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The CHRO 2016 Talent Agenda

As we head towards the close of 2015, HR leaders are beginning to consider the year that lies ahead. We therefore thought it would be timely to highlight some interesting Talent-related issues and trends that leading CHROs are factoring into their forward plans.

1. HR Generalists Move In On Talent Management

We are seeing a growing trend for senior HR Generalists/Business Partners to occupy Heads of Talent/OD roles, as part of their career paths to CHRO. HR Generalists are often being selected for these roles over pure Talent or OD specialists, and individuals with a blend of both Generalist and Talent experience are increasingly being seen as the ‘right hand’ of the HR Head. We believe there are several reasons for this.

Firstly, these HR Generalists are often seen as a more ‘practical’ solution, bringing a broader understanding and proven value when it comes to being close to the business, versus more theoretically-oriented specialists who may be focused on ‘best practice’ over pragmatic decision making and stellar execution. In addition, these roles can be ‘incubator’ positions on the road to senior HR leadership — so in the absence of a truly superior specialist solution, these specialist roles can be excellent developmental opportunities for high-potential individuals. Furthermore, {nolink}Talent Management{/nolink} and Leadership Development are disproportionately important in emerging markets and are viewed as extremely useful for HR Generalists to have in their HR toolbox.

We are also finding for senior searches that a mix of {nolink}HR Generalist{/nolink} and Specialist experience is more often than not viewed as very attractive for any role (whether the position is Generalist or Specialist); since a ‘blended’ HR background connotes agility and versatility. These are essential attributes for today’s fast moving, rapidly changing world of HR.

2. Talent Acquisition Becoming a Path to CHRO

No HR specialization has evolved as rapidly over the past 2-3 years as {nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink}. We are seeing a growing focus on {nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink} leaders who can innovate and who are creative in using social {nolink}media{/nolink}. With globalization and the rapid pace of change in technology, the Talent scene has become a complex one. Generational change alone has caused the re-writing of much of the HR rule book.{nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink} leaders who are innovative and forward-thinking enough to de-mystify this for employers and build smart strategies for appealing to internal and external candidates spanning generations, geographies and {nolink}media{/nolink} are clearly the ‘new’ face of the {nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink} function.

Another helpful factor for the function is that forward-thinking companies are now breaking down the silos between external and internal talent sourcing strategies, giving {nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink} leaders a more holistic view of the company’s overall Talent capability and agenda. Owing to the greater scope and complexity of today’s TA function, more traditional ‘hunter / gatherer’ types are being moved into the executive recruiter roles versus occupying the overall function lead roles (which now require a broader skill-set). Almost unthinkable a few years ago, we believe it is now possible to go from Head of TA to CHRO (potentially with a stop in a broad Head of Talent position in between), given the growing importance and profile of this function and the pace of external change.

3. Employer Branding Reaches the C-Suite

By focusing on the discipline of Employer Branding, forward-thinking CHROs and Heads of {nolink}Talent Acquisition{/nolink} are ensuring a higher recruitment success rate, greater productivity, and higher retention rates. The notion of the Employer Brand has been around for a long time, but has become topical again recently due to the proliferation of new/social {nolink}media{/nolink} and improved economic conditions, particularly at {nolink}U.S.{/nolink} and European headquarters. Globalization and talent shortages are other contributing factors for the re-emergence of this discipline. No longer a subject purely for junior marketing and HR people, a company’s employer brand will regularly be discussed at the most senior leadership levels, and is therefore occupying a growing share of CHRO minds.

Social {nolink}media{/nolink} is impacting employer brands like never before. As we become more mobile, and recruiting practices in turn become more global as well as more digital, CHROs are working to ensure their marketing strategies and social {nolink}media{/nolink} practices are evolving to keep pace. To enable this, they need awareness around what factors are strengthening or weakening the brand. This is important as the majority of job seekers (in particular younger, highly educated candidates) are likely to research the company (using sites like Glassdoor, company reviews and social {nolink}media{/nolink} postings) before accepting a job offer, or even engaging in a recruitment process in the first place. The need to shape an employer brand accordingly is being recognized at top levels of organizations and is becoming just as important as marketing a company’s brand to consumers and end users.

