Archive for the ‘Employee Development’ Category
Safety and Contingent Workers – are the Savings worth the Costs?
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Talent Management on May 9th, 2010
Some industries heavily utilize contingent workers to save money from employee owned burdens. One of those industries is oil and gas. A recent illustration of this issue is the Transocean oil rig incident in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the 126 people onboard that rig, 79 worked for Transocean, 6 for BP, and 41 of them were contingent/contract workers. Sometimes, contingent workers have skill sets outside of the core competencies/operator qualifications of employees – in this case Halliburton had just cemented the 18,000 foot well before the explosion. In other, and in most cases, contingent workers are hired to simply save money.
Contingent workers are less safe than employee owned workers. Why is this?
The metaphor I like to use for contingent versus worker is renting or buying a home. I think both of these illustrate the difference between owning a process or simply being part of one. Do the renters of your house take care of it like you did when you lived there? Probably not. Employees absorb the culture, the symbolism, the politics and the human factors of working in an organization. They have an ownership experience. Contingent workers, on the other hand, collect a paycheck and do not receive the same indoctrinization as an employee would.
Jeffry Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, studied contingent workers in 1994 and determined that they were less safe than employee owned workers. I continue to validate his findings with HR professionals when discussing safety and human capital practices – they always concur with Pfeffer’s conclusion. Laurie Bassi, of McBassi and company, showed that companies with optimized human capital practices recorded fewer safety incidents than those with subpar HR practices. One of the pillars of her research was “learning capacity.” Learning capacity describes and organizations ability to instill learning in its employees. She showed that American Standard was able to reduce the number of incidents by nearly 25% when elevated levels of human capital were present.
I am a huge believer in the value of training and you can train someone into a mindset if they are willing to learn. You can train any employee into a safety mindset. There are many international laws that define the contingent classification. In some countries, like Canada, training for contingent workers has to be separate than those that are company trained. This disenfranchises employees from the cultural mindset needed to be safe. Willingness of contingent workers to be trained is also an issue – what is the upside of this training with no positive payout in the end? Even before the incident, Transocean put safety ahead of production as a company-wide goal. If they really want to create shared ownership and permeate a safety culture, they should stop sourcing contingent workers and start hiring them.
Broaden Your Talent Pool – Lessons from “Undercover Boss”
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Performance Management, Succession Planning, Talent Management on February 8th, 2010
There is an excellent CBS reality series on TV right now called, “Undercover Boss.” Executives from Waste Management and 7-Eleven go undercover and pretend to be entry-level employees. They experience what the front-line employee experiences.
Too often I encounter companies that completely ignore the hourly or salary non-exempt employee in the field when it comes to leadership development. (See previous post) This is easily discovered in the systems they own to enable this process. Companies don’t acquire software for the entire employee population. Sadly, and this really is the true divider, those employees with ready access to the internet get included. This is not a legitimate trigger.
The evolution of Talent Management has not evolved to every employee. This conundrum is often encountered in retail, manufacturing, oil and gas, hospitality and utilities where there is large percentage of skill workers. Most of the workgroups are out in the field, detached from corporate. High-turnover compounds the issue because companies are disinterested to go through the pain of measuring someone who is likely to leave within a year.
– How does a roustabout in an oil field get recognized as a high-potential when no one is looking at him?
– How does the retail employee get recognized when no one measures her?
– How about the hotel clerk who performs exceptionally high for the competencies required for the position?
Joe DePinto, CEO of 7-Eleven, encountered a high-potential first hand in Igor Finkler, a midnight fresh food delivery driver in Lewisville, TX. DePinto recognizes him for his energy, positivity, and enthusiasm – he wants more people like Igor working for 7-Eleven. (See the video here)
So how do you measure the potential of an employee like Igor? This is where I think the ERP vendors like SAP and Oracle have major advantages. They have way more touch-points into an employee than a niche talent vendor through core HR, portal, and self-service pages. Since they own the core HR system, they have the largest window from which to measure an employee. Having access to the internet shouldn’t be the gateway into the talent pool. You certainly shouldn’t have to send the CEO undercover to find a high-potential. I hope this series will open executive eyes to the potential of someone in these ranks.
Talent Management – Which Module Should We Deploy First? Learning Management
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Goals, Succession Planning, Talent Management on March 31st, 2009
Talent Management integration is natural between the primary modules. When companies look to deploy a talent management solution they often struggle with how to map out a technology strategy. There are a couple of good firms that can help companies with projects like this (HRchitect and Knowledge Infusion to name two). Software firms like SumTotal, which is the highest rated Learning Management vendor, have built their company around “Talent Development”. Learning Management has been around at least 15 years and is the most mature module in the talent suite. It is the first module you should deploy. On the opposite end, Succession Planning is the last module that should go live because so many inputs are required for a sound succession plan – many of those inputs come from the Learning function.
