25 HR Quotes by Tech Executives

Recently we have seen many changes in the way we manage our business. Technology has become part of our everyday life. This prompted me to find what Tech Executives think about "Human Resources" in their organizations. Following are the 25 quotes by eminent leaders in the field of technology. They reflect how people had contributed to creating value for their organizations. You may know few HR quotes by Tech Executives, please add them in the comments.

Slideshare Presentation:

25 HR Quotes by Tech Executives from Vijay Bankar

Youtube Video: 

Following is the list of quotes covered in the above presentation:

1. "The process of adapting to change starts with employees who, through their daily work, adjust to the new outside forces." - Andrew Grove
2. "Leaders are those who empower others." - Bill Gates
3. "The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential of others." - Carly Fiorina
4. "The coach doesn't have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to be your best." - Eric Schmidt
5. "To me, I learned along the way, you know, culture is behavior. That's all it is; culture is people's behaviors." - Ginni Rometty
6. "One thing a leader does is to remove the stigma of mistakes." - Gordon Moore
7. "I spend 90% of my time with people who don't report to me." - Jack Dorsey
8. "You have to maintain a culture of transformation and stay true to your values." - Jeff Weiner
9. "Updating the skills we have and developing the new ones we need is a mutual responsibility, one shared between the individual and the company." - John F. Akers
10. "We focus first on the people and how we incorporate them into our company, and then we focus on how to drive the business." - John Chambers
11. "You treat people with respect, they tend to return the favor to the company." - Larry Page
12. "An organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value." - Louis Gerstner
13. "I would only hire someone to work directly for me if I was willing to work for that person." - Mark Zuckerberg
14. "If you have fun at your job, I think you're going to be more effective." - Meg Whitman
15. "We’re now much better at picking people. And we’ve also gotten much better at developing them." - Michael Dell
16. "Pay attention to your culture and your hires from the very beginning." - Reid Hoffman
17. "If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization." - Robert Noyce
18. "At the core of the products we build, I want to think about productivity centered around people." - Satya Nadella
19. "Our employees, who have named themselves Googlers, are everything." - Sergey Brin
20. "In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders." - Sheryl Sandberg
21. "It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." - Steve Jobs
22. "Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked." - Steve Wozniak
23. "Google teams have lots of autonomy, including from people like me." - Sundar Pichai
24. "Knowing whose advice to take and on what topic is the single most important decision an entrepreneur can make." - Vinod Khosla
25. "The job of a manager is to support his or her staff, not vice versa, and that begins by being among them." - William Hewlett

Talent Management needs HELP

As we, all know there were two different schools of thought in Talent Management. Exclusive & Inclusive, where the earlier focused on selected few employees as Hi-Potentials and the later considered all employees instead of selecting few. As stated by Turner & Kalman, “Talent management is now talent management for all.” Then there is yet another approach called as hybrid model suggested by Pilbeam & Corbridge, which considers combinations of the above two approaches.   

Primarily there were two significant contributors to the process of Talent Management namely ‘Talent Identification’ (Assessments) & ‘Talent Development’. In fact, Church & Waclawski consider the assessment of employees as "holy grail" of talent management, more so when it is done with a high degree of precision. However, developing talent is the main issue for most of the HR Professionals. 

Surveys carried out by HBR, PWC, Deloitte, & Gartner usually come up with a list of management concerns that includes topics i.e.: Leadership Development, Leadership Pipeline and developing bench strength. Hence, it has become imperative to have a robust process for ‘Talent Management’ in any organization. 

In the past few years, we have witnessed enormous developments in the field of technology that has resulted in shaping employee behavior at work. Every day we see reports, articles focusing on HR issues such as Analytics, AI, Big-Data, BYOD, Machine Learning, Millenials, Overwhelming employees, Social Media, VUCA, Wearables, etc. As effective HR professionals, we have to be agile in developing and implementing our HR strategies that are congruent with these developments in the external environment. 

Josh Bersin has recently published a report "Nine Trends Reinventing the HR Software Market." [pdf](referred as ‘Bersin Report’ in the following text) According to the report, all these changes in the external environment has led to 'a shift in Business Focus: changing the way we manage people.' He says that today companies are more worried about employee engagement, teamwork, innovation, and collaboration.

Josh Bersin says that "The real focus is on reinventing how people work; creating team-based tools for goal alignment and coaching; putting in place systems to provide feedback and measure engagement; and rethinking the way we measure performance, manage careers, and enable individual learning."

He further says that, at present, following four areas (shown in the image) need immediate attention by HR Professionals for improving the effectiveness of their talent management strategies. [HELP - ‘Health & Wellness’, ‘Employee Engagement’, ‘Learning & Development,’ and ‘Performance Management’]

1. Health & Wellness: 

The issue of employee Health and wellness has considered first because as they say 'health is wealth'. We keep on saying that employees are our most important asset; however, it is equally important what we are doing for maintenance of this asset. It is becoming essential for HR professionals to help employees to take care of themselves for being productive and healthy at work.

