The Productivity Blog

Do You Know the Quality of Your Widgets But Not Your Recruits?

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:11:00 GMT

Go ahead, be a picky recruiter. It's a buyer's market for most jobs these days so your company can afford to bide its time and hire the right person. But here's the rub: It's unlikely that, once you've made your new hires, you'll honestly be able to tell how good they are.

That's because most companies do not measure quality of hire to any great extent. They may have six sigma programs that reduce defects to 3.4 parts per million but when it comes to their hiring, they're often flying blind.

The performance gap here is huge. Our recent study on Talent Management Measurement found that a paltry 16% of respondents said their organizations measure quality of hire to a high or very high extent. But that's not because these professionals don't know any better - fully three quarters believe that their organizations should be measuring quality of hire to a high or very high extent.

So, why is there an enormous disparity between what organizations know they should do versus what's actually being done?

As part of a larger initiative, i4cp's Talent Management Accelerator, a research working group made up of 15 member companies, has looked into this challenge and found seven major barriers that frustrate organizational efforts to measure quality of hire.

Metrics vary by position

i4cp research shows that quality of hire differs based on the nature of the position. For some roles, quality may be about longevity in the role, while in others it's about the time it takes to come up the learning curve or productivity output levels. It's rare that one quality metric is universal across an organization.

Quality is subjective

Different functions view quality differently, even if it's for the same position. Those who focus on leadership development will see quality of hire as being all about long-term promotability, while first-line managers will care more about the ability to learn and produce quickly. Meanwhile, operations or finance may value longevity in the role to increase the return on investment for the hire. In short, quality is not an absolute concept.

Hiring philosophy and strategy affects the metric

Philosophy and strategy will affect quality metric outcomes. An organization that succeeds by being a low-cost competitor, for example, will focus on keeping labor costs down, productivity up, learning curves short and efficiency fine-tuned. An organization that competes based on design and innovation will likely focus more on qualities such as creativity, teamwork and customer relationships.

There are no clear external quality-of-hire benchmarks

When it comes to product components and manufacturing processes, there are often industry-wide specifications and quality metrics. When it comes to people, however, there are few benchmarks and standards. Companies might have an idea of compensation ranges and educational prerequisites for certain positions, but qualifications say little about quality of hire. Therefore, it's hard for Company A to know how much it's gaining (or suffering) in comparison with Company B in this critical area.

Quality of hire is a viewed solely as a staffing metric

As yet unpublished i4cp research on the integration of talent management components clearly shows that the recruitment and selection function is typically the odd man out. That is, it's the least likely to be seen as integrated with other primary components of talent management. This is a huge problem when it comes to quality of hire because the ultimate success or failure of a recruit is dependent on many other organizational factors, including leadership, training and development, and performance management. The whole talent management system bears responsibility for ensuring quality of hire.

The measure requires additional data collection

When measuring widgets, organizations have full quality assurance programs and protocols that include additional inspections to ensure quality. When it comes to new hires, organizations resist additional data collection processes, which may include surveys of managers and employees to gather real-time feedback. Additional data collection is often met with resistance because the organization doesn't understand the value. Yet without this valuable, real-time information, there are limits to the robustness of a quality-of-hire measure.

Jay Jamrog, i4cp's Senior VP of Research, notes that other metrics can help support quality of hire. For example, data such as promotion rates, internal placement rates, regrettable termination rates and time to full productivity may all play a role in determining quality of hire. But tracking and integrating such data in a useful way can be difficult unless the proper systems and organizational values are in place.

Unclear purpose or rationale

Measuring quality of hire is not a goal for its own sake and it has various purposes that should be made clear. Of course, organizations want to make sure their staffing processes are efficient (keeping down costs per hire) and effective (ensuring new hires are the right ones) but this is not solely the responsibility of recruiting professionals. Often, the recruitment function resists quality-of-hire measures because it seems to unfairly place the burden of good selection, on-boarding and training on their shoulders. Quality of hire can be diagnostic in nature in order to create accountability, improve performance or evaluate the validity or effectiveness of a process or tool. The larger goal, however, is to ensure that the organization has the most talented and productive workforce in the industry, one that leads to top performance.

i4cp's 4-part recommendation:

Identify critical roles - Start by focusing quality-of-hire efforts on critical positions. Critical positions should be defined as roles that will drive growth and the strategic plan over the next 3-5 years or as roles where the organization is currently suffering pain, such as ones where there is a high first-year termination rate.
Create a measurement strategy - Once critical roles are identified, create a measurement strategy and project plan to address the needs of the organization. The strategy should clearly articulate why the role is being measured, the issues to be addressed, the measurement criteria and a detailed timetable. The timetable should include the data collection period, data analysis intervals and management review timing. This strategy will become the basis of a communication effort.
Secure buy-in from management and HR constituents - Based on the goals of the measurement strategy, identify and communicate with relevant stakeholders. Stakeholders need to understand the benefits of measurement, the effort and resources required, and the timing of the initiative. Ideally, the stakeholders will define the success criteria. If management or HR does not buy into the strategy, then the strategy should be postponed until the organization is ready. Organizations have done more harm than good when proceeding with a workforce measurement strategy the stakeholders do not believe is necessary.
Enlist support of all employees - Management and the staffing function are not the only parties responsible for the successful recruiting, selection and on-boarding of new staff. Provide employees with the opportunity (and reward) for referring former colleagues and friends. Often this is the best source for quality hires. Use broad-based teams to interview and weigh in on selection decisions. Whole Foods Markets, for example, relies on team members to select new associates. Evaluate hiring and non-hiring managers' recommendations in order to determine which employees have a knack for identifying talented employees who can be successful in the organization.

For many more i4cp insights on implementing quality-of-hire metrics, look to our Measuring Human Capital and Recruitment and Selection Knowledge Centers.

The Greening of Executive Pay

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:05:54 GMT

There's a new metric in town when it comes to determining executive pay - at some companies at least. Now, in addition to earnings per share and stock prices, some executives are earning incentive pay based on a series of sustainability measures.

The trend is a bit more common in Europe than it is in the U.S., with the Dutch leading the way. Chemical company Akzo Nobel, life sciences group DSM and mail operator TNT all have at least a small portion of executive pay tied to environmental improvements. According to Monique Pennings, who is part of the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development group at financial giant ING, corporate responsibility and sustainable business practices are part of their core business. Now, many firms say this, but ING seems to be put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Sustainability is being integrated into the personal accountability and performance objectives of senior management. Pennings says that performance objectives will be increasingly tied to non-financial drivers.

