The Coming Knowledge Drain

Imagine having to deal with this nightmare scenario: One-fifth of the executives, managers and workers with critical skills that your company needs to survive have walked out the door.

Unfortunately, that’s the real-life predicament that companies could face as soon as 2008 because of the aging of the baby boom generation, according to Mary Sue Rogers, global leader of IBM Business Consulting Services’ Human Capital Management group.

"It’s like the Y2K problem," she says. "If you don’t start early enough in preparing for it, you’ll reach a point where no matter how much money you throw at the problem, it won’t be enough." Full Article

Managing People for Performance

Managers who have had any form of training will be familiar with the idea of setting goals or objectives, and probably with the principles of appraising performance. With this in mind, why is it so many managers keep asking about how to motivate their staff or how to get more from them?

This whole area is a key differentiator of good managers and is a large part of what managers are being paid for! In this article I want to offer some ideas to help you become better at getting the performance you want from your teams. I will suggest some of the reasons why you, and other managers, perhaps do not do it very well and what the benefits will be when you begin to apply the principles.

Let us begin by stating the obvious – in order to manage people for performance you need to clearly establish what good performance is for each person and role. Too many managers think that this means just setting the goals. Not so, as you cannot manage those. Defining good performance can include what the outputs and results are – and how they are being achieved. That is the part you can manage. Recognize that managing for performance is an ongoing process and not an occasional intervention or snapshot. Full Article

Use of Job Simulations Rising Steadily

Most job candidates can talk a good game when it comes to interviews, and it’s become difficult to verify someone’s past job performance because of a growing fear of lawsuits. That’s causing more hiring managers to use simulations, where candidates take part in activities that simulate the experience of the job for which they are applying. The data gives a realistic preview of what an applicant will be like on the job and separates those that interview well from those that interview and perform well.

Human resources managers have known about simulations since the late ’60s, and use of these assessments remained fairly steady for 20 years. But experts say they took a back seat to personality tests in the 1990s, and their use dropped further during the dot-com boom because of lean applicant pools--with fewer qualified candidates, there was less of a need for heavy screening. Now, however, simulations are again becoming a leading-edge hiring tool. "We have seen the use of these rising steadily over the last three years, and especially in the last 18 months," says Scott Erker, senior vice president of selection solutions at human resources consulting firm DDI. Full Article