So how do HR leaders address these areas? It’s a complex challenge and requires a high level of skill to be successful, as CHROs need to create buy-in across the entire organization.

Factors that need to be considered include:

  • The ability to connect and amplify both the company’s message and employer brand across multiple social {nolink}media{/nolink} channels, by making content available, relevant and engaging.
  • Finding, addressing and capturing passive, not just active job seekers — being creative and proactive in reaching those in the target audience who aren’t necessarily looking to change jobs.
  • Thinking mobile first – the candidate experience on a company website/online recruitment process is crucial. Candidates expect a seamless recruitment process, and almost half of the biggest global companies’ websites are stuck in the pre-iPhone era.
  • Making it easier for candidates to browse and apply online for new roles, especially via mobile devices — Millennials are going to dominate the workforce in the future, and they have high digital expectations, including being able to browse jobs without registering; being able to easily and quickly apply; and being able to apply for jobs via mobile.

4. Mixing Millennials with the Experienced Workforce

Companies are now grappling with having vast generational differences under the same roof and the question of how to best integrate those employees together – while still keeping everyone engaged and challenged. As millennials will account for almost half of the {nolink}U.S.{/nolink} workforce by 2020; and 75% of the global workforce by 2025, it’s crucial that CHROs plan for the changes this will bring about in the workplace; and figure out how to create cohesion between their employees.

There are a lot of myths and stereotypes out there about generational differences, and whilst stereotyping tends to pigeonhole people unnecessarily, generational differences do exist — in particular between the so-called Baby Boomers and Millennials, who sometimes struggle to understand each other’s work styles. The reality is that despite the fact that these generations have been brought up learning very different methods to produce results (long hours to prove work ethic vs. a more ‘results-only’ work environment), employees across all generations have similar expectations at work – a sense of achievement, pride in work, fair treatment relating to {nolink}compensation{/nolink}, {nolink}benefits{/nolink}, job security and increasingly work/life balance.

Strategies that some forward-thinking companies are adopting include:

  • Creating mentorship through co-leadership — by pairing a Millennial with a senior executive, the younger colleague is empowered and feels valued whilst also having the opportunity to learn from their mentor about the organization/industry. In fact, it generally works both ways with the millennial being able to bring rich experience with technology, social {nolink}media{/nolink} and also valuable input on how to communicate with the company’s younger (Millennial) customer base.
  • Valuing all employees through inclusion — some companies, including online retailer Zappos, are embracing a new organizational and management system called Holacracy, which abandons the traditional hierarchy of people/managers, and instead distributes decision-making responsibilities among a set of roles and teams.
  • Embracing the Millennial stereotypes – as the first Fortune 500 company built by Millennials, Facebook has created management techniques around them — job titles have no real credit; everyone is given a sense of ownership and accountability; weekly Town Hall calls with top leadership where ‘brave’ questions are asked; and roles are created to enhance strengths and work around weaknesses. However, it’s worth noting that Facebook has a large number of Baby Boomer employees and continues to adopt some practices that other companies would find ‘old fashioned’, such as traditional performance rating scorecards.
  • Devising flexible Reward programs to accommodate achievements for all employees and focus on results, rather than how these are achieved, so everyone is on the same success measurement scale.
  • Offering flexible working options – Work/Life balance is important to all, and companies can increase remote working/telecommuting and flexible work hours so that employees have control over their schedule and hours, to plan around when and where their work gets done. This remains a polarizing issue for business leaders and CHROs with a good deal of publicity being given not so long ago to Marissa Mayer removing the option to work from home for Yahoo employees.
  • Accommodating different communication and learning styles — cloud services not only allow flexibility in office hours, but also appeal to younger employees who are have grown up with digital technology and social media. Nevertheless, providing options for those who prefer presentations and face-to-face meetings may go some way to ensuring that all employees are comfortable.

5. Learning Stands Alone

We are observing a growing trend for HR leaders to see Learning as a highly specialized function, and one which should sit separate to the rest of {nolink}Talent Management{/nolink} and Development. Increasingly, Learning is becoming an area for tech-savvy specialists, requiring a very strong grasp of the latest eLearning applications and platforms, in addition to more traditional methods.