How much will pay be tied to these drivers? For 2010, at least 40% of the total variable compensation for members of the executive board will be based on non-financial performance indicators. Some of those indicators include diversity in the workforce, employee engagement, development of sustainable products and community investment. Pennings says that ING has a "long-term aspiration to belong to the sector leaders in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index."

In the U.S., Minnesota-based utility Xcel Energy has also integrated various sustainability indicators into executives' annual objectives. About 25% of executives' incentives are based on non-financial metrics, including decreases in emissions and safety performance.

When a company puts its executives on the hook for sustainability initiatives, it indicates that there is more at work than a simple green marketing ploy. It says that executives in these organizations are serious about these issues and are willing to bet at least some of their pay on them.

Does tying executive compensation to sustainability and social responsibility goals lead to better overall organizational performance or is it taking executive eyes off the ball? Does your organization have goals relating to sustainability and social responsibility that are tied to executive compensation?

Why Muslim Employees Aren’t Participating in Your Company’s 401(k)

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:41:00 GMT

When it comes to news about American Muslims in the workplace, the focus is often centered on issues of discrimination, harassment, or misunderstandings related to Muslims' religious beliefs and practices. Very little seems to be written about how to create an environment of inclusion beyond basic workplace accommodation.

For employers, the importance of understanding the laws specific to religious accommodation and being in compliance with those guidelines goes without saying. But viewing such compliance as simply a means to mitigate the risk of potential charges of discriminatory practices is rather short-sighted in today's global environment. What's needed is a deeper understanding of the multi-faith workforce, which can become a valuable strategy in attracting and retaining diverse talent.

With an estimated six to 10 million Muslims living in the U.S., it is likely that you employ, manage, or work with a Muslim. It's even more likely that your Muslim co-workers are not taking part in your company's 401(k) opportunities, which often make up a considerable portion of an employee's total rewards package. What to do (or not do) about employer investment opportunities is one of the most common challenges and sources of frustration facing Muslims working in the U.S. and other Western countries.

Why? According to Islamic law (aka Shari'ah), it is forbidden to make money from interest known as "riba" in Arabic. It is also forbidden to make money from any business that sells items that are forbidden for Muslims to consume. For example, Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol and pork products. Pornography is also strictly forbidden. So how does this relate to 401(k)s? Reaping financial gains from stocks of companies that profit from any of these forbidden items (e.g. alcohol, pork, interest, pornography, gambling, etc.) is also not permissible. This means that adherent Muslims won't partake in most 401(k) programs unless there is an option for the employee to direct the allocation of funds into which their money is invested.

An informal poll conducted by i4cp on this topic found that very few companies offer this option or that employees were unaware as to whether or not this option existed. That means that these investment prohibitions prevent a significant number of Muslim Americans and those from Arab and SE Asian countries who work for U.S. companies from reaping the benefits of 401(k)s and employer matching. Many of these employees are actively recruited on H1-B visas to work in high-tech companies or other U.S. firms with large populations of engineers.

How can employers create more equitable compensation options for Muslim employees and in doing so restore the value of their total rewards package? This requires organizations to first work directly with the vendor managing the company's 401(k) plan; begin by asking about the range of options the vendor has available and whether or not these would meet the needs of Muslim employees. The simplest option is of course for employees to be able to direct their investments into funds that are permissible. Another possible option is to offer an existing Shari'ah-compliant choice such as Amana Mutual Funds, which offers several investment vehicles for both individuals and employers.

Making this type of option available for Muslims and other conscientious investors who may have different reasons for choosing not to support certain common 401(k) stocks can make a lasting impression. This may especially be considered a unique differentiator when so few companies currently offer Shari'ah-compliant investments. Another option is offering employees opportunity to invest in the company's stock.

How important is this issue to Muslims? A few poll respondents indicated that they are considering leaving their current job in part to search for employers that offer Shari'ah-compliant plans or to become self-employed and thereby free to control their investments completely; nearly all (92%) of poll respondents said they would have a more favorable view of their employer if they offered this option. And one i4cp member company employee commented in an employee survey, "I personally consider not having an option for a Shari'ah-compliant retirement contribution a disservice on the part of the company against its Muslim employees (same for any employee with a strong preference in socially aware investment preference)."

In the global war for talent, this could be one more means to build a positive employer brand for attracting and retaining key talent. With drivers such as religious accommodation/inclusion and a growing social consciousness in investments by all employees, exploring these options can be a good way for an employer to make their compensation package stand out.

Additional sources:

Does your organization offer a Shari'ah compliant investment vehicle for its employees (primarily geared toward Muslims)? Does this accommodation take the form of specific mutual funds, the ability to direct the types of funds an individual invests in and/or company stock instead of a 401(k)? If yes, why? In order to build the employer brand, increase engagement or retention, etc? Does your organization offer other investment options that aren't mentioned in this article?

Are there other issues regarding Muslims workers that you would like to discuss through a forum on the i4cp website or see addressed in a future blog?

Michaela Corning is an account manager at i4cp.

Her blog post on accommodating Muslim employees during Ramadan was published in September 2009.

She can be reached at 206-357-7657.

Social Media Goes to Work

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:07:00 GMT

With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media technologies virtually omnipresent lately, it's not surprising that many managers are wondering how to leverage these tools. Sales and marketing were the first to exploit these technologies, which present new ways of reaching customers. But the real trick is finding ways to improve productivity, collaboration, communication and learning within organizations using tools that increasingly look like mainstays rather than fads.

It turns out that not many companies have figured out this trick yet. According to The Rise of Social Media, a report that the American Society for Training & Development commissioned from i4cp, less than 20% of employees are using social networks, wikis, blogs, podcasts or shared media for work-related learning often or all the time. Fewer than 10% are using micro-blogs (Twitter, Yammer, etc.), virtual worlds or augmented realities to the same extent.

Okay, so most people aren't using social media for learning often or all the time. So what? Why should an organization be interested in any of this in the first place? A big reason is the influx of the Millennial generation (those born after 1981) into the workforce. This is a generation that would rather send a text to someone down the hall rather than speak in person, or even by phone for that matter. They cut their teeth on MySpace and soon graduated to Facebook, and if there isn't video of something available one YouTube, they're not convinced it actually happened.

