Talent Blog

Unwrap This Present from i4cp Early

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:34:00 GMT

E-learning thought leader Dr. Nick van Dam recently provided the i4cp community with four chapters from his latest book Next Learning, Unwrapped!. These documents, available for free exclusively to i4cp members, are insightful samples illustrating how cutting-edge companies are using technology-based learning platforms to help shape their workforces. Each one examines a different aspect of the e-learning business case, addressing challenges and focusing on the resources needed to make an effective and strategic e-learning initiative.

Gain valuable insights from these i4cp member-exclusive preview samples.

Case Study - Microsoft on Standardizing Technology-based Learning: Microsoft uses a technology-based learning platform to support globally dispersed field employees, to provide up-to-date product and service information and to keep field employees on top of the latest innovations.

Case Study - Deloitte on Developing an Internal Social Networking Platform: In 2006, the company began its internal social networking initiative - dubbed D Street - to help appeal to Millennial recruits that prefer technology-based platforms for networking and learning.

Case Study - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on Transforming Culture Through e-Learning: Non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), in an effort to better compete against their for-profit health insurance company competition, embraced technology-based learning as a conduit for their Performance Transformation initiatives.

Case Study - SAP on Continuous e-Learning: In the fast-paced world of business software, SAP recognizes the need to move beyond learning for simple informational awareness into the realm of on-demand, purposeful, high-impact learning delivered when needed to meet business demands.

See also Dr. van Dam's 2011 i4cp webinar on Next Learning, Unwrapped to learn more about the innovative, technology-based learning solutions that leading organizations are using now to help achieve their business goals.

Why You Should Measure Time to Full Productivity

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:19:46 GMT

Despite recognition of the fundamental benefits of integrating talent management, many organizations acknowledge that they are not as effective as they'd like to be at managing their talent.

To address this gap, i4cp assembled a talent management working group from select organizations to explore four key talent management effectiveness metrics. Based on insights from that group, i4cp Senior Analyst Carol Morrison developed the Metrics of High-Performance Talent Management white paper series:

The fourth and final paper in the series, Time-to-full-productivity, is now available exclusively to members.

Time-to-full-productivity is a metric few organizations use, but which many acknowledge they should be tracking. Just 16% of respondents to an i4cp survey stated that they use the time-to-full-productivity metric to a high or very high extent, but 64% say they should be using it to manage talent more effectively.

There are various ways of approaching and defining time-to-full-productivity:

The time required to ensure that a new employee has all the credentials and equipment necessary in order to perform his or her job duties.
The period required for the new employee to master the skills needed to perform his/her job duties at a fully productive level.
The time required for the new employee to achieve a degree of proficiency that matches that of a colleague with two-to-three years' experience.

Tracking time-to-full-productivity offers the benefit of yielding insights into multiple organizational functions. Four ways organizations can use time-to-full-productivity to improve programs and the effectiveness of the workforce are:

Gauging the success of the recruitment process.
A candidate who was accurately sourced and screened should come up to speed in an expedient manner, while a poor hire (perhaps lacking in credentials or skill sets) might be more likely to founder.
Aligning job descriptions to the reality of the workplace.
Using the previous example, a slow path to proficiency might indicate to HR that it is not providing accurate job descriptions to candidates.
Determining training success.
If a new hire has been assigned a mentor or a coach, the employee's speed to productivity can offer one means of evaluating the effectiveness of that mentoring/coaching experience.
Identifying impediments to productivity.
Time-to-full-productivity can reveal multiple factors that lengthen the time an employee requires to reach full competency.

This new, member-exclusive white paper explains other uses for this powerful metric, as well as additional considerations and calculation recommendations. Download the Time-to-full-productivity White Paper now.

*It is important to note that no single metric is likely to definitively confirm or refute complete success in any given area, but at the very least, time-to-full-productivity can serve as a valid clue to help identify wins and pinpoint potential problems.

Companies Tying Employee Pay to Performance Increases 17% in Last Two Years

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:37:00 GMT

Over 90% of organizations now say they are tying salary increases and annual bonuses to specific performance measures, up from 78% in 2009, according to a new study conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Despite these high numbers, the study also shows that many companies aren't successfully executing their pay for performance strategy.

i4cp's new report Tying Pay to Performance outlines several key findings, including that more than three-quarters of high-performance organizations tie pay to performance to at least a moderate extent, while less than two-thirds of lower-performers do the same. There is little doubt that as signs of steady progress become more evident in the recovery of economies worldwide, organizations will need to move toward a pay for performance culture in order to remain competitive.

"The existence of a pay for performance strategy alone is not a differentiator between high- and low-performing organizations - most organizations, regardless of market performance, reported that they are using some sort of pay for performance strategy," said David Wentworth, a i4cp Senior Analyst and author of the report. "Rather, it is the approach taken in executing this strategy that separates the high-performance organizations from the rest of the pack."

One clear differentiator is what drives the strategy internally. Despite the weak economy and curtailed compensation budgets, just 6% of survey respondents identified the compensation budget as the primary driver of the pay for performance strategy. Budget constraints are third on the list for low-performers, but not in the top five for high-performers. So high-performers are driven by something else, and the survey found that the something else is driven by a clear focus on pay for performance results.

Nearly half of high-performing organizations indicate that recognizing and rewarding high-performers is the main driver of their pay for performance strategy, making it number one on the list of primary drivers. A distant second is increasing the likelihood of achieving corporate goals.

Lower-performing organizations are not as sure about the drivers behind their strategy. The number one driver among this group is achieving corporate goals, chosen by nearly one-third, while recognizing and rewarding high-performers was cited second with 30%.

i4cp's Tying Pay to Performance report also explores:

The effectiveness of pay-for-performance for a variety of business and individual outcomes
Trends in forced ranking and forced distribution models
The importance of managers and training in the execution of the strategy
Pay trends and benchmarks

The report also continues executive insights from i4cp member companies Amway and Hertz. The report is now available to i4cp corporate members.

Why You Should Be Tracking Quality of Movement

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:20:00 GMT

As organizations place more emphasis on getting the most out of their talent, the need for robust human capital analytics continues to grow in importance. Several i4cp research studies have shown that the companies who track advanced metrics and statistics, and subsequently have more integrated talent management systems, are more likely to outperform their competitors.

Through these studies, i4cp and several of its member companies - some of the largest and most respected in the world - have worked together to determine which metrics high-performance organizations are using, how they're using them and why.

One such metric is quality of movement, featured in a new, member-exclusive white paper by senior i4cp analyst Carol Morrison.

When any type of internal movement takes place - such as an employee's advancement (promotion) or lateral or even downward movement - an organization needs to know whether or not the action has addressed a need and delivered value toward achieving company objectives. They must track more than that the move occurred, but the business results of the move as well. Did productivity for that position rise? Has the promoted worker remained in the job for a specified period of time?

Quality of movement is especially important for tracking and measuring employees considered highly valuable to their organizations, such as high-potential (Hi-Pos) or high-performing employees.

And yet, few companies measure quality of movement for these employees.

The i4cp/Human Resource Executive 2011 High-Performance Organizations Survey shows that just over 20% of respondents agree or strongly agree that their organizations have transparent, formal processes to identify and develop their Hi-Pos. Even fewer - only 9% - strongly agree that they identify and track Hi-Pos well.

So according to i4cp research, few even know who their high-potential employees (Hi-Pos) are. These individuals, valued as future leaders to be developed in the organizations succession pipeline, have suffered through years of sagging compensation budgets and are considered a higher turnover risk once greater rewards and opportunities are made available. Added to this is i4cp data showing that less than a third of organization track metrics such as internal placement rates, promotion rates or time to full productivity - although more than two-thirds recognize that they should.

While high-performance organizations are more likely to identify and develop Hi-Pos (36%), that still means most companies are flying blind when it comes to some of their most valued employees. They have no way of knowing whether Hi-Pos are being identified correctly, promoted quickly enough and whether they remain at the company post-move.

