There's a reason boards of directors can pluck so many CEOs out of one company and plop them into another: When it comes to management ideas and tools, many companies are surprisingly similar. They have the same hierarchies and budgeting processes. They have "balanced scorecards" that measure performance. They benchmark their peers, adopt "best practices," and seemingly all house an army of Six Sigma black belts standing ready to defend quality control.
Incidentally, individuals hired from executive search firms can fall into this "money first" category. If they left the last job because an executive search professional presented a "better money" offer, don't be surprised when they leave again when the next executive search professional calls with slightly more money to offer.
"It" is talent, which is evolving into a science for some HR professionals and a passion for many line managers. A multitude of programs and investments have been made to attract, retain and upgrade talent.
In this talent equation, these three terms are multiplicative, not additive. If any one is missing, the other two will not replace it. A low score in competence will not ensure talent even when the employee is engaged and contributing.
Talented employees must have skills, wills and purposes; they must be capable, committed and contributing. HR leaders can engage their general managers to identify and improve each of these three dimensions to respond to the talent clarion call.
Just indicates how HR functions in the organisation plays the most critical role of revisiting and reviewing the competencies and talent required to perform in organisations.HR role need not end with defining the competencies required for talents to give superior performance,it needs to be revisited and reviewed keeping in mind the new challenges and business requirement. Performance in the long run can be sustained and competencies can be developed only if the 3C’s are present.
She rightly says that as your small business grows you will undoubtedly find that one of your biggest challenges is finding smart talented people to comprise your staff. Even if you’re lucky enough to land great employees, however, there are a whole host of other human resources challenges that startups and small companies must overcome. In this article we highlight what we believe to be the top 100 HR bloggers, listed in alphabetical order by category.
Sometimes in the hurry to quick fix a problem organizations end up hiring outsiders hoping they will start afresh and bring a new perspective and fix deep rooted cultural issues which the organization has developed over the years. When organizations face crisis employees need some familiar face which represents the culture and values, it’s a kind of reassurance to them which helps to keep motivated and positive.Crisis situations demands a deeper understanding of the softer issues and a historical perspective of organisation ability to respond to challenges ensures that the decision maker is aware and appreciates the rationale for decisions taken, which may appear strange to external stakeholders but are made keeping in mind the organizational culture and dynamics ."Being an insider is comforting to the organization as current employees see one of their own in charge," says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli. "Insiders also know a lot, especially about the culture of the organization and what is important to preserve. Founders, in particular, have an advantage in that they remind employees of what were, in Yahoo's case, more glorious days."
Experts at Wharton say that Yang's biggest priorities should be boosting employee morale and finding key insiders to promote into leadership roles. Yang has said that recruiting talent -- internally or externally-- is one of his biggest goals. Yang should play to his strengths, including his knowledge of Yahoo's inner workings. Since Yang already knows the internal landscape, he's in the best position to identify future leaders from within. Wharton management professor Keith Weigelt agrees. "I would look for talent internally first rather than recruiting it," he says. "If you look externally first, people inside wonder, 'What's wrong with our people?' He has to mine Yahoo and then find the most talented employees."
Apart from conveying really bad news—a workforce reduction or a painful reorganization—there are a few other less-than-sensational aspects of an HR career, depending on your temperament and the companies you work for. Lots of HR people I know, for instance, complain about the constant cost-cutting that turns them into the bad guys who must inform employees on a regular basis of reductions in everything from travel allowances to flavors of tea in the break room.
Other HR people wish that the role they play could be more instrumental in making the company a great place to work and less focused on policy and documentation. Still other HR folks spend more time than they'd like protecting the company from employee-relations lawsuits and wage-and-hour claims.
A century's worth of MBAs would seem sufficient to propagate a by-the-numbers approach into every nook and cranny of the business world, but it hasn't worked out that way. By most accounts, companies have done a respectable job of mastering financial metrics, but have largely taken a flier on measurements of operations or intangibles such as customer satisfaction or brand loyalty.
Fifteen years ago the advent of the "balanced scorecard" sought to redress this imbalance by demonstrating how nonfinancial metrics could be captured and used to help managers "see their company more clearly — from many perspectives — and make wiser long-term decisions," according to its creators, Robert Kaplan and David Norton. But despite the popularity of that approach at a strategic level, many consultants and academics say it left thorny questions unaddressed at more tactical levels.
Use of HR metrics for measuring the impact and efficacy of practices and policies seems to be similar problems. Measuring the Intangible has multiple challenges and the success lies in identifying the top metrics which captures the critical indicator of organizations deliverables. Identifying key HR functions like recruitment metrics, training metrics, performance management and employee engagement metrics are widely believed to capture the deliverables for HR function.
