Employee Discretion – Another Way of Looking at Empowerment

There is a lot of talk these days about empowering employees to get the job done. To “empower” someone is to give or delegate power or authority to them—as in “She authorized her assistant to sign the papers”.
In the UK they tend to use the term “discretion” rather than “empowerment”. Discretion relates to individual judgment [...]

Talent Management Lessons from American Idol

Well here we are again—a new season of American Idol (sans Paula Abdul) and the hordes of hopefuls are lining up for hours—most with no hope of getting to Hollywood. Based on a very unscientific analysis I have developed the following hypotheses regarding American Idol as it applies to Talent Management:

You need to screen [...]

The Time for Workforce Planning for the Economic Upturn is Now!

Ten years from now about 80% of the native born US workforce will be over 50. Here’s the problem—when these workers retire there won’t be nearly enough young people entering the workforce to take their place. It is just a demographic fact. The problem won’t just be lack of bodies—it will be the lack of [...]

The Missing Link in Employee Assessments

Many companies use assessments to help make hiring and promotion decisions. Most assessments measure one of the following attributes of the candidate:

Specific job skills

Their motivation and career goals

Their personality and potential derailers (e.g. emotional intelligence)

Their likely fit with the organization’s culture

One important area that is often not assessed is the candidate’s ability [...]

More Managers Are Saying: “Show Me The Evidence”

Many managers will tell you that their decisions are based on incomplete or erroneous data. This usually leads to suboptimal results. Poor management decisions are often linked to the following six issues:

Using obsolete knowledge (relying on previous experience)
Decisions based on own strengths rather than accurate analysis
Hype and marketing
Dogma and belief
Blind Ideology
Uncritical emulation and casual benchmarking

A [...]

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