Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #56

March 07, 2021

Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly—the weekly newsletter for human resources practitioners, bringing together insights about work, the workplace, and the workforce from various sources.

If you find value in this issue or any of its resources, please share them with your network by using the social media icons at the top of the newsletter.

Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Brian 

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 CONTENT

  • Work Without Jobs | MIT Sloan Management Review | Dr. John Boudreau and Ravin Jesuthasan share four principles for deconstructing jobs into tasks that better reflect the fluidity of modern work and working arrangements. Includes a supplemental 60-minute fireside chat hosted by Gloat.

  • 2021 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report: Skill Building in the New World of Work | LinkedIn Learning | A recently released 65-page report containing practical advice to help craft your 2021 learning strategies and programs.

  • 5 Challenges Facing CHROs at Midsize Companies Today | Harvard Business Review | Provides four tips on how resource-constrained middle-market HR leaders (big-company issues with small-company resources) can address 5 challenges.

  • How to Shift from a Competency Model to a Skills Strategy in 5 Steps | Degreed Blog | Shares ideas on how skills (not competencies) provide firms with a common language for company-wide talent management.

  • The Jobs the Pandemic May Devastate | The New York Times | Covers highlights from a recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) assessment on which jobs will grow over the next decade and decline.

  • Are Companies Following Through on Their Diversity & Inclusion Pledges? | i4CP | Shares survey results on how well firms have kept DEI commitments since the height of last year's social justice and racial equity demonstrations.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

The coronavirus pandemic impacts have accelerated the evolution of work, the workplace, and workers in every possible way. As firms continue to address these opportunities and challenges with speed and head-on, this article calls for a change in how we view work and, in particular, jobs. It submits that jobs--the staple of many HR processes and systems-- should give way to deconstructed tasks. Said differently, firms can benefit from decomposing or unpacking job/roles into specific tasks and using them (not job descriptions) as the basis of work. By applying this concept of deconstruction, firms can better match "melted" jobs (tasks or projects) with melted job holders (skills and capabilities) with greater agility. The article offers four principles for this new view of work, ranging from 1) Start with the work (current and future tasks) and not the existing jobs, to 4) Allow talent to “flow to work” versus being dedicated to fixed, permanent jobs. As a bonus resource, here is a direct link to a one-hour fireside chat with Dr. John Boudreau and Ravin Jesuthasan (the authors of the article), where they further discuss the topic. 

This report marks the fifth year of the Workplace Learning Report and includes input from over five thousand professionals spanning 27 countries. This 65-page report is full of insights, including L&D functions expect their budget to increase, and anticipate a continued acceleration to online learning. Page 21 shows the top 10 ways that L&D pros measure the impact of learning. The report notes that employee engagement surveys are increasingly entering the learning measurement mix–with an 11-point rise since last year. Concerning the top three areas of focus for L&D programs and initiatives in 2021: 1) Upskilling and reskilling - 59%—-a 15% increase since June 2020, 2) Leadership and management - 53%. 3) Virtual onboarding - 33%. In examining top priority skills to build globally this year, resilience and digital fluency topped the list. Some countries focused more on resilience (#1 in the US, Canada, France, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand). Others focused more on digital fluency (#1 skill to build in Germany, Southeast Asia, and India). Several other topics are discussed, and here is also a link to the 2020 report for your reference. 

The events and disruptions of 2020 and 2021 continue to place demands on CHROs and their teams. This article identifies five top-of-mind issues for middle-market CHROs and offers tips on how best to address them. And while the five issues are relevant to most organizations, the authors submit that these issues are especially difficult for CHROs of midsize firms since "they typically must meet big-company tests with small-company resources." The five issues include: 1) Managing a return to workforce growth, 2) Reskilling and upskilling employees, 3) Revamping HR systems and processes, 4) Recharging employee engagement and productivity, 5) Addressing urgent diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. About revamping HR systems and processes, I have two questions for leaders to consider: a) Where can we eliminate processes or systems that are extraneous and detract from productivity, innovation, and employee well-being, etc. 2) Of those that can't be eliminated, which can be simplified while driving a better experience and business outcomes? The authors provide four tips on how resource-constrained middle-market HR leaders can address the five challenges. 

