Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #183

Being a strategic CHRO, succession planning, AI in the workplace, employee wellbeing, and people analytics.

Author

Brian Heger
June 25, 2023

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Brian 

Brian Heger is an internal human resources practitioner with a Fortune 150 organization and has responsibilities for Strategic Talent and Workforce Planning. You can connect with Brian on Linkedin, Twitter, and brianheger.com

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THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Here is a glance at this week’s content.

And don't forget to check out the 2023 Job Cuts and Layoff Tracker, the Chief HR Officer Hire of the Week, and other resources from this issue!

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

Note: If copying and pasting any of this content for your own purposes (e.g., social media, website, etc.), please provide proper attribution to Talent Edge Weekly and link to this issue.

As Chief HR Officers (CHROs) support their organizations in achieving critical business objectives and navigating an unpredictable business landscape, this article offers three suggestions for enhancing CHROs' capabilities as strategic business leaders. 1) Develop a comprehensive business understanding, 2) Align HR strategy with the organization’s business priorities, and 3) Evaluate the flexibility and effectiveness of HR’s strategy. Regarding flexible HR strategies (# 3), this point emphasizes the need for CHROs and their HR teams to have HR strategies that can swiftly adapt to changes and disruptions in the business environment. To assess the flexibility and effectiveness of HR's strategy, CHROs can regularly pressure-test talent strategies against various risk scenarios to gauge the organization's preparedness to pivot quickly when necessary. Figure 5 illustrates how Nestlé employs a trigger-based strategic planning process, which helps identify various internal and external triggers that prompt a strategic review. As HR leaders and their teams test their HR strategies against different scenarios, I am resharing this 17-page paper by Deloitte, which has a framework (page 5) consisting of four scenarios within the context of inflation. While the paper focuses on inflation-driven scenarios, the framework can be used to construct various business scenarios (e.g., a 15% reduction of sales in the EMEA region, a new competitor entering the market, etc.) that serve as the basis for scenario-based talent and workforce planning.

This one-page PDF includes a playlist of five resources on succession planning. They include: 1) Succession Metrics Tracking Template | Brian Heger. This one-page editable PDF includes 10 succession planning metrics that organizations can refer to as they track and measure the effectiveness of their succession management practices. While 10 metrics are provided, organizations can select the vital few (or include others) for which they want to track progress. 2) Strategies to Improve Succession in a High-disruption Environment | Gartner. Provides ideas for building robust leadership pipelines amid disruption and continuous change. One case study involves Bridgestone, which uses two strategies for implementing adaptable approaches to succession planning. 3) Set Up to Fail: Poor Design of C-suite Jobs Can Block Executives From Succeeding in Their Roles | MIT Sloan Management Review. In looking at 185 executive-level job descriptions, researchers found that many are poorly designed, contributing to misalignment between jobs and successors. 4) How Leading Organizations Are Evolving Their Succession Management Practices | i4cp. Covers six ways succession practices are shifting, including moving away from using years (e.g., 1, 2, 3 years until ready) as a measure of successor readiness. 5) CEO Succession: Lessons Learned From Global CHROs | Gartner. This 22-page guide highlights common roadblocks and successes a CHRO can anticipate when preparing for and undergoing CEO succession. The PDF has clickable links to the source documents and a brief description of its contents.

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace grows rapidly, it is increasingly important for HR leaders and their teams to collaborate with their Procurement teams to evaluate and select external AI-based solutions. However, as pointed out in this new 33-page toolkit developed by the World Economic Forum in partnership with GEP, while AI systems are rapidly evolving, in-house AI expertise often remains limited, and there are no standard benchmarks and assessment criteria to aid the end-to-end procurement process. To address this gap, the toolkit offers a structured framework to help internal practitioners navigate the AI procurement landscape. Each section of the report provides a series of relevant questions to ask during the evaluation process, such as: How will the AI solution deliver on expected business outcomes? Is there transparency about what the AI solution can and cannot achieve? Can a non-AI solution deliver the same outcomes? How effectively can the solution be updated to accommodate changes in requirements? Do we understand all the costs involved in purchasing and maintaining the AI system? What are the different sources of data to be considered? How do you eliminate or minimize bias and ethical prejudices from the AI solution? This toolkit equips HR leaders and procurement teams with the necessary knowledge and tools to collaborate effectively with AI solution providers. As a bonus, I am resharing another toolkit by the World Economic Forum that contains various tools, such as checklists and questionnaires, specifically designed to facilitate the responsible adoption of AI in HR.

