Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #85

Covers a culture, supporting working mothers in the workplace, research on effective CHROs, the future of work strategies, and a book on the future of the office.

September 26, 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 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

  • Updated: How 20+ Companies (Now 140) Are Adjusting Their Return to Office Dates and Vaccine- Mask Mandates Due to Delta Variant | BrianHeger .com | I share an update on how 140 firms are approaching their return to the office and vaccine mandates, including the number of firms moving their returns to 2022.

  • 2022 Global Culture Report | O.C. Tanner Institute | A 174-page report that provides a detailed analysis of workplace culture, employee engagement, and employee experience issues from the perspectives of 38,000 employees from 21 countries.

  • Mothers Are Postponing the Return to Work. Amazon and Other Companies Are Trying to Bring Them Back | The Wall Street Journal | Shares four strategies for firms to consider as they support working mothers in a post-pandemic workplace. 

  • Who Becomes an HR Leader? | TalentQ | Explores research findings of the personalities of those leading HR departments around the globe and how they differ from other members of the global working population.

  • Report: Future of Work: 2021 and Beyond | Aon and Business Insider Report | A 36-page report that provides a compilation of thought papers on how firms can continue to adapt to the changing nature of work, workplace, and workforce. Addresses topics such as workforce planning, reskilling and upskilling, and ESG metrics for executive pay.

  • NEW BOOK: The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face | Peter Cappelli | Shares insights on executing a remote work strategy that captures the benefits of this model while mitigating the risks. Outlines the tradeoffs both employers and employees may have to accept to get what they want from this work model.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

About six weeks ago, I published an initial list of how 20 organizations are adjusting their return-to-office dates and vaccination mandates in response to the Delta variant. Each week, I have updated this list, which currently includes 140 organizations. During this time, at least 428 viewers of this list have also answered the poll question: Given the Delta variant, when does your organization now expect to fully return to the office? Almost 40% say that their firms are now returning to the office in 2022. This poll result is the most significant representation among the choices, which also include October (21%), We are already back (20%), September (11%), November (8%), December (1%). I did a quick analysis to compare these poll responses to what organizations have publicly communicated about their return-to-office date. Of the 85 firms on my list that have communicated a specific return date, 32% (27) of them have moved their returns to 2022. Please use these numbers as estimations as they are manually gathered and based on my sole knowledge of what firms have communicated, which continues to change. I will continue to update this list as new information becomes available.  

This 174-page report provides a detailed analysis of workplace culture, employee engagement, and employee experience issues from the perspectives of 38,000 employees from 21 countries. The report is full of statistics, including Figure 1 on page 5, showing scores of almost all six essential elements that define thriving cultures fell year after year. These elements relate to an employee’s sense of: purpose, opportunity, success, appreciation, and leadership. The one area that increased is a sense of well-being, which shifted six percentage points to 59%. The average engagement score is down 18 percentage points (52%) from the previous year. Beginning on page 52, the report includes five distinct employee personas to segment engagement and employee experience strategies: Socializer, Tasker, Builder, Coaster, and Achiever. Each of these personas has a different probability of being engaged and is affected by different forms of recognition and connection. For example, for the “often-introverted Tasker, public praise has a negative effect, but eCards and monetary eCards increase connection. For Builders, any form of recognition builds connection.” The report has several other insights, including cultural factors that enable effective hybrid work environments.  