Furthermore, measuring quality of movement also serves as a sort of acid test of organizational integrity. Often, firms publicize their commitment to hiring from within and advancing employees. Tracking of internal movement confirms that the organization actually does follow through by hiring internally and by promoting its existing employees. Taking the process a step further to incorporate tracking of retention after internal movement is the icing on the cake. It demonstrates the company's commitment to identifying glitches in the process so that action can be taken to correct them.

Quality of movement is an important metric in the shift toward more effective measures in talent management. It places the focus on how well a process is working by tracking results and making linkages to business results; a more strategic and forward thinking approach. This more strategic use of talent management metrics will also allow organizations to be more proactive and agile in the talent marketplace, responding to threats and opportunities before their competitors.

For more information, download i4cp's Quality of Movement White Paper, available exclusively to members.

The Ups and Downs of Salary and Comp for L&D Professionals

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:23:00 GMT

With a median salary of $75,000, learning and development professionals are paid relatively well compared to other HR professionals and the general workforce. On average, however, their pay levels have not increased in the last four years. What has changed is that extremes in higher and lower paying positions have shrunk during the recession, creating greater concentration toward the median. During the same period, opportunities for advancement in the profession were above the general workforce average and basic benefit packages kept pace with a fairly typical blend.

One unfortunately unchanged statistic for the profession is the gender pay gap, with men in the L&D profession - as in many other professions - continuing to earn more than women even when education or experience is the same. There are also fewer women represented in the executive ranks and higher-paying specialties of the L&D profession, which can either help explain the pay inequity or is simply another symptom of a greater imbalance.

The just-released ASTD/i4cp Salary and Compensation Report provides a comprehensive analysis of salary and compensation among learning and development professionals, including detailed breakouts of practitioner demographics such as education, industry, tenure, L&D specialty and gender. This report gathered responses from 1,997 U.S. employees on 40 compensation and benefit measures. ASTD's last salary survey was conducted in 2007, before the onset of the global economic recession.

An exclusive white paper that summarizes the findings from the full report is available to i4cp members for download.

Sample findings from the study include:

The median salary for L&D professionals is $75,000, exceeding the average U.S. income of $46,000
Sixty-five percent of L&D practitioners had a pay raise in 2010; 4% experienced a pay cut
Eighty-eight percent have a Bachelor's degree or higher
Differences in experience, education and L&D specialty drive differences in salaries
Investment of time, energy and fees for professional certification yield a pay premium
Employees with 10 years of experience see a noticeable salary bump, with the biggest salary leap coming after 20 years in the profession
Gender salary gap findings in the L&D profession show:
- Median salary for men is $80,000-$90,000; for women it is $70,000-$80,000
- The proportion of men earning $120,000 or more is twice that of women
- Women are not as well represented in higher paying categories of L&D. There is a dearth of women in executive ranks and higher compensated specialties, possessing advanced degrees, or having 20 or more years of experience.

The ASTD Learning and Development Industry Salary & Compensation Report, 2011 is the definitive salary and compensation report for the L&D industry. A white paper summarizing the research is free to i4cp members. The full report can be purchased from the ASTD Store.

Dress Codes: Keeping Up Appearances, Not Productivity

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:00:00 GMT

As I sit in my office, Bermuda shorts and sandals tucked under my desk and a casual button-down shirt above, I think I can say without any bias that, no - how one dresses does not have an impact on productivity, professionalism or engagement. A jacket doesn't make the man, a tie doesn't focus the mind, dress shoes don't energize the body and slacks bestow no known superpower. You can dress for success all you want, but it won't actually make you better at your job.

That said, why is it that so many organizations maintain and enforce a dress code? First, for years people have been told that how one looks does improve performance. Some swear that hard data exists showing that business formal dress heightens alertness, improves manners, promotes professionalism, reduces tardiness and absenteeism, and increases engagement in the workplace. For them, being crisp and polished shows pride and being well dressed exudes authority.

It's a pervasive attitude - nevertheless, there are no definitive studies I've reviewed that show it to be true. And actually, if you check sources, a lot of the propaganda that's out there was sponsored by either the makers of formal wear or, since the rise of business casual, khaki and polo shirt outlets. For every study showing that business formal dress improves productivity by creating a professional environment, there's another showing that casual comfort does the same by increasing employee morale. But most non-anecdotal, controlled studies simply show little or no affect in either direction. And remember that morale is not engagement - a common misnomer.

Not surprisingly, employees tend to think casual comfort is more productive, while employers want their team members to look sharp. Neither contention shows a causal link, though. Really.

The second and more important reason dress codes are put in place is that they are an element of corporate culture, image and branding. While I might contend that clothing won't make you better at your job, it is true that it might make others perceive you as being better at your job.

A recent Ipsos Global @dvisory: Proper Attire in the Workplace global study of attitudes in 24 countries showed that "45% of workers think someone wearing casual work clothes is more productive in their job than someone wearing a more prescribed workplace or business attire … but 55% of workers believe someone wearing a more prescribed workplace or business attire is more productive in their job than someone wearing casual work clothes." A slight bias, but also one that the study shows can be much more pronounced in certain regions. My personal dress code is fairly normal … in Hungaria.

In general, people expect lawyers, bankers and executives to wear ties, office workers should at least wear business or smart casual, and many other professions and work settings require some type of uniform, be they scrubs, overalls or a monogrammed shirt. How else are appropriate rolls and social norms to be determined at a glance? And in the above mentioned Ipsos study, "two-thirds (65%) of workers said that senior managers should always be more dressed up than employees." So though they want to be judged by their work and not their wardrobe, most will still assign status and importance to the guy with the tie.

Of course how this plays out depends on your industry and line of work. While I'd be shocked to see a bank officer dressed like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, a video game tester would gain no cred from a tie - at least not one that didn't depict Mario on a field of mushrooms or have an iPod docking station built in. And different generations will always bring their unique attitudes to the workplace; not necessarily more casual, but something different none the less (eg. given a sharp stick, kids today will pierce anything). This has made defining business casual increasingly precarious over the years.

There are always ebbs, flows and pervasive trends in ideas about what's appropriate to wear to work. And while the workplace has progressed to increasingly more casual attire since the seventies, the shift to street casual for professionals has pulled back since the Dot-com bubble burst forced many a maverick to get a grownup job. Right now, business or smart casual is the norm for most, with the occasional relaxed casual day thrown in for a morale booster.

But no matter how casual it gets, dress codes - or at least some semblance of guidelines - are still a good thing to have in place. Why? Because there's always somebody that's going to push it and take things too far in the forms of a tattered jean, bare midriff, too-short skirt or a t-shirt bearing an offensive (to someone) message. Somebody might even show up with no clothes … and then you'll have to deal with that mess with no clear policy on the books.

If you're worried about enforcement, remember that there's a weird interplay when it comes to dress codes as far as career advancement is concerned. While most surveys say that employees (especially those in their 20s) value more casual work environments and that this can help to retain high-performers, it's also true that dressing less formally leads to less recognition for accomplishments and less professional respect or regard on the part of colleagues. And dressing up for hiring interviews is business formal, with very little leeway. One way cited to promote "business appropriate" attire is for managers to frame it as a good choice for advancement and recognition. Again, creative environments may vary.

As a final thought, keep in mind when designing a dress or appearance code to craft it carefully and apply it consistently to avoid running afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Private businesses usually have a lot of leeway in this area, but reasonable accommodation should always be considered. Whether deemed necessary from a legal standpoint or not, religious or cultural accommodations generally have a positive impact on engagement and productivity, as they reflect positively on an organizations image in regard to diversity and inclusion.

Dress codes are about keeping up appearances and standards, not productivity and engagement. For customer-facing positions, base your decisions on the customers' expectations and you'll usually be okay.

I'm always surprised by how passionate people feel about dress and appearance policies. Share your thoughts and let me know how your organization views business appropriate attire.

Google's HR Practices Explained

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:55:00 GMT

What Would Google Do?

I was able to attend the World@Work conference in San Diego recently. This event is always a wonderful opportunity to get away from the daily grind and spend some time on my professional development. I enjoyed great sessions, met some nice people and even managed to fit in some work at our booth in the exhibit hall. Like my experience at most conferences, there are usually one or two sessions that really stick with me, and this time it was a presentation by the compensation team at Google.