Learning programs are becoming more sophisticated and as technology progresses, more about capability development – both on an organizational and individual level. Due to advances in technology, Learning applications are now real-time and are easy to use on a mobile phone. A very high degree of customization is possible and employees can complete modules, receive feedback, and understand areas for further work or improvement immediately, without the guidance or intervention of a coach or trainer. While strong CLOs do not need to be highly technical, they must feel 100% comfortable with technology and data, due to the way content and feedback is increasingly gathered, digested and communicated.

Unlike other areas in the Talent sphere, Learning requires scale and the ability to work top to bottom within a workforce, as well as the capability to finely segment and target individual pockets of an employee population. For each of these segments, it’s necessary that the CLO understands the daily lives and tasks of the people within it, in order to customize the most appropriate learning approach. This has always been true for CLOs. However today, we have the capability to leverage technology and use data in a way that is much more powerful than in the past. In a world that is evolving quickly, CLOs need to ensure employees quickly adapt to meet the evolving needs of the organization, and to do this they require not only traditional CLO skills but also a deep and very current command of the many new tools available.

6. Introducing The Data Driven CHRO

In the C-suite, the CFO has often been seen as the #2 to the CEO, due in part to the benefit of being the person in the room in control of the most powerful factual data, and the individual most able to predict the future based on trends. As HR analytics becomes more sophisticated, CHROs today have more of an opportunity to provide insights and make recommendations based on fact, rather than gut feel or unsupported opinion, than ever before. The prospect of CHROs being able to provide data-rich, deep insights about a company’s workforce is a powerful and attractive one.

For most companies, the ‘holy grail’ remains predictive HR analytics — where CHROs are able to reliably identify groups of employees who are more at risk for leaving; or more robust, scientific methods of accurately pinpointing employees and managers who are likely to excel in certain areas and under certain conditions. In the past, one major obstacle has been the {nolink}HR Information Systems{/nolink} that companies use every day. Until now, many companies have not had one single and consistent source of HR information and have relied on multiple, and often incompatible, systems (and sources of data) around the globe. Thanks to rapid advancements in {nolink}HR Information Systems{/nolink}, the HR data is more accessible and more easily manipulated than ever.

Today, not only is technology increasingly automating transactional HR processes, such as Payroll and {nolink}Benefits{/nolink} administration; but it is also enabling the capture of sophisticated employee data. Furthermore, employees are now starting to manage their own data, from sharing more basic demographic data with a company — all the way through to the management of their own learning and performance. This is allowing the HR function to be ‘data rich’ and we are seeing that CHROs will soon be able to use this data in the form of {nolink}Talent Management{/nolink} tools, which can shape company cultures, drive change, and enhance the performance of an employee population. And because so much of this data is available in ‘real-time’, the ability for CHROs to make employee insights available in the Boardroom is a powerful one. They will also be able to measure, far more effectively than in the past, the ROI of HR initiatives and programs.

7. Managing Performance Real-Time

Like a number of large corporations including Gap, Accenture, Deloitte and Adobe, GE is also abandoning its formal annual reviews and legacy performance management system. Having already moved several years ago from what was notoriously known as Jack Welch’s “rank and yank” system, which judged and ranked employees against their peers before ejecting the lowest ten percent, GE is not the only company now opting for a less structured and more modernized evaluation system that provides more informal and frequent feedback, often via applications. Almost six percent of Fortune 500 companies in the US are following suit.

An overwhelming majority of HR leaders we’ve spoken with recently agree the traditional ranking and review process is flawed and doesn’t provide accurate information. In a recent networking session, one CHRO said: “I don’t give my teenagers feedback once a year, so I don’t know why I would do that with my employees!” Slowly but surely we are seeing a move from time-consuming paperwork and combined manager/employee frustration, to more modern evaluation processes that include online pulse surveys
and more frequent performance conversations, leading to data-centric coaching.

In summary, most or all of these points above are top of mind with Heads of HR because of the rapid change that technology is driving on a global scale. In these days of uncertainty one thing we know for sure is that the life of the CHRO in 2016 will be very different and far more challenging than in years past.

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