Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find you the pick of the lot for the week. In this post, you’ll find pointers to pieces about hiring picking up, a look at where development efforts are lagging, a look at the employee lifecycle concept, a review of several workplace issues, and helping new managers succeed.
From the AP: Survey: CEOs more optimistic about hiring
“The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of big U.S. companies, said Wednesday its survey shows 39 percent of chief executives expect to boost their payrolls in the second half of 2010. Only 17 percent say jobs will drop, while 43 percent expect no change in their current work force. The proportion of those planning to hire is at the highest level since the second quarter of 2007, when it was at 42 percent.”
Wally’s Comment: This isn’t a talent development post per se. But it’s still important because it’s a signal that the environment may be changing. Read the article. Then ask yourself, what you need to start doing differently, and soon.
From HR Fishbowl: Applied Mathematics and HR? Yeah Right.
“Korn Ferry celebrated its 40th anniversary in the executive search space last year and since acquiring Lominger in 2006, they’ve been in the research based leadership development business too. Ken De Meuse, PhD, associate vice president of Intellectual Property Research, and J. Evelyn Orr, M.A., intellectual property development consultant, spoke to a packed house of HR professionals who were anxious to learn whether Managers’ and Executives’ Leadership skills are actually improving in areas that are increasingly important. The answer: kind of, maybe, sort of, not really.”
Wally’s Comment: Don’t let the title of this post put you off. Read it for the research from Korn Ferry into what managers across the globe are good at, and what they’re abysmally bad at.
From HR Examiner: Employee Life-Cycle
“It’s amazing how simplistically things can be described when they are devoid of operational experience and limited to the perspective of recruiting. I’ve come across a view of the Human Capital Marketplace that describes the “Talent Lifecycle†as Attract-Recruit-Hire-Retain. It’s as if candidates didn’t exist in advance of requirements and didn’t have a variety of roles and relationships after hiring occurs. It’s as if downsizing, layoffs and the end of a business weren’t perfectly predictable parts of an employment relationship. It’s as if the only thing that matters was the tiny details of the Recruiting process.”
Wally’s Comment: John Sumser takes a shot or two at the “Employee Lifecycle” concept. Then he reviews how things work in most companies and what that means for you.
From Compensation Cafe: You’ve Got Lemons . . . Time for Lemonade!
“There’s been a lot of recent, substantive research on the business impact of development practices and engagement issues. Many companies are noticing the findings and doing something about them.”
Wally’s Comment: Margaret O’Hanlon reports on the findings of several recent studies and reports that highlight workplace problems. There’s good value in reviewing them. Then she notes that solving big problems is the way to big career success.
From Great Leadership: How to Onboard a New Manager
“We all know how important it is to provide new hire employees with a good onboarding experience. Proper onboarding helps improve ramp-up time, productivity, moral, and retention. However – what about onboarding a newly promoted manager? Unfortunately, a lot of companies probably don’t pay as much, if any, attention to this. The “onboarding†process is more of a coronation – “I now anoint you manager – good luck!†It doesn’t have to be that way. Stepping into a manager role for the first time isn’t just an extension of the same job with a new title – it’s a brand new job, and should be treated like one.”
Wally’s Comment: Dan McCarthy has made a career of making leadership development programs work in the organizations that employed him. He’s a real, up-to-date, hands-on expert. In this post he takes a concept that many HR people are familiar with (onboarding) and applies it to the special case of the move from individual contributor to management. He makes good points and points you to several helpful resources.
