Tag Archives: Talent Management

Stop checking your BlackBerry when I’m talking to you!

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Via Gautam, I came to this Time article about “microinequities” and “microgestures” – fancy talk for the horribly frustrating, inconsiderate, rude and otherwise small but rage-inducing behaviors like using your BlackBerry in the middle of a conversation or saying someone’s name incorrectly or talking on your cell phone during a meeting, etc.

Besides the crass ignorance displayed by such actions, it turns out they may actually have a negative impact on workforce performance as they work to demotivate otherwise engaged employees.

And, of course, there’s a consultant who goes around advising companies on these issues.

Nobody quantifies human capital

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481159_a_closeup_of_a_desk_calculator_5So says this AP article in the Chicago Tribune. Across a two year study done by Mercer, they found that only 20% of the 100 largest publicly traded American companies discussed the contribution of human capital in their annual reports.

Conclusion:

“Imagine a company spending one-third of its revenue on a capital investment or an interest payment and never addressing it with shareholders in their annual report,” said Rick Guzzo, a Mercer consultant. “It’s unthinkable.”

Indeed.

Leveling the playing field and other tales of meritocracy

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The Human Capitalist (known more properly as Jason Corsello of the Yankee Group) shares his views on Performance and Talent Management. Hint: he likes it. To wit:

The solutions are not the “end-all-be-all” and will not solve all of the issues in the performance review process.  They are though a huge enabler to level the playing field, eliminate (or at least minimize) the emotional factors involved during the difficult review process, and have the ability to build in the necessary flexible required to accommodate the changing demands of an increasingly dynamic workforce. 

Leadership development is not (only) HR’s job

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Or so says this HBS article (via Be Excellent).

Instead, they argue it’s the job of every operating manager and senior management up to and including the board should play a part:

In this worldview, it is part of the line manager’s job to recognize his subordinates’ developmental needs, to help them cultivate new skills, and to provide them opportunities for professional development and personal growth. Managers must do this even if it means nudging their rising stars into new functional areas or business units. They must mentor emerging leaders, from their own and other departments, passing on important knowledge and providing helpful evaluations and feedback. The operating managers’ own evaluations, development plans, and promotions, in turn, depend on how successfully they nurture their subordinates.

Further, boards can play a vital role in shepherding up-and-comers. Because they are detached from  day to day operations, they can more clearly see the company’s leadership needs and bench strength.

This feels about right to me, but if it’s the case, what then is the role of HR? To me, it’s twofold: guidance and enablement.

Guidance in that HR experts will always be needed to help assess an individual’s ability and potential inside the organization. If the board adds value because they are outside the company, HR can add value by being the insider.  As far as enablement, by providing and owning strategic platforms like performance management, HR can ensure they are the fundamental enabler of leadership development and succession planning.

Thoughts?

 

 

Why smart employees should love, nay, DEMAND performance management

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With all this talk of the downsides of performance management going on in the blogosphere, I thought I might take a look at this from the employee perspective. Hey wait, I AM an employee! Thusly: Some reasons why I, Max Goldman, like performance management and wouldn’t want to work for a company that didn’t do it - a brief list:

1. What the heck is my job again?
Being just one piece of a bigger entity like a company is not an easy thing. It’s sometimes hard to know what part I need to play to add the most value. I want to add as much value as possible because I want to advance my own career, make more money and do something important with my life. Our performance management system lets me understand what I can be doing to support the company’s larger goals, know what’s expected of me and find opportunities to do bigger and better things.

2. Why is THAT guy driving a free Touareg?
At our company meeting this past January, four VW Touaregs were given out to top performers -people who add a lot of value to the company and our customers. Two went to salespeople. They bring in the bucks, so fine. But two went to regular employees. Why are they driving brand new, free cars (or getting watches, vacations, bonuses – you get my drift)? If I know why, I can work at those qualities and results and get myself a brand new ride next year. But what are those qualities, what is the measure of success? Without performance management, it’s anecdotal, arbitrary and simply unfair.

3. What is this company doing, anyway?
I now know what it is I’m meant to be doing (see #1), but what is everyone else doing? Why does any of this matter? What is this company striving at? What are the strategies and tactics that will make us all (and me, particularly) successful? Our performance management system lets me understand that. How what I’m doing aligns to what my boss and his boss are working on. Why what I’m doing matters. And I want it to matter.

4.  What’s wrong with me?
I admit it – I’m not perfect. I’m close, dammit, but I’m just not there – yet! What can I do to get better? What areas do I need to work on to perform at the next level? Without performance management maybe I’ll figure it out and maybe I won’t. With performance management, my development needs are outlined and I can know where I need… (ahem) work. Even better, I can get my boss to agree so when I nail those things, he has no choice but to admit it.

