Most business leaders would prefer to look ahead rather than look sideways.  But unfortunately, most business leaders today have no choice but to focus on the healthcare costs now increasingly in their peripheral vision. Take Massachusetts for example, while more than 40% of the small companies surveyed recently plan to add new employees to their businesses during the next year, the survey also found that the number one concern - as it relates to growth - for these small businesses was the cost of paying for health insurance and related products (Citizen Bank/Babson College survey). 

In Massachusetts, proposed legislation that increases the healthcare cost burden on small business is but the latest example of how being forced to focus on one business issue can take the eye off another business issue.  Workforce acquisition is increasingly tied to -  and affected by - the "workplace" issues around the periphery. One might argue that the investment - by way of capital and time - in healthcare challenges takes away from a CEO´s focus on building the workforce. Furthermore, the skill sets required by those recruitment and staffing professionals chartered with being the champions of workforce acquisition now must understand and react to the influences that are causing  them ...to look sideways.