Navigating Workforce Strategy

Workforce demands and compositions are shifting in response to economic, social and demographic trends. Talent assets need to be managed as aggressively as the fine-tuning applied to other organizational assets. Everything else fails if the right talent isn’t in the right place. This requires an alignment of workforce strategy with business goals.

In the changing world of work, the one constant is the need for an exceptional workforce. The effectiveness of your workforce strategy makes the difference between thriving and diving. Today, talent is the only source of sustainable success and differentiation. Building an exceptional workforce will drive higher levels of performance and positively impact your organization’s ability to deliver on business strategy.

I will be presenting on this topic at the SHRM 2011 Conference and Exposition on June 28 in Las Vegas. Please join me and learn language, a process, business drivers and key metrics to architect an effective workforce strategy is aligned with business objectives.
Architecting a high-performing workforce strategy starts with the foundation of a five step process:

• Identify current state and future goals;


• Establish understanding and commitment;


• Gather the data and assess priorities;


• Analyze results and conduct gap analysis; and,


• Action planning and implementation.

Why make the investment? Building an exceptional workforce will drive higher levels of performance and will positively impact your organization’s ability to deliver on its business growth strategy. Investing in this process upfront will iidentify constraints and accelerators to organizational performance – top strengths to leverage and top priorities to fund and why. It will also increase executive alignment across functions and geographies, while also aligning talent initiatives to business goals – whether they are related to globalization, growth, productivity or even the brand.

I hope to see you at SHRM.

Engaging an Aging Workforce

By 2050, the world population will be over nine billion. Despite this growth and the flooded employment market, employers worldwide report difficulty in filling positions. Many are facing an HR paradox: How to find the right people at the right time, with the right skills in the right place, and fill the gap in the midst of plenty?

On a global scale, birth rates are declining and populations are aging. This means that there is a smaller pool of working-age talent from which to draw. The world average life expectancy was around 52.5 years in 1960. But today it is 68.9 years of age –31% higher in just 40 years. The percentage of individuals over age 65 who are in the labor force jumped about 40% from 1998 to 2008 … and this trend is set to continue.

Combined with these demographic challenges is a broader, more strategic challenge of the global talent mismatch. According to Manpower’s Annual Talent Shortage Survey, 34% of employers worldwide experience difficulty filling needed positions. So it’s not just about having the workers available amidst a shrinking pool of talent. It’s also about having the right people with the right skills needed to drive businesses forward.

Experienced workers will make up a larger percentage of the workforce and employers will need to find ways to keep them engaged. They will need to train managers to manage a multigenerational workforce that includes the young and the old. The skills mismatch is set to accelerate, creating an imbalance between supply and demand.

On June 28, I will be presenting on this topic at the SHRM 2011 Annual Conference and Exposition. I hope to see you at SHRM.

Speaking to the Top of the House

The ability to influence an executive audience is an essential requirement for today’s leaders of all levels. Unfortunately, many are unable to effectively influence senior audiences to take action on their ideas. At the SHRM 2011 Conference and Exposition on June 28 in Las Vegas I will be speaking on this topic and I invite you to join me. In this highly-interactive session, you will learn how to:

• Immediately capture and sustain the C-suite’s attention;
• Present yourself credibly, authentically and engagingly;
• Deliver ideas that provide inspiration;
• Develop confidence to excel at results-oriented communications.

Recent research found that high-performing organizations have the head of HR reporting directly to the CEO. Only 67% of low-performing organizations had their reporting lines set up this way. As a result of this infrastructure, the high-performing organizations reported a stronger and more productive connection between business strategies and HR strategies when the head of HR reports directly to the CEO.

CEOs sometimes forget that people are the only real sustainable competitive differentiator. It’s up to HR to ensure the CEO realizes the value of these assets and commits to investing in a talent strategy aligned with business objectives. Lack of a talent strategy is the number-one impediment to executing on business plans. It is HR’s role to step up and convince the C-suite how to do this. Why? Because there are countless examples of how the business strategy falls down and goals are missed if talent is not aligned.

If you are an HR leader and want to earn a seat at the executive table, you must market the HR function so senior management realizes the value-add and the full impact of what you do and how you contribute to the business. You need to understand each C-level executive and relate your function’s activities to his/her strategic imperatives. One of the unique opportunities about being in HR is that your responsibilities infiltrate every aspect of the business. Why? Because it takes talent to get the job done. The collective talent of our workforces is the only sustainable differentiator that will provide competitive advantage over time.

I look forward to seeing you at SHRM.

HR Execs Give Mixed Grades to Leadership Pipelines

Organizations appear to be all over the map with it comes to implementing coherent leadership programs. Right Management research found that human resources and talent management executives give mixed grades for the quality of their own organizations’ leadership pipelines.

We recently surveyed over 1,200 executives and found that there are gaps in the leadership cadres at most companies in North America. In fact, only 6% of organizations were reported to have future leaders identified for all critical roles. A majority of organizations seem to have ‘some’ critical roles covered, but that’s barely reassuring. What’s really striking is that fewer than one in five has no one slated to take over any key positions. And we’re not talking about small companies.

As executives rated their leadership pipelines, they were also asked if there had been any recent change in their organizations’ approach to succession planning. A majority (57%) said succession planning had become a higher priority in the past year, while 17% said it was made a lower priority. For the rest there was no change in priority. Combining these results suggests that the need for succession planning is becoming more evident, but actual succession management strategies and implementation plans are lagging behind.

There’s a growing recognition that management succession is no luxury. Board members, executives and business leaders are now openly acknowledging that talent management plans –which include succession management – are absolutely essential for sustained performance in today’s organizations, as talent is now seen as one of the only competitive differentiators left.

The world is chaotic and unforeseen events can change a company’s situation overnight, so having a depth of leadership talent as well as a genuine plan for all eventualities are more important than ever. In fact, weak bench strength throughout the company can erode employee engagement and reduce overall performance.

Managing succession insures business continuity as well as retention of high-value talent. Corporate health depends on the effectiveness, depth and breadth of succession management planning.

Loss of Top Performers a Growing Concern

As new opportunities begin to open up in the job market the loss of top performers has emerged as the top concern of across the nation. Right Management research found that as many as 30% of employers cite defection of top talent as their most pressing HR challenge. And a further 30% told us that they lack high-potential leaders in the organization. Twenty-two percent are suffering from low engagement and lagging productivity and 18% have a shortage of talent at all levels.

Loss of top talent is a growing concern for many employers. In fact, it’s now more of an expectation. After all, it’s no secret there’s a lot of pent-up frustration in the workplace and that many, if not most, employees have been floating their resume.

Many employers find themselves faced with a dilemma. Right now they don’t want to do much hiring, but at the same time they think they will lose top people. If these defections play out, that in turn will mean more hiring to fill key gaps. It seems certain that job churn and turnover will notch upward, which may harm growth at many organizations.

HR professionals know that recruiting and securing the right talent for key positions is a demanding process regardless of whether the job market is weak or strong. Top talent is clearly on the move. To secure the best available talent, organizations need to have a clear picture of the competencies required and the success profile for the positions for which they are hiring. Without this clear focus as well as a fast track on-boarding plan, organizations risk losing greater productivity and performance especially from new leaders being hired into the firm.

It’s imperative for organization’s today to have a well-constructed succession planning system for rapid replacement of key roles, and more broadly, a well aligned succession management plan to ensure firm-wide talent progression. Those that don’t are highly exposed to risks of underperformance and further loss of talent that could have been successfully developed for competitive advantage.