Tagged with Leadership

Carnival of HR – The Talent Race

Alright people! I bring to you the latest Carnival of HR. Themed as “The Talent Race”, this edition contains interesting posts about how could organizations effectively Attract, Engage and Retain their employees and what are the latest practices in Talent Management. Additionally, I wanted to have some Asian flavours by getting posts by people writing about the Asian context. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many posts about talent management practices from Asia. And that means that one, we need more professionals in Asia to blog on the subject and two, I need to expand my Asian network even more!

  • Jon Ingham is one of my favourite bloggers. He feels that there is a need for a differentiated unique proposition for people management. Sticking to the theme of “talent race”, he shares how Haier (a consumer electronics MNC that started off in China) established race tracks for a unique way of managing their talent base.
  • Laura Schroeder wonders where has all the talent gone. She analyzes reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit and Bersin & Associates to come up with strategies to bridge the talent gap.
  • Tanmay Vora writes at the QAspire blog and shares with us some Core Lessons in Leading & Managing People. He says that “working with people, guiding a team and helping them in their quest for peak potential is one of the noblest things we can do as leaders. It is an opportunity and an obligation as well.
  • As HR professionals, we are often heard advising employees to “take charge of your own development”. But do most employees really know how to do this? In this post, Dan McCarthy, from Great Leadership, offers a free step-by-step self-study guide to developing leadership skills. Best of all, it’s free to use and/or share, as a way to engage and retain valuable employees who are willing to learn on their own but need a little structure”.
  • Heard about the “HR Hairball”? Find out in this excellent post by Mark Stelzner.
  • It might be important to hire employees for their skills, but hiring for culture-fit is really important as well. Wally Bock shares his views on Hiring Well. One of my favourite lines from the blog post – “Performance and growth are often situational”.
  • Amy Wilson writes about transforming existing performance models into one that is more work-centric and embedded in the natural flow of business to get the best work done.
  • A strong learning & development platform is critical for organization looking at managing their talent base effectively and driving sustained business performance. Linda Fisher Thornton from Leading in Context shares 11 Learning & Development Reports. Informative!
  • Anita Lettink feels that “best practices” may not always work for you because you have your own unique context. Instead, she shares some guidelines for winning the Talent Race.
I would like to thank all the contributors for sharing their ideas. Also, thanks to Shauna Moerke for the giving me the opportunity to host the Carnival of HR.
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Upcoming Carnival of HR

After a long long wait, I am ready to host my first Carnival of HR.

As a consultant, I constantly meet HR professionals and get great opportunities for conversations. What I realize from these conversations is that most HR professionals are in a race – the “Talent Race”. And the race seems to get hotter and harder as some parts of the globe ease out of the economic downturn and are preparing for the next growth phase. So, tell me more about what are your latest & greatest ideas about winning the race – specifically how do you think we should go about attracting, engaging and retaining talented people in our organisations? What’s new in talent management?

And since I am based in sunny Singapore, posts with an Asian flavour would go to the top of the pile! So, start putting your thoughts together and write out the next best idea. Few things to keep in mind:

  • Submit a recent post. Something that is written in the 2 weeks preceding the Carnival
  • Send me the posts by 4th July, 2011. My email is i at abhishekmittal dot com
Hope to hear from you soon!
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PWC Research : The Talent Race

I was looking at a recent research report from PWC on its Global CEO Survey 2011. Apart from interesting data on strategic priorities, innovation, business confidence, sustainability etc., it also touches upon the talent agenda through a section titled “The Talent Race”. I pulled out a few slices of data, which I found interesting. And since I am in Asia, I was keen on comparing the Global data with Asia-Pacific data. The chart below talks about the key challenges highlighted by CEOs, considering the talent required for business success over the next 3 years:

The top challenges highlighted for Asia are – limited supply of candidates with the right skills, competitors poaching talent, global talent deployment and inflexibility of talented people. As the Asia growth machine turns faster, companies are definitely feeling a talent squeeze. But are too many companies simply “buying” talent, rather than investing to “build, deploy, grow, retain” talent? Also, interestingly, “providing attractive career paths” is cited as less of a challenge by CEOs in Asia. I am not entirely sure how to read this because most of my experiences seems to suggest that this is a continual challenge for companies here. Is there a potential disconnect between what leaders and employees think?

The report also states that over 80% of the CEOs globally are seeking a rethink of their people strategy. When asked about what changes they anticipate in their people strategy over the next year, the response are as follows:

Use of non-financial rewards to motivate staff is right at the top of the list. (“Meaning” is the new money?) Leaders in Asia are also looking at deploying more employees on global assignments as they expand. There is lesser focus on incentivizing younger employees differently, which makes me again wonder if focusing on age-groups is useful or should we really focus on “life-stages” of employees. In Asia-Pacific, there is the same level of focus on attracting and retaining women in the workforce as the global levels, but the focus on recruiting / retaining older workers is higher in Asia-Pacific.

Of course, these are just some of the insights from the study. Tell me what else you found interesting!

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“Meaning” is the New Money

Compensation & rewards are important. All important? Are they enough to drive the right behaviours? Are they enough to keep employees?

There is no doubt that rewards are a very important part of the “employment deal”. And, there is plenty of research to show that it is one of the key factors when it comes to attracting and retaining employees. But then, more & more rewards alone does not necessarily drive engagement and high-performance, as there are other factors at play too. Earlier on, I read with keen interest the book “Drive” by Dan Pink, where he examined the three elements of true motivation – Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. If you still are not familiar with this, I highly recommend that you watch this video for a quick (and cool) summary.

Dan Pink discussed research which shows that rewards are a good motivator when it comes to jobs that are “rudimentary” or require basic skills only. But, as complexity in job roles grow, then more rewards may not necessarily fuel performance. While compensation and rewards are important hygiene factors, more of them may not necessarily lead to employees putting in discretionary efforts for their organisations. More recently, I came across this article on the Harvard Business Review Blog. The author rightly titled it “Meaning is the New Money.”

Working in a world of extended collaboration asks individuals to contribute through a different and, in many ways, more complex set of activities. Workers must deal with rich content that flows through infinite links. Individuals must make intelligent, well-informed decisions about what to share with whom (and what not to) with less guidance from the hierarchy to simplify the patterns of interaction. And they must dig deep within themselves to form innovative ideas and put their best thinking forward.

To a large extent, the conduct of these activities is not something managers can prescribe or even monitor. Unlike process-based work, in which the goal is to perform synchronized tasks consistently and reliably, extended collaboration occurs asynchronously and is often aimed at discovering or developing something new.

Perhaps most significantly, extended collaboration requires high levels of discretionary effort. People have to choose to do it and have to want to do it well. Leaders can create a context in which that is likely to happen, but collaboration cannot be mandated. It requires high levels of employee engagement.

For many today, meaning is the new money. It’s what people are looking for at work.

So, what can potentially be done? Aligning people to the shared purpose & values, building a sense of role significance, connecting individual roles to group goals, giving them autonomy in their roles and helping them to build mastery in their chosen areas are some of the most important ways in which organisations can really “win” the employees – engage them, retain them and build a high-performing culture. What are your thoughts? How are you hacking established management practices to build a high-performance organisation?

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Top 25 Online Influencers in Leadership 2011

HRExaminer’s list of Top 25 Online Influencers in Leadership 2011 is out and I am now placed at number 13. Earlier, I was at 23.

Here’s a link to my profile on HRExaminer’s website and you can also take a look at the other people who made it to the list. As always, I am grateful for your connections and am always looking forward to connecting with people who are working to redefine organisations and reinvent leadership, management and people practices.

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