As per Deloitte report employees are feeling overworked and overwhelmed, hence, wellness and emotional fitness are now becoming issues of employee engagement and performance. “It is not cash that fuels the journey to the future, but the emotional and intellectual energy of every employee.” - Hammel & Prahlad. Bookshops are flooded with books on topics i.e. mindfulness, work-life balance, and employee wellness. 

Chade-Meng Tan (Author: Search Inside Yourself) has developed a unique program on 'mindfulness' for Google with guidance from Daniel Goleman and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Laszlo Bock has highlighted it in his book 'Work Rules'. 

Many companies offer facilities such as gym, yoga, time management, work-life balance, dietary support, exercise, and a variety of other wellness services. In fact, they are now becoming an essential part of employment branding initiatives for attracting millennials and driving employee engagement. Even the companies marketing wellness products such as wearables, fitness gears, & Softwares are positioning their products as performance improvement tools. Following are examples of vendors providing these tools: Ceridian-LifeWorks, Fitbit, and Limeaid.

Needless to say, that such initiatives lead to improved employee performance, engagement, morale and ultimately result in developing company culture and boost the performance of the entire organization.

2. Employee Engagement:

Another important area for immediate attention of HR professionals is 'Employee Engagement'. Gallup Survey shows that only 32% of U.S. employees engaged in 2015. Gallup's extensive research shows that “employee engagement is strongly connected to business outcomes essential to an organization's financial success, such as productivity, profitability, and customer engagement.” In-fact, 85% companies ranked engagement as a top priority in Deloitte 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report.   

Employee engagement is important from the perspective of business success as well as for developing an appropriate culture within an organization. It is equally important for controlling attrition and retaining leaders we have developed over the years. According to TinyPulse "Companies with high engagement are 40% more productive, 78% more profitable, and 5X more likely to achieve high performance."

Normally companies use Engagement Surveys as a tool to monitor the level of engagement and then take appropriate decisions based on the facts. I have already covered the topic of 'employee surveys' in detail earlier. Edward Lawler originally suggested the concept of pulse surveys in his book "Talent" (2008) which is now gaining traction in 2016. Laszlo Bock also mentions the use of survey called “Googlegeist” (which means “the spirit of Google”) for more than fifty thousand employees at Google. As suggested by many management authors, HR professionals may need to consider 'bottom up' approach instead of 'top down' to effectively address engagement issue.

The marketing department was using this tool for decades and now HR department has started using it for real-time engagement evaluation of their employees. Most of the organizations are using once-a-year 'climate' surveys accompanied by pulse surveys and feedback tools. Bersin report suggests that pulse surveys and always-on feedback tools are becoming critical to business success since they create opportunities for business process improvement. It further says that there are more than 120 vendors offering pulse survey tools, employee mood monitoring systems, culture and engagement assessments, and other forms of anonymous or confidential feedback systems.

We can use pulse surveys quarterly, monthly, or weekly. In the case of a major organizational change event, we can use these tools to collect real-time feedback from employees. Employees can use almost any device for accessing the surveys, anytime anywhere according to their convenience. Following are examples of few vendors providing these tools:  CultureAmp, Glint, Hyphen, Kanjoya, OfficeVibe, and TinyPulse.

As an HR Professionals, we cannot afford to ignore the employee engagement issue and tools that are now available to us. We have to develop appropriate culture and implement suitable strategies to address the employee engagement issue for improving the effectiveness of our talent management initiatives.

3. Learning & Development:

HR professionals rely heavily on Learning & Development to nurture & develop their talent pipeline. Bersin report states that arrival of new technology has significantly affected the way learning content consumed by employees to stay updated in the ever-evolving environment. Hence, it needs immediate attention from HR professionals for delivering agile learning tools for improving the effectiveness of our L&D strategies.

Many successful companies consider learning & development initiatives as a key investment that directly results in strategic success. In fact, a number of companies that think about learning & development as a "very high" priority, tripled in a year according to Deloitte University study.

There have been tremendous developments in the field of learning, from e-learning to blended learning, social learning, mobile learning, 70-20-10 learning, video-based learning, microlearning, embedded-learning, spaced learning etc.

There are many online learning platforms available such as Coursera, CrossKnowledge, EdX, iversity, Lynda, NovoEd, Skillsoft, Udacity, Udemy, and even Youtube. There is ample amount of content available these days; however, the real issue is how to consolidate, measure, curate and build a great integrated experience for our employees. Following are the examples of content aggregation and curation platforms: Degreed, EdCast, & Pathgather. These platforms simplify and help users to easily find, recommend, and arrange content in one place.

