Rating: 
Summary: Important Keys to Competitive Advantage . . . and Survival!
Review: Many would argue that too much has been written and said about the influence of Baby Boomers on the U.S. economy. Few are aware that too little is said about the issues related to the subsequent drop in births for Generation-Xers, who came after the Baby Boom generation. What little you read is mainly defined in terms of Baby Boomers. Who will pay for Baby Boomers' Social Security payments?Impending Crisis is an important work in describing an unprecedented and increasing shortage of skilled people in the United States. While no one can forecast the future with specific accuracy, demographics are one of the areas where the fewest forecasting mistakes are usually made. Clearly, young people cannot be expected to fill all of the skilled jobs that will be available by 2010. Impending Crisis goes on to show where the shortages will be the worst, so you can estimate the potential impact on your business. So you can get a flavor of what's coming, the authors look at the ugly details of the shortages of healthcare workers that already wracking the healthcare system. You can see the future through these examples. Other trends combine to make the problem worse for employers. Employees plan to stay for shorter and shorter periods of time, and companies can more easily turn off their workers. The authors go on to point out that becoming good at getting and keeping the top talent can become a competitive advantage in such an environment, and a necessity for staying in business . . . especially for small companies. Impending Crisis goes on to specifically recommend action steps to measure your effectiveness in attracting and retaining employees, understand the costs of turnover, improve what you are doing, and turn human resources into a greater strength in a tough marketplace. The authors come from two different consulting firms. Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia are from The Herman Group, and are coauthors of the outstanding book, How to Become an Employer of Choice. They know a lot about the remedies. Tom Olivo is from Success Profiles, and brings tremendous data resources about the causes that are generously shared in this book. Combined, the three authors bring a wonderful blend of quantitative, qualitative, process, and human resources management experience and perspective. As someone who is very interested in business model innovation, I was extremely impressed to see that Impending Crisis shows how continuing business model reinvention can be a critical element in handling the shortage of skilled people. I highly recommend that you refer to Chapter 8: Change the Way You Function. I am grateful for the references to the new book that I have coauthored, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage, in that chapter. Most business books tell you about something that is already old hat by the time the book comes out . . . or describe a future issue that never turns out to be important. Impending Crisis is a clear exception to those problems. This book is state-of-the-art now, and can keep helpfully informing people for many years to come. As a case in point, I was speaking about these issues with a client who is the CFO of a major hospital company earlier this year. He was very concerned, and told me about what his company had been doing. The lessons in this book would accelerate his firm's progress by many years, and save it millions of dollars annually. I plan to send him a copy. Human Resources is too often an administrative function, rather than a strategic one. Impending Crisis explains how to add strength to Human Resources management and attract the proper support from the rest of the company. I found Impending Crisis to be the best book I have read for clearly laying out the pathway to improved Human Resources management. If you only read one book about Human Resources management in the next year, I strongly encourage you to make it this one. Donald Mitchell
Coauthor of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage
Rating:
Summary: Impending Crisis is for real
Review: Never before have Director Boards and Executives been so focused on the "Near-at-Hand" as they are today. With the economic crises,Corporate governance issues and current talent availbilities, long term stategies today mean "what are we going to report to the financial community next quarter!! Impending Crises puts the focus where it needs to be-----and forcefully. Human Resource Vice Presidents (who truly are strategic business partners) and Human Resource consultants are thrilled to finally have a meaningful resource to be able to refer to in trying to get the message across to the corporate world that this shortage of future talent is for real and needs some SERIOUS attention. This is a very meaningful guide to be shared by all executives.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking wake-up call
Review: Serious labor shortages will challenge employers this decade. By 2010, we?ll have 10,033,000 more jobs than skilled workers to fill them. This vital issue is presented, with an abundance of evidence, followed by concrete advice about what employers must do to defend themselves. Highly readable, direct, designed for corporate executives. Over 20 new concepts are presented in this thought-provoking wake-up call. Filled with graphs and charts that lay out the emerging shortage of skilled labor. Highly recommended for senior executives. This book reveals a problem that won?t go away and must be addressed.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book is written for the employers, so if you don't own a business or are not in a high level management, your benefit of reading this book will not be substantial. My dissatisfaction of this book has to do with high level of alarm this book raises based on speculation. The subtitle of this book is "Too many jobs too few people". Due to the demographics (which is impossible to alter in a short period), it is certain we will have too few people in the work force by 2010. The question is will there be too many jobs by 2010? Even the author concedes it is impossible to forecast the economy in the next 5 years, let alone the next 10. Hence, the author's conclusion of pending doom of massive skilled worker shortage by 2010 is speculative. In fact, many prominent economists will argue that the economy will falter BADLY after 2010 because the consumer spending will drop like a rock due to the aging population (people over 55 spend considerably less). The actual scenario might be "too few jobs too many people". Finally, the reliability of author's statistics are somewhat questionable (they are from the government after all). For example, according to the author, there are more than 3 million jobs right now than the number of people to fill them. In reality, however, the job market has been the toughest it has been in years, and many people are being laid off without work for over 6 months or more. When statistics conflict with reality, then ALWAYS trust the reality.
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