TALENT EDGE WEEKLY - Issue #14

May 09, 2020

Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly - the weekly newsletter for strategic human resources practitioners, bringing together talent insights from various sources.

Note: You can also access this and other content I post at my website, www.brianheger.com.

COVID-19 - RESOURCES FOR HR

Similar to previous weeks, I continue to update special issue #6  COVID-19 Resources for HR, of this newsletter. That issue currently has 140+ references that HR colleagues can leverage, including a recent article by Josh Bersin, Remote Work is Sinking In: And the Impact is Bigger Than We Realized. I will continue to update that issue until needed, so please bookmark it so that you can check it for frequent updates.

THIS WEEK'S ISSUE

For the current issue, I cover the following:

  • Right-Sizing the Workforce for a New Reality | Visier

  • What Is the Talent Ecosystem? |TalentQ

  • Twenty Talent-Risk Factors and How to Fix Them | Brandon Hall Group

  • Analytics Driven Talent Strategy (Ebook) | Gartner

  • MetLife’s 2020 U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study: Employee Well-Being in Uncertain Times | Metlife

  • Webinar: Meeting Talent Strategy Goals with HR Analytics | MIT Sloan Management Review + David Harcourt of Yum! Brands Inc.

  • Book: What I Am Reading: Financial Analysis for HR Managers: Tools for Linking HR Strategy to Business Strategy | Steven Director

If you enjoy any of the resources and commentary in this issue, you can click the share button under each reference and post it on Linked In, Twitter, or Facebook. Sharing this information is one way to continue the advancement of strategic HR and learn together.

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Have a good weekend everyone and please be safe.

Brian

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

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a vital capability that many organizations have increasingly focused on building over the past few years. SWP is an essential part of an organization's strategic business planning process but is especially relied on during times of crisis in which organizations must quickly evaluate their talent needs and make decisions. These decisions have both short and long-term impacts, which makes the stakes high. Currently, the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on organizational talent needs has varied. Some organizations have stopped hiring completely and have reduced their workforce; others have had an increase in talent demands, while some organizations are simultaneously experiencing both reductions and increases. Regardless of an organization's unique situation, SWP can help arrive at better decisions during this time as well as in the future. This article offers a 5 step framework for doing so, including 1) identifying both short and long-term business impacts, 2) identify who is in a critical role 3) define specific operational requirements 4) model scenarios, 5) plan continuously. Concerning #2 (critical roles), a framework is provided for differentiating these roles from others. The framework segments roles by a) critical , b) strategic, c) core, and d) non-core to help guide SWP efforts and decisions and other talent management related activities, such as succession planning and strategic hiring. Segmenting roles in such a way can enable better and more precise planning and decisions. I will add that the criticality of a role is not dependent on the person who occupies it but rather the extent to which the role disproportionately enables business objectives. Further, a positions' criticality can change as the business strategy and organizational priorities shift, so it is vital to periodically review these roles to determine a change in status. Once roles are segmented, organizations can then focus on incumbents and determine whether talent upgrades are needed, particularly in roles that are critical or strategic.  

As the business environment, labor market dynamics, and organizational priorities and talent needs continue to shift at an accelerated rate, an organization's ability to execute agile talent management (aka TM) practices seems more critical than ever before. However, agility (the ability to move quickly under frequently changing circumstances and business priorities) is only one part of the equation. The other part is effectiveness-- ensuring that the talent practices employed do indeed accelerate the execution of a business strategy and achievement of desired outcomes. Plus, these practices need to be integrated and produce a "good" experience. While agility, effectiveness, integration, and experience are vital to TM, organizations can find it challenging to deliver any of these aspects let alone all of them. This Talent Quarterly article expands on the notion of the "talent ecosystem" that jettisons "discrete calendar-driven talent programs and that have siloed talent functions" in favor of agile TM. This framework includes important components of the talent ecosystem, but organizations can augment it by incorporating aspects such as the contingent or gig workforce, employee wellbeing, and internal mobility; these additional components continue to be important levers of a talent strategy in today's business context. Also, I agree with the advice to "avoid the pitfalls of a tech-first approach" and to first focus on identifying needed capabilities and new ways of working before determining technology solutions that support these practices. Although technology enables effective TM, focusing on the technology heavily or exclusively at the expense of articulating the strategy and capabilities that the technology should support will often lead to sub-optimal (and sometimes poor) decisions and investments.

An essential element of talent management is the ability to proactively detect talent risks within an organization and, then, mitigate those risks through proactive tactics. And while risk-mitigation in itself provides an ROI, the ability to identify and address talent risks faster and more effectively than competitors can give an advantage when it comes to winning, retaining, and developing a strong pipeline of internal talent. Although the impact of the coronavirus has created elevated risk levels for most organizations in general, it is still essential that talent strategists deliberately determine those talent factors that present the highest risk to their organizations. Doing so will enable organizations to get ahead of these risks before they become problematic or worsen. In this study conducted by the Brandon Hall Group, they explored 20 possible talent risk factors that face organizations. These factors range from a) lack of compelling development opportunities for top talent, b) an insufficient pipeline of future leaders, to c) business leaders’ reluctance to share talent across the organization, to name a few. A complete list of the 20 talent factors is on page 4 and includes the percentage of companies that felt they were at risk for each factor. While 65 percent was the lowest number of companies who agreed they were at risk for any given factor, several of the risk factors were 90 percent or above including, a lack of clarity over which roles are “critical” to deliver business value. Surprisingly, despite many of these factors being a risk, some organizations still report that they are not managing these risks at any level. Although the list of 20 factors may need to be augmented since this study was done prior to COVID-19, they provide talent strategists with a starting point to 1) determine where their organizations are at the most risk, 2) determine and prioritize how they can mitigate risk in the areas of greatest concern, and 3) how they can go beyond simply mitigating risk and move towards developing and executing strategies and tactics that enable competitive advantage.

