The demise of Toys R Us — the toy store that captivated every elementary schoolkid’s daydreams — was ultimately just another illustration of management gone wrong. It can be easy to point fingers at big box and online competitors as…
Succession Planning
Futureproof Your Organization by Hiring From Within
The war for talent is heating up this summer with the recent news that there are more job openings than unemployed job seekers. In many ways, it’s a job seeker’s market. This is not only putting more pressure on employers…
What Every HR Manager Needs to Know About Succession Planning
The only thing constant is change. Even in the world of business, where we try to eliminate as many independent, unknown variables as possible, nothing is set in stone. Succession planning is the best way to prepare for the eventuality…
Don’t Let Succession Planning Be Just a C-Suite Thing
“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting to expect higher dividends and stressed that succession planning is a priority,” Bloomberg reported last month. “Cook also made some of his most explicit comments on succession…
6 Steps to Great Talent Reviews
It’s great news that talent reviews have become almost universal in larger organizations, avoiding the fads that have overtaken HR processes like performance management. The fact that most companies do them, however, doesn’t mean that they’re done well. We often…
The Brazil Nut Effect Is No Way to Find Your Future Leaders
Ensuring a company’s long-term survival and prosperity is the underlying driver of any business; however, identifying and developing effective future leaders remains one of the most challenging issues facing companies today. Even when companies claim to have a well-armed lineup…
Managers Are Hoarding Talent: A Hidden Problem That’s Likely Hurting Your Firm
Expediting the transfer of employees among diverse business units allows a firm to develop and retain employees, while simultaneously increasing the cross-pollenization of ideas and the transfer of best practices. Unfortunately, I find that executives at every large organization I…
3 Secrets to Building High Performing Teams
Whether you’re scaling a large organization or building a new company, hiring and retaining top talent and building a high performing team is absolutely key. In fact, there is no bigger factor in driving a company’s long-term growth and success….
5 Steps to Knowing and Keeping Your Best People
At the end of the first quarter of 2017, 45% of small businesses reported that they were unable to find qualified applicants to fill job openings. Our own research, Becoming A People Company, shows that growth can be particularly challenging…
Four Interviews That Will Improve Engagement and Retention
Jason didn’t impress Marcus from the outset of his initial job interview, but Marcus gave him a chance because he came from a trusted reference. Despite his initial reservations, within a month, Marcus found himself relying more and more on…
10 Success Tips For Today’s Digital Age Companies
Note: This is part two of a two part series on what’s required for companies to be successful in the digital age. Part one is here. The rules for running successful enterprises are being rewritten in this digital age. Old…
What Would Happen If Your CEO Died?
Note: This is part one of two parts. Today’s article focuses on corporate readiness for a sudden loss of key leaders. Tomorrow’s article discusses how HR should respond to an on the job death. Human resource professionals have a complicated…
How Cisco Is Getting to Know Each of Its 70,000 Employees
Boston’s Fenway Park seats an average of 37,000 people. Sell Fenway Park out twice and that’s roughly the number of employees at Cisco Systems. Imagine, looking around two packed ball parks and knowing the skills, strengths and passions of every…
Why We Help Our Best Talent to Leave
A recent WSJ article by Dartmouth Professor Sydney Finkelstein articulated a provocative management idea: The best leaders allow and even encourage their superstar talent to leave. Finkelstein argues that the best leaders seek out the best talent, fully understanding that…
How To Build A Strategically Valuable Talent Pipeline
When we hire, we are bent on finding talent with performance that soars, an attitude of learning and an interest in the long haul. All those variables are difficult to identify or even encounter in the roller coaster world of…
How One Company Makes Lateral Moves A Win-Win
It is no surprise that job-hopping has become the new normal for millennials. A recent Gallup poll found that 21% of millennials report changing jobs within the last year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials. According…
Why We Need to Invest in Succession Planning for HR
Let’s face it: HR is a service department. We serve people at all levels through everything we do. We are the ones who partner with business leaders to ensure the right people get hired, developed, paid and are motivated to…
3 Essentials to Igniting the Leadership Flame
Working in HR is anticipating, fighting and preventing fires. I’m going to go out on a limb here to say there should be a bit more fire starting. There’s no doubt where business’ largest assets reside, and that’s in those…
How To Become A Superboss In 4 Steps
Some leaders don’t just build successful organizations; they also attract, train and cultivate the next generation of exceptional leaders. That’s according to Sydney Finkelstein, Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, who identified this category of über-manager for his new…
A Simple Way For HR to Plan for the Retirement Tsunami
A popular topic is the possible tsunami of retirements which could leave our organizations desperately short of talent. It’s a delicious topic because either you’ll be one of the retired sitting on the beach saying “Not my problem,” or else…