5.  What’s great about me?
Like I said, I’m pretty close to perfect – now tell me about it! It makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track. Performance management forces my peers and my boss to tell me what I’m good at so I can lord it over everyone and do my special victory dance. Ok, no dancing, but you get the idea. People, myself included, like to know what we’ve done well so we can keep doing it.

6. Pay me more money. And a bonus, too.
What’s that, I achieved every goal we set out? Nice. Pay me. When I know what I’m being measured on, I can work against those goals. When I achieve them, there is no choice but to recognize my performance. If the company doesn’t, I can take my clear track record of success elsewhere.

What do you all think? What are the reasons you like (or dislike) the results of your performance management system or process?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destroying your career in one easy step

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I was forwarded this soon-to-be infamous email exchange between a spurned hiring lawyer and an uppity law school graduate today. It’s remarkable how little emotional intelligence is displayed on both sides. Sometimes it takes a little effort and common sense to be polite, but it’s usually worth it – and especially so when you’re a want-to-be member of a small professional community.

It reminds me of all the times I’ve encountered such things in my own professional career. I once had a boss who was so generally offensive for lack of emotional intelligence that her staff was a constantly shifting grouping of people who rotated into her department hesitantly and out of her group as quickly as possible. Vendors would refuse the company’s business once they understood who they’d be required to work with. But this company had no formal performance management or 360 process that would have enabled the feedback that may have had a chance to fix things. The result was a largely ineffective group.

Changing people’s behavior is one of the most difficult challenges there is, but without an infrastructure for providing feedback, it’s virtually impossible. Hank Paulson, the CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs delivered a memorable quote that I picked up somewhere:

“One of the things we have done for years is 360-degree reviews.  It’s amazing when you go to a leader and say, “There are 30 people who reviewed you, and 30 of them trust you.  But all 30 say you don’t listen well.”  It has an impact.”

 

The global talent battlefield

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As per The McKinsey Quarterly – #5 on the list of top trends to watch in 2006: 

The battlefield for talent will shift. Ongoing shifts in labor and talent will be far more profound than the widely observed migration of jobs to low-wage countries. The shift to knowledge-intensive industries highlights the importance and scarcity of well-trained talent. The increasing integration of global labor markets, however, is opening up vast new talent sources. The 33 million university-educated young professionals in developing countries is more than double the number in developed ones. For many companies and governments, global labor and talent strategies will become as important as global sourcing and manufacturing strategies.

The McKinsey Quarterly: Ten trends to watch in 2006.

 

 

Solid ROI from talent management

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I came across this report from fidelity (PDF) while searching around. It provides the results of a survey on change in HR groups at large companies. Some interesting stats:

  • 66% of large HR departments reported “providing only basic or low-level operations, administration and transaction support, but nothing more.”
  • 33% reported “that they have now moved beyond basic administrative functionality and up the corporate value chain”
  • 72% of companies “not currently playing a strategic business role indicated that they are moving in that direction.”
  • 97% of respondents said they are “currently undertaking, or have recently completed, HR transformation initiatives designed to allow HR to shift its focus from routine maintenance to more valued added initiatives.”
  • 82% of companies said they were planning to implement a talent planning initiative such as succession, retention or career development planning.
  • 68% reported that talent planning initiatives provided a “solid return on investment.”

The article also has some change management best practices that make it worth a look.

 

Preparing for Brain Drain

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Are you prepared for the boomer brain drain? The oldest baby boomers are now only a few years away from retirement. What happens to the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the years when they leave? CIO magazine has a new article on the topic with participation from Liviu Dedes from Pepboys (a customer) on the topic of succession planning.

This is the kind of cross-industry issue that’s going to make bigger and bigger headlines the closer we get to retirement day. I’ve even heard it described as the Y2K of the HR world, but this time, there’s real probability of impact.

From the article:

Some companies turn to software to help predict future departures and determine crucial knowledge. Succession planning or talent management software can give organizations a good picture of who is working for them, how they are performing and how long they’ll be around. With retirement on the horizon and new management positions to fill last year, automotive chain Pep Boys started using succession planning software from SuccessFactors to give it a clear picture of all employees at the company’s 584 retail and service centres. “The risk of knowledge loss will always be there because there will always be unexpected departures,” says Liviu Dedes, Pep Boys’ director of training and organizational development. “But if you have a solid process to map out who is in your leadership pipeline, you’ll be better prepared to fill job openings, retain top-performing employees and prepare for retirement.”

Hear from Kimberly-Clark on talent management

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I’m told there are nearly 750 attendees already signed up to this webinar we’re doing with WPS magazine next week on talent management. May be worth a look – our customer Kimberly-Clark , in the human form of Gary Short, Senior Consultant of Talent Management, will be speaking. I’ve heard him speak before and he’s got some great insight and perspective on what’s going on in this space. Just FYI.