How do you know if your HR Head lacks strategic potential or leadership?

• S/he focuses on and strives to keep administrative transactions and other non-strategic activities in-house by limiting the HR budget to HR personnel salaries as much as possible.
• S/he does not understand, drive, nor support (financially or otherwise) any employer branding initiatives and perceives recruitment marketing as a waste of time.
• S/he is unable to recognize that competition for critical talent is heating up and does not understand the supply and demand of critical workforce segments.
• S/he is unable to monitor availability of critical talent for the organization and does not work to influence it (e.g. University engagement).
• S/he does not strive to gain insights into employee factors as turnover or age within the organization’s critical workforce segments.
• S/he believes the company’s recruiter is a junior role and does not have an issue with the recruiter being in charge of overtaking administrative duties connected with e.g. visa for expatriates, new staff announcements, etc.
• S/he does not know the answer to the question: Why would great people want to work at their Company?
• S/he does not recognize the link between the company’s standing in the talent market and its position in the product/service market.

HR People in China

In China, the HR profession has relatively low barriers to entry. Even today, many HR Departments are filled with HR people without any formal HR qualifications.

Traditionally, vacancies in the HR Department were taken up by graduates of English schools or Finance professionals whose talents were incommensurate with their new responsibilities and duties.

Another wave of HR professionals comes from consulting companies. Just like advertising agencies develop talent for their in-house Marketing Department, recruitment agencies and HR consulting companies produce a talent pool of in-house recruiters and HR executives. These candidates may find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of daily Admin work that requires their attention.

The final batch of HR professionals comes from an Operations background. This group usually starts their career in Marketing, Sales, or Product Development. They in fact have very limited HR know-how.

To climb the corporate ladder, HR people from all three groups must prove that they have a solid understanding of the company's business, can contribute to and collaborate effectively with senior management, and convert data into management information. In a nutshell, the best HR people are entrepreneurial, highly dedicated, solutions-oriented, and hungry to work with people to drive change, development and training, and individual/team/company performance.

Offer Acceptance Rate and Show Up Rate

An Offer Acceptance Rate shows the percentage of job offers that have been accepted from the hiring process. It is calculated by knowing the Job Offers Accepted by the Job Offers Extended.

In China, this metric can be complimented by a Show Up Rate which would be the Onboards Completed by Jobs Offers Accepted as it is not uncommon for Candidates not to show up for their first day of work even though they accepted the offer.

Both ratios may be good indicators for measuring the strength of your employer brand, productivity and skillfulness of your recruiters/hiring managers in assessing the needs and wants of the Candidate, and quality and effectiveness of internal communications.

A low rate should force the organization to reevaluate:
• The ways it markets its employee value proposition,
• The salaries benchmarking data,
• Candidates' journey with particular focus on pre-employment activities, and
• The communication approach with Candidates.

An organization should also take proactive steps before, during, and after an offer acceptance to ensure a high conversion rate. A few sample initiatives include:
• Be clear about your employee value proposition and communicate it persuasively.
• Send the Candidate a small company gift, marketing collaterals, and/or a card from the Division Head or even better, the CEO.
• Let the Division Head/CEO call the Candidate.
• Invite the Candidate to join any team activities that are scheduled before his/her Onboard Day.
• Connect with the Candidate via Facebook or Twitter in order to update him/her on the organization's status and any new happenings or successes.

Focus on Strengths

In both Marketing and HR, the dilemma arises as to where one should allocate resources. Two choices exist; either focus on strengths or concentrate on compensating weaknesses.

For Marketing, these two approaches are discussed, for example, by Dru*:

“If a P&G product had a 12 percent market share in Normandy and only 6 percent in Alsace, P&G would spend twice as much in Normandy as in Alsace. P&G invests where it is strong. Colgate would have done the opposite, believing that the 6 percent in Alsace, lower than the national average, was clear evidence of underexploited potential requiring investment.”

For HR, alternative examples include:
• Guide and encourage high performers to deliver even greater results or help low performers reach average results.
• Motivate employees by focusing on their strengths or helping them identify and overcome some of their weaknesses.
• Reward, grow, and retain “A” players or concentrate on salvaging “C” players.

Without a doubt, performance-driven organizations will choose to focus on high-performers and allocate resources accordingly.


* Dru, Jean-Marie (2007). How Disruption Brought Order: The Story of Winning Strategy in the World of Advertising. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. P. 177.

HR Catch 22

Strategic HR
To add value and deliver results, HR needs an opportunity to work in partnership with senior management. But, this can only happen if HR first proves that the department adds value.

