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What Competencies Should Be Required for a Job?

Dear Treasuring Competencies,

Creating valid and relevant competency models can be a tedious, time-consuming and expensive process. In my experience, few organizations are equipped to do it effectively. They often take shortcuts and end up with models that create inconsistencies between competency-related expectations, organization strategy, job demands and workplace culture, leaving both supervisors and employees confused and frustrated.

An alternative to implementing an all-encompassing competency-based management approach is to use competency models primarily for making employment decisions and guiding personal development while leaving the management of competencies to the individual. Instead of attempting to track and rate employee competency use and proficiency, managers focus on managing overall individual and team results. This avoids many of the pitfalls common in competency-based management schemes.

However you choose to apply competency-based programs, an excellent resource is the book “The Art and Science of Competency Models” by Anntoinette Lucia and Richard Lepsinger. In it, you will find a step-by-step guide to creating your own valid competency profiles for each job. Once you have performed the research needed to lay the groundwork upon which you will build your competency model, you may use any number of tools and competency lists to select job-specific competencies. Lominger, a Korn/Ferry acquisition, for example, provides excellent competency card sorting tools and a flexible 360-degree competency assessment instrument.

I also encourage you to consider the following to help you avoid common mistakes of competency-based management:

  1. The competencies you identify will directly influence workplace culture and, subsequently, organization effectiveness. So how will you select competencies consistent with your organization’s people strategy?
  2. How will you know you captured all essential tasks and behaviors for each job when you select competencies and that you haven’t missed anything important?
  3. Assuming your competency lists are complete and correct, how will you determine the right competence levels you need employees to perform at?
  4. Validation procedures are expensive and often rely heavily on all too subjective performance ratings. How will you accurately assess each employee’s current competence assuming you are confident you know the competence level required to succeed?
  5. Competency profiles have been known to undervalue high performers such as when leaders score low in an approved competency like “drive for performance”but compensate by using an unapproved competence like “team building” to get the job done effectively. How will you account for employees that succeed using unapproved competencies for the job?
  6. Though common, long competency lists are impractical for trying to hire employees or manage annual employee development goals. How will you avoid creating long lists to define each job?
  7. Detailed competency lists by their nature encourage supervisors to over-manage and emphasize compliance over commitment. How will you prevent them from stifling innovation, creativity, and intrinsic motivation in the workforce?

Before implementing a competency-based management system, first determine how prepared you are to face the considerations discussed here and your ability to access expertise and resources you need to do it properly. Mostly, make sure that whatever system you implement will support, rather than frustrate, employee engagement.

SOURCE: Kevin Herring, Ascent Management Consulting, Oro Valley, Arizona, Aug. 16, 2015.

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How Do We Build a High-Performance Organization?

Dear Starting from Scratch,

Building a high-performance organization means successfully outperforming one’s competitors for the long haul. But, how exactly is this done? By looking at key characteristics of high-performing organizations, a blueprint for achieving long-term success emerges. I like to think of this in five steps, along with the “common traps” to avoid.

Step One: Ensure the organization understands and leverages its core capabilities.

This step requires some self-reflection on the part of the organization. What are its mission, vision and values (i.e., who we are, where we want to be, and what matters to us along the way)? This information will serve as the roadmap for the strategic planning that is to come in step two.

Common Trap: Senior leaders create “statements” that are either never disseminated or are decreed in such a way that employees do not fully understand or embrace the organization’s direction and ideals.

Step Two: Identify where the organization wants to be and have a clear strategy for getting there.

Data should be analyzed to better understand what makes the organization successful today (i.e., what we do well) and to identify improvements that will ensure success in the future (i.e., what we need to change to maintain competitive advantage).

Common Trap: Organizations assume what got them this far will help them stay ahead in the future. Yet, high-performing organizations realize that reinventing themselves or their offerings often becomes essential for future growth.

Step Three: Ensure the organization’s structure, people, policies and processes support and align with this strategy.

Once an organization has a clear idea of where it is headed, it can also identify what resources it needs to get there. High-potential organizations see clear linkages between how they attract and retain talent, how they structure and organize their talent and how policies and processes enable their talent to achieve strategic objectives.