Most companies have training programs already for their employees. Learning Activities need to be tied to a development plan; the association of these activities needs to be in place to execute the training. Your company should do development planning during the goal setting process. Development goals can be created alongside with work goals. It is a great time for your manager to convey a growth mindset and that they are amenable to pushing their employee to train. Tacit permission is needed so the employee can feel comfortable diverting from their job activities.
Learning Management is also the primer for Workforce and Succession Planning. Any company that plans its people around business initiatives will need to train its people. Any company that plans for succession and leadership development will need its people to acquire new skills.
The last, and most important reason, is that the return on investment for Learning is the greatest and most provable for all the talent modules. I hear a lot of CEO’s on analyst calls claim to develop and train their people – often these are hollow statements. If your company spends greater than 4.0% of payroll on learning and development, you know that this isn’t lip service.
Josh McDaniels epitomizes Fixed Mindset
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Talent Management on March 18th, 2009
Fixed Mindset case Number 1: Yoga
“Today somebody came into my office and asked me about a yoga instructor helping the players. I never thought I’d be talking about yoga. I don’t know anything about yoga.” -Josh McDaniels – Denver Post 1/25/2009
When asked about Yoga and other items 2 weeks later: “The football part of it has been pretty much what I thought it would be,” McDaniels said. ”Some of the decisions you make on a daily basis, on non-football issues, have been a little surprising. The color of paint on your walls. Whether to do yoga. I’ve never really had the opportunity to decide things like that.” Asked what he decided on yoga, McDaniels said he said no, even though his mother, Chris, enjoys it. ”There’s not a lot of teams in the league that were doing that,” he said. ”I’m not sure you have to do that to be successful.” – this means the Patriots didn’t do it…
• Yoga helped Jordan Farmar with his 42” vertical in the NBA combine
• Yoga helped Kareem Abdul-Jabaar play well into his 40’s
• Your future perennially all-pro left tackle, Ryan Clady does yoga
Fixed Mindset case number 2: Mike Leach
Mike Leach was the long-snapper for the Denver Broncos since 2002. The first signing that Josh McDaniels in the off-season was to sign Lonnie Paxton making him the 2nd highest paid long snapper at 5.3 million in the NFL shelling out 1 million in a signing bonus.
So what was so wrong with Leach that Josh McDaniels needed to bring in Lonnie Paxton? Did he muff some snaps? Did he send the ball over the punter’s head? Did he throw it too hard so the holder couldn’t place it for the kicker?
Let’s look at Mike Leach’s numbers:
40 extra points – any blocks, muffs?
34 field goals – any blocks, muffs?
46 Punts – any blocks, muffs?
None.
None.
And None.
What was so great about Lonnie? He was a Patriot.
Fixed Mindset Case Number 3 – Jay Cutler – Managing your “A” Player
You are a high-performing individual contributor and you were just notified that your new boss starts today. You didn’t anticipate the change because you thought your manager was solid. You are the star of your manager’s team. You know your skills are marketable and there are several competitors that would love to have you. You get a call from a head-hunter that you know and you find out that your new manager is trying to replace you with one of “his guys” from his old firm. You haven’t had a single conversation with this new manager so how can he assess your skills and assume “his guy” is better than you? Lo and behold, “his guy” went to another company with a better offer. You approach your new manager about this and he denies it; you have the evidence that proves otherwise.
How would this make you feel about your long-term prospects at the firm?
Could you put your full faith in your new manager?
Is this good management?
There isn’t much difference between a player and a coach in the business world:
• The manager/employee relationship is predicated on trust
• You still have a hierarchy – Head Coach, Position Coach, Player
• You have mutual goals – To win the division, to get home field advantage, to win the SuperBowl
• A good manager knows you perform better when you are engaged – The most successful quarterbacks have had a great quarterbacks coach
• A good manager helps develop your skills
• A good manager wants you to be more successful than him
The number one reason why someone leaves a company is the relationship with their manager. If you are not hired by your manager, your performance rating will generally be lower. This is a proven correlation.
If Josh McDaniels were in the business world, he should be fired for incompetence at the manager level. Pat Bowlen should seriously make this consideration.
