Workforce Planning

Are You Prepared For a Jobs Depression?

Most fear to even to use the word “depression,” but now is the time for corporate HR to begin thinking about such an eventuality. As most people know, there are two key economic drivers that impact our economy: 1) productivity (product and service output) and 2) employment. The government has …

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Using a Contingent Workforce Strategy to Avoid Layoffs

When economic times are volatile and businesses are facing a downturn in revenue, many CFOs turn their attention to cost-containment. A logical place to start cutting costs is labor, given that in many industries labor costs account for an average of 60% of all variable costs. The volatility in the …

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Workforce Planning: Preparing For the Next Economic Downturn

The Downturn is Coming, But When? Many HR individuals I’ve met do not even like to discuss the topic of economic downturns. I presume this avoidance is based on the premise that even “talking” about them somehow will make them happen. Unfortunately, the consequences of not discussing or preparing for …

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Workforce Planning: Now Is the Time to Upgrade Your Plan

Most of us have read about upcoming workforce trends like decreasing employee loyalty, differing generational expectations, and the impending retirement of the baby boom generation, but surprisingly few organizational leaders are fully aware of how those issues will impact them. Several of the organizations I have worked with in recent …

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Strengthening Your Leadership Bench with External Succession Planning, Part 2

Beyond this commitment, what follows are the major steps: 1. Make the business case for external succession planning. The first step is to present arguments to your senior leadership about the need for including external talent and development opportunities in your succession plan. Generally that means documenting current development problems/shortages, …

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Talent Management Road Kill

Patience Is Waning Senior leaders thoroughly understand that building an organization or changing one takes vision, planning, patience, and flawless execution. To that point, they have given HR five years. All indicators are that HR has yet to change or plan to change anything, and that the patience of senior …

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Talent Management Road Kill, Part 2

Readers responding to Part 1 raised some very valid points: R. Bistrick noted that many in HR have no associated industry work experience, which limits their understanding of the business and its issues to one of keywords, often without the benefit of context. (This is certainly true for many corporate …

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