Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #32

September 13, 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.

This week's Edge covers the following resources:

  • Pandemic Changes CHRO Role for Good | Hunt Scanlon

  • Rewarding Performance During the COVID-19 Pandemic | Gartner - HR Leader's Monthly - September

  • Six Steps to Great Talent Reviews | The Talent Strategy Group

  • Digitalization Drives the New Face of Engagement |HR People + Strategy

  • Working From Home Poses Hurdles for Employees of Color | The New York Times

  • The Remote Workplace Needs Recognition Rituals Too | Gallup

  • Podcast: How IBM is Reinventing HR with AI and People Analytics (Interview with Diane Gherson) | The Digital HR Leaders Podcast

If you enjoy content like this, you can access additional articles and resources at www.brianheger.com

If you find this issue to be of value, please share the newsletter link or any of its articles with your social media networks. To share an article summary, you can click the “share” icon located below the summary.

If you enjoy Talent Edge Weekly and aren’t yet a subscriber, please sign-up so that it can be delivered to your email inbox every Sunday.

Have a great week everyone!

Brian

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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 EDGE

While the coronavirus pandemic has transformed C-suite roles worldwide, one role that has been revolutionized is the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). A new IMSA Search report examines how the COVID-19 crisis has demanded new capabilities and duties for CHROs, with particular emphasis on three key areas: 1) The Organizational Model. COVID-19 forced leaders to create organization models based on working from home, which raises several issues such as "how will managers translate existing work rules, meeting schedules, and communications strategies to the new reality? Who will pay for remote workers' connectivity and any required equipment? How should an organization build and implement a long-term employee recognition strategy for remote workers?" 2) Hiring and talent management. "Candidates are cautious about their choices, and post-pandemic company structures are just developing, which means that, in some cases, it may be difficult to predict who might be the best fit for the organization." 3) Rebuilding a Corporate Culture ASAP. The pandemic has forced organizations to operate in news ways, many of which will become part of its culture beyond the pandemic. CHROs will be at the helm in helping to renew aspects of organizational culture. Other ideas are discussed for each of the three areas.

During the past few months, I have made several posts on how organizations have adjusted their performance management (PM) practices amidst the pandemic. These adjustments range from how goals are modified to reflect new realities, the frequency of performance feedback, and the focus of performance discussions. And as organizations determine how they will evaluate and reward end-of-year performance during an unprecedented year, they will need to consider the longer-term impact of these decisions. This September issue of Gartner's HR Leader's Monthly has nine articles on PM, including one on rewarding employee performance that begins on page four. This article elaborates on four steps to ensure rewards help drive employee engagement and improve the organization’s operational excellence 1) Review how they measure performance and adjust targets, if needed, to reflect the current situation. 2) Use alternative rewards to recognize employee contributions on an ongoing basis leading up to 2021 compensation decisions. 3) Create scenario plans for 2021 compensation decisions to prepare for the full spectrum of economic outcomes, including potentially smaller budgets. 4) Support and recognize new and returning employees throughout recovery. "Because employees will remember how they were treated during the COVID-19 pandemic, effectively recognizing and rewarding employees for their contributions will have consequences for your employer brand for years to come." 

As many organizations continue to evaluate and adjust their talent practices to reflect new organizational realities, one area that has gained attention during this time is the talent review process. For many organizations, the pandemic has underscored the importance of understanding the skills, career aspirations, and potential of its talent, and then using this information to make agile talent decisions (e.g., quickly redeploying talent where and when needed.) As a result, organizations are reevaluating their talent review practices to ensure they can deliver this capability. But as pointed out in this article, many challenges still exist when it comes to executing effective talent reviews. These challenges range from "overly complex processes, vague definitions of potential, ill-equipped HR leaders, no follow up, and other ills that undercut this potentially powerful process's effectiveness." This article provides insight into six factors that create an impactful talent review. Each of the six is important, and most organizations can leverage one in particular to make an immediate impact - #2: A Light Process. This factor ensures that only practices and information that disproportionately impact the talent review's ability to drive value are included; the rest is eliminated. What are three extraneous practices and/or types of information that you can immediately eliminate from your organization's talent review process? 

As COVID-19 continues to impact the nature of work, digitalization, and engagement, there will be several implications for how talent management will be delivered in the future. As pointed out in this article by PepsiCo's Allan Church and Sergio Ezama, "the crisis has reset the beliefs, aspirations, and expectations of both employees and employers, which in turn may alter established talent management practices." The authors suggest that three significant shifts will persist over the next several years: 1) Reconfiguring the nature of work and careers. For example, "as the gig market expands, many employees will leave traditional jobs for more flexible working arrangements, providing a deeper talent pool. As virtual work has gone mainstream and the myths about working from home have been debunked, workers and companies will embrace this new employment contract." 2) Ruthless process digitalization - such as interviewing and onboarding post-hire, can all be done virtually. 3) Focus on the "new face" of engagement.   Organizations will revisit and redefine the organization's employee value proposition (EVP) and its social contract with its workforce. Organizations will need to determine a) which EVP elements are positive attractors in the new reality and should be amplified, b) which are neutral and should be reconsidered, and c) negative and should be abandoned or at least minimized. Organizations can use the ideas from each of these areas to help determine talent priorities and the allocation of talent management resources.  

