Week 3 essay
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TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS COVER STORY
The principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte shares nine predictions for how HR will redefine the workplace this year. And we highlight some of the people leading the way.
T his will be a transform ational year in many areas of corporate talent management. The global
economic recovery, changing demograph ics and rapid changes in technology have come together to redefine the entire nature of work. While many talk about the “new world of w ork,” in reality we also have a “new world of life”—one where work, home, family and personal lives are inter connected in a real-time way.
This interrelatedness, coupled with the shift in demographics—today’s Millenni a l are expected to make up 75 percent of the global workforce by 2020, accord ing to Deloitte’s Global H um an Capital Trends 2014 report—means th at busi nesses must think about talent very differ ently than they have in the past. Workers now join companies like athletes join pro fessional teams: As long as both parties benefit from the relationship, it contin ues. If people see opportunities elsewhere, they move on—although they often don’t
By Josh Bersin
“leave” in the same sense anymore: They stay in touch and remain close, frequently even returning to the same company when the time is right.
Em ployers, once in a p o sitio n of power, are no longer in control, thanks to tremendous transparency in the job m ar ket that is driven by dozens of online job networks. And if your company is not a great place to work, people find out fast: Candidates can quickly size up a poten tial employer on professional networks, assessing your work conditions, m anag ers and even interviewing style. Today, the concepts of “employment brand” and “employee engagem ent” have merged: Employees com m unicate your brand externally every day, whether you like it or not.
There are now many softw are tools t h a t in te g r a te p ro g r a m s a n d p r o cesses, such th a t every p a rt of H R has become integrated. Diversity and inclu sion, brand and rep u tatio n , corporate
p u rp o se and m ission, and even how you m anage the hourly w orkforce are all related. So we need to expand our visio n an d th in k h o lis tic a lly a b o u t ev erything we do in H R as p a r t o f a “talent ecosystem.”
In 2015, rather than focusing on sim ply innovating in each part of H R , com panies should focus on prioritizing, and remember that each area is complex and touches all the rest. I hope this short sum mary of predictions for 2015, which is a condensed version of the report Predic tions for 2015: Redesigning the Organi zation for a N ew World o f W ork, helps prepare you for the brave new world in which we live and work. To access the report, visit www.bersin.com. >
E ditor’s Note: In the accompanying pages, we highlight business leaders who have done notable work related to each prediction. The people profiled were chosen by HR Magazine and not Josh Bersin or anyone from Deloitte Consulting LLP.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 33
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
P re d ic tio n 1
Culture, diversity, engagement and retention will be front-burner issues
I n t o d a y ’s h ig h ly t r a n s p a r e n t jo b m a r k e t, em p lo y ee e n g a g e m ent an d em ploym ent b ran d are becom ing the sam e thing: If p e o
ple are unhappy at w ork, they are n o t only underperform ing and increasing the cost of turnover, they are also m aking it harder to hire good people. So a focus on engage m ent is a high priority everywhere.
In 2015, th e topics o f “engagem ent” and “c u ltu re” w ill likely become central to everything H R does. W hile we will con tinue to build m any trad itio n al H R solu tions, we m ust ask ourselves continuously
“Does this m ake w ork more enjoyable and productive?” and “H o w can we simplify these solutions to m ake w ork easier?”
D iversity an d inclusion, unconscious bias, a n d gender issues are sim ilarly crit ical issues. A cco rd in g to an A u g u st 12, 2014, article from B loom berg (“T he Sil icon Valley D iversity N u m b ers N o b o d y Is P ro u d O f ” ), F acebook, G oogle, T w it te r a n d A pple all p u b licly d isclo sed in 2 014 th a t th e bulk o f th e ir en g in eerin g an d te ch n ic al p ro fessio n als are C a u ca sian m ales. T h e C E O s o f th ese co m p a nies a re n o w s ta n d in g u p a n d ta lk in g
In 2015, take a serious look at engagement, diversity and culture to make sure they play a major role
in all areas of your HR strategy.
ab o u t th is issue openly— w hich begs the q u estio n w hy the pipeline o f c a n d id a tes for n e x t-g e n eratio n careers is n o t m ore diverse. A d d itio n a lly , only 4 .8 p erc en t o f all F o r t u n e 5 0 0 C E O s a re w o m en , a c c o rd in g to a Ju n e 3, 2 0 1 4 , F o r tu n e m ag azin e article.
T h e em ployee en g ag em en t m a rk e t place is undergoing disruption, as well. At Deloitte, clients tell us th a t the traditional annual engagem ent survey, w hile im por tan t, is n o t fast, actionable or local enough to give leaders the inform ation they need. In 2015, a flu rry o f new to o ls w ill give m anagers and leaders continual feedback
34 HR Magazine January/February 2015
Who's Making It Happen
H o w a rd Ross, F o u n d e r a n d C h ie f L e a rn in g O ffic e r,
C o o k Ross Inc.