The session was titled "Using Statistical Research to Change Compensation Strategy." I'm pretty vocal about my dislike for across-the-board increases, so when Google announced at the beginning of the year that they were doing a 10 percent across-the-board increase and a bonus for EVERY employee, I was skeptical of the business decision. This session was an opportunity to learn why and how Google did the increase.

Did Google change my views on across the board increases? Yes, they did, and here's how.

They made the decision after extensive research

It shouldn't really surprise anyone that Google put a lot of thought and a lot of research into this investment before they made it. Unlike most companies who use across the board increases as a way to go the "easy route," Google made the choice after months of research. Google surveyed all of their employees (and got a 90 percent response rate) to find out the value that they place on the different elements of compensation.

They then used conjoint analysis to determine what elements of compensation were most rewarding to their employees. And, being that Google is Google, they took it even further to understand the relative worth of one type of reward versus another. For example, did you know that, on average, a Google employee values bonuses at $.91 compared to $1.00 of base salary? This helped the company to understand where they would get the most "bang for their buck" if they wanted to invest more in their people.

They made the decision in alignment with their compensation philosophy change

Google felt strongly that they were a competitive payer in the market. They said they used survey data at the 75th percentile to extrapolate the 90th percentile for most positions. Interestingly, they also said they have a collection of market data that they have amassed from employees hired into their organization based on their previous salary at other top technology companies. But, the organization decided that it was no longer enough to be competitive, they wanted to have the highest salaries in the market, and that is when they decided to do the 10 percent across the board increase.

While we assume that many of the employees that work at Google are top performers, this increase wasn't about performance but more about their commitment to be the very best in terms of compensation. They wanted to do that across the board - not just for certain individuals. So, while I'm not a fan of across the board increase as a substitute for smarter compensation decisions, in Google's case it was in addition to their merit process. It was about raising all of their salaries to levels that exceed at the competition.

They made the decision after carefully studying the impact on the business

It's a different type of person who does compensation work at Google. This was evident when one member of the team talked about how fun it was to do a month of Monte Carlo simulations on the stock price for various proposals. Google made this decision carefully with good information about the effect it would have on stock price now and in the future. They knew exactly what ROI they were hoping for and are tracking that closely to make sure that they intended result is the actual result.

Preliminary results indicate success as their retention rate saw a sharp increase in the first quarter of this year. Google understands the value of retaining top performers and, rather than give lip service to this value, they live it in practice. They know that the investment they make now will reduce the turnover of top talent, which can be devastating to the bottom line.

What about the non-performers? How did the board, leadership and fellow employees feel about a low performer getting the same increase as a top performer? The answer was simple. Compensation is not the way to handle low performance. Low performance is a management issue and the presenters said that Google has strong commitment to managing employees in a way that moves them out of roles where they aren't successful and making sure that low performance isn't tolerated.

Interestingly, they said that when low performers are put on performance improvement plans about 25 percent of the time they improve their performance, 50 percent of the time they move to a different role within the company that may suit them better and 25 percent of the time they leave (usually on their own). Thank you, Google. I couldn't have said it better myself. It's true, compensation is not the way to deal with management issues in the organization. If anything, their actions in aligning their compensation with their new strategy only further illuminated the need to deal with non-performers.

Thanks to this presentation, I have to put a little asterisk on my dislike about across-the-board increases and say that, if you do what Google did, go for it. If you have a well thought out action plan that is well researched, aligned with your compensation strategy and has a positive impact on the bottom line, then proceed with your across-the-board-increases. For the rest of us, let's work hard to be like Google someday.

Sincerely,

Stacey Carroll, SPHR, CCP

Director of Professional Services

PayScale.com

This article was originally published at PayScale.com. It was reprinted with permission.

Becoming an Employer of Choice

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:48:00 GMT

It seems strange to urge organizations to devote the extra time and effort to become an employer of choice at a time when unemployment is rampant and HR departments are flooded with resumes - why aim to attract even more candidates?

The answer isn't complicated; the underlying cause of the Great Recession and the slow recovery is that, fundamentally, the world economy is changing. As Thomas Friedman points out in The World Is Flat, "Something big…is happening at warp speed and directly or indirectly [is] going to touch a lot more people on the planet at once."

In the past, many companies gained a competitive advantage through globalization and tapping into unexploited labor pools. Nonessential work was outsourced in order to focus on core competencies, and companies invested heavily in technology to create productivity gains faster than the competition.

The recent recession has clearly demonstrated that those strategies will not be enough to compete in the next economy. The world is increasingly global and connected; technology, especially social media, feels like an out-of-control freight train headed directly at corporations. The next economy is also incredibly diverse socially, culturally and politically. But at its core, it is obsessively innovation-driven - to build and sustain a competitive advantage, companies must continuously innovate. In i4cp's The Critical Human Capital Issues of 2011 study of more than 400 companies, the percentage of high market performers indicating that innovation is critically important has increased dramatically over the past year.

But there is a big problem for U.S. organizations that want to innovate to stay competitive in this shifting global economy. Innovation requires a workforce with deeper knowledge and skills than ever before in areas such as science and math. However, the U.S. education system is failing to produce such workers.

While the best schools in the U.S. are still the best in the world, the gap between the best and the rest is widening. Today, one in four incoming freshmen will not graduate from high school, and in the largest metro areas, fully half will not graduate. On standardized international tests, 12th graders score in the bottom quartile in math and science. As a result, colleges are significantly increasing the number of remedial courses required for entering freshmen. A deeper problem is that most graduates are being educated to perform in the past economy. It is estimated that at best, the country may be producing only 10% of the skilled workers needed for the next economy.

Being an Employer of Choice

The bottom line is the talent supply is shrinking, and there is no easy remedy for this problem. Companies will need strategies to attract the best and the brightest from this smaller labor pool, and a popular tactic is receiving praise as an employer of choice. But many question the value of being recognized on lists such as Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For, which highlight companies with enviable benefits, great work culture and job satisfaction. Beyond the assured flood of resumes that result from being named to such a list, is a good employer brand worth the time and effort often associated with ranking well?

Companies that participated in a September 2010 i4cp focus group said "maybe." While most of the practitioners were not fully sold on the ROI of such lists, many cited the same benefits, drawbacks and considerations:

Pros:

It's good for benchmarking and auditing against external market competitors.
It requires pushing recruiting efforts beyond simple representation metrics.
Participation reinforces organizational commitment.

Cons:

It's often a two- to three-month process occupying multiple full-time employees.
It requires open sharing of various organizational metrics.
Dissonance can occur if rankings vary from employees' experiences.
Positive movement in rankings can lead to a lack of executive focus in the future.

Recommendations:

Start with smaller, more specialized lists and internal evaluations.
Have the technical capability needed to gather the required information.
Determine who will be responsible for the effort; make sure to keep the same people involved year-to-year for consistency.
Some questions are open to interpretation; be consistent with answers, such as tiers for supplier diversity and executive pay grades.
Answering one question generally will open up several others, and many lists add questions and levels of complexity over time.
It's often more about taking an inventory and actually taking the survey than the results. Don't do it to make the list; do it as a benchmark and for other nuggets of value.
Don't forget to evaluate whether the effort was worth the information gained.

Health benefits company WellPoint Inc. has dedicated resources to this effort, and as a result has consistently pushed its rankings onto several lists. For instance, WellPoint ranked 50th on the 2010 DiversityInc Top 50 List, and according to chief diversity officer Linda Jimenez, "There's a wealth of information in terms of benchmarking that we've received. It's an opportunity to listen to and share best practices with similar organizations. We will generally utilize the benchmarking reports that are generated by these awards so that we can compare ourselves against our peers."

Jimenez said constant and consistent metrics gathering is required to keep initiatives on course, and third-party awards are just one part of that strategy. "What's important is that we engage in periodic pulse checks of our workforce representation, demographics, associate engagement, supplier diversity, etc. We keep track of our progress month by month to identify gaps and opportunities and to readjust our strategy."

