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Performance Measurement with the Balanced scorecard

May 31, 2012 by almgren4711

I am reading he book with the title above. The subtitle is “A Practical Approach to Implementation within SME”. It was two things that attracted me
  1. Combination of performance measurement and balance scorecards
  2. SME (Small to Medium Enterprises)
One thing in this new book (published 2012) that bothers me is that is relies a lot on studies made 10 years, or more, ago. When the authors say that a SME does not know that Talent Management suites exists I don’t think that is true anymore. 10 years ago the suite was a new thing. There were not many around (hey, the term Talent Management was barely around) today we have a lot of TM suites out there, and some are targeting the SME.

To be true. To implement a Performance Management process in  a SME and a big company is two different things. And the software supporting it need yo be designed with that in mind.

A SME still need the silo free talent management that only a suite can offer. They just must have it easy to use. A lot of people are doing multiple jobs, so the system need to be able to handle that in an easy to use and easy o understand way.

  • Make it easy to prefill system with data
  • Make it easy to adapt to the fast changes in an SME
  • Make it easy to generate reports, that are easy to understand
  • No one need the really advanced features, they want it done.
  • No one has the time for endless workshops and training
In an SME performance must be easy yo use, hands on, and show results.
That can be done with a proper suite that gives silo free talent management in an easy to implement and easy to use way.

During the last 10 years a revolution has happened, to bad the book sometimes misses that in its eagerness to refer to studies.

I will later be back with a more full review of the whole book

Posted in Book review, Talent Management | Leave a Comment »

Stop the madness get out of your comfort zone

May 25, 2012 by almgren4711

Do you have a compensation manager,  a recruitment manager and someone else doing performance?

And who has the overview? Who gets the reports spanning more than one process? If you work in silos a silo free talent management suite is a waste. You will not get the benefits. Its when you start to organize yourself silo free that you will be able to think silo free, work silo free, report silo free.

And 1+1 is suddenly 42

At a dinner with our CEO we talked about cascading of behaviour from top level to middle managers and down. Question was why it does not happen, why is leading by example sometimes not enough? Answer we arrived at is that one factor is that it is hard to push people out of their comfort zone. You might need a coach, for by them self they will probably not do it.

That got me thinking on silo free talent management, and why it is not happening. We have all these experts. But are they able to push themselves out of their comfort zone? Probably not.

Sure you will still need people with different areas of expertise, but don’t let the experts live their life in their silo. Have them train each other so that any one of them can work in anyone else’s area. Its when you apply your expertise on other sub processes you will get the insights you need. Its when you force people to think outside their comfort zone you will get the stunning results.

So use your experts. For e them out of their comfort zones. Cooperate.

Let 1+1 be 42

Posted in Talent Management, integration | Leave a Comment »

Talent Management Nordic style

May 14, 2012 by almgren4711

I usually keep my Nordic/Swedish thoughts to my product management blog, but lately I have been thinking on if there is a Nordic style of Talent Management, and what that would be.

How does talent management in the Nordics differ from the rest of Europe, the US or Asia-Pacific region?

The Nordics (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway) are all small countries with a strong anglic influence (possible exception being language on Iceland). We are used to adapt to a world around us. And that is one clue to how we behave when we buy Talent Management systems. We can get a process that is almost “right” and then change ourselves instead of the software. Historically Germany is a good example of the opposite (that SAP is German is not anything random). One funny thing is that sometimes I get the feeling Asia-Pacific also are willing to compromise, but the reason being it moves so quick over there that its better to happen almost right than not happen at all.

One other thing is that employees have a strong influence in the Nordics, the labour laws are more protective of the employees and the employees are very conscious of their rights. So who is going into the system to add goals, or match to other positions? Yepp, the employee. A typical setup in the Nordics have more rights to the employee than in other regions. I have long said that a good way to get acceptance, and usage, of a talent management system is to give something back. In the Nordics that happen as the employee easily can see requirements for other positions and jobs, and match itself and do gap analysis.

These 2 are 2 items that set the Nordics apart from the rest (as a combination). With the rise of SaaS (Software as a Service) the will to adapt is spreading, but I don’t think the view of the employee will spread as fast. But in the war for talent, who knows. Maybe it is one way of keeping your talents, be open, give options.

Just think of the crown prince syndrome in succession planning. The world is split on that one, but I know where I would place my bet in a future where keeping the employees is being more and more important.

Posted in succession planning, Talent Management | Leave a Comment »

Testing, testing, testing

April 27, 2012 by almgren4711

Testing (also called assessment) is an essential part of Talent Management. Most people probably associate it with pre-hire testing, but there is so much more to it than that.

As we have concluded earlier competencies can be great in all parts of the silo free talent management landscape. So if we use competencies for recruitment  re-hire testing, why not use it for other testing? After the new employee is onboarded and is getting warm we could always do a follow-up test to see if the fit was good. We have the results from the pre-hire test and we still have the requirements profile for the position. Let’s do a follow-up test. It will give is measure on how good fit our recruit was but also how good was that source.

When we start to look at succession planning we also have the requirement profile and we have the individual competency assessments, but why not spice it by adding hose behavioral skills and test for them. Correctly done we can test an employee once and then map the outcome to a number of different jobs, or why not let our talent management system suggest jobs the employee is a good successor to?