The technology-aided social interactions these workers have grown up with represent a type of informal learning - one they are going to expect to find at their place of work. More than 80% of the Millenials in the study have used Facebook in their personal lives, and close to 60% have used YouTube. About 45% of Millenials said they interact with social media for learning at work for anywhere from 30 minutes to more than an hour per day. Only about a third of Baby Boomers said the same thing. Employees of all generations know these tools are going to become more important, as 83% percent of respondents say social media use for learning will increase over the next three years.

Another reason organizations should consider adopting these tools more widely is that it appears they work. The study showed that higher performing organizations are more likely to encourage the use of these tools than lower performers. Workers who use these tools for work use them for specific reasons, and many of these uses are correlated with higher market performance, including:

Finding resources more easily
Improving knowledge sharing
Fostering learning
Improving communications
Increasing participation in learning

While employers may not yet see the value in these tools for learning, employees do. More than three-quarters of employees said they found podcasts at least somewhat valuable for work-related learning and slightly fewer said the same about wikis. Blogs, shared media and social networks were considered valuable by around two-thirds of employees.

Understandably, though, many organizations don't wish to jump in to the social media fray without serious consideration. Besides not wanting to get caught up in a fad that may become obsolete, there are security concerns as well. More than two-thirds of study participants said they believe social media tools have the potential to create security or privacy issues at work. There are also concerns that user-generated content will not be accurate and may actually impair the learning process.

According to Elliott Masie, CEO of the Masie Center, "Companies still have some fear around social media, but employees know better. They know the ‘wisdom of the crowd' will quickly correct any misinformation. The company-employee disconnect on adoption happens with every new technology, and social media is following this same predictable pattern."

Others agree that the time has come to more fully exploit these new technologies. According to Tony Bingham, CEO of ASTD and co-author of the book The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media, "Historically, the learning community has stayed away from informal learning and social learning, and that is where the majority of learning is taking place. We now have the tools, and the catalyst, to engage them with that kind of learning."

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Implement a formal policy governing social media use. A well developed and executed social media policy can go a long way to mitigating many of the risks associated with social media technologies. Only 44% of Study participants have a formal policy in place. The policy should define the goals and purposes of using social media in the organization's day-to-day business.
Market the concepts to employees to boost adoption. According to Justin Mass, senior learning technologist for Adobe Systems, an i4cp member company, "finding early adopters who can showcase the benefits of these tools to other in the organization helps immensely with adoption." However, adoption cannot be achieved from the bottom up alone. There needs to be buy-in from senior leadership, as well as role modeling. Many executives are currently having success communicating with employees via blogs and podcasts.
Start from the beginning. Expose employees to social media tools from the get-go. Some companies use social networks as part of the on-boarding process. This way they are able to provide information about the company and give new employees a feel for the culture even before they set foot in the door on their first day. It also sets the expectation for the use of these tools throughout the employee life cycle.
Run pilot projects. Arguably the best way to foster use of social media technologies is to simply start using them. Find small targeted projects that can benefit from these tools, and use these experiences as success stories to gain both buy-in from leadership and adoption from employees.

For many more i4cp insights on implementing and managing social media in the workplace, look to our Internal Communication, Workforce Technology and Training and Development Knowledge Centers.

Hanging on to Health Insurance (for now)

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:21:00 GMT

i4cp member Fidelity Investments, a leading provider of employer benefits, announced this week that a survey it conducted in June found that most U.S. employers (84%) "…expect to revisit their health care benefit strategy this year, following the passage of health care reform legislation."

That's not surprising in light of the persistent annual double-digit increases in health care costs and the near demise of institutions such as Ford and GM, which largely suffered from slow strangulation due to monster health-related costs of employees and retirees.

Something's got to give. And seeing how - for larger employers - the reform legislation's penalty for not providing health insurance to employees will be less costly than actually providing coverage, dropping the benefit may seem like the best bet and in some cases, the only way to survive. So revisiting the issue makes sense. What employers will ultimately decide to do is anybody's guess. But the idea that someday - not far from now - employer-sponsored health care coverage will be a thing of the past is not that far-fetched.

No way, you say? Trust me. Time will pass, dust will settle, things will change. Remember pension plans? Remember when it was acceptable to smoke indoors pretty much wherever you pleased? It's difficult now to imagine, but people used to smoke everywhere - in the movie theatre, in the grocery store, in restaurants, the library, college classrooms, even in hospitals. The days when hospital workers tapped their cigarettes into the overflowing ashtrays found at most nursing stations were not that long ago; the last time I saw smoking inside a hospital was in the mid-1990s. But the tide of public perception turned, a social revolution took place and it will again when it comes to ideas about health insurance, health care and who should be responsible for it.

The Fidelity study found that almost half (49%) of smaller employers (500 employees or less) anticipate significant increases in health care costs in the short term, while just 25% of larger employers (500 employees or more) indicated the same concern. This is probably because no one really knows how things will shake out right now.

"There is a lot of confusion out there about the real impact of the health care legislation and the accompanying costs," said Sunit Patel, senior vice president of Fidelity's Benefits Consulting services. "Depending on a company's strategy in designing its future health plans, cost increases can be minimized."

What will those cost-saving strategies look like? Employers will likely step up wellness programming to keep employees healthy and to help manage chronic issues, and many will likely opt for high deductible plans and HMOs. But that's only for now. The tension that's currently building feels like the last few seconds of a breath-holding contest. Who will be the first major employer to give in to the pressing weight of employee health coverage costs? Time will tell.

What's in it for employers who continue to offer health insurance? It's a factor in recruitment and retention of talent. And a healthier, happy workforce is more productive. But none of this may matter once the first Fortune 500 Company makes the decision to drop the benefit. Others will likely follow, and they'll do so swiftly. It will become, like the lean, cut to the bone staffs of many organizations these days, the new and permanent normal.

What changes does your organization plan on making to the health care benefits they currently offer? Has there been a serious discussion on dropping them altogether? Has this come up as a concern among your employees?

