Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #112

Covers why the CHRO role paves the way to the CEO role, shared purpose, the "big quit," a measure of workforce agility, and how corporate functions can become more agile.

April 03, 2022

Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly—the weekly newsletter for human resources practitioners, bringing together insights about work, the workplace, and the workforce from various sources.

If you find value in this issue or any of its resources, please share them with your network by using the social media icons at the top of the newsletter.

Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Brian 

Brian Heger is a human resources practitioner with a Fortune 150 organization and has responsibilities for Strategic Talent and Workforce Planning. To connect with Brian on Linkedin, click here.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

  • Why Human Resources Chiefs Are Reaching the Corner Office | strategy+business | Highlights how the CHRO role can pave a path to the role of CEO.

  • Gartner’s April HR Leaders Monthly - 6 Articles on Shared Purpose | Gartner | A 39-page issue that includes six articles on what shared purpose means and what progressive organizations are doing to put it into action as part of their employee value proposition.

  • Special Issue: Lessons From the Big Quit | Gartner's Business Quarterly | A new 37-page issue with 12 short articles devoted to helping firms get work done while short-staffed, recruit faster and better, protect institutional knowledge and stave off competitors from poaching talent.

  • Research: Workforce Agility: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Measure | Frontiers in Psychology | Shares research on a new workforce agility measure, compares this measure to established workforce agility measures, and empirically tests the relations of workforce agility with work outcomes.

  • How Can Corporate Functions Become More Agile? | McKinsey | Addresses how corporate functions can become more agile through ideas such as the “flow to work” talent model. I reshare a bonus resource from The Conference Board on building an agile HR function.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

As the people component of the CEO role becomes more relevant than ever before, this article highlights how the CHRO role can pave a path to the CEO role. The article cites recent appointments of CEOs who transitioned from the CHRO role, such as Leena Nair, Unilever’s CHRO, named Chanel’s CEO in December 2021. The author, James Ashton, notes how Nair strived to connect HR with the financial outcomes and efficacy of the business; she also positioned the HR function as a forward-looking part of the business, rather than simply being reactive to the needs of its other parts. And as the connection between business strategy and talent strategy becomes stronger in many firms, companies also continue to appoint former and current CHROs to their board of directors. In my new premium subscription, CHROs on the Go—where I track and report CHRO appointments and resignations in real-time—22 CHRO board appointments alone have been announced over the last few months. The article also points out how predictions of CHROs as CEOs were noted in a 2014 study by Dave Ulrich and Ellie Filler of Korn Ferry. The study found that CEO traits were more similar to those of CHROs than to the characteristics of other C-suite positions (except for the COO, whose role and responsibilities are often shared with those of the CEO). It will be interesting to observe any increased representation of CHRO appointments to CEO roles and/or companies’ boards of directors in the years that follow. 

Many people have reflected on their purpose in life during the past two years of the pandemic. And while there are many definitions of purpose, a McKinsey article describes it as an enduring, overarching sense of what matters in a person’s life; people experience purposefulness when striving toward something significant and meaningful to them. With many workers wanting to express a greater sense of purpose through their work, HR leaders and their teams are trying to redesign the employee value proposition (EVP) to build shared purpose into their EVP. This 39-page edition of Gartner HR Leaders Monthly Magazine includes six articles on what shared purpose means and what progressive organizations are doing to put it into action as part of their EVP. The articles range from building shared purpose around employees’ views on ESG issues, establishing an ethical decision-making environment for leaders, and effectively addressing pushback to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Page 4 begins an article, “Every HR Leader Has a Role in Building Shared Purpose,” which addresses how the CHRO and Heads of Recruiting, L&D, Total Rewards, and D&I contribute to implementing and supporting a sense of shared purpose. One example on page 6 (Figure 1) shows how L&D at Griffith Foods helps employees identify their own purpose and connect it to the organization’s purpose. It does this through an 11-step learning journey that spans six weeks and culminates in a Personalized Purpose Plan for each employee. Other ideas are discussed.

