SHRM-Atlanta

The Final Four this weekend will feature this season’s four most effective NCAA Men’s Basketball teams; Ohio State, Kentucky, Louisville and Kansas.  A common mission, strong leadership, collaboration and execution helped these teams endure the regular season and win in the NCAA tournament.  Corporate teams require the same elements to perform together and achieve business goals.  Developing a strong team, clarifying roles and creating an environment that encourages collaboration are the leader’s responsibility.  

There are a number of team development models out there that are popular and respected.  I’ve made use of Bruce Tuckman’s “5 Stages of Group Development Model” in my team building learning consulting, as well as Glen Parker’s thought leadership from his book “Team Players and Teamwork.”

A great new resource for leaders and team members is the recently published book entitled “The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do.”  The author is my fellow Atlantan Mark Miller, Vice President, Learning and Development of Chick-fil-A. During his time with Chick-fil-A, annual sales have grown to almost $4 billion. The company now has more than 1,500 restaurants in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

What I enjoyed most about the book is Mark’s creative use of a fictitious business and fictitious characters to explore real-world business situations and challenges facing teams.  Through the characters’ experiences we learn that effective teamwork requires a special kind of leadership, a model that is fresh and insightful. 

Mark also provides a “High-Performance Team Assessment” that leaders and their team can take and discuss the results together.  The book was informative but also fun to read, something that isn’t always the case with business books.

I spoke with Mark to ask him a few questions about the book; here is what he had to say:

Q. You describe members of the highest performing teams as having an “all for one, one for all attitude.” What single behavior best describes this mindset at work?

A.  What separates good teams from great ones is a sense of community. That’s what turbo-charges performance. There is no single behavior really. Community is cumulative over time. It’s when you acknowledge great performance or help someone who is struggling on a project that you don’t have to. When you learn about team members’ passions, hopes, dreams, striving and failing when you don’t meet the goal. Communities celebrate together, mourn together and do life together. You can’t force people into a community, but you can create the condition that’s appealing and compelling.     

Q. What is the most important action a leader can take to build an effective team?

A.  There are three key actions. 1) Focus on talent, 2) ensure they have the necessary skills and 3) consciously cultivate an environment of community.  A leader can’t pass on one or two of these; they must acknowledge all three ingredients. Like our popular lemonade recipe at Chick-fil-A you need lemons, water and sugar. You need all three. Building an effective team is challenging. It requires courage and discipline.      

Q. How do you suggest leaders and teams use the High-Performance Team Assessment you provide in the book?

A. I’d recommend you 1) Complete the form individually, and talk about the answers as a group. Look for patterns where you agree and disagree. You’re bound to learn something just by starting the conversation. 2) Prioritize critical gaps and have the team decide what constitutes a critical gap. 3) Create an action plan and measure progress. You can complete the form again at the team’s discretion.    

For a free copy of the assessment, click this link to Mark’s Blog, GreatLeadersSERVE.Org under resources to find The Secrets of Teams Assessment. 

Is your team playing at a Final Four level?  Interested in Mark’s book?  Check out “The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do.”

Who are the enlightened and sophisticated employers? According to Andy Webber, President of the National Business Coalition on Health, they are the employers who “see health management not as an operating cost but an investment in workforce health and productivity.”

Dee W. Edington wrote Zero Trends with the purpose of demonstrating that the improved health status of employees will not only reduce healthcare costs for the company, but also increase performance and productivity in the workplace. His book is about a new model of healthcare that defines healthcare as a combination of illness and wellness strategies that affect the bottom line of organizations far beyond simply striving to reduce the cost of insurance premiums. He contends “health management is a health strategy, but equally important, health management is a business and economic strategy.”

Avowing the cost of health is less than the cost of disease, Edington maintains that an unhealthy workforce cost an organization more than just the expense of treating illness. The cost of poor health hits employers through absences, short-term disabilities, workers’ compensation, ineffectiveness on the job and impact on co-workers. Only when we grasp these outcomes of poor health can we understand the total value of health.