Capitalizing on the Knowledge you Already Own: A Roundtable Discussion

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:46:00 GMT

As companies emerge in this "post-recession" environment, the issue weighing most heavily is how to maintain legacy company information and intellectual property as employees retire or move on to new jobs.

Attend this roundtable to hear from customers and industry experts on how you can protect knowledge by capturing, maintaining and disseminating information before it leaves the aging and fluctuating workforce. Register now

WHEN: Thursday, August 5, 2pm EDT (11am PDT) or afterward on-demand

TOPICS COVERED:

How to maximize knowledge retention when employees

either retire or move on to other jobs
How to effectively and efficiently transfer knowledge to new employees
How optimize the time spent on training
How to increase productivity and reduce overall software implementation costs

The webcast can be viewed and shared using this link: http://www.i4cp.com/Hhm9DH

You can also register and watch the webinar below:

Getting the Most Out of International Assignments

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:36:00 GMT

Yes, we're still on a global economic roller coaster (who said the world is flat?), with good and bad news from the U.S., Europe and Asia causing markets to shoot up and down weekly or even daily. But, at the end of the ride, it still looks like we'll all be doing much more rather than less global business.

Case in point: For i4cp's recent member-driven Global Mobility Practices study, we asked if companies are anticipating more or fewer international assignments over the next 18 months. Almost 9 out of 10 said they expected more (46%) or about the same number (43%) of international assignments.

So much for the idea that the age of the expatriate is dead. Some observers predicted that as global companies hired more locals to fill positions, there would be a subsequent decrease in the number of international assignments. After all, expats tend to be expensive to compensate and are sometimes tricky to manage.

But, even in an age of increasingly effective teleconferencing and other virtual meeting technologies, there's no substitute for working and living abroad. It's very hard to understand another culture unless you've lived there, and that understanding is crucial to business success in a global society. That's one of the main reasons - aside from financial constraints - that respondents from high market performing organizations are so much more likely than those from low-performing ones to forecast more international assignments.

And if an organization is going to keep feet on the ground outside its home region, it had better do it right. For higher-performing organizations, that means formalizing the process and measuring the results.

Larry Looker, Manager of Global Leadership Development at Amway, states, "This whole process, as you know, is extremely expensive. When you think of what it cost for one person to have an international assignment - even in just dollars, taxes and expenses - it's a little bit shocking to me that more of us aren't asking ‘how are we doing?' ‘how well did it work?' ‘how did it work for the person, the family, the receiver and the business need?' How can we not ask those questions to those different groups?"

Looker says that Amway increasingly views international assignments as targeted learning experiences and as strategic opportunities to gain global experience and to fill specific, short-term needs. They are currently in the process of formalizing their global assignment processes and integrating them with various talent management and other broader organizational strategies. Measurement and stakeholder feedback are going into the design as an integral part of the process.

Of course, managing international assignees well involves a series of decisions and actions. There are many steps involved, including, but not limited to:

Determining the purposes of assignments
Assessing potential assignees and their families
Selecting assignees
Preparing assignees, their families and their managers
Developing policies and guidelines to govern assignments
Keeping track of information about expats and reasons they're on assignment
Deciding on success criteria
Evaluating stakeholder satisfaction levels
Retaining and properly utilizing expats once they return home

And this list doesn't even go into details of the actual relocation.

So how do higher-performers deal with the actions on our list? First, our study shows that they tend to be better at aligning their international assignments with other processes. In fact, they're twice as likely to report that "our mobility program supports talent management efforts," 51% compared to 26% for lower performers. They're also more likely to use international assignments for leadership (53%) and employee (39%) development.

Respondents from high-performing companies are also more likely to assess candidates and their families to see if they're suitable for international assignments and to provide cultural training in the host country for employees and their families.

Our survey also indicates that training about the host countries' cultures shouldn't be limited to pre-assignment, home-country courses. Cultural training in the host country for both the assignees and their families can be another differentiator for high performers. After all, multiple studies have established a link between international assignment failures and spouse/family concerns.

Finally, higher performers are more likely to measure what they consider important, to include all stakeholders in the measurement process and to follow through by applying what they've learned. International assignments, like any business initiatives, are about achieving goals and delivering results. If those goals include learning and development, then those skills should be used for the benefit of the organization. Not having a proper outlet for those skills and a plan for repatriated employees squanders a long-term investment.

International assignments are a potentially valuable investment that should be integrated with other talent management processes, measured thoroughly and managed carefully. According to Looker, "Because this is a project with such potential for gain and/or loss, it makes a lot of sense for us to take this time to formalize the process. In my opinion, we could reap some pretty big rewards, not only on the savings side, but also on the return side of the equation."

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Implement a formal policy governing international assignments. Creating and following a comprehensive policy provides more certainty in the ultimate cost of the assignment - which in turn helps organizations assess the value proposition. A formal policy also protects the organization from creating unintended precedents and ensures fair dealings with all employees. The policy may also serve as a recruiting tool when employees are deciding whether to accept an international assignment.
International assignments should begin with an assessment of the employee's suitability, which should include the employee's family if they are relocating as part of the assignment. A new job is stressful. Moving is stressful. Relocating to a foreign country and taking on a new role in an unfamiliar culture while using a language you're not proficient in can be more than some will be capable of. Add to that an unhappy spouse and children torn away from friends and stability and it's no wonder there is a high failure rate for international assignments. Higher performers consider all of these factors before making assignment decisions.
Continue cultural acclimation in the host country. There's nothing like complete immersion when it comes to learning, and there's no better way to learn a culture than from a native. Many organizations arrange for local partners to continue cultural training and create a touchstone or mentor for the assignee. This small additional investment helps to ease the transition and speed the employee's time to productivity in their new role.
Align the goals for international assignments with other strategic processes and measure the results. Getting needed skills in place is the primary reason for most international assignments, but leadership and employee development are also important. High-performance organizations put appropriate resources toward processes they consider important and always measure the results. As this is an expensive process, it's good to gain broad stakeholder estimations of success.

We Need to Talk

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:56:31 GMT

We need to talk. Can there be any more gut-tightening phrase in our language? Just ask anyone who's married. Or in any sort of relationship, personal or professional. Any employee summoned to his supervisor's office with that phrase probably shows up simply because there's no handy exit between his desk and the manager's office door. Why do we put off honest communication - at home and at work - until it's so long overdue that it scares the daylights out of us?

