Apr 6 2009
Companies must retain experienced executives – AIMS Vice President in Curitiba
Curitiba, March, 23rd, 2009: The global crisis will definitely change the economic order. Most of the world?s biggest companies are much smaller today. The 20 biggest publicly traded businesses were worth $5.3 trillion in 2007 and value $3.5 trillion today. The effects of devaluation in the stock market over the executives are as drastic as these numbers: surrender and ending the traditional bonus, negotiation of wages and, worse, much unemployment at all levels and little light at the end of the tunnel. Vice-President of AIMS International Management Search, the world?s largest Executive Search network, present in 55 countries, John Poracky works in Chicago, which means that he watches ?from the eye of the hurricane? the development of the crisis in the United States and the world. Last week, Poracky was in Curitiba to participate in lecture sponsored by the sectional of Brazilian Institute of Finance Executives of Paran? (IBEF-PR), where he highlighted “the importance of having talented employees for these difficult times.” Poracky prescribed five top practices involving staff and which are key to get through the crisis: assessing and developing talent appropriately, planning effectively the workforce, creating innovative groups of employees, improve the employee?s work / personal life balance (?it?s not necessary to kill youserlf working”) and create performance recognition programs. According to him, despite the alarming rates and unemployment and a growing number of candidates for executive posts, “remains a major challenge to hire talented and skilled people and the truth is that, according to the surveys, unemployment has not improved the supply of type of professionals.? Therefore, one of his major concerns is about the aging of the current generation, born at the “baby boom” period in the United States, and with the great movement of early retirements occurred in the last years. “Maybe today is more important to create mechanisms to attract or retain these older executives than to hire new ones,” he says. He says that on the 50?s in the United States there were seven people working for each retiree. Today, it is expected for 2030 that there are three people working for each retiree. “The country?s universities will not be able to return this number of people leaving. So the laws of social welfare must change for the option of retirement to be more difficult,” he says. “Today people think ‘I’m earning a good money in the company, but if I retire I will also earn a good money?. Then they retire?, he says. According to him, more than 25% of the working population will reach the age of retirement in 2010 and, in 2030, 20% of the population will be over 65. For him, the crisis will not change the profile of the occupants of leadership positions. ?Not necessarily new skills will matter, but the ability of senior executives to face the situation and to know what they should do so that their organizations are successful. This is actually the key,” explains Poracky. The consultant also says that the main executive must be a leader who is able to communicate the direction he wants to follow for the organization and to make people “buy” this idea, and so make sure that this strategy is followed. “This whole process must be very transparent,” he said. John Poracky knows what he is saying because, in addition to the AIMS network, he is Associate Director at MCWood and was one of the founders of Douth Lake National Bank, where he served as Vice-President. He also served as Senior Consultant at Bank of America and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. “There were many recessions during the last hundred years, and their main difference to this one is that many young entrepreneurs have never been through it and think it is the end of the world. But this is not reality. It is only the cost of making business. In this case, as there was not a real control, it led us to this current crisis, and these are lessons that the executives and governments need to learn in order to avoid that from happening again”, he explains. (Gazeta Mercantil / Caderno D – Page 7) (Norberto Staviski)