Bersin report says, "Today people learn in a more dynamic and self-directed way than ever before... People don’t have time and patience to sit in a class the way they did a few years ago." Now the intelligent learning systems can customize according to user needs, even recommend, and push learning content at the right time. It can also aggregate and curate small learning pieces together in a cohesive whole and help companies to author microlearning so it can be provided (spaced out) ‘on demand’.

Towards Maturity benchmarking research, underscore that 70% L&D Teams did not proactively understand how employees and their organizations learn. The importance of (UX) user experience has increased over the years because of its ease of use and compelling experience to the user. Successful L&D teams very well understand this fact and capitalize on it; however, others keep on focusing on the checklist of features based on their own priority (not the user). 

People prefer highly condensed learning content and microlearning for quickly closing skill and knowledge gaps. Using design thinking, we can embed these solutions into business processes. Employees can access the content on almost any device, anywhere and at any time according to their convenience. Using these tools employees can quickly find what they need, get a checklist or tool, and then go back to work. Examples: Axonify, Grovo, and Knolskape.

Smart organizations give freedom to employees to decide on their own development and career path. Employees can now choose their mode of learning. When given such an option we can improve their engagement and participation. We can easily keep track of their progress and feedback. As per Aberdeen, 'Best-in-class' companies are 76% more likely to adopt this approach for enhancing their L&D initiatives. Human interaction is still essential for learning and Bersin report agrees with the importance of interpersonal communication.

4. Performance Management:

From the talent management perspective, it is one of the most important tools for selecting employees for developing leadership pipeline. Laszlo Bock says, “Employees hate it. Managers hate it. Even HR departments hate it.” As per Deloitte 2016 Global Human Capital Trends, more than two-thirds of companies are redesigning their performance management practices. The Willis Towers Watson report (2016) state that 70% of companies had already or intends to make changes to performance management.

Recently many companies have revamped their traditional performance management (rank & yank) system for example GE, IBM, Adobe, Microsoft, etc. Hence, it is on the priority list of HR professionals to rethink about their performance management tools for improving their talent management efforts.

Edward Lawler (Talent) and Laszlo Bock (Work Rules) suggest that the performance management process must separate the 'rewards' and 'development' discussions. At Google, the Committee is responsible for performance appraisal and compensation instead of the line manager. Lazlo Bock also advocates for collecting peer feedback for enhancing the effectiveness of this process. There is another process initially implemented at Intel called ‘OKR' (objectives and key results) nowadays used at many tech companies.

Bersin Report says that performance improves when companies empower people; let them set their own goals. "In short, organizational performance typically improves when employees are paid well, given coaching and development, and are motivated to innovate."

Following are the features available in the new tools as per Bersin Report:

- They focus on frequent coaching & development,

- They have an agile approach.

- They were built around simple and periodic check-ins.

- They help in developing shared goals from bottom up and are more transparent.

- They have a simple tracking mechanism to measure progress.

- They foster regular development discussion and feedback.

- Instead of relying only on hierarchy, they manage performance by teams.

- Easy to create and manage teams and allow people to be part of multiple teams.

- We can easily make a development plan for each employee.

- Peer feedback can be easily included in the process.

- They have personality assessment tools and leadership tips.

- They are simple, easy to use like any mobile app.

- They can be integrated with other HR tools and have employee directories.

- They make performance management everyday work instead of year-end process.

- They provide more detail data than ever before that help in decision-making.

- They help in open and data-driven decision-making.

- They enhance the process by using data for crucial compensation decisions.

Following are the examples of vendors providing these tools:  BetterWorks, HighGround, Impraise, O.C. Tanner, and Reflektive.

“But the new perspective is unlikely to be a flash in the pan because; it is being driven by business needs, not imposed by HR.” - Cappelli and Tavis (HBR October-2016). They further say that it helps managers do a better job of coaching and allows subordinates to process and apply the advice more effectively.

Three business reasons suggested by Cappelli & Tavis to revamp appraisals:

- The return of people development – (To upgrade their talent management efforts)

- The need for agility – (To address developments in the external environment)

- The centrality of teamwork – (It is easy to foster teamwork)

Benefits of new tools:

- Adobe says that - regular conversations between managers and their employees are now occurring without HR’s prompting.

- Adobe also reports that its new system has reduced dismissals because struggling employees are monitored and coached much more closely.

- Deloitte found that frequent, informal check-ins have led to discussions that are more meaningful, deeper insights, and greater employee satisfaction.

- IBM says that supervisors can easily review all the discussion text when it is time to take actions such as award merit pay or consider promotions and job reassignments.

Conclusion:

- We have to decide which tools are more suitable for our organization and then use them for delivering result and achieve our strategic objectives.

- Again copying 'best practices' successful in other organization may not be a wise option. We have to analyze pros & cons of each tool.

- It sounds cliché, however, important to mention to secure buy-in from Line Managers & support from Top management by involving them in the process.