I have shared several posts regarding the pandemic’s impact on the careers of many working mothers. These impacts range from working moms downshifting their careers or dropping out of the workforce entirely (LeanIn.Org report) to being less optimistic about their career prospects than before the pandemic (see Deloitte report). One reason the careers of many working mothers have been disproportionately impacted during the pandemic is that "working moms are more than 3x times as likely as fathers to be responsible for most of the housework and caregiving during the pandemic. Single mothers have faced even greater demands," according to research highlighted by McKinsey.  This Wall Street Journal article provides four strategies for firms to consider as they support working mothers in a post-pandemic workplace. 1) returnships, 2) advancement assistance for remote staffers, 3) targeted recruitment, and 4) expanded child-care help. Regarding #2, one concern is that working mothers who prefer to work remotely once the pandemic ends can lose access to company leaders and career opportunities. As an example of one company response, PricewaterhouseCoopers said it would monitor promotions, raises, and bonuses for remote and office-based staff to address this challenge. One recommendation I have is for firms to educate managers and leaders on proximity bias (PB) —an incorrect assumption that workers in close physical proximity to their team and company leaders are better workers than their remote counterparts. PB can become even more problematic in a remote and hybrid work environment if left unaddressed. 

As HR organizations continue to elevate their impact on business and workforce priorities, it is helpful to identify strengths and development opportunities as an HR function. Based on over 1,000 HR executives who have taken the Hogan assessments, this research explored the personalities of those leading HR departments around the globe. It sought to answer: How do HR leaders differ from other members of the global working population? Among the various findings are: 1) HR leaders are above average on Altruism (concerned about the welfare of others) and above average on Hedonism (a desire to enjoy life and have fun). 2) HR leaders scored wellbelow average on Science (a desire for knowledge and using data to drive decision-making). And as HR functions strive to make more data-based decisions using people analytics, a few books to consider are Excellence in People Analytics: How to Use Workforce Data to Create Business Value | Jonathan Ferrar and David Green | July 27, 2021; Introduction to People Analytics: a Practical Guide to Data-driven HR | Nadeem Khan and Dave Millner | April 3, 2020 |  Data-driven HR: Use Analytics and Metrics to Drive Performance | Bernard Marr | April 28, 2018.

Aon, in association with Business Insider, just released the 'Future of Work: 2021 & Beyond' report to dig deeper into how firms can continue to prepare and adjust to the changing nature of work, workplace, and workforce. This 36-page report touches on topics such as workforce planning, upskilling and reskilling, and ESG metrics for executive pay, to name a few. Page 5 includes a set of questions that firms can answer as they develop aspects of their workforce strategy: 1) Who should work from the office? 2) Do we still need a 5-day/40 hours work week? 3) How can business leaders identify ways to save money while enhancing workforce agility and resilience? 4) How can businesses improve mobility and equip business leaders with much-needed digital leadership capabilities? 5) How receptive is the workforce to change and ambiguity in an evolving journey? Figure 1 on page 22 shows the nine workforce-related activities firms are re-evaluating in light of the pandemic. Perhaps not surprisingly, is that a) employee wellbeing (physical, emotional, social, financial, and work/life balance, b) remote work, c) Flexible work schedules, and d) manager/leadership training top the list. Other ideas are discussed. 

As workers have gotten used to remote work over the past 18 months, a segment of these workers prefers to continue working remotely in a post-pandemic environment. At the least, many workers want flexibility in deciding their work location. However, executing a remote work strategy that captures the benefits of this model while mitigating the risks is challenging and requires thoughtful consideration of multiple factors. Further, these factors have led firms to take various stances on this topic (e.g., Twitter and Facebook saying employees can work remotely permanently, whereas Goldman Sachs wants everyone back in the office. In his new book released on September 21, 2021, Peter Cappelli raises questions for organizations to consider as they decide about remote work. Do we allow some workers to be permanently remote? Do we let others choose when to work from home? Do we get rid of their offices? What else has to change, depending on the approach we choose? Regardless of the decisions made, Cappelli notes that there are “surprising tradeoffs both employers and employees may have to accept to get what they want.” The book provides sound advice to HR leaders and organizations charged with making these decisions. 

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

10 Things Your Corporate Culture Needs to Get Right | MIT Sloan Management Review | Shares research that analyzed 1.4 million employee reviews on Glassdoor and identified which aspects of organizational culture mostly shape how employees rate their firms’ culture.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

To check out my summary of book recommendations, click here or on the bookcase image below.

Partial View of Book Recommendations

OUR RESOURCE LINEUP

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