HR departments are occasionally accused of sponsoring flavor-of-the-month agendas. Some of these accusations may be justified. However, there is one current flavor-of-the-month agenda that HR should champion with great focus and zeal. That agenda is business agility. In the midst of today’s complex, turbulent, and uncertain business environment, organisational agility is a key to short term and sustainable success. Periods of stability may be needed but they will be increasingly short-lived,

However, it may occur that in some cases HR departments have a greater focus on stability and steady consistency. This tendency is reflected in the occasional magazine article that characterises HR as the corporate police, the writer and enforcer of rules, the internal champion and the protector of employees from the consequences of competitive reality. Let me suggest three reasons why such reputational attributions might occur. I will conclude with what might be done to reverse some of these trends that will enable HR to be a central play in building and sustaining business agility.

Why reputational attributions might occur
First, several years ago a leading HR association ran a survey of its members asking “What are the highest values that HR should have?” Number one was harmony, that is, peaceful consistency. In the midst of competitive turbulence, peaceful harmony may be part of the problem and not part of the solution. In the midst of dynamic change, if some people are not feeling anxious or threatened, they are hiding from the necessity of personal and business agility.

“HR departments are occasionally accused of sponsoring flavor-of-the-month agendas”

Second, many HR practice areas are implemented over large populations of the organisation. It takes considerable time and effort to design and implement systemic HR practice areas such as performance measurement, rewards, basic training, and employee work rules. Once that work is done the sunk costs of quickly redoing them are financially and psychologically formidable. Thus the tendency is toward status quo stability.

Third, many HR departments are internally focused. They conceptualise employees as their target customers; their line of sight in language and logic is to the inside rather than to the outside. As we have discussed in earlier articles in Inside HR, the research from the University of Michigan is reasonably clear. HR professionals tend to know more about internal issues (e.g. HR practices, supply chain management, accounting, etc.) than external issues (customers, competitors, global financial trends, etc). And, yet, HR professionals with a primary line of sight to the outside significantly outperform HR professionals with a line of sight to the inside. It is tough to create an agile organisation without being intimately familiar with the drivers that mandate business agility.

Proactively sponsor agility
First, HR departments need to readjust their own culture. The mindset within HR will need to shift from stability, harmony and internal line of site to dynamic, tolerance for dissonance and external line of sight. This shift will need to be reflected in HR’s staffing criteria and development expectations.

Second, HR professionals will need knowledge not only about internal employee requirements but also about external competitive trends and customer requirements. However, if HR is to truly play a proactive role in creating business agility, it must fully understand the underlying social, political and economic trends that drive competitive dynamics and customer demands. By so doing, HR may then focus on creating organisation capabilities that create turbulence for its competitors instead of responding to turbulence that is created by its competitors.

“It is a great time for HR to embed in itself, the agility that it seeks to embed in the rest of its organisations”

Third, historically, HR has focused on communicating internal information through the workforce. In the future HR will help create agile organisations by infusing employees at all levels with external information. HR will become the expert purveyors of market reality throughout the company. It will be a major task for HR to embed competitive reality in the hearts and minds of all employees. It will ensure that employees continuously update their knowledge and skills to reflect the reality of market turbulence. This important HR agenda will be the foundation of business agility.

This is a great time to be an HR professional. It is a great time for HR to embed in itself, the agility that it seeks to embed in the rest of its organisations.

Action steps

• Recognise the culture change that HR might need to undertake from stable harmony to edgy agility.
• Deeply understand the political, social, and economic lead indicators in the competitive environment that drive the mandate for business agility.
• Avoid being trapped by the sunk costs of the status quo; rather, be prepared to continuously undo what has already done and be prepared to create new practices that drive emerging sources of competitive advantage.
• Rebalance the distribution of institutional information from internally based information to external information about customers, competitors and the economic reality.

Image source: Depositphotos

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A number of leadership and management thinkers and institutional economists have posited that the
“enemy of the great is the good”. This has been eloquently stated by Vilfredo Pareto, popularised by the 80/20 rule and formalised through Pareto Analysis. I suggest that an additional dimension might aid us in HR to focus our efforts to create greater value through three particular HR activities. The additional dimension is ease versus difficulty.

Might I suggest both logically and empirically that it is frequently the case that the 20 per cent of value is relatively easy to achieve; whereas the 80 per cent of the value is difficult to achieve albeit through 20 per cent of our efforts. Thus, the easy/good is the enemy of the difficult/best.

Before giving three examples, let me first state that the 20 per cent activities create good value but they are frequently justified because they do create some value. However, I suggest that we may focus on the 20 per cent activities not because they create greatest value but because they are easy to do.

On the other hand, the 80 per cent activities that create greatest value may be overlooked because they are more difficult the achieve. They frequently lie outside the HR comfort zone. The following is an initial checklist of three easy/good activities that may deter our focus from the difficulty/best activities.

First: internal customer focus versus external customer focus
HR has traditionally conceptualised internal leaders and employees as its “customer”. This focus strongly contradicts our other mantra which is to be business partners or partners in the business. Since the customer of the business is the external (i.e. buying customer) then if we are to be a partner in the business then the buying customer should dominate our line of sight as we design and develop our HR practices.

“In the past few years, the HR field has been swept along by the tsunami of the talent agenda”

Our ultimate goal is to create and sustain human and organisational capabilities that enable our firms to meet customer requirements better than the competition. We can only achieve this goal if we have a clear and complete understanding of and focus on the requirements of the eternal, money-paying customer.

Second: talent focus versus organisational focus
In the past few years, the HR field has been swept along by the tsunami of the talent agenda. Ensuring the availability of talent is clearly a good thing.

