Practice Development
Recession Can't Impede Talent Shortage Advisory
Since the mid-1990s, Watson Wyatt has routinely warned its client companies to beef up their long-term workforce planning or face the consequences: shortages of critical talent.
Now, despite rising unemployment levels and many companies still trimming their payroll, the HR consultancy, which instituted its own workforce plan in 1997, has established the Workforce Planning practice, a unit dedicated to helping clients deal with the critical long-term challenges of their workforces.
According to the firm, in the United States today, someone turns 50 every eight seconds — that's almost 11,000 per day. By 2006, nearly 80 million aging baby boomers will total a little less than one-third of the nation's population.
"The demand for certain jobs is outstripping supply," says Ann Meany, regional practice leader. "Will it happen in all segments? Probably not. Will it happen in all labor markets? Maybe not. But that's the whole point of workforce planning. We have to take a look at where you as an organization are and where you need to go; to forecast out 10 to 15 years what impact the changing demographics will have on your environment; and to come up with recommendations to proactively offset shortages."
A client's workforce plan can include identifying critical needs for the future, making the necessary investments to meet demands in certain skill areas, recruiting strategically, and defining where staff members should be located, says Jane Paradiso, who will head up the practice of about 15 people.
Emerging Markets
Sizing Up Worthy Consultants
Distributing $53 million to hungry consultants is not as easy as it sounds. Ask Subhrendu Chatterji, the CEO of ConsultingBase.com of the United Kingdom. His company is one of three in a consortium charged with qualifying and hiring consultants to help develop the financial sector in developing countries.
Funded by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other agencies, the consortium known as the Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening (FIRST) Initiative has now become a gateway for consulting talent of all types.
"In addition to the big players, this industry has a lot of single consultants, small firms who get together to subcontract with each other to bid for projects. These small firms lack the resources that a McKinsey or former Big Four have in marketing and developing knowledge," Chatterji explains.
Seeing a need, he and a colleague, Robert Woodbridge, started ConsultingBase.com in September 2001 to help connect independent consultants and large and small consultancies with each other and with aid-funded projects in emerging markets and developing countries. The Web portal has a wide range of resources, including directories of independent consultants, a job bank, country and industry news and guides, and information on development agencies. Larger firms, which are unlikely to carry the overheads of these specialized and unique resources full-time, tap into the site's database for the technical experts they need on a subcontract basis.
"We see the emerging sector as a big market that will grow in the medium and long term," says Chatterji. "We are piggybacking on the donor-funding industry to develop the consulting industries in advanced developing countries such as the Thailands and Chinas of the world, and gradually some of the poorer countries. We see them as a big opportunity."
Governance
And Yet Another Offshore Leader
When Hans-Paul B
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