As Sullivan rightly said “The most common error that I find is that of HR managers trying to create and implement metrics in a vacuum. Instead, I recommend a collaborative approach, in which you take a list of strategic HR metrics that you can live with to the CFO and let him or her select the specific ones that are most likely to measure business impact and be easily understood and considered strategic by top management. By letting the CFO play a role in the selection process and allowing them to make the final decision on what metrics you will move forward with, you eliminate many of the roadblocks you may encounter — and you'll recruit a high-level champion at the same time.
It’s important to understand how you are reviewing and analyzing the metrics and then setting new measurable realistic targets to improve on the key metrics. Sometimes we intend to address too many issues at the same time and then loose focus. Metrics under functions like recruitment and employee engagement which has a more direct impact of business performance can be linked to organizations overall metrics and also made performance measures for various roles so that it has a more direct linkage with individual and organizations goals as well.
I'm sure some of us have seen or heard it before in our profession.
Makes me wonder how many of us come forward and take ownership of our actions.
Accept failures when things go wrong.
Come forward and say yes this is my idea and I have a plan to achieve this result and have this target in mind for this action plan.
One can't expect HR to be a leading indicator unless we have leadership which is driven by metrics and linked to bottom line results of the organization. I’m sure we need more HR leaders who lead by end results rather than mere thoughts.
In case if you are doing this then you need to share your experiences and train the rest of the HR folks around. I’m sure we can do better as a professional community by sharing our learning and experiences on this account and raise the levels of HR benchmarking and best practices.
On top of all this, a new generation of Internet start-ups has matured enough to attract top technical talent and offer a real possibility of riches from a stock offering or sale to a bigger company. In contrast, Google's shares hit a record level this week, suggesting the stock simply doesn't offer the same potential gains it once did. The concentration of many of the start-ups within a few miles of Google's headquarters, which Google itself has exploited in the past, can make poaching staff a faster and easier pursuit.
Still, Mr. Bock says Google executives spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract and retain top talent as the company grows in size. "We don't want to become a victim of our own success; we're aware of that risk," he says.
The company acknowledges that creative and entrepreneurial people are the core of its success -- that's one reason Google lavishes them with extravagant free food and other perks. "If we do not succeed in attracting excellent personnel or retaining or motivating existing personnel, we may be unable to grow effectively," Google has acknowledged in regulatory
filings.
One set of rules dictated everything from the kinds of benefits and rewards the company offered to how employees were trained and evaluated. That approach made things easier for the human-resources department and ensured a degree of efficiency, equality and fairness. Now some executives are finding that this model isn't adequate for getting the most out of existing talent or attracting and keeping new people. To be competitive in the marketplace and in the race for talent, companies must understand and address the diverse needs of their work force. In fact, they must treat each employee as a "work force of one."Following this efforts are being made by HR folks to ensure more flexibility, create more opportunities for career growth ,allow individuals greater space in deciding and planning different career paths within the organization .
Sun Microsystems Inc. asks employees to identify the type of physical setting that suits them best -- a private office, team room, satellite center or their home office. Microsoft Corp. goes so far as to ask certain types of employees to design their own career paths. The company offers software engineers both a management-focused and technical-specialist career track and allows them to move back and forth between the two.Surely this indicates a marked shift in the way talent is being retained and developed in organizations. Career decisions are not just being made on the challenging role and compensation and ESOP’s being offered but how one gets the opportunity to plan his career and try different things in the same organization.
“The definition of HR transformation has evolved out of a number of perceived and real pressures on the HR function. The function is expected to support the business, provide the right direction for the people management strategy and then execute the strategy. It also has to demonstrate an improvement in value, yet at the same time carry out cost-heavy administration.In response to these challenges, the transformation process that many companies have embarked on involves examining the HR strategy and how it supports the business strategy, and then changing the HR operating model to achieve optimum delivery.”
“Few candidates allege that search consultants aren’t being transparent enough, luring them into assignments that were very different from what they were told. “I met a company on a search consultant’s insistence, and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Now I find that my job is half of what I was promised. I told the headhunter, ‘You are just a bloody broker’,” says a stung candidate. But is there an honest broker? “It’s an oxymoron. To what extent you can be an honest broker while you are selling a job — that’s often the deciding factor,”The current market trend clearly indicates that there’s dearth of capable leaders at the top. India Inc. has not been able to keep pace with the growth and develop leaders and adopt succession planning successfully. The fallout is that too few candidates are being chased for various openings. This has also lead to some unfair and unhealthy practices as recruiters are over promising and candidates having multiple offers are bargaining hard, what it means is that higher salaries, higher perks but not necessarily the best fit for the job.