Five Steps for Talent Branding

While public recognition as an employer of choice is good, it is yesterday's strategy. Being competitive in the next economy means employers must execute talent branding. According to Mark Schumann and Libby Sartain, co-authors of Brand for Talent, this means "marketing the employer brand to segments of the potential and current workforce to become known as a magnet for talent." Leaders have to focus on attracting the right talent and determine where there are talent gaps and what can be done to improve or eliminate them. Following are five simple steps to create a talent brand:

Use talent mapping. Talent mapping segments the workforce into separate roles based on their business value. Not all talent is created equal; talent leaders need a method to differentiate critical or pivotal talent. It is important not to analyze roles by job descriptions (too narrow), or job families (too large), or by people in those roles - that's succession planning.
Create meaning for the talent brand. Creating an external talent brand requires leadership to have a talent presence internally and externally. For instance, speaking at events and meetings and sharing best practices and experiences is critical. It is important to balance internal and external branding because the strategy is to build and buy talent. This also means creating a brand that is sustainable and not reliant on key individuals. GE is an example of a sustainable brand that can withstand difficult times and thrive in good times.
Cultivate a learning culture. Talented employees want to keep building their skills. There are few lifetime employment opportunities, which means the ticket to marketability is training and education. The conventional wisdom used to be that if a company made employees marketable, they'd leave at the first opportunity. Today it's typically the opposite - the more training and development available to employees, the more likely it is the employer will retain them.
Focus on the supervisors. Employees rely on their immediate supervisor more than any other individual for information, recognition and motivation. Surveys consistently show that pay is not as critical to attracting and retaining talent as many people think. Low pay is dissatisfying, but is often overemphasized; conversely, high pay alone won't keep people around. The best people stay because they're engaged and challenged by work that makes them better at what they do, and because their managers motivate them. Investing in mentoring programs and supervisor training can pay off, and so can understanding where the organization lacks engagement.
Don't ignore work/life issues. Just as employers got used to giving employees more flexibility in balancing work and life commitments, the idea of flexibility changed. Thanks primarily to technology, now flexibility translates into the blurring of work and life. Employers can help employees find the right balance.

An unprecedented storm is gathering that will make attracting and retaining key talent more difficult in the future. It's not difficult to predict what employers will do; most will wait until there is a burning platform and then react by bidding up wages, raiding competitors for employees, inducing older workers to stay on the job and outsourcing whatever work they can.

Companies looking to lead in the next economy already have developed strategies to build a sustainable talent brand. When these talent shortages occur, employees will have more employment choices than ever, and they will seek work environments that fit their needs.

A company's leadership is the cornerstone on which to build an environment that attracts and retains key talent, in particular, the immediate supervisors. Employees want supervisors to build relationships with them, to be the ultimate communicators - people who provide open and honest information on the organization's mission, systems and policies. Employees want supervisors to treat them with respect and dignity and to provide instant feedback, positive reinforcement and recognition.

Immediate supervisors who already define this role are the most important people to a talent brand. Yet many companies inadvertently do everything they can to block supervisors from attracting and retaining top talent. For example, downsizing has spread supervisors so thin there often isn't enough time to mentor individual employees. Further, supervisors are still rewarded for getting widgets out the door, not for attracting, developing and retaining talent.

People tend to do what they are measured by and rewarded for. Supervisors know it is important to spend time developing employee relationships, but they are not rewarded when they do it well, nor are they held accountable when they do it poorly or not at all.

A storm is coming. Those organizations with strong talent brands will survive and emerge stronger than ever. Will your company be among them?

This article was originally published in the May 2011 edition of Talent Management magazine.

Dude, where's my recovery?

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:58:00 GMT

Despite optimistic murmurings about the economic recovery, which started in 2009 when some economists declared that the recession had ended, real progress seems illusive. And those murmurings are really starting to annoy me. I keep hearing about the post-recession this and the post-recession that, but I'm not feeling it. Are you? Here's what I'm seeing in real life:

My neighbors are still unemployed. Of my three neighbors in closest proximity, all of whom worked in different industries but were downsized the same week in 2010, two are still out of work and the third is underemployed. Both Pete and Jim have been out of work for a year now and Norma is working part-time. Several other neighbors are moonlighting on second jobs to make ends meet because their spouses are unemployed.

Short sales and all-out house abandonments are still raging. Maybe it's worse here in Florida, but the number of darkened homes in my neighborhood is holding steady. People have walked away and no one has picked up those properties, many of which are on the waterfront. Some of my unemployed neighbors keep themselves busy by taking care of the yards of abandoned homes, which at least keeps the grass from giving away the fact that our former neighbors quietly packed up their cars and drove away in the middle of the night.

Costs keep going up, but the paycheck (like the song) remains the same. For those of us fortunate enough to have been continuously employed through the recession, the cost of getting to work keeps going up, starting with more expensive gasoline. In the meantime, employers have shifted more costs to employees, so premiums and out of pocket fees for heath care have risen. Food costs more - everything costs more. And for the most part we can't keep up with those rising costs because pay is unchanged. Except (of course) CEO pay, which is up 11% (thanks for that, media outlets, great way to start the work week). What a relief - no more worries for CEOs about how to budget that yacht club initiation fee this summer. Yeah. I said it.

We're in abusive relationships with our banks. It's almost sad - like an icky, dysfunctional relationship - we keep hoping things will get better but they don't. Although interest rates remain in the dumper, people continue to choose to make deposits to commercial banks. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that deposits have increased 10% since 2008, to the tune of $8.1 trillion. But the cash that folks have stashed in bank accounts is doing little to nothing in terms of working for them, with earned interest pretty much at zero and, in reality, the money we have set aside is moving us backwards when we take rapidly rising costs into consideration.

We are on the endangered species list. When I say we, I mean people who went to college and maybe took on student loan debt or worked our way through school or a combination of the two. We entertained dreams that seemed realistic at the time - finding a job, maybe if we were lucky, in a field we loved and in a profession doing something we cared about. We hoped to maybe have a family and be able to provide for them, nothing lavish, but perhaps one day we would own a home with some grass we could mow on the weekends. Maybe we even day-dreamed about taking our 1.5 kids and the family dog on vacation, or camping or fishing once in a while, like we did with our own parents.

But most of us just can't afford it. We're too busy working to pay the bills or perhaps too paranoid about leaving the office to go on vacation for fear we will indeed prove to be non-essential in our absence. Or we worry that if we spend the money on the family trip we will be caught up in a RIF a month or two later and be that much closer to joining the ranks of those squatting in their own homes or walking away after handing the keys to the bank.

Middle class dreams seemed attainable 10 years ago, but not so much now. The gap between the middle class and the wealthy is becoming a yawning chasm that's starting to look more like an abyss. As corporate profits rise we see median income falls, and sometimes all I want to do is roll up into a ball and watch a really bad Keanu Reeves movie. I like to believe that, for the most part, life is a most excellent adventure. But lately, it's been feeling totally bogus.

How are things in your neck of the woods? Are you seeing signs of recovery, or are you still waiting?

My LMS Vendor Just Got Acquired By Another Company! Now What?!

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:13:00 GMT

The landscape of learning management system (LMS) vendors is constantly changing. There have been dozens of acquisitions in the past decade, including a big one [last] week. This can be a scary time if your organization happens to be using an LMS that gets acquired by or is merging with another company. After all, you've most likely invested thousands of dollars and many hours getting the system set up and configured to work well. So, if your LMS vendor gets acquired by another company, what should you do? What questions should you ask?

My first piece of advice would be: Just relax. The process of merging two businesses generally takes a while. You most likely won't see any overnight changes. Take this time to think through several scenarios and prepare a list of questions for your account representative.

Below is a starter list of questions that you may want to ask. The account rep may not know all of the answers if the news is still fresh, but it's good to start thinking in these terms. To keep things straight, I'll use the terms acquirer (the company making the purchase) and acquiree (the company being purchased).

