TALENT EDGE WEEKLY - Issue #10

April 11, 2020

Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly - the weekly newsletter for strategic human resources practitioners, bringing together talent insights from various sources.

Note: You can also access this and other content I post at my website, www.brianheger.com.

COVID-19

As we all continue to deal with the impact of COVID-19, I continue to update special issue #6, COVID-19 Resources for HR, of this newsletter. So far, that issue has 90+ references that HR colleagues can leverage as they help their organizations and workforces to navigate during this challenging time.

You can continue to access that issue for related updates.

For the current issue, the following topics are covered:

  • Prioritizing HR Cost Optimization Initiatives | Gartner

  • Succession Planning: Important in Crisis as Well as Business As Usual | reference to Deloitte  

  • Scenario Planning as a Component of Strategic Workforce Planning | reference to Gartner tool

  • CHRO Trends 2020 | The Talent Strategy Group 

  • A Framework for Reskilling: How 5 Seismic Forces Are Driving the Reinvention of Learning & Talent | PeopleFluent

  • What Is HR Digital Transformation? Definition, Strategies, and Challenges | HR Technologist

If you enjoy this content and would like to access all issues of Talent Edge Weekly, you can do so by clicking here

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Have a good weekend everyone and please be safe.

Brian

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Brian Heger is a human resources practitioner with responsibilities for Strategic Talent, Workforce Planning, and Analytics. To connect with Brian on Linkedin, click here.

Cost optimization (CO) is a business discipline and process that helps to maximize business value while reducing costs. And as CHROs’ continue to face pressure to reduce costs without comprising value, CO remains a top priority, and often a challenge, for many HR leadership teams. Although CO is based on the philosophy of finding the right balance of cost-cutting and business value, far too often these decisions are made with a sole focus on financial savings. In order to more effectively evaluate and prioritize CO opportunities, CHROs and their teams need to consider factors that go beyond financial savings. In this short reference document by Gartner, 8 criteria for making CO decisions are reviewed. These criteria span two dimensions: I) BENEFITS AND IMPACT and II) INVESTMENT, TIME, AND RISK. The 8 criteria include 1) strategic relevance, 2) cost savings and productivity gains, 3) business impact, 4) impact on employee experience, 5) investment requirement, 6) time requirement, 7) HR service delivery risk and 8) stakeholder buy-in. HR Leaders can use these criteria and their definitions to create a 2x2 matrix where they evaluate these criteria across the two dimensions. A balanced approach like this one is more likely to help HR teams make better CO decisions that maximize both cost savings and value.

Succession planning (SuPl) is a vital business and talent practice that increases an organization's likelihood of having a robust leadership pipeline. And although many reports over the last two years suggest that organizations still struggle with SuPl, this topic has become a more pressing issue amidst the coronavirus pandemic. This became evident with Jefferies CFO, Peg Broadbent, passing away last month from coronavirus complications, and UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who is hospitalized for COVID-19. As management teams and boards continue to prepare for the possibility of executive absences related to the pandemic, it will be important that they: 1) prepare temporary SuPl's for key executive positions and critical roles in their business, including the identification of successors, short-term and long-term plans for operating the company, decision rights, and shared duties and responsibilities among existing workers, to name a few, and 2) determine and prioritize the risk-level for these roles. Page 3 of this short article by Deloitte provides 5 aspects of SuPl risk including 1) Vacancy, 2) Availability, 3) Readiness , 4) Disruption, 5) Control. These levels of risk are not only a useful framework during times of crisis but can be incorporated into an organization's succession management approach. In doing so, organizations will be better equipped to gauge "succession health" and derive important insights that inform talent planning and decisions.

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) has been employed for decades but gains prominence during times of crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic we are in. Even for organizations that have mature SWP capabilities and plans, those plans, in most cases, have been turned upside down as a whole new set of unexpected factors and variables must be quickly considered. One strategic planning tool for rapid SWP is scenario planning (SP). SP looks at possible “realities” of what might happen in the future of your organization and uses this information to help think through and plan responses. While SP can be complex, some quick steps are: 1) identify plausible scenarios – usually 3 possible, but uncertain scenarios 2) assess the relative likelihood of each scenarios' occurrence 3) identify leading indicators that “signal” the scenario is likely to emerge (doing so enables a quick response before it is too late), 4) identify the talent impacts of each scenario 5) develop both operational and strategic responses for each scenario. You can list responses by things you can do preemptively or that should be done as soon as a scenario begins to emerge. These scenarios and respective responses need to be adjusted as new information arises and situations change. While SP cannot eliminate uncertainty, it enables organizations to more quickly and effectively evaluate a wide range of strategic options and decisions. And although not directly related to the steps I just outlined, this Powerpoint template by Gartner can be used to organize scenarios and think through responses. SP should be incorporated into an organization's normal strategic business planning and workforce planning processes where it factors in a range of variables and situations that can impact business performance and workforce strategies