Lots of reasons, probably. Some topics just aren't pleasant to discuss. Nobody wants to hear that they need to make changes, that they aren't living up to expectations or that they aren't likely to have a job if performance doesn't improve. Even if the news is positive, communication can derail. Maybe we are so immersed in our work that we just assume others know about projects or goals or outcomes. Perhaps we just don't know how to get ideas across constructively. There are many potential stumbling blocks.

Study after study conducted by i4cp point out the vital role that internal communication plays in achieving better business outcomes. Our High Performance Organizations study, for instance, found leaders' communication abilities rated much higher (in high-performing companies) than they did in lower-performing firms. When we researched succession planning, participants told us that communication issues were among the top-five challenges plaguing their efforts - significantly more of a problem for lower-performing companies than for their higher-performing counterparts. Our Developing Successful Global Leaders Survey confirmed that effective oral and written communication capabilities are among the competencies organizations focus on developing in up-and-coming global leaders. Those attributes also reflect a high correlation with success in leadership development.

Fact is, you could look at nearly every survey we conduct and find some reference or inference to the role communication plays in high-performance workplaces. What that demonstrates is that communication is a foundation element of successful organizations. There's a reason i4cp includes internal communication within the leadership domain. Savvy leaders know what a powerful tool good communication can be. These days, businesses need all the power they can muster. So take a look at the effectiveness of your organization's communication programs. If they aren't helping you power your company's success, then we need to talk.

i4cp Launches First Market Research Panel Dedicated to High-Performance Organizations

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:38:00 GMT

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) announced today that it has officially launched WorkforceSurveys.com, the first market research panel dedicated to the best and next human capital practices of high-performance organizations. Human capital and HR professionals are invited to join the growing panel to participate in workforce productivity surveys, receive free human capital research, and participate in the innovative practices that drive many of the world's most successful corporations.

Here's how it works. By completing a free registration, panelists of WorkforceSurveys.com receive regular e-mail invitations to participate in exclusive industry surveys - which are typically completed by many of the world's best known organizations - on critical human capital topics. In exchange, all panelists are provided with a private pre-release of the preliminary results report produced by i4cp's analysts, and have the opportunity to comment on the results in the WorkforceSurveys.com community. Panelists will also have the opportunity to attend exclusive webinars conducted on the most critical and thought-provoking research topics conducted throughout the year, and a free subscription to i4cp's highly acclaimed TrendWatcher publication, providing in-depth analysis of the most interesting human capital trends uncovered by i4cp's analyst team.

"WorkforceSurveys.com is a great way for human capital professionals to receive the latest ground-breaking research at no cost, in exchange for simply responding to surveys on behalf of their organizations," said Jay Jamrog, SVP of Research at i4cp. "Through years of longitudinal studies and in-depth analysis of what drives productivity, i4cp has the business community abuzz with our Five Domains of High Performance Organizations. WorkforceSurveys.com gives companies of all sizes the opportunity to participate and benefit from our continued research into these domains and the workforce issues they are built upon."

i4cp is the fastest growing and largest corporate network focused on the practices of high-performance organizations. Through years of research, i4cp analysts have discovered the five key human capital domains that companies leverage to drive performance.

WorkforceSurveys.com members not only support this research but get access to content that is otherwise member-protected. i4cp corporate members have exclusive access to additional analysis, interactive tools and i4cp's highly acclaimed peer community.

HR professionals and others with a vested interest in human capital initiatives are invited to join WorkforceSurveys.com.

No personally identifiable information is revealed as a result of participating in i4cp research. i4cp will never sell contact information to third parties.

People & Strategy Call for Articles

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:11:18 GMT

i4cp is partnering with the newly rebranded HRPS for a special edition of their acclaimed People & Strategy quarterly journal. To make this a truly impactful issue, we are tapping our best resources - our vibrant practitioner network - for article submissions. Mark Vickers, i4cp's VP of Research, is one of the editors for this special edition, which will focus on insights in using human capital analytics to make business decisions. Please help us and our longtime strategic partners at HRPS by submitting your article and sharing real life human capital management experience.

If you have an idea for an article that would complement People & Strategy, download this PDF to learn more about the requirements. This is a great way to share your expertise and extend your company and personal brand.

HRPS hopes to publish a variety of articles that answer questions such as, but not limited to, the following:

What key human capital analytics and analytics strategies have the greatest potential impact on business results?
What organizations are on the cutting-edge of this trend and what are they doing differently from their less analytics-savvy counterparts?
How have human capital analytics evolved over the years and what will the future look like in this arena?
What is the art of calculating and communicating analytics in such a way that they will convince and compel key decision markers?

This special issue is about fresh approaches to the topic of analytics that readers - especially CEOs, government leaders, general managers and HR leaders - can use to successfully navigate the complexity of the next decade.

Inclusion Improves Workforce Productivity and Engagement, but Success Isn't Measured

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:57:00 GMT

A majority of companies have employee inclusion strategies in place to engage with ever-diversifying workforces, but many have yet to figure out a way to measure the success of such programs, according to the latest study released today by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

Nearly half (47%) of the companies who participated in the study, which was conducted on behalf of several i4cp member organizations, said that inclusion is a part of their diversity initiatives, and 19% said inclusion was treated as a separate talent management initiative. Another 17% said they plan to implement inclusion strategies in the near future. Inclusion is defined as creating an environment in which employees share a sense of belonging, mutual respect and commitment from others so that they can do their best work.

Why are companies focusing on employee inclusion? The study found that inclusion strategies support talent acquisition and retention efforts as well as increase the productivity and engagement of current employees. Successful inclusion also positively affects employment brand and the public image of the organization. Nearly 75% of high-performance organizations - companies who have outperformed their competitors over the last five years - indicated that, to a high or very high extent, inclusion benefited recruiting and retention efforts, compared to 62% of lower performing companies. Improved productivity and engagement had similar breakdowns, with 72% of high performers saying this was a driver compared to 59% of lower performers.

Despite these drivers, only a third of high-performance organizations reported that their inclusion initiatives were highly or very highly effective, though this was much higher than the 18% of lower performing companies that said the same.

More telling is that only 21% of companies said they attempt to quantify the effects of inclusion strategies to a high or very high extent, while nearly half of all companies (46%) said they only attempt to measure inclusion to a small extent, or not at all.