Question to ask:

Why (specifically) was the company acquired?
How will the roadmap for the LMS change?
Will the underlying technologies change?
What products, services, features, etc., of the acquirer will be made available to clients of the acquiree?
How will the support model change for the acquiree, if at all?
Will the hourly rate change for the acquiree? (ex. For customizations)
Will any of your technical or support contacts change?
Will there (still?) be an annual conference for the LMS and its users?

I'm sure I left off some questions. What else would you add?

This article was originally posted by B.J. Schone in eLearning. April 28, 2011.

Make the Fat Cats Prove Their Worth

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:58:41 GMT

Two bits of compensation news caught my attention recently. The first was a Wall Street Journal story reporting that Fortune 500 CEOs are once again raking in multi-million dollar bonuses, a tribute to their lone struggles in coming up with the brilliant strategies that have miraculously restored the nation's economy and brought their companies back to profitability.

The second bit of news is that, while merit raises are slowly coming back for the minions who've been under pay freezes for the last three years, the rate of those increases will likely not reflect the cost-of-living increases and diminished healthcare benefit coverage that average workers have shouldered during that time. Also, it will be up to the individual to prove their worth when asking for a raise - with average performance not being good enough for a 3% increase anymore.

I'll start by saying that, in fairness, many of the CEO's cited in the WSJ article have quite publicly forgone bonus compensation over multiple recessionary years and are only claiming their added booty now that profit margins and stakeholder payouts are looking up. In fact, the new financial-overhaul law that took effect this year requires that every business whose stock-market value exceeds $75 million must let investors weigh in (to whatever effect) on rewards for the top brass at annual meetings. So if a company agrees to millions in bonuses for a top exec based on certain preset goals, I certainly think they should pay what they promised.

But let's face it, when your annual bonus is equal to ten times the average worker's lifetime household earnings, I don't think a little added scrutiny or requiring way above average performance ratings is out of line. After all, if the average worker who is living paycheck-to-paycheck has to exceed expectations to be considered worthy of a raise that amounts to 10,000 times less than a CEO's bonus payment, I personally want to see more rigorous proof of worth. Besides, CEO's probably have people to keep track of and market their accomplishments for them.

Far from wanting to rant about how this resurgence in excessive top executive compensation is being justified, however, I would just like to take a little time to talk about team efforts. After all, it hardly seems likely that these leaders could be achieving the goals they're being rewarded for without a dedicated, hardworking group of followers. Seeing as how a lot of brilliant executives' strategies during the recession seemed to involve laying off all but the most essential and productive personnel - many of whom were then required to absorb multiple jobs and roles, eschew vacations and contribute staggering amounts of un-compensated labor - it seems … let's say unappreciative … to signal a recovery by doling out millions in bonus money at the top while forcing the underlings to put in additional effort just to secure the scraps that trickle down.

Face it, if you couldn't find a reason to get rid of a particular functionary over the last few years, maybe they've already proved their worth. And when you only have high-performing employees left, at this point they may not appreciate the added hoop-jumping required for compensation increases that used to be considered a base hygiene factor in maintaining a workforce. In the face of that perceived ingratitude, why wouldn't they be more inclined to take their leave and go prove their worth somewhere else?

With the economic recovery still in its infancy and a brewing talent shortage and war on the horizon, organizations will soon realize that overcoming challenges as a team needs to culminate in sharing rewards as a team. Getting compensation plans up to date and competitive now (as Google did in November 2010) will be a big factor in retaining the lean and engaged team that has kept organizations afloat through the bad times. And if those at the top are truly part of that team and believe in a sustainable future for the enterprise, they may want to save taking the lion's share of the rewards for a later date.

Is your organization looking to modify compensation policies to offset anticipated post-recovery turnover rates that could reach 75% of the workforce? For top-performing executives, how do you defend a policy that doles out hundreds (if not thousands) of times the rewards to one employee while denying long overdue cost-of-living increases to hundreds (if not thousands) of other employees?

Your Best Employees Are Going to Leave You

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:57:00 GMT

Fears about retention have been mounting for months, and it's likely that you and others in your company are seriously worried about losing that special someone - that high performing or high-potential employee that hasn't received a raise in the last couple of years and could, at any moment, decide to move to greener pastures.

Turnover is going to happen no matter what. And it's going to increase as the job market improves.

But you already know that.

You may even have strategies in place to deal with inflated turnover. But once the fence-jumping begins, how will you know your efforts have paid off? The money you invested to improve engagement and retention… was it spent wisely? Your boss will want to know. Your CEO will want to know. You‘ll definitely want to know.

But you already know that, too. The challenge is: how do you actually measure the success of your retention efforts? And how do you stem the cascade of attrition that threatens to take your most valuable employees first?

That's where quality of attrition metrics come into play.

Throughout 2010, several member companies worked closely with i4cp as participants in the Talent Management Exchange (formerly Talent Management Accelerator) to address the challenges of talent management measurement. Quality of attrition was one of four key metrics the peer-driven working group decided to focus on.

Attrition, or employee separation, refers to the end of a worker's relationship with an organization. That separation may be initiated by the employer, as in layoffs and terminations; or it may occur at the discretion of the employee as a voluntary separation or retirement.

But measuring attrition isn't as simple as tracking how many employees have left the company, or even under what circumstances. When it comes to this critical metric - while overall attrition is important to monitor - it's quality of attrition that can make the most meaningful contribution to organizational performance.

You see, you may not care that employee "Bob" quit. He did OK work but is easily replaceable. You may accept that employee "Carl" quit in order to relocate after his wife got a job in the Cayman Islands.

But what about employee "Adam," who you tapped for a possible leadership role one day and devoted development resources to? What if he quit because your main competitor was paying more and offering an immediate promotion to a management position?

If you're not tracking those aspects of attrition specifically, you should be. The good news for you is that fewer than a quarter of companies (24%) track high-performer separation rates, with the use of other quality of attrition metrics going downhill from there.

In other words, most companies are missing out on increasingly critical attrition information just like you are.

If you are tracking quality of attrition metrics like high-performer separation rate and regrettable termination rate, however, you're in good company. High performance organizations are more likely to use separation or attrition measures as strategic tools in their management of talent than their lower-performing peers.

Employees are going to leave your company this year. Some are going to be your best employees. The grass will always look greener on the other side, no matter how much you water, fertilize and put barbed wire on the fence.

But you can hedge your losses and determine whether you have a serious attrition problem by building quality of attrition measurements into your talent management strategy. The insights will be powerful, important, easy to communicate and will let management take the steps necessary to make the other side look a little less inviting.

How i4cp can help

i4cp has recently released new resources that will help you overcome your quality of attrition hurdles:

Quality of Attrition White Paper - Learn why measuring attrition matters, how quality of attrition is calculated and what to consider when using quality of attrition metrics.
Quality of Attrition Scorecard - Download this advanced but easy-to-use plug-and-play tool to start measuring attrition metrics immediately.
Quality of Attrition Webinar - At your leisure, view this highly rated, on-demand webinar presented by i4cp experts Mary Ann Downey and Carol Morrison. That means watch it tonight instead of "Dancing With the Stars".

The Learning-Succession Connection

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:10:00 GMT

When business leaders use the phrase "succession planning," their thoughts probably don't fly immediately to their organizations' learning functions. But perhaps they should. Because effective succession planning really isn't just about planning at all. It's about the successful union of both planning and development. And companies' learning functions are all about development.

There is some variation among business pundits when it comes to defining what is meant by succession planning. Canada' HR Council for the Voluntary & Non-profit Sector takes a simple approach, declaring succession planning to involve identifying and developing "individuals with a high potential for taking on leadership positions." HR expert Susan M. Heathfield expands the notion of succession planning beyond the executive level, charging organizations with intentionally recruiting talent to be developed for "each key role within the company." But it is business thought leader Marshall Goldsmith who takes up the cause of augmenting planning with development, cautioning organizations against the pitfall of regarding succession programming complete merely because a plan has been hatched and documented. "Measure outcomes, not process," he advises, opining that a name change "from succession planning to succession development" might be in order.

