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 retaining employees, learning initiatives, trust as a force behind great places to work, senior executive compensation, and reviewing your talent management practices.
From Employee Benefit News: Salaries, career development top ways to retain employees
“Forty-one percent of employers surveyed for Mercer’s 2010 Attraction and Retention Survey cited base salary increases as the reward they believe has the strongest impact on employee retention and engagement. Next in line were short- and long-term variable pay (cited by 36%) and training and career development (cited by 35%).”
Wally’s Comment: There’s a lot here that you could class as “conventional wisdom,” but you’ll also find some things that are new and interesting. Mostly this is about shifting priorities.
From Winning Workplaces: 20 Effective Employee Learning Initiatives for Small Businesses
“Considering each investment in this economy needs to generate several times its amount back in returns, what learning initiatives are most effective for small firms? Luckily, Winning Workplaces has some real-world answers to these questions to share with you to help you decide how to invest when it comes to this important area of human capital strategies. Our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award application asked applicant companies to give an example of a learning initiative they found to be particularly effective. Here’s how our 20 winners this year responded:”
Wally’s Comment: This is a great list for sparking ideas about learning and development options. There are lots of good ideas here and they’ll work for both large and small companies.
“SAS. Nordstrom. Google. Whole Foods. What do all these companies have in common beyond their brand recognition? They all made the 2010 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For. And this year at the 2010 SHRM Annual Convention in San Diego (#SHRM10), Michael Burchell, Ed. D., vice president for Global Business Development, Great Place to Work® Institute returned to talk about what exactly these 100 company’s do to make the list (last year his talk focused on the 50 Best Small and Medium Companies to Work For in America). He noted that any company has the potential to make one of these two lists, regardless of industry, employee demographics, location or work status.”
Wally’s Comment: From the smaller companies to the big ones. The main focus of this piece is the role of trust in creating a great place to work.
From Deloitte: Executive Compensation: Plan, Perform & Pay
“Executive compensation is not only a consideration close to the pocket book of CFOs but also a topic of increasing importance to managements and boards. As major economies show signs of recovering from the 2008 recession, compensation can become more decisive to retaining and motivating critical senior executive talent. But, executive compensation also continues to be scrutinized by major investors, proxy advisory firms and increasingly regulators – given the losses incurred by shareholders over the last couple of years.”
Wally’s Comment: This post surveys the landscape of executive pay and the most important current issues.
“Now that 2010 is half over, it’s a natural time to check in on where you are with your HR programs. As HR professionals, there are a number of areas where you rely on managers and employees to execute on an ongoing basis. And while you may track the process periodically, summer is a great time to check in with how activities are going, in particular employee coaching and learning activities.”
Wally’s Comment: Every now and then it’s a good idea to step back and review the way you do talent management. This post suggests some specific things to look for and to evaluate.
Bonus: You’ll find thirty-six great posts, many about talent development, in The 4th of July Leadership Development Carnival.