- Communication is the key as stated by Tom Peters, “Communication is everyone's panacea for everything."

- We have to develop a solution that is congruent with communication culture, processes, beliefs, values, and norms prevailing within our organization.

“If the main purpose of HR-business strategy is to create a competitive advantage through people it implies that you have to change the way you manage those people.” - Paul Kerns

Please provide your valuable insights and suggestions in the comments. 

Employee Surveys – from once a year to a continuous process.

Employee Surveys – from once a year to a continuous process

You get ten employees in a room, and you get fifteen opinions. That might be the case, however, many companies use once a year employee surveys, mainly to help the management in its decision making to check the current situation in the organization. Then create a blueprint to improve the overall work climate in and across the organization both in range and depth. As stated by John H. McConnell, (2003) “Management’s primary objective for a survey is usually: To discover employee perceptions regarding satisfaction with conditions of employment.”

Paper-Pencil Surveys was the most commonly used format for many years. Then we had Interactive Telephone Surveys - using touch-tone response. These days we see Email Surveys, Web-based Surveys, and even Mobile App used for the quick response. No doubt, that using survey is a pragmatic way to handle issues by taking decisions based on facts & data rather than gut feel. As rightly pointed out by Sharkey & Eccher (2011), when we base our decision on data we take the guesswork out of what really matters especially for creating positive business results. More so, when, an organization can successfully use employee surveys to create a better, more engaged workplace that leads to improved retention, recognition, and results.

Over the years, we have seen developments in the field of technology, which has influenced the day-to-day life of employees and HR processes within organizations. The arrival of ‘People Analytics' has brought different methods and processes, which are unconventional. However, we cannot avoid them if we really want to be competitive in the market. The main reason for their growing importance, as suggested by Josh Bersin is that "these Cloud-based HR systems leverage modern user experiences, rich employee profiles, and are made to support employees, not just HR.” In fact, the important factor that makes them more appealing to the employees is their ‘ease of use’.

As we have moved from ‘click’ to ‘tap’ in the recent past most of the trends predict that all HR systems will be moving from ‘Systems’ to ‘Apps’ in the near future. In fact, Josh Bersin argues that "this new digital focus for HR is not simply about technology; it changes the way we serve and support employees. Digital is the world our employees live in and, if we do not become part of it, then we cannot really do our jobs." He further says, "One of the biggest new trends in business is creating an open world for feedback, something that further breaks down the barriers between employees and their managers." 

As suggested in the Deloitte report [“Global Human Capital Trends 2015”]  the annual employee surveys are becoming obsolete, and new tools are arriving in the market for real-time measurement of employee feedback and sentiments. These tools help organizations to monitor employee sentiment with the same level of rigor and speed as they measure customer sentiments. The report on “Predictions for 2016” [pdf] by Josh Bersin, suggest that following are the type of tools available to HR professionals for this purpose:

• Pulse Survey Tools
• Feedback Apps
• Performance Feedback Systems
• Social Recognition tools

Today we have following vendors providing these tools -   CultureAmp, CultureIQ, Glint, Kanjoya, and TinyPulse.  Josh says that in 2016, we will see a rapid growth in this marketplace with most companies experimenting and implementing these new feedback systems.

As argued by Silzer and Dowell, “when talent management decisions are based on data collected on past events, the results capture the past, not the future.” This has created a need to capture and analyze data in real time and take decisions immediately rather than waiting for months for completing the survey and getting the results. Armen Berjikly, (CEO & Founder, Kanjoya) says that they are using ‘Natural language processing’ (NLP) coupled with ‘Machine Learning’ embedded in their software. (NLP help us quickly to make sense of large amounts of open-ended feedback and with machine learning, we get ‘retention prediction’ and sentiment analysis that can tell us who is a flight risk among other analysis.)

These tools are available with FEATURES like:

• Simple, Easy to use, frequent pulsing - Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Survey.
• Built-in questions and templates based on proven drivers of engagement.
• We can create custom surveys to collect feedback about initiatives and single-question pulse surveys to get a continuous feel for employee sentiment.
• Custom pulses to find out more insights from onboarding to exit.
• All surveys are fully mobile and tablet compatible, so our traveling employees can take the survey on the go.
• Pulse surveys are completely confidential to encourage unfiltered employee feedback.
• Smart alerts, insights, and a reminder to employees.
• Using ‘anonymous-messaging-tool’, we can probe deeper for additional information.
• Filter, group, tag, and bookmark comments for quick reference and easy sharing.

REPORTS:

• Automatically analyze employee data and deliver results in real time using interactive dashboards.
• Easily monitor the overall health of our organization.
• Visualize large data sets and quickly identify trends and problem areas. Create powerful visualizations with engagement heat maps.
• Slice and dice results by any combination of employee attribute, demographics in real time.
• ‘Executive reports’ and ‘Line Manager Dashboards’ with robust options, for permission to access reports for different levels of management.
• Share results within the platform or export reports to the spreadsheet, PDF, or presentation slides for better communication and collaboration.
• Option to use customized benchmarking.

