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Investment in Human Capital
In the interest of a
progressive development of modern society, it is vitally important to create
the necessary conditions that would prompt the human as a social being to
become better, help to harmonise his or her relations with the surrounding
people and contribute to the all-round development of the individual in order not
to remain a manipulable subject in the hands of political technologists.
Any individual gets involved and
lives in a society with its traditions, dominant values, with the views
prevailing in it. It is difficult for him or her to object, to protest, to
reject the truths widespread here that are as if self-evident. Often without
perceiving, without realising that there is an enormous distance between the concepts
cultivated in the society and the objective reality. The distance which many
politicians are still trying to keep in the interest of political expediency
and state of affairs in order to continue to successfully manipulate the views
and world outlook of the majority of the people, the recognition and filtering
of the good and evil.
All this has become possible
due to the ignorance instilled in the masses of people, the anachronistic
system of values imposed by the authorities, as well as the lack of
understanding that this should be changed and how it could be changed, how to
discern the difference and learn to separate the good from the bad in the
practices of politicians, how not to succumb to demagoguery and national populism.
Explore the
Human Capital Index with this interactive map…:
The Economy And Wages In 2019: What HR Can Do To Help
In all my years as an
analyst and consultant in the world of HR, there’s one thing I’ve learned: the
economy impacts our workforce strategies more than almost anything else. And
this year, in 2019, the economy is more important than ever. Let me give you some
things to think about.
First, while the GDP is growing in many
companies, productivity and
earnings are not. Consider the chart below.
Employees around the world
are working more hours, GDP is going up, but productivity (output per hour
worked) is barely growing. Why is this? What my research shows is that
digital technologies have not yet really improved our ability to get work done.
In the last study I completed with LinkedIn last year, we found that 27%
of employees believe they are spending an entire day a week dealing with emails
that are irrelevant to their jobs. We spend more than 4 hours a day on our phones (doing what? I’m not
sure). And the average company now has seven different systems for communications. We are in a
“digital overload” state in most companies, and unless you’re a deskless worker
you’re “glued to your computer” all day.
I also believe productivity
is impacted by lagging infrastructure in large cities. Commute times have increased by almost 30 minutes a
week in the US over the last few years, and that time alone reduces
productivity. Governments seem unable to invest in transit solutions to help
fix this, so we spend more time in our cars or hope that our employer can get
us a bus to get to work (which lets us work in the bus but doesn’t save any
time).
What does this mean for
HR? We need to invest in work-at-home solutions, simplify the IT
infrastructure (and HR tools), and simplify all these extraneous
communications. Some companies now have “no meeting Fridays” and “no email
Wednesdays” to try to fix this mess. It's all part of the new "employee
experience" focus.
I think we have to spend
much more time in 2019 looking at the new breed of team management tools (Microsoft Teams will be very big) and get rid of all the
extra “stuff” we have at work which just gets in the way. The problem, of
course, is that every vendor wants to be your “employee facing tool” – and most
of them just aren’t going to win that battle. I believe Microsoft will (and maybe
Google and Slack and Atlassian), so the rest of them have to rethink of
themselves as “plugins” and just work “In the flow of work.”
The second economic issue I want to
address is wage stagnation and income inequality. Despite all the promotion by the Federal
Government that the US economy is doing well, it really isn't. Average US
wages have barely budged (after inflation) in the last 40 years and for those
in the bottom 90%, wages are falling behind.
The problem in developed
countries like the US, UK, and soon China is that all this economic growth is
distributed in a very uneven way. Yes, digital business models and new careers
have been wonderful to those who graduated from college and have the right
skills. But for the 62% of Americans who didn’t get through college or those
who studied subjects which have fallen out of demand, the world of work isn’t
so rewarding.
And this has greatly
impacted employee sentiment. Deloitte’s Millennial study found that over 2/3 of all
Millennials do not believe their standard of living will be as high as their
parents, and more than 15% of them have student loans over $15,000 in
size. Many are doing side-hustles, gig work, and living in shared housing (or
at home) to get ahead.
And they do understand that
the world is getting less fair.
And to add fuel to the fire,
US income inequality is getting high relative to the rest of the world. I just
finished analyzing this data from World Bank and OECD. It's not at all what
you'd expect: US inequality is on par with many poor Latin American countries.
This income inequality is
impacting the workforce in many ways. First, it is now “luck of the draw” if
you happen to work for one of the very high performing companies in this new
“have” or “Have-not” economy. PWC believes that the Gini Index (inequality index) of
corporate profits is at an all time high – in some industries (ie. technology,
internet, consumer electronics) over 80% of the profits go to the top ten
companies in the market.
Second, as younger workers
fall behind, there is great demand for social purpose at work.
"Ok, if I’m
not going to make enough money to get ahead, at least I should work for a
company I can believe in."