For many organizations, competency models have been a cornerstone of legacy HR practices. And while these models have been effective in a business environment of stability, they have been criticized for being cumbersome and less useful in climates of frequent change and disruption. This article suggests that skills should provide the common language for talking about worker growth and development and even workforce planning. It starts with the premise that competencies tend to focus on individual behaviors and knowledge in particular roles, whereas skills are based on expertise that can be transferred across areas. And as firms shift more towards fueling internal mobility and skill-based workforce planning, they can benefit from articulating their company-wide skill structure. Examples are provided on decomposing a competency (e.g., Business Acumen”) into skills (e.g., competitive analysis, business growth, etc.) By using skills, the authors submit that they can be tracked and developed across any role. The article also provides a measurement scale for determining skill proficiency.  

This article highlights a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) assessment on which jobs will grow and decline in the next decade. The long-term projections (which come with risks and can be wrong) assume a) more remote work and higher demand for relevant technology services; b) less in-person entertainment and travel; and c) more public health investment than would have happened without the pandemic. The largest increase in demand among nearly 800 detailed occupations is epidemiologists (those who collect and analyze data to investigate health issues and determine who is at the highest risk for a particular disease)--with a 25 percent increase by 2029. A similar trend holds for other health-science jobs and the technology field. The sectors facing additional job loss because of the pandemic are low-wage sectors and people with a high school diploma or less. The article includes a few charts with different data points. Besides sharing the data insights, I believe this topic can prompt firms to generate workforce planning projections for various scenarios that may unfold within their industry and business environment.   

As several firms made commitments to address DE&I issues at the height of last year's social justice and racial equity demonstrations, this I4CP survey gauged how well those promises are being kept. Overall, firms have shown progress and commitment to DE&I-related actions, including a sizable percentage (41%) that added an executive role with responsibility for DEI strategy (i.e., Chief Diversity Officers). Another area gaining some momentum is establishing accountability for ramping up internal talent goals for underrepresented groups—as evidenced through a recent example of McDonald's, which ties executive pay bonuses to a goal of 35% diversity at senior management levels by 2025. Despite some progress, some high-impact actions have not been taken, such as conducting bias audits of existing organizational norms and practices. The survey also found that Talent acquisition (TA) is the most heavily tasked with increasing diverse representation and advancing equity and inclusion goals. The survey results are listed by internal and external actions, which serve as a reference to the array of tactics available for driving DE&I. 

RESULTS FROM LAST WEEK'S POLL

The results from last week's poll question are in. Based on 149 responses to the question: To what extent should employee self-reviews be part of a firm's performance management? 

  • 43% - Make optional

  • 34% - Make mandatory

  • 23 % - Don't use them

These results suggest that three-quarters of respondents are not yet ready to fully remove self-reviews from their performance management and still find value in them. For the 43% of respondents whose firms make self-reviews optional, I would be curious to see if workers who complete self-reviews and those who do not-- report meaningful differences in the quality of performance management received. If anyone knows of such a study, please email me this reference so I can potentially cover it in a future newsletter issue.

THIS WEEK'S POLL QUESTION

As more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, firms continue to evaluate and decide when their workforce will return to the office and resume normal business operations. When do you expect that your organization will return to normal business operations?

  • We are already back

  • Q2-2021

  • Q3-2021

  • Q4-2021

  • 2022

  • Beyond 2022

While you can view the most current results upon casting your vote, I will share the final results in next week's newsletter.

If there is a poll question you would like to see in an upcoming newsletter, you can submit your question HERE.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

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OUR RESOURCE LINEUP

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