Fertilise Your Workforce

So here we are its 2008….. Have we come full circle as the number 8 suggests or is it just a load of old …um…shall we say manure?

Before the start of the industrial revolution people were nurtured, developed, valued for their specialty knowledge and even lived with their employers! The industrial revolution changed the way workers were viewed by the boss, the doors were opened for the migration of millions of unskilled workers to travel and feed the machines that ultimately fed us in return and caused us to grow. The majority of knowledge workers became an expendable resource, effectively devalued in the workplace and replaced by automation, people’s inherent knowledge and skills lost by the masses forever.

Are we at a crossroads again? Consider this……

Are we in a new place where knowledge and the sharing of that knowledge is beginning to outweigh technological advancement?

Where your most valuable, costly and potentially damaging assets are your people?

Where, dare I say it, some employees are becoming almost indispensible?

With the exception of Hugh Heffner it’s rare to find an employer today who values their workforce quite as much as the good old days! Now I’m not suggesting moving your workforce in with you ala Hugh….. Although chillin at Bill or Donald’s crib could be a nice perk! I’m not even suggesting nurturing your workers to any great degree, from a personal standpoint it’s still a survival of the fittest world we live in, but grow, develop and retain them you must.

Perhaps the most affected industry of the industrial revolution was farming, does this provides an apt analogy for the challenges we face today….maybe.

This is what happens in the majority of companies today
Spring comes, you plough the land, you buy the seeds, you plant the seeds, sometimes it rains sometimes it doesn’t, you throw some muck, some sticks some doesn’t, some plants grow strong and get eaten by the birds, some get overshadowed by weeds and some don’t grow at all, winter arrives. You wait and start again the next season.

This is what will happen in the BIC companies of tomorrow

Spring comes, you buy a greenhouse, you buy the seeds, you plant the seeds, you water the seeds every day, you fertilize the earth every day and you take out the weeds, most grow strongly, some are harvested and some are left to re-seed for next season, winter arrives……. but that’s ok you have a greenhouse.

An opportunity exists for all you farmers from small holders to major landowners to develop and grow their greatest asset with perhaps the most strategic business tool available today; Performance and Talent Management is The Knowledge Revolution.