Common Trap: Organizations focus too heavily on culture (i.e., what it is like to work here) or structure (i.e., how we break down levels to get the work done) and fail to recognize the intersection of the two. High-performing organizations recognize the value of teamwork and ensure that the structure facilitates collaboration throughout the organization.

Step Four: Anticipate change and map contingency plans to adapt to these changes (both internal and environmental changes).

Although the type and rate of change may vary greatly, all organizations undergo some measure of change. By taking steps to better understand the restrictions, constraints, threats and opportunities within the environment/industry as well as within the organization itself, high-performing organizations position themselves well for long term success.

Common Trap:While organizations see adapting to change as a reactive process, high-performing organizations take a proactive stance investing in things that foster creativity and innovation.

Step Five: Invest in your people because they will help you achieve steps one through four. Identify key performance indicators, or KPIs, to track progress and reactions to change.

High-performing organizations recognize that their employees are their greatest asset; therefore, they invest in developing solid selection systems (e.g., pre-employment tests, structured interviews) and development strategies (e.g., training, leadership assessments for development and coaching) to secure and retain top talent.

Common Trap: Organizations fail to plan for “how we will know how we are doing” against the overall strategy. Tracking progress is achievable if the organization has set both short and long-term specific, measurable, and challenging yet achievable goals. KPIs (e.g., quarterly sales, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement) can be tracked to help quantify the outcomes of the organization’s efforts toward lasting change.

SOURCE: Rebekah Cardenas, vice president of business development and assessment solutions, EASI Consult, St. Louis, July 10, 2015.

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Onboarding: The Critical Role of Hiring Managers

Onboarding matters. Organizations hire employees to get a job done. Those organizations which are able to harness the power of new employee knowledge, skills, and abilities quickly are more effective than those who do not. Understanding what new employee onboarding is, how to do it well, and how to facilitate the integration between the new employee and hiring manager is a major key to success. Organizations considered in the top 20% in terms of onboarding had 91% first year retention and 62% of new employees reaching first year goals compared to the bottom 30% of organizations who reported only 30% retention and 17% goal completion for the same time frame. The person within your organization who has the power to make or break a new employee’s success is the hiring manager. This white paper describes best practices and shows the importance of managers employing these best practices for onboarding new employees.

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How Do We Test Employees for Intoxication?

Dear Sidestepping,

There are numerous methods to test an employee for the presence of either drugs or alcohol if you suspect an employee is impaired on the job. The most common testing includes breath, urine, blood or hair.

You specifically inquired as to the difference between breath tests and blood tests.

A breath-alcohol test is the most common test for finding out how much alcohol is currently in the blood. The person being tested blows into a breath-alcohol device, and the results are given as a number, known as the Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC), which in turn tells you the degree of the employee's impairment. For positions regulated by the Department of Transportation, for example, a BAC of 0.02 is enough to justify stopping someone from performing a safety-sensitive task and a BAC reading of 0.04 or higher is considered a positive test and requires immediate removal from safety-sensitive functions.  

A blood test, on the other hand, measures the actual amount of alcohol or other drugs in the blood at the time of the test. With blood tests, there is a very short detection period, as most drugs are quickly cleared from the blood and deposited into the urine. Thus, if you are searching for the presence of drugs, a urine specimen is more reliable than a blood test.

As to the specific question of breath vs. blood for suspected intoxication: Although a blood test potentially is more accurate, it is not sufficient to justify, in most cases, the added burden and expense of a blood draw vs. a breath test.

A blood test is the only way to determine legal intoxication (think a serious injury or death), with scientific certainty. Thus, in most instances, a breath test will provide sufficient evidence of intoxication for employment purposes.

SOURCE: Jon Hyman, Meyers Roman Friedberg & Lewis, Cleveland, Ohio, June 4, 2015.

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People Moves: June 2015

Bryan Power

Yahoo Inc. named Bryan Power as senior vice president of human resources reporting directly to CEO Marissa Mayer. Power most recently led people operations at Square Inc., where he was responsible for scaling the company as it grew its presence globally. Before Square, Power spent many years at Google Inc., where he led and managed teams around the world.

