Category: Staffing Management

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Medical Mythbusters Crack Back on Health Care Costs

If you think that wellness programs are an effective way to manage health care costs and improve the overall health of your employees, think again. The same goes for accountable care organizations, on-site health clinics, using claims data to predict future health problems, pharmacy benefit managers and a variety of other fashionable trends springing up in the post-health care reform world.
 
In the recent book, “Cracking Health Costs: How to Cut Your Company’s Costs and Provide Employees Better Care,” co-authors Tom Emerick and Al Lewis skewer sacred cows and debunk prevailing wisdom in short order. The gist of the book is summed up with this pithy advice: “Keep vendors away from your checkbook, keep consultants away from your conference room and keep providers away from your workforce.”
 
Emerick, chief strategy officer at Chicago-based Laurus Strategies, is the former vice president, global benefit design for retail giant Wal-Mart. He spoke with Workforce recently about the problem with the latest approaches to managing health care costs and quality.
 
How will the Affordable Care Act impact the way employers manage health care costs, and how effective are wellness programs to that end?
Under ACA, employers won’t have control of health care costs. I’m troubled that as more evidence piles up that the wellness approach isn’t working, more companies are doubling down on it. Employers will have to conform to a government-issued plan design. 
 
The time that employers will realize that wellness programs aren’t effective is when they are being mandated to provide it. You will have to report if it’s improving the health of the population you are targeting, which creates another level of bureaucracy. I imagine that a sanction for not meeting certain health goals won’t be far behind.
 
On the positive side, it will force employers to see if they are having an impact.
 
What is the problem with wellness programs?
The three factors that impact an employee’s health are age — no wellness program can change that — genetics, which you also can’t change, and how well you like your job. In Europe, study after study shows that the single risk of mortal hazard for working-age people is whether they have a job they can tolerate. If you’re in a job that you hate it causes metabolic syndrome, or high blood pressure, it causes alcoholism, it causes obesity. 
 
If you want to offer a wellness program to show employees that you care and it’s not intrusive, go ahead. But please don’t do it and think you’re going to save money.
 
If wellness programs are so ineffective, why have so many employers embraced them? 
Wellness sounds like a great solution. It also sounds noble. Who doesn’t want to think that they can improve the health of their workforce? Also, HR departments are under a lot of pressure to control costs, and this is a relatively easy way to show that you are trying to do that. Wellness vendors send reports on how they are saving you money. They will say things like, “You’ve decreased the risk of heart attack by 150 percent.” But if you decrease the risk of heart attacks 150 percent, that means someone will have to rise from the grave. If you do the math you will see that you’re getting impossible numbers. But offering a wellness program is more attractive than raising deductibles and changing plan design.
 
More and more companies seem to be offering incentives to get employees to adopt healthier lifestyles, yet your book urges employers to spend their money creating a culture of wellness instead. Can you explain?
 
Incentives have a long history of inducing things like smoker’s amnesia. There were a huge number of these incentive programs around smoking that started back in the latter 1970s and early ’80s and a lot of companies canned them. People wouldn’t tell the truth. Joe would come in and say he saw Bob in the break room smoking and Bob is getting the $50 incentive anyway. What are you going to do, fire him? That’s why a lot of programs from that time got canceled. It’s troubling because those kinds of programs have come back with a vengeance. Companies have lost tribal knowledge of what happened the first time they tried incentives.
 
What does work is doing things like putting healthy food choices on the company menu and creating an environment of wellness by building walking trails. Another way to show that you care about your employees is making sure the restrooms are spic and span. You’re better off reallocating those incentive dollars toward creating a wellness culture.
 
The concept of using claims data to predict which employees are likely to face medical problems has gained a lot of traction, yet you call it health care’s biggest fraud after wellness programs. Why doesn’t it work?
There are people who have strokes and heart attacks all the time with no history of it, but it was genetic. You can’t capture that in claims data. What you have in claims data is a whole lot of medical bills and not much else. If you’re trying to take what people say in their health risk assessments and dovetail it in, oftentimes you’re not asking the right questions. I don’t want to participate in a health questionnaire that asks, “Did your mother, father, brother, uncle have a heart attack?” That’s a bit intrusive in my opinion. When employers ask those kinds of intrusive questions they may or may not get a truthful answer.
 
You write that most employers will never know how much value, if any, pharmacy benefit managers provide because PBM contracts are impossible to understand. So how can employers cut through the smoke and mirrors?
 
It wasn’t designed this way by accident. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with PBMs. I worked with a company that had a brand-name drug on their preferred list. It was there because it came with a $4 rebate. The employer got $2 and the PBM got $2. But there were drugs with no rebate available that cost less than one-fifth of what that drug costs and they weren’t on the preferred list. That $2 rebate ended up costing the employer about $80 on each prescription. Also, the literature said that the rebated drug was not as effective as the cheaper drug. Employers need to question the PBMs about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it that way. The reason that some drugs get higher rebates is because they are not as effective and they need to offer a rebate to get employers to buy them. 
 
I ask benefits managers why they don’t address these issues more aggressively and they say that they’re too busy managing the medical plan and no one is complaining about the pharmacy plan. The reason no one is complaining is because things run pretty smoothly with a PBM and they let a huge number of drugs into the formulary.
 
Employers can save a lot of money by being more restrictive about the drugs they allow on that preferred list, but HR people see that as disruptive and as something that could generate complaints.
 
Popular wisdom says that the best way for employers to control health care spending is to focus on the 10 percent of the people who account for 80 percent of their health care dollars, but you debunk this theory. What does work?
The 10/80 fallacy is that the 10 percent of people with chronic conditions spend 80 percent of plan dollars. That is a huge fallacy. What's true is that 6 percent of the people, who I call outliers, in the middle of an acute health care episode, e.g., cancer, heart or valve surgery, spine surgery, etc., spend 80 percent of plan dollars. Most of what they have is not preventable and many have chronic but coincidental conditions. An example is someone with liver cancer who also has asthma. Many consultants are simply misreading data by looking at averages and not distributions, or erroneously falling into a post-hoc fallacy. It's that simple.  
 
