No Talent Community Managers... yet!

Joshua blogs why recruiting doesn't see people whose job is to manage talent communities . He makes some interesting points, the key in my view being the following:

The use of the terms “community” and “network” attached to “talent” by and large aren’t really networks or communities in the proper sense of the word.  They’re really just lists of people, with a certain background or common interest.  Thing is, they don’t interact with each other or even know who else is in the “community” as such.  Even on LinkedIN, when you see these “Talent Networks”, they’re often filled with recruiters trying to recruit the talent they thought would be in that network

That may be true, but I hope one day this role becomes an overlap between marketing and HR, becoming the real custodian of the employment brand . They'll typically not be recruiter or sourcers (unless you are a Recruiting firm and recruiting recruiters) but rather people who are experts or aspirational figures for your talent community. Think Jeremy Zawodny at Yahoo or Matt Cutts at Google. They might not be identifying themselves as talent community managers, but that's what they can be.

Brilliantly.

HR should listen before acting

In the latest edition of the Flawless Consulting book, Peter Block has a chapter on the "Shadow Side of Consulting".

Block's thinking is as much true for external consultants as internal ones ("staff functions that yearn to be consultants")

In the chapter Block asks "Who are we to arrogate to ourselves the right to intervene?" which is what operations functions always ask of internal support functions like HR.

Hence this comment by Alicia Arenas on my post at HRM Today reminds us that before we intervene we must seek to understand:

I’d like to add another suggestion: It can be overwhelming for HR professionals to make large scale changes across an organization. If your executives see you as a cost center and you want to earn more credibility, pick one department or business unit. Choose one manager with whom you have a good relationship and learn that business inside and out.

“Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” Dr. Stephen Covey. So don’t be anxious to show them how great you are and how much you can do. Listen, listen, listen and then make strategic recommendations that will solve problems, increase productivity and make the manager look good. That is how you create raving fans at your company - 1 manager at a time.

Thoughts on Careers and Predictive Analytics

Prasad blogs about how being a fast track career growth can result in a lack of learning essential to growth and development. Could this be the reason why the Peter Principle takes place?



I moved to a global/corporate role in the Learning and Organization Effectiveness (L&OE) domain without spending time in a role that involves handling complete operational responsibility for the L&OE) function/team at the business unit/country level. At this point, I don't really know what exactly have I missed because of this sublimation. While I have tried to find this out by speaking to people who have handled such jobs, I do feel that there could be significant gaps in my understanding!
This brings us to the problem of 'unknown unknowns' -a key side effect of sublimation - which can create problems for both the individual and for the organization. Usually, 'unknown unknowns' are more dangerous than 'known unknowns'. Based on our discussion above, it can be seen that the 'sublimated individuals' can create serious risks for the organization. 


Another post is by Abhijit Bhaduri who interviews a Predictive Analytics expert on how PA can help HR be more effective and touches on other issues like employee data privacy as well. Personally I think Analytics can be a huge help for an informed HR manager, however the statistics must not become the only thing to rely on but used along with both an understanding of the business and Organizational Behavior principles. In a fast changing business scenario I daresay that relying heavily on Analytics is not going to be helpful. Here's an example of how PA can help in case of attrition, according to the expert.


Just knowing that 10% of the employees leave does not make that data actionable. You need to know which 10% of the employees leave and why do they leave? For starters, it may help to classify people into different groups, where each group is defined by a specific set of characteristics with respect to attrition – Predictive Analytics can do this segmentation for you, using the data and knowledge already residing in your organization. It can tell you which group has the greatest probability of leaving, which group has the next highest probability, etc.  A process of predictive Root Cause Analysis can then identify, quantify, and rank the primary drivers responsible for attrition among each ‘at risk’ group. That’s much more actionable than a blanket statement such as 10% of employees will leave every year. You can similarly use PA to predict top performers, aggressive behavior in the workplace, etc.

The Facebook page

Facebook has jazzed up their pages features.

So now you can check out the Gautam Ghosh page . You can get the blog posts from this blog as well as the other blog by visiting the page and becoming a fan.

Updates get posted on to your main news-feed, apparently.