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and ASTD (the American Society for Training & Development) (2010) teamed for a major research study into the roles that organizational learning functions play in the succession planning process. The two organizations used a definition coined by Russo and Mitchell (2005) to include "identifying key positions, candidates, and employees to meet the challenges that an organization faces" in both short- and long-term time frames. ASTD and i4cp added to the process "developing and advancing employees in the succession pipeline."

The Challenge for Organizations

As is the case with every organizational function in this economy-traumatized business environment, it is important to understand the relevance of succession planning. That is, identifying the business-critical issues that succession planning addresses and how its effective execution supports organizational performance, now and in the years ahead.

Common sense suggests that companies need trained and capable leaders if they are to fulfill their missions and succeed over the long term. Indeed, they do, but they need to be assured that qualified talent is available to fill mission-critical positions as well. These two objectives emphasize the future orientation that characterizes succession planning. But the effort isn't only about the leadership and other talent needed to ensure an organization's continuity.

The i4cp/ASTD study analyzed responses from 1,247 participants representing organizations across a wide range of industries, company sizes and structures. When asked about their firms' reasons for adopting a formal succession planning process, nearly 90% of respondents cited identification and preparation of future leaders (to a high or very high extent), while about three-quarters said they did so to ensure business continuity. At the same time, more than half said their organizations pursued succession planning in order to offer opportunities for advancement and to support retention efforts. Among the other concerns companies look to succession planning to address are projected shortages of talent, replacement of employees with retirements pending, preparation for company growth initiatives, and support for undertaking change. Taken together, those reasons clearly state that succession planning isn't only about preparing tomorrow's leaders. Rather, it's a much more organizational-pervasive undertaking.

Planning for successors, not just in the C-suite, but in all positions that are crucial to an organization's ability to execute its strategy, provides vital support for overall performance. Ensuring that key positions are filled with qualified individuals who have been properly trained and prepared to effectively handle the duties of those jobs provides a strong foundation for organizational productivity. Successful succession planning also makes it possible to maintain continuity in management. In turn, a solid and dependable structure within leadership and other essential positions adds to an organization's effort to utilize its resources (both financial and human) effectively. Such stability contributes to employee engagement, retention, recruitment and many other functions. Absent an effective succession planning program, an organization stands to lose a great deal.

Unfortunately, that kind of potential loss isn't just theoretical. Participants in the i4cp/ASTD study acknowledged that they have a long way to go in order to master succession planning. Only a scant 14% of respondents characterized their succession planning efforts as being effective to a high or very high extent. Just 17% said that their planning efforts extended far enough into their organizations to ensure (again, to a high or very high extent) that key positions had successors in their pipelines. Overall, more than half of the study participants admitted that their companies didn't even have a formal succession planning process (though about half of those say they plan informally). When it comes to succession planning, the challenges for today's companies are all too apparent. But that means that the opportunities are plentiful for organizational learning functions to take an active role in improving succession planning programs.

The Elements of Succession Planning

The tactics companies use to execute succession planning range from the slapdash - "hit and miss as needed" - to the constructive - "key performers are identified and given stretch assignments" - according to feedback from participants in the i4cp/ASTD research. But certain components emerged from the study that paint a picture of the ways that higher-performing organizations structure their programs.

Responsibility for succession planning most often resides with a firm's entire executive team, and many business leaders see this as a best practice. "Leaders/managers have succession planning objectives as part of their annual performance objectives which drive bonuses," explained a representative from one firm. Another said that "senior leadership understands that they own the process and are actively involved in coaching and developing high potential leaders." Both approaches illustrate how the company brass can be encouraged to take a hands-on role in succession efforts.

In about one in four organizations, responsibility for succession planning falls to the HR department. While HR involvement makes sense because of the function's know-how in talent-related issues and programming, many sources opine that it is senior leaders' active participation that is a key underpinning for optimal succession outcomes. Perhaps it is that mindset that drives selection of candidates for the succession pipeline. Three out of four firms in the i4cp/ASTD study confirm that their favored method is nomination or selection by senior leaders. Some companies acknowledge that they automatically associate designation as a high-potential employee with the succession pipeline, while others say they rely on nominations made by workers' managers.

The Learning Function Is Crucial to Candidate Development

Once a candidate is chosen for the succession program, the role of the learning function becomes central to achieving success. Says a learning leader from an Ohio manufacturing firm, "Our function provides the structure, tools, and process for succession planning." Adding to that description, organizational learning and development director and study participant Lesa Becker of Idaho's Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center explains that her role ranges from talent-review participation to "design and delivery of learning and development plans."

Other study participants echoed Becker's pronouncement, with more than 55% saying their learning function defines content for leadership development programs to a high or very high extent. Almost half of companies look to learning for actual delivery of training, while others seek the function's involvement in integrating succession planning with other talent management programs and with managing succession efforts. Researchers from i4cp and ASTD noted that any involvement by organizational learning functions correlated with succession planning success, but recommended that chief learning officers "work with other talent leaders as well as with the organization's top executives" to ensure integration of succession planning with other talent management programs and to align development with organizational business strategies.

Indeed, learning professionals will welcome the interaction with other talent leaders in order to ensure that succession programs function effectively since multiple obstacles can impede optimal outcomes. The most-often-cited barrier to succession planning success that emerged from the i4cp/ASTD study was a lack of sufficiently robust development plans for candidates. Certainly, involving the learning function and its capabilities in planning and delivering content can help organizations avoid this common pitfall.

Like many talent programs, succession planning can suffer from a dearth of metrics to track results. One in four study participants admitted problems in this area. Other obstacles in the way of good succession planning outcomes include budget woes, issues related to program communication, lack of program reach beyond management levels and problems tracking and sharing data about succession candidates.

Learning professionals can prove instrumental in addressing those and other barriers to succession planning by applying a disciplined approach to the overall development process. As they do with other organizational training programs, learning professionals begin with rigorous planning that helps define the succession process and that includes formulation of custom development programs for each candidate. Learning also can add its voice to those of other talent leaders to encourage senior management's investment in and support for succession planning.

When senior leaders do become involved in candidate development, learning professionals may be called upon to help them prepare for roles as mentors and coaches. A close alliance between leaders and the learning function can help to ensure that candidate development activities actually address the needs identified for each candidate and are relevant to specific business challenges the organization faces, while also providing oversight to maintain consistency and quality in the development process.

Which strategies put "success" in succession planning?

In concluding the report of their study, i4cp and ASTD pointed to "the need to make development a more critical part of the succession planning process and the need to integrate succession planning with other talent management programs." Those two ideas emerged as the core findings behind the inquiry into succession planning.

Few organizations can speak to the value of integrating succession planning and talent management as knowledgeably as i4cp member company McDonald's Corporation. In fact, the fast food organization built its integrated talent management programming on a foundation of leadership development and succession planning. In an interview with i4cp, McDonald's Vice President, Leadership Institute and Global Talent Management David Small described the company's early interest in developing leadership talent as a means of accomplishing succession planning for McDonald's top management. Beginning with a focus on a "more robust performance management system," Small says that the company added a competency model to ensure that "competencies are aligned with our development strategy."

McDonald's early succession planning efforts proved vital to company continuity when the firm lost two CEOs within a single year's time. With a process already underway, McDonald's was able to name successors to both men within hours of their passing. Small notes that the "very unfortunate situation" gave the company's succession and talent programs "the firepower we needed to move forward with efforts that might not have moved as quickly otherwise." Given that history, current McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner's prioritizing leadership development and talent management speaks to the company's ability to learn from (and continue to strengthen) its succession planning experiences.

Companies can take to heart the lessons learned by McDonald's and devote greater focus to preparing viable leadership pipelines. The i4cp/ASTD study yielded a number of helpful recommendations to fuel such efforts. Some strategies likely to contribute to succession planning success include:

Securing senior leaders' championship for succession programs, including leaders' active participation in development activities.
Extending succession planning efforts deeper into the organization in order to address critical roles and those for which talent may be hard to find.
Determining appropriate metrics to gauge program effectiveness and applying them in a disciplined and consistent manner.
Honing the candidate selection process to include employees who embody high potential for leadership and to solicit nominations from company managers.