BENEFITS of using these tools:

• With few questions, short and regular surveys are better for both employees and employers.
• The limited number of questions allows employees to be more thoughtful and leads to higher response rates.
• Fewer questions prevent employer analysis paralysis: they can more easily absorb feedback and pinpoint trouble areas.
• Effortlessly measures the key drivers of employee engagement and automatically deliver actionable insights in real time so leaders and managers can quickly go ahead and take action to remove the hurdle.
• With specific insights, we know where to focus our efforts, time, and money.
• It helps organizations more frequently measure the key drivers of employee engagement.
• Instead of taking the survey during the festive season, if we take surveys at a regular interval, we would get more consistent and accurate results.
• When a particular issue crops up in repetitive surveys management would pay more attention to it, which otherwise goes unnoticed.
• We can create more effective employee surveys that lead to improved employee retention, morale, and performance.
• We can prominently display employee survey scores on the company portal for attracting potential candidates as part of the employment branding initiative.
• According to the Journal of Business Ethics research, employees who felt listened to were better team players and provided input more frequently. 
• TinyPulse research suggests that there is a high correlation between 'employees self-reported happiness' and 'management transparency'.
• Warren Bennis (2005) suggest that the top 27 companies, which considered ‘most transparent’, beat the S&P 500 by 11.3 percent.
• With the help of surveys, we can show that we are a flexible and transparent organization that values employee sentiment.
• Benchmark our own performance over a period and track the trends, and compare them with other organizations.

PRECAUTIONS:

I think the pulse survey tools can supplement the existing annual surveys for effectively monitoring satisfaction, engagement on a regular basis. Both types of surveys have their own merits and demerits. Hence, we need to take an appropriate decision based on the communication culture, beliefs, values, and norms prevailing within the organization. We cannot compare both types since earlier we used to ask more questions and analyze more data which was the main reason for the time taken for getting results. However, now using these tools we ask fewer questions and get instant results.

The instrument / form is the most important part of the survey process and hence, its validity and reliability is the cornerstone of success for any survey initiative. We have to be cautious while choosing survey questions since the success of survey process hinges on the accuracy of these questions. Again the number of question covered in each Pulse survey is limited (4-7), (I have seen opinion surveys with 164 questions), and hence our analysis would be restricted to very few variables. That would also limit the dimensions / elements covered in the particular survey. 

As correctly stated by W. Edwards Deming "You can't manage what you can't measure." When we have a limited number of questions available, we might be calculating few variables and dimensions. That may not be enough for carrying out in-depth analysis for finding out correlation and causation among different variables. Although there is ‘anonymous-messaging-tool' available to probe deeper for additional information, I doubt how far they assist compared to the traditional use of a focus group.

Bersin research shows that two-thirds of our employees are ‘overwhelmed' and hence they may not be interested in responding to surveys at regular intervals. In any case, the response rate is always an issue for many organizations, more so, where the top management does not take an active interest in the HR initiatives. Hence, it is important to involve top management in the survey process for getting maximum output from our initiative.

As per HR Zone report, the initiatives that are supported by company leaders are twice more successful than those which are not introduced by them. However, they suggest that the main reason for not securing buy-in is the inability of HR professionals to explain the link between improving employee engagement and achievement of the organizational objectives. Hence, we have to effectively communicate the benefits to them and take their buy-in to conduct the survey or, alternatively involve them by conveying results and taking actions based on their feedback.

Plan for taking action on issues expressed by employees still remains the main concern. After completion of the survey process, no one takes action on the issues raised by employees. It is like using analytics and expect to get rid of the problems; something like putting on wearable and thinking you will improve your health. As for good health, one has to go through a proper exercise to get visible results and improvements. Similarly, if we want to see visible improvements in our organization we need to take concrete actions on the concerns raised by employees. Most important part of all is to communicate effectively about those initiatives to the employees.

The following quote from Peter Drucker covers the point very well. "Employees will only complain or make suggestions three times on the average without a response. After that, they conclude that if they don't keep quiet they will be thought to be troublemakers or that management doesn't care."

BlessingWhite found that nearly a third of all employees become disengaged when employers ask for feedback but do nothing about it. As argued by Turner & Kalman, “The availability of big data per se will not be enough and it is the application of insight to the data that will make the difference.” In fact, Josh Bersin says that "People do not want to look at dashboards; they want their computers to "tell them" or "recommend" what to do—based on data." He further says, “You need to figure out what to do with the results you find—and this may be the hardest part of all.”

I think culture prevailing within the organization with respect to communication practices is responsible for a frank and straight response from employees. Hence merely putting advanced survey tools may not address the problems that are deep beneath the surface.