In order to honestly grapple with the findings of Edington and the University of Michigan’s Health Management Center, there has to first be an upgrade to the definition of health. Most define health as “the absence of disease.” However, a much stronger definition of health is “energy and vitality.” Employers don’t simply want employees who are staying out of the hospital. Rather, they want employees who are energized, engaged and thriving in the workplace.

What can an organization do increase its chances of maintaining a healthy workforce?

1.    Focus on helping the healthy to stay healthy. As Dr. Brent Pawlecki affirms, “It’s very difficult to bring someone from an unhealthy risk score to a healthy score. It’s much easier to keep someone healthy.” When it comes to creating a healthy environment in the workplace, Edington outlines 4 engagement levels. The first level is the “Do-nothing” level where there is very little, if any, effort put into maintaining a healthy workforce. With the natural progression from low risk to high risk, disease will eventually follow along with higher cost.  Therefore, it is just as important to keep employees healthy as it is to provide treatment for them when they are sick.

2.    Create a work environment that is conducive to health. Edington shares “the way to keep people healthy is to first create a facilitating environment and then provide employees with the resources to change the behaviors that threaten their health.” One of the primary reasons major airline accidents are so rare is that there is a culture within the industry, (fueled by strict regulations), that focuses on maintenance and prevention. Should we not be creating a culture in our workplaces that encourages, and even dares to mandate, health in order to prevent the crashing and burning of employee health? As Albert Einstein said, “Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.”

3.    Create a Culture of health led by the organization’s top leadership. It has been said that being healthy isn’t the result of luck, it’s a choice. The same can be said of the health of an organization’s workforce. It is a choice and it is a choice that has to be made at the top. It is imperative for leadership in the organization to integrate workplace strategies for health into the corporate culture. Margie Blanchar accurately states “People look to the top to see what’s important. When leaders include health and well-being as a major strategic initiative and are serious about it, good things happen.” Edington provides Five Fundamental Pillars of a successful management strategy. These 5 pillars are integral to creating a culture of health:

• Senior Leadership (including the CEO & CFO)
• Operations Leadership (including HR)
• Self-Leadership (the employee)
• Rewards for Positive Actions
• Quality Assurance

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4.    Develop wellness plans that lead to optimal results. Many organizations have some type of wellness program. Yet, not all wellness programs are created or executed equally. One study suggest that less than 5% of wellness programs incorporate the range of best practices that are known to bring optimal results.  While larger employers are most likely to be able to measure the success of health management, even the smallest of organizations can adopt wellness initiatives that will lead to positive outcomes.

Successful organizations of the future will move beyond simply finding the best benefit plan and insurance policies. While a common historical trend among employers is to let the employees bear the blunt of all cost savings in regards to insurance premiums, these maligned strategies only provide temporary relief to, what Edington calls, “a terrible day of financial reckoning.” Any healthcare strategy short of maintaining a healthy workforce is doomed to fail.

For more detailed information on how to develop a health management plan as a strategic business plan you are encouraged to read Zero Trends, Health as a Serious Economic Strategy by Dee W. Edington. Zero Trends can be purchased from The Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan.

By Jack W. Bruce, Jr., PHR

By Geoffrey M. Rhines, CPA, PFS, Robert W. Baird & Co.

In today’s headlines, it’s common to target executive pay, corporate jets and millionaires not “paying their fair share” in income tax. However, there is generally very little discussion about the limitations experienced by highly compensated employees related to their participation in employee benefit plans. ERISA Title II’s Internal Revenue Code provisions state that “the pension-related provisions of the IRC require plans to cover rank-and-file workers, and they include ‘nondiscrimination rules’ that prohibit qualified plans from favoring highly compensated employees with respect to eligibility or benefits.”1 While these nondiscrimination rules are important, in many cases they have resulted in a reduction of benefits for the HCE group.