The i4cp Inclusion Measurement study also examined the methods companies use to measure the success of inclusion efforts. These practices, along with interactive tools to explore the research in more detail, are available exclusively to i4cp corporate members.

Inclusion Measurement - Tracking the Intangible

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:49:00 GMT

Diversity and inclusion are, in some ways, like peanut butter and jelly. They're not the same but are often combined, making up a whole that's more than the sum of its parts. So when i4cp - on behalf of its members-only Diversity Accelerator group - decided to look at inclusion metrics, we first had to carefully define, identify, and separate the two concepts.

In our Inclusion Measurement Survey, we started by finding out whether or not companies had inclusion initiatives and if initiatives were considered separately or in combination with diversity. Two-thirds of study participants reported inclusion as part of their people-management strategy, either in combination with diversity (47%) or as a separate talent-management initiative (19%). These numbers crept up only slightly among higher market performers. With this established, we asked them to focus specifically on inclusion, the more difficult to measure of the two.

Diversity is about variations and differences and, more often than not, refers to traits that are measurable. Sometimes diversity refers to a traditional compliance point-of-view that looks primarily at EEOC protected classes. Other times, it incorporates a broader definition that accounts for factors such as diverse experience, education and backgrounds. Either way, seeing how one individual differs from another and tracking those differences is, while challenging in practice, intellectually clear cut. Inclusion, however, is a much more amorphous affair.

Inclusion is what ties varied individuals together into a cohesive and productive whole. By far the most commonly cited definition for inclusion among our study participants was from the 2002 Frederick Miller and Judith Katz book, The Inclusion Breakthrough. This definition - "Inclusion is about creating an environment in which employees share a sense of belonging, mutual respect, being valued for who they are, and supportive energy and commitment from others so that they can do their best work" - was selected from among six possibilities by over half of our study group.

But does anything about that definition lend itself to measurement? Can one say that a company produced 5% more "supportive energy" this year than last? While other definitions had more concrete wording, such as "avoiding tokenism," organizations seem inclined toward a definition that is more aspirational and values-based. This kind of definition may explain why only a fifth of respondents say their organizations attempt to quantify the effects of inclusion strategies to a high or very high extent.

Corporate Practices

Through a series of interviews tied to our Diversity Accelerator, we investigated how some organizations incorporate inclusion as a key value. These companies are both more successful at inclusion and more capable at measuring the success of their efforts. The key factors that make this possible are a definition that includes measurables and driving goals that are strategically aligned and quantifiable.

With inclusion ingrained as a core corporate value, organizations can measure success in this area through several channels, including indirect routes such as quality assurance reports that provide a view of inclusion from the customer perspective. These organizations can also directly tap their employees for guidance to provide feedback and ensure that they are truly living their corporate values.

Other practices that boost inclusion proficiency include inclusion-specific competencies as part of the managerial review process. Linking those competencies to both salary and promotability further emphasize the company's commitment to inclusion as a core value. It's an important step for inclusion to be seen as a competency that is closely tied to success in those managerial positions.

One top company we talked with, WellPoint Inc. - the largest health plan company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association - uses their definition of inclusion to help define the metrics they track to determine success.

"Our definition of inclusion is really all about engagement, be it associate (employee) engagement or member (customer) engagement," said Linda Jimenez, Chief Diversity Officer and Staff VP - Diversity & Inclusion for WellPoint. "Inclusion is the important component that weaves that thread of diversity throughout our organization. One level of inclusion is how individuals feel connected, respected, valued, but - most importantly - engaged in working alongside one another."

WellPoint's use of annual employee engagement surveys to track inclusion is therefore a clear, if indirect, metric. In fact, employee engagement surveys were the most utilized measurement method cited in our inclusion study (47%), followed by analysis of new hire data (36%) and promotion/movement data (33%). WellPoint also closely tracks diversity representation metrics and movement among varied groups at multiple tiers of the organization. Inclusive of about a quarter of our survey respondents, WellPoint includes diversity-specific questions in its engagement surveys.

In addition, WellPoint looks at manager evaluations, which have questions specifically geared toward inclusion competencies, and they participate in various third-party evaluations from employer-of-choice awards that provide an external standard to measure progress. Such awards were a less frequently used metric overall (used by about a fifth of i4cp respondent organizations) but, along with productivity data, were the metrics with the largest usage gap between high and low performers.

WellPoint was included on The DiversityInc 2010 Top 50 List, and also participate in a select group of other employer-of-choice recognition awards. According to Jimenez, "There's a wealth of information in terms of benchmarking that we've received and the opportunity to listen to and share best practices with similar organizations that are considered leaders in diversity management. They're definitely an internal motivation and I think it's a great metric for us to be able to see where we stand against ourselves and where we stand against our peers."

In a similar vein, through our Diversity Accelerator program, i4cp has found that group discussions - in which practitioners are able to describe challenges, share best practices, and brainstorm on future-looking strategies - are useful ways of improving performance in the areas of diversity and inclusion.

The Bottom Line

Inclusion is, as we've shown, a hard nut to crack from a metrics perspective. It's simply easier for an organization to tell if diversity representation has increased at certain tiers of the organization, if the employee base has reached parity with the customer base, or if complaints against management have gone down. These metrics don't tell you how inclusive the culture of the organization is, but, much like gravity shifts indicating the presence of otherwise imperceptible astronomical objects, they do show the presence of something and give us an indication of size and movement.

Our study shows that these indirect measurements - paired with accountability, top-down support for inclusion-related values and employee surveys - are how many organizations are gauging inclusion success.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Review your organization's definition of inclusion, if it has one, to determine if it lends itself to measurement. A definition that is more utilitarian - that is more prescriptive rather than aspirational - is more useful in guiding measurement and goal setting. Debate the content of your definition. A definition that lacks debatable content probably lacks the significance or concreteness that will make it measurable.
Ensure a common understanding of what inclusion means to your organization and make certain it aligns to the organization's mission. A good definition will go beyond employees to include suppliers, customers and the community at large. To form a common understanding of what inclusion means, consider what is driving your organization toward this goal. The i4cp study found that high-performing organizations are more likely to be driven by factors such as talent acquisition, retention, employment brand, and increased productivity and engagement.
To measure inclusion, start by identifying the business area where you expect to see movement. For WellPoint, that metric is engagement. For other organizations, it may be profit per store, better customer ratings, reduction in shrinkage (theft), improved company reputation or brand, etc. Again, the measurement should align with the organization mission.
Create accountability at the executive, manager and employee level. Creating an inclusive work environment starts at the top of the organization, but it must be practiced at every level to permeate a culture. Accountability at the employee level means articulating expected behavior and rewarding employees that exemplify that conduct. It also means working to change behaviors of employees who do not. At the manager level, accountability should be part of the performance management process and is most effective when linked to performance appraisal competencies and promotional opportunities.

