Creating a culture of wellness can be a positive step for organisations because it can improve morale and productivity while reducing costs associated with illness. The big question is can you do it without spending a lot of money or investing a lot of time, asks David Creelman

HR professionals have often been stigmatised by the perception that they lack businessnous. Compared with other organisational functions, such as operations, finance or IT, HR has some times not been considered one of the more important functions when it comes to essential parts of a business. One move that HR professionals can sometimes make to broaden their business expertise – as well as their subsequent recruitment and career path prospects – is to move into other functions. David Owens, managing director of HR Partners, suggests that this is a more commonly held aspiration now than it used to be. It was seen as a highly desirable thing to do – particularly by the more ambitious HR professional, he says.

Manchmal hat die demografische Entwicklung auch ihr Gutes: Zwar sind im Ausbildungsjahr 2009 deutlich weniger neue Verträge als im Vorjahr geschlossen worden, dennoch konnten rechnerisch alle Bewerber versorgt werden. Denn weil immer weniger Jugendliche die Schulen verlassen, sinkt auch die Nachfrage. In manchen Branchen blieben deshalb viele Lehrstellen erneut unbesetzt.

(ots) - Angesichts des strukturellen Mangels an Fachkräften auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt und der drohenden Engpässe bei der Besetzung von Lehrstellen, fordert der Verband zur Förderung der Wirtschaftspsychologie e.V. (WiPs) in einer aktuellen Stellungnahme zu entschlossenem Handeln auf. Die sich durch den demografischen Wandel zuspitzenden Arbeitsmarktprobleme seien in Politik und Wirtschaft zwar seit längerem erkannt und würden auch gerne beklagt. Konkrete Maßnahmen der Gegensteuerung seien aber bisher Mangelware. Im Gegenteil blieben derzeit immer mehr junge Menschen ohne qualifizierte Berufsausbildung und auch viele Ältere verlören den Anschluss an den Arbeitsmarkt. Es sei, so der Verband, daher wichtig, jetzt vorausschauend zu handeln.

The demographic outlook for the BRICs varies greatly. The differences in the projected change in the working-age population are very significant in both absolute and relative terms. This will impact not only economic growth prospects, but also savings and investment behaviour and potentially financial market growth prospects. Brazil and India are demographically in a substantially more favourable position than China and Russia. With the exception of India, demographic developments in the BRICs are becoming, or will soon become, a net negative in terms of per-capita growth.

The state has come up with a new idea to diminish the "brain drain." To keep its best and brightest academics from moving overseas, or to bring them back home, they need jobs, for which purpose the state proposes to establish a new fund. The fund, to be managed by the Council for Higher Education, will invest in "centers of research excellence" that provide positions for repatriated scientists and engineers.

Many of our colleagues in human resources are now starting to see their roles as similar to those in the sales and marketing group down the corporate hallway. In many aspects, leaders in human resources are responsible for managing a complex product comprising culture, environment, and reward elements — each element having different cost/value drivers, communication channel needs, process and delivery components, varying preferences across segments, and even shelf life (flexible spending accounts for instance). To guide the strategic development of the employee value proposition, many in HR are now starting to embrace the same sort of tools used for decades by marketing.

Corporations are struggling to address fundamental challenges pertaining to growth, operational performance, financial risk, regulation, and emerging trends. As a result, HR groups now have a unique opportunity to enhance their value — and credibility — by aligning their initiatives to squarely address these challenges. By identifying your organization's primary business challenge, and then determining which HR issues are most relevant, you'll be able to access best practice ideas to help address them.

Even in this recession, everyone I speak with is moaning about not being able to find the quality candidates they think they need. Maybe they have caused their own problem by narrowly defining jobs, by using yesterday’s criteria to solve today’s problems, and by a lack of imagination.

As the recovery progresses, employers will shift their focus from cutting labor costs back to preserving talent and investing in key segments of their workforce – issues at the very heart of strategic workforce planning (SWP), The Conference Board reports. "Employers who've been forced to focus on reducing headcount will return to deciding whether to buy, build, or rent the skills necessary to meet future business needs," said Mary Young, principal researcher at The Conference Board and author of a new report, Strategic Workforce Planning in Global Organizations.