tale

How to keep young talent working for you

Many companies are their own worst enemies when it comes to retaining young talent. Ive lost count of the number of managers Ive met that have given up on this task. Many seem to believe that young people have some form of career ADD or commitment phobia that prevents them from staying in any one company for more than a few years. This is a myth. While there are undoubtedly some young people who...

Media-savvy workers: New front in the War for Talent

A new front in the War for Talent is opening up. Tens of millions of people adept at using interactive technology and media are set to join, or are already in, the workforce - bringing expectations, skills and ways of working that will revolutionize the workplace. Those organizations that can inspire the passion and harness the skills of these "media-savvy" workers...

Early Stage, Step 4: Cautionary trademark tales

- In my last column for Stage 3, I indicated we would be moving on to forming the entity. In the meantime, I received a thoughtful response about the last column that bears addressing. As a remi...

Can a talent market work inside organizations?

Lately, I've been hearing this old Rolling Stones standard from the Sixties as a part of a television commercial for some brand of financial services targeted at Boomers with bloated bank balances (regretably only a half-accurate description of me). While this ad...

The misguided talent war

As scores of articles in the press and reports issued by various associations, think tanks, and consulting firms all seem to be...

Biotech talent drew venture-funded firm to Madison

The company, , will move...

A (modern) Tale of Two Cities: Milwaukee and Madison inch together

MADISON First, a full disclosure: Ive been hawking the concept of the I-Q Corridor connecting Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison and beyond for a couple of years, so its no surprise I would think its swell that the mayors of Milwaukee and Madison are finally finding common ground. Then again, its still something of a shock that it may be actually happening. You dont have to be a stu...

Learning to swim in the global talent pool

Global trade has been around since the days of Marco Polo, if not well before. It started with goods - at first raw materials and then progressed to finished products. Next came financial capital. In more recent times, trade in services and increasingly labor and knowledge work have gone global. What's different today from the past is the immense scale, scope and dy...

Seven talent management practices that matter

Competing in a "flat world", a term popularized by columnist Tom Friedman, requires (well) rounded people. Becoming a well rounded talent requires continuous learning and development of knowledge and skills. Organizations that want to succeed in flat world competition better be creating enriching workplace experiences if they wish to attract and retain the high-cali...

Hiring in the name of talent

Hiring talent is a serious business. Many companies maintain battalions of HR professionals dedicated to every aspect of matching the right person with the right skills to the right job. Tens of millions of dollars are routinely spent on all manner of testing and diagnostic services designed to profile and analyze the thinking styles, psychologies and talents of potential hires. Countle...

Agility is the next talent management imperative

Competent businesses are adept at hiring and firing workers. Great businesses however are skilled at developing and deploying talent in ways that continuously grow their experience, stretch their abilities and enable their achievements. Creating work environments that promote people agility across jobs and organizational boundaries is the next imperative for compani...

Four steps to making talent management a core competence

According to a study reported in the June 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, 'people-driven' businesses are now predominant. But many companies, even in people businesses, don't yet have the talent management processes they need to excel. While organizations have perfected sophisticated techniques for managing capital investments, suppliers and the productio...

Whats your attitude about talent?

If you answered yes to either of these quest...

Talent shortage? Cmon.

In an election cycle where both candidates admit job loss, and when off-shoring is becoming de rigueur, these numbers seem over-in...

Stuck in Talent Gridlock

I recently participated in a roundtable discussion with HR executives in London, UK. The participants were managers responsible for talent management and resourcing strategies for elite multinational firms. The subject of discussion was agile resourcing i.e., how to make the work place and the workforce more flexible. The goal of agile resourcing strategies is to make sure that companies always...

Talent Mismanagement

People are born with talent and everywhere it is in chains. Fail to develop the talents of any one person, we fail Britain. Talent is 21st century wealth. This quotation is taken from Tony Blairs Labour Party Conference Speech in Bournemouth UK, in 1999. It opens chapter one of The Mismanagement of Talent (Oxford University Press), a provocative forthcoming book by British HR researchers Anthony...

Are you ready to play the new talent management game?

Two new comprehensive studies of trends shaping the future workforce have recently been issued by the Hudson Institute and The Rand Corporation both respected think tanks on economic, political and social issues. Both reports strongly suggest that the challenges of managing talent are about to change dramatically as a result of global demographic and economic trends that are starting to gain mom...

Talent Constellations or Talent Communities Choosing the Right Talent

Todays business conditions provide a golden opportunity to tune your talent strategy. While the battles for talent might appear to have calmed, the long-term winners will be those firms who move beyond battlefield tactics to long-term winning strategies. Real competitive advantage comes from making a clear choice in your overall talent strategy and fundamen...