Beyond Efficiency: The Keys to Future HR Success

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:27:00 GMT

Maybe you're proud of the sheer productivity of your HR department. Your ratio of HR pros to employees is lower than the industry average, most transactional HR activities are delivered via self-service, and you have a finely tuned shared-services center. Generally speaking, your HR function is a lean, mean efficiency machine.

Good for you. There's just one problem. By itself, it's not nearly enough.

This is one of the findings from the Future of HR study conducted by i4cp in partnership with the Center for Effective Organizations (CEO) at USC's Marshall School of Business. We found, for example, that having a low HR-to-employee ratio is not in itself a great predictor of market performance, though that story changes for very large, commercial entities. So, while it's smart to benchmark such ratios to gauge efficiency, they seem a lot less critical than some other HR characteristics, at least for organizations with 1,000 or more employees.

"Efficiency is a given in today's world," says Jay Jamrog, i4cp's Senior VP of Research. "Maybe it gets you a seat at the table, like table stakes in a poker game. But your HR department had better have some other qualities in addition to that if you want to become a real player at that table."

Like what? Think about what your organization needs most from its leaders. One of those critical competencies, as another recent i4cp study shows, is the ability to manage change well. Our new study suggests HR should be able to support leadership in this area.

Here's one piece of evidence: Respondents from high-market performing organizations were about 30% more likely than their counterparts from lower-performing companies to report that HR "drives change management" to a great or very great extent. We also found a significant positive correlation between corporate market performance and HR's role in this area.

But the ability to drive change is just part of the equation. HR must also provide the kind of HR data required to support change management.

"There's often a lot of attention to measurement in HR that's about getting the data, running the right analysis and producing the right reports. But if you want to effect strategic change, you also need to have the right logic and the right processes. Not only do we want to tell a well-analyzed and well-measured story, but it needs to be a story that matters and it needs to be logically connected to the mission of the organization. No matter how good you are at this measurement stuff, if there isn't a connection to moving the organization, you run the risk of nothing happening," said CEO's Prof. John Boudreau, who co-presented an i4cp webinar on the subject.

A third characteristic of HR functions in high-performance organizations is that they tend to formulate a human capital strategy that's well integrated with the larger business strategy. This may seem like a no-brainer but the study shows that only a quarter of all respondents said this is true to a great or very great extent in their organizations.

"You want to perform better in HR?" asks Jamrog. "You need to get integrated and aligned. When we look at respondents who say HR is full partner in strategy development and implement, over half say such integration is strong in their companies. They bring a lot to the table."

Actually setting up the table rather than merely being present should be the ultimate goal for HR, says CEO's Prof. Ed Lawler. He describes this as coming in with ideas and input that shape strategy rather than being the reactive implementer. This is particularly true of organizations with a management style that relies on human capital for competitive advantage, Lawler says.

HR metrics are another key to success. Jamrog notes that there aren't significant differences between high and low-market performers in terms of the financial efficiency of HR operations, but high performers are considerably more likely to measure the business impact of HR programs and processes.

"Maybe you're never going to have perfect information on the business impact," says Jamrog. "It's impossible to be certain of cause and effect in a dynamic business system. But I think just making a serious effort to make these connections is a best practice."

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Collect the kind of data needed to manage change well. Much of this data should be regularly collected as a normal part of workforce planning. Another recent i4cp analysis found that - for strategic workforce planning - companies need more than just data on headcount, budgets, hires, terminations, retirements, etc. They should conduct SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses, determine key roles, and make headcount growth assumptions. They should also create a profile of the agility and resilience of their employees, their teams and their organization as a whole. This means having gauges of characteristics such as openness to change, persistence, ability to function under pressure, optimism, and technological skills.
Then help manage change. Where the data shows deficits, help build strengths. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has a change-management framework that includes creating a compelling vision, building stakeholder and leadership alignment, delivering communication, establishing measures of success, aligning systems to reinforce change, and enabling employees to learning new skills that they can apply at work.
Integrate HR strategies with larger business strategies. HR needs to have a firm grasp of the organization's principle business strategies and ensure that HR strategies complement them. If, for example, a major business strategy is to move into more global markets, then HR should have a strategic initiative for helping leaders develop a set of competencies to operate successfully at a global level. Likewise, they have a clear understanding of best practices in the areas of global staffing, global training, and global information systems.
Measure the business impact of HR programs and processes. It's fine to track data such as the efficiency of your recruitment function, gaining an idea of how many interviews it takes to make a hire, etc. But, ultimately, this type of metric isn't establishing a strong linkage to business success. It's more important to measure factors such as the ability to retain the key personnel who add to the bottom line or the degree of alignment between key business strategies and key HR strategies.

High-Performance Organizations View Interns as Long-term Investments

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:01:00 GMT

An often cited rationale for hiring interns is the prospect of having someone around to handle the grunt work no one else wants to do. But these days, many companies have more strategic goals in mind for their internship programs. The latest study from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) - the world's fastest growing and largest corporate network focused on the practices of high-performance organizations - found that top-performing organizations are more likely to realize a return on their investment in internship programs by converting interns into full-time employees. Nearly a third of survey respondents (28%) said that more than half of their interns convert, compared to 12% of lower performing organizations.

The study, conducted on behalf of an i4cp Fortune 500 member company, also found that only half of the organizations that have internship programs attempt to quantify the benefits to begin with, though high-performance organizations are much more likely to do so (64%) than lower performing companies (38%). This is not surprising, considering that high-performance organizations almost always do more to measure and quantify the strategic benefits of their efforts.

Nearly half (47%) of high-performing organizations reported intern labor productivity as the main measure for quantifying the benefits of an internship program, while 45% said improved retention among full-time employees who were formerly interns is a significant factor. Only 27% of lower performing organizations reported that these measures were used to quantify the benefits of internship programs to a high or very high degree.

