MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Do You Have a Portrait of Your Ideal Employee?

In marketing there’s lots of talk about your ideal buyer. What is this person’s job title? What does their day look like? What are their skill sets? Their pain points? Their goals? Their challenges? Knowing the answers to all these questions and more allows marketers to better speak to their ideal buyers. It allows them to create content that gives them value. And it allows them to figure out not only who they are selling to, but just as importantly who they aren’t selling to.

It seems like HR could benefit from something similar. Who is your ideal employee? What skill sets do they have? What kind of behaviors do they exhibit? What attitudes do they bring to the workplace? How do they impact the day of those they work with? What impact do they have on the bottom line of the company? Having answers to questions like these allows a picture of the ideal employee. It helps to paint a picture of someone who fits into the existing company culture, and contributes in a meaningful way.

If you want to have more ideal employee on staff, know what you are looking for. It will help make your screening process more efficient and your hiring process have more hits than misses. Of course the flip side of catching ideal employees is to hang onto them. Do you know how many ideal employees you currently have on staff? Do you know if their turnover rate is higher or lower than the average? Do you know what the company is doing (or not doing) to hang onto them?

You should understand what your ideal employee’s pain points and goals are, not just a required skill set. What do they want their work environment to be like? What benefits are likely to appeal most to them? What changes can you make to increase their retention? In The Shriver Report, most employees agree that businesses aren’t keeping up with their needs. I suspect it’s because HR is focused on skill set descriptions and stopping short of creating a full picture of what their ideal employee looks like, and what they need to do to attract and retain them.

Are Your Talent Management Practices Rooted in the Past?

The Shriver Report was released a few weeks ago. The report is extensive and examines a single question. What are the implications for men, women and families now that women make up 50 percent of all workers? And make no mistake about it. The implications are huge and we as a society, including government and business have yet to effectively deal with most of them.

Let’s start off with a few facts. I am a woman who has worked all of my adult life and some of these surprised even me.

• Women receive 57 percent of bachelor degrees and 50 percent of doctoral and professional degrees
• Women are primary breadwinners in 4 out of 10 families
• Less than 25 percent of married couples have only one spouse working to support the family

The role of women in society is shifting rapidly. Only 30 years ago women were less than a third of the workforce. Only 30 years ago approximately half of American families were traditional nuclear families with a primary breadwinner (usually the man) and a primary caregiver (usually the woman). Yet most businesses behave as though it is 30 years ago and ignore the vast changes that their workforce, both male and female, are dealing with.

Now that women are half of the workforce, the dynamics of families have changed. Both men and women are in a constant state of negotiation about who will assume childcare responsibilities, household responsibilities, and elder care responsibilities. Equal pay, flexible schedules, paid medical and family leave, comprehensive childcare policies are not “women’s issues” they are family issues that affect all workers. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the workers who participated in the Shriver Report.

• “Men and women agree that government and business are out of touch with the realities of how most families live and work today.”
• “Over 80 percent of men and women agree that businesses that fail to adapt to the needs of modern families or risk losing good workers.”

So I ask you again. Are your talent management practices rooted in the past? Before you answer no, take a look around and examine the reality of what is happening in your workplace.

• Do you really practice equal pay for equal work?
• Do you and your managers act as though there is only one place where work happens?
• Do you and your managers believe (and behave as though) there is only one way to structure a workday?
• When is the last time you updated your family and medical leave policy?
• What kind of childcare policies do you have? When is the last time you updated them?

The answers to these questions and others like them will determine whether your company will be able to capture and capitalize on the talent that your workers bring to your organization. Those companies who can identify and truly address the shifting needs of their workers have a golden opportunity to differentiate themselves to the talent pool and steal (and hang on to) the cream of the crop.

Be Smart with Your Human Capital Management Practices

Aberdeen Group has released a research report called Intelligent Human Capital Management: Workforce Analytics Drive Profit and Performance. First let’s state the obvious. Despite the recession, the importance of Human Capital Management (HCM) is increasing. But while more and more companies are aware of the importance of HCM, they also realize that not all HCM practices are created equally.

To get the best bang for the buck, you must have metrics. And as we all know, it is very difficult to get everything in place to make data-driven decisions when it comes to people and their performance levels. However, it is something that best-in-class companies do, and do well. Other best-in-class practices include:

·     Integrating HR, talent management, and other organizational data to see future and current needs (break down those information silos).

·     Training leaders on how to use analytics and reporting systems.

·     Creating standardized HCM metrics (what doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done).

·     Making reports available down to the line manager level (don’t keep that information at the top of the organizational chart).

·     Improving processes so that data is accurate and timely (and available for decision making).

Bottom line: Good HCM requires collaboration between many different areas of the organization – HR, IT, line managers and strategic leaders. Unless your organization fosters collaboration between these groups, uses a system that everyone is trained on, and implements appropriate workforce metrics HCM is unlikely to give the performance gains that it could.

What do you think? Is there enough collaboration between HR, IT, and management in your organization to foster strong HCM practices?

Is Sourcing Talent Easier or Harder in a Recession?

