Posts belonging to Category career development

HR’s always talking about the importance of having a robust talent pipeline. But what about its own pipeline? Is the profession doing enough to develop the next generation of HR leader?

To that end, the National Academy of Human Resources launched its Ram Charan HR Essay Contest in 2011, aimed at recognizing thought leadership among university undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of HR, industrial/labor relations and related fields.

The contest is made possible through a generous donation by NAHR Distinguished Fellow Ram Charan to the NAHR Foundation.

For the 2013 contest—which has an Aug. 1, 2013 deadline—the students are being asked to address the topic of electronic technology and social media, and how these are affecting the employment relationship (from hiring to engagement to retention) between employers and employees; as well as the roles, responsibilities and contributions of HR organizations. Clearly a timely and relevant topic.

Prizes of $20,000, $10,000 and $5,000 will be awarded, with the winners being officially announced at the Nov. 7 NAHR Annual Dinner. (Essays will be evaluated and judged by a panel of HR professionals who are Fellow of the NAHR.)

Kudos to Charan, a respected author, speaker and business consultant, and the NAHR for providing students with this worthwhile opportunity. Details can be found on the NAHR site.

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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In was just released last week. Conversation about the book, however—in which she “cut[s] through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women,” according to Amazon.com—has been heating up for a while.

Last month on The Leader Board, our own Andrew McIlvaine offered a snapshot of Lean In, in which Sandberg shares her views on what often impedes women from achieving leadership positions within their companies. For example:

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. [The result is that] men still run the world.”

Sandberg’s perspective is certainly not shared by everyone, as McIlvaine pointed out, referencing a New York Times article in which business consultant Avivah Wittenberg-Cox opined that Sandberg “does what too many successful women before her have done: blaming other women for not trying hard enough.”

The Times also references Princeton professor, former State Department official and Sandberg’s “chief critic,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, noting her claim that Sandberg—and feminism, for that matter—has been guilty of holding women to unrealistic professional and personal standards.

So, it’s safe to say that Sandberg has her detractors. But she may also have a point, according to an online poll being conducted by The Economist.

The still-open survey (you can vote here if so inclined) asks readers if they think that women derail their own careers. The answer? Yes, at least according to 64 percent of the 9,564 voters who have participated in the poll since it opened on March 15.

Interesting. This is a thorny subject, and a complex argument, to be sure. But it seems Sandberg is far from alone in the views she puts forward in Lean In, and she has started a dialogue that may only be heating up. In fact, if you want to feel some of that heat, take a look at the six-plus pages of comments on The Economist’s poll page and watch the opinions fly.

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Monster.com and Millennial Branding put that question to nearly 3,000 Monster users in a recent survey, and got some surprising answers.

Among the 2,828 respondents, 41 percent of Generation X employees (roughly defined as those between the ages of 30 and 49) and 45 percent of baby boomers (50-to-69-years-old) said they consider themselves to be entrepreneurial. In comparison, 32 percent of Generation Y respondents (ages 18 to 29) said the same.

These findings rebut the survey authors’ original hypothesis that Gen Y possessed a stronger entrepreneurial spirit than their older counterparts, says Dan Schawbel, founder and managing partner of Boston-based Millennial Branding and author of Promote Yourself. He attributes these figures to a combination of factors working in older employees’ favor.

“I believe that older workers view themselves as being more entrepreneurial because they have work experience, strong Rolodexes and [more] wealth compared to Gen Y,” says Schawbel.

Gen Ys are just starting out, and have a lot to learn in order to be fully equipped to start a business. Gen Y isn’t in a good financial situation right now, has the highest unemployment rate, has student loans, and many are living with their parents. We hear a lot of success stories of Gen Ys making millions through entrepreneurship, but those are still rare cases.”

Differences aside, the survey authors note more employees across generations indicating an itch to pursue their own endeavors as opposed to “traditional jobs or careers.” As such, employers would be wise to harness employees’ entrepreneurial skills and put them to work within their organizations, or risk seeing them in action elsewhere.