Companies like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Pepsi are using the clinics and hospitals that are the most effective in treating these outliers. There are extreme differences in how hospitals manage these illnesses. About 10 to 20 percent of that population is misdiagnosed. That kind of thing is epidemic today. You need to spend the money to get them the correct diagnosis.
 
Rita Pyrillis is Workforce’s senior editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Pyrillis on Twitter at @RitaPyrillis.
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Differences Between SUB-pay and Traditional Severance Pay

For employers using SUB-pay:
1. Saves 7.65 percent in Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax, and are exempt from federal and state unemployment taxes.
2. Reduces stress on cash flow. Payouts are made on periodic basis, not lump-sum.
 
For employers using traditional severance:
1. Payment is considered a wage, so is taxable.
2. Employer can decide to use lump sum or periodic payment.
3. Typically less administrative work.
 
For employees eligible for SUB-pay:
1. Typically receives the 7.65 percent of salary that would pay FICA tax.
2. Collects unemployment benefit and SUB-pay simultaneously.
3. SUB-pay tax benefit stops when worker finds a new job.
 
For employees receiving traditional severance:
1. Severance is considered a wage, so is taxable.
2. Workers can get bumped into higher tax bracket when receiving lump sum.
 
Source: Total Management Solutions, Inc.
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The Centenarians Cometh: Working to 100 and Beyond

To live—and work—to a ripe old age …

As you know, age is increasingly becoming an issue in the workforce. Many baby boomers who are approaching retirement age aren’t looking to pack up their desks anytime soon—whether by choice or by necessity.  Working into your late 60s or early 70s is one thing, but working until 100 or beyond? That’s crazy talk, right?

Not necessarily.

I recently came across a headline that caught my attention: “Beloved Library Staffer, 100, Died of Carbon Monoxide, Smoke Inhalation.”

Tragically, Opal Reifenberg lost her life not from old age but from a fire that broke out in her home a few weeks before her 101st birthday. Indeed, according to the story, she had worked as a librarian at the Wilmette, Illinois, Public Library for almost 25 years, meaning she took the job in her mid-70s, a time when most people are well into their retirement. At the time of her death, she still worked 15 hours a week.

Today, people are living longer than ever, and that trend isn’t likely to reverse itself unless the obesity and diabetes epidemics get even worse.

Earlier this summer I saw a sign advertising Prudential insurance that provocatively said, “The first person to live to 150 is alive today.” Perhaps. But once you get past the obvious questions like: “Who would want to live that long?” you might start to think, “What if I live that long?”

It’s possible that working until 100 and beyond will become more common and maybe even inevitable if the government can’t figure out how to fund Social Security come 2040, people don’t start planning ahead for retirement and citizens continue to live longer, healthier lives.

According to a U.S. Census Bureau report issued in 1999, the projected number of people living to 100-plus is projected to rise to a surprising 265,000 by 2050. Even if only 5 percent of those people remain in the workforce, that’s still more than 13,000 workers over the age of 100 punching the clock at least a few days a week.

Of course, that’s assuming companies will hire or keep people that age on staff. There were just under 23,000 age-discrimination claims made with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2012. Who knows what that number might jump to in 2050? I could just hear a hiring manager in an interview say: “Says here you were a project manager, um, 50 years ago. Seriously? Next …”

When Opal Reifenberg was born in 1912, the average life expectancy for U.S. women was about 56 years old compared with about 81 today. One 2009 study predicted that women’s life expectancy would reach 89 to 94 by 2050 and 83 to 86 for men.

It caught me off-guard at first that someone Reifenberg’s age would still be working, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. She was not alone as a hundred-something in the workforce. People like Reifenberg, Rosa Finnegan and Jim Clements all kept working and are continuing to work after hitting the century mark. My great-great-aunt Rose lived until almost 103, according to government records—although our family thought she was four or five years older than that—and while she didn’t work later in life, she was very active until the last couple of years of her life.

People are living longer, and the workforce is going to have to accommodate that. For some people, working and being active is like the fountain of youth. It keeps them young.

As comedian George Burns, who lived to be 100, once said, “Age to me means nothing. I can’t get old; I’m working. I was old when I was 21 and out of work.”

And who could argue with the man who played God?

James Tehrani is Workforce’s assistant managing editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Tehrani on Twitter at @WorkforceJames.

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The Responsible Way

How can a company that manufactured the deadly chemical Agent Orange and is linked to a tainted former nuclear weapons production site now be a leader in corporate responsibility?

After setting up a “sustainability council” composed of outside advisers, establishing related goals, and regularly sharing its progress with the public, Dow Chemical Co. has been named a dozen times to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index—which evaluates major corporations for their economic, environmental and social performance—including treatment of workers.

“Setting goals with transparent reporting has been very transformative for Dow,” says Neil Hawkins, vice president of sustainability and environment, health and safety for the Midland, Michigan-based company.

That transformation also shows that sustainable companies can be made, not necessarily born.

While sustainability and corporate social responsibility typically are linked to relative newcomers, such as Ben & Jerry’s and The Body Shop, which were founded on such principles, “companies can evolve to it,” says Laura Gitman, managing director of the nonprofit BSR, which helps companies develop sustainable business strategies.

More than 250 of the world’s largest companies are members. “We have the biggest impact working with the world’s largest companies and having it trickle down to their business partners,” Gitman says.

It doesn’t matter whether a company is created as a sustainable, socially responsible business or evolves into one. Taking such steps can help organizations save money, attract customers and socially responsible investors, and recruit and retain top-caliber talent, she says.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY NOT A NEW CONCEPT

Terms such as “sustainability” and “corporate social responsibility” have entered the lexicon in recent years, but the roots of these concepts stretch back more than a century. American Express Co., founded in 1850, made its first charitable donation to victims of the Great Boston Fire of 1872. Its employees pitched in pennies for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1885.

