Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #131

Covers the role of the CHRO in ESG, a diversity, equity, and inclusion planning template, proximity bias, a podcast on quiet quitting, and fostering a culture of productive debate.

August 21, 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

  • The Role of the CHRO in ESG: 4 Resources for HR Leaders to Leverage | Includes resources that HR Leaders can refer to as they continue to take a more active role in helping shape their organizations’ ESG strategy and initiatives.

  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Planning Template for Human Resources Leaders | Gartner | Provides an editable PDF template that can be used to help capture a statement of DEI strategy, metrics, and risks and pitfalls to avoid, to name a few. I share two bonus resources.

  • Six Potential Indicators of Proximity Bias in the Workplace | Brian Heger | I provide a few indicators managers can use to self-audit whether they may be engaging in proximity bias.

  • Podcast: How ‘Quiet Quitting’ Is Changing the Workplace | The Wall Street Journal Podcasts | An 8-minute discussion on how 'quiet quitting' (QQ) has become a new phrase in the workplace. I provide commentary on how QQ is not a new concept, just a new name. I share a bonus resource to help address the underlying issue of QQ.

  • Beyond “Agree to Disagree”: Why Leaders Need to Foster a Culture of Productive Disagreement and Debate | BCG Henderson Institute | Shares ideas on how fostering productive disagreement and debate in an organization is a critical leadership capability. I include a bonus resource on psychological safety.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is a top priority for many organizations. According to PwC’s 2021 Annual Corporate Directors Survey, ESG is the number one topic investors want to discuss with board members during shareholder meetings. As Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) continue to take a more active role in helping to shape their organizations’ ESG strategy and initiatives, four resources to stimulate their thinking include: 1) ESG and the Role of the Chief Human Resources Officer: A Best Practices Study | The HR Policy Association. A 39-page report which includes ESG best practices from CHROs at companies such as CVS Health, Dick’s Sporting Goods, General Mills, HP, Johnson & Johnson, and The Procter & Gamble Company, to name a few. 2) Toward Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation | World Economic Forum. Pages 20-21 include a set of people-based metrics related to ESG. 3) Navigating ESG: A Practical Guide for Human Resources | Aon. Includes eight questions HR should consider as it integrates ESG into a people strategy.  4) The Evolving Role of ESG Metrics in Executive Compensation Plans | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. Shares ideas on the types of ESG metrics that can be incorporated into compensation plans and outlines risks associated with those changes. Although ESG is an expansive area, these four resources can help CHROs shape the organization's voice on ESG and its related topics.

Many leaders promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their organizations. Yet they often struggle to make meaningful progress in DEI. Although there are various reasons DEI efforts lack impact, one fundamental barrier is an unclear DEI strategy, actions, and accountability. This Gartner resource provides CHROs and DEI leaders with a one-page editable template (p.7) that can help capture a statement of DEI strategy, metrics, and risks and pitfalls to avoid, to name a few. Although the simplicity of a one-page document belies the multi-faceted and complex components of DEI, it provides an easy way to effectively communicate and measure DEI progress. As a bonus, here are two previously shared DEI resources: 1) Elevating Equity: The Real Story of Diversity and Inclusion | Josh Bersin. This 52-page research report includes an analysis of over 80 DEI practices correlated with various financial, business, and workforce outcomes. The study’s output is five essential DEI strategies and 15 practices that matter most, regardless of industry, geography, and company size. 2) Evidence-Based Ideas to DEI in the Workplace | Center for Employment Equity Report. This 50-page report provides six chapters (each addressing a particular DEI topic) of research-based evidence DEI strategies.

I made a post last week on how proximity bias (PB)—viewing workers that spend more time in a company-designated office location or are in proximity to decision-makers more favorably than their remote counterparts—can unfairly influence talent decisions. As an example, in performance reviews or talent review assessments, PB can lead managers to overestimate "office-based" employees’ performance and potential (a false positive) and underestimate that of "remote workers" (a false negative). And while organizational leaders cannot fully eliminate PB, they can mitigate it through various tactics. Regardless of the tactics, mitigating PB first requires managers to be self-aware of their tendencies to engage in implicit or explicit PB. Although not a validated measure of PB, a few indicators managers can use to self-audit their PB tendencies might include: 1) Viewing those who work in the office as more productive than their remote counterparts. 2) Believing that those not visible in the physical office are not interested in career progression. 3) Perceiving those who prefer to work in a hybrid or fully remote arrangement as being disengaged or not being team players or fully committed. 4) Offering onsite employees the most interesting projects, assignments, or development opportunities. 5) Excluding remote stakeholders from important discussions or leaving them out of decision-making. 6) Evaluating the work of onsite employees more highly than remote employees, regardless of objective performance metrics and criteria. Since many biases — including proximity bias—are unconscious, a self-audit can help managers take the first step in mitigating PB. Thanks to Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and Arlene S. Hirsch MA LCPC for reference materials that informed these sample indicators.

You’ve probably heard or seen the term “quiet quitting” (QQ) being shared across various social media platforms and publications, including this 8-minute Wall Street Journal podcast.  And while there are varying and confusing descriptions of QQ, three main points to sum up this latest workplace buzzword are: 1) Unlike the name suggests, quiet quitting is not about employees resigning and leaving their companies. 2) QQ has primarily been described as workers who are performing effectively and meeting the expectations of their jobs but have chosen not to go above and beyond those expectations. 3) This new term has been fueled by the fact that many workers have reprioritized their work and life and desire to spend more time on non-work/career pursuits that are important to them. But while quiet quitting is the latest of many buzzwords to land in the workplace, it is not a new concept.  The notion of “going beyond what is expected” has been commonly referred to as “discretionary effort” or “organizational citizenship behaviors” (OCB) in both the practitioner and academic research on employee engagement and retention, including my 2007 research study, Linking the Employment Value Proposition (EVP) to Employee Engagement and Business Outcomes: Preliminary Findings from a Linkage Research Pilot Study. Rather than get bogged down in new buzzwords, organizational leaders and managers should ask: how do I create a workplace that inspires each worker to do their best work and feel fulfilled? The answer starts with knowing what workers value and what’s important to them. To help managers uncover some answers, I am resharing this INSEAD article by Chengyi Lin that includes 18 questions managers can draw from and integrate into their one-on-one discussions with the individuals on their team. 

In 2016, I wrote an article, Identifying Leadership Capabilities That Drive Business Performance, which includes four steps for identifying the leadership capabilities most critical to an organization. Six years have passed since I wrote the article, and while some leadership capabilities have remained consistently important in organizations, others have become increasingly critical. As executive teams reevaluate the leadership capabilities most critical to their organizations, one capability that appears to have grown in importance is: fostering productive disagreement and debate. This BCG article provides 14 questions to determine leaders’ and organizations’ openness to productive dissent. A few questions include: 1) Is a broad set of voices engaged in developing the company’s most recent initiatives? 2) Did you recently ask anyone for an alternative perspective or a reason your perspective might not be right? 3) Do you get the truth from employees without resorting to anonymous surveys?Since a productive disagreement and debate culture requires leaders to foster psychological safety (PS) amongst their teams, I am resharing this bonus article on PS from MIT Sloan Review’s 2022 Summer edition. One of the authors, Amy C. Edmondson, shares a modified version of her original 1999 PS scale on page 23. She added a new sixth item to capture the extent to which people hesitate to speak up. The questions can help measure aspects of PS in an organization.

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

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. 

CHRO HIRE OF THE WEEK

This past week, 21 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 21 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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​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.