Skills shortage may slow Africa oil growth

A Reuters report indicates something that most Africans already know: “Africa, an increasing supplier of global energy, may be unable to expand its output as fast as expected in coming years due to a shortage of industry skills. Inadequate schools and relative poverty mean Africa is badly placed to compete for the expertise it will need to develop new fields, a situation only made worse by a wider international shortage of oil and gas engineers and geologists…. Nobody’s talking about it in Africa. What they’re talking about is creating jobs generally. But creating something like a petroleum engineer takes 10 years. As they start developing the big fields, you don’t just go create a petroleum engineer job.”

But this report of 30 June (read it here) goes a step further and indicates that the issue of an ageing workforce and knowledge continuity – such critical issues in many Western countries – is equally a problem in Africa.

Africa’s race for oil talent is replicated in other regions of the energy sector, an industry with an ageing workforce suffering a lack of skills after years of cuts and layoffs with consolidations and mergers. The workforce’s average age is 48. But Africa’s relative poverty means it is less able to keep talented people. Poaching of staff is a constant problem.

Business Continuity in Age of Constant Change

Conversations about knowledge continuity often relate to succession planning and the retirement of key older leaders. While these considerations are obviously important, they can mask the fact that, these days, business critical expertise and knowledge often reside lower down in the organisation and with younger employees. And when these younger people leave, they can threaten the life of the business itself. New thinking and strategies are required to ensure that businesses find out who knows what, understand how they know, create processes for transferring what they know, develop communities rather than stars and secure their future success by enabling business continuity.

For the past few decades this function has largely been delegated to ‘Knowledge Management’ (KM), who in turn thought of it primarily as a technology solution. The amount of raw information that has been captured but not properly utilised or transferred into companies is frightening (and, very often, overwhelming and confusing, and therefore fairly useless). It is time to move beyond KM to ‘Wisdom Management’. Wisdom is knowledge that is not time-bound or linked to specific experiences. Rather, it is transferable and has the ability to be used, adapted and applied wherever it is needed.

The problem is that wisdom can’t be bought. It takes time. Or does it?

We live in a world of constant change. In particular, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in staff turnover and voluntary employee churn. This has been driven mainly by a younger generation who tend to move every three years on average – and move not just within industries, but to entirely different careers, on a regular basis.

… Continue Reading

‘Even Chuck has to Change’: Leading in a changing world

In times of change, leaders who are prepared to learn will succeed, while those who consider themselves to be learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. We live and lead in a sea of constant change. Anyone who needs to be convinced of this reality is most likely just visiting from another planet. However, it is one thing to acknowledge the constant change that surrounds us and quite another to be able to unlearn, relearn and learn in this tumultuous sea of change. According to Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, “the illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”

In my experience, many leaders are not coping well with the need to change. In fact, several are swallowing unhealthy amounts of water as they struggle to stay afloat in the turbulent swells that surround them. After all, attempting to swim in such conditions is certainly not for the faint-hearted or those in need of water-wings! However, here are four reminders – or perhaps lighthouses that serve to warn of peril – for leaders everywhere when it comes to leading in today’s world:

Be prepared to change.

Savvy leaders realise that in such times even Chuck (Norris) has to change. … Continue Reading

Australia’s Ageing Workforce

“The ageing of Australia’s population is a well known phenomenon. It has been particularly apparent since the 1960s and is attributed to falling mortality and fertility rates combined with the effect of a baby boom generation as it moves into the older age brackets. For similar reasons the workforce has also been ageing, but over the past two decades the workforce (and especially the full-time workforce) has been ageing at a rate faster than the general population.”

The implications of this rapid ageing are discussed in a short 2 page government release on the issue, that highlights the demographic problems. Download the PDF release here. Or see some additional demographic data, and some work I recently did in Australia with TEC groups here.

The Mercury today is highlighting some of the problems for the government:

“A CRITICAL skills shortage in local government has prompted an unprecedented recruitment drive. Faced with an ageing workforce, councils around Tasmania are concerned the situation could become dire unless young talent is added to the ranks. The skills shortage is hitting the key areas of town/urban planning, environmental health, engineering and building surveying. The Local Government Association of Tasmania is the first in Australia to embark on a recruitment drive.”

Read more on this report here.

Retirement vs. Re-Tyrement

The first Baby Boomers will turn sixty this year and they will do what no other generation has done before them: Re-tyre.

There are a number of factors that are already causing futurists to look at the effects of this upcoming change. Many predict that it will bring about a societal change of Tsunami-like proportions. In America, 70 million Boomers will retire over the next twenty years. One of the factors that have changed the Boomer world is medical science. Many more people are living much longer. The generation behind the Boomers, the Xers, are not as large in number as their predecessors. In the States there are approximately 46 million in Generation X – 35% less than the Boomers. … Continue Reading

Before you go, tell us what you know

The ability to extract critical information from about-to-retire Boomers is absolutely essential. And now, the big boys are weighing in with consulting services to assist companies in the process. IBM is the latest to join the party.

From the Atlanta Business Chronicle of January 13, 2006, written by Randy Southerland.

The employees behind the desk and on the shop floor are a lot grayer than they used to be. And, this aging work force is starting to worry a growing number of companies as baby boomers near retirement and get ready to take years of experience and knowledge with them.