 UPS Inc., founded in 1907, established its first philanthropic foundation in 1951. Fifty years later, it was ranked as one of the country’s top socially responsible corporations by Boston College and the Reputation Institute. The Corporate Social Responsibility Index published jointly by those organizations examines public perceptions about a company’s workplace practices, corporate citizenship and governance.

James O’Toole, professor of business ethics at the University of Denver, says sustainability generally has an environmental focus, while corporate social responsibility is more of a philosophy, focused on treating all stakeholders well and behaving in an ethical manner. Corporate social responsibility started to draw attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, O’Toole says. “It disappeared in the 1990s, during the period of corporate greed.” It gained traction again in the early 2000s, following Enron Corp. and other corporate scandals, and as the environmental movement gained speed.

Companies that adhere to these principles “try to do good. They do this as part of their overall business strategy, as opposed to a kind of add-on,” O’Toole says. Often this philosophy is an extension of the CEO’s personal values.    

But a company can go too far in its quest to do good. O’Toole cites Control Data Corp. as an example. The company, which developed the supercomputer back in the 1960s, was the first major company to publicly commit to gain profits from doing good. Eventually, the company wound up in bankruptcy.

In recent years, the focus on corporate social responsibility has picked up steam. When BSR was created 20 years ago, its efforts were often greeted with skepticism, Gitman says, and corporations questioned why they should undertake social responsibility efforts. These days, corporations don’t ask why they should be socially responsible, but how they should implement it. “Now you might stand out if you don’t do something; before you would stand out if you did something,” Gitman says.

REAPING REWARDS

Companies that stand out for sustainability efforts also reap financial rewards. A number of studies have shown as much, including a 2011study by scholars at Rutgers University and New York University that found companies with high “corporate social performance” had the highest financial performance. At the same time, half-hearted efforts at sustainability may not mean much. According to the study, companies with only moderate social performance did worse financially than companies with low social performance.

That’s not to say companies must obsess over sustainability. Because corporate social responsibility is so broad, “not every company should be doing everything on every issue,” Gitman says. Instead, they should focus on issues that are most important to stakeholders and that support their business’ success.

Just as companies evolve, so do the concepts themselves. John Mackey, co-CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market, put “conscious capitalism” on the map, particularly after this year’s release of his book Conscious Capitalism, Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business written with Raj Sisodia, a professor of marketing at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

The conscious capitalism model highlights four pillars that corporations should focus on: higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership and conscious culture and management. The book cites many examples of companies demonstrating some version of enlightened management, ranging from outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia Inc. to Southwest Airlines Co. to UPS.

In many cases, “as companies mature and leaders mature, the things they focus on start to shift,” says Jeff Klein, a trustee with Conscious Capitalism Inc. They begin to realize, “every business has a purpose beyond making money. The orientation is not on shareholders, but on stakeholders.”

For a company to develop along such lines, it needs to come from the top down, and ultimately pervade all levels of the organization.

STAKEHOLDER FOCUSED

That’s underscored by the actions of UPS, which is cited as an example of a company that practices conscious capitalism, and is a member of BSR.

Although UPS is more than a century old, its founder, Jim Casey, had a passion for volunteerism and believed in “doing the right thing for the right reason, and giving back where employees live and work,” says Eduardo Martinez, president of the UPS Foundation.

A key focus is employee engagement, and having them actively involved in the community. One of UPS’s novel initiatives is the Community Internship Program, created 45 years ago as a means to train up-and-coming managers. Those leaders are sent to poor, urban communities for 30 days to take part in volunteer programs in places such as soup kitchens, drug rehabilitation facilities and jails, Martinez says. “They really get a sense firsthand of what certain communities are challenged with.”

That experience gives managers a sense of the challenges that communities—and their customers—might face, and “gives them a certain sense of humility and appreciation,” Martinez says.

Along with using the Community Internship Program as a training mechanism for managers, UPS encourages all of its employees to play an active role in their communities. Last year alone the Atlanta-based company’s nearly 400,000 employees dedicated 1.8 million hours to volunteering.

“We believe, for our employees to develop themselves, community engagement is a must; it’s non-negotiable,” Martinez says.

 It’s seen as a way for employees to develop or enhance their skills, as well as contribute to the community. While there is no formal requirement that employees volunteer, they’re strongly encouraged to give back to their communities. Those who contribute at least 50 hours to a nonprofit can apply for a grant for the organization, which is funded by the UPS Foundation.

Volunteer opportunities are distributed via email, and the information also is posted on UPS’s intranet so employees can find possibilities that align with their particular interests.

COMMUNITY IMPACT

Panera Bread Co., which also has been cited as an example of a company that focuses on conscious capitalism, has found another way to give back to the community while allowing community members to support one another.

Starting in 2010, the St. Louis-based company began developing Panera Cares community cafés as a way to address the issue of hunger by feeding people in need and allowing people to help one another, says Kate Antonacci, director of societal impact initiatives.

At the company’s five Panera Cares cafés, which are operated by the Panera Bread Foundation, menus have no set prices. Instead, items have a suggested price, and customers can pay more, or less. If someone pays more, they help cover the cost for people who might not be able to afford their meal.

Through the projects, Panera aims to increase discussion about the problem of hunger in America, feed those in need in a way that gives them a sense of dignity, and serve as a vehicle for community members to pay it forward, Antonacci says.

The first four Panera Cares cafés were converted from regular Panera restaurants, while the most recent one, in Boston, was a new restaurant. Each café has an ambassador at the door who greets customers and explains how the concept works.

The existing cafés already were fully staffed, and Panera found some employees wanted to transfer out, while others wanted to transfer in. “We want people who want to be there,” Antonacci says. At the Boston location, “a lot of people wanted to work there. It resonated with their own values,” she says. “There’s pride many associates feel just knowing the company is willing to try something like this.”