S ilv e r S p rin g , M d .
Diversity consultant Howard Ross and his team have worked with clients in several dozen countries to get at the heart of what causes workplace bias. He found that people are suffering from a kind of diversity fatigue that comes from the typical "find them and fix them" training aimed only at people in a dominant group.
Ross encourages everyone to examine their assumptions. "Bias is as natural to human beings as breathing," he says. "And that gives us a new way to look at working with people." His work on unconscious bias—the prejudices that people don't even know they harbor— is resonating at many large global companies. — Christina Folz
B ig g e s t S tu m b lin g B lock to Inclusio n
Many people are genuinely committed to change and frustrated when they don't see results. But good intentions may be distinct to the behavior we engage in. All of us may be unaware of what's dictating our decisions.
on employee h ap piness, m aking engagement a much more real-time and actionable topic among HR and business leaders. T hink about it as the always-available anonymous sug gestion box for business. Data about the work environment, managerial capabilities and the company’s mis sion will appear everywhere—and your job is to collect it, act on it and use it effectively as fast as you can.
Finally, this is the year to focus on culture. If we measure and under stand our culture well, we can hire people who fit and use that to drive
perform ance and alignm ent. If we have a disparate, unclear or unhealthy culture, we need to measure it more carefully and take steps to improve it. If your leadership team has not tried to write down or describe your culture clearly, you may be missing a major opportunity: Companies now use culture as a tool to assess candi dates, identify leaders, drive change and improve productivity.
In 2015, take a serious look at engagement, diversity and culture to make sure they play a major role in all areas of your HR strategy.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 35
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 2
P e rfo rm a n c e m a n a g e m e n t will continue to be redesigned
T h ro u g h o u t 2014, D eloitte found companies struggling to fix an overly com plex, unhappy performance m an agement process to make it simpler and
to put more focus on development. Sadly, Deloitte’s Global Hum an Capital Trends 2014 rep o rt found th a t only 8 percent
opposed to managers) and work in a cross functional way, making traditional m an ager-led evaluation limiting.
Also contributing to the peer-to-peer dynamic is the fact that social tools now let people share goals, recognition and work-related information in a tran sp ar ent way.
Training managers on how to coach, give feedback and
regularly check in with employees is critical to success.
of surveyed global organizations believe their performance management process is w orth the time they put into it. The race is on to change that.
How did many current processes sud denly become obsolete? For one thing, an influx of younger workers and heightened demand for skills has made it increasingly im p o rta n t for com panies to focus on coaching and development. For another, teams are often led by team leaders (as
Finally, numeric ratings, rankings and formal evaluations without positive feed back may create a culture of reduced per formance, according to new research on the neurology and psychology of work from David Rock, director of the Neuro- Leadership Institute.
In 2014, m ore th a n 70 p ercent of the com panies D eloitte surveyed for th e G lo b a l H u m a n C a p ita l Trends 2014 rep o rt were re-engineering their
performance management process, and in 2015 more companies will likely fol low suit.
Several im p o rtan t issues should be addressed as you take on this highly stra- ̂ tegic project: | • Companies should revisit the “why” I of their perform ance management pro- * cess. W hat business, talent and cultural £
O outcomes are you trying to achieve? S • P e rfo rm an ce c o a c h in g , develop- | ment and evaluation are among the most > im portant parts of the process, so com- | panies are simplifying the process to help § managers focus here first. §
36 HR Magazine January/February 2015
• Goal management, once consid ered a top-down cascading process, should be more agile, frequent and transparent. (See Bersin by Deloitte’s High-Im pact Performance Manage ment: Using Goals to Focus the 21st- Century 'Workforce report, 2014.) • Numeric ratings play a smaller role than before. Companies are using new values-based scales and other methods to give people feed back and advice, not just a “grade.” • The 1:1 match between rating and compensation is becoming a thing of the past. Forward-thinking companies
eliminate or separate these concepts entirely and make pay adjustments based on performance, customer impact, skill scarcity and the competi tive nature of employees’ positions. • Training managers on how to coach, give feedback and regularly check in with employees is critical to success. • Large HR software vendors are slowly starting to build more-agile performance management tools, and a number of new vendors are launching low-touch, easy-to-use performance and goal management tools.
Who's Making It Happen
LeighA nne Baker, Chief HR Officer and Corporate Vice President, Cargill Minneapolis/St. Paul
In late 2014, LeighAnne Baker accepted a pres tigious Human Resource Management Impact Award on behalf of her employer, Cargill. This international honor given by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology rec ognized the work of Baker's team in transform ing performance management from a once-a- year event to an everyday conversation.
There are certainly plenty of Cargill employees to manage: The agricultural giant employs 145,000 people in 67 countries. After conducting extensive research, Cargill's HR team launched its Everyday Performance Management system in 2012. "W e have been focused on continuous improvement ever since," Baker says.
