Where Has All The Wisdom Gone?

Where have all the Flowers Gone was a 60's song written by Pete Seeger. It's a song that would still be recognizable to many of us today, especially the song's message that was repeated in each and every stanza:"When will they ever learn?" "When will they ever learn?"

If you follow the human capital space at all, you are keenly aware that that one of the key issues being discussed in the press, in professional journals, websites of every stripe and blogs across the electronic universe has to do with the brain drain forecast as the boomers leave the workforce and those coming in behind them, rather than having the benefit of their advice and counsel will be faced with a learning curve driven by trial and error. Not a great picture when played against global competition.

Many organizations, including ours, have asked corporate America if (a) they are aware that this is turning into serious issue, and (b) if so, what are they doing about it. In our
Executive Market Intelligence Report this year, 67.7% of the recruiters told us they felt there was a shortage of executive talent, and 76.6% of the corporate recruiters who responded indicated that their companies were concerned about retention, and all agreed the proverbial "war for talent" was heating up.

In addition to our own data collection on this topic, we also had the opportunity to work with Ernst & Young on a survey they were doing in this area as well. Whether one is part of the boomer generation or part of the manpower planning world, the challenge of filling the coming void with talent and keeping that talent is an attention getter.

For those who might have an interest, on the 20th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, the National Institute of Business Management is hosting an audio conference with Bill Arnone of Ernst & Young's human capital practice and our President, Mark Anderson who will be addressing this topic in a program entitled Aging in Corporate America: How to Retain Wisdom & Recruit Leaders

NIBM is noted for the quality of their programs, and we are pleased to be able to contribute to this one.