The company is undertaking a similar effort on a smaller scale at 48 of its regular cafés. There, turkey chili in a sourdough bread bowl has only a recommended price, and customers pay what they can. “It’s a community effort with customers who believe in our mission,” Antonacci says.

Community involvement can take many forms. American Express, for example, has supported preservation of historic sites since 1977, starting with the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Since that time, the company has been involved with the preservation of almost 500 sites, says Tim McClimon, vice president for corporate social responsibility.

Employees also offer their time and talent. In Serve2Gether Consulting, which supports American Express’ corporate responsibility efforts, employees offer their business skills pro bono to nonprofits in areas such as human resources capacity building, digital marketing and performance management.

More recently, American Express began a program to mentor 15 nonprofits and social entrepreneurs around the globe. Nearly 150 employees signed up to ?take part. Providing such employee opportunities “makes them feel good about working for American Express. They recommend it to their friends and colleagues,” McClimon says.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Another key consideration for socially responsible corporations is their effect on the environment.

Dow was one of the companies that produced Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War, and once managed the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site in Colorado.

But in 1992, the company created the Sustainability External Advisory Council, composed of experts from such diverse areas as environmental organizations, academia, nongovernmental organizations and the business community. “At the time, no other company had something similar,” Hawkins says. The council continues to meet twice a year, providing input on health, safety, sustainability and environmental issues.

The council’s input led to the creation of the company’s first sustainability goals in 1995. Now on its second set of goals, Dow pledges to do such things as increase the usage of sustainable chemistry, reduce energy usage and publish safety assessments for all of its products.

With the creation of the sustainability goals, Dow committed to establish metrics to gauge the progress the company makes and increase transparency, reporting on how it’s doing—both good and bad.

Hawkins attributes the company’s transition to former CEO Frank Popoff. “This kind of major breakthrough really takes a visionary leader at the top.” Establishing metrics to measure the company’s progress also helped foster employee buy-in for a company that revolves around scientific evidence. Hawkins says Popoff “recognized the intersection of business value and environmental value.”

By putting an emphasis on minimizing energy, water and waste, as well as reducing injuries and illnesses, the company realized it would affect the bottom line, as well as its employees and the environment.

Dow also established an intranet site, called Evergreen, where employees can learn about sustainable practices that they can undertake. “We believe that as they understand their own personal impact on the planet, they carry that back into their work,” Hawkins says.

Dow also has created a partnership with The Nature Conservancy, designed to show that protecting nature can be a global business strategy. While it may seem like an odd pairing, Hawkins says that to be successful, Dow seeks the help of outside experts. “We actively find partners with expertise in these areas.”

UPS, which has more than 100,000 vehicles in its fleet, has been using alternative-fuel vehicles for years. It also operates the ninth-largest airline in the world.

Because of its major carbon footprint, UPS has planted 1 million trees around the world, with much of the work done by employees. “Our philanthropic efforts are bolstered by the sweat equity of our people,” Martinez says.

While environmental initiatives and community involvement usually take center stage when corporate social responsibility is discussed, ethics also has a crucial role to play—particularly in light of Enron and the recent Wall Street scandals.

While many financial services companies have come under fire, American Express consistently makes Fortune’s list of most admired companies and best companies to work for.

McClimon attributes this to the company’s Blue Box Values—a set of values for employees to live by. They include commitment to customers, quality, integrity and personal accountability, and employees receive annual ethics training.

“As a financial services firm, we take the code of conduct seriously. We’re a risk-averse culture,” McClimon says.

The power management company Eaton Corp. also puts a strong emphasis on its reputation. The company, based in Cleveland, has a dozen ethics principles spelled out on its website. These include obeying the law, avoiding conflicts of interest and respecting human rights. That fits with the company’s vision to be one of the world’s most admired companies, says Deborah Severs, senior vice president of global ethics and compliance.

Eaton is another corporation cited as an example of conscious capitalism, and is considered one of the world’s most ethical companies by Ethisphere magazine.

Employees receive regular training on how to apply ethics principles to how they do business on a daily basis. If a discussion is held on avoiding conflicts of interest, for example, the company will see an uptick in questions from employees who want to learn more, Severs says.

Eaton selects employees, suppliers and business partners whose values are in line with the corporation’s, she says.

Severs has seen employees leave the company and then return, drawn by its ethics policy and reputation.

At American Express, having a strong set of values is exemplified by its employees, McClimon says. “Our employees are our best ambassadors.” That pays off in terms of attracting and retaining customers.

ATTRACTING EMPLOYEES

Concern for ethics and the greater good also has an effect on companies’ efforts to attract and retain employees.

Dow, for example, has created a Sustainability Fellows Program at the University of Michigan, bringing together graduate students in interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle major sustainability issues.

The company also works with 17 universities around the world in the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award. As he travels to various campuses, Hawkins has found that regardless of where students are located in the world, “doing well and doing good appeals to the best” students.

At the University of Colorado Boulder, a conscious capitalism conference aimed at students has been held for the past four years. “Millennial students want a larger purpose. They want fulfillment in their lives,” says Donna Sockell, executive director of the university’s Center for Education on Social Responsibility.

She recalls one student who weighed whether to accept job offers from Goldman Sachs or Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Students today “ask the right questions. They don’t mindlessly go to work, like my generation did.”

While the student ultimately decided to work for Goldman Sachs to acquire the finance skills the job provided, “the significance was that he asked the question,” Sockell says, “something that had never happened before in all my decades of teaching experience.”            

Susan Ladika is writer based in Tampa, Florida. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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How Do We Identify Future Key Roles for Our Company?

Dear Anticipation:

In order to identify key roles moving forward, you should start by establishing an open dialogue with the leadership team in your company. Speaking with these individuals about your company’s strengths and challenges provides a better understanding of which areas need to be addressed. You could also ask top performers how they think improvements could be made in the organization’s functions. Establishing open conversations from the beginning, and checking in with leadership and top performers, keeps you “in the know” about necessary talents and skills. Additionally, the conversations will give you a better understanding of leaderships’ thought processes regarding the organization, allowing you to more accurately anticipate future needs.