Last year, the team worked to ensure that managers were engaging in daily discussions with their employees focused on feedback and development. — Christina Folz
Everyday Performance Management We shifted the focus from a cumbersome annual process to ongoing discussions focused on feedback, development, coaching and trust. The system is built on the notion that day-to-day conversations can predict performance better than forms and scales. That's why we took the groundbreaking step of eliminating ratings.
Her Advice Build a compelling business case clearly linked to your needs and priorities. Integrate external research and insights about your company's val ues and culture. What worked for Cargill might not work for you.
How She's Making a Difference We have been gathering employee and practice effectiveness data for three years. We found an 8 percent increase in respondents who said they received useful development feedback, a 9 percent rise in those who felt valued and a 10 percent increase in engagement.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 37
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 3
More companies will deal with o v e r w h e l m e d e m p lo y e e s
D eloitte’s global hum an capi ta l tren d s research shows th a t more th an tw o-thirds of all surveyed o rg a n iz a
tions believe their employees are “over whelm ed” w ith too much inform ation, too many projects, too many meetings and phone calls, and an always-on 24/7 work environment. According to 2014 Internet trends research by Kleiner Perkins Cau- field Byers, the average person checks his or her cellphone 150 times a day.
Every stim ulus we have at w o r k - even the alert we get when a new e-mail arrives— creates an addictive reaction th at increases people’s stress, according to Larry Rosen’s book iDisorder: Under standing O ur Obsession w ith Technol ogy and O vercom ing Its H o ld on Us (Palgrave M acmillan Trade, 2013).
In 2015, as more technology floods the workplace (smartwatches, wearable devices and even sm arter phones), H R should take a hard look at the entire work environment and do everything possible to make w ork more hum ane, rational and simple. Some program s and exam ples Deloitte sees as tremendously impor tan t include the following:
C o m p a n ie s a r e c r e a t i n g o p e n w o r k s p a c e s t h a t le t p e o p l e m o v e a ro u n d , c h a n g e th e ir w o r k lo c a tio n a n d w o r k from h o m e as n e e d e d . Most people have children, families or elder care responsibilities, so they need flex ibility and freedom to w ork when and where they want.
W o r k /life b a la n c e p r o g r a m s are i n c r e a s i n g ly im p o r ta n t . These can include free food, unlimited vacation, hot
breakfasts, yoga classes, nap rooms and mindfulness programs. Many will argue th a t these program s are simply high- cost perks th at make sense only in highly competitive markets like Silicon Valley. Deloitte disagrees: M ore and more cli ents tell us they save money and improve productivity by m aking the workplace more humane. Research from the Great Place to Work Institute shows th at when people feel more com fortable at w ork,
they w ork harder, are more productive and gladly work longer hours.
S m all tea m s w o r k b e s t. M any stud ies demonstrate that small teams outper form big team s. (See J. R ichard H ack m an’s June 7,2011, article “Six Common M isperceptions ab o u t T eam w o rk ” in the Harvard Business R eview Blog N et work.) W hen people w ork closely with a small group day after day, they make decisions faster, collaborate more openly and innovate more. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos calls this the “two-pizza rule”—if there are more than two pizzas in the staff meeting, the team is too big.
HR a n d w o r k -r e la te d p r o c e s s e s n e e d to b e s im p lif ie d . Take a seven- step process and reduce it to three; take a competency model with 20 competencies
and reduce it to 10 or less; redesign the user interface on your software to have only a few buttons or require only a few swipes of the phone. People don’t w ant to learn software; they just w ant to use it.
Simplification does not mean being sim plistic: It m eans tak in g a so p h is ticated view of a program or process, detailing all th at it entails, and then care fully and ruthlessly stripping out w hat is not urgently needed.
Who's Making It Happen
Virginia Vega, SPHR, S e n io r M a n a g e r , C a r e e r a n d
L e a r n in g o f H R , G e n e n t e c h In c .
S a n F ra n c is c o
When Genentech Inc. was acquired by the Switzerland-based Roche Group six years ago, the biotech company
suddenly became part o f a much larger
global organization. To help employees
manage the extra demands o f w orking
in a global environment, Virginia Vega
Companies are creating open workspaces that let people move around, change their work location and work from home as needed.
3 8 HR Magazine J a n u a r y / F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5
and her HR team launched Wellbeing @ Work, an interactive online toolkit that gives employees access to resources that could help rejuvenate them. The team worked with vendors to offer a well-being assessment and energy audit, as well as classroom and online learning, to address five aspects of well-being: career, social, financial, physical and com munity. Several thousand employees have taken advantage of the various resources, including a popular course by one vendor, The Energy Project, to learn
ways to irmprove their energy levels. — Dori Meinert
What's Next Our emphasis in 2015 will be to focus on leaders, helping them create a top-down environment of well-being.
Her Advice Get a serise of the state of readiness in your organization. That can be achieved through 4 formal needs assessment and many other ways. Also ensure that you
have support from specific leaders or executives.
