McKinsey has been talking for almost two decades about the War for Talent.  More recently, they have been focusing on the growth in knowledge work, noting that 85% of all new jobs created in the last decade require knowledge worker skills. Yet most companies and countries are still managing their workforce with industrial age practices [...]

I recently met with a selection of HR professionals and clients to discuss something concerning many organisations today — critical talent pipelines. Critical talent is crucial to driving business growth and as such, it has risen to the top of many companies’ agendas during the economic crisis. There were some very interesting insights, with SHL presenting [...]

We recently published a new Taleo Research White Paper, the UK Social Talent Management Report 2012, which takes the temperature of the UK’s use of social networks for professional purposes. It’s an interesting read, confirming my “gut feel” in a few areas and surprising me in a few others. The research is based upon a [...]

Every now and then a story comes along that is so inspirational it can generate tears of happiness. After such initial emotional reactions pass, if you have time to reflect you’ll often find a bounty of lessons that can be drawn from the story – whether success in the face of daunting challenges; integrity and [...]

This post is in some respects a part 2 of the series I started with my early February posting “Talent Management and the Latest Television Commercials, Part 1.” I say that because the genesis of this post is a commercial that has been running in the Northeast US the past couple of years, around the [...]

A little less than a month ago, we ran a webinar with Human Capital Institute titled the “Business Impact of Talent Intelligence.”  We presented findings from our joint research effort showcasing the connection between financial performance and talent awareness, and we noted key differences between data deficient organizations and data proficient organizations, not only in [...]

The March unemployment numbers for the United States were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. While the numbers were mixed as usual, the primary number – nonfarm payroll employment rising by only 120,000 – was significantly lower than the consensus estimate of mainstream economists. In fact, many say that such a number is [...]

After 20 plus years in the talent management industry with a decade plus of that time exclusively dedicated to learning, development, and performance, it’s rare for me to gain any new insights from analysts or even well-known thought leaders in our space.  In most cases, the topic du jour is typically something I’ve evangelized myself [...]

The recent article, “Why External Hires Get Paid More, and Perform Worse, than Internal Staff,” brilliantly summarises some research that Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell published in December 2011. Essentially, the research found that external hires are typically paid more (18% to 20%) than internal hires, but tend to perform worse. The premium paid for [...]

If you have used the London Underground transport system, you can’t help but be familiar with the phrase “Mind the Gap.” This ubiquitous warning is used in symbols, on floor markings, and is regularly said aloud to warn passengers on The Tube of the gap between the train doors and the station platform. I wasn’t [...]

US unemployment numbers were released today, and the news isn’t great. The 100,000-ish workers added in October are barely enough to keep the unemployment level stable, due to increases in the overall labor pool.  Fully-loaded unemployment, accounting for the full spectrum of unemployed and underemployed, is still tracking around 16%.  Perhaps more telling is that [...]

In one sense, it is a little strange to speak of any sort of gap between learning and performance in an organization. After all, true learning – the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies through experience, practice, training, or other means – naturally leads to performance improvement when applied on the job. The degree of [...]

It is a busy time of year for fans of NFL football. An exciting regular season recently wrapped up, one which saw several records broken. Now the playoffs are underway, with some exciting games this past weekend, including yet another impressive result from Denver’s QB Tim Tebow in an upset win over Pittsburgh. But something [...]

   Last week Adobe announced that they are ending further development of their popular Flash plugin technology for use in mobile device browsers, noting: “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively.  This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We [...]

How did a guy whose career guidance assessment in high school recommended the occupation of a religious minister wind up in a career as a compensation professional?  In my case, the apparent erroneous survey tool result may not have been as far off the mark as it appears on the surface. Upon further investigation, the [...]

For years now, I’ve been talking about social learning and the role that learning professionals need to play in driving successful adoption of social practices within their organization. The basic gist of the argument across multiple presentations can be summed up in a few bullet points: Learning professionals, as professionals, need to understand and drive [...]

In the past decade, applications of talent management practices have undergone a substantial progression. Although its interesting to consider these developments conceptually, its more informative and valuable to see how organizations”each in its own place on the talent management technology and processes journey”strive to improve. The Future of Talent Management: Four Stages of Evolution by [...]

A Rose By Any Other Name… Won’t Smell Very Sweet How do you describe the people that power your organization?  Do you call them “human resources” or “talent”?  Many companies are still stuck in the nomenclature of human “resources,” a term that is both anachronistic and fundamentally flawed.  Miriam Webster traces the first known use [...]

Salesforce, Rypple, social this, social that, social the other thing.  Did I say social enough times?  Yeah, it’s déjà vu all over again.  Last week, we were fed a diet of empty cloud rhetoric; this week, the waiter has delivered “Social Performance Management,” the first in a five course meal described as “Social HCM.” Unfortunately, [...]

   Social media is finding its way into countless aspects of business, and recruiting is far from immune. On the contrary, Social Recruiting is sparking innovation and significant benefits for those organizations that move beyond initial skepticism and embrace the new paradigm and technologies. In July, Taleo hosted a webinar on the subject of Social [...]

McKinsey has been talking for almost two decades about the War for Talent.  More recently, they have been focusing on the growth in knowledge work, noting that 85% of all new jobs created in the last decade require knowledge worker skills. Yet most companies and countries are still managing their workforce with industrial age practices [...]

I recently met with a selection of HR professionals and clients to discuss something concerning many organisations today — critical talent pipelines. Critical talent is crucial to driving business growth and as such, it has risen to the top of many companies’ agendas during the economic crisis. There were some very interesting insights, with SHL presenting [...]

We recently published a new Taleo Research White Paper, the UK Social Talent Management Report 2012, which takes the temperature of the UK’s use of social networks for professional purposes. It’s an interesting read, confirming my “gut feel” in a few areas and surprising me in a few others. The research is based upon a [...]

Every now and then a story comes along that is so inspirational it can generate tears of happiness. After such initial emotional reactions pass, if you have time to reflect you’ll often find a bounty of lessons that can be drawn from the story – whether success in the face of daunting challenges; integrity and [...]

This post is in some respects a part 2 of the series I started with my early February posting “Talent Management and the Latest Television Commercials, Part 1.” I say that because the genesis of this post is a commercial that has been running in the Northeast US the past couple of years, around the [...]

A little less than a month ago, we ran a webinar with Human Capital Institute titled the “Business Impact of Talent Intelligence.”  We presented findings from our joint research effort showcasing the connection between financial performance and talent awareness, and we noted key differences between data deficient organizations and data proficient organizations, not only in [...]

The March unemployment numbers for the United States were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. While the numbers were mixed as usual, the primary number – nonfarm payroll employment rising by only 120,000 – was significantly lower than the consensus estimate of mainstream economists. In fact, many say that such a number is [...]

After 20 plus years in the talent management industry with a decade plus of that time exclusively dedicated to learning, development, and performance, it’s rare for me to gain any new insights from analysts or even well-known thought leaders in our space.  In most cases, the topic du jour is typically something I’ve evangelized myself [...]

The recent article, “Why External Hires Get Paid More, and Perform Worse, than Internal Staff,” brilliantly summarises some research that Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell published in December 2011. Essentially, the research found that external hires are typically paid more (18% to 20%) than internal hires, but tend to perform worse. The premium paid for [...]

If you have used the London Underground transport system, you can’t help but be familiar with the phrase “Mind the Gap.” This ubiquitous warning is used in symbols, on floor markings, and is regularly said aloud to warn passengers on The Tube of the gap between the train doors and the station platform. I wasn’t [...]