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. 

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.