Some clients allege that headhunters also try and push the candidate’s compensation higher, so they get a higher cut — a headhunter usually receives up to one-third of the annual package, bonus included. Some firms are said to take on a mandate and pocket a first retainer – one third of the annual salary for the position — even when they know they don’t have the expertise and bandwidth to complete a search successfully, says a headhunter: “For some it’s a free for all, grab all you can. Even some of the big firms are indulging in this behaviour.” But for now the hunt is on.
What HR desperately needs is a new body of thought which should be termed quantitative HR.’ This should be independent of what present practitioners and theorists of the subject are doing. Quantitative HR should look to take a leaf out of the Economics’ book and start by incorporating ‘measurement of the residual’ which is a major part of econometrics.
Today, everyone accepts that HR is important. But very fewcompanies actually practice what they preach and put HR people in strategic positions. If Quantitative HR is in place this will happen automatically, as the statistics will show that the HR people have made a difference to the company. Finally, it is people who make a difference to a subject. The Nobel prizes have been given to people. The possibility of larger numbers of people being attracted to HR due to quantitative theories or measurement will be strong. A lot of these people could be from other disciplines (like mathematics) as is happening in economics. This would be the best indication that HR has really arrived on the ‘science’ scene.
It would also be the best chance for HR to become a Nobel prize for the 21 century. Effective ways of measuring these people processes will ensure that these people processes are credible. Logically, we must accept the assumption that one per cent measurement of a situation is better than no measurement at all.
Behavioural sciences essentially investigate the decision processes and communication strategies within and between organisms in a social system. This involves fields like psychology and social neuroscience, among others. In contrast, Social sciences study the structural-level processes of a social system and its impact on social processes and social organization. They typically include fields like sociology, economics, history, public health, anthropology, and political science.
Also, Behavioural sciences include two broad categories: Neural-Decision sciences and Social-Communication sciences. Decision sciences involves those disciplines primarily dealing with the decision processes and individual functioning used in the survival of organism in a social environment. These include psychology, cognitive organization theory, psychobiology, management science, operations research (not to be confused with business administration) and social neuroscience.
On the other hand, Communication sciences include those fields which study the communication strategies used by organisms and its dynamics between organisms in an environment. These include fields like Anthropology, Organizational behaviour, Organization studies, Sociology and Social networks.
In the past, Indian companies almost always transferred Indians to work in the U.S. on temporary visas. But now Infosys and other Indian outfits are hiring aggressively in the U.S. The Indians are recruiting a combination of fresh college grads and experienced vets who have worked at American companies. They're especially active at campus job fairs, and unlike a few years ago students know who these companies are and respect them. In fact, the Indian connection has become an attraction. "I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity, especially because they send you abroad for training," says Brian Oswald, a 23-year-old Rutgers University graduate with a 2006 degree in industrial engineering who joined TCS in February.
The U.S. hiring by the Indians echoes the strategy Japan's auto industry devised after soaring levels of imports sparked political outcry in Washington in December, 2000. "The Indians are doing to the world's IT processes what the Japanese did to manufacturing," says analyst John McCarthy of Forrester Research Inc (FORR). And now, like Japan's carmakers before them, the Indians are becoming major employers in the U.S. as well.
When is it time to quit? It’s a question I keep getting - and no wonder. Leaving a job has become one of life’s biggest decisions. It’s something that may affect every aspect of your life including your finances, your work life, your identity, your family and possibly even your social status and friendships.
It seems most of us tend to stay in bad jobs waaaaay too long. I have talked to any number of people who have told me some variation of “I quit my job last year and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.” However, not a single person has ever told me that “I quit my job last year and it was a huge mistake. I should definitely have stayed on.”this does not mean that it’s always the right decision to quit, but it does show that when in doubt, most of us stay on in bad jobs. Perhaps longer than is good for us.
Carleton S. (Carly) Fiorina who was president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005 talks about personal ethics and values in this short video. She served as chairman of the board from 2000 to 2005.Prior to joining HP, Fiorina spent nearly 20 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she held a number of senior leadership positions and directed Lucent's initial public offering and subsequent spin-off from AT&T.
The top three major organizational changes that employers were planning or implementing, according to the survey, were:
• New or revised performance management and review processes.
• Major changes to their facilities.