However, if we overemphasise the talent agenda, we may forget that focusing on individual talent may sub-optimise our contributions. A focus on individual talent will result in the human whole being equal to the sum of the parts. But competitive advantage is found in making the organisational whole greater than the sum of the talent parts. In addition, over time the leading competitors in the same industry will have approximately the same level of raw talent.

Therefore, you must have raw talent, or you lose. But competitive advantage is not found in the raw talent that you have but rather what you do with it after you have it. And that is primarily an organisation challenge. Plus, research at the University of Michigan strongly indicates that individual HR talent will have one-quarter the impact on business value when compared with the impact of the integrated HR organisation.

“A key organisational capability is the orchestration of the total flow of external information about customers, competitors and technology throughout the firm for competitive advantage”

Third: focus on HR information versus business information
Another hot HR topic is HR analytics, that is, the application of information logic to measure and drive HR-related issues. This is clearly a good thing to do. However, in the information age, a key organisational capability is the orchestration of the total flow of external information about customers, competitors and technology throughout the firm for competitive advantage. When the information agenda is appropriately framed as an organisational capability, HR shoulders heavy responsibility for this agenda.

However, conceptualising and implementing a comprehensive information strategy may be extraordinarily difficult. It is a difficult/best activity. Our research at the University of Michigan is clear. HR departments that focus on designing and implementing a comprehensive business information strategy will have twice the impact on customer and shareholder value than HR departments that focus primarily on HR metrics themselves.

What this means for HR
HR professionals should be vigilant in focusing thoughts and actions on the difficult/best activities while maintaining the easy/good activities. We should not allow the easy/good to displace the difficult/best.

3 action steps for HR

• Identify what constitutes the difficult/best HR activities.
• Develop the capabilities to design and deliver the difficult/best HR activities including emphasising line-of-sight to external customers, building organisation capabilities and orchestrating the flow of business information.
• Continually rebalance HR’s focus from easy/good activities to difficult/best.

Image source: Depositphotos

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This approach to leadership is about leading and managing in the “open source era” which we currently live in, said Rajeev Peshawaria, CEO of the Iclif Leadership and Governance Centre and author of the bestseller Open Source Leadership.

This era is marked by two things: uber-connectivity, and uber-population.

“Everybody understands that everyone is connected 24/7, 365,” he said.

“Uber-population means that we are currently at 7.5 billion people today, and going up to 10 billion by 2060.

“So those are the two overarching factors that define the open source era.”

Peshawaria, who was speaking ahead of Skillsoft’s Perspectives 2018: The Age of Learning On-Demand conference, which will be held on Tuesday 22 May 2018 at The Star, Sydney.

Uber-connectivity is “obliterating traditional business models” in nearly every industry, according to Peshawaria, who said uber-population is also creating new markets and opportunities as well as daunting challenges for the planet as a whole.

This era of open source leadership has very significant implications for organisational leaders, who Peshawaria said are “totally exposed” and unprepared for change.

“The question is, are leadership and management practises keeping pace with everything that’s changing around the world in large companies?”

“Are leadership and management practises keeping pace with everything that’s changing around the world in large companies?”

Peshawaria, who has extensive global experience in leadership and organisational consulting and who also served as chief learning officer of both Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley, reiterated his point through direct audience feedback.

“When I typically speak in conferences, I start by asking people to raise their hands if they believe that technology has changed both business and social life beyond recognition, just in the past five to seven years,” he said.

“Without exception everyone raises their hand – no matter where in the world I’m speaking. “Then I ask them to raise their hands if they believe that leadership and management practises in large companies are evolving at an equal pace.

“And this time, no one raises their hand.

“So organisations are not utilising these concepts as much they should.

“There are a few companies that are getting it and are changing their services rapidly but unfortunately most are still clinging to the past,” he said.

The old approach to succession planning
An inability to let go of what they’ve done and how they’ve done things in the past is the biggest stumbling block for leaders in this regard, and Peshawaria gave the example of succession planning.

Many organisations still use a nine box grid of performance versus potential as the basis for assessing whether high-performing, high potentials should be groomed for succession into senior leadership roles in three to five years.

“There are a few companies that are getting it and are changing their services rapidly but unfortunately most are still clinging to the past”

However, the problem with this process begins with the assessment of potential, Peshawaria explained.

“They’re given personality tests, they’re given psychometric evaluations, they’re put through assessment centres and then a committee decides whether they are high potential or not.

“And then they end up in the top right hand box and these people are given stretch assignments, given coaches and mentors, and they’re sent to Harvard for training.

“All kinds of investments are made in them so that in a few years they can be future leaders of the company,” he said.

Boards also receive presentations from HR and management every year to provide updates on succession planning activity, key roles and high potentials that are being groomed for them.

However, in the open source era where 40 per cent of the US workforce is already opting for freelance/contract work, Peshawaria said there is no guarantee that people are going to stay with a company for five years.

“What is the guarantee that the skills we’re teaching potential leaders today through these expensive development options, are actually going to be skills needed five years from now?

“So the whole machinery of succession planning needs to be re-examined,” he said.

Crowd-sourcing succession planning
Peshawaria instead suggested a more organic approach to succession planning without excluding the bulk of the employee population (both full-time and contract).

“What if the CEO was to run an innovation contest every year, and anybody in the company that has any idea can participate voluntarily?” he said.

Workers would have to work on their own time and submit a detailed project by a certain date, with the top ten presented to the board or senior management – with the very best put into practise.

“The whole machinery of succession planning needs to be re-examined”

“Now, those people that raise their hand year-after-year without any pushing, who come up with great ideas – aren’t they your future leaders?

“Aren’t they screaming at the top of their lungs saying, ‘I can work hard, I’m willing to go the extra mile to show you my energy.’

“These are the people we should invest in, so what I’m suggesting here is an internal crowdsourcing approach to succession planning – rather than a forced method that we’ve been using all these years (which hasn’t produced the best results anyway).”

How HR can improve leadership development
This “let the cream rise to the top” philosophy has a number of implications for HR, who can either lead the leadership development transformation or be left behind, Peshawaria explained.

“The most progressive HR departments understand what is unfolding in the 4th Industrial Revolution, as some people call it, and are taking steps,” he said.

“The more freedom given to employees, the more productivity and responsibility you will get.

“The best employers are setting their employees free to do what they think is right, and allowing them the freedom to work as much or as little as each employee prefers – and pay accordingly.

“They’re even allowing unlimited vacations because they realised that, if somebody is burned out and they need three months off, it’s better to give it to them, rather than to start the recruiting process all over again,” said Peshawaria.

In the current open source era, people can choose how much or how little they want to work in a free agency market, and companies need to create and deploy systems and structures that allow this kind of freedom – or risk losing full-time employees to the free agent market.

“So HR needs to understand this, lead this transformation and come up with things that work for them in their context, rather than sort of resisting the tsunami of the 21st century change that’s already here,” said Peshawaria.

Peshawaria will be speaking at Skillsoft’s Perspectives 2018: The Age of Learning On-Demand conference, which will be held on Tuesday 22 May 2018 at The Star, Sydney. The event will provide attendees with industry insight from experts and thought leaders, as well as networking opportunities from HR and learning professionals from various sectors to discuss key HR & learning trends. For more information please visit the conference registration site. Image source: iStock

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At the moment it seems we can’t escape the phrase ‘death by automation’ and visions of mass job losses and worker displacement stemming from rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotics.

While the fear of automation may leave a cloud of uncertainty hanging over workplaces, progressive organisations are viewing it as a catalyst to a talent revolution; where people are more valued and undertake more exciting work than ever before.

At Gartner, we see automation as an umbrella term for a variety of strategies, skills, tools and techniques that organisations are using to remove the need for labour; increasing the predictability and reliability of products and services while reducing the cost of delivery.

While removing the need for labour is central to this definition, automation, through the development of new skills and business opportunities, actually produces more net jobs than it eliminates.

Skillsets are changing
Automation not only creates new classes of work, it changes the nature of how work is done and the skills necessary to deliver business impact.

As competition for technology skills continues to grow, the fastest growing demand is not for workers who create the technology, like coders and AI engineers, but instead for individuals whose skills relate to the application of technology in enhancing business processes. Think customer service reps working with chatbots, business analysts completing complex data mining and salespeople working with automated CRM systems.

While AI receives most of the hype, the real force of change is coming from intelligent augmentation where AI and smart machines simply enhance human aptitude and capabilities. Work will continue to essentially revolve around human beings.

“The fastest growing demand is not for workers who create the technology … but instead for individuals whose skills relate to the application of technology in enhancing business processes”

The new worker
Rather than wiping out jobs en-masse, automation is creating the need for employees to reinvent themselves to be fluent in both technology and business. Traditional jobs requiring a narrow skill set will make way for less repetitive, non-routine work requiring complex problem solving, curiosity, foresight, empathy, resilience and accelerated learning.

Free from the frustration and distraction of repetitive and low-value administrative tasks, employees are likely to thrive in the dynamic, cognitive work that robots cannot perform.

An emerging work style we expect to see is one where an employee’s unique fingerprints are all over the final output or product. Fuelled by intelligent augmentation and an increasingly flexible labour market, we will see the rise of a new breed of professional, proud of what they do, what they create and pursuing autonomy, connection and purpose in their work.

The good news is that this isn’t being overlooked by leaders. Gartner research shows that more leaders want to empower employees by giving them more autonomy to make business decisions and change how their work is done.

CEOs and CHROs also believe there is a need to invest significantly more in training employees for future roles, increasing career mobility across the organisation and retraining employees at risk of redundancy.

Embracing the revolution
There’s a disruptive Uber, Netflix or Amazon coming for every organisation and they are fuelled by the best talent in the market. Organisations must develop and nurture the skills of current staff and leverage them across the organisation in new ways if they want to embrace a changing workplace and drive growth.

Organisations will be required to determine the critical capabilities required for the future, along with the internal and external talent supply and gaps that need to be filled. A strategic workforce planning framework focused on the following will help organisations achieve this.

“More leaders want to empower employees by giving them more autonomy to make business decisions and change how their work is done”

1. Bridge: To address critical skill gaps, organisations should proactively bridge their skills shortages by helping current employees develop the right skills to align personal growth plans with organisational needs. Instead of promoting a vertical career track, they can adapt their career frameworks to support lateral training and movement.

Organisations will need to provide the flexibility, time and cognitive space for their employee’s top acquire these new skills. If we expect them to do this in their own time and at their own expense, it simply will not happen.

2. Build: L&D functions will need to reinvent themselves and drive a culture of continuous on-the-job learning across the organisation. Employees will need to know what capabilities will be required in the future and how those new skills will help them develop in their careers.

Development, particularly in technology skills, will need to be bite-sized, delivered in real time and deployed in such a way that today’s digital learners can engage when, where and how they want.

3. Borrow: As employees continue to leave employers for the flexibility, variety and security, offered by the gig economy, employers will need a dedicated contingent workforce strategy, where contracting arrangements will need to be simplified and streamlined so it becomes easier to engage contingent talent.

4. Buy: Recruiters will need to lift their game considerably, building up-to-date market intelligence, advanced sourcing skills and the ability to coach candidates on their careers. Companies will also need to create an effortless candidate experience, where mobile-based, single click options are now the preferred method of application.

Hear Aaron McEwan speak on how HR can help lead the business through volatility and support organisational performance, at Gartner’s ReimagineHR 2018. Image source: iStock

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The Fortune 500 medical technology company, which employs more than 33,000 people globally and generates more than $US12 billion globally in revenue, focuses heavily on talent management, and in particular, the identification, assessment and selection of individuals based on their unique strengths.

Senior director of HR for Stryker’s South Pacific business, Erin Cramlet, said: “I often go to HR conferences and the number one question I get asked is, ‘What do you do that’s different? What’s the secret to your success?’

“My response is always the same: we hire really, really well. We are passionate about recruitment and spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on finding the right person,” she said.

“We are looking for passionate, driven people who want to win.

“In the interview process we tell candidates that we are going to take our time getting to know each other, because we want to ensure there is a mutual, long-term fit: we’re not looking to date, we’re looking to marry.”

The importance of getting recruitment right is understood right across the business, and Cramlet explained that sales candidates can also expect to meet with Stryker’s South Pacific president at a final interview, as they are on the frontlines with customers.

Stryker uses Gallup’s selection and strengths tools to assist with talent management across the business, and one of the first steps in this process is studying Stryker’s high performers and identifying what makes them unique.

“We partner with Gallup to develop tools that help to identify the exceptional characteristics in other individuals throughout the recruitment process, which we’ve found helps us exponentially,” said Cramlet.

Stryker, which was the number one company in the 2017 Best Places to Work in Australia (100-999 employees) study, also partners with Gallup to assist with developing talent throughout the business.

“We are passionate about recruitment and spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on finding the right person”

“Our philosophy is, once you’ve spent that time and hired somebody that’s really talented, it’s important that they have the opportunity to have a diverse career without the need to move companies,” said Cramlet.

Stryker has been very purposeful in its focus on individual’s natural talents and strengths, and Cramlet said this has “dramatically improved our trajectory as a business” (in addition to its turnover rate, which averages 12.5 per cent, compared to an industry average of 18 per cent).

Stryker’s HR team and line managers also help employees discover their strengths and follow their passions.

“Strengths can sometimes be a double-edged sword – they can be used positively or negatively, so we work with people to understand how to use their strengths in a positive way, and encourage them to own their career using those strengths,” said Cramlet.

Rethinking career choices and roles
Stryker South Pacific has a strong internal mobility program and in 2017 more than 20 per cent of open roles were filled internally.

Cramlet attributes this to a stronger focus on the talents and performance of an individual when assessing their suitability for a role, as opposed to purely looking at their qualifications or experience.

“We are a career destination. We look at what people are great at, and what talents make them special, and through their career, how we can help them to move into roles, including ones they may not have thought about,” she said.

“This helps us to think outside of the box, and it’s quite freeing for people to know they won’t be pigeonholed and that they can go into different roles based on their performance, talents and interests.”

This same approach to recruitment is applied externally, which has also proven to be successful for the growing medical technology company.

“In being talent focused, we are able to look more broadly and explore different talent pipelines,” said Cramlet.

“It’s important that they have the opportunity to have a diverse career without the need to move companies”

Focusing on quality management
The quality of managers is also a key driver of engagement across the business, according to Cramlet, who said the next important step in getting the most out of talented individuals is to pair them with great managers.

“Even if someone is in a role they like, but their manager doesn’t support, listen to or help them, they’re not going to enjoy where they work,” she said.

“The manager is so pivotal to the whole employee engagement process, and we have found that our best managers share one particular trait: then genuinely care about their people.

“These managers often refer to their teams as a second family, and they do things together socially, such as having barbecues or going to sporting events together.”

Cramlet said the employee relationship needs to be based on give and take, and good managers understand this and are willing to work with team members to get the best out of them.

“If someone is going through a tough time, it is important to have a group of people around you who are supportive.

“Good managers recognise this and might say, ‘this is a time where we need to come together as a team, so I’m going to flex a little bit more to help you – not only because you’re a teammate, but because you’re my friend and I want the best for you.’”

Stryker emphasises growing and promoting its managers, and conducts regular talent reviews with each manager throughout the year.

As part of the talent review process, managers share feedback on employees, how they are developing their people and provide insights into their management potential.

This way, Stryker ensures it identifies future leaders early and develops them accordingly.

Stryker offers a suite of different programmes to help develop potential managers, including a year-long “management exposure programme” in which the company trains individuals in the basics of management, and they learn skills in interviewing, having tough conversations with employees and conducting development plans.

“It’s quite freeing for people to know they won’t be pigeonholed and that they can go into different roles based on their performance, talents and interests”

“Developing great managers, who naturally understand the importance of talent is critical,” said Cramlet.

“One of the best pieces of advice I would share comes from Marcus Buckingham’s First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.

“He said, ‘People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.’ I couldn’t agree more.”

 Stryker’s top 5 tips for strengths-based talent management 

1. Start with recruitment. Be selective and look for people who are a good fit for the role, team and culture. Don’t be afraid to take your time. It may be painful in the short-term, but if you get this right, you will see your organisation soar to new heights.
2. Help people discover their strengths. Think of talent as the multiplier to everything you do. You will get more out of your people when you invest in their strengths instead of trying to fix their weaknesses.   
3. Remember, every person is different. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach you can adopt to get the best out of your people. The best managers not only recognise this, they embrace it.
4. Don’t underestimate the power of caring. Relationships are the glue that hold great workplaces together. You will be amazed at how committed and collaborative employees are when they feel that someone takes a personal interest in them. People will go above and beyond for those they care about.
5. Think of careers as a climbing wall, not a ladder. Encourage continued growth, development and organisational influence by creating and valuing career paths that move laterally, diagonally and down, as well as up. Some of the best learning comes from the experiences you least expect.

Image source: supplied

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1. HR transformation, Round 2
In 2017, you wrote a seven-figure cheque for new HR technology and downsized your generalist population. Congratulations – you’re now ready to start your real HR transformation. Round 1 of HR transformation was a necessary, helpful and often painful step to prepare HR to better serve the organisation. We’ve seen too many organisations stop there and forget that it’s the quality of your HR leaders, not the efficiency of your processes, that create a respected HR team.

In 2018, the early adopters of HR transformation have lived through Round 1 and we see them starting Round 2. Round 2 further refines who’s in your HR team and aggressively builds their capabilities in the areas the business cares most about. The starting point is a full review of your post-transformation HR leaders against an elevated set of standards. We’ve seen 20 to 33 per cent of those who made it through Round 1 can’t demonstrate the post-transformation skills needed (especially influencing senior leaders and creating crisp strategy) in Round 2. The second step is an aggressive education program to build the business, strategic and talent building capabilities of the remaining leaders.

2. HR analytics returns to earth
“Don’t believe the hype” concluded our 2016 HR Analytics report and two years later we have no reason to change our minds. In 2018, companies will learn to separate the meaningful from the possible in the HR analytics field. That reckoning will show that HR analytics will provide incremental information but won’t fundamentally influence HR’s practices, mission or focus. Companies will move forward with more caution in this area in 2018. They’ll clarify the exact value they expect from analytics and better structure its work.

The challenge in finding transformational value in HR analytics is that we already know what allows people and companies to work well together. HR analytics will need to do more than restate the current fact base to be seen as valuable and the knowledge it generates will likely be much narrower and situation-specific than once thought.

We see this as a helpful evolution since we saw too many companies staffing up this function with starry-eyed ideas about what it would produce but little idea about how it would benefit the business.

“HR analytics will provide incremental information but won’t fundamentally influence HR’s practices, mission or focus”

3. Transparency gets a foothold
It’s one of the largest and most inexplicable challenges we see globally – why companies refuse to be more open with their employees. Given that younger employees expect more transparency and organisations like Bridgewater model 100 per cent transparency, 2018 will see significant pressure on companies to be more open with employees about where they stand. Performance, potential, development and company strategy are all in the sights of employees who believe they deserve more openness.

We hear three excuses from companies about why they’re not more transparent – we aren’t “ready,” we don’t know how, and we’re afraid of the consequences. Our experience is that the first two excuses aren’t based in fact (or are easily corrected) and the third is an irrational fear that being open will cause your best talent leave or your worst to stagnate. As Marshall Goldsmith once told us, “Transparency does not have to equal total disclosure.” But, you have to make the decision about “What’s the optimal length of time to lie to your employees.”

4. Accountability
Whether it’s developing your team or delivering on diversity goals, we’re seeing leading-edge companies turn the accountability dial-up high. Accountability has been a soft term in HR for many years. “You’re accountable to do…” was heard by managers as “it would be really nice, if you have some extra time, to do…” Companies are changing the weak view of accountability by using focused accountability and clear metrics to drive action.

Focused accountability identifies the few talent activities that truly drive business results, i.e. set a few big, challenging goals and accelerate the growth of your best talent. It adds a simple quality and quantity metric to each accountability, often driven through a one-question survey. Data is collected and shown to managers and their manager on at least a quarterly basis. It’s used as a data point in both performance review conversations and talent review discussions.

“Companies are changing the weak view of accountability by using focused accountability and clear metrics to drive action”

5. Building talent-building managers
They’re the true engine of talent management and development but that engine often sputters or stalls when it’s needed most. In 2018, we’ll see companies get serious about building their managers’ capabilities to build better talent faster. We’ve seen most excuses for lack of talent building success fall away. CEOs are now big supporters of talent management. HR has made talent–building processes simpler and more standardised. The business case for good talent management is abundantly clear. All that’s left is managers’ capability to execute the talent-building activities that drive higher performance.

We’re hearing far more interest in creating talent-building leaders through focused, practical development. Going away are the deadly boring courses on how to write a SMART goal and online learning that neither engages or challenges leaders. In its place are dynamic simulations where managers learn both what to do to build better talent faster and how to do it. The standards set raise the bar significantly on managers and, when coupled with the accountability prediction, ensure that managers are capable and serious about their job to produce talent and lift their talent management game.

Image source: iStock

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The fact that most companies do them, however, doesn’t mean that they’re done well. We often see companies with overly complex processes, vague definitions of potential, ill-equipped HR leaders, no follow up and other ills that undercut the effectiveness of this potentially powerful process.

Our experience conducting hundreds of talent reviews and building the process for complex global companies shows us that six factors create a successful talent review:

1. A crisp, company-specific definition of potential. In your potential model is wrong, we found significant issues with the two most popular potential models. In both models, items that the authors claim predict potential actually predict performance, there’s no independent scientific evidence that either model is valid and neither model takes into account how an individual fits with a company’s specific needs.

Rather than using a generic potential model, we suggest you create a company-specific definition of potential that includes the following elements:

• A track record of sustained high performance across fundamentally different challenges. Past performance in one job tells us little about future performance in a different job. But, sustained high performance across different, highly challenging scenarios indicates high cognitive capability (IQ) and provides insights about resilience, ambition and other critical personality factors that predict potential.
• Fit with the 3 – 4 capabilities your strategy requires. In Companies Change but Leaders Don’t, we describe how an individual’s fit with their company’s future needs helps predict their potential. Use the executive fit matrix in that article to determine the 3 – 4 capabilities that will differentiate your highest performing leader in the next 3 – 5 years. Ignore “good citizen” behaviours and focus on defining outcomes that your top talent will deliver

2. A light process. You should be able to conduct a talent review with two sheets of paper – a 9-box grid (or your favourite tool) and a succession chart. A talent review is an operational process to keep your talent production line moving forward, so any material that doesn’t directly assist in that process isn’t needed. This includes things like employee profile development and maintenance that we consider to be among a company’s most wasteful activities. Likewise, summary charts, statistics and other superfluous material don’t improve your ability to predict a leader’s potential or develop it.

3. Manager accountability. Managers should be able to describe their team members’ strengths, weaknesses, behaviours and next development steps without the crutch of employee profiles. This is not a high bar – it’s a fundamental expectation of a manager. In a talent review, they should also be able to ask smart questions about their peers’ direct reports to ensure that their peers can justify their ratings. This doesn’t require that they know their peers’ talent (although that helps), but that they ask how a person compares to others rated similarly, what the next development steps are for that individual and how committed they are to their rating. Questions like, “Are you willing to stake your corporate reputation on this individual?” are a great way to test their true knowledge and commitment.

4. Savvy facilitation. An HR leader should facilitate talent review conversations until the organisation is experienced and capable enough for line leaders to do this on their own. Before the talent review, an HR leader should meet with every leader who will present talent in the meeting to review their assessments and screen for any controversial choices. In the talent review, savvy facilitation means:

• Fact-based discussions: The only facts discussed are those most relevant to accurately place and invest in an individual. Ad hominin comments are quickly shut down as are irrelevant comments about universities attended, marital status, etc.
• An independent view from HR: Whenever possible, HR should have an independent view about the talent being discussed and actively participate in the discussion. HR is the neutral player in the organisation, interested only in the best overall outcome. If they do not have that point of view their role in the meeting is reduced to simply facilitating – a task that could be given to anyone with facilitation skills.

5. Development decisions for all high potentials. In your talent review session, you will have thoroughly discussed each high potential’s strengths, weaknesses and development needs. You will have calibrated that the group agrees with those findings. You will have the right people in the room to make smart, aligned decisions about that high potential’s next development steps. This means that a key output of a high-quality talent review is to identify the primary development action for each high potential. When you make this decision in the meeting, you have the benefit of not only having holistic input from your peers, but also their alignment and support of that decision.

6. Flawless follow up. It’s sometimes the simplest steps that trip companies in their talent review process. Talent reviews mean nothing without follow-up on the decisions made. We frequently see companies that hold fact-based, disciplined talent reviews and then fail to take the actions they committed to take. Flawless follow up is easier than it sounds and includes:

• HR records every decision made: If it’s decided that the company should move Suzie to Kuala Lumpur next year, this action should be recorded along with the person responsible for that action and date due.
• HR follows up monthly: Once a month, the HR leader who facilitated the process or owns the outcome should check with the leader for each action item to see if that action has occurred. They should offer to help move the process forward the leader isn’t moving quickly enough.
• Integrate reporting into regular group meetings: Most functions or regions have a regular meeting cycle and talent review follow up should be integrated into that. The status of talent review actions should be tracked and reported just like any key financial or operational metric.

There’s no company process more important than accurately selecting and investing in your future leaders. Poor choices place your business at risk, waste investments and derail careers. A well-run process takes standards, process and discipline, but is completely achievable by companies of every size. Start by committing your company to flawlessly execute the six steps guaranteed to produce great results.

Image source: iStock

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Roy Hill is an integrated iron ore mining, rail and port operation in the Pilbara region of West Australia, and with iron ore reserves of more than 2.4 billion tonnes, it is set to become one of the largest mining projects in Australia producing 55 million tonnes of iron ore per annum over more than 20 years.

The project, which is 70 per cent owned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, requires significant manpower and Bowker explained that a different approach was required to help resource the project successfully.

“The existing HR technology of traditional ATS databases typically limits the capacity of an internal recruitment function to provide a truly proactive solution, and is therefore heavily reactive in its recruitment outcomes,” said Bowker, who was speaking ahead of the HR Innovation & Tech Fest, which will be held from 27-28 November 2017 at the Hilton Sydney.

Traditional ATS systems can also have the effect of ‘de-humanising’ the candidate experience by delivering automated messages to candidates with very little interaction or connection, he explained.

Roy Hill has recently gone from a construction phase into production phase, ramping up its employee numbers to around 1750 staff, with hundreds more to be hired over the coming 12-18 months (with the large majority of workers employed on a full-time basis, and a small percentage of contractors).

Bowker said Roy Hill’s new approach to talent acquisition has been markedly different to traditional recruitment methods, and this approach has provided four noticeable benefits:

• Providing more opportunity for internal recruiters to connect and form relationships with people
• Recruiting in a more proactive manner to reduce time to hire
• Improving productivity, and
• Focusing on quality of hire and diversity initiatives.

“The key to our success in this approach has been the buy-in from our leadership and recruitment function”

Roy Hill set up a talent community about two months ago (based on LiveHire) and Bowker said this has provided a number of other benefits, including reduction of agency and job board costs; enhancing the employment brand; and improving job satisfaction among recruiters by allowing them more time to add value to a process, rather than administering a process.

The platform integrates into SuccessFactors, and Bowker said he expects hard numbers to change significantly in the coming months.

“Early indicators are showing that time to hire is on a downward trend (our aim is 15 days, from an average of 45-60),” he said.

“Productivity improvements are a direct result of a reduced time to hire.

“We’re starting to measure the quality of hire (turnover in the first six months) but this is a lag indicator and won’t really be visible until 6 to 12 months later.”

Diversity is also trending upwards, currently at between 20 to 25 per cent – up from 18 to 20 per cent in recent months.

“The key to our success in this approach has been the buy-in from our leadership and recruitment function,” he said.

“We have also recognised the importance of technology integration to ensure there is a seamless experience for our candidates and for our recruiters using the technology to gain the most benefits from it.”

Roy Hill is also promoting the talent community to various social platforms, referral and alumni programs, and other mediums to ensure growth of the talent ecosystem.

“We were thrilled that within the first two weeks of launching our talent community, more than 30,000 candidates had completed their online profiles and raised their hands to seek a Roy Hill opportunity,” said Bowker.

“We have also completed a bulk recruitment campaign in record time, shaving almost four weeks off the average time to hire”

One of the more significant benefits of Roy Hill’s approach to talent acquisition is sourcing ‘hard to find’ talent – saving time and money on recruitment initiatives.

“We have also completed a bulk recruitment campaign in record time, shaving almost four weeks off the average time to hire for a campaign of this nature,” he said.

Female participation in the mining and resources sector is about 18 per cent of the workforce, and while Roy Hill is slightly above industry average, Bowker said the project is aiming to improve on these results.

Using the talent community technology, 85 per cent of positions in a recent bulk recruitment campaign were filled by female candidates.

“While this could have been achieved within a traditional ATS, it would have required online advertisements and screening through potentially hundreds of resumes, adding weeks to the timeframe,” said Bowker.

Regarding longer-term talent management outcomes, he said Roy Hill is in a stronger position to fully develop pipelines of quality talent without the need to repeatedly advertise vacancies.

“Additionally, we can use this technology to identify our internal talent seeking alternative career development opportunities which will increase employee retention and enhance our company culture,” he said.

“We are implementing this technology in an agile way thanks in part to the type of organisation that we are.

“So far, our recruiters, the business and the candidates are highly receptive to this new form of talent technology.”

Bowker added that Roy Hill is also looking at other platforms to assist with volume recruiting, which incorporates video interview technology and upfront assessment technology to better assess people for values fit.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what sort of responses we get from particularly the blue-collar workers to those sorts of technologies as well,” he said.

“So far they’ve been very receptive to them.”

“Our recruiters, the business and the candidates are highly receptive to this new form of talent technology”

Bowker said that Roy Hill encourages new concepts and new ideas: “as we can only mine a certain amount of minerals out of the ground and we’ve got a set capacity, so we need to continually look at innovation and improvement to enhance our bottom line.”

Iron ore mining can be a difficult environment for workers, and retention of talent is also a focus for Roy Hill.

“We’re thinking about it constantly – how we can improve not only our work environment, but support to people who are with the organisation to stay long-term,” he said.

“Certainly turnover tends to be higher in any mining operation; we’re trying to look outside the square, so to speak, in relation to finding people that could potentially fit that environment.

“We’re also very focused on getting referrals and providing opportunities for families, such as husbands and wives, to work together.

“We try to recruit people who we believe are going to fit our organisational culture and work collaboratively with each other,” he said.

Jon Bowker will be speaking at the HR Innovation & Tech Fest, which will be held from 27-28 November 2017 at the Hilton Sydney. Use the code InsideHR to secure a $500 discount on the standard rate (for HR practitioners only). Image: supplied

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If you want to have a very interesting, unpopular but centrally important discussion, you may ask your senior leadership team, “What percentage of our people create 90 per cent of the value?” I have seen some companies conclude that the answer is less than 1 per cent whereas I have seen other companies conclude that the answer is 80 per cent. (Assume for a moment that value is defined by sustainable profitability.)

The question will be unpopular because it assumes that some people in some positions are more important than others. It is centrally important because it helps you to identify whether value is created by a small number or a large number of individuals. This determination is important because of its implications for what kinds of people are hired and promoted (superstars or team players), for how rewards are distributed (normal or power distributions), how decision-making authority is allocated (centralised or dispersed), and how symbols of status such as office space and parking places are allocated (lavish to a few or evenly dispensed).

It may occur in some companies that the importance of a small number of individuals is overemphasised and the value created by large number is underemphasised. When this occurs, teamwork might be undermined, feelings of inequity might abound, strategy implementation might be sub-optimised and institutional synergy might be lost.

“The question will be unpopular because it assumes that some people in some positions are more important than others”

If the importance of large numbers of people is overemphasised and the value of a small number of individual key value creators is underemphasised, there might be a tendency for superstar talent not to be hired, for superstars to leave and for key talent not to be fully leveraged.

Therefore, it is appropriate to ask ourselves, “Under what conditions should small numbers or large numbers of value creators be emphasised?”

• Startup versus mature. Business startups tend to be done by a small number of entrepreneurs (e.g. FedEx). When the firm is in the mature phase of its life cycle, value tends to be created by a larger number of people (e.g. Toyota assembly lines).
• Individual genius versus collective genius. In some companies’ business results might rest on the genius of a small number of individuals (e.g. Steve Jobs at Apple). However, business success might also depend on the senior leadership leveraging the genius of the collective institution (e.g. Tim Cook at Apple).
• Company values that focus on teamwork rather than individual prominence. We see this dynamic being debated at India’s Infosys in which the founders traditionally emphasised institutional equity; whereas the more recent senior leadership tended to emphasise C-suite eminence.
• Individual-based work versus collaborative based work. The nature of the work itself might emphasise individual effort (e.g. Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management) versus collective effort (e.g. Tata Consulting Services).
• Demographic homogeneity versus heterogeneity. In some countries the capability and performance distributions are assumed to be relatively narrow because the population of the country is relatively homogenous (e.g. Finland); thus, collective effort tends to be more emphasised. In countries in more heterogeneous populations, the distribution of performance may be broader and individual effort might tend to count more (e.g. England).
• Small numbers versus large numbers who are involved in strategy formation. In some firms it is assumed that a small number of individuals set the strategy and performance targets which the masses then execute (e.g. PetroChina). In other firms, it is assumed that strategy formulation and target setting is best done by large groups of individuals who collectively have access to broad cuts of market information and therefore may be more involved in strategy formation (e.g. Unilever)

“Getting the right balance is centrally important for the design and delivery performance enhancing HR practices”

Whether the above analysis indicates that small numbers of individuals or large numbers of individuals create the greatest value, getting the right balance is centrally important for the design and delivery performance enhancing HR practices.

Action items for HR

1. As an individual HR professional, have a clear idea of how your firm creates value in the form of sustainable profitability.
2. Pose the question to your management team, “What percent of our people create 90 percent of our values? Who are they and what do they do?”
3. Ensure an open, honest, non-political and business-focused discussion in the search for the answer to the above questions.
4. Translate the answers to these questions into their implications for staffing, measurement and rewards, and organisation design.

Image source: iStock

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Most organisations look at mobility as a reactive solution triggered, usually, by business growth or attrition, said Shakun Khanna, senior director, HCM strategy & transformation, Asia Pacific for Oracle.

He observed that only 10-12 per cent of organisations have mastered the “art of talent mobility” – which includes all movement of an employee during his/her career journey, within or outside an organisation.

“Lack of information is the biggest pitfall in the talent mobility process,” Khanna explained.

“And this is presented in multiple facets.

“Most companies do not have adequate information about their existing talent and their aspirations.”

According to Tapfin research, almost 80 per cent of organisations across Asia Pacific do not have real time, current data of who is working on their premises.

Khanna elaborated on an interesting case, in which a very large global IT firm was laying off people in one part of their business while hiring the same skill sets in another part of the business at the same time.

“This lack of information resulted in a huge loss for the organisation,” said Khanna, who was speaking ahead of a webinar on the practical steps HR professionals can take to improve talent mobility.

“Due to a lack of intelligent planning tools, organisations grossly miscalculate their talent requirements”

The other challenge is an organisation’s ability to predict its talent requirements.

“Due to a lack of intelligent planning tools, organisations grossly miscalculate their talent requirements.

“Often they end up hiring the wrong type of people at the wrong time and in the wrong place,” said Khanna, who gave the example of a large e-commerce company in India which hired a significant number of people with skills in a technology at a time when their board was talking about replacing that technology.

Khanna, who was the former CEO of Right Management in India and also served as head of IBM’s smarter workforce and head of employee engagement and leadership development for Gallup Consulting, cited research which found the newer generation may end up changing up to 7 careers and 22 jobs by the time they hit their retirement age.

“Imagine the loss if employers are not able to facilitate at least some of these movements within the organisation,” he said.

“Ironically, some organisations today do not consider an attrition to be avoidable or undesired if an individual has decided to make a career transition or pursue a different life goal.

“It sounds like the pigeon closing its eyes when the cat comes.”

He explained that this reactive approach locks the organisations in a vicious circle of mobilising talent both internally and externally.

“In the war for talent, the organisation that leverages talent mobility proactively will have a clear strategic advantage,” said Khanna.

“Innovation and competitiveness of the organisation will rise as employees will put in more discretionary effort”

There are five important steps that organisations need to take in order to improve talent mobility as well as their wider talent acquisition/retention strategies, Khanna said:

1. Talent insights: Organisations need to develop systems and processes that provide the talent insights. These insights need to be beyond factual data.

Organisations need to leverage analytics to bring predictive insights and leverage them for talent mobility.

2. Individual development plans: Organisations need to ensure that development paths are created, captured and updated regularly for all individuals in the organisation.

Growth and development are basic human needs and all employees work towards it. Talent mechanisms should be able to track and predict the moves of employees as they move towards their aspiration.

3. Periodic talent review: This will be the single most important process to move mobility from being reactive to proactive.

4. Develop a talent centric culture where decisions are made keeping the interest and aspiration of the employee in the centre.

Employees work to achieve their personal goals and in the process, produce business outcomes for the organisation and not the other way around.

5. Enable employees to own their careers: such that they choose how, when and where they work. Gartner predicts that “by 2020, organisations that support a ‘choose your own work’ style (CYOW) culture will boost employee retention rates by more than 10 per cent.”

Talent mobility can be a very potent tool that can enable HR leaders to attract the right kind of employees, put them in the jobs of their choice and drive higher performance, Khanna explained.

“Because of this, innovation and competitiveness of the organisation will rise as employees will put in more discretionary effort,” he said.

“To deliver this, organisations must relook at how they are tracking aspirations, enabling mobility and above all helping individuals achieve their life objectives.

“Digital HR and analytics are the most potent tools to do this and stop the leaking talent bucket.”

Image source: iStock

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