Annual employee surveys and qualitative information can also shed some light on your talent needs. Employees may be more aware than leadership of key skills needs. Delve deeply into unfavorable responses by talking with employees about the results. This helps you determine specifically any areas in which additional skills and talent are needed.

Once you identify the needs, consider how to find the best fit for the job. Think about the time and resources it takes to recruit a new candidate and whether you can find a good fit among your current employees. Talk to your top performers and ask them to suggest other ways they could contribute to the organization. Sometimes talent needs can be filled by current employees that take on more specialized roles. You should create a detailed outline of the role, including necessary skills and the position’s impact on organizational outcomes. This lets those employees understand how they directly contribute to the overall goals and strategy of the company. Furthermore, develop an advancement and succession plan as part of the redefined role. Employees will appreciate being able to see how performing in a particular job helps advance their careers—and it ensures your organization is prepared to fill the role when it becomes vacant.

You likely will have a variety of applicants, should you decide to fill the role with someone outside the company. Keep these candidates on file for future talent management needs. Although these people may not be appropriate for the vacant position, having a list of their skills should help you fill more quickly fill future jobs. And it provides current goals to help these folks prepare for future opportunities when they arise.

SOURCE: Murat Philippe, director of workforce consulting services, Avatar Solutions, Chicago, Illinois

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Performance Management Orientation Guide

The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC

"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?"

1914 translation by H. Rackham

"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"

Section 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC

 "At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat." 

 

 

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Bald Is Beautiful … Unless You’re a Hooters Waitress After Brain Surgery

Sandra Lupo took three weeks off from her job as a Hooters waitress for brain surgery. During her leave, her manager assured her that she would be able to return to work with a “chemo cap” or jewelry to distract customers from her buzz cut and large scar. Upon her return, however, Hooters changed course and told Lupo that she would have to wear a wig. When she could not comply because the wig irritated her scar, Hooters cut her hours until she was forced to quit. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she is now suing Hooters for disability discrimination.

Let’s first take care of the low hanging fruit. The insensitivity of Hooters’s reaction to this situation is easy to spot. Just because Hooters acted insensitively, however, does not mean that it acted illegally. Indeed, whether the wig requirement discriminated against Lupo is a tricky question.

The Americans with Disabilities Act protects three classes of individuals:

  1. Those with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.
  2. Those regarded as having such an impairment.
  3. Those with a record of such an impairment.

Actual Disability

Post-surgery, Lupo is going to have a difficult time claiming an actual disability. Even if her benign brain tumor was an ADA disability pre-surgery, after its removal she no longer had a current “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.” Therefore, as the 6th Circuit recently recognized in Blosser v. AK Steel Corp., a tumor that has been removed is not an actual disability.

“Regarded as” Disability

Because of the temporary nature of her baldness, Lupo is also going to have a difficult time claiming that Hooters “regarded her” as disabled. To qualify as “regarded as having” an ADA-protected impairment, one must show that the employer perceived a physical or mental impairment, and that the impairment was one with a duration of more than six months. Thus, even if Hooters perceived Lupo as impaired because of her post-surgery appearance, that appearance would dissipate in six months with the regrowth of her hair.

“Record of Disability”

Lupo’s best claim is going to be that Hooters discriminated against her because of a “record of” an impairment. “Record of” disability claims are intended to ensure that employees are not discriminated against because of a history of disability. According to one court, “The ‘record of’ definition was tailor-made for plaintiffs who … claim they once suffered from a physical or mental impairment that substantially limited a major life activity, recovered from the impairment, but nonetheless faced employment discrimination because of it.”

Yet, Lupo’s claim under this provision of the ADA is not clean. As the Blosser court noted, when a brain tumor is temporary and resolved by surgery, and the employee is able to return to work without restriction, a “record of” disability claim fails. Lupo will have a hard time establishing this claim because of the short duration of her underlying medical condition, coupled with her return to work free of any residual medical issues. Also, if Lupo does not have a protected record of a disability, Hooters has no obligation to provide any reasonable accommodation.

While Hooters will take a beating in the press over its treatment of Lupo, it is not a slam-dunk that such mistreatment violates the ADA.

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

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Companies Turning to Tools to Manage Contingent Labor

In 2012, more than 1 in 4 employees were contingent labor, according to the Aberdeen Group in Boston. And that number is likely to jump to 30 percent in 2013.

As those dramatic statistics suggest, contingent workers such as staffing agency temps and independent contractors have become a large and permanent part of the workforce. As a result, companies need to think carefully about the tools they use to manage these workers so they can maximize productivity while minimizing compliance issues.

“It’s risky to treat contract workers like full-time employees,” says Bryan Pena, vice president of contingent workforce strategies at Staffing Industry Analysts, a research firm in Mountain View, California.

Because contingent workers are paid differently, receive different benefits and operate under different employment rules, they need to be tracked using different talent management tools, he says. Otherwise, employers can open themselves up to litigation over access to health care and other benefits if job descriptions or employment language overlap.

While many human resources software providers offer basic tools to track their contingent workforce population, to meet payment and hourly compliance requirements, when companies want more detailed management options they turn to vendor management systems. A VMS is an automated software system to track suppliers, temps and contract labor. Most are cloud-based and offer tools to track time and deliverables, as well as analytics and forecasting features so companies can manage contingent labor costs and better align workers with projects.

In the past, these tools focused largely on compliance concerns and reducing cost by allowing employers to match work needs with the lowest-priced staffing vendor. More recently, VMS products have added capabilities to measure the performance of contingents.

“VMS solutions have evolved in the past decade to become a vital solution in the contingent workforce space,” Dwyer says. They “help best-in-class organizations drive visibility into all facets of contingent workforce management, enhance analytics and reporting, and provide an automated portal for managing day-to-day operations.”