More than 60% of consumers
now say they will not buy products from companies whose CEOs are not
taking an active role in political, societal, or environmental change. This has
given rise to what we call the “Social Enterprise,” a focus by companies of all sizes to
“be good” not just “do well.”
As HR leaders we have to
think about this in several ways. First, are we paying people enough? As I
write about in detail in the article “Why wages are not going up: it’s not the economy its management,”
I believe the real problem is our own business thinking.
When we give people small
raises we are essentially saying to them “we don’t value you that much.” In
today’s economy, where the most valuable jobs are based on creativity,
services, and collaboration, paying people well is an investment,
not an expense. This year I encourage you to rethink your compensation
strategy. The companies that outperform in today’s economy are the highest
paying companies in their industry – and that’s a signal you should think
about.
And make sure you work with
your senior leadership on the topic of corporate purpose. Despite the
philosophy of Milton Friedman that "all profits are good," in today's
economy purpose really matters. The best organizations set out to
fulfill a mission, and profits are a result (not the goal) of that mission.
(Note: 2019 brings the first-ever UK regulation that
requires all companies with more than 250 employees to disclose the ratio of
CEO pay to average worker pay. This started in 2018 in the US and the results
are somewhat staggering. The average ratio in the US is 311:1.)
The third economic issue is the way the
lack of wage growth is being slowly eaten up by “benefits.”
Since the year 2000, the
percent of payroll spent on “benefits” has increased by 32%. Almost half of
this is an increase in health care insurance, but the rest includes retirement
benefits, wellbeing benefits, and other benefits employees badly need. What
seems to be happening in the US is that our government’s lack of interest in
healthcare or other workforce benefits has forced the private sector to take
over.
One of my clients, a large
benefits provider on the west coast, told me he thinks employers are becoming
like “parents” to their employees. I think there is some truth to this. As the
economic system provides less security, income, and healthcare to employees –
we as employers are being asked to pick up the slack.
What does this mean to
HR? We need to continue to invest in wellbeing programs (which have a huge
impact on reducing healthcare costs), retirement and savings programs,
financial wellbeing programs, and other programs to help employees lead
healthy, fulfilling lives. When I entered the workforce in 1978 there was very
little of this: it has become an important reality today. And while the global
wellbeing market is already over $40 billion today, it can grow a lot more.
The fourth economic trend I want to point
out is the huge shift in jobs away from “routine work” toward jobs which
require digital skills, creative and service skills, empathy and communication
skills, and persuasion and team building skills.
These “uniquely human”
skills are found in healthcare, software design, sales, customer service,
marketing, and just about every other part of business. LinkedIn’s latest study
of skills in the San Francisco Bay Area (the city with the biggest skills gaps)
found that “oral communications” was the skill in most demand. In other words,
we need people to be able to listen, communicate, read, write, and work in a
team.
For us in HR, this means
spending a significant amount of time and money on employee career development,
technical skills development, and overall on-the-job learning.
US companies only spend
about $1,200 per employee per year on training yet they spend 3-5 this
amount to go out and hire a new person (to say nothing of the cost of
on-boarding and getting this new person to be productive). We can clearly
afford to spend more on employee development.
If you want to help the
economy grow and help people reinvent themselves, you have the tools to do it in your own company.
Don’t wait for the government or education system to reskill people: we have to
do it ourselves.
This is why the L&D
market is exploding this year (spending on L&D technology is up 10%) and
companies are finally getting out of the way and putting learning right into
the hands of employees directly. In fact as the newest research I published
just shows, employees who spend more time learning are more productive, happy,
engaged, and perform higher than their peers. Make sure 2019 is focused in this
area.
Finally let's talk about a possible
slowdown. Yes, there is a
lot of evidence that this ten year economic boom may be slowing in 2019. I've
been through four of these in my career, and let me tell you what I've learned.
- When budgets get tight, your job will be to
"do less with less." In other words, all the extra programs,
benefits, tools, and services you've been bulking up on in HR over the
last decade (HR spending is up almost 2.1% this year) may have to stop
- If you have to let people go, do it in the most
positive way. As I mentioned above, while the GDP and stock market have
risen, wages have not. If you have to let someone go, be as generous as
you can - they will remember your company their entire life, and at some
point you may want to hire them back.
- Help your executives learn how to redesign jobs
and the workplace to improve productivity. Even today, as the economy
grows, most companies are going through a wide range of transformations.
This means redesigning jobs, moving work out toward front facing
employees, and shifting organizations toward teams. You can help make this
happen, and often reduce costs and improve productivity without laying
people off.
There’s a lot more to say
about the economy, and I’m going to be writing about this in my Predictions
report and many of the speeches I’m planning for this year. But my main message
is simple: we in HR have a tremendous amount of responsibility, power, and
agency to impact these economic issues in the countries in which we live.
