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Lock in and Engage Top Talent

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In good times and bad, organizations have learned about the impact of thinking that employees are dispensable. Such thought is particularly unwise as the economy improves after a downturn.

During the past few years, companies have lopped off employees in the hundreds of thousands for reasons of economic survival. The staff gaps that resulted are now being felt as those same companies are faced with competition both for business and the top talent they still possess.

Slowly, we are seeing a shift from a buyer’s to a seller’s labor market. There may be a high unemployment problem but HR executives are still complaining about a significant skill gap, that is, a difference in proficiency between the majority of individuals in the market for jobs and those that companies want in their labor force.

Rather than having just a replacement mentality, human resources needs a more strategic approach to the situation—one that finds answers to the coming high turnover. They need a solution that also addresses the bad reputation that the recession has wrought on many companies and that identifies cultural changes that will attract new employees.

Evidence has shown a high correlation between employee job satisfaction and engagement and employee retention and recruitment.

Here are some strategies to engage and retain top talent:

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About the Author

Florence Stone is editorial director for AMA and editor of MWorld, AMA’s quarterly membership journal. She is the author of Coaching, Counseling & Mentoring, The Manager’s Question and Answer Book and The Essential New Manager’s Kit.

To learn more about the American Management Association, click here.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 49 – An Interview with Kathryn Ullrich, author of Getting to the Top

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 49 – An Interview with Kathryn Ullrich, author of Getting to the Top explores the approaches everyone in the corporate world can use, regardless of their current position, to shape their career development and accelerate their advancement. During our discussion, Kathryn Ullrich, author of Getting to the Top: Strategies for Career Success, shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • what an individual should do to identify the knowledge, skills, and experiences needed at the next level and then get an accurate understanding of their personal strengths, weaknesses, and developmental needs to move into the desired position
  • four different career paths and the developmental benefits of each
  • determining how long an individual needs to be in a position to realistically satisfy their developmental needs
  • avenues an individual should consider pursuing if a needed developmental assignment within their organization is unavailable
  • the several key skills and functional area experiences commonly possessed by those at the top
  • actions leaders should take and what roles they should fulfill in the development of their employees

Additional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Kathryn shares in Getting to the Top and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her website, www.GettingToTheTop.com.   Kathryn’s book, Getting to the Top, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

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About the Author

Kathryn Ullrich, author of Getting to the Top: Strategies for Career Success, heads Kathryn Ullrich Associates, a Silicon Valley executive search firm, and Alumni Career Services for UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Kathryn also leads the Getting to the Top career development programs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Through these career programs, over 1,500 attendees have learned the career paths and skills to be successful in different functional areas including marketing, product management, public relations and corporate communications, strategic alliances and channels, sales, business development, consulting, private equity, corporate operations, and general and executive management. To read Kathryn’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:51 — 42.4MB)

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Leading with Patience – The Will to Wait

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Patience is a virtue. This pearl of wisdom has been a bone in the throat of even the most patient leader. Patience is an easy thing to talk about, but it is extremely difficult to practice. Webster’s defines patience as, “the quality of being capable of bearing affliction calmly.” Patience is the third attribute Rudyard Kipling described in the poem ‘If-:’

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

 

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About the Author

Doug Moran has more than twenty-five years of leadership experience in a variety of industries. Doug is the author of the forthcoming book, If You Will Lead: Enduring Wisdom for 21st-Century Leaders. He founded IF YOU WILL LEAD, LLC to help leaders and organizations reach their fullest potential. The firm focuses on leadership development, organization excellence and information technology. His book, speaking, and consulting leverage the power of story-telling and enduring wisdom to help leaders and their organizations excel and grow.

Resource Projection Best Practice 7 – Qualification Projections

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Performance proficiency for any given task is only maintained through repetitive performance over time. Without ongoing practice, performance declines until a point is reached when the individual is incapable of performing the task at a level consistent with existing standards and expectations. Additionally, those not routinely performing a task are commonly unaware of changes in expectations and methodologies associated with the activity’s performance. Subsequently, these individuals have a difficult time meeting established performance expectations when assigned the activity. Thus, many organizations establish a personnel qualification system identifying those individuals capable of and authorized to perform a given task. Task qualification is maintained over time through demonstrated performance proficiency and/or testing.

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Tap into Your Think Tank: Twenty Ways to Generate Ideas That Will Boost Your Business

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In today’s business world, your ideas are what set you apart from your competition. Here’s how to get your creative juices flowing so that you can out-think and out-earn your competition.

The lightbulb. Bubble wrap. The Post-It. The iPod. The Snuggie. Facebook. Twitter. These inventions, products, and businesses all started with an idea. An idea that to anyone other than its creator(s) may have seemed like an insane thing to invest much time, money, or effort in bringing to fruition. But for the masterminds behind these great ideas, the risk paid off and so too can your next great idea.

Now, you might be thinking, I am not going to come up with today’s equivalent of the lightbulb. That’s fine. You don’t have to. Great ideas come in many shapes and sizes – whether it’s something as small as a new logo for your business or something as big as rolling out a brand new product. What’s important is that you give your best ideas a shot at life.

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About the Author

Jim Kukral is the author of Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue. For over 15 years, Jim has helped small businesses and large companies like FedEx, Sherwin-Williams, Ernst & Young, and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how to find success on the Web. Jim is also a professional speaker, blogger, and Web business consultant. Jim teaches thousands of students around the globe as an adjunct professor for The University of San Francisco’s Internet Marketing Program. He has been quoted or featured in some way in online and offline print publications such as Forbes, Brandweek, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Inc., Small Business Trends, FeedFront, Revenue Today, Marketing Sherpa, and Duct Tape Marketing Network. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com and www.AttentionTheBook.com.