We must circulate the report among employees upon completion of the survey process. The message given to employees is that we are going to use the information gathered during the survey to improve work climate. This way we can involve everyone in the process of implementing solutions while keeping them informed about the developments. In fact, Shane McCauley (Director, People Systems and analytics, Twitter) says that they do share survey responses with everyone to make sure each and every member of their team has a vested interest in fostering a positive, collaborative culture.

CONCLUSION:

The positive news is that HR professional’s image is improving and HR is becoming more important to the business. I think it is because we are now communicating with them in their language. As stated by Josh Bersin, “All the discussions of “blowing up HR” and other entertaining articles are being pushed aside as HR teams are now becoming very data-driven and the world of analytics is sweeping forward.” He further says, "Analytics is picking up steam, and the role of HR business partners is truly becoming more strategic and embedded in the business.” Employment surveys are going to become crucial for engaging employees and improving work climate and culture of the organization. 

The actual work begins only after completion of the survey initiatives. Merely completing the survey is not enough and we have to take immediate actions on the issues raised by employees and communicate them effectively. “Organizations need more than data. They need insight about their people to be competitive in world markets. This is because people are often the only source of competitive advantage.” - Turner & Kalman.

The HR Professionals have to decide which tools are more suitable for their organization and then use them for delivering result and achieve their strategic objectives. As Jim Collins put it, “Preserve the Core - Stimulate Progress.” The external environment will always keep on changing and we have to adapt and change accordingly, however, our core ideology must remain intact.

Finally, Josh Bersin says, “Real-time feedback, culture assessment tools, and other ways to capture and measure employee feedback will become a major new discipline within HR and business.”

100 quotes - Talent Management

100 quotes - Talent Management

Talent Management has gained importance over the years and as long as we need smooth and uninterrupted flow of business; it is going to be an indispensable part of any HR strategy. Following definition clearly outlines what is Talent Management:

“Talent management is an integrated set of processes, programs, and cultural norms in an organization designed and implemented to attract, develop, deploy, and retain talent to achieve strategic objectives and meet future business needs.”

-  Silzer and Dowell

Following presentation, include a collection of 100 quotes on Talent Management.

Slideshare Presentation:

100 quotes on Talent Management from Vijay Bankar

Youtube Video : 

Appreciate to receive your valuable insights in the comments. You may also consider sharing related Quotes known to you in the comments.

Thanks & Regards,

Developing Leadership Pipeline

Developing Leadership Pipeline

Every year we see surveys carried out by HBR, PWC, Deloitte, and Gartner, and major concerns for management as highlighted at the top of the list are factors such as: developing bench strength, leadership pipeline, and leadership readiness. The following quote describes the importance of Leadership. “The first lesson is: To hell with centralized strategic planning. If you don't have a good leader, it's all nothing; it's just a bunch of papers flying around.” - Robert Townsend

Developing Leadership pipeline has always been an important concern for HR Professionals. Moreover, getting a proper candidate for replacement is usually a very demanding task because that results in disturbing smooth flow of business. As Pam Brown says, “Every household has a box of odd keys. None of them will ever be found to fit any lock.” This happens when we are looking for leadership candidate from the internal talent pool. Hence, to maintain the flow of business, HR professionals have to address this issue by creating Leadership Development Program.

Following image outlines the activities for effective implementation of the Leadership Development Program. As suggested by experts and authors, the ownership lies with Management and Line Managers while HR can provide support through collaboration.   

Establish Competency Model:

The competency-based methodology was pioneered in late 1960's by Dr. David McClelland, founder of Hay McBer Company, also Psychologist at Harvard University. Subsequently many others have also contributed for the development of Competency-based HRM. It was primarily focused on assessment of employees, not just on the basis of intelligence, but on the basis of a set of competencies. Competencies are the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that lead to high performance. [More details in “Competency-based Interview Assessment”]

For example during the tenure of Lou Gerstner, at IBM, they selected 300 employees for Senior Leadership Group (SLG) and appointed Hay Group for developing eleven "IBM Leadership Competencies." Normally companies select 10 to 15 competencies. Then they carry out the Executive assessment for actual level of each competency. Next, they analyze the gap between actual v/s. expected. The gap is minimized using Learning & Development initiatives along with Coaching and Mentoring.

While designing business strategy, Competency Models become a valuable tool for defining critical skills required for achieving success. Simultaneously it also facilitates the integration of talent Management and other HR processes within an organization. According to Jeffery S. Shippmann, "Competency approach typically include a fairly  substantial effort to understand an organization's business context and competitive strategy and to establish some direct line-of-sight between individual competency requirements and the broader goals of the organization".

Assessment of Employees:

Once we have established the set of competencies, we have to assess employees, and select them for the ‘Leadership Development Program’. In many organizations, ‘assessment’ is an on-going initiative that goes on throughout the period of employee development. The following image clearly depicts the process developed by Silzer & Church for identifying hi-potential talent.