• Changes to the organization’s culture.
However, employee resistance and a communications breakdown are the two primary obstacles employers face when major organizational changes enter the picture. Employees’ understanding of organizational changes improved when HR was involved in the change management processes before it was introduced to all employees, according to nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of 403 HR professionals surveyed.
“The finding that HR departments were most likely to be involved with the planning for major changes indicates that more often than not HR is viewed as a strategic partner for the change process,” the survey report says. Getting employees ready for major organizational changes requires that change management leaders promote understanding of those changes in a well-planned and well-timed manner, Benedict writes.
Unfortunately, many of the studies are deeply flawed and based on questionable data that can lead to erroneous conclusions. Worse, they give rise to the especially grievous notion that business success follows predictably from implementing a few key steps. In promoting this idea, authors obscure a more basic truth—namely, that in the business world success is the result of decisions made under conditions of uncertainty and shaped in part by factors outside our control. In the real world, given the flux of competitive dynamics, even seemingly good choices do not always lead to favorable outcomes.
The halo effect is especially damaging because it often compromises the quality of data used in research. Indeed, many studies of business performance—as well as some articles that have appeared in journals such as Harvard Business Review and The McKinsey Quarterly and in academic business journals—rely on data contaminated by the halo effect. These studies praise themselves for the vast amount of data they have accrued but overlook the fact that if the data aren’t valid, it really doesn’t matter how much was gathered or how sophisticated the analysis appears to be.
This reliance on questionable data, in turn, gives rise to a number of further errors in logic. Two delusions—of absolute performance and of lasting success—have particularly serious repercussions for business strategists.
Globalization and increased competition for the talent pool is responsible for forcing companies to increase incentives and compensation to attract high quality professionals and retain them. Salaries in India are continuing to rise and were likely to reach the same levels as in the more developed economies in Asia in the future.
Indian organisations were leading the multinational companies in paying higher salary hikes and that in 2006, domestic companies saw an overall salary increase of 14.9 per cent compared to the 14.3 per cent hike given by foreign-owned organizations.
The highest average increase in 2006 in Indian companies, across levels, has been recorded at the professional, supervisory and technical level, for the seventh year in a row, at 16 per cent - with a 15. 8 per cent average increase predicted in 2007. The top five industries in terms of salary increases in 2007 are expected to be banking and finance, insurance, telecom, hospitality, restaurants and engineering.The Insurance industry leads the hikes at 17 per cent with a similar increase predicted in 2007 at 16. 1 per cent, beating banking and financial services which had an average increase of 17 per cent in 2006 but is expected to record the highest increase at 16. 5 per cent in 2007. The engineering sector is likely to record a salary increase of 15. 3 per cent in 2007.
Here’s an excellent video by Dauten on how managers can make the process of firing employees more human and mutually agreeable for each other. He talks about the de-hiring on how managers can make life easier by adopting a more well thought out and pro active approach in helping employees realize the realities and also help them improve performance to meet expectations.
These individuals form part of a wider trend in executive heroics – long work hours and an exaggerated executive focus on achievement. It is a trend from which business has benefited with productivity and innovation on the rise. It would be wrong to assume that these individuals are slaves to the corporate world, stressed, burnt out, missing their neglected lives, families, sleep. They see themselves as “winners,” “achievers” bent on building businesses, empires and economies even.
For them achievement or “results” is a prime motivation, but so is being in charge – these people will willingly shoulder levels of responsibility, that are daunting to most. It is for these reasons that they are often called “alpha leaders.”
A persistent focus on tasks and goals can damage performance. Overachievers can be overly prescriptive in their behavior, coercing people rather than coaching them and collaborating. This has the effect of stifling initiative and motivation. Notorious alpha leader behavior includes taking short cuts and forgetting to communicate crucial information as well as asking questions and then answering them. These managers often either ignore, or are oblivious to the needs of those they work with.
Organizations, knowingly or otherwise, can be complicit in creating a culture which fosters alpha behavior. They sometimes reward what the Harvard Business Review calls “the achievement-at all-costs-mentality.” Understandably, they will recruit high achievers and, as long as they deliver good numbers, cast a blind eye. The best executives take a balanced approach, managing their achievement drive while leading through influence, collaboration and coaching.
Outsourced hiring, or hiring through third party recruiters, will be an over $1 billion industry this year. And it’s growing extremely rapidly. Such hiring is only a decade old in India. It grew slowly initially, but in 2005-06, the business saw exponential growth, posting a turnover of Rs 3,922.32 crore, against Rs 630.98 crore in the year before. The industry this year is seen to be growing at about 40%. So by the fiscal-end, it would go well past $1 billion, according to a study by the Executive Recruiters’ Association (ERA).
