Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #135

This issue covers moments that matter in a hybrid world, critical roles and workforce planning, alternative talent sources, talent hoarding, and employee attrition.

September 11, 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 Moments That Matter for Culture in the Hybrid World | Gartner | Highlights five moments that matter most in fostering a culture of “connectedness” without in-person interactions.

  • Critical Roles (As Well as Skills) Still Play an Important Role in Workforce Planning | Brian Heger | I share how using both roles and skills can lead to more effective workforce planning. I highlight a seminal article that still has relevance in informing how organizations identify their critical roles.

  • How High-Performance Organizations Find Talent from Alternative Sources | i4cp | Points out how high-performance organizations consistently leverage talent from 11 alternative sources. I provide 3 bonus reports on "hidden talent."

  • 5 Indicators of Manager Talent Hoarding | Brian Heger | I share a few indicators that might provide one measure of managers' tendency to hoard internal talent on their teams.

  • Predictive Models Address Employee Attrition | Deloitte US | Provides suggestions on how organizations can overcome challenges in designing and implementing predictive attrition risk models. I share a bonus resource on 100 people analytics questions.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

As organizations continue to navigate from predominantly in-person work to hybrid or remote work, a segment of leaders remains skeptical about these work arrangements. One reason for this skepticism is the belief that hybrid and remote work will erode aspects of organizational culture that have taken years to build. According to a Conference Board report on 2022 CEO and C-Suite priorities, 46 percent of surveyed CEOs expect that hybrid work models will decrease the strength of their organizational culture. But as mentioned by Gartner, “the fact that many leaders prefer in-office work isn’t surprising given the majority of business leaders learned to manage in an office environment, where their employees were visible by default. Without that visibility and the togetherness of being in the same physical space, they feel they have less control, and “culture” is an easy rationalization for trying to regain that control.” As CHROs help their organizations preserve aspects of culture and foster feelings of “connectedness” without in-person interactions, this article points out five moments in the hybrid and remote workplace when employees feel the strongest cultural connection: 1) peer recognition, 2) performance review feedback, 3) manager support during difficult experiences, 4) celebration of successful work outcomes, and 5) leaders talking about organizational purpose. The article covers how these moments can be fostered to create a culture of connectedness, regardless of location. 

An organization’s ability to identify its critical roles—sometimes called pivotal roles — is an essential component of workforce planning and talent management. And while there has been a much-needed shift in expanding our view of “work” beyond roles (e.g., skills and tasks), critical roles still play an essential part in workforce planning. However, organizations often hit common traps in identifying critical roles, such as including criteria that don’t best indicate a role’s criticality. These less relevant criteria range from, a) basing a role’s criticality on job level (e.g., only looking at executive level roles), b) determining criticality based on how difficult the role is to fill, and c) basing role criticality on the person who occupies the role (the incumbent) rather than the role’s impact on creating value for the organization. As HR, workforce planning, and talent management practitioners help identify critical roles for their organizations, I still think some of the best thinking on this topic is captured in Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and Brian E. Becker’s 2005 Harvard Business Review article, “A Players” or “A Positions? The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management.”Page 3 of their article provides one example of how to differentiate critical roles from others in the organization. As I mentioned in my 2019 People + Strategy article on strategic workforce planning (SWP), using skills and roles as the basis for SWP can enable more impactful SWP than using skills or roles alone; the extent to which each should be integrated into SWP will vary by organization and depend on how they structure and organize work.

I have made several posts over the last few years on how organizations often overlook non-obvious or “hidden” sources of talent. These posts included commentary on various reports, such as 1) Realizing the Potential of America’s Hidden Talent Pool | Accenture - a 47-page report highlighting workers deemed as STARS or Skilled Through Alternative Routes. STARs have a high school diploma or equivalent and do not have a four-year college degree, but have the skills to perform higher-wage work today. They have developed skills on the job and through alternative routes, such as community college, military service, and apprenticeships. However, they often get overlooked for not having a traditional four-year degree. 2) Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent | Harvard Business School - a 74-page report that outlines several barriers that keep companies from considering hidden workers—those that have a desire to work and are actively seeking work, but their regular efforts to seek employment consistently fail because of hiring processes that focus on what they don’t have (such as credentials) rather than the value they can bring (such as capabilities).” 3) The Emerging Degree Reset | The Burning Glass Institute - a 30-page report that shares findings from an analysis of over 51 million job postings in the US. Results show that many companies are moving away from degree requirements and toward skills-based hiring, especially in middle-skill jobs. As HR, talent acquisition, and talent management practitioners continue to help their organizations source talent from untapped talent pools, I wanted to reshare these resources, as well as this more recent article by i4cp. It includes an infographic showing how high-performance organizations consistently leverage talent from 11 alternative sources beyond traditional full-time and part-time employees.

Internal mobility—the movement of employees across different roles and opportunities within an organization — is a core component of a firm’s talent strategy. Yet organizations face many barriers to internal talent movement, including talent hoarding—a manager’s tendency to prevent or discourage employees from pursuing internal opportunities. One survey by i4cp found that 43 percent of the study’s participants say their managers often hoard high-performing talent rather than encourage talent movement. Another research paper in the Journal of Management found that managers often use several “guarding tactics” when hoarding talent. However, recent research shows that when managers temporarily stop hoarding talent, workers’ applications for pursuing new internal opportunities increase by 123%. These data points suggest there is a significant opportunity for organizations to unlock workforce capacity through internal movement. One starting point is to help managers realize their tendency to hoard talent. Five indicators of talent hoarding might include: 1) Some of the most talented people on your team are unknown to the organization. 2) You limit your top talent’s exposure to work assignments outside of your team because you believe other managers will want to target them for internal movement. 3) You are hesitant to recommend the top talent on your team for other internal opportunities—even if you feel it would benefit your employee and the organization. 4) When one of your top talent expresses interest in moving internally, you entice them to stay on your team. 5) You often present the case of why “now is not a good time” to move top talent into a new role outside of your team. Since many organizations have recurring manager capability-building sessions, perhaps a topic of discussion for a future session could be to have them a) assess their tendency to engage in talent hoarding, b) develop at least one goal on how they will support the internal movement of talent, and c) have ongoing discussions with their team leaders' on the progress being made in achieving that goal. 

Many employers continue to express concerns about talent shortages and employee retention. And to better anticipate and address employee turnover, a segment of organizations turn to people analytics and AI to help answer several questions. As noted in this article, these questions range from 1) To what extent is my organization at risk for attrition within key segments of our workforce now and in the future?, 2) What are the factors that are influencing attrition/retention?, 3) How can I identify and prioritize interventions that could reduce the potential turnover within key workforce segments? and 4) How can I determine which interventions will pay off and how much will I save? As organizations answer these questions, the article points out how firms can overcome challenges in designing and implementing predictive attrition risk models by using a 3-component framework. As one example, for the Sense component—which refers to identifying the internal and external trends that are most relevant to the business to explore in greater detail—one recommendation is to focus on data that is both actionable and relevant to addressing the problem, not just that which is easy to obtain. Recommendations are provided for each of the three components. As a bonus resource, I am resharing this 16-page white paper by SAP, 100 Critical People Analytics Questions How Well Do You Really Know Your Workforce? The paper provides ideas on the questions—beyond employee retention—that people analytics can help to answer about an organization’s workforce. 

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

Includes three resources for generating ideas on integrating scenario planning into strategic workforce planning.

CHRO ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WEEK

This past week, 39 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 39 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

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO HEAR ABOUT?

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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.