“They’re facing a risk that demographically they have perhaps the largest group of individuals who are going to be approaching retirement age that they’ve ever faced before,” said Eric Lesser, associate partner with IBM Business Consulting Services.

… Continue Reading

The Learning Organization

In 1990, Peter Senge wrote one of the most influential business books of all time. “The Fifth Discipline” revolutionised many companies’ approach to knowledge management, and introduced the business world to systems thinking in an accessible way. (Get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

There is a great summary of the five core disciplines, and, in fact, the whole book, at: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm#_The_core_disciplines.

There is a high level executive summary of most of the key concepts related to “Learning Organizations” available at: http://www.skyrme.com/insights/3lrnorg.htm.

Beating the Boomer Brain Drain Blues

“The oldest baby boomers are six years away from retirement. Will your company continue to thrive if they take their knowledge with them? Here’s how to identify who has key knowledge and how to keep it within the company walls.” So starts an article in the CIO magazine (Australia), written by Sussanah Patton. Read it here.

The article outlines three distinct steps in the process:

• Determine what knowledge is crucial and who has it
• Learn the CIO’s role in retaining knowledge
• How to motivate experienced employees to help

A similar article cites a survey by Accenture: “Companies Urged to Lay Plans for Boomer Retirement Wave“, by Keith Regan in the E-Commerce Times. He says, “A recent survey by consulting firm Accenture found that fewer than half of the organizations it looked at had formal knowledge-transfer programs in place. And a third of those that did were seen having short-term programs that may not be enough to capture the depth of a retiring workers’ critical knowledge.”

We would highly recommend the Aussie team at SageCo, who specialise in this type of knowledge transfer. Check them out at http://www.sageco.com.au. They’re based in Australia. We’re hoping to be offering something along these lines in South Africa in the near future. If you’re interested, please contact Lynda Smith: lynda@tomorrowtoday.biz.

Why Knowledge Management Fails

New research has proven what we’ve been saying for some time: that technology (and innovation) is not the key to successful corporate renewal or knowledge management. The real key to success is PEOPLE. Intellilink Solutions puts it this way:

Knowledge management is not only about information; it is also about the people you have recruited, trained, developed, and promoted within your organization. KM involves not only the implementation of a software system; it involves understanding your business needs, your organization’s culture, and your personnel. To succeed, any KM initiative requires that you know your people and clearly define the behaviors that need to be changed or reinforced.

(read full report here).

… Continue Reading

Talent Communities – the latest recruitment concept

From: http://www.stepstone.com/solutions/talentmanagement.htm

Enterprise Talent Management

Historically, even the largest organizations have been forced to adopt a largely tactical approach to recruiting.

Companies with strong brand recognition operating in well-defined markets could use targeted media campaigns to build awareness amongst potential recruits. However, these were both expensive and lacked long-term impact. Hence most recruitment assignments were and still are driven tactically, starting afresh each time in attracting appropriate candidates.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have led the way in allowing organizations to build a long-term relationship with their actual and target customers. CRM systems show their full potential when used in conjunction with Internet technologies allowing cheap, efficient, interactive and engaging communications with their targets.

These same principles are now being applied to building relationships with Talent, a company’s potential employees. Targeted Candidate Marketing campaigns are used to attract candidates to a company’s talent pool and to educate and inform potential recruits. The talent pool then provides the ripe community of candidates from which to draw as specific recruitment needs arise. Automatic searching and matching technology can be used to create short-lists of candidates against a job profile, and these can feed directly into the recruiting process.
… Continue Reading

Finishing Well – Boomers want to leave a legacy

I was recently recommended a book that sounds fantastic (its on my Christmas stocking filler list). Its “Finishing Well” by Bob Buford (Integrity Publishers, ISBN: 159145395X). (Purchase it online at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

It is written from a Christian perspective, but the focus on a spiritual legacy is but a small part of the overall message of the book. That message is on how to ensure that you leave a legacy as you head towards the later years of life. I believe the book includes a series of splendid interviews with well known people who are “finishing well”.

As the first of the generation of Baby Boomers born after World War II start to retire (and re-tyre) in 2006, this type of information is absolutely critical. I’m looking forward to getting the book.

Best Employers for People Over 50

The AARP (American Association of Retired People) lists some of the best companies to work for, if you’re over 50 – companies who do an excellent job of attracting and retaining “bright old things”. In a world where we tend to discard experience (and wisdom), this isn’t a bad idea. Check out the full list here.

For a taster, consider the following:

# Volkswagen of America administers a flexible-spending program that allows employees to allocate $5,000 in pre-tax earnings annually into elder-care accounts.

# Hoffmann-LaRoche runs an on-site “temp agency” that places retired employees in short-term job openings. The program is designed “to meet the personal work/life needs of retirees,” while taking advantage of “a wealth of experience that new entrants do not have.”

# Pitney Bowes, along with several other companies on the list, makes special accommodations for employees with age-related health problems. In one typical instance, a Pitney Bowes worker who developed a chronic heart condition received training so that he could move from a physically strenuous position to a desk job that called for computer skills.

# Principal Financial Group, rather than focusing most of its training efforts on new hires and young employees as most companies do, offers lifelong learning, emphasizing leadership development for workers over 50.