ability to establish a high level of strategic business presence.

In today's multi-polar world, the war for talent has gone global. New technologies are transforming the nature of work, the skills demanded, the manner in which work is sourced globally and the ways in which people collaborate to perform processes and innovate. All these trends are making talent an ever-more critical and complex issue.

Social networking and headhunting are necessary recruitment tools for employers in 2008, as attracting talent overtakes retention as the number one human capital challenge in 2008, according to a recent report. The growing concerns over attracting talented staff shows that while companies feel they are making an improvement in terms of retaining talent there is still major concern in the area of attraction.

Coaching that facilitates cultural intelligence can assist companies to attract and retain talented leadership and skilled professionals, according to the Institute of Executive Coaching.

A survey of global human-resource leaders indicates that 82% of these leaders believe that the 'war for talent' is a key and enduring business issue over the next 10 years and beyond, yet most are focusing their current efforts on finding shorter-term solutions.

Arrogant. Individualistic. Unable to commit. Short attention span. These are some of the labels assigned by employers and pundits to the generation just joining the workforce. Dubbed "Generation Y" or "millennials" in English-speaking countries, these tech-savvy folks, most of whom never knew a world without the Internet, were born between about 1980 and 2000.

Oh, those fickle Generation Y workers: Raised by helicopter parents, now these coddled young adults are entering the work force and screwing up everything with their all-about-me attitudes and their impatience with quaint traditions such as working hard for promotions. Right?

With an economic crunch compounding the existing shortage of qualified IT workers, businesses need a solid recruitment and retention plan. Here’s how to get started.

Some say they’re narcissists, full of unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement. Regardless, the members of Generation Y are looking for work. Millennials, also known as members of Generation Y, are generally defined as those born between 1978 and 2000. No matter what generalizations employers may believe or encounter, it’s important that they know what to expect, especially since millennials will continue to outnumber members of previous generations as time goes on. The millennials are going to make or break your business.

North American companies are twice as likely to report difficulty reaching Millennials than any other employee group, according to a survey of more than 2,500 senior HR and training executives. Novations Group, a global consulting organization, found 18.9% of respondents reported problems with Gen Y/Millennials.

36% of survey respondents identified “mastering the onboarding process” as a key area of focus while 35% selected “executing a successful retention strategy.” Organizations were asked to rank the top three issues they would like to address in 2008 from a list of 10 topics that covered onboarding, ROI, retention, succession planning, employment branding, leadership development, competency management and metrics. 30% selected “enhancing e-brand with career site” as an area on which they wish to focus.

Nearly 90% of senior HR executives at 22 top international oil and gas companies believe their industry faces a talent shortage and call the problem one of the top five business issues facing their companies. Working with Rice University, Ernst & Young LLP recently surveyed HR executives in the oil and gas industry to glean insights on the challenges of workforce recruiting and retention and how to overcome these challenges. 88% of the respondents agreed the shortage has the potential to impede growth and financial performance.

A shortage of skilled and talented workers has become the most pressing concern among employers, supplanting the perennial leading problem, rising cost of health care, according to a survey. The 14th annual Top Five Total Rewards Priorities survey was conducted by Deloitte Consulting LLP (Deloitte) and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists (ISCEBS).

Continued high demand for skilled HR professionals has prompted both permanent and temporary HR salaries to increase by an average of 15 per cent across the country in 2007, and the prospects for HR candidates continue to look good into 2008. A Robert Walters global salary survey has found that hiring and retention will remain a core focus for employers who want to stay ahead of the market, and the onus will increasingly lie with the employer to sell the job to the candidate.

To win the battle for talent, organizations must transform the management of their workforces from a supporting function to a competitive capability, according to a new book from Accenture.

Over the last decade, online job boards have emerged as the most efficient and cost-effective recruiting method for reaching qualified professional candidates, and niche job boards have exploded in popularity as employers and jobseekers alike find that they provide an even more streamlined approach to the job search process. Niche boards allow companies to connect with candidates who have particular skills, experience or backgrounds, resulting in a much greater probability for a successful hire in a shorter amount of time because the pool of candidates is already, in effect, "pre-qualified." However, simply posting a job listing online isn't enough to attract A-grade candidates. Just as jobseekers have to carefully craft their resumes, you too have to put the same thought and effort into your job posting if you want to win the war for top talent.

The war for talent doesn't just exist in the C-Suite. Talent doesn't just come into scarce supply when it reaches the age of 40 - this shortage is moving right down the supply chain, and in a world where we have seen failures in reputation destroy companies and with it the CV value of employees. Money is not, in itself, enough.

Employers vying for new college graduates will face intense competition, according to "Job Outlook 2008," a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). "Overall, employers expect to increase college hiring in 2007-08 by 16 percent over 2006-07," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "This is the fifth consecutive year in which employers have projected double-digit increases. Moreover, hiring projections are strong across the board -- regardless of industry, economic sector, or geographic region," she says.

They're young, smart, brash. They may wear flip-flops to the office or listen to iPods at their desk. They want to work, but they don't want work to be their life. This is Generation Y, a force of as many as 70 million, and the first wave is just now embarking on their careers — taking their place in an increasingly multigenerational workplace.

