The Productivity Blog

One of HRI’s sponsors -- Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company -- recently sent out a survey to other member firms via our online Sponsor Network, asking specifics about how colleagues provide educational assistance. There were 26 full responses, interesting for both their similarities and their...

Place your bets. Who is going to win the “virtual university” wars? Will it be the great institutions of yore with their high brand-name recognition: the Oxfords, Harvards, Stanfords, et al.? Will some upstart take over as the preeminent online educator, the Amazon.com of the academic world? And...

During the 1990s, and especially in the last two years, news of corporate mergers and acquisitions has hit with mind-numbing speed. Names of firms hyphenate daily, and the worth of the new giants is nearly beyond comprehension. In 1999, the total value of announced M&A deals worldwide was estimated...

Picture a group of people as large as the entire labor force of all the developed nations in 1990. Then imagine them all as young people, still unpolished but with plenty of potential. Then think about the huge socioeconomic impact they would have on the world as they all mature together, making...

Sometimes a new scientific model changes the way we view the world. Sometimes it just reaffirms our common sense. It’s intriguing that the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) does a bit of both. In the future, it could have a major impact on things like training, leadership development,...

Yet another revolutionary information technology trend is promising to change the way firms run their operations, including human resources. This time, it’s the trend toward software service providers.There are two schools of thought about this trend. Some analysts say that business software, such...

Is the executive recruitment game going through a radical change? That depends on whom you ask and, maybe more importantly, what level of executive you want to recruit. On one hand are those who argue that the Internet and other innovations are transforming today’s headhunting firms and...

The buzz these days is that training is being fundamentally redefined, that there’s a shift away from traditional training and toward learning- on-demand. Whereas training is provided for employees, learning is initiated by employees. Whereas training takes place when it’s available, learning...

A societal tidal wave will sweep over developed nations during the next several decades, potentially changing everything from the way individuals retire to the world’s economic balance of power.The components of this wave are straightforward: people are living longer, having fewer children,...

The AIDS pandemic is reaching such catastrophic dimensions that, in a historic move, the U.S. government has formally declared it a threat to U.S. national security. The declaration may help raise the global business community’s awareness of the human and economic devastation being wrought by the...