After a day of speaking today about the lack of talent found in retailers and service businesses around the United States, this article from the Financial Times caught my eye. Knowledge Infusion works with organizations to put in place strategies to attract, assess, develop and deploy talent; but is there enough? A few exerpts from the article I found interesting:

• Over the coming years, baby-boomers departing from the labour force will have better educational qualifications than the younger workers replacing them. If the ultimate source of an economy's ability to grow and prosper is its human capital, the US is in trouble.
• Broadly speaking, educational quality has topped out - and on at least one measure, it is actually deteriorating. In 2006, Americans aged 55-59 collectively possessed more masters degrees, professional degrees and doctorates than Americans aged 30-34. This impending loss of educational capital is entirely outside the country's experience.
• If the US is unable to mend its failing school system, and unwilling to open its doors wider to skilled immigrants, then much of the current gloom about its longer-term economic prospects may, for once, turn out to be justified.

For anyone who does not believe that talent management will be a key component of business in the US and Global economies for the next twenty years, all one has to do is read this article. HR departments will be hard-pressed to meet the demands of their business counterparts based on the supply that will be available to them. Talent management is not a HR function, but is a growing, desperately seeking an owner part of every organization worldwide.

Link to Financial Times article

Another infusion of knowledge...

After a quick read this morning of the article below from InformationWeek discussing the 50% growth in Windows Mobile licenses over the next 2 years; a quick thought came to mind that I wanted to open a discussion about.

"Do you think HR and Talent Management processes will be truly executed by the workforce on mobile devices? If so, when?"

This whole concept is a big piece of the Knowledge Infusion Digital HR StrategyMap that we offer to organizations around the world. The question, how do we align our existing technology investments with the direction that technology is moving and with the generational changes occuring in the workforce?

Take a read of the article and let me know your thoughts? Mobile HR? Security?

We need to rethink a few things....

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to article

Investors in People (IIP) recently published an interesting piece of research that caught the eyes of Knowledge Infusion. We continually build Talent Management strategies for organizations that look at how the existing talent is feeling within an organization, how the outside world views an organization from an "employer of choice" standpoint and how the existing workforce is driving true business results.

The IIP study revealed some interesting highlights such as:

• De-motivation is highest within larger companies with 39% of people
  in organizations of 5,000 or more say that they are either not very or
  not at all motivated compared to 30% in organizations of between 50 and
  250 people.

• 43% of those surveyed are considering taking action and leaving
  their job in the next 12 months, with those that have been in their job
  for one to two years most likely to want to do so (48%).

• The top three de-motivating factors for employees were:
  unreasonable workload (18%), feeling underpaid (18%) and lack of clear
  career path (17%)

• For those that have been in their role for one to two years, lack
  of a clear career path (24%) was the most de-motivating factor, greater
  than workload (17%) or pay (16%).

These figures were even lower (or more depressing) for the public sector. Even though these figures are from the UK, look for them to be similar or even greater in the United States.

Take a look at your overall talent management approach and what you are doing to drive your workforce. Are you letting them build their own career paths? Are you letting your workforce collaborate with each other to stay engaged?

Some things to think about..Click below for a link to the IIP...

Another infusion of knowledge...

Investors In People

Today, Circuit City, a retailer in the US announced that during Q4, they achieved a profit. You might ask, so what is the big deal about this and why are you writing about it in The Infuser. Well, this one paragraph is why we chose this news item today:

The CEO, Philip Schoonover said this to a large group of investors and analysts today waiting to hear that the company was bleeding more than ever. Instead, a PROFIT and TALENT?

While the company is NO WHERE NEAR out of the weeds and has a ton of work to do to turn itself around compared to some of it's competitors in the space, hats off to the CEO today for calling out TALENT as one of the drivers that will turn the company around into the future. Too few CEO's recognize this today and even fewer call it out in public. Look for this to drastically change into the future.

A down economy? Are we in one? If so, look for even more call outs about "right talent, right place, right time." I had the opportunity to talk to a reporter from The Wall Street Journal today and one of the things that we both agreed upon was that talent management and the visibility a CEO needs is higher than ever and organizations that are not focusing on this today might as well be prepared to be in his "Losers" column weekly. This has been a strategy of Knowledge Infusion for the past 18 months when working with our customers and I firmly believe that our customers are in a better place compared to their competitors tied to our efforts.

Circuit City executives did well today to call out talent. Let's hope that they truly do have the TALENT to turnaround the organization and they can prove the talent did it. We all need many more case studies on this top of mind topic.

