Succession planning has traditionally been centralized because it was only for the top elite of the organization. As business units grow and talent development becomes more decentralized, so does the development of management. However, business units often don’t incorporate succession planning at this level because they fear their best people being taken away if they flag them as high potential. read more »

Guest Post By Tom McKeown, President of Aquire

I spent three days last week attending the 2009 ASUG SAPPHIRE USA show in Orlando. As I registered, someone told me total attendance was somewhere between eight and ten thousand. Walking the floor, it seemed to me the population was less than that. But from both the standpoint of company marquees and interest in purchasing something, the quality of the attendees was very good – a positive trend I have found at several tradeshows this spring. read more »

After discussing the trip we took to South Africa last summer with a friend, Greg Magennis, he loaned me an amazing book, Playing the Enemy by John Carlin. This book is an incredible study of leadership. At first I was simply impressed by the story of Nelson Mandela and how he lead people from apartheid into his presidency and a more unified nation. The story itself made a big enough impression on me. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about the book. It is the essence of his leadership that keeps playing in my mind. read more »

Guest Post By Trisha McFarlane: Using Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Data to Strengthen Company Performance

This Guest Post authored by Trisha McFarlane is part of the HR Blog Exchange, a fun project that came from a Twitter conversation. See the details here.

Strong company performance.

It is the always desirable, sometimes elusive result that keeps CEO’s, CFO’s, and COO’s up at night. Companies place so much focus on external ways to strengthen their company performance that they may be missing the obvious – Human Resources contribution. Depending on your company culture, you may or may not have HR present “at the table”. But, if they are, who better to assist leadership with furthering the performance and revenue goals of the company?  There are many ways HR can assist. HR can do this through fiscally smart recruiting, training and development programs, and coaching, to name a few. However, tools that companies may not focus on using are employee satisfaction and employee engagement surveys. read more »

While we are on the topic of customers…Dollars are tight these days and so many of our customers were concerned they wouldn’t make this year’s annual customer conference because training and travel budgets were greatly reduced. That is why the team decided to take this year’s conference to the Web. read more »