As reported by HRI, nearly seven of 10 employees consider their pay an important factor in
remaining with their employers, but only 49% of employers share that opinion, according to a 2005 survey by the staffing firm Spherion. And whereas time flexibility was considered important by 60% of workers, just 35% of employers thought it drove retention.

As reported by HRI, many firms claim they are using human capital measures, but they may be choosing measures that are convenient rather than those that are appropriate. A global survey of 100 executives by ISR Europe found that 91% said they had a human capital component among their business performance measures. The most common measures used, however, were headcount, employee surveys, productivity, training hours and recruitment/selection costs, mostly lag measures.

As reported by HRI, financial services companies in the Asia Pacific region rate performance management among their top three “people issues,” according to a 2005
survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Employee retention and organizational leadership were the other top concerns.

Develop a single sentence Mission Statement for your company. Make sure it includes a higher order purpose and indicates what business you are in. The average business is in trouble because it doesn’t truly understand why it exists. The Mission Statement is the key to understanding your purpose.

Al Coke, Canadian Management Centre Faculty

As recently reported by the HRI, failure to oversee change effectively is the leading reason that organizations’ governing boards discharge chief executives, according to
Leadership IQ Inc. The leadership training organization interviewed more than one thousand public- and private-sector board members during the course of a four-year study and found that 31% of the nearly 300 organizations represented in the study fired CEOs for botching change initiatives.

As reported by HRI, employees may use their work computers in more risky ways than their home systems, relying on the safety net of e-support. Trend Micro, a security software company, conducted a survey of 1,200 end users in Japan, Germany, and the United States and found that 40% of U.S. computer users, 23% of German users, and 14% of Japanese users admitted to having encountered spyware while browsing or
downloading material at their workstation.

As reported by the HRI, HR professionals are turning more to team interviews as a
way of screening potential employees. A study of 156 working HR professionals shows that interviewers believe there are numerous advantages to the team-interviewing technique. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed agreed that team interviews gave candidates better information about the company, and 66% felt that team interviews were less stressful for the candidate than a series of one-on-one interviews.

Does hair color influence the selection of succession candidates? As reported by the HRI, a research paper published in Equal Opportunities International suggests that it might. According to the authors, who wondered whether dumb blonde and fiery redhead stereotypes might find a reflection in the physical attributes of CEOs, “To test this research question, the hair colour of CEOs of the Fortune 500 was recorded and analyzed. The results support the preconceived hair colour stereotypes.” Looking only at non-minority male CEOs, the researchers found that 460 (92%) of the CEOs had brown or black hair.

Mental health claims, such as stress, depression and anxiety disorders, are on the rise in Canada , says a 2005 Watson Wyatt Staying@Work survey of HR professionals in 94 Canadian organizations with 250 or more employees. Such issues were cited by 56% of survey respondents as areas of concern, and analysts say employers still deal with them on a reactive rather than a proactive basis.

In your experience, what are some of the factors that could be contributing to these results?

Experience is a vital part of a leader’s growth, but most leadership development and MBA courses don’t address how to extract lessons from that experience and put it to good use. While leaders can sometimes plan their experiences, often learning opportunities come without warning through routine activities, major assignments or transformational events that challenge a leader’s mettle.