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By Dani Saveker, September 9, 2009 10:44 pm

I’m working on a project at the moment for a client that’s heavily involved in supporting the education sector. As a consequence I have been doing a fair old bit of research including picking the brains of some good teacher friends of ours.

One of the areas of interest is the issue of ‘management’ within our schools. One of my friends sent me a link in response to my research… she was quite right in saying that it’s both inspiring and frightening. Please take a look at  Did You Know? 3.0 (Official Video, 2009 Edition) –  no matter what it provokes in you, you simply can’t ignore the fact that change is speeding up and so we must keep up whether in eduction, business or life!

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By Dani Saveker, September 5, 2009 3:08 pm

Having been an employer of 100+ people, I have experienced most employment issues. With the fact the business was 106 years old, there inevitably comes some significant service. Indeed, the average service within the company was just over 12 years with the average age being 55.

Quite often I heard people link service to loyalty – I beg to differ. The union stewards negotiated for an extra day of holiday per year based on service and called it a “loyalty day” (the fact that this is now not a legal possiblility due to Age Discrimination is another issue completely!).  How can this be? I know a few people that with every year served contibuted less and less.

I firmly believe that because someone serves 25 years for a company – or more – does not automatically mean that they are ‘loyal’ employees and doesn’t automatically mean that they are even ‘talented’ employees. It simply means that they have been employed for a long time. I recall someone with service of over 40 years and each day he just moaned about the company and his employers… what utter madness?

One of my predecessors, who I have the utmost respect for, said to me a couple of months ago that during his leadership of the company he recognised he was simply running a social enterprise. Inflated wages, promotions, many perks and bonuses and yet not many were deserved. It seems that in over 20 years not much was learnt. Surely we should employ the people that will add strength to a company and as employers we must manage the talent.

I know I put up with what I’d inherited and sacrificed an awful lot for each and every one of them. Given a blank piece of paper, and using the knowledge and experience I gained it would be completely different now. Even with restuctures during my time as CEO, due to cost and historical issues, I never went far enough. Talent management is imperitive as is the  need to think creatively about optimising workforces – whether in the private or public sector. Organisations are built on their people and if those people are weak then so is the foundation - no one ever built anything worthwhile on such a foundation. Recession should highlight your vital personnel and you must look after the real talent and set to work strengthening your foundation. I wouldn’t compromise again.