The VMS market is fairly mature, with companies such as Fieldglass Inc., IQNavigator, Provade and Peoplefluent dominating the market.

However, many companies still take a piecemeal approach to managing contingent labor. GeoDigital International Inc., a mapping and visual infrared inspection company in Hamilton, Ontario, uses five different tools to track and manage its 320 employees, which includes roughly 50 contingent workers.

“We use ADP and Paychecks for payroll, Replicon to track contractors’ time and attendance, Halogen for training, and a new SilkRoad HR system for talent management and other HR processes,” explains Liza Scurr, GeoDigital’s vice president of human resources. “And they all need to tie together.”

Every other week, contingent workers input their hours to the cloud-based Replicon system, which automatically forwards the information to their manager for approval, and then sends it to payroll. The entire process is automated and takes no more than two days to complete, she says. All of the workers, including contingents, participate in employee surveys and online training courses using a program from Halogen Software Inc.

The challenge is integrating all of these systems so that workforce data can be easily shared and incorporated into all of the HR management functions.

Integrating data management systems is key to managing contingent workers, whether you are using a VMS, an HR system or multiple stand-alone programs, says Ray Wang, principal analyst and CEO at Constellation Research,. Along with making sure contractors are paid promptly, integrated data systems protect employers from inadvertent compliance violations, and enable them to track performance and cost metrics so they can identify high performers, negotiate better rates and define delivery criteria.

At GeoDigital, the HR team is using data from Replicon to establish performance metrics for contractors, such as the number of pages of data they should produce in an eight-hour day.

“We already know the number of people it takes to deliver specific activities, but we couldn’t see the average daily output,” Scurr says. “Through daily tracking we are starting to see patterns, and we can create benchmarks against our best people.”

This is one of the many ways contingent labor data can help companies improve efficiencies, Dwyer says. “The intelligence gleaned from these systems can help executives plan, budget and forecast for the future.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Succession Planning Roadmap

If your CEO has a sudden heart attack, do you know who will take the chief executive’s place? What if your top executives are wooed away to another firm? Do you have the next generation of leaders ready to fill those roles? If not, you may end up with an empty C-suite—or worse, underqualified people moving into leadership roles because there is no one better to take over.

The only way to reduce the effect of lost leadership is through a strong succession planning program that identifies and fosters the next generation of leaders through mentoring, training and stretch assignments, so they are ready to take the helm when the time comes. Research supports sound succession planning. A study some years ago from consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton concluded that “over their entire tenures, CEOs appointed from the inside tend to outperform outsiders” when it comes to returns to shareholders. Yet many organizations struggle to take their succession planning programs beyond a static list of names slotted for a few top spots.

“Every company has a succession planning document,” says David Larcker, a professor in the graduate school of business at Stanford University. “The question you have to ask is, ‘Will it be operational?”

This Roadmap offers human resources leaders a framework and advice on how to create a robust succession planning program that aligns talent management with the vision of the company, ensures employees have development opportunities to hone their leadership skills, and guarantees that the organization has a leadership plan in place for success in the future.

Jim Skinner, former CEO of McDonald’s Corp., was known to tell managers: “Give me the names of two people who could succeed you.” It was just one way the CEO continued the culture of succession planning at McDonald’s.

It was an understandable priority considering Skinner only landed in the role in 2005 after two other CEO’s died suddenly over the course of just two years. And when he retired in 2012, Skinner was confident that his successor, Chief Operating Officer Don Thompson, was ready to take over, because he spent much of his seven years mentoring him.

“I basically felt the responsibility to the board of directors to be sure I provided them with someone who could run the company when I’m gone,” Skinner told Fortune a year before his retirement. “Until I was capable of doing that, I would not have left.”

This kind of leadership level commitment to training and mentoring the next generation is a vital component of succession planning. And while most executives understand the importance of succession planning efforts, few of them believe their organization excels in this category.

As companies begin to develop a succession planning process, they should consider these fundamental issues:

High potential vs. everyone: Some companies focus all of their succession planning efforts on “high potential individuals,” whereas others create a succession plan for everyone from the moment they are onboard. The benefit of focusing on high-potential workers is you can channel more resources and coaching toward those employees with the greatest promise. The risk is that you overlook great people and alienate and frustrate the rest of the employees, which can impact morale and turnover. “Most successful organization focus on everyone,” says Dan Schneider, cultural architect at advisory firm The Rawls Group.

Hiring from within vs. bringing in someone new: Developing leaders internally takes time and effort, but these homegrown candidates are more likely to be successful than external candidates. According to a 2012 study by Matthew Bidwell, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, external hires are 61 percent more likely to be laid off or fired, and 21 percent more likely than internal hires to leave a job on their own accord. These outside hires also get paid more, but get lower marks in performance reviews during their first two years on the job.

However, internal hires aren’t always an option. Fully 38 percent of firms anticipate they will need to recruit externally for C-level roles in the next 12 months. Internal candidates are also not always the best choice. If a company wants to move in a dramatically different direction, or its current leaders leave before the next generation is ready, companies need to be open to bringing in someone from the outside.

Factoring diversity into decision-making. Managers often seek people who are like them for mentoring and promotion, which often leads to a plethora of white men leading organizations. If companies want diversity in their leadership, the succession planning initiative should include steps that actively promote women and minorities for leadership opportunities, and train managers on how to encourage diversity on their teams.

Making sure you have support from the top. HR can build a great talent development plan, but without active support from leadership, it won’t have the desired impact. HR leaders can’t force executives to support their efforts but they can align talent management efforts with strategic plans and educate executives and managers about the business value of succession planning efforts.

Fluor’s leaders develop their own replacements

At Fluor Corp., the global construction and engineering firm headquartered in Irving, Texas, talent management efforts are directly aligned with long-term strategic goals, and executives are viewed as the company’s corporate talent scouts.

