In our complex Digital-Age economy with Millennials replacing baby boomers, we can draw some conclusions about developing trends.

Management typically faces seven workforce challenges.

The seven challenges: A positive company culture; employee engagement; performance management; leadership development; branding; data; and security including preventing ransomware demands.

Here are explanations of the seven challenges:

1. A positive company culture

Maintaining and improving your culture is your most-important mission. A productive culture increases market share and profits.

Concurrently, it gives you a competitive edge because you are more likely to retain and recruit top talent. Note: Even they must be coached.

When managers become coaches, you get a higher-performing workforce because you’ll be optimizing talent management.

2. Employee engagement

As the workforce evolves with retiring baby boomers as young employees become the dominant workplace demographic, employee engagement must become a priority.

It requires understanding Millennial attitudes to effectively engage them.

This also means enhancing your internal communication and partnering with your employees.

3. Performance management

With the universal trend of low employee-morale, evaluating and improving performance management is important.

You must determine the critical factors that lead to success by developing strategies to measure and boost your business performance.

4. Leadership development

Millennials are constantly moving into management. They must be groomed and trained, and the right people must be given appropriate opportunities in leadership.

To profit from good labor relations and to leverage the perspective of employees, you should set a good example by employing strategies to earn employee respect.

5. Branding

A stellar branding program is needed for three reasons. One is for enhanced revenue. The others are for employee recruitment and retention.

Any mistakes in assumptions are critical, and businesses must evolve. So it’s not uncommon for management to need to rebrand a business.

6. Data

Data-driven decisions have increasingly become more important in diverse areas – from talent management to financials and customer service.

To understand, forecast, and improve business performance, understand how big data helps in analytics.

7. Security and preventing ransomware demands

Cybercrime is rampant everywhere. It’s a huge threat and clandestine – you have no idea who is behind it.

If you don’t take the right precautions, you’ll suffer serious consequences with your customers, financials, operations and reputation.

Not to mention the latest scourge – ransomware – software furtively installed on your computer system to prevent it from functioning until you pay money to extortionists.

You must employ the right security measures and train employees to protect you from cybercrime.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are relevant management solutions:

3 Crucial Tactics Are Needed to Maintain Your Culture — As your company grows, you can expect growing pains and threats to your culture. Whether you create it or not, your business culture happens. There are at least three steps needed to fashion your culture the way you want.

Trust Gap between Managers and Workers — How to Drive Engagement — While it’s true there are companies that are aware that good morale among employees propels profits, many businesses are missing opportunities for growth. It’s not because of marketing. It has to do with internal issues. Why? There’s still a wide gap between what managers and workers think about trust.

How to Rock Your Human Resources with Employee Referrals — Admittedly, there’s a myriad of ways to recruit great employees. But no recruitment option surpasses a well-executed, strategic employee-referral program.

13 Management Tips to Solve Employee Absenteeism — Absenteeism causes migraines for a lot of bosses. Obviously, your company will make healthier profits, if you don’t have an absenteeism problem.

HR Trends in Talent Management Using Technology — Despite all the talk about the use of technology in talent management, the majority of human resources departments are behind the curve. Why? A study shows 72 percent of HR departments reveal they’re not using such tools.

7 Thought Leadership Tactics for Strong Performance — For a company to achieve strong performance, its culture and employees must be aligned with business strategy to provide value. But more and more, it seems employees can’t even articulate business strategy. Therefore, management must identify and communicate effective programs that are aligned with employee behavior in order to blaze new paths and fuel business growth.

“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.”

-Bertrand Russell

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

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