Real wages have stagnated or declined for most workers, job insecurity has increased, and retirement income is uncertain. Why have jobs gotten so much worse?
As Peter Cappelli argues, these issues and others stem from the logic of financial accounting and its fundamental flaws in dealing with human capital. Financial accounting views employee costs as fixed costs that cannot be reduced and fails to account for the costs of bad employees and poor management. The simple goal of today's executives is to drive down employment costs, even if it raises costs elsewhere.
In Our Least Important Asset, Cappelli argues that the financial accounting problem explains many puzzling practices in contemporary management-employers' emphasis on costs per hire over the quality of hires, the replacement of regular employees with 'leased' workers, the shift to unlimited vacations, and the transition of hiring responsibilities from professional recruiters to more expensive line managers. In the process, employers undercut all the evidence about what works to improve the quality, productivity, and creativity of workers. Drawing on decades of experience and research, Cappelli provides a comprehensive and insightful critique of the modern workplace where the gaps in financial accounting make things worse for everyone, from employees to investors.
How HR can lead.
We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones on how HR leaders can partner with the C-suite, drive change throughout the organization, and develop the workforce of the future.
This book will inspire you to: overhaul performance management practices to jump-start motivation and engagement; use agile processes to transform how you hire, develop, and manage people; establish diversity programs that increase innovation and competitiveness as well as inclusion; use people analytics to bring unprecedented insight to hiring and talent management; prepare your company for the double waves of artificial intelligence and an older workforce; and close the gap between HR and strategy.
When Peter Drucker wrote Concept of the Corporation in 1946, he revealed what made the large American corporation tick. Similarly, The Art of Japanese Management by Richard Pascale in 1981 explained the unique practices developed by the Japanese to bring that country’s economy out of the ashes. The emerging Chinese juggernauts—the Alibabas, Lenovos, and Haiers—need similar revelation since they are a different breed in their own right.
Little is understood about them, how they work, and what makes them such potentially imposing competitors. Now, based on unprecedented access to the people who have created and grown the great private companies of China—the “General Electrics and Sonys' of that country, Michael Useem, Harbir Singh, Peter Cappelli and Neng Liang bring to life the distinctive practices of Chinese business leaders as they invent their own way forward to create world-class companies, and provide a comprehensive look at the leaders and businesses that are the future of the Chinese economy—and major competition to Western companies.
Chinese companies are emerging on the global stage as never before, and their leadership lessons are invaluable in understanding and coping with their growing commercial presence worldwide. Company managers everywhere will want to understand China’s distinct way of doing business if they are to compete against the companies that already dominate the domestic Chinese market and are coming to the fore in foreign markets, including the U.S.
The decision of whether to go to college, or where, is hampered by poor information and inadequate understanding of the financial risk involved. Adding to the confusion, the same degree can cost dramatically different amounts for different people. A barrage of advertising offers us new degrees designed to lead to specific jobs, but we see no information on whether graduates ever get those jobs.
In Will College Pay Off?, Peter Cappelli, an acclaimed expert in employment trends, the workforce, and education, provides hard evidence that counters conventional wisdom and helps us make cost-effective choices. Among the issues Cappelli analyzes are:
What the real link is between a college degree and a job that enables you to pay off the cost of college
Why the most expensive colleges may actually be the cheapest in the long run
How parents and students can find out what different colleges actually deliver to students and whether it is something that employers really want
Insightful and informative, Will College Pay Off? helps students and parents make smart financial decisions and provides the foundation for students to succeed in the real world.
Peter Cappelli confronts the myth of the skills gap and provides an actionable path forward to put people back to work.
Even in a time of perilously high unemployment, companies contend that they cannot find the employees they need. Pointing to a skills gap, employers argue applicants are simply not qualified; schools aren't preparing students for jobs; the government isn't letting in enough high-skill immigrants; and even when the match is right, prospective employees won't accept jobs at the wages offered.
In this powerful audiobook, Peter Cappelli, Wharton management professor and director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources, debunks the arguments and exposes the real reasons good people can't get hired. Drawing on jobs data, anecdotes from all sides of the employer-employee divide, and interviews with jobs professionals, he explores the paradoxical forces bearing down on the American workplace and lays out solutions that can help us break through what has become a crippling employer-employee stand-off.
Among the questions he confronts: Is there really a skills gap? To what extent is the hiring process being held hostage by automated software that can crunch thousands of applications an hour? What kind of training could best bridge the gap between employer expectations and applicant realities, and who should foot the bill for it? Are schools really at fault?
Named one of HR Magazine's Top 20 Most Influential Thinkers of 2011, Cappelli not only changes the way we think about hiring but points the way forward to rev America's job engine again. Gildan Media is proud to bring you another Wharton Digital Press Audiobook. These notable audiobooks contain the essential tools that can be applied to every facet of your career.
