Fistful of beans 04/06/2011

Three things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results:

1. Learning Fosters Psychologically Healthy Workplaces — CLO Magazine

The American Psychological Association (APA) recently awarded 8 companies with their Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards (PHWA).

The companies were rated on five different criteria: employee involvement, health and safety, work-life balance, employee recognition, and employee growth and development.

  • 74% of working PHWA Americans reported they have participated in workplace training.
  • 74% of PHWA respondents said they were satisfied with their employer’s training and development opportunities, while just 44% of overall survey respondents were satisfied
  • 32% of overall respondents said they were seeking employment elsewhere, compared to only 6% of employees at PHWA recipients.

Organizations that offer multiple training opportunities help to keep people engaged in their jobs by giving them chances to learn new skills, new information, and new ways to do things.  This both keeps them relevant and keeps them engaged.

The keys include:

  • Good assessment
  • Tailoring
  • Strategic implementation
  • Evaluation

2. Just Enough Process — Talent Management Magazine

EBay has grown to a global business, earning $9 billion in revenue in 2010, with more than 16,000 employees and offices in 35 countries. Currently there are 94.5 million active users on eBay and another 94.4 million active registered accounts on PayPal.

In this interview EBay’s Lou Sanchez, vice president of global talent acquisition, management and development at eBay, tells Talent Management what it takes to manage such a fast-growing company and how their talent management strategy provides just the right amount of process to control but not suffocate employees.

3. The 2010 Innovation 1000: How the Top Innovators Keep Winning .pdf download — Booz & Company (now: Strategy&)

Booz & Company’s annual Global Innovation 1000 study has shown the success of these companies is not a matter of how much these companies spend on research and development, but how they spend research and development money.

Every company among the Innovation 1000 follows 1 of 3 innovation strategies:

  1. need seeker,
  2. market reader, or
  3. technology driver

While no 1 or other of the strategies offers superior results, companies within each strategic category perform at very different levels. Also, it turns out that the top 25% in each category focus on a narrow and consistent set of capabilities across the R&D value chain quite different from those on which their weaker rivals depend.

Share your thoughts on these thoughts…

A reminder:  it’s not the amount of beans, it’s the environment that dictates how each bean can grow…

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