If we use the behavioral skills why not push that into our performance management and use assessments to do the assessments of these skills? We can either identify a few behaviors we want all over the company or come up with more jobs related ones to test sales on different skills than leaders or support.

So if we use our competencies, skills and desired behavioral skills and test for them. We should be able to pull out some interesting reports.

  • Are employees from a certain source better leaders?
  • Does sales with a good fit on certain behaviors sell more
  • Which skills in sales gives us happy customers 2 years later

The list can be endless. The important thing is that if we use a silo free talent management approach with competencies and tests we can get these reports and therefore draw conclusions and show effectiveness and more importantly show how talent management creates business value.

If we use this right and extensively we need a system that allows us to use it integrated, but building the assessments ourselves is probably a too big and complicated task. There are experts out there that can do it for us, let’s use them but make sure that both input and output can be used anywhere in our talent management system.

Silo free talent management is not about build everything yourself, it’s about making sure that the output in one place can be the input in another, and that you can get these cross process reports that you can get when you have all data in one place.

Posted in Assessment | Leave a Comment »

Book review: HR Scorecard

March 26, 2012 by almgren4711

Ok, I admit it. Dave Ulrich has been an long time influence, and I am not even educated in HR. But as I have been working in talent management land since 1997 I have come across his name time and again.

So when I saw a new book I became interested. And its good, no doubt about it. Its written by Dave Ulrich, Brian E. Becker and Mark A. Huselid. And if I should ,summarize it really short its about how HR is to get that seat at the table that has been the buzz for at least 10 years. And the answer is by starting to talk numbers.

Only by developing a system with measurements that can be connected to real money will HR be taken seriously by everyone else. Sounds like something obvious, but what this book does is to tell us how this an be done. It defines the basics, shows how this must be connected to events generating or saving money and also that the connection must be evidenced so that anyone can see and believe it, not just the believers.

By creating a HR scorecard we can get to a point where HR can be measured on bottom line, and rewarded like everyone else.

Along the way they define the competencies in HR and identify a new one and also talk about how to implement it successfully.

For anyone who wanna know how that famous seat is to be claimed  this is a good book. It gives you all the info you need but at the same time leaves up to you to actually do the work in your organization.

Posted in Book review | Leave a Comment »

Latest high impact report from Bersin

March 23, 2012 by almgren4711

I will not post the report, so if that is what you are looking for stop reading now. But if you are interested in some conclusions and comments read on.

Bersin just (well awhile ago, but time flies) posted the last High Impact report about development plans. And their conclusions is right along the name of this blog.

  • Did you know that among companies having good development planning the revenues per employee is twice as high as for these without it?
  • Did you know that a good development planning ties into succession, performance, career planning and leadership development? It does.

What I have always said, it is all one major web of processes,is validated by their research.

I wanna add one advice. In the race for best of breed and integration. Choose integration. Lack of support for a special step in your process can be handled, but lack of integration is just stupid. You will never get reports, feedback or the support a proper integrated talent management process will give you.

Go for
  • performance
  • development
  • competencies
  • career & succession
  • learning

all integrated. You will get better revenue, lower turnover rate on employees and cheaper learning costs. Its all there. In the last Bersin report.

Look at this graph as an example. Is it not beautiful in its way that it validates the silo free talent management.

Individual Development Plans silo free by Bersin

So now lets all say together:
Never do Talent Management in silos again.
Christian

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Get your definitions defined

March 12, 2012 by almgren4711

When trying to use a Silo Free Talent Management process you will need to pend time on your definitions. You need to have ONE set of definitions that are used in all sub processes from Sourcing to career planning to learning. wont do to have different ones for how will you then use them integrated and how will you get meaningful reports out of it?
Something I see is a confusion about some common definitions.
  • What is a development plan?
  • What is a position?
  • Job is that HR or Talent Acquisition?
  • Job family or job?
Whatever you do, make sure you have the definitions straight. If you don’t how will your managers and employees ever understand what they should do? I will offer some suggestions to a central set of these definitions.

Employee
A person make no mistake about that. Not any abstract entity. Is always a human being and always real. As a person they have ONE skill set and ONE career. Might have more than one role, but how can they have different skill sets, they might just utilize different partsof it.

Position
A seat in the organisation. Might have a requirement profile tied to it. And hopefully one or more employees.

Job
The template for the position. Is not connected to the organisation but might have a requirement profile tied to it. An employee is not connected to a job, they are connected to a position that is of a certain job. So Lars (employee) is sales manager in Stockholm (position) that is of the type sales manager (job).

Job family
The job family is a group of jobsthat belong together. Junior sales accountant, sales accountant and sales manager might all be jobs in the the family sales.

Career path
Is NOT a job family. The career path is a series of jobs, but they might be in different job families. A move from delivery consultant to product manager to marketing manager is probably a path in 3 different job families, but not a very uncommon one.

Whatever you do, make sure your definitions are clear, and not unique. If you define career paths as a series of positions it might make sense, but will anyone understand it when every time they Google get other definitions back?

Posted in integration, Talent Management | Leave a Comment »

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