If you want to connect personally, here's my profile on Facebook.

Bob Sutton on across the board cuts

It's been a long time since I linked to a Bob Sutton post... but here's one where he posts against the practice of forced layoff of the bottom 10% performers.

As organizations look for easy means of laying off employees we'll see a lot more excuses like "we normally fire the bottom x% people" so that they don't have to provide separation payouts.

That is just plain wrong.

Anyway, back to the reasons that the Prof says it is bad:

1. Performance evaluations in most organizations are done badly enough that the way the bottom 10% are selected is flawed, and indeed, most people in flawed systems know that -- and see them as unfair.

2. An across the board cut punishes the most efficient units most, the least efficient units least.

3.  An across the board cut assumes that the best way to weather the bad times -- and then recover quickly when the good times return -- is to have an organization that is a perfect imitation of the one that you had before, but is just 10% smaller.   This last one is especially troubling, as strategic adjustments are almost always needed to weather and recover from tough times.

Downturn? Invest in Human Capital

I totally agree with this view. Invest in all your assets, customer relationships, branding, processes and people. This is not true for consulting firms alone but for all business. According to this ConsultingMag article:

Romil Bahl, the President & CEO of business advisory firm PRG-Schultz, says —adopt the strategy today’s leading firms followed during the last downturn. Rather than retrench for survival, invest in growth, especially in the talent that will be the engine of that growth. "Firms that have the P&L strength and ability to invest into a downturn,” he says “invariably come out stronger."

Things HR should Do

During this HR bashing season John Sumser has some great advice for HR:

1. Be curious about the business.
   
2. Measure stuff.
   
3. Stop focusing on cost cutting and expense
   
4. Free people to manage themselves
   
5. Plan, Plan, Plan
   

I would add some more:

• Understand strategic drivers of the business and how does your work impact it. For example if the business makes wafer thin margins and relies on volumes to make it profitable then you have to look for and promote the manufacturing guy who can ensure the assembly line is selling always, the sales guy who can open large accounts as they are needed for the success for the business to succeed, not the research scientist or sales guy who takes time to open up accounts.
• Understand the way external industry is moving and therefore how people processes and practices would be impacted. Look at macro trends. Not the obvious trends. Everybody does that. Look at how consumer/customer/client preferences might be changing and therefore how it will impact strategic drivers. Also look at how 'best practices' are become hygiene factors - usually fast.
• Treat fads with scepticism. Infect that scepticism into your business leaders if they get swayed by the latest 'management gurus' and consultants. As an organizational behavior person you should know that every solution gives rise to a new set of issues and that there are no silver bullets as far as people issues are considered.

Gurprriet Siingh starts blogging

My virtual friend and OD guru Gurprriet has started out blogging with his post on How will Consulting change in 2009. I agree with his views. As another friend says "This is the time when efforts will be focused on long term business impact, however this would need to be a demonstrated by consultants by hard data"

Gurprriet says:

The way things are going, there will be a greater focus on Operational Efficiency, so existing and newer services in that area will pick up.At the same time, clients will demand higher levels of accountability from consultants to deliver to objectives as well as pressure to deliver within time and costs agreed. My sense is we will see clients demanding a variable component linked to deliverables/output. And this is something good for the consulting industry, since it will push us to deliver more on the ball.

Just as industry in general is getting operationally efficient, consulting will have to do the same. We’re part of the value chain and clients will pressure us to deliver more value for less.

The other area where I see huge investments of time and money coming in, are building organization culture and capability in the area of change. Organizations will realize, more than ever before, the need to be agile, flexible, scale up/down rapidly, respond quickly to change.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Joy (which is his nickname!)

Why Recruiters Cannot Ignore Twitter anymore

Image via CrunchBase

I have posted about Twitter a couple of times earlier . From a service that is bare boned enough for people and organizations to mould it as they like it. You can find my tweets here and another place to read what I am blogging about .

Twitter has great API which means other organizations can use it really well. Recently a firm made the first job search engine tapping into the thousands of job related information being posted on Twitter. It apparently uses semantic search and therefore produces great results.

Check out TwitterJobSearch here. So as a recruiter and HR professional how do you plan to leverage it? There are lots of folks who are active on HR issues on Twitter.

