Talent Assessment
Performance Edge

Having the right people in the right roles is critical for every successful enterprise. Everything else is easier when you have competent and engaged people who fit your business needs and culture. Having good people at every level makes a difference. Identifying and developing talent is critical to any successful organization.

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Humility as a Business Tool

Posted on February 7th, 2012

From theAcademy of Management Journal comes research looking at the value of humility in leaders. It’s no surprise that leaders who display a higher level of personal humility are better liked. What is a bit more of a surprise is that there organizations tend to be more successful in the marketplace as well. If you don’t subscribe to the journal you can’t read the article online. A solid but susinct description can be found in an article at the Atlantic. This is encouraging. From a human perspective it’s nice to see that positive traits can lead to success in the business world. It’s mildly discouraging to note that this trait has the biggest positive benefit for white male leaders largely because others expect humility less from them.

Filed under: Business Strategy, Demographics, Leadership | No Comments »

Gainful Employment Rules and Financial Aid

Posted on January 10th, 2012

The US Dept of Education has finalized their “gainful employment” rule for institutions providing training and education. The rule is set to go into effect July 1, 2012. In brief, the rule is designed to prevent educational institutions from setting students up with enormous debt loads and little opportunity to pay them back. The rule does this by monitoring the payback rate of students from individual institutions. The idea is to prevent “diploma mills” from encouraging students to enter programs, pay for them with government sponsored financial aid, and then providing either inferior education or misleading information about employment opportunities post-graduation. Institutions that fail the test limits will lose access to government sponsored financial aid. Given the reliance of some for-profit education institutions, it will be very interesting to watch the effect that it has on the business of secondary education. There have been numerous, highly visible articles recently on student debt, so it’s unlikely to be come an unpopular bill.

A fuller explanation can be found in this Wall Street Journal article here.

Filed under: Careers, Demographics | No Comments »

Shaping Tomorrow’s Workforce

Posted on November 2nd, 2011

Whether we like it or not, current economic conditions are shaping the way that workers of the future will think about their careers, relate to their employers and commit to work itself. It’s clear that our views of work, career and employment are strongly affected by what we see through our parents as we grow up. The struggles that every generation of workers endure, the decisions they make and the excesses they exhibit all make an impression on their children. If your parents grew up during the depression, you were more likely to lock down one job and hold on to it no matter what. Even if you didn’t like what you did you didn’t complain or put your livelihood at risk (the Silent Generation.) If you watched your parents follow the rules and wait for their turn to advance, you were more likely to rebel and push for your own advancement and benefit (Boomers.) And…. If you watched your parents over-commit to their careers and personal benefit, you were more likely to find something that let you get along with less personal investment so you could pursue personal interests (Gen X.)

I know this is over-simplified and does not describe everyone, but there is a clear pattern. Each generation of workers tries to:

Fix some behavior/value/view that they saw as a mistake of their parents
Lessen some excess or over-focus
Add something that they felt the previous generation missed or ignored.

So what does this mean for the future? An entire generation is watching their parents deal with rates of unemployment that are consistently higher than the past. Those just entering the workforce anticipated a high rate of retirement for older workers, and consequently more opportunity for their own chance to take on high levels of responsibility. Unfortunately, as people are now working longer out of need, these opportunities lessen.

A recent article in the Economist described this in some detail, primarily in countries with situations more dire than the US. The article examines the effect of high youth unemployment in areas such as:

Welfare cost of sustained unemployment
Crime
Likelihood of future employment
“Wage scars”
Social/family/living arrangements

Rather than go into it here, the full article is worth the read. What to do? Keep encouraging your kids to work, or volunteer if work is not available. Keep making the link between education and future quality of life. Find ways to help youth find the value of their own efforts through small businesses (remember lawn cutting?) or updating by teaching them how to apply their technical knowledge to help others. Never fall back on “why…. When I was your age.” Persistence trumps talent much of the time, so encourage and provide opportunities for them to get results through their efforts. Despite any struggles of our own, teaching that there is inherent value and satisfaction in work is important both for our youth and for their future employers.