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Nearly half of new job openings from 2010 through 2020 will be middle-skills positions in fields such as computer technology, nursing, and high-skill manufacturing. They require postsecondary technical education and training, and they're increasingly hard to fill. As federal funding for job training declines, Kochan, Finegold, and Osterman urge companies to take the lead in closing the middle-skills gap. Getting there, they argue, will require local business leaders to work with one another, educational institutions, and in some cases, unions. Available models include apprenticeship programs, such as those spearheaded by the Center for Energy Workforce Development; partnerships like those between Kaiser Permanente and its employee unions; sector-based regional initiatives, such as Boston-based SkillWorks; and collaborations with higher-education consortia that embrace strong ties to industry. Effective collaborative training programs involve employers in designing and funding the initiatives and in finding jobs for graduates. They integrate classroom education with opportunities to apply new skills in actual or simulated work settings. And they start graduates down a clear career path. These best practices, with leadership from the private sector, should be the cornerstones of a national job-training strategy.

What's the best way to lift people out of poverty? The social entrepreneurs in the new "impact sourcing" industry believe the answer is providing work, not aid. Their organizations hire people at the bottom of the pyramid to perform digital tasks such as transcribing audio files and editing product databases. Essentially, they do business process outsourcing that also boosts economic development. Samasource, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, is one of the leaders in this new field. It has developed a model that addresses the challenges that impact sourcing faces: inexperienced workers; customers who make decisions on price, not social impact; and the cost of building the necessary IT infrastructure. One way Samasource overcomes hurdles is by teaming up with local entrepreneurs. The local partners run the service centers and cover the $25,000 needed to set each one up, and Samasource helps them win customers like LinkedIn and Google, prep and scope projects, hire and train staff, and measure success. Samasource's model is especially attractive because it has achieved big results with a small staff. Though it has only 30 employees, the nonprofit has created 16 centers that have paid more than $2 million to 3,000-plus employees.

Charles Begley is the first ever managing director of diversity recruiting for GlobeBank, and he has worked hard to develop a pipeline of high-potential minority talent. He and his deputy director, Kumkum Bhatnagar, see an article their CEO has written for a business magazine website that downplays their efforts. Kumkum thinks the company should start pegging compensation to executives' minority hires and promotions. Charles resists her idea--particularly after his teenage son says he would never want to work for a company that used quotas. But two of Charles's high potentials complain about the low-level deals they're consistently stuck with, and when Charles approaches another senior executive to ask why, he gets stonewalled. Should he advocate for financial incentives to increase the number of minority promotions? With commentaries by Steve Reinemund, of Wake Forest University; John B. Veihmeyer, of KPMG; and George Borst, of Toyota Financial Services.

Charles Begley is the first ever managing director of diversity recruiting for GlobeBank, and he has worked hard to develop a pipeline of high-potential minority talent. He and his deputy director, Kumkum Bhatnagar, see an article their CEO has written for a business magazine website that downplays their efforts. Kumkum thinks the company should start pegging compensation to executives' minority hires and promotions. Charles resists her idea--particularly after his teenage son says he would never want to work for a company that used quotas. But two of Charles's high potentials complain about the low-level deals they're consistently stuck with, and when Charles approaches another senior executive to ask why, he gets stonewalled. Should he advocate for financial incentives to increase the number of minority promotions? With commentaries by Steve Reinemund, of Wake Forest University; John B. Veihmeyer, of KPMG; and George Borst, of Toyota Financial Services.

Charles Begley is the first ever managing director of diversity recruiting for GlobeBank, and he has worked hard to develop a pipeline of high-potential minority talent. He and his deputy director, Kumkum Bhatnagar, see an article their CEO has written for a business magazine website that downplays their efforts. Kumkum thinks the company should start pegging compensation to executives' minority hires and promotions. Charles resists her idea--particularly after his teenage son says he would never want to work for a company that used quotas. But two of Charles's high potentials complain about the low-level deals they're consistently stuck with, and when Charles approaches another senior executive to ask why, he gets stonewalled. Should he advocate for financial incentives to increase the number of minority promotions? With commentaries by Steve Reinemund, of Wake Forest University; John B. Veihmeyer, of KPMG; and George Borst, of Toyota Financial Services.

"Returnships"--internship-like programs for professionals who've taken time--give employers access to a vast pool of experienced, mature talent.

Seeing matters through your counterpart's eyes is key to successful collaboration with outside stakeholders. Four strategies companies can use to make this an organization-wide skill.

Want to improve your relationship with a partner--in your personal life or at work? You can strengthen it if you spend more time moving physically in the same direction.

New research refines a theory from the 1990s, demonstrating that equity pay can both encourage and discourage executive risk taking. It depends on the mix of a CEO's potential gains and losses, and boards can manage this mix to encourage the risk-taking behavior that's best for their company.

This case focuses on POSCO, the world's most profitable steelmaker and third largest steelmaker by volume for crude steel production. When Jung Jun-Yang became POSCO chief executive in 2009, he envisioned trust to be the foundation of POSCO's success in achieving sustainable co-prosperity with its stakeholders. Believing that "trust is POSCO's identity" and "trust is based on communication," he launched the 'trust communication' initiative in 2010. This initiative coincided with the start of POSCO's third phase of growth for 2010-2020 decade. For this phase, the company aims to become a truly sustainable corporation. The case describes the trust-related challenges that Jung faces as he launches the initiative. In addition, it shows some preliminary results from the company's nascent initiative and the problems that continue to confront POSCO's management as the company strives to achieve long-term sustainability through a system focused on 'Great Harmony', which is based on trust and communication.

