When Marc De Boom started his professional career in the late eighties’, spotting people who were professionally active at the age of sixty was a true challenge. Today, we are all expected to work longer and contribute ‘till end of career’ in a healthy way with skills and competencies that are business-relevant/value-for-money ‘at every moment in time.’ But how to prepare for this challenge?In the truly inspiring “Longer lives…longer careers…how to stay in the game?”, Marc shares with us the lighthouse principles that guided him towards a long and happy career.

Traditionally, the worlds of numbers and people seem far apart. Whereas Finance focuses on budgets and financial impact, HR focuses on engagement, development and human potential. Anneleen Decaluwé argues that overcoming this tension is an absolute prerequisite for building a solid financial foundation in a resilient, committed organisational culture. The classic distinction between ‘hard figures’ (finance) and ‘soft factors’ (HR) is no longer tenable. After all, financial planning and people strategy are two sides of the same coin. In her article, she outlines four areas where the added value of HR/Finance collaboration has been proven in practice.

Just as a compass is only useful if you know where you want to go, metrics only have value if they are linked to strategy, business model, culture and performance. In her thoroughly elaborated article ‘Het Kompas in Woelig Water-Hoe HR Metrics je organisatie strategisch d juiste koers laten varen’, Irena De Saedeleer shows how to interweave HR data with business metrics and strategic priorities so that dashboards not only report, but also steer. It is not a technical manual, but rather a guide for preliminary analysis.

While our societies and labor markets are more diverse than ever, diversity in boards and top management remains alarmingly absent. Kim De Meulenaere argues that diversity in the boardroom is not just “the right thing to do”. It is a strategic imperative: organizations that fail to diversify at the top risk becoming less innovative, less adaptable and less competitive. Kim describes in “Diversity at the top: Why It Matters and How to Act” three concrete steps to move towards a truly diverse board.