“Companies and HR leaders should focus on creating intrapreneurship programs that satisfy these employees, so they don’t leave to start their own ventures,” says Schawbel, citing companies such as DreamWorks, Google, 3M and Microsoft as examples of organizations using such programs “as a marketing tool to attract the best talent and as a way to increase retention rates among current employees.”

And, it seems a fair number of employees are ready to stretch beyond their everyday duties and take on new tasks within the company. Nearly one-third of respondents feel they have the freedom, flexibility and resources to be an intrapreneur, and 42 percent of respondents feel they have opportunities to work on projects outside their direct responsibilities.

Only 23 percent, however, said they feel encouraged to work on such projects. HR leaders must train managers to be more open to intrapreneurship and “have formal programs that embrace it,” says Schawbel.

“The big accounting firms have contests where employees compete to get their ideas funded. Ernst & Young’s Power Pitch program is one example. And Dreamworks teaches [employees] to pitch ideas, and then lets [them] pitch their executives,” he says.

What it comes down to is fostering a culture of innovation and enabling everyone, regardless of age, to let their ideas be heard.”

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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is on a mission: The fantastically successful, phenomenally wealthy mother of two wants to start “Lean In Circles” at workplaces throughout the country to help working women fight the often-invisible barriers (some of them internal) that often impede them from achieving leadership positions in their organizations. As she writes in her soon-to-be published book, Lean In:

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. [The result is that] men still run the world.”

Indeed they do: Although women constitute nearly 48 percent of today’s workforce, fewer than 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. In conjunction with the release of her book, Sandberg has enlisted a number of large, well-known companies such as Google (her former employer), American Express, Sony, Johnson & Johnson and the New York Times Co. to sponsor Lean In Circles, which are monthly meetings in which participants will review and discuss materials on improving their career prospects by, for example, improving their negotiation and presentation skills. As detailed in a story in today’s New York Times, the “instructions for the gatherings are precise, down to membership requirements (participants can miss no more than two monthly meetings per year) and the format (15-minute check-in, 3 minutes each for personal updates, a 90-minute presentation, then discussion).”

Sandberg has her critics, of course.  The story cites consultant Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, who wrote that Sandberg “does what too many successful women before her have done: blaming other women for not trying hard enough.” Others in the story question whether career advice from a wealthy and privileged woman with dual degrees from Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of stock options will resonate among “more earthbound women, struggling with cash flow and child care.” But privilege aside, Sandberg’s advice is worth considering because she represents the many career women out there who are in the “and” category, rather than the “either/or” stereotype — that is, that women must choose between either stay-at-home motherhood or high-powered career, writes The Atlantic’s Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. “Many women navigate the ‘ands’ every day, juggling a work life and a family life whose demands have meshed into one another in our constantly connected, 24/7-everything world. They don’t have the luxury of choosing one or the other because they are too busy doing both,” she writes.

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“People join companies and leave managers,” the old saying goes.

Well, if a recent Monster.com poll is any clue, you may want to keep one eye on the door.

The informal survey of 577 Monster.com users from around the world found more than three-quarters of respondents saying they would boot their boss from their position if given the chance.

Not all of these respondents, however, thought they were necessarily the ones to fill the void. Here’s what participants had to say when asked who they would put in the big chair:

• I’d vote for the current boss to keep his or her job (24 percent).

• I’d vote for a colleague who’d make a better manager (25 percent).

• I’d vote for myself (30 percent).

• I’d hope for a new candidate to enter the race (21 percent).

Workers surveyed in Mexico were the most likely to believe they were ready to take the reins, with 46 percent saying they would prefer to see themselves in their manager’s role. Forty-five percent of employees in France said the same. Overall though, workers in Europe expressed less confidence in their potential managerial prowess, with just 28 percent reporting they would vote for themselves.

Respondents in the United States were among the most supportive of their colleagues’ abilities, with 27 percent saying they believe a co-worker would be a step up from their current boss.

