How will enterprises build and sustain competitive advantage? By keeping their people's performance, productivity and leadership on course in smooth and rough waters. As enterprises steer their investments toward operational excellence, high quality and customer intimacy, they must likewise steer their workforce toward fulfilling those objectives. Doing so means moving workforce investments to a top priority. It means creating physical and virtual workplaces to enhance performance and collaboration. It means investing in strategies and technologies for human capital management and employee services. It means assembling a workforce with competencies and knowledge that support critical initiatives. It means — at last — raising organizational change management to a level of visibility and discipline that reinforces enterprise learning and innovation. Finally, it means preparing people for new challenges while keeping them engaged in meeting today's objectives.

In this Workforce & Workplace Spotlight, we define the critical issues that top executives, human resources directors, chief information officers and corporate real estate executives will encounter as they attempt to align people and work to business strategy. Our analysis opens with "Workforce & Workplace: Why Managers Lie Awake at Night," by Kathy Harris. Make no mistake: As enterprises attempt to do more with less, workforce and workplace innovation will be a primary predictor of business success.

Diane Morello

Editor in Chief

Workforce & Workplace

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