In the face of significant business challenges such as global competition, emerging skills shortages and the need for product and process innovation, companies are looking for ways to enhance workforce effectiveness. Business leaders are exploring ways to deploy people more creatively to meet business priorities, develop talent to achieve potential, engage talent to unlock discretionary effort, and inspire talent to deliver their best performance. Best practice companies are developing comprehensive workforce strategies involving new sources of talent, improved approaches to building skills and managing knowledge, and clear lines of sight from daily tasks to business strategy. Creating work environments where talent adds value requires insights to workforce planning, talent development, drivers of engagement, and leadership performance.

In 2008 this e-learning track will look at the critical phases of workforce effectiveness to execute strategy through talent management. Webcasts will explore the ways companies are tailoring their approaches to maximize talent ROI and achieve specific business results. While each webcast stands alone the series will cover a variety of tools and approaches leading companies are using to shape a high-performance workforce and workplace.

As a result of unprecedented government cooperation and intervention, the financial markets have begun to stabilize. The economic stimulus enacted by many countries is expected to resuscitate local and global markets beginning in 2010. Rays of hope are beginning to shine around the world now as consumer confidence and spending slowly returns. As with recessions of the past, companies that have the foresight and fortitude to leave the trenches early and proactively position themselves for growth will reap the economic benefits of being first to market to meet pent-up demand for their products and services. The competition for a limited supply of talent will resume and the companies with foresight into future talent requirements will come out the winner. Companies who remain entrenched and fail to take the appropriate and measured steps to ensure their workforce has both capability and capacity to respond will find themselves in second, third, or even last place.

Axiom Consulting Partners, a management consulting firm specializing in strategy execution and talent management, along with Aruspex, the leading provider of Strategic Workforce Planning software solutions, will share their perspectives on how companies can use Strategic Workforce Planning to proactively identify the number, type, and quality of talent needed to successfully execute business recovery-focused business strategies.