This new 37-page issue of Gartner’s Business Quarterly is devoted to helping firms get work done while short-staffed, recruit faster and better, protect institutional knowledge and stave off competitors from poaching talent. It includes twelve short and digestible articles, such as “A Framework for Assessing Attrition Risk: Who Wants to Pack Up, and Why?” and “4 Hard Questions to Ask About Your Company’s Fairness Strategy.”  One article, beginning on page 38, is about providing flexibility to frontline workers in where, when, and how much they work, to name a few. As I mentioned in previous posts, much of the focus on workplace flexibility has been on remote and hybrid work. But since more than half of the workforce has little or no opportunity for these types of flexible work arrangements, many frontline workers aren’t afforded these forms of flexibility because of the type of work they perform. The article notes that “contrary to popular belief, executive leaders can, and should, offer more control and opportunity to employees on factory floors, in warehouses, at call centers, behind food counters and at the wheel of delivery trucks. It’s time to help them — or lose them.” For example, regarding “when” they work, these workers can be given flexibility for when to start and end each workday or by trading shifts via a virtual scheduling platform or chat pod. Regarding “where” they work, managers can work with direct reports to decide which activities can be completed off-site (e.g., administrative or digitally-enabled tasks). Other practical ideas are shared for unlocking flexibility for these worker segments. 

For years now, we’ve heard about organizations trying to help their workforce become more agile to meet the demands of changing business environments. But as noted in this new research study, while the concept of workforce agility has become increasingly popular, agility has rarely been studied systematically, and relations between agility and positive work outcomes, such as higher performance or increased well-being, have often been suggested but rarely been empirically tested. This research study developed a new workforce agility measure, compares this measure to established workforce agility measures, and empirically tested the relations of workforce agility with work outcomes. Results showed predictive validity regarding innovative performance as well as positive relationships with organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and well-being. As many firms attempt to measure workforce agility and understand its impact on outcomes of interest (e.g., sales, revenue), they can refer to Table 4, which shows ten dimensions of workforce agility (e.g., decision making, collaboration, learning) and 30 items of the workforce agility scale. While the online version of this article is provided in the title link, here is also a PDF version.

As corporate functions, such as HR, rethink their operating models to enable effective inter-department collaboration, coordination, and faster decision-making, this article provides a few suggestions. One idea presented is the “flow to work” talent model. Under this model, staff operating in organizational silos (such as HR generalists supporting a single business unit) become part of a shared staffing pool, which provides dynamic resource capacity to support emerging priorities as they spring up across the business. These agile talent pools can be deployed to complex tasks or projects based on the organization's highest-priority work areas requiring diverse capabilities. For this model to work, you would usually need someone to oversee this talent pool and quickly match talent to business needs as they arise. As work becomes more project-based with shorter work cycles, having a dynamic pool of HR problem solvers can be a flexible work model that unlocks capacity. As a bonus resource, I am resharing this 16-page The Conference Board paper, Building an Agile HR Function: Four Pathways to Success. It provides ideas and tactics for how HR organizations are driving more efficient and agile teams. 

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

Shares research from a large global retail brand on the causal impact of EX on business outcomes like revenue and profits. I include a few bonus resources.

CHRO APPOINTMENT OF THE WEEK

This past week, 36 Chief Human Resources Officer announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go – a subscription that provides the easiest way to stay informed about CHRO hires, promotions, and resignations. This week's CHRO highlight is:

To learn how to gain access to all 36 detailed Chief Human Resources Officer announcements from this past week and +1600 archived announcements, visit CHROs on the Go .

If you are already a member of CHROs on the Go, you can log in to access all announcements and site functionality.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

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OUR RESOURCE LINEUP

​​brianheger.com provides free access to +1,000 curated articles, research reports, podcasts, etc. that help practitioners drive better business results through strategic human resources and talent management.

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​Talent Edge Weekly is a free weekly newsletter that brings together the best talent and strategic human resources insights from various sources. It is published every Sunday at 6PM EST.