If you want to attract the best new employees from Generations X and Y, you'll probably need to use the three W's to find them. Because job seekers from these generations typically use the World Wide Web to scout out places where they'd like to work, job recruitment professionals say employers also need to use the Web to find prospective workers and sell them on the company.

Australian Business are failing to fully utilise talent management techniques and subsequently may fail to retain staff, allowing existing talent to be snapped up by other companies or for overseas positions. A recent survey has found that 56 per cent of businesses have no talent management policy in place, and of the 44 per cent of companies that do, only half provide it for selected employees – despite 91 per cent believing that it increases their business’ performance. While market leaders appear to be making headway, many companies are still struggling to demonstrate meaningful human capital management, according to Nicole Gorton, regional director of Robert Half, which conducted the survey of 203 Australian HR managers. “With the present climate of widespread staff shortages, it is surprising that talent management is not a major focus for many companies,” said Gorton.

To win the battle for talent, organizations must transform the management of their workforces from a supporting function to a competitive capability, according to a new book from Accenture. The Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance is a comprehensive review of the trends that are elevating talent management to the top of the corporate agenda -- from recruiting young technicians from the developing world, to retaining valuable experience from an aging generation of employees, to integrating Generation Y into the workforce.

When choosing their first employer, college business students want career opportunities, not salary and benefits, according to a survey conducted by KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm. In the KPMG survey of 2,409 business students from colleges across the country, 57 percent said that career opportunities would be their primary consideration when choosing an employer, followed by 22 percent who said work/life balance. Only 12 percent felt that the salary and benefits package would be their primary consideration. And while many (53 percent) respondents only expect to stay at their first job for three to five years, the survey found that students largely have a 'wait and see' attitude. An overwhelming number (74 percent) responded "maybe" when asked if changing jobs is necessary for career opportunities.

Many companies are going to have to change their organisational structure and manage their approaches to reward as well as leadership and talent differently if they are to succeed in the future, a new report has found. The continued strength of the global economy, the pace of change and need for innovation to sustain growth as well as generational change will all affect organisations and the nature of work in the future, and how organisations prepare for these will determine their sustainability and future performance. “The waves of change are building for organisations – the force of global economies, the rise of gen Y, the rejection of traditional hierarchy, and a blurring of what is inside and what is outside the organisation,” said Richard Hardwick, managing director of Hay Group Pacific, which conducted the report.

The reputation of a company is the single most important factor for graduates of 2008 when deciding which employer to join, according to the Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE). Other factors that are important to graduates are training and development, long-term career prospects, the actual content of their work and work-life balance, promotion or career advancement, the ability to move within an organisation, content of work and remuneration.

The Indian economic machine continues to make great strides forward and shows no signs of stopping. According to the [BRIC Report] from Goldman Sachs1, India is poised to have the third-largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in US dollar terms, in the next 50 years. One of the key drivers of this phenomenal growth is the Indian workforce, one of the largest in the world. As globalization has become firmly entrenched in virtually every industry, multi-national companies of all types are setting up shop in India at a robust pace to tap into the country’s pool of talented workers—even as local Indian organizations and domestic pure-plays are experiencing rapid growth and increased demand for their offerings. The result is a frenzied war for talent not unlike that seen in North America and parts of Europe in the late-1990s.

Recruitment costs for HR hiring managers have increased by up to 25 per cent as companies pay higher salaries in the competition to secure top HR talent, according to a recent market report from Hudson Human Resources. It found that several role types within HR are driving salary levels up due to demand. Contemporary HR skills, particularly in areas such as talent management, organisational development and leadership development, are proving extremely popular among employers in the drive to compete for talent, the report found. Furthermore, the current skills shortage is requiring organisations to focus more on differentiating themselves as ideal employers, and many are looking to their HR departments to achieve this. This has also led to an increase in the demand for specialised skills and more specialised roles becoming available, which has pushed the salary levels for these in-demand roles higher than ever before.

Nearly four out of five companies now report a big gap in their talent pipeline, and 40 per cent of the companies believe this to be an acute problem, a recent study from Infohrm has found. A range of factors are driving this gap, including low fertility rates, speed of change, underinvestment in education and an ageing workforce. The study, which took in almost 200 firms globally, also found that only 14 per cent of organisations are prepared for the potential loss of skills, corporate knowledge and leadership that will occur within the next five years. Furthermore, prepared firms are much more likely (42 per cent compared to just 8 per cent of underprepared firms) to conduct formal workforce planning processes integrated with strategic business planning.

The generational model is a good shortcut to better attracting, managing and retaining young staff, according to an expert in generational change. With decreased supply of quality talent and increased demand for it at the same time, the demands and expectations of younger staff have been getting more attention of late. While pigeonholing employees and potential employees may create generalisations, the tight labour market allows Generation Y to walk when their demands aren’t meant. Generation Y is not necessarily asking for anything entirely new.“Who of any generation doesn’t want flexible working hours, fast promotion, respect from management and real responsibility? However, employers need to realise that Gen Y have some fresh demands that haven’t b