 

 

Cynthia Marshall

AT&T Inc. announced that Cynthia Marshall, senior vice president of human resources, will also become chief diversity officer. Marshall will continue her work providing HR support for AT&T employees. Marshall has more than 30 years of telecommunications experience. She joined Pacific Bell Telephone Co. in 1981 and was named senior vice president of HR in December 2012.

 

 

Cher Murphy

Executive search firm Allegis Partners named Cher Murphy as managing director, global human resources practice. Murphy previously was a partner at Hanold Associates, a boutique search firm. She also was vice president of talent acquisition and strategy at Cole Capital. 

 

 

 

To be considered for People Moves, email a brief announcement and a high-resolution color photo to editors@workforce.com. Include People Moves in the subject line.

Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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How Do We Solve a Managerial Behavior Issue?

Dear Personality Clash:

I understand the desire to be gentle, but what is your motive? Are you afraid of being fired? Is it to avoid having the leader quit? Is trying to be gentle coming from a fear of the unknown reaction this leader might present with a more candid and direct approach? Or is your desire to be gentle an indication of a general distaste for conflict or a lack of the necessary skills to address conflict?

It would be very simple for me to advise you to document the observed effects of this leader’s behavior, and then give him or her clear feedback and discuss the paths that are available and required (the good, the bad and the ugly). That won’t work out because there are two bigger issues that I recommend you address as part of that HR consulting step. I’ll touch on both here.

The first issue is to address the questions I posed above about your motives. I’ll briefly address each question here.

If you are trying to avoid getting fired, a consultant and/or coach must place the needs of the client above their own self-preservation. How you do that successfully might be more a combination of skill and art.

If you are trying to avoid having the leader resign, this leader’s “witch hunt” issue may be the tip of the iceberg and a resignation may be just what the organization needs. I have found however those most low-skilled leaders that are politically motivated tend to recognize their own issues when confronted properly. The job they have is better than the alternative, so giving direct feedback generally doesn’t result in their self-destruction. Just keep in mind, no matter how we see it, this leader seriously lacks leadership skills. Those skills must be developed for the person to be successful.

If you are concerned about how the leader will react to candid, direct and transparent feedback, having the facts and being articulate and resolute when you address the issue will help to mitigate a poor reaction. Keep in mind, an extremely poor reaction will simply confirm that the person’s leadership skills are lacking. A great leader is proactive about their own weaknesses, looking to address them before they become an issue.

And for my last question posed, if you lack experience and skill in conflict management, perhaps you need to delegate the issue up the chain in HR. If the problem leader is a person in HR, or even worse, the chief human resources officer of the organization, you need to evaluate your role and what this person expects from you. You might ask him or her if they want your honest and transparent feedback. The answer will be, “Yes, of course.” Before giving your feedback, ask, “As the leader of this organization, what are your goals?” You can then position the issue as one getting in the way of those goals. This leads me to the second issue to address.

The second issue to address is something I call role awareness and acumen. This leader appears to lack a clear understanding of their role’s key accountabilities. I’m guessing they don’t include conducting effective witch hunts as part of a tactical self-preservation strategy. This leader’s acumen is also suspect of being weak. I use the term acumen to refer to “the ability to see self, others, tasks and roles, systems and self-direction with clarity and proper bias.” Ineffective or poor Leaders with poor acumen tend to create distraction and conflict. 

With all of that said, the leader may be at wits end trying to create change in the organization and has emotionally spiraled out of control because of an inability to understand where the issue is and why there is so much resistance. Addressing the matter by keeping an open mind about what is going on is critical. Be prepared to support the leader by gaining a better understanding of the root cause. This is where an effective outside coach can be very effective.

SOURCE: Carl Nielson, The Nielson Group, Dallas, Texas.

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Talent Management Strategy Template

This template walks you through the steps required to create an effective talent management strategy. It shows you how to map out HR goals and priorities for the year that are linked to your organization's strategic plan and goals. It comes complete with fill-in-the-blank tables and examples so you can use it to draft your own HR talent management strategy.

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Talent Management Orientation Guide

“Talent management” is a broad term that includes all of the ways a company engages with its employees, from recruiting and onboarding to training, coaching, succession planning and performance management. It is the umbrella under which all talent strategies are deployed.

 

The success of these programs, and how well they are aligned with business goals, is becoming increasingly important as businesses struggle to compete in the global marketplace.

