Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #64

Covers post-pandemic work models, hybrid work models, aligning culture and paid-time-off policy, employee value proposition, succession, and human capital measures.

May 02, 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

  • How to Identify the Right Postpandemic Work Model: The How-To of Hybrid Work | BCG | Shares a 3-factor approach to selecting the post-pandemic work model that best meets firms' and employees' needs while maintaining productivity.

  • The New Frontiers of Hybrid Work Take Shape | Financial Times | Outlines the risks of moving to a hybrid work model, shares suggestions to overcome these risks, and provides a 4-category framework of remote work.

  • Aligning Culture and Policy to Mend the Rift Between Needing Time Off and Taking It | Deloitte Insights | Offers a framework for how organizations can better align their time-off policies and culture to enable workers to take the rest they need in a way that can benefit all. 

  • CHRO Guide: Reinvent Your Employee Value Proposition for a Post-pandemic Workforce | Gartner | Provides action steps for how organizations can shift from an employee-centered to a human-centered value proposition that treats employees as people, not workers.

  • The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning | Harvard Business Review | Explores how poor succession planning can lead to value destruction for companies and offers 4 strategies for improving business performance and investor returns through better succession practices.

  • Updated: Human Capital Disclosure Rules: Getting Your Company Ready | PWC | Provides an updated version on how firms can evaluate and determine which human capital (HC) measures to report on; offers 11 HC areas to consider.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

Employers continue to strategize on how to preserve the benefits of remote and hybrid models while mitigating the risks. This article provides a three-factor approach that helps company leaders select the post-pandemic work model that best meets employee and firm needs while maintaining productivity. They include: 1) Understand the nature of the work being done. Firms can assess remote readiness by first understanding which activities are relatively more independent or more collaborative, more complex, or routinized. 2) Orient at the team level. Leaders should assess how work gets done at the team level versus the individual level, given that the nature of work varies more at the team level. 3) Be responsive to individual preferences. Once determining the best-fit model for a team, leaders can accommodate differing employee needs and preferences. Aside from the work models, the authors offer five enablers for firms to consider as they support implementation, ranging from tools and technology, skill development and training, to metrics to track impact. The practices provide a helpful framework as firms begin the next phase in the future of work.

This article outlines the risks of moving to a hybrid work model and offers suggestions to overcome these risks. The risks include “teams and processes disintegrating as workers set their own timetables, or the creation of in-office cliques where people who work at home are left out of decision-making and informal conversations.” Among the suggestions is “synchronizing schedules within teams when collaboration may call for workers to be in the office.” Aside from the recommendations is a framework for categorizing remote workers.1) Anchored operator (0-20% remote) who needs to be physically present to do their job (e.g., a scientist in a laboratory, 2) Creative collaborator (20-50% remote) who takes on new work and develops initiatives (e.g., marketing executives launching a new campaign. 3) Focused contributor (50- 80% remote) is someone whose primary work requires individual focus (e.g., finance worker who closes the books every month) 4) Pattern specialist (80-100% remote) is someone whose work follows a regular process and a defined pattern, such as a call center worker with a script. Firms can use this framework as they consider multiple versions of hybrid work. 

As referenced in my article, 2021 HR Trends and Priorities: A Summarized View of Nine Sources, employee wellbeing (EWB) is a top priority for many organizations. And given that many workers postponed vacation plans in 2020 because of the pandemic, firms are encouraging their workers to use their Paid Time Off (PTO) in 2021 as one way to support EWB. Despite this effort, this article points to one obstacle to driving wellbeing through PTO: a disconnect between vacation policies and culture around using PTO. Said differently, when a firm’s culture does not reinforce time-off policy changes, it further prevents workers from taking time off. A 3-P framework provides a set of actions firms can take to enable workers to get the time off they need within the firm policy. 1) Permission - workers feel they have control over when they can take time off.  2) Prioritization - leaders and managers reinforce that PTO is a priority by modeling behaviors (e.g., leaders don’t call into meetings when on PTO), 3) Persistence - maintaining a regular campaign around time off and following up on the actions. Other ideas are discussed, including the benefits and challenges of several time off-policies (e.g., four-day workweek).

Employee perspectives and what they value in their employment have shifted. And according to Gartner, the post-pandemic workplace requires an employer value proposition (EVP) that treats employees as people, not workers. This “human deal” EVP fosters five feelings amongst workers. 1) I feel understood - Help employees strengthen their family and community connections, not just work connections. 2) I feel autonomous - Give employees flexibility over where, when, how much, how, and with whom they work. 3) I feel valued - Provide employees with opportunities to grow as people, not just professionals. 4) I feel cared for - Don’t just provide employees with holistic wellbeing offerings; make sure they use them. 5) I feel invested - Take actions on societal and cultural issues; don’t just make statements about “purpose.” This guide provides actions that firms can take in each area. For example, to foster the feeling “I feel cared for,” firms can focus on Holistic Well-being; they can set the goal "Reduce stigma associated with using wellbeing offerings” and one action to take is to normalize mental-health awareness by talking about it frequently at work. Other ideas are discussed.

I have posted previously about various reports suggesting that firms will find their CEO and C-suite succession bench at risk once they enter a full recovery from the pandemic (see DDI and strategy + business). This HBR article suggests that many large firms can fuel their leadership pipeline through four areas. 1) Purposefully identify and develop your rising stars by assessing capabilities (e.g., curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination) that signal potential. 2) Appoint the most promising executives to the board—or give them more access to it (e.g., boards can often have little to no insight into top internal executives. 3) Look at internal and external candidates 4) If you partner with search consultants, avoid the usual perverse incentives, such as the contingency fee. For example, “many oversell high-priced outsiders and shoot down internal alternatives. The solution is to swap the percentage fee with a prearranged fixed fee that’s based on the importance of the position and the complexity of the search and to replace the contingency fee with a retainer so that the consultant is paid the same no matter who is appointed.” Other ideas are discussed. 

Over the past several months, I have shared various posts on the Security Exchange Commission's (SEC) new human capital disclosure requirements designed for firms to give stakeholders insight into human capital. A few of these resources include: 1) a webinar by Mercer, 2) an article from Visier, 3) an article by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, which examined the HCM themes of the first fifty 10-Ks filed, 4) a report by The Conference Board,  and 5) PwC’s Accounting Podcast, New SEC Human Capital Disclosure Rules: What You Need to Know Now. Here is an updated article by PwC that can help firms evaluate which objectives or measures to disclose to comply with the principles-based requirements and meet investor and regulator expectations. Among the various insights are 11 human capital areas that firms can report on, including the number of employees in wellbeing programs, revenue or profit per employee, and total workforce costs/labor costs per FTE, to name a few. Since firms may face challenges in obtaining, analyzing, and reporting on the data, the resource includes a chart on how firms can overcome a few of these challenges.

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