“Having a robust succession planning and talent review program and culture is just good business,” says Glen Gilkey, Fluor’s senior vice president of HR. “It helps mitigate the risk that leadership will be a constraint to growth.”

Part of every executive’s job is to identify high-performing employees and help them build their skills and experiences so they can move up the corporate ranks, Gilkey says. “Leaders are held accountable for the development of their people even if it means moving them to another division,” he says.

Flour relies on a 70-20-10 model of talent development with 70 percent of the development coming from experience, 20 percent from coaching and 10 percent from classroom or other training. Leaders are expected to look for opportunities for employees to gain experience and to provide them with the necessary support and coaching to be successful, Gilkey says.

To ensure this support occurs, executives are celebrated when one of their people succeeds, and part of their compensation and promotion is tied to how effectively they support talent management on their teams.

“Having a culture where people want to help others succeed can’t be understated,” Gilkey says. “It doesn’t cost a lot of money, but it does require a lot of time on the part of the leadership team.”

Stuart Dean, the architectural restoration company based in New York, is an 80-year-old family-owned business, and all of it’s current shareholders are fourth-generation family members. Yet two years ago, when the company needed a new CEO, it went outside the family to find its next leader.

“We needed to go in a different direction,” says Adam Arkells, senior vice president and chief human resources officer. The company had gone through a period of stagnant growth, and the near-term plan called for global expansion. “We needed a different type of leader for the company, someone who could bring cohesion and a single vision while also embracing the family’s values,” says Arkells, who was part of the search committee.

That’s not to say the committee didn’t look within the family’s ranks to find a replacement. But they weren’t hamstrung by the need to choose family over everyone else, Arkells says. Ultimately, they chose Mark Parrish, a career executive with experience in international commercial service industries.

It was a struggle at first. Some people doubted that someone outside of the family could lead the company. But over the first year, he proved himself by demonstrating that he was honest, thoughtful and invested in the success of the business, Arkells says. “””

And though the transition was a little difficult, the board and the employees are pleased with the results. “Choosing an external candidate to run a family business can be an emotional struggle,” Arkells says, “but you can’t let that get in the way of good business decisions.”

Making succession planning a priority must come from the leadership team, but implementation of that plan is HR’s responsibility, The Rawls Group’s Schneider says. “HR’s role in succession planning is to find people who fit the culture and to help them develop the skills to lead the organization so it stays viable in the future.”

To do that, HR has to create a succession planthat links talent development with the strategic goals of the board, the business and the staff.

A succession planning program compiles the skills, abilities and goals of each employee, compares them to the needs of current and future roles, and tracks employee progress toward being ready to fill those roles. Building a strong succession planning road map involves the following steps:

Pack a BASKET: Create a specific model for every job that defines the behavior, attitude, skills, knowledge, experience and talent, or BASKET, necessary to succeed in the role. These models will help employees understand what’s expected of them in their current role and what it will take to be ready to move forward.

Know where you are going: Be sure BASKET assessments consider the skills necessary to fulfill future roles not just present ones. For example, if the company plans to expand globally, the next generation of leaders should be comfortable working abroad; or if growth plans involve rapid acquisitions, someone with finance skills and change management experience may be the best choice for leadership positions.

Map the gaps: As part of the talent assessment process, HR should assess everyone in the organization with an eye toward who is ready to take on key leadership roles today, in 36 months and in 72 months. Use the BASKET assessments to do a gap analysis with employees to help them see what they need to do to be ready for the next level and how long that should take. Report those findings to the C-suite and the board as part of your succession planning updates.

Ask for directions: As part of the assessment, talk to employees about their career goals and aspirations to be sure you are prepping them for a job they want. “Part of HR’s responsibility is to make sure people have enough exposure to know where they want to be in the future,” Schneider says. “That’s where a lot of succession planning programs go off-track.”

Identify roadblocks: Once you’ve completed the assessments, look for any bottlenecks in the development process that could prevent candidates from moving forward. This may include executives who block the way for the next generation, or glaring gaps in readiness for critical roles. Ideally, you will have two to three candidates for every leadership position in varying stages of readiness.

Make sure the board is onboard: Once assessments are complete, HR, the CEO and the board of directors should come together to review the assessments and create a list of the top candidates for each role. “The board is your jury and you need their support,” Miles says. By working with the CEO and the board, you ensure that everyone is on the same page about succession plans.

Keep your eyes on the road. Once you have a succession planning list in place and you know where your next generation of leaders are in their development process, use talent management tools, performance assessments, mentoring and stretch assignments to close the gaps. Make sure employees are onboard with setting their own development goals, and track their progress through regular performance assessments.

Check the map: Review the succession plan with the C-suite and the board at least every nine to 15 months and whenever there is a major change in leadership or in corporate strategy. This ensures that you are always up to date on the development of your top talent and that you identify any changes in direction that might require a tweak to the plan.

As companies expand beyond 200 to 300 employees, it becomes challenging to oversee talent management and succession planning efforts on paper. You cannot effectively track the career development progress of hundreds of employees using spread sheets and sticky notes, says Claire Schooley, senior analyst with research firm Forrester.

Fortunately, today’s generation of HR software systems are integrating succession planning with their recruiting, onboarding, training and assessment modules, making it a seamless step in the talent management process.

Schooley encourages companies to look for tools with visual features that allow them to graphically identify talent gaps, color code individual readiness, and make side-by-side comparisons of several individuals. “That can be extremely helpful to succession planning efforts,” she says.

Even if you aren’t ready to make succession planning part of the way you use HR software, find out if your vendor provides succession planning features that can be implemented later on. “You don’t have to use everything at once,” Schooley says, “but it’s nice to know that it’s there when you are ready.”

Some tools that integrate succession planning modules include:

SAP SuccessFactors’ succession and development module helps companies identify, develop, and track talent and spot talent gaps that need to be addressed.