How She's Making a Difference The courses have been highly utilized and rated by employees. But more important, we are beginning to see signs of change where a leader and team shift the way they are working and living: walking one- on-one meetings, meditation sessions, team social lunches, team volunteer events and other company-sponsored well-being events.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 39
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COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 4
Corporate learning will be transformed and will take on more importance
R e s e a rc h by E rik B ry n jo lfs- so n o f M IT show s th a t the in c re a s e d s p e c ia liz a tio n o f w orkforce skills has d ram a ti
cally im pacted the w hole economy. First, it affects jobs: A study published
by O x fo rd University in September 2013 shows th a t alm o st h alf the jobs we have to d ay w ill be elim inated in th e n e x t 10 years. Jobs in accounting, law and service an d m ost white-collar jobs are now under the th rea t of being eliminated or radically changed by technology.
Second, it im pacts earnings: As Peter R o b in so n o f B loom berg re p o rte d in a 2 0 1 2 article, 93 percent of the econom ic g ro w th we saw in th e m o st recent eco nom ic recovery w ent to only 1 percent of the U.S. population.
T here seem to be an endless num ber of topics for train in g today: personal devel opm ent skills, technical skills, an d m an ag e rial an d te a m w o rk skills. In 2 0 1 5 ,
content will proliferate like never before. M O O C s (massive open online courses) an d co n ten t m a rk e tp la ce s (Udemy and O penSesam e, for example) are u n leash ing an enorm ous new world of online con tent. You m u st fam iliarize yourself w ith all these o p tio n s an d m ake sure you are leveraging them.
D riven by th e g lo b al, m u lticu ltu ra l n atu re o f business, face-to-face learning also has its place. Companies are reopening and building new corporate universities to help bring global team s together and make
sure their culture and connections are as strong as their learning content.
Finally, it is tim e to th ro w aw ay old ideas ab o u t e-learn in g an d th in k ab o u t a n in te g ra te d d ig ita l le a rn in g e x p e r i ence. W h e n in d iv id u als need to le a rn som ething, they should be able to find a video, read a blog, take an online course or even ru n a n app on their phone th a t may include a gam e an d assessm ent to help
them learn. T he technologies of learning are now the same as the technologies for the consum er Internet, and organizations can use all these tools to build fan tastic an d integrated solutions.
C om panies should focus on building a com plete le arn in g experience, includ ing creating a learn in g cu ltu re, bringing people to g eth er to m eet each o th e r an d leaders, an d m o d e rn izin g d ig ital le a rn ing. O nline videos have now set th e s ta n d ard , an d M ille n n ia l w ho com e to w ork a t y o u r co m p an y w ill lo o k fo r sim ila r systems.
Take a “supply c h a in ” view of skills, realizing th a t it o ften ta k es m any years for an employee to build deep skills in his o r her role or organization. C areer devel opm ent program s, job ro tatio n s, com pe tency-based assessm ent an d sim ulations are increasingly im portant.
Y our role as an H R o r le arn in g an d d ev elo p m en t leader is to refo cu s y o u r effo rts o n lo n g er-term te a m ca p ab ility d ev elo p m en t, cre a tin g a fu n c tio n th a t embeds local learning team s in th e busi ness bu t shares in fra s tru c tu re an d c o r p o rate p ro g ra m s w herever possible. As th e econom y picks up steam , y o u r ab il ity to rap id ly deploy com pelling le a rn ing p ro g ram s w ill become a com petitive advantage.
Online videos have now set the standard, and M illennial who
come to work at your company will look for similar systems.
40 HR Magazine January/February 2015
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Who's Making It Happen
Yashwant Mahadik, Senior Vice President, Head of HR Business Transformation, IT & Global Head of Learning, Philips Amsterdam
Yashwant Mahadik led his team in establishing a corporate university built for the 21st century. "W e have been through a learning transforma tion," he says of creating Philips University, a journey that began tw o years ago. "We're still in the midst of it." The global technology company's university incorporates not just new technologi cal approaches— including learning management systems and social learning— but also emerging scientific insights on how individuals learn based on their unique styles.
"There is research and outcomes on the new science of learning," Mahadik says. Philips University is based on the so-called 70/20/10 principle, which states that development is most effective when 10 percent of learning comes from formal settings such as the classroom or e-learning, 20 percent through mentoring, and 70 percent on the job. — Christina Folz
Transforming Tech A decade ago, companies spent a lot of time, energy and money customizing their own learn- ing management systems. Today, the focus is on leveraging best-in-class technology provided by vendors and social platforms.
His Advice Create a culture where learning is the goal, rather than just the imparting of education. Schools are often criticized for focusing students more on how to pass exams than to actually learn. The same can happen in organizations.