Most of the companies use a combination of assessments to select employees. [More details - “First who then What”] Using more than one assessment instrument provides us concrete data in terms of their scores, which facilitate decision-making about their selection. The assessment instrument must be used by accredited experts while selecting them based on their validity, reliability and proven track record. Here is the list of assessments compiled by William Bergquist (Assessment Instruments: A Resource List)

Rob Silzer & Allan Church state that, “Some organizations collect these data to help make the high - potential decisions, while other organizations assess individuals only after they have been reviewed and accepted as high - potential talent.” The amount of resources, efforts, and cost involved influence the decision to use these assessments.

Performance Appraisal Data:

The appraisal process is an important source of employee performance data. However, its effectiveness depends on choosing appropriate method and tool. As they say, "When all is said and done, a company, its chief executive, and … (the) whole management team are judged by one criterion alone—performance." - Harold Geneen & Alvin Moscow.

An obvious outcome of this process is a list of ‘high performers’. However, according to CEB – SHL, “Only 1 out of 7 High performers is High Potential.” (The HR Guide to Identifying High-Potentials-2014) Hence, further assessment of these candidates becomes essential before selecting them for Leadership Development Program.

There are several methods and there is different school of thought, suggesting the use of a particular method. However, according to Laszlo Bock, (Head HR – Google) there is no one particular method superior to others which accurately analyze employee performance. He says they have used several scientific methods and tools, and the only thing that has a significant impact on the process is “Goal Setting”. In the book “Work Rules!” (2015) he further suggests that we must split rewards conversations from development conversations, for improving its effectiveness. Once you have sufficient data with trends / past employee history, it would certainly assist in the accurate assessment of employees.  

360 Degree Competency Feedback:

Many organizations now use 360-degree competency feedback surveys, primarily for providing development feedback to individuals. “We use it when coaching individuals, and in helping teams improve their effectiveness. We never use it as a selection tool, as it was designed to help develop people.” – Hay Group. It provides potentially accurate and diverse information on where employees stand in relation to where they should be in terms of skills and behaviors.

Normally it involves assessment by Self, Manager, Direct Reports, & Peers. There are set of questions (i.e. 5 to 7 questions for each competency) and the raters choose a most suitable answer from the scale. (i.e. Consistently, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never) Some of them also have an option for providing written comments about behavior and performance. The report for each employee provides us detailed competency scores, by rater group, with competency definitions along with a summary of strengths and areas for improvement.

However, there is one caution as pointed out by Richard E. Boyatzis, “But when we move to a 360 test, we are asking untrained informants – not trained coders – to assess an individual and his or her behavior. And when informants are responding they need more guidance.”

Personality Inventory:

Apart from 360-Degree survey, some organizations use formal personality inventories, such as the California Psychological Inventory and the Hogan Personality Inventory, to measure personality variables. Such tests normally require an applicant to answer 200 or more (yes/no) questions. These questions attempt to get to the core of the personality, values and the things that make one successful.

According to Rob Silzer & Allan Church, “many organizations administer personality inventories after the individuals have been identified as high potential.” Since, there are legal concerns in several countries about using these instruments for selection, many authors suggest using them for development purposes. Silzer & Church further states that the use of personality inventories has tremendously increased over the years for assessment of potential leadership candidates.   

Other Tests:

We can use several other options for assessment of candidates i.e. career background interviews, Cognitive Ability Tests, Personality Tests, Assessment Centers, individual assessments, Job Fit Test, Culture Fit Test, & Job Simulations etc.

Employee Selection for development:

The next step in this process is preparing a list of potential candidates by using nine-box talent matrix as shown in the following image. By using this tool, we can determine which employees to invest in and the level of investment required.

Once we have identified and designate employees as ‘high potential’ (formally / informally), we have to give them opportunities for accelerated development. Designing formal ‘Individual Development Plan’ [IDP] would facilitate effective implementation of this process. Talent review meetings would be a better option to set expectations around roles and the goals. "The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals." - Stephen Covey. The company should provide an opportunity for the boss and the employee to have a conversation to clarify and align their expectations about the development plan. This could be the ‘development discussion’ as mentioned earlier in the appraisal example of Laszlo Bock.

This conversation can include the use of different options for employee development (for achieving expected level of competencies). For example, formal leadership programs (with well-defined curriculum), providing a coach or mentor, in-depth executive assessment, career planning, job rotation, job enrichment, provide experiences, special work assignments (projects, task forces, temporary assignments), or executive education courses. These options play an important part in the development of these high potentials.

As stated by Michael Bergdahl, “Ideas are the easy part of strategic planning; it is the implementation of the tactics that is tough.” Hence, the success of this process hinges on the effective implementation of the Individual Development Plan. According to the study conducted by Corporate Leadership Council (2005) following factors are important drivers for developing employee potential: 1. the quality and skills of the current manager and, 2. a customized and achievable development plan.