Most managers know better than to blurt out, "This is no job for a woman." Yet many are surprisingly open about their bias against mothers and other caregivers. This type of discrimination takes the form of comments like "Don't you feel bad leaving your kids at home?"; assumptions about mothers' lack of commitment to work or inability to handle a tougher load; and blatant differences in salary and promotional opportunities. Such behavior can get your company into legal trouble, say the authors, a distinguished professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law and an associate professor at Harvard Business School. In the United States, the number of family-responsibilities lawsuits jumped almost 400% from 1998 to 2008. In federal court, the success rate of plaintiffs in these cases is high; roughly two-thirds of them prevail--about twice as many as prevail in all employment discrimination cases. And it isn't just mothers who are taking firms to court: Men and people caring for elderly parents are also filing suits and winning them. Executives need to be aware of the costs, which include settlements that can run into the millions, negative publicity, and the loss of valued contributors. To avoid them, they should educate themselves--and their employees--about the law, work to eliminate any stigma associated with flextime in the office, and set clear policies about family-responsibilities discrimination.

A new Dallas-based health and beauty spa aims to use a highly distinctive human resource system as the foundation of its competitive strategy. By encouraging employees to act as "personal wellness coaches" (PWCs) with high commitment and broad responsibilities, the leadership intended to provide a level of client service that would justify premium rates. However, the system is not working. Issues include: tips are lower than expected, reducing expected compensation; scheduling issues create bottlenecks; and the level of commitment varies among PWCs. The result is a high employee turnover rate, and departing employees take an average of 35% of their client base with them when they go. Now, with financials for the spa's second year completed, the VP of spa operations, the VP of business operations, and the CEO must evaluate what is and what isn't working.

The effective manager and leader understands and appreciates trust at both the personal and the organizational levels. Most managers focus more on being trusted than on trusting. The best way to be trusted is to be worthy of trust-to be trustworthy.

Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is shifting the company's focus away from effective performance management. Recently, Vitality has been faced with increasing turnover among the company's talented research scientists that may be due to a performance management system that leaves top performing employees slighted by the practice of uniform ratings. In an effort to retain top employees, the company institutes a forced distribution model of performance rankings, moving from an absolute ranking system to a relative one. Hoffman and his performance management evaluation team must assess the practical and strategic effectiveness of the new system and present their findings and recommendations to the Board.

It's 2008 and Spanish food retailer Superado is on course to miss its financial targets. According to company policy, this means that Superado should withhold all bonuses for the year. But the company has an unbroken tradition of paying out bonuses and treating its workforce well--and it enjoys low staff turnover and high productivity as a result. In this fictionalized case study, based on a Harvard Business School case by Zeynep Ton and Simon Harrow, CEO Luisa Fernandez faces a dilemma: Should Superado reward its employees for maintaining outstanding productivity in an economic crisis, or should it save its resources as a buffer against worse to come? Daniela Beyersdorfer, Vincent Dessain, and Zeynep Ton present this fictionalized case study with expert commentary provided by Nicolas Hollanders and Marcos Barberan.

It's 2008 and Spanish food retailer Superado is on course to miss its financial targets. According to company policy, this means that Superado should withhold all bonuses for the year. But the company has an unbroken tradition of paying out bonuses and treating its workforce well--and it enjoys low staff turnover and high productivity as a result. In this fictionalized case study, based on a Harvard Business School case by Zeynep Ton and Simon Harrow, CEO Luisa Fernandez faces a dilemma: Should Superado reward its employees for maintaining outstanding productivity in an economic crisis, or should it save its resources as a buffer against worse to come? Daniela Beyersdorfer, Vincent Dessain, and Zeynep Ton present this fictionalized case study.

It's 2008 and Spanish food retailer Superado is on course to miss its financial targets. According to company policy, this means that Superado should withhold all bonuses for the year. But the company has an unbroken tradition of paying out bonuses and treating its workforce well--and it enjoys low staff turnover and high productivity as a result. In this fictionalized case study, based on a Harvard Business School case by Zeynep Ton and Simon Harrow, CEO Luisa Fernandez faces a dilemma: Should Superado reward its employees for maintaining outstanding productivity in an economic crisis, or should it save its resources as a buffer against worse to come? Daniela Beyersdorfer, Vincent Dessain, and Zeynep Ton present this fictionalized case study with expert commentary provided by Nicolas Hollanders and Marcos Barberan.

Research shows that today's most sought-after young professionals are constantly looking for their next job. Gaps between what they want in terms of professional development and what their companies provide are largely to blame.

Detailed, hard-to-compile data on private equity, venture capital, and real estate firms shows that the number of women in senior finance positions is stuck in the single digits--and 60% of the firms studied had no female senior investment professionals at all.

Even the best-intentioned companies trip themselves up in attempts to add diversity to their leadership ranks. Here are four common ways they do so.