How He's Making a Difference We've relied on the NPS— or net promoter score—to assess the effectiveness of our invest ment, as well as metrics on the cost, quality and speed of learning. Gone are the days when you could take months to design and deliver learning capabilities.
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 5
Companies will redesign talent acquisition, leveraging netw ork recruiting, brand reach
and new technologies
P ossibly the most im portant thing managers and leaders do in busi ness is to hire the right people. But the world of recruiting has
dramatically changed. N ot only must we know how to source and assess candidates throughout a global netw ork, we must also learn how to differentiate ourselves through brand, candidate experience and the candidate relationship management process.
right candidates. Ultimately, the process breaks down if managers are not assess ing people well. It’s probably the hardest thing we have to do, so work closely with them to build capability and make sure candidates are getting a great and efficient experience. Great managers know how to recruit great people.
Develop a strong candidate pool through brand and relationship man agement. T h is m eans m a rk e tin g the
Many managers are not well-trained at recruiting, so it's important to teach them how to identify
the right candidates. At a high level, the world of recruit
ing is shifting from th at of “traditional recruiting” to what we think of as “net w ork re c ru itin g .” O u r com pany and brand extends into a network of candi dates, potential candidates, employees, contractors and corporate alumni.
Deloitte recently completed several years of research on talent acquisition and found that, among 20 or more factors in recruitment, three of the most important today are to:
Build a strong relationship with hir ing managers. M any m anagers are not well-trained at recruiting, so it’s im por ta n t to teach them how to identify the
company well, attracting interested can didates well before a job is posted, m ak ing the candidate experience valuable and easy, and continuously communicat ing with candidates. The whole model of “network recruiting” means investing in the brand, m arketing, communications and reach to engage th e rig h t people around the world.
Leverage internal and external net works. Use your employees and alumni fo r re fe rra ls ; ta p in to p ro fe ssio n a l groups, universities and industry groups th at align with your company and build relationships with these groups that will bring the top candidates to you. Today’s
new talent acquisition platforms, which alm ost totally replace legacy systems, have built-in tools to leverage networks, explode referral marketing and more eas ily create candidate marketing programs.
This is the year to take a broad, stra tegic look at your talent acquisition strat egy. W hat parts of the ecosystem are you missing? Where are you wasting time and money on sourcing or recruiters you no longer need? Are you investing heavily enough in the new tools needed to reach the best candidates on the market? Have you built the most authentic, compelling and m eaningful brand and candidate experience you can?
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Who's Making It Happen
Stacy Donovan Zapar, Founder of Tenfold San Diego
Job postings are so 2013— at least at Zappos, which made headlines in May 2014 when it eliminated them altogether in favor of its Zappos Insiders program,
Recruiting consultancy Tenfold worked with Zappos to launch an "entire social recruiting strategy from scratch, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedln, Google Plus and m o re ... all within a six-week period!" says Stacy Donovan Zapar, Tenfold founder. "W e wanted to give insiders a place to commu nicate with us, learn about us and give us a chance to get to know them, too."
Zapar helped Zappos come up with creative approaches for engaging job candidates, including Google Hangouts, biweekly Twitter chats, weekly blog posts and online webinars. "W e are con stantly thinking of fun new ways to inter act," she says. — Christina Folz
Help for Help Wanted W ith job postings, w e had to wade through lots of applicants, and w e only hired 1 percent. Having to reject so many people was not a good use of our tim e and not a great candidate experi ence, N ow people can become Insiders by submitting a resume, and they are automatically considered for relevant positions that become available. We
spend our tim e proactively sourcing and having positive, exploratory conversa tions.
Her Advice Be willing to take risks, even if you're not sure how they will turn out. Expect hic cups, missteps, pushback and question ing It’s all part of the process
How She's Making a Difference The proof is in the pudding! The bounce rate on our careers page is down 50 percent, and we're on track to have three times as many Insiders sign up post launch as we did total unique applicants last year-—and eight times more sourced candidates.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 43
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
T oday, m any org an izatio n s still stru g g le to fac ilita te internal talent mobility, and fewer th a n o n e-th ird have form al succession plans for all but the
very top levels, according to the Bersin by D eloitte H ig h -Im p a c t Succession M anagement: Key Findings and M a tu rity M odel report published in Novem ber 2014.
W hy is this issue so im portant now? Q uite simply, it is good business. High- performing companies around the world have highly tenured people. N o t only are these folks more skilled, they also u n d erstan d how the com pany w orks, can build on relationships to get things done and have the confidence to in iti ate change.
W h en an em ployee leaves a com pany, we are forced to bring in som e one else who starts at the bottom of the curve. This means we incur the cost of hiring (often a half to a th ird the salary of a senior person), the loss of produc tivity (the area under the curve) and the dim inished learning curve of the new employee. Yes, the new person may have excellent skills and perspective from the outside, b ut in m any cases it w ill take years to realize those benefits.
