There is a market inside your organization. It is a market for the attention, energy, passion and work of your employees. Every minute of every working day, there are other prusuits you compete against for these scarce resources that are controlled exclusively by your employees. You compete with the nagging spouse, Iraq, baseball, the thought of that guy in IT with the cute butt and even – god forbid – Britney. Your employees are present – you already won in the external labor market, they haven’t left you physically or legally. But that battle is the easy one. Its the internal labor market – the market for their mind that matters. That’s the hard one. It is a market too, there is constant changing prices, constant changing demand. “Market” here is not a metaphor – it is a cold hard fact. Scarce resources being pursued by demand. If you don’t think about it as a competitive market exercise you are doomed to loose. Good HR acts as a market player, not a mechanical manipulator of people. More on this on the days to come.
Take a look at this excellent commercial from the good folks at CareerBuilder.com.
Notice that no external employer is coming after Larry. Only the internal labor market is at play.
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Man, that’s a great one. I laughed along with the different Larrys. The internal labor market…so true. People don’t come to work with all those little annoyances, worries and obligations wiped clean. In fact, those are the distractions that have to be overcome just to start working.
April 28th, 2008
Hi – nice site, welcome to the blogging world…..
Frank Roche told me to drop by, so here I am….. Keep up the great work and drop by the HR Capitalist and let me know what you think…
and above all else – keep writing!!!
KD
April 28th, 2008
Guys – I am very new to this side of the blog world so please accept my apologies on timing and protocals here.
Frank – it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad – girlfriend.
KD – Nice to have you read and comment. Thanks! I know and love the HR Capitalist. Let’s keep in touch.
April 29th, 2008
I am adapting this as my new mantra….
“Good HR acts as a market player, not a mechanical manipulator of people.”
April 30th, 2008
Thanks for visiting Dr. Smoot. I appreciate the company here on the market-side of things.
April 30th, 2008
Reply to “The internal labor market – Larry told me.”