Let’s look at an example. Georgia Aerospace Company, Inc., manufactures sophisticated jet aircraft and avionics and employs more than 1,500 people. GAC offers the following group employee benefits: group health insurance coverage, group life insurance, group short-term and long-term disability, and a match on employee 401(k) plan contributions of 50% of the first 3% of pay. Rank-and-file employees make up 95% of the employee population, and GAC has approximately 80 HCEs based in Georgia as well as in sales offices throughout the United States. Within GAC’s employee benefit offerings, the following benefit limits are in place:

• Group life insurance – 2× compensation to a maximum of $250,000 death benefit
• Group long-term disability insurance – 60% of base salary to a maximum monthly benefit of $10,000
• 401(k) contributions – Due to the limited participation of the rank-and-file employees in the 401(k) Plan, HCEs are limited to an annual contribution of $4,500 to the Plan (2011 IRS limits on 401(k) contributions is $16,500).

In our example above, approximately 50 GAC HCEs are experiencing a significant reduction in their benefit levels due to their total compensation, resulting in a type of “reverse discrimination.” Let’s look at Chief of Avionics, Bill Smith, as a case study example. Bill has a base salary of $175,000 and is on track to earn a performance bonus of $75,000. The following table outlines Bill’s employee benefit picture:

The competition for highly qualified HCEs is very keen among U.S. employers. In order to recruit, retain and reward your key personnel, a review of potential lost employee benefits should be completed. If you determine you have an issue, you can consider implementing a carveout executive benefit plan to address the HCE benefit shortfalls. Carveout benefit plan designs are subject to Internal Revenue Code Section 409A and, as such, must be documented and then adhered to.

Executive benefit plans, or nonqualified plans, are vital pieces in the overall financial plan for your HCE team. In the retirement savings area alone, the inability of an HCE to save the maximum in a qualified 401(k) plan is very detrimental. Most financial planners say that you’ll need 60% to 90% of pre-retirement income in retirement.

If GAC were to implement a nonqualified deferred compensation plan, Bill would be able to make an additional pre-tax contribution of $12,000. A NQDC plan has the following features:

• Reduces participant’s current taxable income
• Participants invest pre-tax rather than after-tax dollars
• Deferral accounts grow on a tax-deferred basis
• Wage deferrals for HCEs aren’t capped
• The business can make unlimited matching contributions
• No income tax paid until participant receives distributions from their deferred compensation plan
• Discriminatory; sponsors decide on the participant group

Based on Bill Smith’s current ability to contribute to $4,500 annually to GAC’s 401K plan from age 40 until age 65, assuming a 6% gross investment return in his 401(k) portfolio, Bill will have approximately $247,000 in tax-deferred savings at age 65. However, if Bill were able to contribute an additional $12,000 to a NQDC plan (or up to the $16,500 annual qualified plan limitation), he would have a total tax-deferred retirement savings of approximately $905,000.  In a 2010 Executive Benefits Survey conducted by Clark Consulting (see the following graph), restoring lost 401(k) pre-tax savings due to qualified plan limitations and providing an additional platform for retirement savings were the predominant reasons for offering a NQDC for HCEs.

Source: Reasons For Offering Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans, Clark Consulting 2010 Executive Benefits Study; encompassing 85 companies in various industries.

Executive benefits are an important part of your employee benefit offerings. If your HCEs are experiencing a loss in employee benefits due to reverse discrimination, you may soon be experiencing a loss in your HCEs.

Geoffrey M. Rhines, CPA, PFS, assists business owners and executives in the design and implementation of executive benefits plans, business succession planning and wealth transfer strategies. In addition, he works with high-net-worth individuals and business owners on implementing advanced estate planning strategies to reduce their taxable estate and enhance their estate value. Geoff obtained his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant  and Personal Financial Specialist.

Robert W. Baird & Co. does not provide tax or legal advice, but can work with your tax and legal professionals to help implement appropriate strategies.

Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated.  Member SIPC.

Here is the scenario; you have been searching for that right mix of skills, talent and intangibles that are difficult to describe.  Your final interviewee arrives and has every quality you are looking for….you like him/her, they have a wonderful personality, you feel comfortable!  The conversation is like spending time with an old friend and catching up.  You hardly even consider this an interview

Has this ever happened?  The interview turns comfortable and causal.  Easy to do, however this can be a slippery slope.  Here are a few examples of how a causal line of questioning can have unintended and potentially illegal ramifications.

