Business challenges for the year ahead

So what could be the likely challenges for the Business leaders in 2008? HBR’s conversation invited some interesting observations.

"With changing attitudes and values, it becomes increasingly necessary for organisations to undergo culture change in order to attract and retain high quality young staff." — Mark Greenshields

"The biggest challenge for managers in 2008 will be giving employees 'permission to play', making work more meaningful and keep it real." — Kathryn Aiken

"Assuming 'management' is a people-oriented activity, I would presume the biggest challenge will be to openly deal with the wants of employees while still making a profit." — David Malouf

IBM global human capital study says that developing the right skill for future business will be the biggest challenge in the coming years.

Today's business executives face a host of pressures, including volatile markets, global competition, and the emergence of new business models. These are forcing organizations to be more responsive to shifting market needs; more flexible in how they operate; more focused on their core competencies; more nimble at partnering; and more resilient to external threats. Success in any of these areas is dependent on the organization's ability to develop a workforce that can adapt to these changes.

The figure below will give you some idea.

Business challenges today are not just external but growing internal challenges give hard times to leadership. We always believed that a happy workforce will help in keeping customers happy. It’s somewhat predictable to assess and work for customer satisfaction but keeping employees satisfied and engaged is becoming a bigger challenge.

The coming years will see more innovation in people practices and as the war of talent gets more intense the work place is going see changes in the way organizations share the future of the enterprise with its internal customers. Policies will be thing of past and more and more organizations will move from the standard, conformity approach to more personalized approach.

Employee empowerment will mean that an employee gets to decide what he wants to do, how he wants to do and the team he wants to work with. Empowered teams will be reviewed and rewarded as special units in all large firms. That’s the challenge for all growing firms in today’s world, every Google success story will be shadowed by facebook like emerging stories. Being big and smart is good but being small and savvy will be great.Here's one interesting video on employee engagement.