Researcher of the Decade – Dr. Laurie Bassi
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, ROI in Human Capital, Talent Management on February 27th, 2009
Of all the Talent Management gurus that give us advice, tell us how we’ll be better if we just did this, Dr. Laurie Bassi is the one I admire most. A couple of things about her: She owns her own talent strategy firm called McBassi and Company (maybe she liked McDonalds growing up) She is one of Success Factors’ valuable research resources. I think she best connects the dots between the value of people and company performance. One of the main things HR struggles with is how to sell people related projects to the executive team.
Dr. Bassi authored one of the most unique white papers on ROI for Human Capital Management. In one of her cases she looks at a South Carolina school district that had plenty of funding but poor test results. Those schools that had better Human Capital practices always scored better. Why is this study more relevant to performance than in the business world? You simply have to develop a student. You can’t hire them. You can’t fire them. And you can’t pay them. I haven’t seen another study come close to this. This truly proves the value of development.
The most telling sign that Dr. Bassi’s research is spot on? She created a Human Capital Stock Index for companies that exhibit best practices in Talent Management. And guess what? Those companies had better returns for their shareholders. If you look at a company and what it is worth, the value of intangible assets dominate that balance sheet. What do you think a firm like Deloitte Consulting is worth? They truly represent Human Capital Value Add. How much value does a consultant with a weekly billable goal add to its organization?
Succession Planning First Step – Identify your Talent Pool
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership, Recruiting, Succession Planning, Talent Management, Workforce Planning on February 23rd, 2009
I had a recent visit to a client that said they had over 500,000 resumes on file for this 28,000 person organization. This was pretty impressive since their policy was to hold resumes for only 1-year. They had over 100 recruiters and a well-oiled process for brining new talent on-board. Their time to hire was 28 days – which by my count has to be in the top 10% of all companies. After hearing them discuss their best practices in recruiting, I asked, “How many internal resumes do you have for the 28,000 employees? A look of consternation came back to me – the answer was none. They even posted for 5 business days internally before bringing the requisition out to the public. (5 days was included in the 28 which makes that number even more impressive) How does a company like that spend its resources on people that don’t even work at the company? This is not a unique case. Amazingly enough, I would say that most companies don’t capture employee data. Resume data for an internal employee (aka “Talent Profile”) is outdated on day 1 of the job.
Building out your Talent Pool accomplishes these two things:
1) It classifies and inventories your Human Assets. Everything else is accounted for – why not account for your people?
2) It allows you to create the foundation for your Succession Planning process.
There are multiple Talent/Core vendors that have Talent Profile functionality. Be sure to take advantage of this. If you are launching a talent initiative, make the Talent Profile step 1 before anything else. Why? It is the easiest win. Here are some tips:
1) Employees won’t update this on their own so definitely send out a task to complete this.
2) The Talent Profile should be updated every 6 months otherwise the information won’t be accurate.
3) The KISS principle applies – half the point of launching this first is to introduce your employees to the system. Don’t overburden them with a long form.
Do these things and you will be well on your way to managing talent.
Two Unique Measurements of Potential for Succession Planning – Part 2 – Self-Efficacy
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership, Succession Planning on February 20th, 2009
Let’s start with a definition of self-efficacy. It is a belief that one has the capabilities to execute the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations. Unlike efficacy, which is the power to produce an effect (in essence, competence), self-efficacy is the belief that one has the power to produce that effect.
Self-Efficacy is the single most important determinant of success at anything. Yes – I will say it again: Self-Efficacy is the single most important determinant of success at anything.
So, on that premise, don’t you think you should measure someone’s self-efficacy to determine their potential? How will you know if they can succeed at the next level?
If one of your employees has a high degree of self-efficacy, then they have the following:
1) An appetite to continuously learn – the best leaders are those that never stop learning. Often, managers stop learning after they think they have mastered management. The best leaders never let their willingness to learn expire.
2) More likely to model their behavior after someone or allow someone to model them – mentoring is a very effective for employee engagement both for the mentor and mentee.
3) Attribute of a hard-worker – being smart is nothing without hard work. Those with Self-Efficacy know that anything worthwhile isn’t easy to do.
4) Perseverance when a set back arises – these leaders don’t blame others for failures and take ownership to correct their mistakes.
Self-Efficacy is basically a competency with the above associated behaviors. Make sure you include it as one of your leadership competencies and measure it as a predictor of potential.
This is a great paper on the subject by Peter Heslin and Ute-Christine Klehe. Self-Efficacy
Two Unique Measurements of Potential for Succession Planning – Part 1 – Managerial Mindset
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership, Succession Planning on February 17th, 2009
One of the big issues I’ve seen with a company’s succession planning process is how to measure potential. Potential makes up the x-axis of the 9-box (or whatever flavor) versus performance on the y-axis. So how can this be determined?