The economic indicators may be showing signs of life, but the US economy is still in recovery and will be for some time. Since the labor market lags economic recovery, a surplus of labor is now available for hire. As companies move to snatch up key talent that might not otherwise be available (or affordable), is their job easier or harder?

The quick answer is to say easier. After all, there’s a lot of extra labor out there looking for work. Many of those are extremely talented folks who simply had the misfortune of working for a company who wasn’t set up to survive the recession very well. But there are also a lot of B and C level employees who were in the rounds of layoffs because they are B and C level employees. And then there is the sheer number of applicants regardless of what level of employee they are.

A recent MSNBC article showed that JC Penney received more than 15,000 applications for 500 job postings at a new Manhattan store. I think JC Penney is not alone. Many hiring employers are finding themselves under a deluge of resumes. And that’s not the only issue.

The longer people are out of work, the more desperate they become for a job. The more willing they are to go out on a limb and try to change careers. The more likely it is that they will apply for a job that they aren’t necessarily qualified for in the hope that maybe things will work out.

Yes, there is some great talent out there. And for companies in a good position to start growing, the time is ripe to snatch them up. But they are going to have to wade through a lot of resumes and have some good screening processes to find the true A level employees. So I think the answer is that finding that A level talent is harder.

What do you think? Are you screening for talent now? Is it easier or harder with the number of folks out there looking for jobs?

Knowledge Workers and a Culture of Learning

Why do some organizations have a culture of learning and others don’t? As with most things, it boils down to the day to day choices that make up a group’s culture. And many of those choices have little to do with the company’s learning program. Like the way managers treat their employees and how employees view their company. Those views can make a big difference in attitude, engagement, performance, and learning culture.

Most of today’s workers are knowledge workers. So here’s the question. Does your organization treat them like knowledge workers? Is it ok for them to learn and teach on the job? Do managers set clear objectives and then allow workers to manage themselves in achieving those objectives? Is quality of work at least as important as quantity of output? Are workers regarded as an asset or an expense?

As you might guess, the more questions you answer "yes" to, the more likely it is that a culture of learning exists or is easy to facilitiate. As for those answering "no" to most of the questions, well I'm assuming that a culture of learning is the least of many problems.

Many of these questions correlate to Peter Drucker’s six principles of managing knowledge worker productivity, but productivity is the least of the gains. Treating knowledge workers like knowledge workers, with respect and regard for their ideas fosters a lot more than productivity. It fosters collaboration, engagement, and innovation. And yes, even a culture of learning.

How does your organization rate? Do you see a correlation between appropriate management of knowledge workers and a learning culture?

Managers are key to building successful training

The Pareto Principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your sources. In training, I think the 20% is easily the front-line managers in your company. And today seems to be a day to reinforce that thought.

Josh Bersin posted on his blog about the proof his analysts have been gathering that coaching and development is one of the keys to the economic success of a company.

Because over the long run ..., businesses succeed through their ability to adapt, learn, and move people from job to job.  Without a strong culture and set of processes to coach and develop people, this becomes very difficult.

Clive Shepherd wrote today, too, that managers will determine the success of learning and development.

The lesson from all this evidence is quite clear. Unless you recognise that line managers are your most important stakeholder and ensure their commitment to your l&d strategy, you stand little chance of success.

It's important for the people you're teaching to know what they should be gaining from their training programs, how it will be used in their everyday jobs, and how it can impact their business. And it's critical, vital, crucial for their managers to know the same thing. I think that if you focus on that 20% of your audience, you'll see 80% return on your investment. How do you get managers involved with your training programs?

How to keep managers and executives informed about training

Never let the bosses (whether they be the C-level executives, the manager or director of your department, or even the heads of other departments that you build training programs with) wonder what you're doing. This is especially important in economy crunches like this, when everyone's looking at the bottom line and checking on how much they're getting from you and your team for their money.

But nobody (most of us with sense, anyway) wants to waste emails or meetings tooting their own horn and boring people to tears. Reports have to be quick to read and contain useful information. Everyone's organization and processes will be different, but here's the system I use to try to keep people informed without burying them in too much information.

I send a report once a month; I have a reminder set in Outlook to make sure I do it. I rotate which report I send between four different topics:

• What courses are people using the most?
• What training topics are our clients and prospects requesting the most?
• What information are students searching for on our web site?
• How are students rating our courses in their evaluations?

My reports have a slightly different bent than the average training manager because I'm at the marketing end of the business. What topics would be of most interest to your "audience," the people you work for and provide training services to?

• Classes, courses, and online books that are used the most?
• The training topics that are most in demand in your company?
• Amount of training that's been completed, maybe divided by team or department to see which ones are most active in furthering their careers?

In my reports, I attach a spreadsheet with complete data, but provide the top 10 or highlights in the email itself so that readers can skim or get as in-depth as they want.

MindLeaders Central provides detailed reports about your training activity that can be a great start for keeping others updated. Our Course Utilization report is especially useful for a birds-eye view of the training people are using.

What information can you provide (regularly) to the people you influence and who influence you? What will really provide value and show the results of your work?