TALENT EDGE WEEKLY - Issue #17

May 30, 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 access content like this at www.brianheger.com and you can still access archival COVID-19 HR resources in issue # 6. COVID-19 Resources for HR. That issue currently has150+ references that HR colleagues can leverage.

For this week's issue, I cover the following resources:

  • Leading in a Fragile World: Three Critical Objectives for the CHRO | Russell Reynolds

  • How HR Can Think Outside the Talent Box | HRExecutive

  • Performance Management In The Age Of Social Distancing | Forbes

  • How PwC Uses Data to Retain High-Performing Employees | Culture Impact Blog

  • Employee Engagement Continues Historic Rise Amid Coronavirus | Gallup

  • Podcast: Why An Internal Talent Marketplace is Critical Today | Josh Bersin

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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

As CHROs continue to lead their organizations to the recovery phase of the coronavirus crisis, there are implications for how the CHRO role will continue to shift post-pandemic. This article recommends three objectives that CHROs should focus on for long-term success. 1) Re-Orient Externally. CHROs must continue to build and maintain external networks that they leveraged during the pandemic and which enabled them to respond more quickly during the crisis. The ability to tap into the expertise and capacity of other organizations will be critical in the future. 2) Architect a New Approach to Leadership. The pandemic has exposed what good leadership looks like (i.e., empathy, humility, and ability to drive action and decision making centered around purpose). CHROs can re-architect leadership frameworks that can be used by their organizations' to identify and develop leaders. Also, if certain leaders emerged during the crisis, that were not on succession plans, it is important to consider these individuals as potential successor candidates.  3) Double Down on Organizational Design. Given that organizational priorities, goals, and required skills--to name a few--have shifted, CHROs will need to translate these capabilities into organizational design implications--with a focus on how and where works get done. Other ideas are discussed.

Talent needs within organizations continue to shift as a result of the coronavirus. Some organizations have experienced a reduction in talent demand, whereas others have an increase in talent needs. One innovative solution that organizations are embracing as an agile talent strategy is an employee-sharing strategy (ESS). With an ESS, one employer “shares” workers-- who would otherwise lose their jobs-- with another employer who has a current talent need. In practice, a group of employers from multiple industries brings together companies laying off or furloughing people with those companies who have an urgent need for workers. As noted in this article, one challenge in this approach is how to operationalize such exchanges, which requires answering questions such as 1) How do we handle the benefits implications of such exchanges, particularly if they involve unionized workgroups? 2) How do we accurately match the skills of talent to the work being demanded, so we don’t have a lag in productivity when the borrowed talent is in place? 3) How do we protect against poaching of talent or addressing mismatches in the timeframes for each organization? In spite of these challenges, an ESS can have many benefits for organizations and workers and should be explored as a viable talent strategy during the pandemic and beyond. 

With remote work becoming more of a norm for many organizations due to the coronavirus, there have been a few articles discussing the potential implications of remote work on performance management (PM). Part of the discussion focuses on a segment of managers, who are not accustomed to managing workers remotely, that express concern that remote work may hinder their ability to maximize the performance and productivity of their employees. These managers feel that they lose oversight and, in some cases, "control" of their workers. In this article, an additional view is offered. It posits that regardless if one works remotely: 1) 20% of employees are exceptional performers. They live to work, 2) 60% are good solid citizens. Work is important to them, but so is family or other interests. They live and work. 3) 20% do just enough to keep their jobs. They have an interest and passion for things outside of work (e.g., music, sports). Work for them is more of a way to make a living. They work to live. Within this context, the article argues that rather than try to enforce a one-size-fits-all (everyone must stretch themselves to the maximum at their job) performance management philosophy, replace it with individualized "performance choice" contracts for each employee; and pay accordingly. This is an interesting concept that I am still wrapping my head around, and you will need to read the article to understand the concept. Nonetheless, I wanted to share this resource since I know many of you are generating ideas on how to transform and reimagine PM in a new world of work.

Organizations continue to find ways to leverage data and analytics to test assumptions about their workforce, draw conclusions, and determine actions that will deliver the most significant ROI. One question that organizations want insight into is: How do we engage people so that it drives higher performance and retention? In this case study, a business unit within PwC discovered through an internal survey that their Senior Consultants (SC’s) were prone to lower engagement and higher attrition in comparison to the rest of their workforce. Given that SC's are a critical segment of their workforce that drives revenue, the unit embarked on an initiative to understand the drivers of SC turnover. Two of the four findings include 1) Engagement differs by performance level, e.g., 15% point difference in engagement favorability between high and lower performing SCs 2) Tenure has an effect on attrition, e.g., earlier-tenured top-performing SC who felt negatively about diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts and colleagues contributions were 1.7 times more likely to leave within a year compared other employees. These and other findings were used to determine actions. Whether during the coronavirus pandemic or beyond, ask yourself: What are three strategic workforce or talent questions that, if I knew the answer to, could accelerate the delivery of the business outcomes that matter the most? 

Perhaps surprisingly, although Americans' wellbeing has dropped to a 12-year low in the past month amid the coronavirus outbreak, the engagement of the working population has hit a new high. The percentage of "engaged" workers in the U.S. reached 38%, which is the highest since Gallup began tracking the metric in 2000. The percentage of workers who are "actively disengaged" tied the 2018 and 2019 low of 13%. The remaining 49% of workers are "not engaged," meaning that they put time, but not energy or passion, into their work. This article outlines three factors that might explain the continued uptick of engagement during the coronavirus pandemic. 1) The employer response is improving. Although responses vary, many organizations have focused on communication and have accommodated employees as best as they can during the pandemic. 2) The employment base is smaller. Given that more than 30 million people have become unemployed, these individuals are not included in the employee engagement index. 3) Employees feel fortunate to have work. Due to job losses, those who are still employed may respond favorably. Regardless of the reasons, it is important to remember that the ways in which employees feel treated and supported by their organizations throughout this pandemic will have implications (for the better or worse) beyond the pandemic in terms of retention, engagement, and performance. There is still an opportunity for organizations to re-engage the 49% of workers who are in the "middle" of the engagement spectrum.

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

In this 15-minute audio clip, Josh Bersin talks about talent mobility within organizations. In particular, Josh mentions how career models, based on functional hierarchies, are continuing to become less relevant in today's organizations. Instead of well-defined career tracks within a function, internal mobility is driven increasingly by horizontal and vertical moves that transcend functions, and that provide a variety of experiences that enable a greater perspective. As companies continue to initiate new projects and initiatives, they need workers that can move into roles and projects quickly. In order to do this, Josh argues that we need a more dynamic and agile way of managing talent and leveraging the "internal talent market place," which includes buyers and sellers. In the organizational context, the buyers are the managers, and the sellers are the workers. The concept of matching buyers and sellers is very similar to platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork, where Buyers post "gigs" and Sellers submit on those gigs, if interested. As companies accelerate the deployment and development of internal talent, many firms will become more akin to a professional services company in which there are agile projects, and people join them at various times. Josh provides an additional perspective on this topic, including technology platforms that enable this capability. 

OTHER RESOURCES

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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