Much like a focal performance review, you should also conduct a potential review. So what does determine the potential of someone? To most, it is an inate judgement call. Here are two unique measurements that you should obtain with this survey. The first is essential to the measurement because it is a gateway to potential.
1) Managerial Mindset (Growth or Fixed)
2) Level of Self-Efficacy
Today, we will look at the first measurement – Managerial Mindset. I think this is a huge determinant of potential – especially if the position they are coming into is a leadership one. Dr. Carol Dweck (Mindset-The New Psychology of Success) has done decades of research on this subject. A growth mindset is basically someone who thinks anything can be learned by anyone. A fixed mindset is someone who thinks intelligence is capped or that they can’t grow anymore. In other words, someone who adamantly believes in the Peter Principle has a fixed mindset. It is someone who would say “Leaders are born, not made.” In an interview with HR.com, Dr. Laurie Bassi (who by the way has some of the best learning research ever presented) said one of the biggest reasons training isn’t successful is because managers are not really supportive of the training. So on that premise, shouldn’t you measure someone on whether they are supportive? If you have managers that deny training to their employees or don’t encourage it, then they likely they have a fixed mindset. Fixed Mindset managers don’t provide good feedback, feel threatened by their employees growth and have an “elitist” us vs. them attitude.
The most important job at any company is the 1st level manager. They have the most influence on the individual contributor.
What is the cumulative effect of having 1,000 managers with a growth mindset? This would have a staggering effect on your organization. Make sure your measure Mindset in your Succession Reviews.
Update: This is a great article citing Scott Forstall having a Growth Mindset – he managed the team that developd the iPhone.
Don’t Ignore the Skill Worker
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Succession Planning, Talent Management on February 11th, 2009
I’ve consulted with 100’s of companies on their talent management system and the majority have one thing in common when it comes to the scope of their project: they ignore the skill worker. Typically the only workgroup in scope for the talent project are the salaried employees or corporate employees. Let’s remember one of the key reasons why we do a performance review: to improve the relationship between the manager and employee. Let’s take a retail company. Retail is very heavy on the skill or hourly worker. Most retail companies have turnover in excess of 50% annually. This is one of the reasons corporate ignores this group in the talent process. Why should we pay attention to them if they always leave? To me, this is a very poor excuse not to look at the root cause of problem. Everyone knows that turnover is a huge cost to an organization so shouldn’t you do the things necessary to reduce this?
• Why don’t you have these employees fill in their Talent Profile to see their skills beyond their hourly position?
• Why don’t you do employee development to improve engagement? At least you will convey to them that their development is important and that you care about their career path – at your company or elsewhere.
• Why don’t you rate them on the competencies required for the position? What affect does it have on the overall business if 50,000 retail employees moved from a meets to exceeds rating on “Interpersonal Versatility”?
Talk to your IT department on how to address the worker that doesn’t have access to the on-line Talent System. There are plenty of ways to get their information into the system – not the least of which is a document management system (to lift the ratings of competencies or to pull answers yes/no questions to career questions), outsourced data entry, or kiosks. Make sure your manager is involved face-to-face in the talent process.
The Myth of Heroic Leadership – Give Obama a Pass
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership on January 31st, 2009
I was sitting around with 8 of my Republican friends last night, and they are behind Barack Obama 100%, hoping that he will be the best President ever. Obviously there are several issues challenging America today. Can one man right the ship when so many checks and balances are in place to prevent this? Conversely, can one really sink the ship with all of these government controls? Just as Bush isn’t responsible for wrongs in America, Obama can’t and won’t be responsible for all the things necessary to turn this thing around.
Headlines in Austrailia read: “America has its Messiah”. I couldn’t help but observe the crowd fawning over Obama, crying like he will be the opiate to their pain. Expectations of Obama supporters are dangerously high. If you don’t strongly agree with this then you need a reality check. I think Republicans will give Obama a pass – I see his biggest challenges coming from his own party. (See Peloisi) One of Obama’s best qualities is that he can see situations from multiple viewpoints. Unlike Bush, he’s not so steadfast in his convictions that he won’t take a step back and re-evaluate his position. To me, this true leadership. The press and most Republicans would call this “Flip-Flopping”. I hate this label.
Morgan McCall, author of “High Flyers”, identified one common trait among the best leaders: They are life-long learners. “The real leaders of the future are those who have the ability to learn from their experiences and remain open to continuous learning.”