The Week That Was

Take a break from a Saturday at the pool with these top five stories from Talentmgt.com for the week of June 11.

1. Will Predictive Analytics Impact the Future of Talent Management?: For talent managers, creating learning and change is as much about changing habits as it is about imparting skills or providing great experiences, writes Talent Management columnist John Boudreau.

2. How to Measure Engagement With a Stay Interview: Stay interviews are essentially informal conversations between managers and their direct reports — not to mention one of the most valuable measures of employee engagement out there. Talent Management editor Frank Kalman has more.

3. Five Recruiting Plays for Social Technologies: Organizations that want to win the war for talent need a playbook on how to take full advantage of social technologies. Here are five plays essential to success, writes Daniel Lipkin, vice president of technology at talent management services provider Saba.

4. Tips to Raise Up Global Leaders: Forget conventional wisdom and think differently when it comes to identifying and developing successful global leaders. Here’s what forward-thinking organizations are doing, writes Brian Kropp, managing director of Corporate Executive Board.

5. Nine Ways to Make Top Performers Effective Managers: Top-performing individuals don’t instantly become top-performing managers. To succeed, new managers require time, training and guidance, write Derek Finkelman and Jonathan Corke.

In Other News

The idea that teleworkers will feel less attached to the company they work for because of an isolation from co-workers is largely myth, according to a study out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The study, led by a communication researcher at the school, “examined how teleworkers’ use of various forms of communication was related to their feelings of closeness to others as well as to feelings of stress due to interruptions,” wrote Laura L. Hunt in an article covering the study on the school’s website. “The study also tested how these outcomes of communication were associated with teleworkers’ sense of identity as part of their organization.”

The study found that more communication doesn’t necessarily equal more organization identification for teleworkers. “In fact,” the UW-Milwaukee article said, “the opposite was true, says Kathryn Fonner, UWM assistant professor of communication.”

The study, co-authored with Michael Roloff, professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, appears in the June issue of Communication Monographs, published by the National Communication Association.

Managers: Please, Please Buy in to Telework

Despite the reported benefits of telework, managerial “buy-in” and acceptance remains one of the significant barriers to successful telework implementation, according to this blog post from the Conference Board Human Capital Exchange, which cites a number of recent research studies saying the rate of teleworkers has risen 2 percent of late.

“Some research shows, in particular, older managers on average express more reluctance toward teleworking compared to younger managers,” wrote Amy Lui Abel and Gad Levanon in their June 11 blog post. “Managers struggle to understand how to make telecommuting arrangements effective and beneficial to both the team and the employee.  Additionally, managers may not trust their employees enough to allow them to undertake teleworking arrangements.”

For more information, check out their recent research report, “The Incredible Disappearing Office: Making Telework Work.“