First off, I just want to say Thank You to those who joined us both in person and virtually last week at our Impact 2011: Building the Borderless Workplace conference. Personally, I always get energized by these events, especially when I have the opportunity to participate in real-time conversations with the amazing people who make up the leaders, practitioners, solution providers, media market, and researchers of the HR industry. What a passionate and vocal industry we work in!
I wanted to wrap up this week by sharing some insights on what I saw, heard, and personally felt at the conference last week for those who were unable to attend in person:
What I Saw:
Although we were in the middle of beautiful St. Petersburg, with a view of the water just outside our windows and at a venue that often feels like you've stepped into a 1940’s vintage Hollywood movie set, the conference rooms were packed with passionate HR professionals taking copious notes on topics that ranged from Leadership development, HR Strategy, to What Learning will look like in 2021 (free streamed sessions). The questions and conversations following the sessions, made it into hallway discussions, and often ended up bleeding into lunch conversations. Participants were focused on learning as much as they could from everyone at the conference, especially from each other.
The networking events were lively and provided an opportunity for informal connections that hopefully everyone found positive. For example Laura Ann Preston from Kelly Services was in demand for introductions at every event based on her discussions on talent segmentation and changing the performance management dialogue in her Talent Initiatives panel. I think her exact words were “I was being chased”, but it was said with a smile. HR analytics and workforce planning was another hot topic. I’m sure I personally introduced Akil Walton, from Eaton Corporation to over 30 different people looking to learn more about Eaton’s great experience in building an HR Analytics function. Everyone was looking to either increase their own knowledge or bring back information that their colleagues could use.
What I Heard:
Theses discussions started during the pre-conference executive roundtables on Tuesday, which included companies that ranged from the University of Michigan to Darden Restaurants, and continued till Friday afternoon when I had the pleasure of finally sitting down to grab lunch with Starwood’s head of Talent Management and we finished our conversations over a fantastic Turkey Club.
How to implement successful HR Shared Service functions and COE’s; and differentiate this model from centralized HR functions
Restructuring and rethinking HR was a theme echoed throughout the conference. Those attending the HR sessions were interested in learning more about talent integrator roles, optimal HR structures, and the changing makeup of talent acquisition functions.
One of our international solution providers commented that this was the first conference they had heard the term Chief HR Officer used so often. He specifically asked if this role was on the increase and where was the CLO role heading? Well, that was a tough question that I’ll leave for a later blog, but I did share that in our research we are seeing an increase in the use of the titles Chief HR Officer or Chief People Officer.
Practical development of HR, particularly increasing the skills and capabilities of HR Business Partners and Center of Excellence leads
I saw and heard this theme throughout the conference. Comments centered on the fact that the current certification and higher-education programs offered important initial HR development – but they weren’t getting at the heart of what was missing in the HR community, real life experience and on the ground support.
When Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) presented their case study on Developing an Integrated People Services Organization for Strategic Talent Management; they had several audience questions about how they selected key HR roles and expectations for growth and development of their HR department. Their new HR structure has a heavy focus on the value of each area of HR, which promotes job mobility and breaks down traditional unspoken stigmas that often rise up between shared services functions, COE’s, and field HR roles. Sarah St. Clair, VP of HR for BAH even mentioned that her 80 + direct reports are expected to move and change roles on average every 2 years, emphasized by our speaker Kathy Nichols, an HR Director in her organization.
In our Practitioner Panel: HR Challenges for the Coming Decade: Building Flexibility for the Future all four of our HR panelist's discussed the need to develop business acumen, solid planning, and advisory skills throughout HR. Ellen Austin, a Senior Business Partner for Human Resources, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDBC) shared that her organization required all HR leadership roles to participate in 6 to 9 month job rotations in business roles throughout the organization. Once they had the experience of being on the front lines and working directly with clients or in other support roles, they became much more aware of the value of their work and its impact on their clients.
We also found a lot of excitement in the Solution Provider discussions on this topic. During the small group break outs in Benchmarking HR: Do You Dare to Compare? session we asked about where HR was seeing their budgets increase or decrease. The 15 or so vendors in my group had a great discussion about the increase in hiring and development needs, even for their own internal HR functions. As companies that sell sophisticated learning and HR offerings, they needed to find HR professionals who understand their business and can help them grow. Companies like Allen Communications said that their internal HR capabilities were critical to continuing their current growth rate. Additionally, almost everyone mentioned that they were spending a lot of time educating clients as part of the sales process or the support process in their particular offering areas. Those who had developed this capability felt it was increasing their sales dramatically.
