Press Release - June 20, 2011

June 20, 2011 - New York, NY - JB Homer Associates hosted its inaugural IETM (International Executive Talent Management) Breakfast Roundtable "2011 – THE YEAR OF THE EXECUTIVE TALENT MARKET SHIFT FROM A BUYER’S TO A SELLER’S MARKET – ARE YOU READY?" moderated by Judy Homer, President on June 15, 2011.

JB Homer’s IETM Breakfast Roundtables are by invitation only events that provide an intimate and informal forum for HR executives to network with their peers to discuss challenging issues and topics that transcend their respective industry verticals.

After the session one of the participants commented: "What I appreciated most was the intimacy of the discussion. There were enough people present for me to have the opportunity to learn new ideas and approaches, but it was an intimate enough group so that everyone present had their chance to contribute to the conversation. I would like to come back for the next session".

The success of these Roundtable discussions is directly related to the involvement of the participants. Once the overall theme for a session has been proposed by JB Homer, all subtopics and primary talking points are then contributed by the Roundtable participants and form the basis of the discussion. Our goal is to offer a forum for discussion that encourages an exchange of ideas between HR leaders especially those focused on talent management who share common challenges and interests.

This session’s participants included HR leaders from a diverse spectrum of organizations: Anheuser-Busch InBev, Dow Jones, E*Trade, TD Ameritrade, NBC Universal, TTI of USA, and Whitehouse Advisors.

The topics covered included:

• The changes that these executives have made to their recruiting strategies to gain a competitive edge in sourcing and retaining executive talent in a global market.
• How these executives have provided assistance or specialized training to their executives to better prepare them to lead global multi-cultural teams and to more successfully assimilate into their new responsibilities and communities after accepting a role in a new geography.   
• The impact of social media, both the negatives and positives, on talent recruiting and management and on maintaining/enhancing their company’s brands.
• How the utilization of social media has improved their respective companies’ images/visibility as a desirable company to work for and whether or not it has it made a measurable contribution in building their talent pipelines.

Takeaways from this Roundtable:

• Establish a consistent message and culture enterprise-wide across your company’s global footprint - no matter where in the world key roles are being filled, the members of the HR team doing the cultural evaluations will be maintaining a level playing field by interviewing potential candidates on the basis of the same key competencies.
• Increasingly there is a need to find strong middle management talent not just top executives for global outposts – companies are now focused on sourcing local talent for middle management and entry level positions to build stronger ties within their local/global communities and to promote a more positive image of their companies.
• The need to build a working partnership between HR and Marketing – every participant spoke of the need for their organizations to partner with their Marketing organizations to ensure that a positive message about their company and their people gets delivered out in the marketplace, and that social media is a vehicle they are partnering in using to ensure that message gets a wide audience.
• Leadership is evaluated not only on the basis of an executive’s contribution to the financial success of their company but also on his/her willingness to be a role model in the community – most of these firms place a high value on having their employees and especially their executives be involved in community outreach and service.
• The need to establish guidelines and to monitor the use of social media – all the participants agreed that social media is a powerful tool that presents both advantages and dangers. The discussion included examples of some of the legal and reputational exposures that have the potential to arise if a company doesn’t establish and evangelize guidelines for the usage of social media by its employees, and maintain constant vigilance monitoring the impact of social media on their respective company’s image.

The participants at this Roundtable spoke with great pride and enthusiasm about their companies, and the tangible contributions that their HR teams have made to building the perception that these companies are highly desirable places to work domestically and at all of their global locations. The feedback following the session was that the participants found valuable new ideas and tools to take back and share with their teams.

JB Homer plans to schedule its next IETM Breakfast Roundtable in the fall of 2011. Anyone interested in getting information on the program and session date can contact us.

Additionally, JB Homer hosts the IETM group on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com as a daily online forum for HR professionals to discuss similar compelling topics with their peers.