Winning the People Wars: Talent and the Battle for Human Capital
Editorial Reviews
Book Info
(Pearson Education) A step-by-step guide to building and maintaining vital human capital in business. Explains the talent-market phenomenon. Shows how companies are learning methods to find and retain talented people.
From the Inside Flap
In the last decade, working life has changed dramatically, especially for those of us who have spent much of our time in offices or factories. The increased automation and computerization of business has provoked o revolution that the downsizing, rightsizing and flattening of organizational hierarchies and pyramids of power of the early 1990s completed. We were told that there was a new contract between employer and employee, with a new set of loyalties and working rules to adopt and understand. Corporations would never again be able to offer us guaranteed employment, but - with luck - they would keep us up to date in our chosen skills, so that when they didn't want us anymore, we would be rapidly reemployable. Suddenly, and almost without us noticing, the employer was holding a winning hand with all the aces. They could pick and choose their employees, they could set salaries, they could say who stayed and who would be downsized - again. In the process, middle managers surrendered their offices, assistants, deputies and secretaries. Those left behind worked in teams, on the road and in clients' organizations. We were rightsized again, told about the wonders of 'horizontal promotion' and many functions were acquired, merged or outsourced to new owners, all the while taking on the tasks of departed colleagues. Life for the survivors was pretty bleak. Then, in 1998, things began to change, albeit slowly at first. The change began with a talent war for IT specialists, as the growing need for enterprise solutions and the looming threat of the Millennium Bug bit hard. Then other disciplines began to go supply supercritical - finance experts, marketers, e-commerce specialists, merger and acquisition professionals, organization development veterans. All of these - and more - were in shorter and shorter supply. The vision that some had predicted, of redundant middle-aged, middle managers becoming five dollar-an-hour hamburger flippers in a fast food chain, was rapidly changing. Having downsized too far and too fast, many corporations were caught out as markets grew and global ambitions pushed the drive for change still further. Today, the transformation of the employment market is complete. In most job areas and industries, the employees now hold the winning hand - and they are playing it as they have been taught. They are angry, suspicious and cynical. They want the money now and they have little belief in the future. Whether companies can change this situation remains to be seen (although some are trying), but it is not going to be easy. Too many people have too long memories for that. This book is about what it is going to take in today's climate of mistrust to attract and retain the people that corporations need for their business to succeed. I have called it Winning the People Wars. This is an apt phrase. Whether you win those wars is entirely based on just how much ammunition you have and how prepared you are to fight. This book has a single purpose: to show how the best are gearing up for this battle for business talent - a battle that is only just beginning, and one that will mean severe casualties for those that get it wrong. As with all wars, this one will have a definite outcome - winners and losers.
Mike Johnson, Hampshire, UK
Winning the People Wars: Talent and the Battle for Human Capital
Winning the People Wars: Talent and the Battle for Human Capital,Mike Johnson,Prentice Hall,0273641972,Business & Economics,Business / Economics / Finance,Business/Economics,Entrepreneurship,Human Resources & Personnel Management,Management - General,Personnel And Human Resources Management
English Books:
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