Employers must pay attention to the experience in their workforce. Not only do you have to be careful about age discrimination, you also need to keep your wiser talent. Companies around the planet are tapping more into their experienced workers to help them realize excellence. The best teams appear to be a strong balance between the workers who are younger, ready to embrace and create new ways of producing productivity, and the experienced workers who have the wealth of intellectual capital.

Organizations are digging into productivity data, performance data, 360 feedback data, and looking for the people who just are not cutting it.

Who is getting cut:

1. the naysayer who spends more time telling you what can’t be done, than finding options for what can be done.
2. the political player who spends more time producing slideware than results.
3. the ‘almost good enough’ who don’t learn new things and, so, make the same mistakes repeatedly.
4. the secret slackers who have been coasting, in other words the ‘C’ player at the table.

HR departments are looking at positions that appear redundant and then analyzing the people within those positions. Decisions are not always left up to the manager on who gets cut, as the manager may be on the hit list as well; but there are a lot of decentralized discussions and data collection feeding into the decision making process. The more visibility and awareness you have through data, the better your workforce planning will be.

Cheers,
Lois

Steve is a brilliant farmer. He taught us about the science involved in farming. His farm is one of the largest family-owned organic farms in the state of Iowa. He’s an officer in multiple associations promoting organic farming, and has been doing this for 2 decades. I bet that’s longer than most of you have been buying organic food. He is fascinating and has improved our understanding of food, as well as the food chain. We now visit his farm at every trip to my Grandma’s. It’s the highlight of my son’s visit to climb on the hay bales and run crazy in the fields where I used to do the same thing as a kid.

I am so very thankful that we explored the family I have, and really dove into what they know. I have learned a great deal from many family members over time. We are different nationalities, practice different professions, and have MANY different life perspectives. I also have my fair share of interesting characters that could generate hours of water cooler stories. I accept them, and they often can be a great study in human nature.

Be thankful for your family, even the in-laws. If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t have your significant other. Explore what your family is really interested in. Seek out the most interesting person you can find in the group. Learn something new. Change the subject a few times until you find something you can share. I bet you’ll be rewarded, at least in small ways and, I hope, in large ways.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Lois