Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #65

Covers HR transformation, remote workers, future of work, "invisible" leadership transitions, stay conversations, and SEC human capital reporting.

May 09, 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

  • 2021 HR Transformation Report | The Talent Strategy Group | Provides insights in this 22-page report on the progress that firms are making on their HR transformation and offers actions on how firms can accelerate these efforts.

  • Understanding the Range of Emotions Felt by Remote Workers During COVID-19 | The Martec Group | Shares learnings on how four unique worker segments experience remote work differently, ranging from total contentment to complete distress.

  • What Employees Are Saying About the Future of Remote Work | McKinsey | Outlines the sentiments of workers regarding the future of work and whether these needs match what their employers expect to provide.

  • How to Manage ‘Invisible Transitions’ in Leadership | MIT Sloan Management Review | Provides ideas on how firms can support "invisible transitions”—where leaders take on new tasks, responsibilities, and obligations without changes in their job title, description, or authority.

  • Use Stay Conversations to Improve Engagement and Retention | Gartner | Shares suggestions for how firms can conduct effective stay conversations, including a list of work or life events that prompt an employee to reflect on and reconsider their career.

  • Not Much Data Disclosed on SEC Human Capital Reporting Requirements | JDSupra | Provides a summary of an Intelligize report that analyzed the human capital disclosure of 427 Annual Reports on Form 10-K filed by companies in the S&P 500 between November 9, 2020, and March 5, 2021.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

While many firms were undergoing HR transformations before the pandemic, the coronavirus crisis sped up one of the most significant workplace transformations of our lifetime. This 22-page report provides detailed insights from over 200 firms worldwide on their progress in their HR transformation. A few themes include Strong but slow progress in transformations: While 65% of companies reported improvements in core HR functions after HR transformation, it took them twice as long as they expected to complete those changes. HR leaders were less satisfied than expected with HR’s effectiveness after the HR transformation. There were gaps between HR’s predicted effectiveness and the post-transformation reality. Shared Services & People Analytics saw the most positive gains. Regarding HR technology, the majority of respondents felt that their changed HR technology met or exceeded their expectations in enabling transformation; a sizable minority (40%) said technology implementations missed the target--raising questions about whether technology solutions can deliver on promises. Other insights are provided, and actions to overcome HR transformation challenges are recommended.

This research explored the range of emotions that workers have experienced while working remotely. It is based on 1,214 employees across different industries, demographics, and seniority levels. One takeaway is that there are four unique worker segments within the remote work audience, ranging from total contentment to complete distress. Perhaps unsurprisingly, each of the four segments has a distinct emotion profile that correlates with how they perceive remote work. Thriving Employees (16%)—those who reported greater job satisfaction, motivation, and company satisfaction while working remotely during the pandemic—are more likely to be introverts. These introverts prefer to work in solitary environments with less social interaction. Discouraged Employees (27%)—those who reported the most significant declines in mental health and job satisfaction — are more likely to identify as extroverts who crave social interaction. While this research is one data point, it reinforces how workers’ personal preferences (not just company policy on remote work) impact whether remote work fosters or detracts from outcomes of interest, such as employee wellbeing and productivity.

As firms reassess their policies and work arrangements for a post-pandemic environment, this report outlines the sentiments of workers regarding the future of work and whether these needs match what their employers expect to provide. More than half of employees said they want more flexible, hybrid virtual-working models—sometimes on-premises and sometimes working remotely. Regarding the frequency of splitting time between remote work and working at an office location, most employees want to work remotely at least three days a week and indicate they will leave their companies if this need goes unmet. Across geographies, US employees are the most interested in having access to remote work. Organizations that have articulated more specific remote policies and approaches for the future workplace have seen employee well-being and productivity rise. However, 40 percent of respondents say they’ve yet to hear about any vision from their organizations, and another 28 percent say that what they’ve heard remains vague—fueling anxiety and burnout. While most workers want flexible work location models, employees without children under 18 are nearly three times as likely to prefer on-site work. Other ideas are discussed. 

Leaders increasingly make “invisible transitions”—where they take on new tasks, responsibilities, and obligations without changes in their job title, description, or authority. And according to this article, invisible transitions are more challenging to navigate than formal leadership transitions, such as vertical transitions (promotions to a higher rank), lateral transitions (moving to a different part of the business), and geographic transitions (moving to a different country or market). Three reasons invisible transitions are more complex include 1) a lack of authority, 2) difficulties in communicating effectively, and 3) insufficient opportunities for self-improvement. While these transitions are challenging for everyone, men and women experience them differently. Women cite a lack of informal influence necessary to marshal people and resources to support their leadership initiatives. Men find it difficult to manage these transitions when they are driven by external factors (vs. self-initiated) that require them to learn new skills (e.g., the pandemic required leaders to virtually engage team members quickly.) Suggestions are offered for navigating invisible transitions.

Various reports suggest voluntary employee job exits will increase as workers resume job searches put on hold during the height of the pandemic. As firms continue to adjust and reinforce certain talent practices during the pandemic and beyond, one tactic to mitigate unwanted turnover is the “stay interview or conversation.” As noted in this guide, a stay conversation is a semi-structured, one-on-one conversation between an employee and their manager, a manager once removed, or a member of HR. Its purpose is to assess the employee’s intent to stay with the organization, identify what influences their engagement and desire to stay or leave the organization, and develop a plan for those workers they would like to retain. The guide offers several tips for conducting stay conversations. Figure 2 on page 5 shows a list of career risk triggers that are work or life events that prompt an employee to reflect on and reconsider their career. These events—such as the workers’ birthday, tenure in role and with the company, and change in manager or responsibilities—are advantageous for managers to know to engage workers with stay conversations at the right moments proactively. 

Last week, I made a post that included various resources I have shared on the SEC human capital (HC) reporting requirements. Given the high number of shares and interest in this post, I am sharing an additional resource from JDSupra based on a new report from Intelligize, Human Capital Disclosure Report: Learning on the Job. The report analyzed 427 Annual Reports on Form 10-K filed by companies in the S&P 500 between November 9, 2020, and March 5, 2021. As noted by JDSupra in its summary of the report, most companies made a sincere effort to fulfill the scantly defined disclosure obligation; nevertheless, companies capitalized on the fact that the new rule does not call for specific metrics, as relatively few issuers provided meaningful numbers about their human capital, even when they had those numbers at hand. The report notes that HC disclosures in the 427 10-Ks analyzed significantly varied in both form and content. Further, content length did not correlate with company size (e.g., Amazon has more than 1M employees and included less content than Extra Space Storage, which has fewer than 5,000). Other insights are provided.

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