Besides the great contribution from Josh Bersin - Today's State of Talent Management - that appeared on the Community Post earlier this week, there are three others that are worth a look:

If you're thinking about using social media as part of your talent acquisition strategy, Ben Parr's recent post on Mashable about Why Teens Dont Tweet will be very helpful.  Parr reports that Twitter is mainly used by the over 24's with those in the 45-54 year old bracket 36% more likely to visit - typically to promote business activity and to gather information and news.  The main reasons given for the lower adoption of Twitter by teens are that they have less to say and care more about engaging with close friends via Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.  Interesting stuff!

On to managing talent:

Anthony Tjan's wrote an excellent piece for Harvard Business Publishing on How to Align Employee and Company Interests by asking direct reports to list their 5 priorities for a period of time and then asking 3 simple questions:  Which priorities will have the biggest impact, which is of most interest to the individual and which is the individual most likely to make a success of?  Tjan writes "that real magic for an employee happens when these three questions produce the same answer."

Continuing the productivity theme, Dr Jim Sellner wrote a frantic post on the 3 Whys of Talent Management - For Joy, Profit and Financial Sustainability that appeared in ezinearticles.com.  In his piece Sellner illustrates how organisations are wasting money by failing to effectively manage the performance and development of employees - a view that sits neatly alongside Josh Bersin's post.

I hope you enjoy this weeks Three To Read as much as I did.

Please leave your comments.