Visions of Better Vision

Employees may be thinking clearly about their work, but they may not be seeing quite as clearly. A WellPoint survey found that 40 percent of American workers have trouble with their eyesight while on the job. As a result, mistakes occur, and some of them are not caught right away and can cause unfortunate errors.

For example, 1 in 10 respondents reported sending emails to the wrong person or misreading a text message or a caller ID. According to the Vision Council of America, uncorrected vision can decrease employee performance by as much as 20 percent, and vision disorders can account for more than 8 billion dollars in lost productivity per year.

Making sure employees have the option of vision benefits so that they can get their vision checked regularly is a smart and easy way to manage this problem within the workplace.

Skills Gap

Does your organization have a skills gap? If so, you're not alone. In a recent American Society for Training & Development survey that was published in the new white paper Bridging the Skills Gap, 79.2 percent of organizations admitted that the skills of their current workforce did not match the changes in their business strategy.

The education system and organizations in the United States, along with the local, state, and federal government, bear equal responsibility in closing this skills gap. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 75 percent of the job growth in the future will come from three occupations: computer and math, healthcare practictioners and technical, and education, training, and library.

Have you assessed the skills and compentencies needed by your workforce now and in the future? Do you know how to bridge that gap?

There is no time to waste. Organizations will be left behind if they can't drive their business strategies forward.