On the other hand, if we offer people “facilitated talent m obility”—meaning
Prediction 6
T a le n t m o b ility and c a re e r m a n a g e m e n t s tra te g ie s will
become necessary to compete that we allow them to move to new roles with some logic and process in place—we avoid a lot of these “low perform ance” changes in position. It’s a win for every one: People are constantly being devel oped an d c h a lle n g e d , th e com pany thrives on a strong internal culture, and engagement goes up.
U nfortunately, creating such a p ro cess of internal mobility is harder than it sounds. In 2015, companies should for
of a manager’s job. As internal mobility increases, so do the number of people who are new to their position—so we need to give people the support they need to do their new job. • Assign career coaches (not necessar ily managers) to map patterns of move ment, help people find the next logical job and document career paths the company wants people to take. • Promote people based on their breadth
nvest in onboarding and new-hire orientation, making it clear this is
part of a manager's job.
malize this process and consider some of the following steps: • M ake sure th a t all posted positions are marketed internally and th at employ ees are encouraged to apply. • C re a te in cen tiv es an d ru le s th a t encourage m anagers to let people shop for new jobs internally, m aking it cul turally OK to move from one position to another without a promotion. • Invest in onboarding and new-hire orientation, making it clear this is part
of experience, not just functional exper tise, showing that changing jobs internally is good for their career.
Take a lesson from the military, which actively moves professionals throughout their careers. A new officer who may start in an internal domestic assignment could easily be transferred across the world to a new one, then come back to a staff assignment at a higher level. This process of “tours of duty” is healthy for the com pany, the individual and the organization.
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January/February 2015 HR Magazine 45
Who's Making It Happen
Ben Casnocha, co-author. The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age San Francisco
Ben Casnocha believes that today's work force more closely resembles entrepre neurs than the "lifers" of yesteryear—and that, to recruit and manage them, you need a whole new talent framework. He collaborated w ith Linkedln chairman Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Chris Yeh to w rite The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age (Harvard Business Review Press, July), which explores talent mobility trends.
The "Tour of Duty" In the context of work, this is a commit ment by employer and employee to a mis sion of finite duration that transforms both the employee's career and the company's trajectory.
His Advice We can't restore the old model of lifetime employment, but we can build a new loyal ty. You must move from a transactional to a relational approach. Think of employment as a mutually beneficial deal, w ith explicit terms, between independent players.
How He's Making a Difference You can't measure all that matters. When a manager tells me that she was able to engage a formerly disengaged employee by having open and honest conversations about their career— as we advise in The Alliance— I find that very satisfying.
Casnocha regularly delivers speeches on business topics— including at SHRM's 2013 Strategy Conference— and has w rit ten for NPR's "Marketplace," Newsweek and the U.S. State Department. He's authored tw o other business books and maintains a blog. He was previously Hoff man's chief of staff at Linkedln. — Christina Folz
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COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 7
Leaders will invest in ta le n t a n a ly tic s and w o r k fo r c e planning
T oday, we read article after article ab o u t “people a n a lytics” teams identifying the best criteria for hiring and the factors that drive retention and high
performance. In 2015, it is becoming imperative for
H R teams to invest in talent analytics. This does not mean buying a new soft ware package and building more reports: It means bringing together the reporting and analytics teams in recruiting, com pensation, engagement, learning and lead ership, and developing a plan to evaluate your workforce from a holistic perspective. Companies spend up to two-thirds of their budgets on people—yet many have not invested the money and time to clean up, rationalize and combine data about those people to help make better decisions.
Bersin by Deloitte research shows that it typically takes one to tw o years for a
company to build a talent analytics team (H igh-Im pact Talent Acquisition: Key Findings and M a tu rity M odel rep o rt, September 2014). But if you don’t start, you’ll never get there. This level of invest
ment initially feels like a big expense, but in a very short time the analytics team may pay for itself.
W hen you put a program together to collect people data all in one place, you can im m ediately focus on urgent business issues. How do we get a higher
quality of hire? How do we improve our b a ttin g average for hig h -p erfo rm in g salespeople? W hat are the characteristics of our best customer service representa tives? W hat training program is deliver ing the highest return on investment in leadership? W hy are certain groups of employees leaving at an alarm ing rate? The answers could be w orth millions of dollars.
In 2015, there will be a flood of new tools, consultants and case studies on tal ent and H R analytics. Be careful not to jump at technology just because it seems like the trendy thing to do. Rather, focus
on building your team, bringing people together and developing a multiyear plan to invest in this area. The payoff will likely be huge. If your competitors do it first, you may suddenly find yourself losing critical hires or great employees and not even know why.
When you put a program together to collect people data all in one place,
you can immediately focus on urgent business issues.
Who Else Is M aking It Happen in HR Visit w w w . s h r m .o r g /0 1 0 2 1 5 -2 0 1 5 -p r e d ic tio n s -fo r -H R to read profiles of a few other HR rock stars.