Although there is no clear breakup of which sector would contribute to what extent, it is estimated that IT will claim the largest chunk at 30%, followed by telecom/infrastructure, retail /realty and manufacturing/utilities spaces each at 15%, ITES at 10% and others at 15%.
In fact, many of these countries are trying to showcase their multicultural business environment to attract global skilled workers. “Holland, for instance, is very comfortable for an international skilled workforce since English is a business language,” says Dirk Bakker, president of the India Netherlands Business Association.
Brand Ecology: First step of the transformation is mapping the brand ecology – how various interactions with the brand happen, both internally and externally. More importantly, how the employees interact with the brand and what kind of relationship they share. Once this is done, one can analyze if the interactions and relationship is in line with the defined philosophy of the brand and its essence. Identification of the gaps is essential so that proper actionable agenda can be chalked out to fill those gaps.
Brand Story: Based on the understanding of Brand Ecology, a brand story needs to be developed that can, in simple terms, explain what the brand is, its philosophy, and how employees are expected to drive it. People learn and adopt change readily if done with excellent story-telling.
Brand Communication: The next step is the role of communication. Here the focus is on the channels of communication to bring out the relationship that employees are expected to have with the brand. It may be through use of stationary, frequent informal talk by the leader, stickers, dress code, official parties and get-togethers, etc. The important thing here is reinforcement of the desired brand behaviour from employees.
Brand Alignment: Brand conscious employees are expected to perform three functions: to perform their work, to align brand values and philosophy to their work, and be the brand ambassadors.An organization which endeavours to create a battery of brand ambassadors out of its employees must develop processes that measure an employee’s effectiveness on all these three parameters of his work.
The people at Google, it should be stated, almost universally see themselves as the most interesting people on the planet. Googlers tend to be happy-go-lucky on the outside, but Type A at their core. Ask one what he or she is doing, and it's never "selling ads" or "writing code." No, they're on a quest "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That's from the actual mission statement, by the way, which employees can and do cite with cloying frequency.
The best place to launch a career is distinctly different from the top 100 best places to work lists. For one thing, what works for a new grad may not always work for a mid career or senior professional. For one thing, new grads are hopefully looking for quick learning opportunities and perhaps some fast career growth and promotion opportunities. Great learning opportunities for a new grad may not be the same as great collaborative opportunities and innovative thinking for a seasoned worker. While these are not mutually exclusive, an organization needs to be aware that they are different and cultivate the types of employer brands differently and simultaneously.
Having had the opportunity to advise literally hundreds of VPs of HR around the world over the course of my career, I have concluded that there are a number of reasons why HR VPs are rarely tapped to lead organizations.
Failing to state CEO as a career goal. Many VPs of HR publicly declare that serving in that job is the pinnacle of their career dreams. They see themselves as a behind-the-scenes player. And they are therefore often treated as such.
Failing to build a well-recognized internal HR brand. Image is as important within an organization as it is outside one. Unfortunately, most VPs fail to develop an internal brand as the solver of strategic business problems.
Failing to prove impact. HR people are notorious for calling themselves business partners, but routinely fail to act like business professionals by not using the language of business: dollars and cents. By not assessing the business impact of HR actions in dollars, HR professionals demonstrate that they don’t understand the big picture.Read the complete article here.
THE FIRST KEY TO CHANGE
Relate
You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope. If you face a situation that a reasonable person would consider "hopeless," you need the influence of seemingly "unreasonable" people to restore your hope--to make you believe that you can change and expect that you will change. This is an act of persuasion--really, it's "selling."
THE SECOND KEY TO CHANGE
Repeat
The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you'll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic and seem natural--until you act the new way without even thinking about it. It helps tremendously to have a good teacher, coach, or mentor to give you guidance, encouragement, and direction along the way. Change doesn't involve just "selling"; it requires "training."
THE THIRD KEY TO CHANGE
Reframe
The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you that it wouldn't have made any sense before you changed.
In a study on turnover conducted by Human Resource Executive magazine, 96% of HR managers reported conducting exit interviews with employees who are leaving the organization voluntarily, but just a meager 4% use a systematic method of collecting and tabulating the exit survey findings.
Due to poorly designed and inconsistent exit interview questions and processes, companies' takes on turnover are not only incomplete, but are often highly inaccurate, says Leigh Branham, author of The Seven Hidden Reasons Employees Leave.
