Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #33

September 20, 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:

  • The Workforce Takes Centerstage: The Board’s Evolving Role | Deloitte

  • Future of Work Trends Post-COVID-19: Long-Term Impact & Actions for HR | Gartner

  • Talent Sharing: Facilitating the Notion of 'Sharing is Caring’ | HRnews

  • Activating the Internal Talent Marketplace | Deloitte Insights

  • 50+ Ideas for Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace Today | LinkedIn Talent Blog

  • Workplace Resilience Study: Full Research Report | ADP Research Institute

  • Podcast: Not Just Diversity and Equity: The New Corporate Focus on Belonging | Josh Bersin

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

Few would dispute the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way businesses operate. Not only has the crisis revolutionized how we work, where, and what workers expect from their employers--to name a few--- it has also led to a reprioritization of Board activities. For many organizations, the pandemic has underscored the importance of the Boards' involvement in workforce issues beyond traditional topics, such as succession planning. The article includes fourteen questions that Board's are asking concerning the workforce, including: 1) Are the mission and vision of our organization clearly understood and embraced by the entire workforce, regardless of role or level? How do we promote that understanding? 2) To what extent are our development programs anchored on capabilities versus skills? What do we see as the essential human capabilities required to execute our business strategy moving forward? 3) What measures are we tracking to give us real-time insight on the sentiments of the workforce—both internal and external? 4) Do our compensation strategies, including at the executive level, reflect the balance and combination of market/economic value and stakeholder/social values we seek to represent? These and other questions can be used by CEOs, CHROs, executive teams, Boards, and HR Leaders as they drive value through culture and talent in a post-COVID-19 world.

As the pandemic continues to reset work trends, HR leaders are simultaneously rethinking and adjusting workforce, leadership, and employee experience strategies. Based on a survey of 400+ HR leaders and 300+ finance leaders and conversations with more than 4,000 employees and HR executives, this Gartner report identifies the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of work and the implications business leaders should anticipate for their organization. According to the report, there is nine future of work trends ranging from a) organizations prioritize resilience as much as efficiency, b) wider use of contingent workers and c) critical skills are no longer synonymous with roles. As it relates to the latter, many organizations will redefine "criticality" in terms of skills (rather than roles) that drive the organization’s competitive advantage. Such an approach has implications for other talent practices such as: workforce planning (e.g., planning for skills vs. solely roles), total rewards (e.g., paying a premium for specific skill sets vs. a job), and career development (e.g., helping employees develop critical skills that prepare them for multiple opportunities rather than a specific role), to name a few. For each of the nine trends, a set of recommended HR actions are provided. 

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to force organizations to rethink traditional talent practices. One talent practice that has emerged during the crisis is talent sharing - where one employer “shares” workers– who would otherwise lose their jobs or have a reduction in work hours due to less demand – with another employer who has a talent need. One such example is McDonald’s and retailers Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord - in which the companies signed an agreement to allow employees of the fast-food chains to work temporarily at the discounters’ stores. A similar arrangement was made when supermarket giant Kroger temporarily borrowed furloughed employees for 30 days from Sysco Corp. And although talent sharing may seem suitable only in unique situations, such as the pandemic, it can be an effective strategy--particularly in a post-COVID 19 world where many workers want flexibility and diverse experiences, and where organizations desire flexible work models and cost structures. As noted in this article, "now more than ever, the notion of ‘sharing is caring’ and conducting a gig-like workforce has come to light for organization looking to leverage talent across sectors in order to fill gaps." Despite the promise of talent sharing, several questions will arise, such as: What are the implications for compensation? How do we protect against poaching of talent. How do we accurately match the skills of talent to the work being demanded?  Nonetheless, figuring out the answers to these and other questions can be transformative for an organization's talent management.

One impact of the pandemic is that it has accelerated organizations' need to scale and flex their talent models to meet both the needs of the business and their workforce. And as organizations help their workforce reimagine professional development, career mobility, and work purpose, many of them are turning to a talent practice called the internal talent marketplace (ITM). ITM-- usually hosted on a technology-enabled platform--connects employees with opportunities both inside and outside the organization. The concept goes beyond just matching people with full-time roles and provides access to gig work, mentorship, rotation programs, and volunteering assignments, to name a few. This article offers several insights on how to accelerate the delivery of an ITM model through iterative design using the four “Ps”: 1) Purpose: Define your strategy based on different possible use cases and measurable outcomes, 2) Plan: Determine the iterative steps required to activate the internal talent marketplace, 3) Program: Define the policies and processes that enable talent and career mobility 4)  Platform:  Work toward an integrated technology ecosystem. Several insights are provided in this article, including Figure 1, which summarizes three distinct strategies organizations use to determine the purpose of their ITM.

As many organizations continue to push forward with diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts amidst the pandemic, this article provides over 50 practical ideas for doing so. “These ideas are designed to be impactful steps you can take right away, regardless of your headcount, budget, and bandwidth.” One D&I tactic that has gained increased attention is converting all job descriptions to gender-neutral language. This idea addresses the fact that the words used in job descriptions can have the unintentional effect of describing the ideal gender for a candidate. Said differently, without realizing it, organizations use language that is subtly ‘gender-coded’–such as “aggressive” or “dominant” that may dissuade women from applying. The article mentions a free app called Text.io that can analyze job descriptions for gender-biased language. One use-case for a tool like this could be to analyze job descriptions in functions or parts of an organization where there are lower job application rates for female candidates and/or where female representation is lacking. An organization may find that job descriptions within these areas contain heavy usage of gender-biased words. Other ideas are discussed, such as conducting blind screenings (removing names from resume) to minimize unconscious biases in the resume review process.

The coronavirus's pandemic continues to be a source of strain, unexpected stress, and adversity for many people. And as the crisis persists, these outcomes will become more acute. One topic that has received much attention during this timeframe is Resilience, which in general refers to a person's ability to persevere through or recover from setbacks. Within the workplace and work context, Resilience is an important factor that has implications for worker wellbeing, productivity, team effectiveness, and performance, to name a few. Given the importance of Resilience at both an individual and organizational level, organizations would benefit from understanding their workforce's Resilience to determine how they can best support workers during these challenging times. This recent study aimed to investigate the components of Resilience in the workplace and design a survey instrument to measure these components. For the study, Workplace Resilience is defined as an individual's capacity to withstand, bounce back from, and work through challenging circumstances or events at work. The instrument was a final set of ten items (page 8) representing three facets of Workplace Resilience (feelings about oneself, one’s team leader, and one’s senior leaders). This 57-page report contains ten key findings ranging from 1)  19% of U.S. Workers Are Highly Resilient, 3) Trust in the Team Leader Is a Crucial Part of Resilience, 7) Resilience Varies by Job Level (the higher one’s level within a company, the more likely one is to be Highly Resilient). The insights from this report can be used as organizations continue to place "increased emphasis on understanding the mindset of employees and helping them to navigate through turbulence."

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

In this 22 minute podcast, Josh Bersin talks about Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the context of Belonging. Based on his conversations with several D&I leaders, Josh mentions how he is seeing a trend where there is a shift away from Diversity as a strategy to one of inclusion and belonging as a strategy. Said differently, diversity is an outcome that is the result of feelings of inclusion and belonging. Several ideas are discussed. When you click on the link, you can also access several materials that Josh references in the podcast.

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

If you aren’t yet a subscriber to Talent Edge Weekly and want to have it delivered to your email inbox every Sunday, you can subscribe by entering your email below.

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

If you found this issue to be of value, please share the link above with your social media networks.

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

Brian