The role of the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) continues to evolve and become more vital each day in most organizations. Based on conversations with Fortune 200 CHROs and insights from publicly available data, this report by The Talent Strategy Group provides insights about the role itself as well as CHRO priorities. A few findings from the report include: 1) Female CHROs are on the rise with 78% of new CHROs in 2019 being female, an upward trend since this report's inception 3 years ago. 2) CHRO turnover has increased as nearly 19% of the Fortune 200 CHROs turned over in 2019, representing a 16% higher turnover rate in 2019 versus 2018. 3) Internal succession continues to decline as 53% of CHRO appointments were internal successors. 4) CEO turnover drives CHRO turnover. Of the 35 new CEOs who came into the role in 2019, 40% have replaced their CHRO. In terms of CHRO priorities, at the top of their agendas are attraction and retention of top talent, increasing HR and managerial accountability and capability, and navigating the paradox of maximizing for today versus investment in tomorrow to drive enduring business results. While COVID-19 has impacted most HR priorities in some way, the last priority mentioned (maximizing for today versus investment in tomorrow to drive enduring business results) is undoubtedly one priority with sharpened importance and heightened attention.

The topic of upskilling and reskilling the workforce has been a key priority for many organizations over the past few years. For the purpose of clarity, to reskill is to learn something completely new while to upskill is to update one's current knowledge and skills to strengthen them. Both of these components are core aspects of a talent strategy. And while upskilling and reskilling were already at the top of many corporate talent agendas, the current coronavirus situation has forced organizations, employees, and workers to radically change how they work. In most cases, new skills are being learned while existing ones are being honed in order to adapt. As a result, learning leaders are rapidly developing and refining strategies to effectively implement reskilling and upskilling tactics at scale and within a shortened timeframe. This 30-page report by PeopleFluent dives into the topic of reskilling amidst 5 forces that, pre-covid-19, have simultaneously converged on the workplace. They include 1)Increasing complexities in business operations and work 2). The constant—and constantly accelerating—pace of change 3.) Unprecedented demographic shifts that are shrinking talent pools and draining tacit knowledge out of the organization 4) An increasing need for sustainable productivity to create a competitive advantage 5) Changing employee expectations around work and the workplace. For each of the 5 forces, recommendations are offered including those on page 10 which provide tactics, such as learning analytics, to overcome the "complexity" challenge by eliminating irrelevant learning.

Digital HR (the process of changing operational HR processes and tools to become automated and data-driven) continues to be a key priority for many organizations. And as with other HR priorities, recent events have brought digital HR into sharper focus as many organizations are now working feverishly to find ways to leverage digital technology and applications for recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and development to name a few. By driving these areas through digital capabilities, HR teams hope to achieve greater efficiency, provide a better employee experience, and enable time savings that allow a greater focus on high-value work. While now is a good opportunity for driving positive changes in these areas, it also presents the risk that organizations will rush into making technology or digital application decisions without full consideration of the outcomes, capabilities, and experience they hope to derive from their digital efforts. Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to digital HR is that if an organization simply purchases a technology or application, it will make things "better." And although these components are vital to digital HR capabilities, it is important for organizations to first think through questions such as: What outcomes are we trying to achieve from a digital HR strategy? What type of workforce do we need to operate in a digital environment? What type of culture supports these ways of working? Which processes will need to change? How will these changes enable us to operate more effectively and have more time to innovate? How will these capabilities work together to create a cohesive experience? Questions like these can help to unveil some useful insights that inform an organization's digital HR strategy and next steps. This article provides a primer on various aspects of digital HR that can be a good starting point for organizations that are looking to create or refine their digital HR strategy.

WHAT IS YOUR HR PRIORITY OR CHALLENGE?

If there is a specific strategic HR topic or challenge that you would like for me to cover due to it being a priority for your organization, please send me an email at [email protected] . I will consider the request and cover it in a future issue.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

If you have an article, report, or resource that you recommend, please email me. I would love to review it and share it in a future newsletter.

FINAL COMMENTS

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I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Have a nice weekend everyone and, again, be safe.

Brian