1.     You notice on their resume your alma mater or perhaps a certain geographic work location grabs your attention.  Perhaps this can be used early in the conversation as an ice breaker or towards the end to build on the personal repoire, so you say “by the way, I noticed _____ are you from ______”?

No harm in this?  Right? Well, yes…..   It is best to avoid this causal conversation prior to making a hiring decision.  It can be perceived as a question regarding national origin or birthplace.

2.    Many times people mention their family in conversation such as “oh, my spouse and I were just discussing _____” and you say “oh, are you married”?  “Do you have children?”

Stop!  At first glance most people will say. “Well the interviewee brought it up”!  Please note, just because they brought it up first, does not warrant employers to continue the dialogue.  It is an easy flow of conversation, but one that should be avoided.  Marital status, family situation and even sexual preference may be divulged…which have no bearing on this candidates ability to fulfill your company’s job requirements.

3.    The interviewee walks in with a perceived disability.  You conclude the interview and know this is the person you want to hire.  You feel comfortable and while making the offer over the phone state “I noticed _____, will you need any special accommodations”?

Your heart is in the right place.  You are asking because you truly want to ensure an accommodation is made on behalf of your potential new hire.

Best practices in this case; wait until an accommodation is requested from the employee!  Even as I am writing this, I can hear the groans.  However, what you perceive as a disability may or may not be to the person.  Don’t assume they will require an accommodation.

Most employers are aware of Title VII and all the Federal and state laws that prohibit prospective employers from asking certain questions that are not related to the job.   The examples above may occur in “the flow of conversation” (and I promise you, I have heard this as an excuse on more than one occasion), “the flow” does not give you the “go” on these questions.

Employers should not ask or even allude to questions regarding:

• Race
• Color
• Gender
• Religion
• Country of origin
• Marital status
• Age
• Disabilities
• Ethnic background
• Sexual preferences

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I understand that not all of these fall under “protected”, but let’s be proactive and smart about this!  Only ask questions as they relate to the job!  And by no means never, EVER, ask a women if she is pregnant or when she is due, no matter how much she is showing.   This will serve you well personally and professionally!

Alex Putman has led successful teams in global talent acquisition for high growth companies encompassing five continents. In his role as Director of Global Talent Acquisition with Case-Mate he is responsible for talent acquisition, recruitment branding and building talent communities on a global scale. You can connect with Alex via most social networks including LinkedIN & Twitter and follow his blog Social T-Rex.

Do you really know what your managers and employees are thinking or how they feel?  Even if what they feel or think is not true (in your mind) the thoughts and feelings are THEIR perspective.

I’ve recently been working closely with a few organizations and I have to tell you….it has been an eye opener.  I decided, along with my content in my sessions, I would add a survey.  This survey is done via email and is sent to my managers and supervisors to give them a chance to vent anonymously.   So far….my upper management and CEO’s have been a little surprised.  I have also found that my managers and supervisors are a little reluctant at first to email me there responses.  But once they get started….well things just come out!

I ask my managers to be open and honest because they may assume that the upper management team already knows what is going on, but I tell them, they don’t always know and many times, at least in my experience, are shocked when they hear the feedback.  So food for thought upper management, HR and CEO’s…my two questions are:

1. What is one major disciplinary problem you would like solved? or What are one or two Executive Team issues you would like to see resolved (personal or professional)?
2. What is one policy or process you would like to see changed or altered?

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After the survey questions are answered and revealed are all the issues resolved?  Absolutely not!  But here is what I have learned with working with so many organizations big and small, the managers at least got to be heard and the upper management and CEO’s are informed.  It’s called communication!  Some issues have actually been easily solved.

I understand that many of my organizations I work with are going through major changes and cut-backs but you still have to stay in touch with your people.  I challenge upper management to open themselves up and find out EXACTLY what their people are thinking and feeling…you may be shocked too…but you may be pleasantly surprised!

Let me know how your questions worked!

