Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #130

Covers Gartner's August issue of HR Leaders Monthly, 70 talent questions the board might ask, proximity bias in talent reviews, career development, and exit interview questions.

August 14, 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

  • Gartner's HR Leaders Monthly: August 2022 Issue on Human Leadership | Gartner | Includes several articles on human leadership, including one that helps managers of leaders use performance check-in discussions to determine if their people leaders are still committed to their role as a leader or would rather pursue a different career path.

  • 70 Talent and Workforce Questions the Board of Directors Might Ask HR Leaders | Multiple Sources | Provides three resources that, collectively, include 70 questions HR leaders and their teams can reference as they prepare to answer talent-related questions from the Board.

  • Is Proximity Bias Creeping Into Your Talent Review Process? | Brian Heger | I point out how proximity bias is more likely to permeate talent review assessments in light of remote and hybrid work.

  • Stop Offering Career Ladders. Start Offering Career Portfolios | Harvard Business Review | Shares ideas on how to get started enabling and encouraging career portfolios within an organization. I provide additional insights on the non-technological barriers to consider when implementing an internal talent marketplace.

  • 100 Exit Interview Questions For 2022 | Vantage Circle | Includes various questions that can be used to reveal what is affecting your employee retention efforts.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

Employees continue to think more reflectively about what they want from their work and other areas of life as part of what the popular press calls The Great Reflection. And while “leaders” can be categorized as “employees,” the focus on employee preferences often fails to emphasize that leaders are also re-prioritizing what they want from work and life. As part of this reflection, some leaders may determine that people leadership—managing and leading others—no longer fits into what they want from their work. However, they may be less inclined to share this view with their managers openly. But as pointed out in one article in this month’s issue of Gartner’s HR Leaders Monthly—“Embracing Human Leadership Takes Active (Re)commitment (starts on p.11)—managers of these leaders can help each leader reevaluate their interest in and commitment to the expectations of their current leadership role. Figure 3. on page 15 illustrates how managers can use performance check-ins as an opportunity to discuss if the leader is still committed to fulfilling those expectations. If so, it provides a chance to establish an active (re)commitment to the expectations of people leadership. If the leader is no longer committed, managers can discuss whether the leader has thought about another role on a different career path. The issue includes other articles on “human leadership.”

The Board of Directors in many organizations has taken an increased interest in talent and workforce topics over the past few years. According to an Accenture report, the pandemic increased 70 percent of board members’ involvement in talent-related topics. And with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues and SEC Human Capital Disclosure Requirements top of mind for many organizations, the Boards’ interest in talent and workforce practices will intensify. As CHROs and their teams think through their organizations’ talent narrative, these three resources provide 70 questions that Board members might ask. 1) PwC - A Deeper Dive into Talent Management: The New Board Imperative. Page 11 includes 19 questions, such as: Do we have a workforce plan that forecasts our talent needs now and three to five years in the future? 2) Doris Sims of Talent Benchstrength Solutions - Questions Every Board of Directors Should Ask. Provides 37 questions, including: What business value and/or return-on-investment have we achieved so far because we are identifying and developing successors? How many successors have moved into the roles we identified for them? 3) Deloitte - The Workforce Takes Center Stage: The Board’s Evolving Role. Includes 14 questions, such as: What measures are we tracking to give us real-time insight into the sentiments of the workforce—both internal and external? Even if your organization does not have a Board of Directors, these questions can help shed light on talent needs, risks, and recommendations.

Most organizations conduct some form of a talent review process. And with many organizations faced with current talent acquisition and retention challenges, the organizational talent review can help address these concerns. As a result, talent leaders continue to identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness of their talent review practices by asking and answering questions, such as: does the number of “boxes” or talent categories, including the classic 9-box of performance and potential, really matter? In his article, It’s Not About the Boxes: The 9-box Grid and What Really Matters, Marc Effron of The Talent Strategy Group answers this question: “it doesn’t matter as long as it facilitates an accurate conversation about an individual’s performance and potential.” And one determinant of accurate and objective talent reviews is the ability to minimize bias from influencing talent review decisions. One bias likely to become more pronounced in talent reviews—considering remote and hybrid work—is proximity bias (PB). PB happens when decision-makers view workers that spend more time in a company-designated office location, or are in proximity to decision-makers, more favorably than their remote counterparts. PB can lead managers to overestimate employees’ performance and potential (a false positive) or underestimate it (a false negative). Given PB’s heightened likelihood in today’s business environment, what tactics are you/will you employ to reduce the risk of PB creeping into your organization’s talent review process?

Career development continues to be a driver of employee attraction, engagement, and retention, according to most reports. At the same time, the notion of career ladders—a metaphor for describing career progression as a series of vertical promotions through well-defined steps—has been a relic in many organizations for quite some time. As a result, organizations increasingly describe career growth using terms such as horizontal development, career lattices, nonlinear careers, or—as coined in this new HBR article—career portfolios. The common theme across these and other terms is that there are various ways to develop one’s career beyond vertical progression. This philosophy has given rise to the internal talent marketplace—a technology-enabled platform that helps connect employees to internal work opportunities, such as projects, stretch assignments, task forces, and full-time roles, based on each employee’s existing skills and career goals. Firms are increasingly experimenting with and implementing ITMs to support aspects of career development. But as I mentioned in a previous post, Non-technological Barriers to Internal Mobility in Organizations, ITM efforts are often approached as a technology initiative and lose sight of the non-technological barriers that must be addressed when implementing an ITM/Career Development strategy. As you look at the list of barriers, pick at least one where you can affect change and identify 2-3 ways you can begin to help your organization overcome it during the next 60 days. The HBR article includes other ideas on how to get started enabling and encouraging career portfolios within an organization.

Last week, I shared a post that included questions managers could ask to identify employee retention risks and tailor retention strategies to individuals they want to retain. And while these resources intend to help managers proactively retain employees, there will be cases where employees still leave the organization despite these efforts. In these cases, leaders have an opportunity to collect feedback from voluntarily departing employees—usually through some form of an exit interview — on the reasons for their departure. Although there are varying views on the usefulness of exit interviews, exit interviews—whether a face-to-face conversation, a survey, or a combination of both—can provide valuable information that informs future retention strategies and needed changes. This article provides questions to gather feedback from voluntarily departing employees on the reasoning behind their decision to leave. Organizations can pick a couple of questions and incorporate them into their exit interviews. Aside from knowing what questions to ask, organizations will need to determine how to aggregate and analyze exit interview data for themes and insights—a common shortcoming of exit interviews. Question: If you could only ask two questions to voluntarily departing employees, what would they be? 

MOST VIEWED FROM LAST WEEK

Includes resources, such as a CHRO diagnostic and HR Leader onboarding plan, to help Chief Human Resources strengthen their personal and HR team effectiveness.

CHRO APPOINTMENT OF THE WEEK

This past week, 29 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 29 detailed Chief Human Resources Officer announcements from this past week and +1600 archived announcements, visit CHROs on the Go .

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TWEET OF THE WEEK

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

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OUR RESOURCE LINEUP

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