We also saw announcements at the conference from MindLeaders/ThirdForce who launched their new TalentGuides, performance support modules based off of Bersin & Associates research content for HR professionals. (I’ll admit that this is a shameless plug in the middle of the blog, but I had the pleasure of working with the MindLeader’s team in supporting the development of these modules for the last year, and have a soft spot for their efforts). Conference participants who saw demos of the TalentGuides were excited about the simple idea of providing HR professionals performance support on critical talent areas when it was needed most, in front of clients and at decision making points, rather than in a separate classroom.
Our research found that 92% of High Impact HR organizations had formal internal development programs for their HR functions, and that the most effective HR development tools were coaching and mentoring programs and regular job rotations. These are all examples, of how organizations are accomplishing these best practices.
The role of HR in managing or supporting organizational cultural changes
Andy Mackay, from SunTrust Banks said it best, “My business is focused on changing our culture, so I need to be focused on our culture”. In Wednesday’s session on Developing a Comprehensive HR and Talent Strategy, I asked how many organizations were working on cultural change initiatives – over half the room raised their hand. As leaders we just know that Organizational Culture trumps HR initiatives – so changing the culture becomes a real focus when it is counter-productive to the company’s success. Several people came up to me after the session and asked, can HR actually change an organizations culture – and I’d have to honestly say “No, not alone”. They can support leadership efforts to change culture, they can ensure that they are nurturing and supporting a culture that has been set by their leadership, and they can coach leaders on the difference between talking about a culture and actually creating a culture. These are all important roles for an HR function – but they can’t set or change culture without leadership. Feel free to let me know if you disagree.
HR measurement and metrics
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the focus on HR measurement, metrics, and analytics throughout the conference. Almost every solution provider we spoke with shared the fact that HR analytic capabilities was a major part of their upcoming product road-map; even service providers were discussing how they were going to integrate analytics with their offerings. We saw unique, and potentially game changing tools like Zapoint's which has taken data collection methods from social sites and brought analysis of that data to the next level, and Reward Platforms like I Love Rewards and Globoforce, talking about analyzing their data to not only connect it to annual engagement scores and turn-over rates, but start to connect it to the flow of recognition in a company, real time engagement notifications, and tracking organizational culture changes. Everyone is talking about it, but few organizations and solution providers are doing it well.
We offered a small post session workshop on Building HR Analytics Capabilities which originally had 21 people signed up for the session, by the end of the conference we had an additional 12 people extend their stays to participate in the workshop, when they could have been sitting by the pool. This audience was a mix of solution providers and practitioners, and everyone was there to learn. We spent a considerable amount of time in the workshop, talking about how to prepare and develop HR professionals who could appropriately use the data coming out of these efforts. My co-presenter Akil Walton from Eaton Corporation summed it up by saying “None of the technology, or analytics skills, or even dashboard tools matter if your HR department and line managers don’t understand how to use the data to help the business make good decisions”.
What I Felt:
Proud to be part of an industry that has so much passion and openness. Frustrated that as an industry we were still struggling with some of the basics. Exhilarated at seeing all the opportunities we, as an industry, have to help not only our companies but every person who interacts with our companies at some level.
Finally, I felt like I personally heard a battle cry – it is easy to overlook when learning about new technology implementations or yet another awe inspiring story about HR restructuring and transformation. Without development of the HR function, these initiatives simply don’t succeed. Today’s HR leaders are serious about developing their HR departments. Development that goes beyond a few business acumen courses and focuses on providing “on the job” programs that include experiences, special projects, job rotations, and extensive business knowledge and data interpretation skills. Without these efforts, can HR actually fulfill on their goals and strategies?
In closing I’ll quote Ellen Austin, from BBDC when she was asked on her panel how she ensured her HR Strategy and Business Plan were solid, she stated “I simply ask myself, when looking at my plan; if this was a business… would I lend them the money for this plan?” Can you look at your own HR organization, strategy, and plan and feel confident that you would lend yourself the money?
If you attended Impact this year we’d love to hear about your own experiences, and we look forward to the next chance we can all get together and learn from each other.
Stacey Harris
Principal Analyst