Success Performance Solutions

Major Sponsor of
2008 Best Places to Work In Pennsylvania

Welcome to the July 23, 2008 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:

1.  A Human Energy Crisis?

A few days ago I was asked an interesting question by a reporter from a well-respected business journal: 
  

In this buyer's market for talent, are companies asking for too much at too low a price?
 

I don't know if she'll include my response but I'm fairly confident that many candidates and employers may not agree with me.  Nevertheless, the struggles that both candidates and employers are experiencing are real - candidates lack the skills that employers need, and employers aren't willing to pay up.  Like consumers cutting back on travel by refusing to pay over $4 per gallon for fuel, many employers are refusing to pay up for skilled workers during this human energy crisis.  Are these employers cutting their nose off to spite their face?  Or are employees trying to offload their inefficient and ineffective work habits onto employers who are finally saying, in the words of Howard Beale in the movie Network (1976), "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore"? 
 
There is a new paradigm and both employers and candidates are struggling to function in it.
 
From the candidate side, many of the skills that once delivered differentiation and value are now commodities.  In other words, what once made an employee a top performer may barely keep them in the game today.  This is a tough pill to swallow.  Despite years of hard work and loyalty, many employees lack the skills needed for today's jobs. They are therefore overpaid or requesting salaries above their competence. 
 
On the other hand, employers too are completely misreading the market.  Many have not grasped the depth and breadth of the skilled worker shortage. They look at the economic downturn as an opportunity to pick up cheap labor.  But unlike any other economic downturn, many of the people who are unemployed in today's market just lack the essential skills.  This has raised the salaries for skilled labor and employers are pushing back.  In many industries and for key positions, the skilled candidate is winning.
 
And by the way, having just re-read Howard Beale's Network rant in its entirety, it is amazing that how much time has passed but how little has changed (except the part about the Russians) in 32 years:  

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. 
 

Post your comments to my Perfect Labor Storm blog.

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

Subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog and receive skilled worker shortage updates like this:

Office Etiquette: The most unacceptable co-worker behavior  

Comment: Isn't it interesting that eating some else's food ranked so much higher than checking your BlackBerry during a meeting and swearing? Where does that put the priorities?
 

Easting someone else's food from the fridge           98%
Bad hygiene                                                                     96%
Bad habits                                                                        88%
Drinking on the job                                                         86%
Wastefuleness with paper                                           82%
Swearing                                                                          81%
Cooking smelly food                                                      74%
Peeking at BlackBerries in meetings                         64% 

Source: Survey of more than 2,000 executives by TheLadders.com
 

Listen to the new Perfect Labor Storm interview now.

Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.

New Perfect Labor Storm videos added. Watch now!

Listen to the Maintenance Worker Crisis

Song now available for easier viewing on YouTube.

3.  The Dumbest Generation - 2.0?

My column about The Dumbest Generation in last week's newsletter generated quite a response. In fact, traffic and feedback was one of the highest I've ever had.   

One response in particular came from a very upset 23 year-old. I won't share the entire message but let it suffice to say, this Gen Y is not dumb. In fact he's incredibly bright, well-educated... and opinionated - all characteristics of another segment of Gen Y cohorts.  

Read more about what this Gen Y had to say about "the Dumbest Generation" on my Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.

4.  Free Generation IQ Test

     Test your knowledge about the generations

With four generations co-mingling in the workplace, dozens of different managerial approaches and working styles seem to be popping up. At times these co-workers seem to be worlds apart in their attitudes and values. As a result, conflicts between the generations are distracting co-workers and diverting the attention of managers.  Where do you start to learn to how to manage the generation mix?  Begin by testing your Generation IQ here.

5. Geeks, Geezers and Googlization

When Old and Young Workers Collide
 

Schedule Your 2008-2009 Presentation Today!
 

We live in interesting times, indeed. Four generations are co-mingling in the workplace, each bringing with them different managerial approaches and working styles. Capitalizing on each generation's strengths is a must. Minimizing generational clash-points is a necessity. Finding common ground is critical. How do you keep Veteran workers, Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millennials all engaged, motivated, and on the job?  

During this presentation, participants will learn from workforce management expert/author Ira S. Wolfe about workforce trends that are changing the way employers will do business followed by a lively and interactive discussion about the newest challenge facing managers: managing the four generations in the workplace.  

Topics to be discussed:

• Learn how workforce trends will change the way you do business
• Why "walkers" will outnumber "strollers" in years to come
• What's up with the "incredible shrinking workforce"?
• Exploring differences between the four generations at work
• Keys to Managing "Clashpoints" in a Multi-Generational Workforce

Call 717-291-4640 or click here to schedule Ira S Wolfe for your 2008-2009 meetings and conferences

6. Speaking Schedule: Ira S Wolfe

2008:

August 20 (tentative) - President's Circle Summer Symposium, Mt. San Antonio

August 27 - Talent Challenge: Recruiting in a fast-changing world, Roanoke VA

September 8 - Electrical Generation Systems Association - "The Perfect Labor Storm"

November 4-5 - "Geeks, Geezers and Googlization" - Vistage, Lakeland (FL)  

Watch and listen to Ira speaking about the Perfect Labor Storm

Call 717.291.4640 to schedule Ira for your next meeting or conference.

7. Perfect Labor Storm 2.0:

Workforce Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business   

View Table of Contents  

Of every 10 workers in your organization now, three will retire over the next 10 years. Out of that same 10, three others are looking for new jobs even as you read this. And if you've hired younger "20-somethings," expect them to stay no longer than 18 months, on average, before moving on. What should you do?  

Start by reading the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0.   Workforce trends WILL change the way you do business!

Hard Cover: $29.99

Soft Cover: $19.99

e-Book(downloadable): $14.99

8. Quotes from Hire Authorities

"The rest of us are 'digital immigrants' in the world that the Gen Y has grown up in, and we talk a different language"

David Weisman, Director of the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology 

Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe."  We also hope you will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others that they subscribe.

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission