Consultant's Corner

Staying On-Course During Times of Uncertainty

bonnie.tichman — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:43:48 GMT

I was employed in the Recruiting and Staffing industry post 9/11, and after enduring the most horrific event in our nation’s history, it truly felt as if the business world stood still. We saw the contingent staffing market rise modestly as companies tried to fill workforce gaps, but full-time recruiting took more than a year to rebound due to hiring freezes across industries and regions.

We have to remember that economic cycles are periods of change just like the seasons. Just a couple of years after 9/11, the housing market boomed. The sense of affluence was everywhere with home values skyrocketing; which, of course, caused many Americans to borrow beyond their means, which brings us to today.

In addition to being one of the world's wealthiest men, Warren Buffet is also known for his common sense investment advice. According to him, “A market downturn, doesn’t bother us. For us and our long term investors, it is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices. Only for short term investors and market timers is a correction not an opportunity.’- Warren Buffett

As HR professionals, how can we help our organizations continue to strive to be great companies, with great management? How can we stay on-course in terms of our HR goals, strategies and execution plans, or adjust our course slightly, without stifling progress?

During the tough road that may lie ahead, it is our time to take action. Here are 5 key things HR can do to make a difference during this economic downturn:

1. Realign with new business strategies and validate existing ones. Partner with the business - - and be a part of the business. Understand what goals and initiatives are changing and the associated talent implications. Realign your talent strategies and programs to support the business, in measurable business terms. This may include preparing for possible downsizing, specialized high-volume recruiting to upsurge select products and markets, and realigning remuneration schemes to drive the right goals and behaviors.

2. Realign with your executive stakeholders and develop new champions. Work closely with your business partners and some influential managers to ensure that your talent plan meets their needs. In addition, encourage them to be “champions” of your plan and to spread the word among their colleagues and team members about its relevance and impact.

3. Reduce the bottom line to increase the top. This is the ideal time to evaluate your existing HR technology portfolio and processes and determine how to get the most mileage from existing investments. This may include re-tooling of processes to drive further efficiencies and deeper leverage of inherent product features and functions to advance talent management initiatives. Often times, strategic programs can be ‘self-funded’ by redirected the efficiency savings to finance new initiatives.

4. Seize the moment. Use this downturn to weed out below average performers. Now is a vital time to partner with managers by conducting critical skills assessments and by educating them on effective performance management processes and rating of employees as we enter the year-end cycle. There will likely be some highly skilled candidates that become available in the labor pool, and you may need to free up positions in the case of hiring freezes.

5. Communicate and motivate. Seventy-one percent of workers think that their company leaders should be more forthcoming in discussing the current economic situation and its impact on their company, according to new research from Weber Shandwick. This is a pivotal time to be focused on retaining your top performers and improving productivity through such tactics as expanded training, non-monetary incentives and redeployment of key workers to high impact initiatives. By being more forthcoming and proactive, employers can win more loyalty from their employees.

HR of Business, Business of HR

srumsey — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:35:45 GMT

Andy Gebavi's comment on this past Monday's blog post (HR Importance vs. Influence) was terrific (thanks, Andy!). And it got me thinking. In working with clients, I often observe that the senior HR leadership (VPs and above) does understand the need for HR to become more business savvy, to learn how the organization operates, makes money, identifies markets and products and the like. This is a good thing, a great start. I also observe Senior HR leadership - those that are business savvy - spend so much time with the business that they sometimes may neglect their own function in two critical ways.

One: sharing, building, and discussing the business throughout ALL of the HR so that the frontline HR folks are as knowledgeable about the business as the senior HR folks are. To Andy's point that line managers do not understand "Talent Management" as we (HR) understand it, I would say, "Yes, true". I would also say that the frontline HR folks who interact with the line managers don't know enough about the business to effectively educate the line managers so that they can understand the value talent management brings to the business.

Two: HR operations are left to the upper-middle levels of HR management - Directors, Managers, etc. These folks are left to translate and operationalize HR and Talent Management strategy for HR, but are not afforded much interaction with the business itself because that interaction is dominated by senior HR leaders and / or the Directors / Managers are overwhelmed with leading the HR function and don't have time. Thus, a bit of a gully forms between senior HR Leadership and the rest of HR in terms of sharing business knowledge and building essential skills to better interact with the business about the business.

So, back to Monday's blog and the McKinsey study: what do you think accounts for the disparity between HR's point of view and line managers' point of view on HR's capabilities? And further, what can HR do to continue to close this gap? What role should HR leadership play here?

HR: Importance vs. Influence

srumsey — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:59:38 GMT

The August 2008 edition of The McKinsey Quarterly Chart Focus Newsletter highlights a dichotomy in business today, namely that while executives' stress levels are rising over the availability of talent in their markets and related issues (talent attraction, management and retention), there is a corresponding decline in HR's ability to influence business strategy. The chart below (from the McKinsey study) indicates that HR and line managers are far apart on their views of HR today. Line managers, much more than HR, agree that HR lacks capability to develop talent strategies aligned with business objectives, that HR is not held accountable for success or failure of talent management initiatives, and that talent management is viewed solely as HR's responsibility.

As Knowledge Infusion works with clients on their Talent Management strategies, we repeat (sometimes ad nauseam, I'm sure) these very principles. HR must align talent strategies with business objectives (one reason why we stress the need to integrate the business leaders' view into Talent Management strategy development. HR should be held accountable for talent management initiatives - after all, HR is the function that designs, develops, and implements talent management strategy and programs. The extent to which the programs are successful is highly dependent on 1) the degree to which they are aligned with the business, and 2) the extent to which HR effectively deploys them. IF talent management strategies and programs are aligned with the business AND if HR is held accountable for the success or failure of initiatives (in addition to the other key considerations in the chart below), THEN responsibility for talent management can be diffused throughout the organization, no longer to rest solely on HR's shoulders. For that to happen, however, HR must make the case that it knows what it is doing in the talent management arena.

What do you think of the McKinsey study results? Agree, disagree?

Interesting Reading - A Client's Recommendation

david.barron — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:01:07 GMT

At Knowledge Infusion, we are constantly expanding our individual and collective knowledge of the Human Capital Management and Talent Management domains. Information comes through a variety of channels including this recommendation from one of our clients.

The book is titled "Results" by Gary Neilson and Bruce Pasternack. I haven't read it all, but have focused on a chapter titled "The Resilient Organization". The content is interesting to me because it speaks to the same mantra that Knowledge Infusion does on the importance of vision, alignment, adaptability, and moving the goalpost every three years.

Some excerpts:

"Flexible enough to adapt quickly to external market shifts, the Resilient organization remains steadfastly focused on and aligned behind coherent business strategy......Resilient is the healthiest of all organization types (compared to the Passive-Aggressive, the Fits and Starts, the Outgrown, the Over-managed, the Just In Time, and the Military Precision organizations). It is in good working order... They're always scanning the horizon for the next competitive battle or market innovation."

"Nothing exists "just because" in the Resilient organization; every position, process, and policy has a purpose...and that purpose is aligned with the strategic objectives of the enterprise." (Reminds me of Knowledge Infusion's trilogy of People, Process, and Technology).

This just scratches the surface...might be worth a read for you as well!!

Does Talent Management Make Me Want to Work for You?

mike.brennan — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:33:57 GMT

Career management is to the individual as talent management is to the organization. Are you applying this logic to your talent management technology strategy? Are the needs of the employees and managers top-of-mind for the HR subcommittee at your organization in charge of turning the market buzz around integrated talent management into reality? If not, then I urge you to take a read.

Despite the threat of an economic slowdown, the demand for people with exceptional abilities and transferable skills will exceed the supply for years to come, particularly in today's dynamic and increasingly global business environment. The same macroeconomic trends driving the talent shortage are also producing unprecedented career opportunities. Think about it. The retirement of Baby Boomers means job openings. The globalization driving many organizations' top line growth means promotions and lateral assignments overseas for high potentials.

If your employees cannot find or do not feel they are being prepared by the organization to take on such roles, they will likely look elsewhere. A survey conducted by NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies in 2006 showed that New York professionals - while not a global sample, certainly a representative microcosm - expected, on average, to change careers - not jobs - three times in their lifetimes, and only 28 percent expected lifelong careers. Therefore, it is incumbent upon HR professionals and their business partners to create and manage career paths that help employees match their expertise and interests with the needs of the organization. However, the vast majority of these career paths will not resemble the linear tracks of our parents' generation. Gone are the days of checking in climbing a vertical ladder for 30 years to get that gold watch.

There are several reasons for this. For one, organizations have flattened over the past few decades, pushing responsibilities outward rather than simply up the management hierarchy. In addition, today's multi-generational workforce knows they cannot count on defined pensions when they retire. Couple this with longer life spans and work lives, and you have a employees who are more independent-minded than every. In addition, they have at their fingertips technologies that enable self-directed career exploration.

These dynamics should be a consideration to any HR professional or hopefully, team of professionals seeking to integrate their goals, systems, and processes developing a talent management technology strategy. Consider the end user employee who is less interested in automating what (s)he considers to be off-putting processes (e.g., performance reviews) and more about working in an environment that provides the tools that facilitate career management.

Given that more and more organizations these days are looking to help mobilize their key talent internally rather than let their most valuable assets walk out the door, it is incumbent upon employers to provide employees with user-friendly access to information and tools that enable them make well informed decisions to manage their careers. But what does the term, 'career management' actually mean? And what goals for helping the individual employee manage his or her career should an organization investing in new talent management systems (i.e., processes and technologies) have?

Let's start with a context and a working definition of what career management is before answering these questions. Career management within an organization is built on the premise that job security and advancement are based on experience, goal achievement and competencies (i.e., skills, knowledge and behaviors) rather than simply length of service. It entails an individual consciously taking stock of their strengths, interests, life events and development opportunities and applying them to possible future job roles inside the organization.

So what should a 'career management environment' have in order to make the experience a rich one for the employee?

First, it should have a single access point, for instance, some prominent real estate on an employee subportal with a career management brand. There should be a simple front page with instructions on how one can leverage the site to develop themselves. This front page should also provide access to possible career paths within the organization if there are any common ones - or even not-so-common ones with which some employees have found success. Employees should have the ability to search jobs in which they're interested as well.

Employees should also have access to their talent management applications from this page - performance management, learning management, etc. - from the place where they manage their careers as well. For instance, each of the jobs plotted along a career path or found in a search should have access to the following, all of which can be enabled through talent management systems:

Access to a clearly defined job description - the level within the organization in which it resides, functional responsibilities, competencies needed, etc.
Sample profiles of people actually in the job, perhaps with contact info for these people or HR representatives who can speak to the position further to see if it aligns with an employee's interests and skill sets.
Job level (to indicate lateral and upward moves as well as pay scale).
Links to competency assessments where someone interested can better evaluate their fit.
Access to training and development opportunities associated with preparing someone for that job role.
Links to apply for openings with this position description.

Career management is to the individual as talent management is to the organization. Are you applying this logic to your talent management strategy?

Start with the End in Mind - Happy New Year!

mike.brennan — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:08:20 GMT

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Boxing Day. No matter what your faith, this is the time of year when many of us make New Year's resolutions. [Check out this list put out by the Fed if you're looking for some direction - h[ttp://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml|http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml]] Whether it's ‘lose weight,' ‘take a trip,' ‘volunteer to help others,' or ‘pay off debt,' the individuals who make these promises will have realized varying degrees of success by the time they sit down 12 months from now to start on 2009's list. There are many reasons for this. One is that some individuals take the time to document these promises. By writing them, these individuals are more conscious of them, and thus, are more likely to develop them into goals, build a strategy to achieve these goals, and execute on that strategy.

Making New Year's resolutions and acting on them is not always easy for us as individuals. Doing so as a team can be even more difficult. We at Knowledge Infusion help our clients face this challenge every day. We work with HR executives to build strategic roadmaps that sequence technology initiatives based on business objectives. A common pitfall once the strategy is created is to forget these business objectives as the focus shifts to executing on project tasks.

That is why we encourage our clients to document the metrics the organization will use to measure the impact of their investments. These metrics should drive the development of reports and dashboards as technology is rolled out. If this sounds like HCM analytics or workforce intelligence for anyone who reads this it should. Workforce intelligence starts with identifying measures that tie key indicators of business performance to HCM practices and programs. Only after such measures have been identified can they be leveraged to make better management decisions. These metrics include:

Transactional Metrics: These measures quantify the activity in various HR functions. Examples include headcount, the number of hours trained, the number of performance reviews submitted, payroll, and active headcount. When taken in isolation, none of these figures is very strategic. However, many of them act as building blocks (i.e., variables used to calculate) for HR Operational Metrics and Workforce Effectiveness Metrics.
HR Operational Metrics: These are meant to monitor HR's performance in terms of process outcomes and employee satisfaction. Examples include time-to-hire, retention of high performers, and satisfaction with training programs.
Workforce Effectiveness Metrics: These tie Transactional and HR Operational information and metrics to other business performance indicators outside HR. As such, they yield the intelligence to support strategic decision making. Examples include the total cost of turnover, the effect of assigning key accounts to high performers on sales, the impact of a six-sigma certification program on operational efficiency, and the identification of managers adept at developing people.

After you've defined the metrics, consider when you will be able to deliver them, to whom they should be delivered, and in what format they should be served. By developing and delivering these metrics, you will keep the goals of the business and the value that HR provides front-of-mind for the appropriate constituencies. Consider this as you set out to make good on the resolution in 2008 that we should all be setting for ourselves as HR professionals - making our organizations a more rewarding place for people to work.

Be on the lookout for workforce intelligence innovations from Knowledge Infusion in 2008...