Articles - Org Development

Every now and then something comes along that revolutionizes an entire industry or brings about a new age.   Without having to go all the way back to ancient history,  we can refer to some of the most recent events that have taken place during our lifetime and which have shaped the world in a way that none of us babyboomers could have ever imagined.

The advent of  the PC in 1974 - which became widely available by IBM in 1981 -  was one of them and there is no need to expand on that.   It took a number of years for most  companies to catch on and realize that this was not simply a toy and that it would soon replace these huge mainframes and expensive workstations they were hooked into.    VISION played a key role in some of these companies who became early adopters and led the way.

Moreover, a number of  smaller companies who could not afford these huge mainframes and expensive workstations also saw opportunities hitherto unavailable to them and led the way to realize huge efficiencies in productivity and economic returns.   Besides the fact that they had nothing to lose, VISION also played a key role in their decision.

Microsoft-Bill Gates's idea to license the operating system - in this case,  purely a concept  but, nonetheless, "revolutionary" -  did more than anything else to bring the PC to the masses  at a price they could afford.     Besides the fact that necessity played a key role in Bill Gates's thinking - breaking away from a behemoth like IBM and the huge cost of manufacturing PCs, etc., being key factors - VISION was needed to make that decision.

Bill could have never anticipated in a million years that this concept would serve as the foundation for what was about to happen in later years starting from 1990 onward, the birth and rapid expansion of the World Wide Web.  I might as well acknowledge Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreesen for their VISION  of  the Web as we know it today.

Which brings us to Today and the Recruitment Industry in particular.   These technological advances have completely changed the world and transformed the way we do business on a huge scale.     Companies are struggling to attract and recruit the sort of premium talent that they need in order to adapt to these technological changes and the resulting transformation which is rapidly taking place in this new global and interconnected landscape.

The Virtualization of business is taking place at a dizzying rate and, from a technology standpoint,  the possibilities are endless in terms of communication, cooperation, and connectivity.    Microsoft and others are gung ho on Virtualization of the workspace and virtual collaboration tools. Social networks are all the rage and companies such as ERE.net, LinkedIn,  MySpace, Frappr, etc. are sprouting up on almost a daily basis;  and even employers are beginning to form social networks that are directly tied in to their website for talent recruitment and marketing purposes.

These technological changes are spawning a whole new set of challenges for executive management, and especially for human resource executives,  worldwide.   Primary among these challenges are these ever perplexing questions and dilemnas that they are faced with:

How do you harness in a strategic and orderly fashion this ocean of opportunities presented by the virtualization of the workspace?  How do you quantify and analyze the results?

What type(s) of services do we need and who are the providers?

The answer to that becomes very difficult due to the thorny issue of language and terminology.  We all need language to communicate  and there is no clearly defined virtualization lexicon that facilitates a seamless communication process between client and service provider.

Questions pertaining to, "What is a Virtual Organization, What is Virtual Organization Management, What is a Virtual Team,  Is this Virtual Team Consulting services, Are We considered a Virtual Organization, What is Virtualization, What is Virtualization of the Workforce, What is Virtualization of the Workspace,  Is this Virtual Team Recruiting,  Is this Virtual Recruiting, Will our Recruiters become Virtual Recruiters working from Home-God forbids,  How is Virtual Organization Recruitment different than Virtual Recruiting, We already have or use Organizational Consultants and Human Resources Consultants and how do these roles differ from a Virtual Organization Consultant, etc.,"  cause a great deal of anxiety to the individuals asking these questions since, for the most part,  they have little to absolutely no knowledge of who and where to turn to for answers.

Are there any existing best-next practices, policies and procedures for managing a Virtual Organization?

Are there any existing best-next practices, policies and procedures for recruiting the sort of premium talent that will be able to adapt and thrive in a virtual environment or virtual organization?

What type of  assessment tools should be adopted in order to identify the best candidates who will be able to thrive in the new Virtual Organization?

How do we prepare and train our "existing" workforce so it can cope with the increasingly rapid and dizzying rate of virtualization of the organization?