Be prepared for a roller coaster ride with me…climbing uphill with knowledge-based work and rolling downhill into playful and fun activities that help you apply and retain what you have learned. – Candy Whirley, Owner, SBG Services, LLC, (http://www.candywhirley.com/blog/).

Are you satisfied with the effectiveness of your leadership development programs?  How does your organization rate its current leadership quality and future bench strength?  Well, if you have concerns in these areas you are not alone.  According to DDI’s 2011 Global Leadership Forecast, leadership development practices and processes require a radical transformation.

The research behind the forecast is one of the largest of its kind, involving over 2,600 organizations in 74 countries.  Approximately 1,900 HR professionals and 12,500 business leaders participated in the most recent study that DDI has conducted every two years since 1999.  Here are just a few of the key findings from the report:

DDI’s 2011 Global Leadership Forecast Key Findings:

1.   Low satisfaction with the effectiveness of leadership development – Only 35 percent of HR professionals reported that the quality of leadership development they were delivering to leaders was high.  Only 1 in 3 business leaders feel they are getting value from the learning and development they are receiving.

2.   Ineffective development impacts current leadership quality and bench strength – slightly more than 1 in 3 business leaders rated the quality of leadership in their organization as very good or excellent, with no change since 2009.  HR professionals are even more critical with only 1 in 4 satisfied with quality of leadership in their companies.  Only 18% of HR respondents feel their companies have the quantity and quality of leaders they will need to run their companies 3 to 5 years out.

3.   Leadership skills for the future aren’t the same as the past, and leaders aren’t effective in these skills – Two of the top 5 most important skills for leaders in the future differ from past skills.  Managing Change, Coaching, and Strategy Execution stayed at the top, the new skills are Fostering Innovation and Identifying and Developing Future Talent.  The problem is that about half of the business leaders rated themselves ineffective in these 5 skills.

4.   Development Approaches: Classroom Still Popular – While learning 2.0 approaches are in vogue for other learning objectives, classroom learning was preferred most by business leaders followed by coaching from managers and special projects.  73% rated their formal leadership development experiences as effective or very effective.

5.   Development is only a part of the equation for high- quality leadership – Development is critical to improving leadership quality and bench strength, but it is only one of several components of a winning talent management system.  Selecting the “right leaders,” ongoing performance management and succession management are actually considered slightly more important to organizational success than development programs.  The bad news is that both HR and business leaders overwhelmingly feel that their organizations are not effective in any of these critical systems.

What is the Payoff of Revolutionary Change?

The DDI 2011 Global Leadership Forecast concludes that we need to radically rethink the way we develop leaders, the way we select and promote leaders, and the very role of leadership itself.

Their study pointed out:

• Organizations with ineffective development and talent management systems reported financial performance in the 24^th percentile of the study
• Organizations that revolutionized their leadership development, talent systems and management culture were in the 68^th percentile in terms of bottom-line financial performance

These are just a few of the key findings in the report.  I found the information regarding the leadership practices, systems and culture that create a competitive advantage for companies enlightening and practical.

Does your leadership development strategy need a revolution?   Want more information?  Check out the full report.

This post was provided by guest blogger Charlotte F. Hughes, HCS. Charlotte is an expert talent development professional with extensive experience in leadership and organizational development as an advisor to business leaders and HR in multiple industries. In her role as Learning and Development Consultant with Kimberly-Clark she is responsible for helping human resources and business leaders with performance improvement and learning solutions that drive business goals. You can connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn and read more from Charlotte on her TalentFocus Blog.

When a crisis creates uncertainty, markets often become volatile, especially when the scope of the disaster isn’t clear. A crisis is like Janus, the Roman god with faces that looked forward and back. For some investors, it may represent a threat; for others, it may spell opportunity. Not every crisis requires a reaction; sticking to a long-term plan is still the best strategy for most people.

Here are some examples of factors that investors sometimes overlook when considering which face of Janus to focus on during a crisis.

Watch the global supply chain

Companies and economies increasingly operate in a global context. The more heavily an industry or company relies on global partners, the more it might be affected by crisis conditions. Think not only about companies that are affected directly by turmoil, but about other companies that rely on them.  For example, China has become in many ways the world’s factory floor, and many information technology services are now outsourced to India. How would a crisis in either country affect global supply chains or communications infrastructure? Might competitors not affected by the crisis pick up at least some of the slack?