The use of analytics within the HR function continues to grow as organizations increasingly recognize the value of analytics in uncovering insights that inform and enable talent strategy. Despite its appeal, the power analytics is often understood only by a select few- usually those who are either in an organizations' Center of Excellence or consultants with expertise in this area. And while one doesn't need to be an expert in analytics to realize its potential, it is helpful to have a foundational understanding of the ways in which data-driven insights can be used for enabling better, faster talent decisions. In this 25-page ebook by Gartner, they cover the topic of analytics through the lens of using external labor market insights to drive better decisions. In particular, this reference looks at a) how to source and leverage external labor market data to build a future-focused talent acquisition strategy and agile recruiting operating model, b) how to draw the right conclusions from the data collected or acquired c) turn conclusions into actionable strategies that can drive major business initiatives. On page 11, there are nine action steps to collect, interpret, and communicate labor market data. These nine steps are broken into three components, including 1) Collect labor market data - understanding which types of data to collect to generate the insights you need. 2) Interpret labor market data - using simple, relevant questions to extract the insights that will affect your talent strategy 3) Influence hiring managers - sharing insights compellingly and articulating the implications. Slide 14 also provides a useful example of how to turn conclusions into insights that compel specific decisions. There are also a few visuals with examples of how to present data. 

Employee wellbeing (EWB) continues to rise up the agenda as a critical priority for many organizations. While the research on EWB is vast and includes various conceptualizations, at its core: EWB reflects an overall state of how employees feel about various aspects of their lives, ranging from physical and mental wellbeing, financial, family and friends, and work. And given the majority of people spend a disproportionate amount of their waking hours on their work and careers, the work component of EWB has a "domino effect" where it influences other aspects of wellbeing. As we are still amid the coronavirus, EWB will take a whole new meaning--with many workers placing increased value on EWB as a condition of employment. For example, I believe that for many workers who have long battled lengthy-commutes, late working nights, and have been in an “always-on” work mode, the coronavirus has been the catalyst that has forced them to self-reflect and re-evaluate aspects of their overall wellbeing. Many of these individuals are realizing that they don’t want their lives to be dominated any longer by their work, especially when it comes at the expense of their health and time with family and friendships. Organizations will need to determine and execute strategies to foster wellbeing while simultaneously driving productivity and performance. As such, EWB is a key component of talent strategy. In the report by Metlife, they share two waves of research: Wave 1 focuses on enduring insights gleaned from the late summer of 2019 before the pandemic and Wave 2 highlights emerging perspectives as we collectively respond to this crisis. The report has four parts 1) The New Work-Life Reality, 2) Driving Employee Engagement and Reducing Stress, 3) Supporting Employees by Embracing a Model of Holistic Wellbeing, 4) Promoting Employee Wellbeing With Benefits and Communications. Each part provides a summary of the topic and ends with a section called "employer actions and solutions" in which practical ideas are provided. For those who are interested in this topic, you should check out Jeffrey Pfeffer's book Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance and What We Can Do About It . In it, he explores various aspects of employee wellbeing backed up with strong supporting research.

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

In this one-hour-long webinar, David Harcourt of Yum! Brands Inc. shares his research and experimentation with HR analytics and shows how to align strategic talent management goals with HR analytics projects and activities. He covers 1) examples of successes at Yum!, and how to learn from experimentation 2) how to engage company leadership in HR analytics 3) how to navigate the complexities of privacy and confidentiality while still benefiting from HR analytics. While this webinar was conducted two years ago, many of the principles and tactics are still very relevant--especially the components about linking HR analytics to talent strategy and prioritizing HR analytics initiatives for both efficiency and impact. 

WHAT I AM READING

At a time where organizations continue to optimize cost while delivering value, HR professionals are expected to have the financial acumen to demonstrate the link between HR-based activities, business strategy, and financial results. In this book by Steven Director, he provides everything mid-to-senior-level HR professionals need to formulate, model, and evaluate their HR initiatives from a financial perspective. And although written in a few years ago, I find myself reaching for it to reinforce many components that still apply. In the first part of the book, he covers financial fundamentals such as income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, and financial statements. In the second part of the book, Steven walks through each crucial financial issue associated with strategic talent management, including quantifiable links between workforces and business value, cost-benefit analyses of HR and strategic financial initiatives, and specific issues related to total rewards programs, including stock, stock options, and pension costs. Whether it is answering questions such as how do you model HR's financial role in corporate strategic initiatives such as the introduction of a new product line or how do you select bonus drivers to send the right signals to the manager, this book offers HR Leaders and aspiring leaders with the knowledge and tactics to link HR to financial outcomes. 

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

If you have an article, report, or resource that you recommend, please it to me at [email protected]. I would love to review it and share it in a future newsletter.

FINAL COMMENTS

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I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Have a nice weekend everyone and, again, be safe.

Brian