Finally, organizations are likely to enhance their outcomes by making learning leaders an active part of succession efforts, especially when it comes to shaping and delivering development programs that provide succession candidates with meaningful and relevant content designed to prepare them for the unique challenges that future leadership in their particular organizations will bring.

This article was originally published in the March 2011 edition of Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Effective Management Transitions

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:33:00 GMT

While personal efficacy is critical to a successful transition into a first-time management position, leveraging talent has become a strategic imperative to facilitate this process. Selecting and promoting new leaders is critical, but talent managers know that the lion's share of the work begins in earnest with the actual transition.

The primary challenge in managing a transition for a first-time manager is to aid two critical shifts. According to Joanne McInnerney, director of global talent development at Noevlis, addressing the change in hierarchy and the dynamics of relationships with colleagues and team members is key.

"The first thing that has to shift for the first-time manager is their perception of their relationship to the organization and their role," McInnerney said. "It's about how the manager approaches team members who were once peers but now are direct reports and how relationships with those former peers must significantly change.

"The second shift is how new managers spend their time, and that's a pretty significant core change. If you keep coming to work interacting with people and spending time in the same way that you did as an individual contributor, you're not starting off your leadership role the right way."

Managing effective job transitions can be accomplished with limited resources. McInnerney said she learned a great deal about supporting new leader development at the height of the financial crisis in her former role as an HR consultant with AmTrust Bank. She said the organization remained committed to developing new leaders and facilitating a smooth transition for first-time managers in spite of the fact that the financial institution was in an economic free fall. AmTrust coped with dwindling resources by working with Ohio State University to adapt its off-the-shelf e-learning modules to help equip new managers with the skills and techniques they needed to do their jobs.

"We created a curriculum, kind of a path of expectations that served as a baseline for first-time manager e-learning courses. It worked because it met our needs and the university charged us $3 per course," McInnerney said. Further, the strong coaching culture that already existed in the organization served as a supplement; managers were expected to meet for 30 minutes each week for coaching dialogues with their managers, which were documented.

"Part of that coaching session was feedback on what the new managers were learning in their e-learning courses and making sure they were getting what they needed," she said. "Gaps and opportunities were defined by review of the coaching session documentation, which provided a baseline for establishing where first-time managers stood and determining what they did not know. The weekly feedback and coaching sessions optimized the performance of new managers by assessing progress managing new responsibilities and supporting their growth and development."

Findings from the Institute for Corporate Productivity's (i4cp) "Internal Job Transitioning Pulse Survey" indicate that many new managers struggle to find their footing during the transition. Fewer than one-quarter of the respondents gave their organization high marks in assisting employees to transition from individual contributor to manager, and one-third reported their organization uses tools such as 360 feedback or performance metrics to determine the efficacy of such transitions.

Some organizations acknowledge this gap and address it by building programs to aid the transition to first-time manager. For example, Amway recently developed its Turn 101: Transitioning Into Leadership program for newly promoted first-line, first-time managers or supervisors during their first 90 days on the job.

"The reason we built this program was that research was showing that this is a difficult transition to make. We expect this program to help with this transition," said Erick Mowery, Amway's leadership development and succession management senior specialist.

Mowery said there are three primary challenges for new managers:

Going from managing oneself to managing others.
Going from managing one's own projects to managing team projects.
An individual's success is no longer measured only by his or her own performance, but by the performance of the team.

"So there's a value shift, a performance management shift. It's far more significant than other turns," Mowery said. Amway's management transition program is based on its global leadership model, called a "turns" model, which is derived from work done by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel and the subject of their book The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company.

Mowery said the model depicts a picture of a skier as he makes turns up and down around ski flags. The metaphor is that the skier's momentum pushes him in the same direction, but when he moves toward the next level, there has to be some intentional movement and effort to successfully make that turn.

"If this doesn't happen, the newly promoted leader will continue doing many of the same things he [or] she did in their previous role, which will render them much less effective in their new role," he said. "Research would show the most difficult leadership turn is when an individual contributor gets promoted to first-line leader."

Mowery said he receives regular reports from HR information systems every other week that list any new promotions to first-line management — from individual contributor to someone with direct reports. He automatically registers these employees in the Turn 101 program. The curriculum in the LMS has all the learning activities associated with Turn 101.

The first activity for new Amway managers is a program overview. An e-mail is sent to the employee, and a separate one is sent to their up-line or manager, introducing them to the program and giving them a link to a 20-minute recording with slides and audio on why it's important and what to expect. At that time a kickoff meeting also is scheduled with the participant and their manager to help them understand the critical nature of their partnership during the 90-day transition.

"We need to get them off on the right foot so that the up-line is not saying to this newly promoted person, 'You go do your thing in this program, and let me know when you're done with it.' Rather it's a real partnership, because that's one of the critical success factors of this program, the relationship between manager and participant," Mowery said.

The Turn 101 curriculum includes 13 learning activities ranging from three e-learning courses to four assignments that participants must complete and submit. Other activities include a video recorded by Amway President Doug DeVos and Chairman Steve Van Andel that addresses the organization's core values as they relate to leadership at Amway, as well as some additional articles and other reading materials.

In two of the written assignments, or knowledge applications, participants record examples of new knowledge they've acquired and how they intend to apply it. These assignments are due at the 60- and 90-day marks. Employees have 90 days to complete the first 12 activities in the program. The 13th and final learning activity is a 60-day application activity in which employees discuss something they have learned, how they applied it, what impact it had and how they plan to sustain it.

According to Mowery, Amway employees who have completed the program report sharing what they learn with their team members, and the written assignments are viewed as accountability pieces and are reviewed with their up-lines.

"It makes them apply some of what they're doing, or at least that's the intent. Because you do it at 60 and 90 days, it also helps to keep them on track so they complete the program in 90 days. It helps us see what they are learning and some of the more effective elements in the program. Also, it reveals how they are applying them, and that's a way for us to determine the application and effectiveness of the program," Mowery explained.

Launched in late 2009, Mowery said that Turn 101 doesn't have a significant amount of data yet to measure effectiveness, but anecdotal information suggests there is growing interest in the program, and there has been an uptick in managers calling and asking that employees be included. He said that while metrics haven't yet been determined to measure program effectiveness, Amway will be developing surveys for participants and their managers to identify metrics at levels 1, 2 and possibly 3.

"Over time, if a participant completes more than one 360, we may be able to see that the program is effective when comparing results. I would also look for improvements in performance appraisal results. We will seek metrics that make it clear that our newly promoted employees are transitioning more effectively to their new leadership roles," Mowery said.

Mowery also said that eventually there may be retention measurement for participants, and Amway will look at promotions, reasoning that effectively making that first transition likely will influence later success and could lead to the next level of leadership.

This article was originally published in the July 2010 edition of Talent Management magazine.

Me and My Shadow

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:28:00 GMT

Have you ever had the nagging feeling you were being followed? It might be true. Job shadowing - where a student or a prospective or current employee "shadows" an existing worker to observe how a job is done - is increasingly popular thanks to the recession-driven focus on squeezing the maximum return from every business dollar invested.

A survey conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that only 31 percent of 262 business leaders offered job shadowing for current employees. But another 14 percent declared plans to implement shadowing programs within a year or two. Among respondents from organizations reporting higher performance in revenue growth, market share, profitability and customer satisfaction, nearly 4 out of 10 say they already have job shadowing programs, and another 10 percent say they'll add programs soon.

Benefits All Around

Offering employees experiential, hands-on learning opportunities is at the core of job shadowing. Shadowing affords an observing or prospective employee the chance to be immersed in the actual job environment, making it possible to see an experienced worker apply the skills and traits needed to accomplish the work. An insightful observer also can glean information about the personal characteristics that contribute to success in the position.

The specific benefits of work shadowing vary by situation. Shadowing already is a staple of the educational system's outreach efforts, providing students with opportunities to see what the work world, its industries and its occupations are all about. Students who shadow employees also get an idea of the expectations employers place on their workers and can sample corporate culture. When they open their doors to student shadowers, businesses aspiring to attract future workers find that job shadowing programs help them make inroads into educational institutions and provide opportunities to foster vocational interest and relationships with tomorrow's workforce. Technology company Cisco Systems reaches out to students with shadowing opportunities through its Networking Academy educational initiative, which emphasizes preparation for careers in information communications technology. Over time, such relationships can help employers address anticipated talent shortages, especially in hard-to-fill positions.

