IEM's 14-Point Talent Acquisition Plan™

"IEM, under Tamarin Lindenberg’s leadership, developed and initiated this effort and is now working in collaboration with the Chamber by leading a strategic plan to implement programs and actions that will assist the business community to successfully address this issue." - Marc Jordan, CEO & President Memphis Regional Chamber "If you’ve got something that’s starting to work, if you don’t really get behind it and push it very hard, there’s no assurance that you’ll be successful in the end. Now’s the time to push these programs very hard to achieve critical mass, after which the thing would just be a runaway success." - McClain Gordon, Real Estate Developer, Past President of Gordon Trucking, Inc. "I think the difference with IEM is that they stick around for the implementation, so this fourteen-point document can become a blueprint that guides all these different pieces of moving us from where we are to where we want to be as a city of the course of three, five, or ten years...This cannot be a chamber initiative alone. This needs to be something that has city/county government buy-in, school board buy-in…Everybody needs to understand it is a way to address core issues and a blueprint for achieving success in so many of the areas we need to be successful in." - Suzanne Hamm, Marketing Consultant "They’re more focused on ‘where are the issues’, than that there’s an issue. We all know that there’s an issue, but a lot of times we don’t talk about what the issue actually is. I think also IEM’s going to stay away from the stuff that’s political, meaning that we could complain about the schools all day long, but ultimately we have to start do something pretty quickly." - Jerry Ballard, Vice President of Human Resource Operations, ServiceMaster

IEM has embarked on an effort with the Memphis Regional Chamber and other key business and community leaders to address the diminishing wealth base in Memphis. Memphis has experienced a critical regional issue is its diminishing ability to develop, recruit and retain the knowledge workforce, and many local businesses are impacted in their ability to attract and keep the qualified talent needed to succeed in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

As stated in the “Think Memphis” Plan:

“During the 1990’s Metro Memphis experienced 3.7% net migration growth … Nashville experienced net migration growth of 18%. Memphis lost income of $90 million through net migration, while Nashville gained $851 million. That means the workers coming into Memphis during this period earned less than the workers going out.”

Though many efforts have successfully increased the amenities available in the local marketplace, and a vibrant downtown is well underway, social and cultural barriers continue to erode efforts to build deep talent resources. In the 2002 New Economy Index, Memphis ranked #47 out of the 50 largest metros ( Nashville was #32); its low ranking was due in great part to its reduced level of knowledge workers, and aggregated innovation capacity, which also reflects the quality of the knowledge workforce.

From November 1, 2004 to January 28 th, 2005, IEM interviewed over 23 professionals, 63% of which were in-migrated senior level talent, regarding the challenges of recruitment and retention in the Memphis marketplace. 100% of the respondents expressed concern for the low recruitment and retention rates of top talent in Memphis; 95% of the total respondents recognized a significant need for change and were open to new ways of developing a culture capable of producing a higher standard of performance.

The respondents sited the following as the top deterrents to successful talent recruitment and retention:

• A significant lack of cultural, religious and intellectual diversity;
• ‘Invisibility’ in the marketplace—Memphis’ lack of a centralized business community adds to the seclusion of newcomers
• Few peer to peer professional forums
• A ‘closed’ business climate
• Opportunities difficult to identify which forced them to remain connected to options outside the marketplace.

For a complete copy of the report, please contact tamarin@iiemi.com.

IEM’s programmatic approach identifies challenges to top talent recruitment and retention in new markets, and implements solutions which encourage the successful migration of new business opportunities and key talent to the local market.

The 14 point program will:

1. Standardize criteria for talent in the new economy
   This enables Memphis to properly categorize the knowledge workers it seeks.
   
   
2. Define the available expertise of the resident knowledge workforce
   This allows Memphis to more accurately measure the existing professional workforce against the criteria developed in step #1.
   
   
3. Identify the talent needs of local industry to support upcoming growth plans
   
   
4. Measure the gap between the available workforce and the needs identified in step #3
   
   
5. Identify the community’s targeted industries for relocation into Memphis
   This will allow a voice for local industry in identifying target industries
   
   
6. Develop composite profiles for talent necessary to support the needs of targeted industries
   This creates a measurement system to evaluate Memphis’ ability to supply the necessary workforce for the industries it seeks to attract
   
   
7. Identify “silo” communities of migrated talent within the local market and develop tools for integration into the larger community
   This assists Memphis in building a business community that combines in-migrated professionals with established local talent
   
   
8. Develop a talent “registration system’ to reflect the community’s existing available top talent pool; this will allow employers and available talent mutual access
   This will serve as a voluntary tool and assist in connecting transitioning talent and local employers and will provide a primary tool for “trailing professional spouses”.
   
   
9. Create a “blind” inventory of existing talent currently housed in the local market
   This will provide improved data to support the city’s labor statistics; such data will reflect the numbers of workers in the categories defined in step #1 and allow Memphis to measure its total growth among individual classes. i.e. IT, research, engineers, etc.
   
   
10. Survey relevant interests and concerns of the community’s existing migrated talent pool to determine high impact changes that will encourage talent to remain in the local market
    
    
11. Develop programs designed to meet the needs of incoming talent in the community as defined in step #10
    
    
12. Institute councils as reflected in the body of MTAP to create visibility among peers, allow the business community at large to define its needs and allow cross fertilization of skills, knowledge and perspectives
    
    
13. Institute benchmarks that allow Memphis to measures its success in building a knowledge work force against the success of other cities
    The New Economy Index provides indicators for metro area success in the new economy; additional tools for measurement will be established by working with the business community
    
    
14. Establish milestones that reflect progress towards the recruitment and retention of the knowledge workforce
    This will allow Memphis to consider the success of individual programs and strategies and readjust where necessary to meet the goal

The success of this will mean a vibrant business community that allows Memphis to grow and prosper.

IEM will continue to work at a macro level with the community, while supporting individual organization’s human capital goals and objectives at the micro level. We will work with Memphis companies to assess their talent needs and build customized solutions to improve their overall development, recruitment and retention of talent knowing that the success of each company builds the success of our community.

As we expand our talent resources at the micro level, this will feed the business community at large through MTAP. The MTAP will provide a much needed resource and solution to the critical workforce mass, and strengthen individual organization’s human capital plans and objectives which, again, benefit the whole of Memphis.

It is through the recognition and utilization of this inter-dependent relationship that we can maximize our resources and improve our business climate.