Managing talent is high priority in corporations across sectors. Unfortunately, many of them end up burying talent under layers of complex HR manuals, says Marc Effron, author of One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value, and CEO, The Talent Strategy Group. Effron has a no-frills approach to executing talent management solutions: Keep it simple and transparent. During a whirlwind visit to India recently Effron fielded questions from Alokananda Chakraborty and Arunima Mishra on how a company can manage performance effectively and create a talent pipeline. Edited excerpts.
Please describe the people management challenges that companies are dealing with today post the economic crisis of 2007-08.
It was not just the downturn. It was that the opportunity for advancement in compensation went away very quickly as companies became flatter as they laid off employees. Some of the expected movements that people had in the past went away. The challenge before the companies now is to keep people engaged when they don’t have some of the same tools available that they had in the past. I think that’s where the primary challenge lies, especially with your high performers, who you really want to retain, who will be driving the company. It’s about how to keep employees engaged in development and in spearheading a new environment.
You talked about downsizing and so on… Is it possible to manage downsizing while keeping the employment brand intact? What should companies do now to create a competitive people advantage?
There are choices. I think, it’s an individual choice whether you lay off employees or not. There’s a way to lay off employees — you do it in a way that it doesn’t taint the organisation’s reputation as an employer. It’s all about how you can keep the employment brand strong even if you have to lay people off. Two things an employer must consider. First, when you are doing a layoff, you do that with care and respect for the individuals involved. Let people know that you are disappointed but you have to do it. Give them appropriate severance packages that help keep a better feeling inside the company. Second, make sure you have a crystal clear vision for the people who are still inside. It’s very easy to get lost in the middle of a layoff. So there has to be a lot of communication internally to say that we have to make some tough choices.
In downsizing, everyone suffers across the board. It’s better to say that yes, 20 per cent of the people are out, but the rest 80 per cent can still have a good workplace, good salaries and good treatment. Give the people remaining a clear vision of what the company is doing. So how do you ensure that you create a competitive advantage for these people? These are your key people, people who will drive your future. Companies can give people a lot of experiences and opportunities to learn. That doesn’t always mean promotion or money. There are hundreds of experiences that you can give to someone to develop his personality. It can be special projects, meetings with the CEO, having lunch with someone from a different department, to name a few. It’s all about learning more about the business. There are all sorts of things that you can do that will give your employees more exposure and knowledge about the company.
Sometimes, as HR professionals, we think we need to give a big job to someone. But you don’t need to give a big job; you can expose people to the organisation and give them more experiences. Transparency is the key in managing human resources. It means telling people about their underlying talent and what they have done for the company.
What do HR executives need to do to step up as true strategic partners?
The first thing they have to do is put employees into a basic career development process, which means people need to have a development plan every single year via something as simple as an HR one-on-one. It is not done in most of the organisations. Training programmes don’t help if the basic infrastructure is not in place; like once in a year, there should be a manager-employee conversation to talk about the development plan. So, put in place the infrastructure to make that work. The challenge here is accountability. The average HR manager is not accountable for the development of the employee. The managers might have the right intention but they have a hundred other things on their plate. And development planning is just one of those and they are simply not held accountable for it.
It’s amazing how many notes I get from people who have read my book One Page Talent Management and who have used it to transform their companies. What we’ve seen is that companies unnecessarily add layers to their talent building models and don’t evaluate how or whether at all those components add value to the overall process. We said just make it simple: Tell everybody about the goals openly and hold them accountable for it. This is not a revolutionary concept. But as you can see for some companies accountability seems to be a revolutionary concept. So get the basic process in place and find ways to hold leaders accountable. I think in most companies if the CEO simply said, “Ms Manager, I’m going to hold you accountable at the end of the year and your bonus will be counted on that. So do whatever you want to do to get that done”, those managers will find some way to get that done.
So what are the new challenges before today’s HR managers? With technology affording options for employees like flexi hours and working from home, how much has that impacted today’s workplaces and employer-employee relationships?
Companies around the world are talking about managing change. And it’s not different whether you are talking to someone in the US, Malaysia or Brazil. I think a few things are really important. One, set the goals clearly. If my goals are clear, even if I’m working from home, that should be all that matters. If the manager says four things need to be done, and he gets that from the employee, then how the employee organises his time should not be a big deal.
Among the other challenges that we talked about is development planning that happens during the casual interactions in the office. Development cycle is feedback dependent. If I’m not getting a feedback, that cycle slows down. On the part of the manager, the less I interact with someone, the less information I’ll give in the feedback. If I’m not going to see them in meetings, I’m not going to seek reports from them…
You are saying we still don’t know how to deal with the flexi worker …
I’ve not seen that in my clients. In most of the time, the HR doesn’t change the process for that flexi worker. But this chunk of population is growing. The same performance process should work for that worker as well. In many cases it’s the skill set that needs to be managed. In the office environment, the HR manager might pop in at the coffee machine to chit-chat with the employee. Some managers are naturally like that but there are managers who would happily sit inside their offices and manage. The classic challenge here is: If I’m thinking about someone for promotions, who is going to come to my mind readily? Is it the brilliant flexi worker that I have or is it someone whom I see every time inside the office and I’m a little bit more comfortable with?
What are some specific things you’ve seen companies do to retain their top talent?
Companies are realising that you have to value everyone but it’s the top 10 per cent who will take you places. So, companies are placing larger bets on a smaller number of people. You have what I call organisational goodies. You have cash, experience and exposure. That’s that bunch of things that you can give to them. Focusing on what that top 10 per cent want, I find, is a key differentiator. The manager can now go back to that 10 per cent and say here is a deal: We will be investing on everyone, but if you are a great performer you are going to get a few more things. If you have a high level of performance or if we see you moving further in the company, we are going to invest in you even more. This helps retain this group very effectively. You know, in everything you do in HR, you have to be transparent.
What are some of the biggest mistakes corporations make while implementing talent reviews?
It’s the absolute basics in performance management: Fundamental goal setting, coaching and moulding employees. Most companies have a clear goal for the leaders; so they are developing leaders in general. But to create successful leaders, you need to be clear about innovation and differentiation. And thus, organise the HR system to make those few things work. Due to lack of clarity around these, a lot of companies build complexities around these processes as well. You have to tell your leader in three/four sentences ‘here is what it means to excel in this organisation’. There’s no need to give him a 40-page literature, which companies pay millions of dollars to consulting firms to get. So, tell them those three/four things that really matter and tell them to focus on those. Sometimes as HR professionals, we try to help too much and we think if one page is good, then 20 pages would be 20 times good. It’s probably not.
Get the basic direction right. Managers are busy people. If the HR tells them this is the 21st thing that you need to do, they might not put that on the priority list; but if the HR says, “I’m going to hold you accountable for it”, the manager will do it. Accountability holds the key to great performance management.