What are the conversations you want to have?

Here's a great presentation explaining what Twitter is:

Twitter Explained

View more presentations from Daryl Pereira.

New expert network consulting firm for media started

NY Times reports how the erstwhile legal anchor of NBC is starting an interesting sounding consulting firm:

The firm, Abrams Research, may resemble a narrowly focused version of “expert network” firms that connect investors to industry experts. Journalists and bloggers retained and paid by the firm could consult with corporations, conduct media training sessions, or conduct investigative reporting for corporate clients.

“I think there are an enormous number of very talented, experienced media professionals around the world who would be ready, willing and able to advise businesses on media strategies. In fact, I know there are,” Mr. Abrams said.

He said he planned to broaden the network of experts beyond traditional journalists, employing media analysts, bloggers and others who might not operate under such stringent rules. He said he was especially interested in connecting bloggers with businesses that had trouble dealing with online media.

Seems to be like a smaller and niche version of a firm like the Gerson Lehrman Group .

Bain Consulting Job Recruiting processes

Interesting post on how Bain conducts its recruiting process for MBA recruitment as well as senior level recruitment.

As the article states while academics and college is important when it depends on more and more senior level job the focus shifts progressively to your work experience and having someone in the inside recommending you is a big positive. Need more incentives to network well ?

HR and Finance not a "us vs. them"

There are various reasons why I think this cfo.com article "Memo to CFOs: Don't trust HR " is a flawed argument.

The biggest reason why I think so is because it reinforces the old mid 20th century silo mentality of organizations.

Real life alas is not to simple and uncomplicated. If we reflect on why the financial system collapsed we could say that the financial world and the people management processes were both inherently flawed.

The other reason why the article is flawed is that the professor of HR obviously is mixing up things or choosing his arguments in front of an audience that takes his pronouncements as face value. He obviously should know that employee satisfaction is not equal to employee engagement which has been researched to give rise to organizational performance.

Think of it this way, if a Finance professor addresses a gathering of HR professionals today and says the following "CFOs avoid systems that should make it easy to spot accounting problems" Well, we wouldn't know whether he is saying the truth or not, would we?

The other issue I have is that this argument paints functions as stereotypes. The large organizations that can afford it have great HR as well as great Finance people. However the large majority of organizations that make up the bulk of industries have mediocre and average HR and Finance people. In such organizations HR people don't look at data and Finance people are merely glorified accountants. In most of these organizations (specially in the US) the HR manager reports to the CFO.

So I guess the good Prof is also angling for some consulting work by reaching out to his potential buyers.

Ultimately HR and Finance people do similar roles. They reach out and acquire resources (people and money) from the market. They deploy it. They develop it and invest in it.

Ultimately they can learn a lot from each other, while being cognizant of the differences in their approach and the resources they deal with and not become clones of each other.

Easiest way to change behavior?

According to this blog post , it lies in making the change easy and desirable for people (and animals)

In your company, think about what you want people to do and whether the environment around them supports the behavior.

A client was complaining to me that his receptionist was not warm and friendly with people when they walked in. Guess where the receptionist sat? Think bank teller. That's right. The receptionist sat behind a glass window! Don't send her to communication training. Just remove the glass.

A friend of mine, the principal of a school in Boston, wanted to increase student engagement. They should talk to each other, he lamented, not just the teacher. He came up with a great solution.

He didn't send out memos. He didn't retrain all the teachers. He didn't print posters and hang them in the classrooms. Instead, he rearranged each classroom, placing the chairs in a semicircle, so the students were facing each other as well as the teacher. Voila.

If you want your employees to talk with each other, knock down the walls. If they sit in ten different countries, use Skype and a video camera permanently attached to their computer so there's no set-up time and it's always sitting there, impossible to ignore. It makes a world of a difference.

You want to make it easier to do something you want done and harder not to.

The lion that sat so royally on the rock at the top of the hill, day in and day out, for all the park visitors to see?

It turns out the rock he sat on was temperature controlled. It was warm on cold days, cool on hot days. No need to train the lion or tie him to the rock or hope he likes the view. Just make the rock a place he wants to sit.

Too often as HR people we look at addressing change problems using monetary and non-monetary rewards, or resorting to training without pausing to reflect why people are not changing behavior and addressing that issue.

Don't be like the chap who has a hammer and therefore thinks of all problems as nails.

Dominic Barton is new McKinsey Managing Director

In perhaps an acknowledgment of the importance of Asia McKinsey has chosen its Chairman of the Asia Region Dominic Barton to be its new Managing Director.

According to FT.com

McKinsey & Co, the management consultancy, will announce on Monday that Dominic Barton, its Shanghai-based Asia head, has been chosen by his peers to take over as managing director.

McKinsey’s 400 senior partners elected Mr Barton to serve a three-year term when Ian Davis retires in June. He will be able to stand for re-election for a second and final three-year term in 2012.

If McKinsey’s employees, clients and competitors wonder what change at the top will mean, a clue may be found in an article titled How to win in a financial crisisthat Mr Barton co-wrote in 2002: “For executives willing to make bold moves, a crisis can be a burning platform that creates an opportunity to change corporate culture and operations drastically,” it said.

“Things must change, and resistance melts away. For visionary leaders, this is the time to revamp the power structure, adjust the organisation’s size, create a stronger and more performance-driven culture, and throw out sacred cows.”

McKinsey’s new leader will shortly get the chance to practise what he has preached.

Human Resources and Social Media

Some months ago I blogged about how to transform HR to HR2.0 . In this post I attempt to take these forward.

In connection with some client related consulting work I am catching up with storytelling, conversations and how they are relevant to organizations.

As I have posted earlier , sensemaking is a role that HR and OD professionals should take upon themselves. Terry posted more about the subject at Scott's blog.

The narrative or storytelling method is one of the best tools that human beings have to make sense of complexity. There are obvious drawbacks (simplistic business books is one unfortunate byproduct!) but the power of the method to help people make sense is amazing.

Stories can be used for a variety of organizational purposes. From learning to inspiring. See more at Stephen Denning's website .

Stories are passed from people to people by conversations.

That is why for HR2.0 social media can be a key tool to propagate a different mindset and culture. According to cluetrain  "markets are conversations" but as a colleague pointed out "organizations are conversations" too!

What we talk about organizations and what is talked about within organizations is what the organization morphs into. An organization in which conversations are primarily about seeking new possibilities becomes an innovative organization.

Social media can be not just the medium but the message itself if an organization really embraces the tenets of conversations and not just one way communication. As Seth Godin says , building and shepherding a tribe (or community) is what organizations need to be doing.

As custodian of the employment 'brand', as a HR manager/professional what is the tribe you want to steward?

Did you know?

An amazing video on Youtube, focusing on how rapidly things change.

And to constantly reassess our priorities and worldviews.

Why the slowdown may be good for India

Two blog posts, one at the XLRI blog Student-Entrepreneurs @XLRI and another by Rashmi Bansal suddenly made me see the silver lining to the gloom of the jobs slowdown for the MBAs of the class of 2009.

Yes, these are tough times and the truly talented will do well in these times.

The slowdown with the evaporating international and investment banking jobs would actually get a lot of people to start looking at entrepreneurship as a better option.

Of course, VC money is also not going to be easy. I personally believe easy VC money is a barrier to building a lasting business. The temptation to spend it is much more than when you are bootstrapping your venture.

In a high tide all the ships can set sail. However, in a low tide the sailor who can sail his ship is the one to watch!

As Sanjeev Bikhchandani says on his blog one of the reasons for his batch turning out so many entrepreneurs was

 When the economy began to open up in 1991 many in the class were in the right place at the right time. We had gained some work experience, yet were still green enough to not have mentally committed to a long term career as an employee manager. We were earning relatively low salaries (the average starting salary in our graduating class was Rs. 3800/- per month) and so the opportunity cost of entrepreneurship wasn’t very high – we could take the risk and not lose a very fancy salary.

So timing is everything. For the class of 2009, the opportunity cost of entrepreneurship is also not too high.

And the Indian economy needs such entrepreneurs, who can build the scaffolding on which the nation can grow and stand.