From an employer standpoint, findings from the poll—which Monster notes was not scientific and reflects only the opinions of users who chose to participate—are a sort of mixed bag.

“The fact we see such a large percentage of people who would vote themselves into their boss’s position shows many workers have confidence and drive, which is ultimately good for any organization,” says Mary Ellen Slayter, Monster.com career expert.

On the other hand, employees who are less than thrilled with their supervisors often start to entertain thoughts of leaving their current role, or exiting the organization altogether. And rightfully so, says Slayter.  

“If people don’t feel confident with their current leadership, they should consider alternatives, such as moving to a new group within their organization where managers have a good reputation for their leadership qualities, and failing that, explore better opportunities elsewhere outside the company.”

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Kathy Bayert should be a sought-after candidate for any recruiter: She holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School, plus stints at IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. There’s a catch, however: Like many women in the workforce, she took a few years off to spend time raising a family. When these women decide to restart their careers, they face an uphill battle. Bayert was lucky, however: Even though the economy was in the doldrums when she began looking for a job at age 42, she found a “returnship” at Sara Lee Corp.–basically, a six-month paid position designed for a professional who’d been out of the workforce for several years. Bayert applied, was accepted and six months later was hired as a senior manager of organizational effectiveness. The program was “critical as a springboard back into the workforce,” she said.

Bayert’s experience is profiled in the November issue of the Harvard Business Review in a piece penned by Carol Fishman Cohen. Cohen is cofounder of iRelaunch, a company focused on return-to-work issues. Returnships are an ideal way for companies to screen experienced talent who, in many cases, have already put the stages of taking breaks from work to have children behind them, she writes. Although most participants in these programs are women, some are male and — considering the growing number of men who are taking time off to help raise children — that number will likely continue growing. In her piece, Cohen offers a few tips for HR leaders who are considering starting a returnship program:

• Keep it small: it’s easier to get buy-in and build a successful track record that way, she writes.
• Identify some internal champions: At Sara Lee, CEO Brenda Barnes, who had taken some time off for child-rearing, was a champion of the program
• Model the returnship on your existing internship program
• Introduce hiring managers to participants: managers are often reluctant to consider people whose skills they fear may be outdated; face-to-face meetings between them and returnship particpants can erase those fears, Cohen writes.
• Expand campus recruitment to include returnees: when recruiting for interns, make it clear that all ages are welcome, she writes.
• Partner with an academic program:Some universities and graduate schools have begun offering short-term skill-building programs for professionals looking to get back into the workforce.

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I had the pleasure of spending Tuesday at the New York Athletic Club. No, I didn’t get to try out the racquetball courts, exercise equipment, billiards room, sauna or the sun deck that sits atop the beautiful 24-floor facility. Rather, I made the 90-minute train ride from Philadelphia to attend the 2012 Human Capital Leadership Forum being held at the historic venue.

Throughout the day, the 240 HR professionals, consultants and vendors on hand took in a variety of panel discussions and presentations that delved into the transforming role of today’s HR leader, how HR executives can incorporate business analytics and business intelligence into their day-to-day functions, identify and develop future leaders, align the organization’s workforce with future business goals and more.

A presentation of particular interest to me was delivered by Caroline Stockdale, senior vice president of human resources with Medtronic Inc., a Minneapolis-based developer and manufacturer of medical device technology and therapies. In the early afternoon session, “Innovating to Transform the Employee Experience and Accelerate Growth,” Stockdale shared “some highlights of the HR journey” she’s embarked on since joining the organization in 2010.

In that time, Stockdale has been at the center of an effort to build an innovative HR department, where “bold new ideas and approaches to traditional HR processes and systems are not only encouraged, but expected,” she said.

One of the brash ideas her HR organization has implemented is the abolishment of the organization’s old rating-based performance management system, she said.

