US biased research but still worthwhile
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I had high hopes for this book when I opened it, as the title and the write up intrigued me. In the first couple of chapters I was disappointed, as the authors state all their research findings from two large US surveys they have conducted and regurgitate a lot of US labour statistics. Whilst they make a token acknowledgement that these trends are broadly similar in Europe, I was beginning to feel that this book was going to be largely irrelevant to me.
However, with all the statistics out of the way the book just got better and better. Many of the examples they cite are British companies (NHS, Tesco, Nationwide, St. Luke's, Virgin), which was encouraging.
The book discusses their research findings in relation to three distinct age cohorts: mature workers, midcareers and young workers. In this respect, British demographics are roughly similar to the US, and the British case studies demonstrate that the research findings and recommendations for best practice also stack up over here.
The demographic prognosis over the next twenty years makes a compelling case for addressing the issues now, and the authors do a good job of providing practical recommendations to implement now to steal a march on the competition. For example: creative ways of retaining or bringing back in older workers past the conventional retirement age; useful ideas to re-engage burnt out, stressed out midcareer workers; and some clever ideas to attract and retain young talent.
The middle section of the book, which deals with the three age cohorts, is well structured, alternating a chapter describing the issues with each with a chapter on what to do about it (the beginning of the book is the statistics previously mentioned).
The final two sections cover `The New Employment Deal' (how to implement flexible working, flexible learning and flexible benefits) and `Management Practices for the New Workforce'. This includes some particularly useful recommendations on how to analyse and assess your workforce (Tesco used their Clubcard technology on their employees to segment different worker needs) and how to engage them.
The book concludes with a thought-provoking `Reader's Discussion Guide', which poses some questions related to each chapter - good to ask of yourself or of your HR Department.
Apart from the US-centric stats to begin with, this is a great book for anyone tasked with managing the Human Capital of their organisation, and the message is clear - a crisis is on the way, so start to deal with it now or face huge problems in the not-too-distant future!
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United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada