CareerJournal.com provides an interesting look at one Minnesota company in Manager Shortage Spurs Firms to Grow Their Own. Schwan found itself with a significant shortage of leadership talent that is symptomatic of the national hiring landscape.

The tight labor market puts a premium on retaining top talent and raises the cost of outside hires. And leaner corporate structures make it harder for managers to naturally hone their skills through incremental steps up the ladder; companies must instead formally teach them. Demographics play a role, too: The looming retirement of baby boomers is forcing companies to think about replacements.

Schwan has developed an internal solution to combat this problem:

Schwan is one of many U.S. companies paying more attention to grooming their next generation of leaders. Selected employees typically enter multi-year programs involving management classes, coaching sessions and so-called stretch assignments that throw them into big, unfamiliar challenges.

This program is a good idea – usually there isn’t a better return than investing in an employee you know has potential. One of our services is to objectively assess leadership talent for internal promotions. This activity and investment provides a significant return on investment.

“There’s a huge shortage of leaders,” says Ravin Jesuthasan, a managing principal at Towers Perrin, the consulting firm. For smaller companies in a fierce competitive landscape, “growth rates and expectations for growth have ratcheted up, requiring you to be much more diligent and proactive and structured in how you manage the flow of talent.”

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No, I’m not talking about Trump. Selling Power has an article titled How to Handle the Devil without Getting Burned. We’ve blogged often about the most insufferable salesperson we have encountered in our years of working with sales departments. Now that I have read this quick article, I have found the perfect description of him.

Often there’s a rep who is good, who knows he is good, and who repeatedly lets others know about it. This is a person who is arrogant, abrasive, and obnoxious with co-workers, and who sometimes bullies those beneath him or her on the totem pole, says Graham Scott. Yet when the person is a top performer, and when the complaints against him or her are about hurt feelings rather than outright abuse, dealing with the rep can be tough.

The sales rep we encountered was the top seller (by far) at a medium-sized company here in the Twin Cities. He was always cocky, quick-tempered and self-focused. His selling style was that of Dominance which only accentuated things.

The turning point in his career at this company was his education. He went to night school and earned his M.B.A. from a local college. After this, the sales rep started demeaning coworkers in meetings, demanding a significant increase in pay and even went so far as to drop the F bomb on the President of the company! The one vindication he needed in his own mind was the advanced degree. After that, insufferably arrogant became an understatement.

Almost forgot – he was fired.

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Here is a sales position title from an employment ad:

Inside-Outside Sales Representative

I have never seen that one before. I would suggest picking the more appropriate distinction, inside or outside, and sticking solely with that title.

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The Justsell.com guys lead us to an interesting link from The Wall Street Journal – Reputation Rankings. The list consists of the eighth annual survey of U.S. corporations with the best and worst reputations.

The top 10:

1. Microsoft
2. Johnson & Johnson
3. 3M
4. Google
5. Coca-Cola
6. General Mills
7. United Parcel Service
8. Sony
9. Toyota Motor
10. Procter & Gamble

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BusinessWeek.com’s How to Keep Your Team Talking is a bit of a how-to guide on running a brainstorming meeting. That, to me, is not as intriguing as looking at the management implications of properly handling Gen Y workers.

The younger generations crave involvement in their work roles. They crave a purpose, a meaning, a mission more so than any generation before them. This mission goes beyond monetary rewards. They long to make a difference in the world through their work. This distinction is important because it points to the fact that they long to be engaged (to borrow a buzzword from the article).

The idea behind engagement-mania is that when employees truly care about what they’re doing, beyond the simple need to pay the rent or the mortgage, everybody wins. The work is more fulfilling for employees, and the company gets the best part of its workers’ brains and creative juices deployed on its projects.

The only downside to having engaged employees is that once you’ve asked for the full use of your team members’ intellects, you have to also let them go to town. It’s no good to say, “We want all of your brain cells put to work on this project and all of your creative ideas,” and then squash those ideas like bedbugs.

So engagement is a two-way street for managers. If you ask for your employees’ passion and brains, you have to actually make use of them. That’s one of the reasons why managing knowledge workers is a complicated task. Obviously, not every idea from every employee will win the day, but it’s important to keep asking for input and to keep incorporating it whenever doing so makes sense. And when employees’ well-intentioned contributions aren’t exactly what’s called for, it’s important to say so – and say why.

One thing I have noticed in our limited interaction with younger workers is that they truly do desire to have a voice within the company. The younger generation enjoys sharing ideas and crafting unique solutions. They view the corporate structure with a more horizontal perspective as opposed to the classic baby boomer hierarchy.

I think this author is accurate in laying out techniques for encouraging and incorporating employees’ brainstorming ideas. This managerial task will become increasingly more important as the younger generation assumes a greater role within the workforce.

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