In the past, for example, annual performance reviews were administered to Medtronic employees in each business unit, each of whom was rated on a 1-to-5 scale. The problem with such a system, however, is that “all teams are not created equal,” she says. Thus, using the same scale to rate individuals across functions is at least somewhat flawed and unfair.

For instance, a high performer on a low-performing team may earn a ‘5’ based on individual performance in comparison to their peers, while a worker in a more critical, higher-performing unit may ultimately bring more to the organization overall, but only receives a ’3′. Or, for those who favor sports analogies, think of it somewhat like trying to accurately measure the worth of a “good” baseball player in the big leagues against that of a player considered a “superstar” at the minor-league level.

Ultimately, Medtronic has moved away from competitive assessments toward providing performance feedback, coaching and development to employees on a more regular basis, as opposed to the more “traditional” annual review process.

At lunch that afternoon, I asked the gentleman seated next to me – a senior vice president of HR at a large asset management company – what he thought of Stockdale’s talk. As we tucked into our tortellini, he mentioned that his firm’s leadership had “been kicking around the idea” of scrapping its current performance management system — which he described as being similar to Medtronic’s old method – and adopting a simpler approach that involves managers offering more frequent input to employees regarding their performance, and sets realistic goals that are more directly tied to business results.

He was quick to note, though, that his organization is still grappling with just how it plans to implement a new and improved performance management system.

Sound familiar?

It probably does, if you read our July/August 2012 cover story, “There’s Got to Be a Better Way.” In that feature, Senior Editor Andy McIlvaine discussed the “needless complexity” of performance management at many organizations.

“Experts … agree that performance management – as it exists today in too many organizations – is broken,” he wrote. “Fixing it … involves going back to the basics: setting business-linked goals that are challenging yet achievable, teaching managers how to give feedback that is helpful and not demeaning, and supporting it all with a process that is intuitive rather than complicated. None of this, [experts] admit, will necessarily be easy to implement.”

True enough. But judging from the Leadership Forum audience’s enthusiastic response to Stockdale’s story of HR innovation in the performance management arena, there seems to be plenty of HR leaders with a keen interest in taking on the challenge.

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The ability to recognize one’s own faults is in itself considered a positive personal attribute.

Many bosses, however, seem to lack the self-awareness and/or introspective powers necessary to look inside themselves, identify shortcomings and start working to overcome them.

Or at least some of their employees think that’s the case.

A recent poll of 2,700 North American workers, conducted by leadership consulting and research firm Healthy Companies International, found that more than one-third (37 percent) of employees said their managers “lack openness around personal strengths and weaknesses.”

Leaders are largely judged on – and rewarded for — results, which leads to a sharper focus on the strengths that lead to achievement rather than the weaknesses that may somehow diminish them, says Stephen Parker, president of Arlington, Va.-based Healthy Companies International.

“Also, the more senior a leader becomes, the less authentic feedback he or she is likely to get,” he adds.

But, while managers may find fewer and fewer equals to provide honest appraisals as they climb the ranks , HR leaders can step in to fill that gap, says Parker.

HR should model a personal development process that speaks directly to [leaders’] strengths and weaknesses. It’s also crucial that reward systems include the use of 360-degree feedback, and that leaders be held accountable for developing and executing robust development plans for themselves and members of their teams. Effective reward systems balance the focus between short-term financial and operational goals with leadership behaviors that support a healthy culture and encourage lifelong learning for both leaders and their teams.”

HR should also ensure that strong leadership development programs are in place for future managers and executives as well, continues Parker.

“In addition to offering a key competitive advantage in terms of attracting and retaining talent, high-potential programs are critical to sustaining organizational capability. They also offer the opportunity to develop a basic leadership skill from the very beginning: The ability to both give and receive constructive feedback. Mastering this skill will not only propel the individual, but the company as well. Viewed this way, understanding and appreciating the balance between one’s strengths and weaknesses becomes a clear competitive advantage.”

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Do you find yourself muttering “How unprofessional!” at the workplace more? If so, you’re not alone.

