Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find the very best talent development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces about important factors to attract and retain top talent, promoting the right people, how to spot and groom leaders, and the future of leadership development.
From HR Morning: Top 10 job factors that attract, retain employees
“What do employees value most today? Recently, 9,218 full-time U.S. employees at nongovernmental organizations were asked to rank 23 job factors by what’s most important to them. Here is their top 10 (by age group).”
Wally’s Comment: The big plus in this piece is laying out the priority of factors that are important to people in different age groups.
From AMA: Leadership Performance: Are You Promoting the Right People?
“Few things can impact workplace performance as negatively as a promotion system that fails to promote people based on their accomplishments. American society prides itself on being a meritocracy but in too many instances, existing promotion systems in both the private and public sectors do not promote the truly qualified. If a company’s “doers†are not properly recognized through promotions, bonuses, and other incentives, the company risks alienating them. If that happens, the company’s most productive workers will inevitably experience lower morale. Low morale among this indispensible segment of the workforce can spawn a costly “brain drain†when the company can least afford to lose its best and brightest. In order to avoid these problems, CEOs must pay close attention to their company’s promotion systems and ensure they are as meritocratic as possible.”
Wally’s Comment: Cedric Leighton is the founder and president of Cedric Leighton Associates, a global strategic risk and leadership consultancy. He looks at common ways we make poor promotion decisions and suggests ways to do better.
From John Baldoni: How companies can spot — and groom — leaders
“One lament that commonly echoes through the corridors of senior management is not having the right people in the right places to do the job. Results of the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual Global CEO survey confirm that this concern is more than anecdotal.”
Wally’s Comment: John Baldoni makes three important points. First, talented people will always have options so retaining them will always be a challenge. Second, there are some simple, though not easy, things you can do so you spot and develop important talent. And, three, if you’re not doing these things already, you’re coming from behind.
From Dan McCarthy: The Future of Leadership Development
“A colleague from another business school recommended the book, The Future of Leadership Development, Corporate Needs and the Role of Business Schools, edited by IESE Business School Dean Jordi Canals. She said it helped set the direction for her executive development program and really got her thinking about our profession. All of the content is written by business school professors and deans and much of it deals with MBA programs, so my practitioner readers may find it….well, academic. That’s corporate code word for deadly boring and irrelevant. However, it was interesting enough for me to wade through it and jot down a few nuggets that I thought were worth sharing.”
Wally’s Comment: Dan McCarthy is my go-to expert on leadership development. He brings a career’s worth of thoughtful experience to any party. When Dan suggests that something is worth sharing, I always pay attention.