46 HR Magazine January/February 2015
Who's Making It Happen
Mark Berry, Former Vice President of People In sights, ConAgra Foods Omaha
Whether home-grown or outsourced, analytics can help HR drive evidence- based decision-making in real time. Mark Berry has been a leader in both approaches. He spearheaded ConAgra's workforce analytics, initially leading development of a self-service tool that used an analytics program ConAgra already owned.
While it improved ConAgra's capabilities, the system wasn't designed for HR, and Berry soon found that it required too much attention from IT. Ultimately, he decided to outsource analytics, and in late 2013 the company implemented a cloud- based system from Visier Ine. that is less dependent on IT and highly interactive.
"Data w ithout insights, and insights w ithout action, is not where you want to go. It's the combination of the three," Berry says. -Dori Meinert
His Priorities Growing the capability of HR, You can't do this work w ith a small group of people in a large organization. Then you have to be able to take that capability and apply it to business-relevant issues:
His Advice Start small, but from the beginning ar ticulate a vision that is much bigger .than where you are today.
How He's Making a Difference In the past, we could say in general our representation of people of color was higher or lower than average, but we couldn't really give you more specifics, Now, we can say it is lower within this or that group, in this job, w ith this amount of tenure and this age. Then we are able to target interventions.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 47
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 8
C o m p a n ie s w ill ta k e a d v a n ta g e o f n e w to o ls in HRtechnology
T he average hum an resource management system (HRMS) is nearly five years old. In 2 0 1 5 , c o m p a n ie s s h o u ld revisit their aging architectures, look to
m odernize and consider converting to highly flexible cloud-based systems.
Core HRM S and talent management features (payroll, performance manage ment, recruiting, learning management, succession m anagem ent) are available from m ost m ajor en terprise resource p la n n in g (ERP) providers. But some exciting new tools can be found only through small, innovative vendors. These tools address inform al learning, in te grated network recruiting and candidate relationship management, social recog nition, real-time employee feedback, cul ture assessment and fit, and many other areas. So as you firm up your core system of record into a single ERP suite, you may also find yourself wanting to buy innova tive tools from smaller vendors as well. This will be a sound strategy for 2015. As long as you have a vendor th at provides most of the core products you need, buy ing innovative cloud-based products as add-ons can be easy and affordable.
Key disruptions in the H R technology industry include: • A n intense focus on user e x p e ri ence and user engagement instead of a
proliferation of features and cascading menus. As one software executive put it, the value of a softw are company today is not its revenue but rather the level of engagement its product has with users. • Mobile apps that embed H R solutions instead of only providing a mobile view of websites. • Integration of real-time data, location data and other sensor data into H R p ro grams such as engagement and schedul ing. Look at the success of wearables for exercise management; this type of real time data collection will come to HR. • D ata-driven recom m endations for hiring, learning, retention and even lead ership development. Your H R software should “recom m end” people, experts, pro g ram s and m anagem ent changes, rather th an just give you lots of reports to run. • T ight in te g ra tio n w ith social n e t works so all H R practices can connect to each other, leverage external learning content and external com m unications tools, and source candidates on external networks. • L ow er-cost integrated H R M S sys tems th a t replace internal legacy appli cations. Consider new modules and sys tems to m anage co n tra c t, contingent and part-tim e workers as “talent”—not just “expenses”— so you can onboard,
d ev elo p , m a n a g e a n d engage w ith workers who are not full-time salaried § employees. 3 • Content and learning tools embedded | into H R software. People shouldn’t have g
LL
to “learn ” the softw are anymore; they g should just be able to use it. §
In 2015, the H R software market will f likely continue its shift from a focus on | “systems of record” to a focus on “sys- | terns of engagement.” While vendor sup- E p o rt and service is still critical to success, 5 ease of use and ease of adoption are now < key to selecting the highest-value H R c technology platforms. £
48 HR Magazine January/February 2015
Karl-Heinz Oehler, Managing Director, Denison Consulting Europe Zurich
The best consultants are those who have "walked the talk," and Karl-Heinz Oehler certainly fits that description. Before join ing Denison Consulting Europe, he served as vice president of global talent man agement for Hertz Corp., where he led employees through a major change after the company was sold to a private equity firm in the mid-2000s. "W e needed to take a hard look at people and processes and streamline everything," he says.
A frequent speaker at HR tech con
ferences, Oehler has always been a proponent of involving HR in data-based talent decisions. He overhauled Hertz's recruitment process by integrating an automated Web-based system, develop ing targeted tools based on profiles of 47 job categories. He also instituted 30-, 60- and 90-day reviews to make sure new hires were on track to deliver solid results. Over three years, turnover fell by 37 percent. — Desda Moss
Key Trend for 2015 Companies are investing in talent acqui sition systems. They're recognizing that a lot of time is being wasted getting talent on board, when there are already
tools out there that can help organiza tions.
His Advice Understand that HR is service-oriented. The way to show your intrinsic value is by recognizing the interdependencies between HR and other business process es in order to align services accordingly.