Throughout the pandemic, I have made several posts about the impact that Work From Home (WFH) at scale has had on the workforce. And while some of this impact has been for the better (e.g., reduced commute time, greater flexibility, etc.), it has also created challenges, particularly for specific workforce segments. Such segments include working parents, working moms, caretakers, those who prefer in-person/social interactions, and workers whose WFH environments are not conducive to productivity, to name a few. Another segment of the workforce that WFH has impacted is employees of color. This article notes that "with fewer connections and less extensive networks than white colleagues to begin with, Black and Hispanic workers can find themselves more isolated than ever in a world of Zoom calls and virtual forums." Without the networks and encounters that offices provide, " the unmanaged outcome is more isolation, less advancement, more job losses, and a real retrenchment in the progress around diversity and inclusion.” Exacerbating this issue is that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, 27 percent of companies put diversity and inclusion efforts on hold, according to a survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity. With many organizations not expected to ask employees to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces before 2021, WFH implications for people of color have become an increasingly urgent topic for HR leaders and diversity officers. Other ideas are discussed. 

The attraction, identification, development, and engagement of talent have been hallmarks of effective talent strategies for quite some time. And although "recognition" is one of the staples of effective talent management, it can often be unintentionally sidelined, especially during crisis and disruption. Ironically, during these times of crisis, recognition may be needed the most--particularly by workers who have managed to deliver above and beyond expectations amidst challenging circumstances or have helped their colleagues and their teams work through these difficult times. This Gallup article suggests that remote employees often miss out on spontaneous recognition that "on-site" employees often receive. Consequently, many organizations will need to develop recognition strategies and tactics suitable for a remote environment. Since establishing a recognition-based culture starts at the top, organizations can help leaders and managers build capability in this area, even by offering simple suggestions such as "start the next team meeting by recognizing someone on the call who did exceptional work in the past week while working remotely. Or, "every Friday, think of three people who really helped you this week. Recognize them privately or publicly, based on your knowledge of what they prefer." Simple tactics like these can have a profound impact.

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

In this 45-minute podcast, David Green talks with Diane Gherson to discuss how IBM is infusing AI and analytics into HR. Several topics are discussed, one of which is how IBM has created a marketplace for talent, encompassing skills, personalized learning, career management, and internal mobility. In particular, Diane speaks about how their talent platform a) Enables personalized learning built just like Netflix, where it takes a person's career aspirations and other talent information and recommends internal and external learning content. The platform then learns what the learner takes and suggests what the learner should take next. b) Scrapes all the job postings of IBM's competitors to understand the direction of skill demand so that workers can start aligning their career goals and their learning goals with where the market is going. This information is then integrated into career discussions. c) Surfaces internal roles inside IBM to candidates and even indicates the extent to which they are a match with those roles. This podcast is replete with various ideas and is worth the 45-minute investment. 

OTHER RESOURCES

Book Recommendations on HR and business topics, such as:

Recommended Tools I use for my personal learning and productivity, such as two of this newsletter's affiliates:

  • Soundview Executive Books Summaries which provides 7-8 page PDF summaries, and audio summaries, on the newest ideas and strategies from the best business books. They offer both individual and corporate plans, which can be monthly or yearly. One free sample is available for download.

  • Audible, who offers a 30-day free trial where you will get two free audiobooks immediately. You get to keep the two free audiobooks even if you decide to not purchase a monthly or yearly Audible subscription.

COVID-19 Resources for HR. These resources were gathered from March through May and contain 150+ references that can be leveraged as HR practitioners continue to lead their organizations through the recovery phase and beyond

WHO IS IN THE HR JOB MARKET?

If you are a subscriber to this newsletter and searching for an HR-related role, I am more than happy to list your name, a link to your Linked In Profile, and a sentence or two that describes what you are looking for, in a future issue of this newsletter. If interested, please send me an email from the email address that you used when signing-up for this newsletter.

The following subscribers are in the HR job market:

  • Cathy Ellwood - is looking for roles at the Director and Sr. Director level in Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Organization Development and/or Learning & Development. Cathy especially enjoys roles where she can lead in each of these areas, but it is open to leading just one. Fully relocatable (currently in St. Louis), with a first preference of Columbus, Ohio.

  • Serguei Zaychenko - is looking for an Executive Recruiter/Talent Acquisition Recruiter role in the metro New York City area. Serguei worked both for large, Fortune 500, as well as small, entrepreneurial companies and thrives in hyper-growth environments.

  • Nora Kinsela - is currently seeking a mid/senior level Talent Management/Development role in the Greater Boston area. The ideal company is one that looks to create an engaged workforce by providing career development opportunities needed for them to thrive and be their best selves.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

While I try to read as much as I can and share resources and ideas that I believe would be of value to readers, there is only so much that one person can possibly uncover! This is where I ask for your active contribution to this newsletter.

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

And, if you have any ideas or suggestions on how this newsletter can be improved or deliver greater value (including topics you would like to see covered), please send me a note with your suggestions.

FINAL COMMENTS

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If you enjoy this content and would like to access all issues of Talent Edge Weekly, you can do so by clicking here. You can also access content at www.brianheger.com

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

Brian