Another infusion of knowledge....

Link to Forbes article

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<div class="snap_preview">At Knowledge Infusion, we spend nearly everyday of our being working with organizations dealing with the issues of multiple generations working together in the workplace today and the changing demographic on a seemingly daily basis of talent supply. There is also a lot of talk about the Millennial generation and how they are responding to life in a corporate world.

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<div class="snap_preview">I personally spent today with a client "brainstorming" the future of talent and creating plans for the future as to how they will win their own WAR FOR TALENT. It got me thinking and believing that this truly will be a competitive issue like we have never seen into the future.

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<div class="snap_preview">Stanley Bing from Fortune published an entertaining, but very true, blog about the Millennials and what they might do for a career. Think about these points below, read the article, and ask yourself; "am I creating a workplace that will attract these types of people?"

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<div class="snap_preview">The workforce of the future is the Millennials. They are confused. Your employment brand and holistic talent management strategy WILL create your competitive advantage of the future.

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<div class="snap_preview">Would you advise them to go into?:

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<div class="snap_preview">Financial: Ha! One day, there may be jobs again. But now? Private equity has dried up. The banks are bleeding profusely from virtually every orifice. Would you advise an ambitious, thoughtful person to go

anywhere near a bank of any sort at this time?

Automotive: Nope.

Advertising: It's a dogs game to begin with. You're old at 35. Everybody's consolidated up the wazoo. Perhaps there are small, creative firms looking for a bright and inexperienced young face, but most people I know in this field are pressurized, desperate and very, very tired of the hamster wheel.

Public Relations: Would you tell a person on the brink of all the excitement life has to offer to go into public relations?

Business School: Would you tell a person on the brink of all the excitement life has to offer to go to business school?

Journalism: Possibly. The money is bad and it saps your spirit, writing incessantly about things that are assigned to you, rather than stuff you dream up yourself. Also, many newspapers are folding and news is being commodotized to the point where papers are 90% wire stories. Not to mention that something is rotten in the state of Journalism, as

it veers more closely every day to the brink of entertainment reporting and gossip.

Media: Yeah, but as what? An entry-level droid taking some guy his coffee? Actually, that job is now taken by a 32-year-old manager who's been around for six years and does 12 other functions. There is now not only NO free lunch, there may not be time for lunch at all.

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<div class="snap_preview">What advice would you give these people today?

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<div class="snap_preview">Another infusion of knowledge...

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Link to article

Great HREOnline article by Bill Kutik. I wanted to make sure all regular readers of the Infuser had this link. Bill does an amazing and colorful job of discussing this space and helping us understand more about Softscape and truly their heritage and direction they are heading. We at Knowledge Infusion are asked daily about the heritage and drive behind vendors, click below to learn about Softscape.

Thanks for a great piece Bill

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to Bill article

Knowledge Infusion works with organizations from over 15 industries on a weekly basis. One of the core components of our strategy is to never look at Talent Management through a single lens. Talent Management is has specific industry characteristics that MUST be taken into account when addressing all aspects of people, process and technology.

I am attaching an interesting link from Tulsa World as we have many clients in the Energy and Oil/Gas sectors. A few highlights from the article:

• More than half of Devon's 5,000 employees are near retirement, and the company and others are fighting for the next generation of energy professionals.
  
  "There is a real significant war for talent," said Frank Rudolph, senior vice president of human recourses.

• Two years ago, Tulsa-based Oneok Inc. found itself back on college campuses actively recruiting students. The gas company has also attracted seasoned professionals whose skills transfer to the energy industry. "We're always looking for someone because we have a work force that is turning over," said David Roth, Oneok's senior vice president of administrative services. "We have a lot of people in that retirement window."
  
  At any given time, Roth said, the company is attempting to fill some 250 positions left open by employees who have either retired or otherwise left the company.

• "Pay is no longer going to be a differential in the industry," Rudolph said. "We're going to pay you extremely competitively, but also look at what kind of company you
  can join."
  Roth said candidates also look carefully at company stability and benefits. "We encourage people to think about their careers . . . and career potential," he said. "There's a lot of that at Oneok."

This is a great article specific to an industry that is similar to most in the war for talent. How do these people recruit? How do the develop? How do they pay?

Those are the true challenges that need be addressed with a talent management strategy. A simple technology deployment won't cut it.

Knowledge Infusion will be with many of it's clients at the Dallas IHRIM Talent Management Expo on March 6th, 2008 in Texas. We look forward to seeing you there!!

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to article