“Talent management continues to be a concern for today’s CEOs,” said Dan Staley, principal and head of the HR technology practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In Pricewaterhouse’s 17th annual global CEO survey, 93 percent of CEOs said they recognize the need to change their talent strategies, yet almost two-thirds of them have failed to make those changes. “It’s going to be a major challenge for companies going forward,” Staley said.

Roadblock

Seventy percent of workers are not engaged, according to a 2013 Gallup Inc. study of the U.S. workplace. “That’s dismal,” Forrester Research’s Claire Schooley said. “People accomplish so much more when they feel engaged with their work.”

It’s also an opportunity for HR leaders to demonstrate their strategic value to the company. As CEOs try to figure out how to adapt their talent strategies, they will rely on HR leaders to guide their path — but only if HR can demonstrate how their talent management programs can deliver measurable business benefits. That’s a tall order. According to the Pricewaterhouse survey, only 34 percent of CEOs feel that HR is well prepared to capitalize on transformational trends, and 9 percent say it is notprepared at all.

To change that perception, HR leaders must take a strategic, business-focused approach to talent management, said Leighanne Levensaler, vice president of human capital management products for Workday Inc. “Your talent management strategy must be inextricably linked to your current and future business strategy for the company to be successful.”

But that can be difficult, particularly as most talent management programs don’t spring up fully formed. They are built piecemeal as the company grows, and each one may have its own team, strategy and measures for success. But if you want to be viewed as a key part of the strategic business process, those disparate programs need to be reined-in and updated to focus on current and future business goals.

Roadblock

Goal-setting conversations can’t stop at the top. While more than half of senior leaders convene meetings throughout the year to discuss goals with business leaders, only 6 percent of those leaders use the same approach to communicate goals to their direct reports, according to a Bersin by Deloitte study titled “High-Impact Performance Management.” “This creates opportunities for misinterpretation, inconsistent messaging and lack of alignment across the company,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

“Be clear on your objectives and be willing to adapt your plan as the business demands,” Levensaler said. “Business strategies can change on a dime, so you need to be agile enough to respond.”

This Roadmap offers HR leaders a framework for building a talent management program that delivers strategic business results.

Plan

What is your talent strategy? The first step to building an effective talent management program is defining what success looks like, said Cristin Sturchio, global head of talent for Cognolink, a global research firm. “Use that vision to identify skills and competency people need to make the company successful, then build your hiring, training, development and incentive programs around it.” Sturchio’s team found the most successful researchers in their organization are those who are competitive, self-motivated and results-driven; they built those traits into all of their recruiting and development efforts.

Create a talent plan as part of the business plan. Human resources should be part of strategic planning so it can help leadership understand how talent development will help them achieve their goals, then HR can map talent management efforts to align with them, said Stacia Sherman Garr, vice president of talent and HR research at Bersin by Deloitte.

fast track

Organizations that make it easy for employees to set clear goals are four times more likely to score in the top 25 percent of business outcomes, according to Bersin by Deloitte. “Creating a clear connection between employees’ work and an organization’s goals is a key driver of employee engagement,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

Identify what you are doing right and what needs improvement. Look for success stories across your talent management process — great recruiting strategies, effective training programs — then determine why they work and how you can apply those lessons learned to other programs.

Prioritize your budget. To make the most of limited resources, identify your top talent priorities and align your budget accordingly, said Ravin Jesuthasan, managing director of the global talent management practice at Towers Watson & Co. For example, if developing great tech talent is key to the business plan, you might focus more money toward recruiting and compensating top young recruits; whereas if great leadership is your priority, leadership training, mentoring and succession planning should draw more investment.

Do

Train and engage managers. “Managers play a key role in helping employees set goals, assess performance and find development opportunities,” said Claire Schooley, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. To be effective, however, managers need training on how to best mentor their team and ensure they are achieving their potential.

fast track

“Lots of training” isn’t the same as “good training.” In 2014, SAP’s new chief learning officer, Jenny Dearborn, reviewed the company’s entire training curriculum with the goal of eliminating any course that didn’t directly support the company’s strategic goals and desired competencies. “We went from 50,000 learning assets to 4,000,” she said. “Now every course is fresh, aligned with business results and there are no redundancies.”