How He's Making a Difference I love sharing what I've learned in my career. Today, things are changing so fast and people are so vital to the success of a company. The challenge for HR is the same as it has always been: to become business-savvy.
January/February 2015 HR Magazine 49
COVER STORY TRENDS AND TRENDSETTERS
Prediction 9
HR teams will get a new design and a new focus on p ro fe s sio n a l d e v e lo p m e n t
I n the 1960s and 1970s, H R was viewed as a back-office p erso n nel fu n ctio n . In the 1980s and 1990s, it became focused on ser vice to m anagers and employees. In the
last 10 years, it has turned into a func tion focused on optim izing all areas of talen t. Today, H R professionals must operate as skilled consultants embedded in the business.
The highest-perform ing H R team s use a series of unique strategies, which Deloitte encourages all organizations to
consider in 2015: • Reduce the number of H R genera lists and replace them w ith a fewer number of senior H R business partn ers. These senior roles fu n ctio n as business-led consultants, w orking w ith line leaders to identify talent programs, design solu tions and direct the efforts of special ists in the centers of excellence to help with recruiting, leadership development, employee relations, coaching, training, planning and more. • Shift the focus of “centers of expertise” to “networks of expertise,” so th at spe cialists in recruitment, training, employee relations and other parts of H R are all
connected to each other and some are embedded in the business. M any func tions should be centralized—technology, leadership development, vendor manage ment, tools and methods—but the entire specialist group should function as a “net work,” not a corporate “center.” • Invest in research , ben ch m ark in g and professional development. Deloitte research shows that the highest-perform ing H R teams spend a significant amount of money in these areas, m aintaining their edge and keeping their teams cur
rent on w h a t’s going on in the outside world. This small investment can pay for itself many times over. • R efocus y our h irin g and tra in in g tow ard the new competencies of high- im pact H R team s. T oday’s H R staff must understand technology, statistics and business, as well as traditional HR. More and more H R executives say they want MBAs and business leaders on their teams. M odern H R professionals diag nose problems and push innovative solu tions; they don’t just “help people” and try to make everyone happy.
2015 will bring a fast-growing econ omy, forcing H R team s to step up their
game and provide even more value to CEO s and top-level business leaders. Resolve to tak e th is tim e to refocus and re-engineer H R itself, and you’ll be happy you did.
Bonus Prediction: Think Bold
Finally, 2015 is the time to be bold, inno vative and forw ard-thinking. Techno logical changes and other societal devel opm ents are rapidly transform ing the w orkplace. Y esterday’s approaches to recruiting, perform ance m anagem ent, training and even com pensation d o n ’t necessarily make sense today. We need to re-engineer the workplace and rethink the way we attract, engage and manage people.
I urge H R teams in 2015 to try some thing new and benchmark their organi zation against others. Visit other com panies, keep up on research, and go to industry conferences. T hat will give you the confidence and insight to try new things and deliver bold solutions th a t drive your business forward. D3
Josh Bersin is the principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, a research and advisory consulting firm in enterprise learning and talent management.
As used in this article, “D eloitte” m eans Deloitte C o n su ltin g LLP, a su b sid iary of D elo itte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. C ertain services may not be avail able to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.
W e need to re-engineer the workplace and rethink the way we
attract, engage and manage people.
50 HR Magazine J a n u a ry /F e b ru a ry 2015
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Mary Hough, Vice President, Talent & Development, SAIC Washington, D,C.
The past few years have been ones of change for; Science Applications International Corp, (SAIC). In September 2013, SAIC separated from its parent company, renamed Leidos Holdings Inc. Mary Hough coached the HR Community at SAIC as it adopted a new way of working— a matrix model,
in this structure, an employee may be "home- roomed" in one functional area but deployed on projects elsewhere. "A matrix allows an organization to more efficiently allocate scarce or expensive talent by shifting resources to meet changing business needs," Hough says.
To equip her HR business partners for the new envi ronment, she participated in SAIC's mentor-protege program, which includes goal setting as well as one-on- one coaching and group sessions, and encouraged her colleagues to mentor early-career students at George Mason University's business school in Fairfax, Va:
"In 2015, SAIC is planning to build competencies in coaching within our HR team," Hough says. Her person al resolution? "Master the waltz!" — Christina Folz
Critical Competencies With SAIC’s Shift to a matrix model, building the depth and breadth of our core competencies is essential. For a competency such as program management, we have defined career levels—from entry to mastery— and we mapped the training, experiences, certifications and leadership attributes for each level
Her Advice Learn all you can about the business you support. Understanding business drivers, constraints and market challenges will make you a credible business partner.
How She's Making a Difference In HR, we feel we've made a difference when our inter nal customers seek us out as thought leaders and busi ness partners. I feel validated when I see leaders having meaningful development discussions or taking owner ship of engagement scores.
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