TALENT EDGE WEEKLY - Issue #15

May 16, 2020

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

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

COVID-19

I continue to update special issue #6  COVID-19 Resources for HR, of this newsletter. That issue currently has 150+ references that HR colleagues can leverage. I will continue to update that special issue each week until needed. You can also access the link to this special issue directly through my website.

For the current issue, I cover the following resources:

  • Scenario Planning: No More Black Swans | Leaderonomics.com

  • Report: Next Practices in Holistic Well-Being: The Performance Advantage | i4CP

  • Report: Making People Count: Workforce Analytics | Org Vue

  • Global Workforce Study on Flexible Work | IWG

  • 45+ Employee Experience Terms You Have to Know | AIHR Analytics

  • Podcast: From Workforce Planning to Agile Workforce Planning  | Adam Gibson 

  • Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World | Cal Newport| Amazon

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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

Scenario planning (SP)--the ability to depict possible futures, consider their impact, and plan for these futures--is a fundamental component of strategic business planning and the role of organizational leaders. In using SP, leaders envision three to four possible--but uncertain--scenarios that may play out in the future and which are dependent on multiple variables, such as the economy and competition, to name a few. One challenge in SP is finding a balance in planning for specific events that are more likely to happen--often referred to as "known unknowns" and those that are rare or unexpected such as the coronavirus, acts of war, and natural disasters. These rare events are referred to as "black swans" due to their low probability of occurrence. However, as pointed out in this article, events that are sometimes referred to as black swans--in some cases-- are really "known-unknowns"--meaning that they are not unprecedented, although they are less likely to occur. In this short article, TM Nagarajan summarizes aspects of SP and outlines five steps to help leadership teams expand their thinking on multiple scenarios, including: 1) Identify a focal question, such as how is our industry's landscape changing? 2) Identify key forces of these changes by asking questions such as what factors or trends influence this issue? 3) Prioritize relevant forces - which of these factors have the most impact on our business? 4) Develop a range of plausible scenarios the organization may face, 5) Discuss the implications for each scenario, including opportunities, risks, and responses. Within the context of strategic workforce planning, these scenarios are used to determine the workforce implications of a given scenario. Overall, the goal of SP is not to predict what will happen but to expand our view of what could happen and use this information to prepare our organizations if a scenario unfolds. As HR practitioners, it is important that we enable our leadership teams to envision multiple versions of the future--a few of which will be less obvious (but possible) and where the stakes are high. By helping our leaders expand their thinking in SP, we create proactive responses in mitigating potential threats. Moreover, these proactive responses can sometimes provide a competitive edge.

Well before the coronavirus pandemic, the topic of employee well-being (EWB) was a growing priority of many organizations. As I mentioned in a previous post, you can 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, to obtain an in-depth view on why EWB is a heightened concern (e.g. 24/7 always on environment). While the concerns about EWB were already acute, they have been magnified during the coronavirus pandemic. A recent report by SHRM on the impact of COVID-10 on EWB found that 35 percent of surveyed employees report OFTEN “feeling tired or having little energy"and many of these employees report feeling hopeless, having little pleasure in doing things, and having trouble concentrating on tasks. These stressors continue to take a toll on EWB. And although EWB is a worthy pursuit in itself, it is also a core component of an organization’s talent strategy and lever of employee attraction, engagement, retention, and performance. In this 60-page research report by i4CP and thought leader Rob Cross, they provide EWB insights that are relevant now and will continue to resonate well beyond the pandemic. The report is broken into five components including 1) Value of Holistic Well-Being , 2) Awareness and Training on Practices, 3) Despite Huge Investment, Well-Being Program Effectiveness is Elusive, 4) The Foundation of Well-Being: Culture and Leadership, 5) Four Practices for Driving Holistic Well-Being. A few findings include a) high-performance organizations are 1.5x more likely to emphasize physical and mental/emotional well-being b) when employees are encouraged to report concerns about the emotional well-being of themselves and others, organizations have 4x market performance. c) there are still barriers to EWB, including cost, awareness, culture, leadership behavior, and underutilization of technology, to name a few. There are several insights in this report, which also includes case studies from Facebook, Nationwide, and others. The Humana case study on p. 36 provides the example of using leadership development training to address the stigma surrounding emotional and mental health issues, and helping leaders to create a culture of "psychological safety” so that workers are more comfortable bringing forward concerns about EWB.

