Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #134

This issue covers building a winning talent strategy, scenario planning, women's career progression, and explaining and promoting the responsible use of AI in the workplace.

September 04, 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

  • Build a Winning Talent Strategy for the New Talent Landscape | Gartner's September Issue of HR Leaders Monthly | Highlights a Talent Initiative Prioritization Matrix that helps HR Leaders and their teams effectively evaluate and prioritize talent initiatives. Other articles are included in this 50-page issue.

  • Using Scenario Planning to Enable Strategic Workforce Planning | Multiple Resources | Includes three resources for generating ideas on integrating scenario planning into strategic workforce planning.

  • Women Are Stalling Out on the Way to the Top | MIT Sloan Management Review | Shares findings from an analysis of the career histories and demographics of the executives in the ten highest-ranking jobs in Fortune 100 companies during the past 40 years.

  • When — and Why — You Should Explain How Your AI Works | Harvard Business Review | Provides ideas for ensuring "explainable AI" in organizations. I include a 59-page toolkit that provides ideas to promote the responsible use of HR-based AI tools. 

  • What Critical but Under-discussed Talent and Workplace Topics Need Greater Attention? | Brian Heger | Provides a one-question survey for you to share your ideas on the talent, workplace, and workforce topics that need greater attention. Results will inform a portion of this newsletter's future content.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

As we enter the last few months of 2022, now is an opportune time for HR Leaders and their teams to reevaluate and prioritize their 2022 talent initiatives. In some cases, initiatives might get deprioritized and put on hold, while others get sped up and prioritized for execution. To help HR teams make these decisions, one article from this 50-page September issue of Gartner’s HR Leaders Monthly — “Build a Winning Talent Strategy for the New Talent Landscape”—provides a few ideas. The article, which starts on page 4, includes a Talent Initiative Prioritization Matrix (p.8), which helps HR teams prioritize talent initiatives based on two dimensions: 1) The potential business impact of the talent initiative on creating organizational value and 2) complexity and investment — the level of coordination and support required (complexity) and the degree to which the initiative requires resources or adjustments to team responsibilities (investment). Four categories of talent prioritization are formed from these two dimensions: 1) Actionable Initiatives — should be prioritized for execution and given preference for resource allocation, 2) Priority Initiatives — should be prioritized based on the availability of resources (people, money, time), 3) Initiatives for Careful Consideration—require careful consideration for timing and sequencing based on capacity to complete the work, and 4) Parking Lot Initiatives — should be deprioritized or put in the parking lot for future consideration. The framework provides an effective way for HR teams to evaluate priorities and determine how they should be adjusted objectively. This September issue includes other articles on various HR and talent topics, such as how to create an effective HR budget and overcoming barriers to strategic HRBP impact, to name a few.  

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) continues to be elusive for many organizations. According to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study of 32 HR and talent practices, SWP is among the top three practices with the most significant gaps between the importance organizations place on the capability and their ability to deliver it effectively. And while there are various reasons SWP is challenging to implement, one of them is that workforce plans are often developed based on one “scenario”—or what one expects or assumes will happen (e.g., FDA approval of drug X, sales growth of 15%). But as we’ve learned through several events over the past few years, organizations can find their baseline or assumed scenarios turned upside down because of various factors. As SWP practitioners help their organizations envision, describe, and plan for possible—but alternative — future scenarios they may face, I am resharing three resources on scenario planning. 1) A one-page editable PDF by Xplane that helps organizations identify four “what-if” scenarios they may face in the future, define the “conditions” that would trigger each, and develop a response for each scenario. 2) Gartner’s Scenario Implication Diagnostic, which provides over 60 diagnostic questions to help understand the implications of internal and external factors that can inform different scenarios. 3) Deloitte's - Using Scenario Planning as Inflation Continues to Rise.  A 17-page deck that provides a framework (page 6) of four scenarios that may occur in the context of inflation. While this resource describes scenarios driven by inflation, the approach and examples used can apply to multiple scenario types. HR leaders and SWP practitioners can use all three resources to determine how their workforce plans will shift based on different scenarios.  

