Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #93

Covers strategies for change management, measuring inclusion, Unilever's flex-work program, identifying hidden workers that HR tech platforms miss, and being transgender at work.

November 21, 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

  • Strategies of Change: Changing Change Management | BCG Henderson Institute | Presents four fundamental archetypes for determining context-driven change management strategies within organizations.

  • Report: Measuring the "I" in DEI | ADP Research Institute | Offers a 12-item index for measuring employees’ sentiment of inclusion via three aspects of "connection."

  • Inside Unilever's Program that Allows Employees to Try New Jobs and Gigs at the Company | Business Insider | Shares aspects of Unilever’s flex-work program that encourage employees to explore new parts of the business and develop new skills via project work. 

  • How to Tap the Talent Automated HR Platforms Miss | HBS Working Knowledge | Offers a follow-up discussion to a report on the challenges and opportunities of identifying "hidden workers" through automated HR platforms, such as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

  • Being Transgender at Work | McKinsey | Provides compelling statistics regarding transgender employees' experiences and offers firms' actions to bring about long-term cultural change toward transgender inclusion in the workplace. 

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

The changes to work, workplace, and workforce over the past 20 months have highlighted the importance of change management in organizations. But as noted in this article, change efforts can fail because standard change management techniques often rely on generic change models versus adjusting the approach to fit the organizational contexts in which change occurs. And given that contexts can vary significantly, the authors posit that “effective change management requires leaders to shift away from one-size-fits-all approaches and develop an expanded set of context-specific strategies.” The article presents four fundamental archetypes for determining the change context for various situations. 1) Simple Change, 2) Unpredictable Change, 3) Interdependent Change, and 4) Complicated Change. Exhibit 1 describes each of the four contexts, and Exhibit 2 shows how firms can determine their change philosophy and the most effective change interventions for each context. As firms continue to drive various change initiatives, this reference provides valuable ideas for accelerating those efforts through context-driven change management strategies. 

This 63-page report provides a metric for measuring employees’ sentiment of inclusion via a Connection XPerience Score. This 12-item index (page 12) comprises three distinct feelings of connection: 1) Seen. Seeing yourself as connected to others in your organization. You can see how others like you can grow and thrive, and so see yourself as having the chance to take similar paths. 2) Heard. Taps into feeling like your opinion counts, even when it conflicts with the consensus. You feel safe sharing and debating your views. 3) Valued. Refers to knowing your worth comes from all that you authentically are. You feel able to share this authentic self with colleagues without having to censor yourself. And while the three components appear to have overlap, statistical tests show they measure distinct aspects of connection. The report also includes factors that do not relate to connection, including gender and education. Factors that influence connection include age (those over 40 are 2x more likely to be strongly connected to their organization), and those who do not identify as LGBTQ+ are 2x more likely to be strongly connected than those who do. Firms can use this reference as they develop new ways to measure progress in their inclusion efforts. 

I have shared several posts highlighting how firms are unlocking workforce capacity by redeploying the skills of their workers to company projects versus simply roles and jobs. This article shares aspects of Unilever’s flex-work program that encourage employees to “explore new parts of the business, contribute in different ways, and develop new skills and passions” via project work. To support this effort, Unilever solicits help for projects from employees by posting projects on its technology platform and empowers employees to dedicate approximately 15-20% of their time to support project work. The firm notes that “flex-work is a centerpiece of the company’s talent mobility strategy, and it’s also helping Unilever better understand the capabilities of its employees...it unlocks capacity in the organization by having people from different functions and departments, even different countries, working on critical projects in the organization.” Unilever has also introduced U-work, an alternative to the gig economy; it uses full-time employment contracts where the workers’ entire job comprises project work across the company. What strategies and tactics is your firm employing to unlock organizational capacity through project-based work? If you missed it, here is a report I shared previously from a cross-industry pilot program started by Walmart and Unilever and intended to tap employee capacity through projects and adjacent skills.

In early September 2021, I shared a 74-page report by Harvard Business School and Accenture that outlines barriers that keep companies from considering hidden workers as candidates to meet their talent needs. The report defines hidden workers as those that “have a desire to work and are actively seeking work, but their regular efforts to seek employment consistently fail because of hiring processes that focus on what they don’t have (such as credentials) rather than the value they can bring (such as capabilities).” The report notes that one contributing factor to this dilemma is Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), which sort through applicants at scale and exclude viable candidates whose resumes don’t match a specific criterion of the job description. In this new article by Joseph Fuller, one of the report’s authors, he offers further discussion on the challenges and opportunities of hidden workers through the lens of automated HR platforms. A few suggestions offered include replacing static job descriptions with hiring people for skills and experience and resetting ATS filters that often lead to hidden talent going undetected. As many firms continue to struggle to fill open positions, developing strategies to uncover hidden talent — both within and outside their organization — is a worthwhile talent priority for 2022 and beyond.

Despite some meaningful progress in supporting the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community (LGBTQ) in the workplace, there is still much to accomplish to foster a truly inclusive environment for transgender employees. As mentioned in this article, employers seem to "focus more on supporting sexual-orientation diversity in the workplace than on gender identity or expression." As a result, a segment of firms is falling short of addressing the needs of transgender employees and fostering work environments that provide even a basic level of safety and equity. The article notes that many people in the workplace refrain from talking about the transgender experience because they don't have a common language or vocabulary for these discussions. A section of the article provides a glossary that includes terminology for conversing about gender identity. These terms range from Gender identity, Transgender, Gender nonconforming, and Nonbinary, to name a few. Having a common vocabulary can make it easier to talk about transgender topics in the workplace. The article provides compelling statistics regarding transgender employees' experiences and offers firms' actions to bring about long-term cultural change toward transgender inclusion in the workplace. 

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

Provides ideas on how firms can incorporate a skills-based approach in each of their talent practices through four distinct phases.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

PINNED POST

Although I stopped updating this list 5 weeks ago, many of you have asked if I could continue to provide the link to this reference--so here it is!

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

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