How might a particular industry be hit by shortages of parts or raw materials? Is a large multinational so geographically spread out that a crisis in one part of the world may have little impact on its overall operations? Oil is perhaps the most obvious example of how a crisis can affect global supply chains. A perceived threat to supplies can affect prices of other assets.

Consider currency fluctuations

Currency fluctuations are another factor to consider. Crises in one part of the world can affect that region’s currency. That in turn can affect companies located elsewhere. The 2010 panic over potential default by several eurozone countries strengthened the dollar, and though that may sound like good news, a stronger dollar can hurt U.S. exports.

Currency issues are also important because of what’s called the “carry trade.” This happens when investors use money from a country where interest rates are relatively low–the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar have been prime examples in recent years–to invest elsewhere at a better rate of return. However, if the cheaper currency suddenly increases in value, the carry trade can reverse as investors put their capital back into the so-called funding currency. That can affect assets denominated in other currencies. For example, the yen soared as investors anticipated that money would be repatriated to deal with Japan’s earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. Some investments denominated in other currencies suffered when investors sold them to invest in yen.

Think both long term and short term

Nothing lasts forever. A crisis could create opportunities that eventually peter out, or challenges that later seem trivial. Or it could have little short-term impact but mean profound change over a period of years. When considering whether a crisis represents a challenge or an opportunity, think both short term and long term.

A crisis with potentially long-term opportunities or harmful consequences may mean you may be able to take more time with a decision. If the window of opportunity is smaller or the potential devastation more short term, remember that there are alternatives to an all-or-nothing approach. For example, you could take a small position and see how your investment thesis plays out before committing more. Even if the window of opportunity slams shut, new opportunities often emerge during even the worst of times; missing one now doesn’t mean you won’t find others later. If you’re worried about a potential downturn, you could use other investments to hedge your exposure while retaining a long-term stake, or take profits to protect part of your holdings but leave some money invested in case the crisis is short-lived.

Note: Any investment approach involves some type of risk, including the possible loss of principal, and there’s no guarantee any strategy or technique will be successful.

This article was provided by Jim Bridges, CFP®, Associate Vice President, Morgan Keegan. Jim is a co-chair (along with Julee Brunson, Georgia’s Own Credit Union) for the SHRM-Atlanta Total Rewards Community. If you are interested in following more on the total rewards community, please join our LinkedIn Total Rewards subgroup; if you are interested in following more on the legislative affairs community, please join our LinkedIn Legislative Affairs subgroup.

One of our greatest challenges as Human Resources professionals is to align our functions and initiatives with the business goals of our organization.  For corporations and other for-profit organizations, the most important business goal is growing shareholder value.  It is not always clear however precisely what drives shareholder value for a particular organization.  Changing marketplace trends such as; globalization, talent shortages, technology, and demographic shifts keep us busy.  The day-to-day priorities for HR often keep our attention away from the metrics of the enterprise which contribute most to shareholder value.

Fortunately, Deloitte Consulting provides a practical and effective tool for connecting HR initiatives to the bottom line of the organization.   I have found Deloitte’s Enterprise Value Map™ for Human Capital v2.0 a great job aid for identifying:

What Drives Shareholder Value

1. Key Value Drivers (revenue growth, operating margin, asset efficiency, outside expectations and perceptions)
2. Improvement Levers (volume, price realization)
3. Improvement Actions (activities aimed at increasing volume, such as bringing in new customers or adding services)
4. Dimensions of Human Capital Activities that can influence the three levels of activity above (areas within talent strategies, learning and development, and organizational capabilities)

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Our role is to focus on talent, figure out the right way to get things done, and ensure that our HR initiatives are aligned with our business goals and strategies.  The Enterprise Value Map for Human Capital helps us focus on the right business solutions and serves as a graphic reminder of what we are doing and why.  The human capital dimensions shown in the map include:

Human Capital Dimensions within the EVM for Human Capital

1. Strategic HR Alignment: Alignment of HR/Talent strategies with business strategies
2. Learning and Development: Training, coaching, and mentoring of managers and employees
3. Performance Management and Improvement: Expectations and standards, tracking and evaluation, feedback and coaching, rewards and recognition, career development
4. Workforce Planning, Talent Management, Acquisition and Deployment: Talent supply and demand forecasting, sourcing, recruiting, onboarding, succession management
5. Organizational Capability: Structure, culture, knowledge management, HR performance metrics, talent retention, employee relations, job design
6. Change Leadership and Transformation: HR implications of major business decisions (mergers and acquisitions, consolidation, outsourcing), adoption of new processes/technology, cultural transformation
7. HR Services and Administration: Technology, administration of payroll, health plans, benefits, grievances, compliance

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How Can the EVM for Human Capital help You?

Whether you are developing HR strategic plans, managing HR projects, or providing performance consulting for business clients, the EVM for Human Capital can support you by:

• Helping you identify and execute human capital initiatives that grow shareholder value
• Expressing business objectives and HR solutions in the language of your business clients
• Enabling the development of focused business case justification for your human capital investments
• Graphically showing the intersection between business strategy and HR
• Presenting the contribution of the HR function in quantitative terms

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I have found the map a great performance support tool in my own work, and a valuable resource for training and coaching others on how to align HR solutions with business goals and shareholder value.

How Can You Get a Copy of the Map?

Order a complimentary copy of the EVM for Human Capital.

This post was provided by guest blogger Charlotte F. Hughes, HCS. Charlotte is an expert talent development professional with extensive experience in leadership and organizational development as an advisor to business leaders and HR in multiple industries. In her role as Learning and Development Consultant with Kimberly-Clark she is responsible for helping human resources and business leaders with performance improvement and learning solutions that drive business goals. You can connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn and read more from Charlotte on her TalentFocus Blog.

 HR Leadership: Becoming a Strategic Partner

Stephen Covey advised us to “begin with the end in mind,” sage words for HR professionals who want to become strategic partners with leadership. This advice is particularly true if you want to add value to the sustainability of your organization by helping senior leaders ask and answer the ten critical questions for creating the culture of the future…now.

Question 1: Have you clearly defined and communicated the Core of your company (mission, vision & values) and given employees opportunities to align their Cores with the Core of the organization? All roads to a successful future begin here. A compelling, shared Core provides the focus, direction and passion that drive results.

Question 2: How well is your business doing from a customer as well as from an employee perspective and how do you know? The right, deep assessment helps you get beyond symptoms to root causes which allows you to pinpoint the gaps and designate priorities. Go beyond the climate survey that asks how employees feel to culture assessments that dig into the many levels of culture that drive the business.

Question 3: What are you doing to develop the current and future generation of leaders? Your organization is the reflection of the quality of your leaders. Providing the right developmental opportunities ensures the sustainability of your company. By the way, training is only one developmental possibility and not always the best choice.

Question 4: How are you building customer loyalty? You are only in business as long as you have customers. This fact is also true for not-for-profit organizations as well as nonprofits. Ongoing communication with your customers is essential for success. Doing something with customer feedback is even better. Many CEOs recognize that customer service has become a key differentiator for success.

Question 5: How are you ensuring that everyone in your business is a strategic thinker, not just senior leaders? The days are gone when senior leaders do the thinking and everyone else is the “arms and legs.” Teaching everyone to ask, “What am I doing in my job today and how will it affect the organization tomorrow?” is essential for success.

Question 6: Are you using more than just a rearview mirror to measure success? You have to know where “there” is before you can declare victory. Using only financial measures puts you at a disadvantage because once the numbers are in, you can’t change them. Leading indicators provide a look into future results so you can adjust appropriately.

Question 7: How are you innovating and improving your processes to keep pace with and ahead of your customer’s demands? As products and services have become more homogenous, innovation is the key to sustainability of the business. Processes should be customer-focused and employee-enabled.