Many organizations strive to increase female representation in their executive-level roles. And to assess the progress organizations are making in this endeavor, this article shares findings from an analysis of the career histories and demographics of the executives in the ten highest-ranking jobs in Fortune 100 companies during the past 40 years. Using 1980 as the baseline, a few findings from this research include 1) Not one woman held any of the top 1,000 jobs in 1980. 2) Despite accounting for 47% of the U.S. labor force in 2021, women held just 27% of the Fortune 100’s top leadership positions. 3) Although gender diversity has grown among executives, women largely remain in support functions, such as HR, finance, and legal, rather than moving into key operating roles. For example, just 6% of female executives were at the highest tier (CEOs, presidents, and COOs) in 2021 — hardly any change from 5% in 2011 and 7% in 2001. 4) Over the past two decades, the women in the sample advanced faster than the men — typically two to four years faster — and that difference held across types of executive roles. Other data points are provided, and the authors, which include Peter Cappelli, offer suggestions to increase female representation in top-tier roles. Based on the analysis, one suggestion is to promote more women to “feeder roles”—general management and operating roles that feed the highest tier positions. These feeder roles allow incumbents to have a say in strategy and other high-stakes decisions, which can prepare them to do similar work on a larger scale later on, running an entire company.

With the 2022 HR Technology Conference & Exposition rapidly approaching, HR leaders and their teams are excited to learn about the latest technology covering all aspects of HR, including recruiting, development, and employee experience. And even if one didn't read the conference agenda, one would expect the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in HR to be a key theme of the conference's sessions. And guess what? AI is covered in several sessions! But as pointed out in this HBR article, it's important for purchasers of AI platforms to understand how AI works and derives its predictions and inferences—a process often described as "explainable AI." The article provides ideas on 1) what makes an AI explanation good and 2) how to determine when explainability is needed. Since the article talks about AI in general versus through the lens of HR and talent, I am resharing this 59-page toolkit by the World Economic Forum. This resource provides ideas to promote the responsible use of HR-based AI tools. It includes two editable checklists and questionnaires to guide the evaluation and implementation of HR-based AI platforms. 1) Tool Assessment Checklist (pages 29-45) focuses on the decision to adopt a specific AI-based HR tool, including questions to ask vendors and organizational stakeholders. 2) Planning Checklist (pages 46-54) addresses how firms can plan to use AI in HR strategically and how HR can develop the capacity to support these efforts. This resource provides excellent insights into using AI-based HR tools that are fair and explainable.

During the past month alone, I have tracked 136 Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) hires and promotions as part of CHROs on the Go. As these heads of HR transition into their new roles, they will need to determine the talent, workplace, and workforce initiatives and priorities their teams will focus on for the remainder of 2022 and beyond. And while CHROs and their teams will continue to help their organizations tackle many of the well-known topics, such as hybrid work, other critical talent topics have been under-discussed and will need attention. Whether you are a CHRO, part of an HR Center of Excellence, an HR Business Partner, or anyone focused on talent and workplace issues, what do you believe are the critical and under-discussed talent, workplace, and workforce topics that need more attention? Please share your thoughts via this one-question survey link. I will review the results and use the information to provide future content that helps HR teams address these areas. 

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

Covers a few data points and perspectives on organizations' progress in adopting skills-based talent practices across 8 talent areas.

CHRO HIRE OF THE WEEK

This past week, 34 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 20 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

You can see several book recommendations by clicking the image below. One book I have been referencing this week from my bookshelf is:

Partial View of Recommendations. Click Image to See All Books

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.

CHROS on the Go is a subscription that provides the easiest and most convenient way to stay informed about Chief Human Resources Officer hires, promotions, and resignations in organizations of all sizes and industries.

​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.