Among the top-performing companies, improving the productivity of other employees by distributing some of their tasks to interns was the least used metric (22%), whereas low-performing organizations were most likely to select this as a ROI quantifying measure.

The ROI of Internship Programs study, which was conducted in May 2010, is now available to i4cp members in both report and interactive data formats. The study also examined the costs companies account for in regards to internship programs, the extent to which interns are exposed to other parts of the company and the way in which schools are selected as sources of talent.

Four Key Practices for Developing Global Leaders

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:52:00 GMT

I never thought I'd see this day. One of my colleagues is taking the week off to - get this - watch the World Cup. Now, if you live in Europe or Asia, this is expected behavior, but I live in the U.S., where the World Cup has historically been about as popular as a case of the croup.

This got me thinking not only about what the U.S. media is calling "World Cup fever" but about how today's businesses are increasingly required to take on a World Cup mindset. That is, they must see the world as a global field with global talent playing to global audiences and markets, a field on which they want to place good leaders who have a firm grasp of the global competitive scene.

Some organizations are working harder than others to adapt to the global playing field. A new i4cp study, commissioned by the American Management Association, found that - among companies with 1,000 or more employees and some degree of multinational presence - only about half have implemented one or more global leadership development programs.

As expected, we found that organizations with global leadership programs are more likely to report higher market performance. That's not a big surprise since globally expanding organizations are more likely to require such programs in the first place. But we also found that, even among companies with such initiatives, there's still a lot of progress to be made. Only about two-fifths of respondents strongly or very strongly agreed with the statement that their "leadership development program is highly effective."

Given these circumstances, what can organizations do to improve their global leadership development programs?

First, they should think about which competencies they wish to instill in their global leaders. Critical thinking and problem-solving competencies are important and commonly taught, according to the study. But perhaps even more important, the research shows, are teaching global leaders how to stay agile and adaptable, how to manage innovation well, and how to expand the organization's brand in local and global commerce.

Maria Van Parys, Director of Leadership Education and Talent Management at i4cp-member-company Boston Scientific, notes that her organization's global leadership development initiatives focus specifically on competencies such as adaptability, agility and innovation - competencies that she states become "more important the higher up you go in organizations." She also notes that Boston Scientific is increasingly focused on developing stronger global competencies in the areas of resourcefulness, perseverance, accountability, and team building.

Another potential area of improvement lies in the involvement of senior business leaders. Our study found that when the senior executive team is involved, regardless of the specific role they play, both program success and market performance tend to be higher. Senior executive teams are most often involved in communicating about their organization's leadership development program and in establishing the needed business results from the program. The good news is that simply having your senior leaders communicate more often about the global leadership development program - a relatively easy practice to implement - is associated with success. If an organization doesn't already engage in any of these practices, getting improved communication from senior executives is a good place to start.

But there are many other levels at which executives can become involved. At Boston Scientific, for example, the executive team is not only engaged in shaping the competencies covered by its global leadership development program but in the evaluation, selection and development of program participants. Members of the executive committee also engage in mentoring and coaching, and they sometimes teach other elements of the program as well, recounting their own experiences in managing change and driving success.

A third key finding of the study is that metrics matter. There are strong statistical relationships between the degree to which companies evaluate these programs and their reported success. Especially interesting is the fact that "the amount of learning achieved from the initiative" is the one metric significantly correlated with market performance and has the highest correlation with global leadership development program success. Companies should use this metric even as they examine other metrics such as business results and behavioral changes.

Boston Scientific covers basic metrics such as number of courses and participants, but it also looks at what Van Parys calls the "ultimate outcome" of bench-strength readiness. This refers to the number of high performing managers who are prepared to move into senior leadership roles. Between 2008 and 2009, the Boston Scientific program was able to move the mark from 20% to 42%.

A fourth key finding is that, while most respondents say their organizations use outside vendors or other external experts to help in the creation or implementation of their global leadership programs, they might not be using the best selection criteria. We found that organizations are most commonly looking for subject matter experts as well as a proven track record demonstrating an ability to execute. Less popular expectations for outside suppliers are the ability to handle multiple language requirements and wide geographic representation. Our study found, however, that the ability to handle multiple language requirements is actually well correlated with the global leadership development success index, and using vendors based on their ability to represent each geographic region was the only variable associated with significant improvements in both market performance and global leadership development success.

But it's also clear from our interviews that flexibility, adaptability and creativity can be key requirements. Van Parys notes that at Boston Scientific, external providers become "extensions of ourselves" and so must be flexible enough to accommodate the organization's specific needs. For example, her company requires all its vendors to follow the same processes so that the program can be provided in a unified, seamless way.

Flexibility is also one of the key criteria that SGS - a global provider of inspection, verification, testing and certification services - looks for in a vendor. Vice President of HR Dominique Ben Dhaou notes that her organization requires external providers to listen well in order to understand the unique needs of SGS. External partners not only need to be flexible but also creative and highly responsive.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Decide which competencies are most critical for the success of global leaders in your organization. Query senior leaders, external experts and key business partners about what they view as key competencies. Although every organization will have unique needs, keep in mind that in today's shifting global environment, global leaders must often stay agile and adaptable, know how to manage innovation well in a highly diverse workforce, and have a good idea of how to expand the organization's brand in a global marketplace.
Involve your senior leaders. At the very least, ensure they play a key role in communicating the value of the global leadership development initiative to participants and high potentials in your organization. But also consider having them become more deeply involved in the process of establishing the business results you want from the initiative, shaping program content, selecting key participants, and even helping teach courses or engaging in coaching.
Measure the impact. Of course, it makes sense to track the basics, such as number of participants and courses and satisfaction with the programs. But also try to track the business results derived from particular development opportunities, changes in leadership behaviors, the amount of learning achieved and the impact on the bench strength of your leadership pool.
Choose your external providers wisely. Start by making a list of the characteristics you want in a provider. Subject matter expertise and a proven track record are key, but so are other criteria, such as flexibility, agility and responsiveness. Make sure that vendors are listening carefully to your organizations' specific needs. Also, keep in mind that for organizations with a broad global scope, criteria such as geographic representation and the ability to handle multiple languages can gain prominence as selection factors.