Create transparency. Talk to employees about the goals and health of the company, and the role they play in the business, Cognolink’s Sturchio said. “When employees understand how their productivity is tied to the success of the company, they feel like they are part of something bigger.”

Pilot new ideas. Pricewaterhouse’s Mike Fenlon thinks HR should view itself as a talent research-and-development center. “The key for developing the right talent strategy is to begin with an idea, and see if it works,” he said. By piloting innovative programs with a small segment of employees or recruits, you can test ideas without investing a lot of moneyand prove they work before rolling them out to everyone.

Set goals. Every employee, from leaders to front-line workers, should have goals that are regularly reviewed and updated, Garr said. “It should be a continuous conversation between managers and workers.”

Encourage the behavior you want. Incentivesshould be clear, simple and tied to strategic skills, said Bryan Lewis, chief operating officer of Cognolink. “If you train people for those competencies, then tie incentives to that performance, it is easy to measure your success.”

Hold vendors accountable. Vendors should be just as culpable for meeting goals as your in-house team, said SAP’s Chief Learning Officer Jenny Dearborn. Before choosing a vendor, tell them what your business goals are, and ask them how they plan to meet and measure the effectiveness of their efforts to achieve those outcomes.

Review

Roadblock

Don’t leave talent out of the strategic conversation. If senior leaders set strategic goals without considering the talent implications, it will create obstacles to business success, said Bersin by Deloitte’s Stacia Sherman Garr. “It’s critical for leaders to have a dialog with HR about how talent management supports their plan.”

Measure everything. Every talent management program should include measures of success that directly align with business goals. Whether you are launching a new recruiting app or rolling out a training program, ask yourself: ‘Can I document how this investment will make something better?’ Dearborn said. “Everything you do should drive measurable business results.”

Use the same metrics as the rest of the company. The executive team doesn’t care how many people finished a training program, or how long it took you to hire someone. They care how those programs affected business goals, productivity and bottom-line results, said Workday’s Levensaler. “Your metrics have to be in the context of how the business measures itself.”

Choose technology with built-in benchmarks and metrics. Many of today’s HR technology tools provide real-time data about how programs are being used, who’s using them and other basic measures that can demonstrate success, Schooley said. “Some measures are more sophisticated than others, but it’s a good place to start.”

Harness that data. A good talent management program holds reams of valuable data. Using it to do workforce analytics can help companies identify development gaps and better prepare their workforce for the future. The prospect of doing analytics can be daunting, but HR technology tools are making it easier by offering analytics tools and dashboards, templated questions to ask and making suggestions based on results, Levensaler said. “Technology is accelerating every day,” she said. Though she cautions users not to be too reliant on the tools alone. “Humans still absolutely need to be involved in the process.”

fast track

Organizations that make it easy for employees to set clear goals are four times more likely to score in the top 25 percent of business outcomes, according to Bersin by Deloitte. “Creating a clear connection between employees’ work and an organization’s goals is a key driver of employee engagement,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

If it doesn’t work, get rid of it. When you continue to invest in a program just because it has always been there, you are wasting valuable resources that could be used more strategically, Dearborn said. “If you can’t draw a line between the program and the business goals you shouldn’t be doing it.”

Case study

Real-Time Feedback at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Being adaptive and future-focused is critical for a successful talent management program, said Mike Fenlon, global talent leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers. “You have to let go off the illusion that there is one right way to do things.”

Pricewaterhouse’s talent management team has been going through a multiyear talent transformation effort to better align all of its programs. Fenlon sees it as an opportunity for HR to transform itself. “Not every innovation will work,” he said. “But we always learn something.” At the core of the transformation is the idea of “radical simplification” to allow for more rapid learning and development.

One of the more successful programs to emerge is a redesign of the company’s performance management program. In an 18-month pilot program, Fenlon’s team replaced the traditional end-of-project performance review with a real-time feedback and assessment model. Fenlon’s team also rolled out mobile apps so managers could do reviews and provide feedback on the fly.

Early in the program, buy-in among managers was slow. An investigation showed leaders who received training were more effective and engaged in the process, so they adapted the leadership training and rolled it out to all of the participating managers. At the end of 18 months, performance measures showed pilot participants were more motivated and delivered improved business outcomes on their projects compared with teams that did not participate.

