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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
February 25, 2004
Elissa O'Brien, SPHR, President of the Human Resource Management
Association of Rhode Island, will appear on NBC10 Sunrise Business Segment
with Frank Coletta.
During the Sunrise Business Segment on Thursday, Febuary 26, 2004, at
6:25 a.m., Elissa will participate in a discussion of the topic "Addressing
the Talent Shortage," which will also be the topic of the upcoming
HRM-RI breakfast meeting on March 24. Here is a summary of the issues
which will be discussed:
Problem Areas:
Global Pressures -- U.S. companies are faced
competition from around the world.
Advances in technology -- Technology has replaced
manual labor jobs to jobs that are more complex. For example, today’s
manufacturing jobs are technology jobs and employees at all levels must
have a wide range of skills required to respond to the demands of an increasely
complex environment.
Demographic shifts are our greatest challenge
ahead. The “baby boom generation” of skilled workers is set
to retire within the next 15 to 20 years. Currently, the only source of
new skilled workers is from immigration. The result is a projected need
for 10 million new skilled workers by 2020.
Solutions:
Plan -- Employers need to be vested in School-to-Career
initiatives in order to work with educators to close the skills’
gap.
Recruit -- Employers need to focus on keeping
their employees. It is easier and far cheaper to keep current employees
than it will be to find and train replacements. Retention starts with
good selection processes. Additional work will be necessary, for organizations
of all sizes, if they are to ensure that they are selecting (and not inadvertently
deselecting) qualified candidates who have interest in both the job and
the job environment offered by their organization. Employers will need
to look for non-traditional workforce (i.e. immigrants, disabled, welfare-to-work.
Engage -- The need for additional productivity
is manifest in light of the increasingly global marketplace for products
and talent. We must capture the hearts of our employees and actively engage
them in their work, if they and our organizations are to realize significant
improvement in productivity driven by creativity, enthusiastic effort
and quality products and service
Succession -- Today, it is hard for the average
business to forecast human resources needs 12 months in advance. With
a tighter labor market, the ability to have the right person, with the
right skills at the right place at the right time, will be critical. Planning
for moving employees toward corporate staffing goals will require a three-
to five-year human resources deployment plan.
Train -- As we move employees around to meet
our needs and plan to our changing technological and competitive environment,
the role of training will become increasingly important. The speed of
change continues to increase. To be productive, employees will need ongoing
training. Furthermore, training has taken on a great incentive value for
many employees and has become a key retention strategy in some instances.
Examples of training Remedial Reading and Math, ESL, Computer Literacy,
Technology Training, Communication Skills, and Diversity Trainings.
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