Thursday, June 24, 2010

How Heads of HR Should Spot the Future Leaders in Your Business

HR is typically responsible for identifying the future leaders of an organization through succession planning sessions, talent development programs and yes being in the business daily to observe. If you where to look at areas to determine your future leaders, what would you use to do this, absent any formal programs? Here is what I would look at in addition to your programs:
  • individuals who consistently deliver ambitious results for the company
  • individuals who consistently demonstrate the ability to grow, adapt, and be more flexible than their other top performing peers
  • individuals who ask for opportunity and expand their capacity of operation and influence
  • individuals who take things to the next level (ie: imagination, creativity, product futures etc)
  • individuals who have strong powers of observation, judgement, reactions that are spot on, and EQ
  • individuals who are clear thinkers and have a point-of-view that may be counter to the trend, and finally
  • individuals who ask questions that are insightful that get the thought process into a creative frenzy.
The bigger question is are you astute enough and involved enough in your organization to see these features in your talent pool? If you need a book to help you read Ram Charan's book Know-How. 

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

How to Keep Your Top Talent

Practically every company these days has some form of program designed to nurture high-potential employees. But a recent study by the Corporate Executive Board demonstrates that nearly 40% of internal job moves made by people identified by their companies as "high potentials" end in failure. Disengagement within this cohort of employees also is remarkable: One in three emerging stars reported feeling disengaged from his or her company. Even more striking, 12% of all the high potentials in the study said they were actively searching for a new job--suggesting that as the economy rebounds and the labor market warms up, organizations may see their most promising employees take flight in large numbers. Why do companies have so much trouble bringing along their next generation of leaders? The Corporate Executive Board's research showed that senior managers make misguided assumptions about these employees and take actions on their behalf that actually hinder their development. When dealing with high-potential employees, firms tend to make six common errors: assuming that all of them are highly engaged, equating current performance with future potential, delegating the management of high potentials down in the organization, shielding promising employees from early derailment, expecting stars to share the pain of organization-wide cutbacks, and failing to link high potentials and their careers to corporate strategy. These mistakes can doom a company's talent investments to irrelevance--or worse.

Here are some things you should do to keep your top talent on track:
  1. don't just assume they are engaged - give them stimulating work, a chance to prosper, and recognition or they will walk
  2. don't mistake current high performance for future potential - test candidates for ability, engagement, and aspiration
  3. don't delegate talent development to line managers - this will limit the talents access to senior members
  4. don't shield talent - place talent in live fire roles
  5. don't assume top talent will take one for the team - compensate top talent differently and creatively
  6. don't keep young leaders in the dark - share strategy with them
How does your talent management program stack up against these areas? If you think your program needs a thorough review you should click on the link above and read this article in detail.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Goals vs. Objectives and Strategy

First, lets give a quick clarification of definitions. Goals are your general intentions, the big picture aims or you or your company.

Your objectives are the outcomes that represent achievement of that goal. Things you can actually observe. In order to be classified as an objective, you have to measure them. You need a way of defining whether you have or have not completed them successfully.
Strategies are the action plans you’ll execute to reach the objective. Tactics are the pieces and parts of the strategy:

GOAL(S): To increase our company’s footprint through participation in social media.
OBJECTIVE(S): Increase our blog subscribers by 15% in 6 months. Grow our LinkedIn connections by 250 members (a 25% increase) by the end of the year. Establish a Facebook Page with 500 fans within 6 months to 9 months
STRATEGY(IES): Develop a strategy or set of strategies for each one. It is a roadmap for how you will get there.

So that is the set hierarchy. Set these rules in place for as you review and edit your goals, objectives, and strategy for the remainder of 2010 & planning for 2011 to increase your exposure to the world and build your social media portfolio.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Executing in a Fast Changing Environment

This excerpt summary from Workforce Magazine (June 2010) caught my eye because of the ever changing environment HR people are in today. Not only is the business models changing but so is the economy and the drivers of competition.

Executives must be able to lead their companies to quickly adapt to new market forces in this unpredictable economic climate. Under these extreme conditions that face companies survival depends in part to sound strategy but even more so on effective strategy execution. HR executives or aspiring HR executives this is a key point for you in your HR execution.

Because execution plays such a critical role in success or failure, especially during a crisis, many companies are turning to new technology solutions to ensure they can deliver on strategies and emerge even stronger. Any company that fails to adapt quickly and efficiently to market changes can miss important opportunities ir risk their very survival.

With that prologue, here are some key barometers to attain or execute to going forward if you are not already doing this:

  • A new strategy is not enough - executing under these extreme market conditions is not enough, meaning you need to make sure you touch every point of the strategy timeline and product offering.
  • Align your workforce with what you want to accomplish - workforce alignment and performance is critical.
  • Be prepared to change course or rethink your strategy monthly - it is difficult to get your strategy right the first time so review religiously. 
  • Leverage performance and talent management solutions for business execution - this will help you attain the top and bottom line results. 
If you are an HR practitioner you need to make sure you are working directly with your CEO to accomplish these goals. If not then you better begin or you will be left out in the cold and people will question your value to the organization. 

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Corporate Social Responsibility: HR's Leadership Role

In a global economy, increasingly organizations have a responsibility to facilitate, demonstrate and promote corporate social responsibility (CSR). Long-term sustainability demands that organizations rethink their business goals and objectives from solely focusing on making a profit to corporate citizenship and employee involvement.

Today, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is beginning to be seen in communities throughout the world--from human rights and labor practices to health care and the environment. At home and abroad, human resources heads play a critical role--that of leading and educating their firms regarding the importance of CSR while at the same time strategically implementing sound HR management practices that support the company's business and CSR goals.

Do you as a human resources leader fall into this cateory, if not why not?