The article presents insights from Deloitte's second Wellbeing at Work Survey. The survey involved 3,150 C-suite executives, managers, and employees across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Key findings include: 1) Many employees continue to struggle with low levels of wellbeing, experiencing exhaustion (52%), stress (49%), and feeling overwhelmed (43%). 2) There is a gap between the perceptions of C-suite executives and the actual wellbeing of employees. Over three-quarters of the executives mistakenly believe that their workforce’s wellbeing has improved (refer to Figure 1). 3) Employees prioritize their wellbeing, but face obstacles in achieving it. Eighty-four percent say that improving their well-being is a top priority this year, and 74% say it’s more important than advancing their career. However, 80% are facing obstacles, such as heavy workloads, stressful jobs, and long hours. The article suggests three strategies for enhancing employee wellbeing: empowering managers, holding the C-suite accountable, and adopting a long-term perspective. As leaders strive to improve the well-being of their workforce, I believe there is an untapped opportunity to reduce or eliminate sources of stress related to ways of working. With this as the backdrop, I’m resharing this HBR article titled “The Hidden Toll of Microstress” by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon. They define microstressors as “individual stressors that seem manageable at the moment, but they accrue, and they can create ripple effects of secondary and sometimes tertiary consequences that can last for hours or days — and even trigger microstress in others.” The article offers a diagnostic tool to help identify 14 microstressors, which can apply to aspects of the work environment and ways of working.

Many organizations are building their people analytics capability to facilitate data-driven decision-making regarding talent and the workforce. To gain deeper insights into the potential of people analytics in organizations and the challenges they encounter along the way, SHRM Research conducted a survey of 2,149 HR professionals and 182 HR executives from organizations using people analytics. One theme from the findings is that, while people analytics hold significant potential to transform HR, many organizations still need to fully realize its benefits. According to the survey, only 58% of respondents agreed data are used throughout their organization to make informed decisions. Most employers (77%) are using basic analytic techniques for limited purposes, primarily focused on analyzing historical data. Page 5 illustrates specific areas where organizations employ people analytics, such as: 1) Employee retention and turnover (82%): Determining which employees are most likely to resign by job function, age, tenure with the organization, or other factors. 2) Recruitment, interviewing, and hiring (71%): Conducting computerized screening interviews in which candidates provide answers to a predetermined set of questions so that they can be scored and compared, and 3) Compensation, benefits, and total rewards (59%): Comparing the organization’s compensation and benefits packages with those of its competitors. Page 11 of the report introduces seven best practices for people analytics. To supplement this report, I am resharing my PDF of 17 people analytics questions. The PDF contains the 17 questions organized into six categories and includes an editable text box where users can add questions to each category.

MOST VIEWED LAST WEEK

This report shares insights into how 200+ organizations structure and operationalize their HR functions. It covers CHRO reporting relationships, the number of layers between the Chief HR Officer and the first level in HR, and the ratio of HR employees to overall employees, to name a few.

CHIEF HR OFFICER HIRE OF THE WEEK

As part of CHROs on the Go— a digital platform subscription that provides the easiest, fastest, and most convenient way to stay informed about hires, promotions, and resignations in the Chief Human Resources Officer role—12 new CHRO announcements were posted on the platform last week.

This week’s CHRO highlight is:

  • ​Villanova University (VILLANOVA, PENNSYLVANIA) has announced the appointment of Raymond “Ray” D. Duffy as Chief Human Resources and Affirmative Action Officer. Duffy brings more than two decades of experience to this leadership role, most recently serving as Associate Vice President of Human Resources and Affirmative Action Officer at Villanova since 2019. Duffy arrived at Villanova in 2010, following nine years of benefit management in both for profit and not for profit settings, most recently as the Benefits Manager for Christiana Care Health System. READ MORE

Do you want to join hundreds of others getting the EDGE each week in knowing which CHROs are being hired, promoted, and resigning? If so:

Currently, there are +2400 CHROs announcements on CHROs on the Go, with an average of 25 new announcements added each week!

If you are already a member of CHROs on the Go, you can log in to access all announcements and site functionality.

Click the link or table below to see the latest updates from a segment of organizations that have announced job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023. A few firms that announced job cuts this past week include Anaplan, Grab Holdings, and Uber (recruitment division).

TWEET OF THE WEEK

TALENT EDGE WEEKLY REWIND

Highlights a previously shared Talent Edge Weekly resource that received many views and engagement!

A 20-page report with ideas on how organizations can communicate and tailor the messages of their talent narrative to different stakeholder groups while still drawing from a single source of truth. Page 19 shows a visual of seven stakeholder groups and the parts of the talent narrative in which they are most likely interested.

If so, you can check out issue #179, which includes 17 of the most popular resources from May. The resources are broken into 3 major themes—AI in the Workplace, Skills, and Talent Trends and Practices.

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Have a great week!

Brian

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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.