Work Different

CHAPTER 9Supply Is Unchained

When you go to a concert, you'll often see a band member take an extended solo, à la Slash from Guns and Roses or Metallica's Kirk Hammett. When it comes to writing this book, we've become a band, of sorts—we're thinking of calling ourselves The Mercer Three, but we're open to suggestions—so in that spirit, we're going to turn the spotlight onto, our very own Slash, Ilya Bonic, who's going to riff on a topic about which we're all passionate: the talent supply chain.

While all three of us had a hand in writing this song, er, this chapter, we thought you'd enjoy this iteration of a presentation Ilya delivered on this subject. To get the full impact, picture him on a stage, wearing a headset microphone, referring to the deck slides on the screen behind him. He won't have a guitar, but the show will rock.

Take it away, Ilya…

Innovation, Outplacement, and Potato Chips

So much of our modern, most progressive people practices seem to have been influenced by people strategy innovations of the leading technology firms: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce, and so on. Think about the edgy and generous benefits practices, the on‐campus employee experience, the flexibility of work, the elevated comp, the aqua‐hiring, the performance management, incentive plans, people development programs. In many ways, it is not surprising that the tech industry has led; innovation and creativity often arise out of necessity. And for these kinds of firms, operating in ...