While 89% of organizations say that HR analytics are already a part of their planning process, 21% of organizations are still at the early stage of piloting workforce analytics. In this report by Org Vue, they provide insights to help organizations avoid many of the pitfalls in developing an HR analytics capability. Topics discussed include 1) Improving collaboration between HR and Finance, 2) Escaping spreadsheets by adopting specialist software, 3) Acquiring the skills to master analytics and modeling. Concerning 1) HR and Finance, both functions claim to have responsibility for workforce analytics. However, there is still a gap in how these functions partner together to deliver HR analytics. Part of the issue here is that only 28% say they have integrated reporting systems to report and share this information. The other contributing factor is that both functions, in some cases, are working in silos due to the feeling that they “own” analytics. One way to overcome this challenge is by having a strong partnership between an organization's CFOs and CHRO. When that partnership exists, it seems to trickle down throughout their organizations. Regarding 2) spreadsheets, otherwise known in the report as "dreadsheets," it goes without saying that technology (specialist software) is needed in order to aggregate and visualize HR analytics data at scale quickly. However, I often speak with colleagues at other companies who have run into the pitfall of selecting a technology provider without fully thinking through the capabilities that they need the technology to enable. Before selecting a provider, I recommend asking: what types of questions about our workforce, if we knew the answers to, could enable us to make better, faster decisions that impact important outcomes such as business performance, retention, engagement, and employee experience to name a few? Page 7 of this report provides a few good questions, such as a) Are the right employees doing the right work to deliver the strategy? b) Is our workforce aligned with our operating model and investment strategy? Lastly, 3) acquiring skills to implement analytics will require capability building in "analytical mindset" within the HR function. Other insights are provided in the report, such as, using Organizational Planning and Analysis (begins on p.19), which leverages analytics to inform organization design choices that are more likely to drive meaningful business outcomes, such as revenue, growth, and cost reduction. 

Flexible work arrangements (FWA), such as telecommuting, have become an increasingly popular practice over the past few years in organizations that want to attract, engage, and retain the best talent. And with the coronavirus pandemic causing what has been dubbed the "largest work from home experiment," this workforce practice has been catapulted into the spotlight. Practically overnight, organizations, workers, and managers have had to adjust to new ways of working on a global scale. Coming out of the pandemic, employers who may not have been a proponent of FWA before the crisis are more likely to support some form of FWA after realizing the benefits first hand. For many workers who have experienced the upside of working remotely (e.g., avoiding lengthy commutes, spending more time with family, etc.), they are likely going to expect their employers to make FWA commonplace post-pandemic. As a result, organizations are already beginning to think through how they will handle this workplace practice, and many of them will end up formalizing FWA policies. Although conducted before the coronavirus pandemic, this International Workplace Group (IWG) report provides useful insights on the key drivers for flexible working, how it is practiced, and the obstacles to introducing FWA. One fundamental challenge that organizations face in this area is merely defining FWA. For some organizations it means the ability to 1) choose which location (city, type of office, etc.) one works from at least some of the time, 2) make some decisions regarding one's work hours, 3) choose where one works from at least some of the time, 4) manage one's workload independently--or all of the above. Organizations can leverage this report as they define and reimagine their FWA practices.

The Employee Experience (EX) continues to be a priority for many organizations that recognize the importance of an EX in driving engagement, productivity, and retention. In turn, each of these elements has the potential to drive an organizations' business financial performance. In fact, companies with a great EX outperform the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 by 122 percent (1). While the EX has been defined in various ways, a simple concept is that it includes everything that an employee observes, feels, and interacts with as a part of their company. The EX includes everything from the moment a candidate applies on a job at a company to the moment they leave an organization. And just as with many topics that increase in popularity, there has been a commensurate increase in the number of terms (aka jargon) to describe aspects of the EX. These terms range from employee journeys, moments that matter, voice of the employee, Employer Net Promoter Score (eNPS), and journey mapping. I found this article to be an interesting list of the many terms that have accumulated over the years on EX, what they mean, and how they are distinct from each other. 

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

The speed at which technological advances, societal changes, and work itself continues to shift has created a high level of unpredictability in talent and workforce needs. As such, workforce plans that do not accommodate frequently changing business conditions are often ineffective or, at the very least, short-lived. In this 25-minute podcast, Adam Gibson discusses the shift from workforce planning to agile workforce planning and its implications for HR. Adam suggests that it’s no longer simply enough to plan and set strategies in place for precise workforce planning but rather an approach that enables flexibility and enables one to pivot quickly when workforce conditions and context shift. Once you open the link, you will need to scroll down the page to access the podcast.

WHAT I AM READING

Although I often share books that relate directly to business, HR, workforce, and talent management topics, to name a few, I also recommend books that help people be more productive and effective in their roles, jobs, and professional pursuits. At a time where distractions are rampant---social media, news, and email, to name a few, it has become increasingly challenging --and for some workers near to impossible--to stay focused on work that is most important. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport describes deep work as professional work that requires complete focus and full concentration. This type of work pushes your creative and analytical abilities to their limits. He argues that to make a real impact in areas of art, science, business, or other fields, you must work deeply, which requires periods of "uninterrupted concentration." He contrasts deep work with “shallow work” which is work that you can do while you’re distracted. Unfortunately, our work environment, surroundings, and colleagues and leaders can often push us toward shallow work. And at a time where there is pressure for organizations to innovate and drive value increasingly, we must enable ourselves, teams, and organizations to do deep work that has the potential to drive disproportionate value. Whether you are looking to take your job performance to the next level, get your business off the ground, or even make exponential progress on your job search, this book provides some good ideas on how to start.

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