It's time to create a tide and sail out to the blue horizon.

The Letter I didn't write

Dear Baba,

It's been almost a year since you left us. On Sunday we were at Gaya, doing some rituals so that your soul is at peace. I don't know if the rationalist in you would have protested, or whether your spiritual side would have approved. However, knowing that you had conducted the same rituals for Dadu, I don't think you would have objected to it.

I also don't know where you are now. If as the rationalists say your consciousness no longer exists - or as the religious folks say your essence is somewhere, hopefully in a better place.

This letter is irrespective of that fact. This is meant for you, but I am writing it primarily for my own self. These are all the things that I learnt from you, as my father, as a friend and as a person I admired and looked up to.

1. To take risks. You encouraged me after the momentous class 12 exams to explore careers off the beaten track. And then when after two and a half year of working I arrived back home, resigning from my job claiming I wanted to do something more with my life, you did not look at me incredulously but encouraged me. Sometimes I think you had more faith in me than I did in myself.
2. To be selfless. In your own life you had sacrificed your studies to take the role of a father figure for your 3 brothers and 3 sisters. And they have always looked up to you for that role. And you never looked at that decision with any bitterness or rancor. No intellectualising about missed opportunities or chances. Just a duty as the eldest of the family.
3. To be strict and yet encouraging. When I was growing up I was scared of you. I thought you were the scariest dad one could have. And when you did praise me I thought you were overdoing it. Whether it was about my writing skills or about the praise that my science teacher lavished on me in standard 6. Now when I look back, you ensured that I could take positive and negative news in equal measure.

Good bye

And we continue to miss you.

Relationships is the answer

How do I get a job?
How do I get a project?

In these tough times, whether you are trying to build business or hunt for a job, it's going to be an uphill task. No doubt about it.

There's less money to go around. People are not spending on consulting assignments and they are clubbing more roles to save on payroll costs.

But yet there are people who are communicating value. They are getting consulting offers and job offers. When talking to some of them I realised what's the difference.

There are various differences, but the similarity is the ability to build relationships with people. These are people who have given without expecting much in return. They share knowledge, they help connect people, and they pass information along to whoever needs it.

All other things remaining comparable (education, experience) would you give a project/job offer to the person who has a history of maintaining and nurturing and helping relationships, or the one who doesn't?

Thought so.

Know the difference between a CC and a BCC

The HR manager at Twitter forgot the difference, and not in just any email but in a rejection email to 186 job applicants.

Welcome to Email Communication 101: Never cc folks who are not supposed to know each other on the email. There's something called a Bcc, y'know!

Truth of the times, in a transparent world, your mistakes would get magnified. Specially if you work at a social media firm. Yeah, life's not fair.

This is not your father's HR job anymore.

Human Resources Professionals' Online Hangout

I get a lot of questions asked by HR professionals on how they can interact with others - to get knowledge and share networking opportunities.

Here's some thing which I recommend:

1. Join one of the many HR groups on Yahoo and Google Groups. Of course, you are likely to be inundated  by email. I've reserved a gmail id solely for the purposes of receiving these messages. I manage one such HR based egroup too. If you'd like to become a member send me a message on HRgyan-owner@yahoogroups.com, since entry is on invites only. 
2. Join HR groups on Linkedin and Facebook. The good stuff is that you can get weekly rather than daily email updates. On Linkedin I have found this group quite useful. And on Facebook I started the HR professionals' Facebook network . If you are a vendor to HR folks, maybe you should join the HR vendors' group too.
3. Join the social networks based on Ning. There's the Human Resources Professionals community (started by me ;-) and already has more than 600 members - Ok, I must stop bragging !) , the Recruitingblogs  community, the HRMToday community that started off as the community of HR bloggers, the Employee Engagement Network and even the HR forum on MyLinkingPowerForum.com There are non-Ning based communities like CiteHR too. If you'd like an opportunity to showcase yourself I'd suggest a Ning based community.
4. Then there are the online communities on HR websites like HR.com , HCI  also.

Ultimately it's not about the places you can connect, but about the value you add to the communities you do connect.

What are the online communities where you like to connect with other HR professionals?