My favorite talent thought leader, Tammy Ericksen, over at the Harvard Business blogs, has just posted two terrific articles about the impact of the recession on the workplace of the future.

How the Recession Is Changing Talent Management

Reconciling Short- and Long-Term Workforce Trends

Tammy's blog should be required reading for HR professionals and organizational leaders.  She is insightful at pointing out the demographic trends that continue to exert pressure on the employment relationship; trends that are growing but hidden behind the shield of the recession that has everyone's immediate attention.  Many organizations continue to treat their employees as if the employment contract and the nature of work hasn't changed since 1950, as if today's trends don't exist (and never mind how fast they are accelerating):

• increasing use of social networking tools and highly collaborative ways of communicating
• transparency (inadvertent for some companies) beyond company firewalls
• increasing expectations of highly skilled knowledge workers whose discretionary effort is the differentiator
• slowing growth of the U.S. skilled workforce in numbers (moving to single digit growth in 2010) and skills (22% overall high school drop out rate in the U.S. today)
• shifting expectations of what work means for different generations
• increasing need for flexible work arrangements at different points during an increasingly lengthy number of working years

Shout out to all my HR colleagues: we need to lead in this area by being honest about what work really is new, and having the courage to propose and build new parameters about how to work differently.  Our organizations need this leadership now. There are better ways to win in the recession, and this vision will be paramount following the recession. In just a few years the 'war for talent' will be front and center for most of us.  Those organizations that have had the courage to build new workplaces will be the winners in this war.