Features include:

  • Tools that allow you to highlight and watch key positions for succession planning.
  • Tracking tools to following high-performing employees through their career development process.
  • Reports and review features to assess an employee’s experience, skills and career goals.
  • Rating tools that allow you to appraise individuals, groups and departments using competency-based criteria.

Oracle Taleo’s succession planning module is a cloud-based service that helps organizations systematically consider both internal and external talent for key roles.

Features include:

  • Comprehensive succession plans created using data captured in the recruiting and performance review processes.
  • Talent Pools and an Interactive 9-Box Matrix that assign and track development progress for critical roles, and allow HR to assess employee groups using key performance metrics.
  • Candidate comparison features that display multiple talent profiles side by side.
  • Embedded analytics so managers can segment and benchmark pools of employees.

Halogen Software’s eSuccession uses a talent pool approach that aligns the company’s workforce competencies with strategic plans and follows a phased approach to succession planning.

  • Phase 1: Understanding workforce potential and retention risks through performance appraisals. Includes tools to predict employee potential and identify opportunities for promotion.
  • Phase 2: Groom high-potential employees for future talent needs. Includes talent profile tools to track and compare talent assessment updates and identify gaps.
  • Phase 3: Recruit from within. Includes tools to assess talent and performance data when filling open positions, calculating bench strength or measuring whether talent development goals have been achieved.

Peoplefluent succession planning software helps businesses build a sustainable leadership pipeline through internal talent development and recruiting.

Features include:

  • Interactive succession planning charts and talent profiles to view the readiness of potential successors for key positions.
  • “Extended enterprise” succession features that optionally extends the succession planning process outside the organization.
  • A talent profile hub that captures historical performance management data for easy reference.
  • Tools for employees to research career opportunities and express interest within the talent profile.

Silkroad Wingspan manages all employee information compiled from assessments, appraisals, goals and development plans so that HR can automatically classify internal candidates for a given position.

Features include:

  • Career development tools that highlight the skills to be acquired by each employee, and the anticipated time to complete development goals.
  • Comparison tools that allow for views of all potential candidates side by side while adjusting job-specific criteria.
  • Separate modules that can operate individually or as an integrated employee performance management system.

Look Out!

Companies make many mistakes when it comes to succession planning. Here are the most common—and how to avoid them.

  1. Using the past to plan for the future: You need to choose leaders whose skills align with future goals. To avoid this trap, make sure succession plans align with the long-term strategic vision of the business.
  2. Stopping at the CEO: The best succession planning programs at least address the entire leadership team as well as senior management. “Succession planning is a multi-person event,” Schooley says. “If one person moves up, it creates a new hole and that can ripple through the organization.”
  3. Not getting the Board onboard: CEOs and HR often think they have a succession plan in place only to discover the board disagrees. “It’s a big mistake to assume the viability of a candidate in your mind without vetting it with the board,” Miles says. The best programs incorporate the board of directors in planning and keep them up-to-date on development efforts to ensure everyone is on the same page.
  4. Allowing human capital roadblocks to take root: When talented people top out in leadership roles, they can prevent the next generation from moving up. The best companies avoid these roadblocks by creating new positions, collaboration opportunities and stretch assignments so future leaders have room to grow.
  5. Succession isn’t part of the culture. Succession planning fails when there is no incentive for executives to mentor their people, Schneider says. Best-of-breed companies encourage executives to identify and develop talented young leaders and align their compensation with these efforts. “It should be considered a badge of honor to have your people selected for promotion.”
  6. The wrong people making decisions. CEOs aren’t in the best position to choose their successor, because they often are more focused on their current legacy than the company’s future goals. The best companies involve HR and the board when making succession planning decisions.

We’ve organized this roadmap into three phases to help you implement the planning and execution of you succession planning program. Below is a summary of the “Plan,” “Do” and “Review” of succession planning.

Plan

  • Decide how deep you want to go: Just the C-suite? Management? Everyone?
  • Determine whether you will focus on high-potential workers or extend succession planning to a wider pool of employees.
  • Define the skills and experience needed for key roles: Think about where the company is going and what leadership skills you’ll need to get there.
  • Evaluate whether your HR software offers succession planning tools and whether you want to use them.

Do

  • Assess employees’ current performance and identify any skill or experience gaps for their future roles.
  • Ask employees about their career goals so you are certain they want the role you are grooming them for.
  • Create training, mentoring and leadership opportunities for top talent to close the gaps.
  • Work with the CEO and the board to create a list of two to three candidates for every top position.

Review

  • Review assessments of top talent with the board every nine to 15 months, and again whenever there is a major change in leadership.
  • Identify development roadblocks—such as lack of mentors or limited on-the-job leadership opportunities—and look for solutions.
  • Review succession plans during annual strategic planning, to ensure development goals align with strategic goals.
  • Be willing to adapt the succession planning list if your goals change, or if individual employees aren’t showing the leadership development you need.

RECOMMENDED READING

Related articles and resources

“The Three Traits of a Successful CEO,” Human Capital Media

“We Lost a Leader, Now What?” Human Capital Media.

“Get Talent Fit in 2013,” Human Capital Media.

“Sudden Death of a CEO: Are Companies Prepared When Lightning Strikes?” by David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“The State of Human Capital 2012: False Summit,” The Conference Board/McKinsey report October, 2012.

Talent pipeline draining growth, CGMA 2012 report

Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management, 2012 HR Daily Advisor.

Linked In Group: Succession Management Professionals This group provides a networking forum to discuss the practical questions, issues, and ideas pertaining to internal talent management, including New Employee Onboarding, Succession Planning, Identification and Development of High Potential Employees, Talent Assessment, and the Talent Review Meeting process.

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Talent Mobility

Does your organization have a strong internal mobility program in place? Without successful talent management tools, your company could see a lag in employee retention as well as employee engagement. Successful talent mobility programs yield substantial enterprise-wide benefits, including lower talent acquisition costs, stronger leadership teams, and better financial performance. Learn how internal mobility programs can help drive your greatest asset—your employees.