Firms Facing Crisis At Top
By Jamie McClintock© Pasadena Star-News. Thursday, July 17, 2003.
Ninety-four percent of North American human resource professionals said their organizations have inadequately prepared younger generations to assume senior leadership positions, according to DBM, a New York-based human resources consulting firm.
The high percentage is partially because training and development programs are the first to be cut by companies looking to reduce costs during down economic times, said Mark Allen, Director of Executive Education at Pepperdine's Gra-zia-dio School of Business and Management's campus in Pasadena.
According to DBM, 60 million baby boomers will leave the
Companies may face employee shortages and growth challenges if they do not actively focus on management development and succession planning to counteract retirement, said Gary Kaplan, president of Gary Kaplan and Associates, a
"The healthiest companies are the ones that pay attention to employees and nurture employees and, to the level of their capabilities, move them vertically in their organization," Kaplan said.
Forty percent of the 200 professionals polled reported their companies were unsuccessful in encouraging collaboration between younger and older workers.
Younger employees could find difficulty when taking over such leadership positions if they do not get a chance to gain company and industry knowledge from their older counterparts, said Kristen Foster, a spokeswoman for DBM.
