Many businesses are gearing up to meet recovering demand. This is important to you whether you are hiring or not.

If you are hiring:

• Don't let loyalty drive you to re-hire an under- performer unless providing opportunities for under-performers is part of your mission.
• Rethink your needs before simply filling the same old positions using the same old criteria.
• Hire talent over skill and experience. Skill and experience can be acquired, talent can not. (For more about talent, read Talent Is Not Overrated, Nor Is It What You Think. )

If you are hiring, now is a great time to sign some top talent. Careful sifting is as important as ever, of course, and likely more difficult because of the sheer numbers of potential applicants.

If you aren't hiring:

• Don't forget that others are.
• Don't let those "exceptional recession actions," such as salary and benefit cuts and responsibility increases, become the "new normal."
• Demonstrate a win-win attitude in all employee relationships.

If times have been tough at your company, especially if you have treated your employees as if they were lucky to have a job at all, it may be too late to prevent a mass exodus as hiring picks up. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try!

Give us a call at 800-527-0087 if you would like to talk about the likelihood of an exodus at your company and what you can do about it.

© 2010 Ann Latham. All rights reserved.