Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find you the pick of the lot. In this post, you’ll find pointers to pieces about what today’s workforce must have, five common mistakes with top talent, new hires, learning on the job, and top online influencers in talent management.
From Talent Management: The Four C’s Critical for Today’s Workforce
“As the U.S. economy begins to show signs of improvement, executives say they need a workforce fully equipped with skills beyond just the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic (the three R’s) in order to grow their businesses. Skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation (the four C’s) will become even more important to organizations in the future, according to a new survey conducted by American Management Association (AMA).”
Wally’s Comment: Check this out. Here’s what the American Management Association thinks is important for the future and what it wants to see coming out of the schools. Best to take this as a goal. For the next decade it’s going to be business that provides the training needed.
From the Wall Street Journal: The Five Mistakes You’re Making With Top Talent
“With today’s stale job market limiting employees’ mobility, executives have a unique opportunity to boost the motivation and productivity of their top talent without spending lots of money. Unfortunately, many companies are missing the mark – especially when it comes to managing their emerging leaders, or “high potentials.” Here are the five biggest mistakes companies are making with high-potential talent.”
Wally’s Comment: If you assume that concentrating on high-potentials is the strategy of choice, then you’ll want to read this article. If you don’t buy that, just substitute “workers” for “high potentials” throughout.
From HBR: Get Immediate Value from Your New Hire
“There are many theories on how to correctly “onboard” someone to an organization or a team. Most focus on how to provide the new hire with the information and skills she needs to succeed. But that can only take her so far. She will need connections and an understanding of the inner workings and culture of your company to be truly successful. Whether she is transitioning from another part of the organization or is brand new, you can get her up to speed more quickly by going beyond the basics and explaining how things actually get done.”
Wally’s Comment: I’ve never understood why so many companies do either a poor job of bringing people on board or (yes, really) no job at all. In addition to Amy Gallo’s excellent post, you should also read recent posts “Too Busy to Onboard Your New Executive? I Don’t Get It!” from Fistful of Talent and “How to Build an Onboarding Plan for a New Hire” from Inc. magazine.
From the Performance Improvement Blog: E-Learning vs. In-Person: A False Dichotomy
“Online training and conferencing advocates continue to ask the wrong question. The April 19th issue of eLearning Guild’s Insider Newsletter has an article titled, The True Value of Online Training, which has a link to a whitepaper titled, How to Promote the Value of Online Training Within Your Organization. Although this is obviously a marketing piece to promote Citrix Online’s GoToMeeting Corporate product and does have some useful suggestions for selling Web-based programs internally, it sets up a false dichotomy: online vs. in-person.”
Wally’s Comment: Stephen Gill understands that training, like just about everything else in talent development, calls for an integrated approach.
From HR Examiner: Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management
“The Top 25 lists are machine generated. The process begins with the creation of a list of keywords that describe the area under investigation. Then, our partner, Traackr, spiders all of the search engine results for those words. That chunk of content is then mined for the most frequently occurring names.”
Wally’s Comment: This is a well-conceived list. You’re sure to find some sources on here that you’ll want to include in your regular reading.