Pre-hire shadowing arrangements can give job candidates a clearer idea of the realities of positions for which they've applied, while also demonstrating how an organization follows through on its employee value proposition. Employers can use the shadowing option to support their selection process, boosting the likelihood that a candidate will understand and match not only the job, but also the organizational culture. Some 75 percent of respondents from the i4cp survey found that providing a better understanding of the organization is the top benefit associated with job shadowing.

Richard L. Curry Jr., executive director of staff development emergency operations for the Indiana Department of Correction, said the pre-hire component of the job shadowing program he oversees helps provide potential employees of the state's department of correction with a clearer understanding of job expectations and working conditions.

"We have something of a hard product to sell when it comes to recruiting," Curry explained. "Showing candidates what the job's about beforehand helps us make sure that we're not only recruiting good people, but also retaining them." Curry said pre-employment job shadowing is now mandatory for all new department of correction hires.

Organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advocate beginning the shadowing experience as part of new-hire orientation to help engage new employees early in their tenure while providing an introduction to job duties and workplace routines. Other potential learning benefits for the new employee include exposure to the tools required for the job and their proper use, introduction to the technologies used in job execution, and opportunities to establish relationships and network with the shadowed employee and his or her work team, manager and other colleagues.

Some employers prefer to orient new employees before involving them in job shadowing to build on the new employee's existing knowledge of the company. Post-orientation job shadowing can reinforce engagement, strengthen on-boarding and training processes and shorten new hires' time to full productivity. Pamela Genske, human resources director for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI), said her firm's employees learn about job shadowing opportunities during orientation and can request a shadowing assignment any time after they've joined the company. "People remember what happens in situations they've been placed in much more effectively than they recall a theory they've been taught in a classroom," Genske said.

Job shadowing programs can benefit a range of employees and potential employees. According to the i4cp survey, half of the respondents who said they had job shadowing programs confirm that all employees are allowed to shadow others. A third of respondents say they limit shadowing to high-potential employees. Others target such groups as managers and management trainees, professional employees, women and minorities.

For existing employees, job shadowing serves a number of functions. Skill development is a benefit cited by nearly three-quarters of the respondents to i4cp's job shadowing survey. The research also found almost two-thirds of participants anticipate that job shadowing will facilitate their succession planning efforts. Improvement to internal communication is another expected benefit.

Curry said his agency's job shadowing component for existing employees gives "qualified employees an opportunity to expand their professional development and prepare for promotional opportunities." Companies also cite the value of job shadowing as a tool to promote knowledge retention. In written comments in the i4cp survey, respondents said that job shadowing "allows a better quality of knowledge retention than other processes," and it "builds company knowledge and awareness."

Employees who provide their peers with shadowing opportunities stand to gain personally and professionally from the experience as well. Setting an example for a shadowing colleague requires forethought and a thorough understanding of the work to be demonstrated. Ann Stewart, deputy commander for Navy Personnel Command, established a job shadowing program in the Tennessee-based facility that acts as personnel headquarters for the U.S. Navy's 330,000-plus workforce. She said hosting a shadowing employee "is an opportunity to get 360-degree feedback for your own job … a different perspective. Any time you have someone from outside your area look in and have an open exchange about that, it's helpful."

Further, Stewart said job shadowing is "easy to set up. Other than the time of the people participating, it hasn't cost us anything. Even if we can't always provide upward mobility, job shadowing gives us a way of recognizing that we have a lot of opportunities within our organization. It's a great way to enable employees to spend some time in other people's shoes so they can understand the challenges and the stresses their colleagues face."

How Does Job Shadowing Work?

The extent and focus of job shadowing vary from one organization to the next, but there are some common considerations to explore before implementing a program.

The i4cp survey respondents produced a list of 17 activities needed to develop job shadowing programs. Some 56 percent of participants with shadowing programs in their organizations said they held internal discussions about implementing shadowing. Other startup strategies include seeking feedback from workers who were shadowed, creating guidelines for a job shadowing program and its processes, communicating information about the program to relevant managers and others, and piloting job shadowing to a specified group within the organization.

Responsibility for job shadowing programs often falls to individual business units, human resources or corporate training and development functions. More than half of the respondents to the job shadowing survey told i4cp their firms included shadowing as part of their mentoring programs. Fernán Cepero, vice president of human resources at the YMCA of Greater Rochester in New York, distinguishes between the two. "We have a mentoring program as well as job shadowing," he said. "Mentoring is more informal, working on an as-needed basis for the employee. Job shadowing is very specific, with the participant focused on developing knowledge and expertise in a particular role."

The length of time in which employees engage in job shadowing varies among organizations. Thirty-four percent of i4cp's survey respondents said shadowing lasted one to two days, while 31 percent said it continued for four or more weeks. Duration depends on the purpose and complexity of the shadowing assignment.

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island's executive job shadowing program has been in place for more than four years. Any employee nominated by his or her manager and approved by the division vice president may ask to shadow a company executive for a day.

According to Genske, the CEO and about a dozen top executives are enthusiastic about hosting shadowing employees. The workers gain valuable insight into the expectations and challenges senior leaders face. "[Afterward,] we ask the shadowers to put together presentations of what they learned to share with their department colleagues. Since everyone can't shadow our small group of top executives, the presentation helps to further spread the benefits of shadowing," she explained. Thanks to the high visibility executives give the program, Genske said job shadowing quickly became part of the culture at BCBSRI, requiring little promotion and resulting in a waiting list for participants.

Cepero said that at the YMCA of Greater Rochester, job shadowing serves two purposes: to support both retention and development goals. "We go to great lengths to find great talent, and we certainly want them to stay," he said. "Job shadowing helps new hires acclimate to their jobs and learn the culture of the organization."

For existing employees, Cepero said shadowing "helps them develop professionally and begin to open some doors and insights into their careers." Workers self-identify for the program through discussions with their direct managers. Upon the manager's approval, "a match is made with one of our leaders who is recognized as a subject-matter expert in the role to which the employee aspires," he said.

Cepero said the YMCA's program goes beyond simple observation and involves periodic shadowing over a three- to six-month time frame. "The participant observes, but also has some hands-on work on projects they co-lead or co-facilitate with the person they're shadowing. This adds an experiential element to the shadowing." More than 250 employees have shadowed colleagues during the program's seven-plus years of operation. Cepero said the program's success has contributed to the YMCA's single-digit turnover rate.

Ensure Job Shadowing Impact

As with any organizational program, business leaders will expect job shadowing to produce a significant return on investment. Yet the i4cp research found that 86 percent of respondents report that their organizations don't measure the monetary value of their shadowing programs. Feedback from program participants and their managers are two mechanisms companies can use to gauge success, though more formal measures were cited when i4cp asked about metrics that reflect the value of job shadowing.

Turnover rate among job shadowing participants is the top metric organizations use to assess their program's value, according to respondents. Assessments made before and after shadowing constituted the second choice among metrics, with accomplishment of specific work goals ranking third. Participants' performance levels also serve as a gauge of program value, along with the levels of satisfaction expressed by both shadowed and shadowing employees.

Organizational leaders who have experience with their own job shadowing programs are often enthusiastic proponents of the low-cost training and development method. The YMCA's Cepero said, "Look at job shadowing as a component in your whole leadership development portfolio, and don't confuse it with mentoring by trying to have mentors also serve as shadowees." Curry echoes Cepero's view. He said the Indiana Department of Correction views its pre-hire job shadowing as "one of many tools in our selection process."

Job shadowing programs offer organizations an affordable means to gain a range of development, selection, engagement and retention benefits. In today's recession-scarred business world, lean organizations are likely to drive greater use of this versatile learning approach in the years ahead.

This article was originally published in the September 2010 edition of Talent Management magazine.