Plan, Do, Review

Plan

• Define your talent strategy. The first step to building an effective talent management program is knowing what success looks like.

• Make the talent plan part of the business plan. Help leadership understand the role talent development plays in achieving their business plans, and map talent management efforts to align with strategic goals.

• Identify what you are doing right and what needs improvement. Look for success stories across your talent management programs and use those lessons to improve less successful efforts.

• Prioritize your budget. You can’t do everything, so identify your top talent priorities and align your budget accordingly.

Do

• Get managers on board. Remind them of the role they play in talent development, and provide training on how to mentor and develop their teams.

• Create transparency. Employees need to know why their productivity matters to the business.

• Pilot new ideas. Test new programs out on a subgroup of employees to prove that they work before rolling them out to everyone.

• Set goals. Every employee, from leaders to front-line workers, should have goals that are regularly reviewed
and updated.

• Offer incentives for the behavior you want. Incentives should be clear, simple and tied to strategic skills.

• Hold vendors accountable. Tell them what your business goals are, and require them to demonstrate how their products are helping you meet those goals.

Review

• Measure everything. Every talent management effort should have measurable, business-focused metrics.

• Use the same measures as the rest of the company. Use the executive team’s measures for success to shape your own metrics.

• Choose technology with built-in benchmarks. Many of today’s HR tools provide real-time data and metrics you can use to demonstrate your own success.

• Harness that data. Workforce analytics can help you identify development gaps and better prepare your workforce for the future.

• If it doesn’t work, get rid of it. When you continue to invest in a program just because it has always been there, you are wasting valuable resources that could be used more strategically.

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How Do Recruiting and Succession Strategy Fit Together?

Dear We Have Needs:

A successful succession strategy should be deeply interconnected with ongoing recruitment practices. Having the right people in place, from the top down, is critical to ensuring a seamless, streamlined transition when necessary. Additionally, from a recruitment perspective, good candidates often look at the job trajectory of the more senior executives. When it’s clear that a company frequently promotes from within, candidates are able to visualize their career growth, an added value tied to the position on the table. It also means that companies are more likely to secure top talent.

Now, let’s dive a bit deeper into the connection between recruitment and succession planning. At its core, succession planning is simply filling a vacant position with the right person. To ease these transitions, companies often look to promote from within — there’s an organizational familiarity, client or workload overlap, etc., which makes a shift less challenging for all involved. As a result, when companies are seeking to fill a position — in fact, any position —they must look ahead, investing in hires that will be able to support the future growth of the organization, even as they mature within the company.

It’s important that companies make this connection between recruitment and succession. When discussing a client’s needs, we always ask if they have established a succession plan. About half the time, companies don’t have a plan in place, nor have they explored developing a formal strategy. Additionally, for those with a succession plan in place, the companies often lack specific benchmarks or goals indicating how employees can progress within the organization. Because most job seekers prioritize career growth, it’s crucial for companies to present a clear and consistent message about where the role will lead in three, five or 10 years down the road. It also ensures a company has a comprehensive succession plan that will help guide the company, securing a sound future. 

Being able to visualize that future is equally important to the candidate as it is for the company. Candidates are looking for opportunities at companies that provide a clear path for upward mobility and growth, and it’s a recruiter’s job to ensure the candidate’s goals align with a company’s succession plan. For example, if a company has a number of senior executives who are Boomers, they should expect to fill those positions in the next few years as these executives begin to retire. Therefore, in recruiting for mid-management positions, companies should be looking three to five years down the line, hiring candidates that will be able to step into these more senior roles when the time comes.

Ultimately, succession planning decreases the room for error when selecting a candidate and helps companies and employees both feel more secure in their shared future. How that succession strategy develops, however, varies vastly between organizations — some focus on key positions like the C-suite, while others seek a plan for the entire organization. If you’re an organization that allows employees to move between departments or roles, you’ll need universal succession plan in place. Remember, a succession strategy that aligns with recruitment goals translates into a company and employees that are co-invested in a successful future. In planning your next hire, don’t be afraid to think big and look ahead.

SOURCE: Scott Hopkins, founder, CVPartners, San Francisco, division of Addison Group, Jan. 30, 2015.