Training, Coaching & Mentoring:

We all know the 70-20-10 model normally used as part of Training and Development initiatives. (70% - On the job 20% - Learning from others & 10% - Structured Learning) It is a continuous process, which begins with the identification of high potential employees, and goes on until removing the gap between expected and the actual level of competencies. The focal objective of these initiatives should be capability development and achieving required level of competencies. In fact, it should be reviewed periodically as per organizational requirements. According to Peter Senge, “Over the long run, superior performance depends on superior learning.” 

70% - On the job learning	20% - Learning from others	10% - Structured Learning
Action Learning & Problem Solving Placements, Job rotations Self-directed and incidental learning Projects and special assignments	Subject Matter networks User Generated content Collaboration platforms Coaching, Mentoring Feedback	Workshops, Classroom Webinars Online Learning E-learning M-Learning

Following quote clearly outline the importance of learning and development initiatives. “You can have the best product and store location around but if your staff is weak or poorly trained you will experience mediocre results.” -  Michael Bergdahl, Walmart

Many organizations provide Coaching & Mentoring to facilitate the development of selected employees. Like training, this initiative is also an ongoing process. Due to budgetary constraints, companies are becoming more selective while using external coaches. Normally companies use them for senior level positions.

“External coaches can bring greater objectivity, fresher perspectives, higher levels of confidentiality and experience in many different organizations, industries, and business environments.” – “Coaching: A Global Study of Successful Practices,” AMA, 2008

According to Silzer & Church companies are also training HR professionals and Line managers to coach employees internally. In fact, Dave Ulrich says, "HR professionals can coach business leaders to raise employee and organizational productivity by setting standards, giving feedback, and becoming personal leadership trainers."

With impartial view of the situation, they can advise and support high potentials to:

- achieve their objectives.

- enhance their performance.

- create and support their ‘Individual Development Plan’.

- develop certain competencies and capabilities.

- facilitate progression through different levels of those competencies.

“Leaders cannot succeed on their own; even the most outwardly confident executives need support and advice”. - B. George & P. Sims

Promoting to new position:

After successfully implementing IDP, if the employee is ‘high potential’ and ‘consistently exceeds performance expectations’ (improved assessment results) he/she can be considered for placement in the leadership position. However, the support system must provide backing through continuous ‘Training’, ‘Coaching’ and ‘Mentoring’. According to Michael Watkins, while going through transitions, it takes minimum 6 months for an employee to reach the ‘break-even point’. The focal objective of an onboarding program should be to fasten the speed of employees to reach the break-even point ASAP. The company must provide specific feedback, guidance and needed support to the employee during this period.

Managing their transition into new position becomes crucial for Leadership development program. We may have to focus on five aspects of onboarding process to address this issue. These core aspects are (RECAP) - building Relationships and networks, setting Expectations, Cultural indoctrination, Administrative formalities, and structured Process. [More details - “Onboarding”]

Conclusion:

“In conclusion – the phrase that wakes up the audience.” – Herbert Prochnow. Leadership is a vast subject and here we have tried to focus only on very few activities that we can implement for Leadership Development Program. As correctly said by Peter Drucker, “Leaders are not born; they are grown.” Hence, identification of high potentials and their development become important aspects for the internal development of leaders. Leadership development program should be integrated with the overall talent management strategy of the organization. It should also have backing with appropriate motivation (intrinsic - extrinsic), retention and rewards & recognition. As stated by Jim Collins, “The key is to develop and promote insiders who are highly capable of stimulating healthy change and progress, while preserving the core.”

Competency models facilitate the integration of Leadership development program and business strategy of the organization. Performance management system can provide accurate details of the 'high performing' employees. Whereas, we can get valid data pertaining to their actual potential using appropriate assessment instruments. Then we can select most suitable candidates with maximum scores for Leadership Development Program.

We have to establish an Individual development plan for each selected employee. However, the success of this process largely depends on effective implementation of IDP, using proper development options such as Job Rotation, Job Enrichment, Special Assignment, etc. Training & Development is a huge subject in itself and we are taking only surface view out here. Through using proper training (70-20-10) coupled with Coaching and Mentoring on an on-going basis, we can polish the 'rough diamonds' and turn them into 'consistent stars'. HR has a major responsibility once they have been promoted into new positions by providing them support through proper on-boarding. “Leadership occurs when the organization builds a cadre of future leaders who have the capacity to shape an organization’s culture and create patterns of success.” – Ulrich & Smallwood

Developing leadership pipeline is going to be crucial for the ongoing success of any company and HR has a major part to play in this regard. However, HR must share ownership with Management and Line Managers. Because “The most significant contribution leaders make is not simply to today’s bottom line, (but) to the long-term development of people and institutions, so they can adapt, change, prosper, and grow.” - Barry Z. Posner & James M. Kouzes.