At least, that’s according to the 2012 Professionalism in the Workplace Study,  an annual nationwide survey of 312 managers and supervisors and 309 HR professionals, courtesy of York College of Pennsylvania’s Center for Professional Excellence.

For a sizable percentage of  respondents, the state of professionalism in employees has decreased over the past five years. A third of the HR respondents (33.1%) and a fifth of the   managers (21.2%) feel this way.

The survey notes that more than 50% of HR respondents reported seeing an increase in IT abuses.  In 2010, that figure was 38%, and in 2009 it was 39%,according to the Center.

“The troubling news is that 97.1 percent of HR respondents and 91.7 percent of hiring managers have said IT misuse has either gotten worse or stayed the same,” said Matthew Randall, executive director of the CPE.  “This means that addictions to social media, inappropriate use of text messages and inappropriate use of the Internet may be costing employees their jobs.”

There is good news from the study, however.  Professionalism has increased for 16.0% of the HR respondents and 27.2% of  the managers since the last survey, which could be the one good result of a bad economy, researchers say. When asked why they believe the presence of professionalism has increased, respondents most  often observed that the poor economy and consequent downsizing has increased the pool of applicants from which to choose.

HR professionals are more likely to report problems of professionalism in the workplace than are managers, said Randall.  “However, when managers specified the employee segments that most lack professionalism, they point toward younger employees.”

Researchers compared data from the past three years and found an apparent generation gap between hiring managers and HR professionals and younger, entry-level employees, according the survey.

“Much of the generation gap revolves around professionalism standards,” said David Polk, PhD, whose firm, the Polk-Lepson Research Group, was commissioned to conduct the survey.  “Current business leaders and HR professionals do not believe that the definition of professionalism should change over time.  Business and HR professionals say young employees need to learn to conform to ‘current standards’ of professionalism rather than the standards be modified in response to larger society changes.”

So how are the ‘current standards’ of professionalism at your organization? You may want to find out, but be sure and ask nicely, and in person, of course.

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Came across this release from PDI Ninth House that, though somewhat intuitive, did seem off the beaten path from most research I come across looking at what makes workers tick.

According to the company’s Pulse on Leaders studies, using data collected by PDI Ninth House and analyzed by University of Minnesota researchers, business leaders who rated their skills significantly higher than ratings provided by their bosses are more than six times more likely to derail than those who display signs of being more “in touch” with their actual work performance.

In one study, U. of M. researchers looked at 360-degree ratings of more than 39,000 global leaders and compared the leaders’ ratings of their own performance with those given by their direct managers. Those considered to be in touch with their self-assessments — meaning their ratings closely matched those of their direct managers — were at little risk of derailment, while strong self-promoters were more than six times (629 percent) as likely to derail as the in-touch group.

(Perhaps what raised my eyebrows the most was the dramatic difference between the two groups. I don’t think I’ve ever seen behavioral research showing a 629 percent difference between two sides of anything before.)

In another study, 14,000 U.S. business leaders were asked to rank their employees on 135 behaviors representing 24 core competencies. Those leaders considered by their direct managers to be most likely to derail flunked the following:

• Demonstrates awareness of own strengths and weaknesses
• Creates an environment where people work their best
• Expresses disagreement tactfully and sensitively
• Has the confidence and trust of others
• Develops effective working relationship with higher management
• Develops effective relationships with peers

” … as both studies show, success depends on a realistic view of one’s own strengths and weaknesses,” says Lou Quast, vice president and executive consultant at PDI Ninth House, and associate chair of the U. of M.’s department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development at the College of Education and Human Development.

“Managers [or HR professionals] noting shortfalls in any of these specific behaviors should take the initiative to intervene: coach early and often,” he says.

(One thing I think I can safely say about HR professionals themselves: I don’t think very many of the ones I’ve met stand much of a chance of derailment due to self-promotion. Almost to a person, they are some of the most self-critical and self-aware folks I’ve ever met. I realize this parting thought probably has nothing to do with the rest of this post, but … just thought I’d share.)

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