Businesses have a responsibility to do the right thing for society (as well as
our customers and stakeholders), and you as an HR leader have a lot more power
than you may think.
Have a wonderful 2019, much
more to come on this topic. Stay tuned for my predictions report coming out in
January.
------
Josh Bersin is a
global industry analyst who studies corporate HR, talent, leadership,
recruitment, and all aspects of HR and workplace technology. He is the founder
of Bersin by Deloitte, a frequent speaker at industry events, and consults with
organizations around the world. You can reach Josh here on LinkedIn or on
Twitter @Josh_Bersin or
read more articles at www.joshbersin.com .
(Disclosure - Josh provides consulting and advice to brands, including
LinkedIn.)
SOCIAL
IDENTITY
The third edition of Social
Identity builds on the international success of previous editions, offering an
easy access critical introduction to social science theories of identity, for
advanced undergraduates and postgraduates. All of the previous chapters have
been updated and extra material has been added where relevant, for example on
globalisation. Two new chapters have also been added; one addresses the debate
about whether identity matters, discussing, for example, Brubaker; the second
reviews the postmodern approach to identity. The text is informed by relevant
topical examples throughout and, as with earlier editions, the emphasis is on
sociology, anthropology and social psychology; on the interplay between
relationships of similarity and difference; on interaction; on the
categorisation of others as well as self-identification; and on power,
institutions and organisations. Richard Jenkins is Professor of
Sociology at the University of Sheffield, UK. Trained as an anthropologist, he
has done research in Ireland, Britain and Denmark. Among his other books are
Foundations of Sociology (2002), Pierre Bourdieu (second edition 2002) and
Rethinking Ethnicity (second edition 2008)
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 Identity matters 1
2 Similarity and difference
16
3 A sign of the times? 28
4 Understanding
identification 37
5 Selfhood and mind 49
6 Embodied selves 60
7 Entering the human world
74
8 Self-image and public image 90
9 Groups and categories 102
10 Beyond boundaries 118
11 Symbolising belonging 132
12 Predictability 148
13 Institutionalising
identification 156
14 Organising identification 169
15 Categorisation and
consequences 184
16 Identity and modernity
revisited
200 NOTES
207 BIBLIOGRAPHY
213 INDEX 238
Introduction
Concern about a “ jobless future” has never been
greater. Seemingly every day, an academic, researcher or technology leader
suggests that in a world of automation and artificial intelligence (AI),
workers will increasingly be a surplus to what businesses need – or as Stanford
University’s Jerry Kaplan says in his best-selling book, it won’t be long
before “humans need not apply.”1 The concerns are understandable. AI – long
academic theory and Hollywood plotline – is becoming “real” at an astonishing
pace and finding its way into more and more aspects of work, rest and play. AI
is now being used to read X-rays and MRIs. It’s at the heart of stock trading.
Chat with Siri or Alexa, and you’re using AI. Soon, AI will be found in every
job, profession and industry around the world. When machines do everything,
lots of people wonder what will we do? What work will be left for people? How
will we make a living when machines are cheaper, faster and smarter than we are
– machines that don’t take breaks or vacations, don’t get sick and don’t care
about chatting with their colleagues about last night’s game? For many people,
the future of work looks like a bleak place, full of temporary jobs (a “gig”
economy), minimum wage labor and a ruling technocracy safely hidden away in
their gated communities and their circular living machines. Although plausible,
this vision of the future is not one we share. Our vision is quite different –
and much more optimistic. Our vision is based on a different reading of the
trends and the facts; a different interpretation of how change occurs and how
humans evolve. Our view of the future of work is based on the following
principles:… https://www.cognizant.com/whitepapers/21-jobs-of-the-future-a-guide-to-getting-and-staying-employed-over-the-next-10-years-codex3049.pdf
Martha Nussbaum Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice
Nussbaum
stimulates readers with challenging insights on the role of emotion in
political life. Her provocative theory of social change shows how a truly just
society might be realized through the cultivation and studied liberation of
emotions, specifically love. To that end, the book sparkles with Nussbaum’s
characteristic literary analysis, drawing from both Western and South Asian
sources, including a deep reading of public monuments. In one especially
notable passage, Nussbaum artfully interprets Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro,
revealing it as a musical meditation on the emotionality of revolutionary
politics and feminism. Such chapters are a culmination of her passion for
seeing art and literature as philosophical texts, a theme in her writing that
she profitably continues here. The elegance with which she negotiates this
diverse material deserves special praise, as she expertly takes the reader through
analyses of philosophy, opera, primatology, psychology, and poetry. In contrast
to thinkers like John Rawls, who imagined an already just world, Nussbaum
addresses how to order our society to reach such a world. A plea for
recognizing the power of art, symbolism, and enchantment in public life,
Nussbaum’s cornucopia of ideas effortlessly commands attention and debate.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17804353-political-emotions
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