Question 8: What are you doing to attract, develop and retain top-notch employees? It has been an employer’s market in the new economy but the talent war is coming. Understanding what self-motivates the different generations to come, stay and contribute to your organization is essential.

Question 9: How small is your corporate impact on the earth’s resources? How large an impact are you leaving in the community in which you operate? Responsible businesses take action to leave a lasting environmental and community legacy. Younger employees are attracted to organizations that contribute to the greater good.

Question 10: What other actions can leadership take to ensure a belonging, learning and contributing culture that attracts and retains the right people? For example, saying “good morning” when people show up for work, provide motivating and challenging assignments, and showing appreciation for jobs well done.

Do these questions take work to answer? Absolutely. You might pilot the process in your own function so that leadership knows “the cobbler’s children do have shoes,” and, now, everyone wants a pair.

Dr. Jane Goldner, president of The Goldner Group, is one of the nation’s leading authorities on talent retention and trusted advisor to Fortune 100 Companies, government and military organizations, and to mid-sized businesses. She is the author of Driven to Success: A 10-Point Checkup for Achieving High Performance in Business, a step-by-step business guide for leaders. Dr. Goldner is a highly rated adjunct professor at Kennesaw State University Coles College of Business. She is a recovering Type E Woman who focuses on helping other women recognize and address their Type E behaviors.

Organizational assessment refers to a process for obtaining information about the performance of an organization and the factors that affect performance.  It is done to determine; areas for improvement, opportunities for growth and competitive advantages.  Examples of organizational assessment focus areas include; work flow processes, revenue streams, organizational structure, cultural transformation, and client satisfaction and employee engagement.
There are many different frameworks for conducting organizational assessments.  These models provide theoretical guidelines upon which valid and reliable organizational assessments should be based.  All of these models provide value to HR and Business leaders performing organizational assessments; however each model is based on a different evaluation approach.

Leaders will often use an external organizational consultant to help them get started, until they can use the process on their own.  It’s important to choose someone with experience in your industry and expertise in the areas you are seeking to evaluate.  I suggest getting references from leaders you trust and conducting interviews with potential OD consultants.   SHRM National and local SHRM chapters are great places to start for references.

Whichever model you use to conduct your organizational assessment, it is important that you feel comfortable with your choice so that ultimately, your organization benefits and performs better.  Here are 3 commonly used organizational development models, including resources to learn more about each one.

3 Organizational Development Models

1.    Weisbord’s Model (The Six Box Model) - Developed by analyst Marvin Weisbord, the six-box model is a generic framework and is intended for use across a wide variety of organizations.  It is based mainly on the fundamental techniques and paradigms of the field of organizational development.

The six-box model is based on the book “Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice,” by Marvin Weisbord

2.    Burke & Litwin Model (The Casual Model of Organizational Performance & Change) – The Burke & Litwin Model, suggests linkages that hypothesize how performance is affected by internal and external factors.  It provides a framework to assess organizational and environmental dimensions that are keys to successful change and it demonstrates how these dimensions should be linked causally to achieve a change in performance.

A great source of information on this model is the article “A Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change” by Burke and Litwin.

3.    Institutional and Organizational Model (IOA Model) - The IOA model aims to help an organization define and improve its overall performance through analyzing its environment, motivation, and capacity. Through these four areas (performance, environment, motivation, and capacity), the model offers a clear-cut methodology to diagnose institutional strengths and weaknesses.  To learn more about the IOA Model,   I strongly recommend the book Organizational Assessment: A Framework for Improving Performance by Lusthaus, Adrien, Anderson, Carden, and Montalvan.

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These are the three models I’m most familiar with, but there are many more out there.  What’s your favorite approach to organizational assessment and development?

This post was provided by guest blogger Charlotte F. Hughes, HCS. Charlotte is an expert talent development professional with extensive experience in leadership and organizational development as an advisor to business leaders and HR in multiple industries. In her role as Learning and Development Consultant with Kimberly-Clark she is responsible for helping human resources and business leaders with performance improvement and learning solutions that drive business goals. You can connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn and read more from Charlotte on her TalentFocus Blog.