HR strategy: mixed news
Good that Mercer reports senior HR folk are taking a strategic view of talent in planning for 2010 – focus on high-potential staff, critical skills, employee engagement etc. Pity, though, that ‘concern with workforce costs’ still comes out as the top priority – I wonder which will win when the FD starts shining bright lights in their eyes about budget time? Especially disappointing given that HR is often the least robust of the issues in company plans, in spite of its dominant impact on long-term performance.
2 new strategy dynamics books
Now available are republished editions of two short books, aimed at upper-level strategy and HR execs, and useful in short courses. Read more
Big mistake at Starbucks?
I’ve blogged on Starbucks before, but just seen their results for y/e Sep08, with sales up $9.4>10.4bn but profits down $1.1>0.5bn. A pity, but what are they doing about it? Read more
Aging workforce – another approach
I see strategy+business is reporting one effort to deal with this crisis – in the oil industry [The Digital Oilfield Advantage]. Here’s another sector with a tidal wave of professionals rapidly flowing towards retirement – click here for an extract from chapter 6 of Strategic Management Dynamics which discusses where this tidal wave came from [thanks to Prof Mukul Sharma of Uni of Texas for his extensive research on training and employment of petroleum engineers].
Finding talent in emerging markets
Amongst a rich crop of articles in November’s HBR is Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets, which cleverly shows how the nature of the challenge varies a lot between different countries and some ideas what to do about it. To see what one big winner has done about it, see the Infosys 07/8 Annual Report – mighty impressive!