Board Seat
To make a contribution, HR needs a board seat. But, this can only happen if HR first makes a tangible contribution.

HR Leadership
To change the image and status of HR, highly ambitious and competent leaders must join and work in this field. But, this can only happen if the status of HR is first transformed.

Attracting Talent
To attract talent, a company must establish itself as an up-and-comer and a great place to work. But, this can only happen if the company has great talent from the beginning.

Promotion
To be promoted, an employee must prove essential skills required for a higher position (managerial role). But, this can only happen if s/he is promoted or at least challenged first in order to learn and grow (job stretch).

HR Investment
To invest in HR, an entrepreneurial company must reach financial stability. But, this can only happen if the company invests in HR (e.g. founder’s time, effort, and approach to managing people) in the first place.

Trainer-Training Company-Client
To understand the client’s training needs and be able to quote appropriate and accurate trainer fees, the trainer must be engaged by the training company and involved in the sales process with the client. But, this can only happen if the trainer fees between the trainer and training company are agreed upon beforehand.

Staff Appraisal
Staff appraisal forms are designed for reluctant managers but they are least likely to use them effectively. Instead, good managers fill out the appraisal forms properly and precisely but in general are the ones who do not need them. (Paul Kearns, 2003).

Training
Employees who do not enjoy learning and training look for excuses as not enough time in order to avoid participating in development initiatives. Instead, employees who enjoy and value training rarely miss a day of training and oftentimes are the ones who need it the least.

Performance
When your HR performance system is ineffective, low performers are most likely to stay onboard even though you generally would like them to leave. Instead, high performers who you would like to hold on to and retain are the ones most likely to leave.

HR Ratio versus HR Contribution

“The real payoff is when we add a new hospital or other operating unit, we don’t have to add an accountant or HR professional.” Dennis Dahlen, Vice President of Finance, Banner Health

As HR is required to bring value, the HR ratio (number of HR professionals for every 100 employees) is used in many companies as an efficiency indicator. This ratio is helpful for benchmarking purposes against industry standards. However, due to limitations of benchmarking, the results are not always conclusive.

In SMEs, a typical HR ratio is 1:100 because HR processes are not usually fully automated and HR is still an evolving function. In larger organizations with added stability, mature processes, and higher degree of automation, a typical HR ratio is 1:250. Regarding China; the HR ratio is moving from 1:100 to 1:200 or 1:300*. Nonetheless, research aimed at specifying policies and practices of HR management systems for high performance shows that firms with high HR management quality have roughly double the number of HR professionals per employee (1:139.51) as compared to companies with low HR management quality (1:253.88)**.

I recently met a HR director from a global company with 1,200 staff in China. This international company employs 50 people in the HR & Admin department leading to a HR ratio of around 1:25 (or 4 HR employees for 100 employees) while payroll, recruitment, and training are outsourced to HR service providers. Their HR ratio shows a major deviation for the benchmarks above but as long as the value addition of each HR employee is greater than the cost incurred to the company, there should be no issues.

After all, the HR ratio is a tactical metric only and focuses on the relationship between quantitative measures (HR’s department size and the company’s size). Size of the HR department can vary considerably and depends on several factors:
• Nature of organization,
• Size,
• Age and phase of growth,
• Management approach,
• Employee profile,
• Centralization or decentralization of the HR function,
• The number of office locations and geographic distribution of employees,
• Expected level of service and support,
• The amount of automation utilized,
• The amount of HR functions outsourced (recruitment, training, payroll, benefits, etc.), and
• The relative complexity of the strategic mission and objectives for the HR function.

Importantly however, there is no clear causal relationship between size and strategic value-added HR.

Therefore, HR should focus on measuring contributions made by HR staff. Three possible measures to consider are:
• “Profit per HR employee” placing the emphasis on the return on HR talent,
• “Number of HR employees” indicating growth, and
• “HR leadership bench strength” (Number of employees who are promotable “ready replacements” for each of the key jobs in the HR function) indicating sustainability.

Once all three measures are tracked and translated into HR practices geared towards HR staff, adding a HR employee will mean “improving the company’s profits”.

Thus, from the strategic angle, companies should ask:
• Does the HR staff have competencies and abilities to deliver results?
• To what extent is HR staff effective in strategic partnering with line managers?
• To what extent is HR staff effective in facilitating change?
• To what extent is HR staff effective in advocating employees?
• To what extent is HR staff effective in providing HR operational excellence?

The ideal HR department size or being concerned with another HR hire would not be an issue then.

* Powell, Jonathan (2007, November 17). ”Fast-changing world of HR”. In Classified Post. p. 42.
** Becker, Brain E., Huselid, Mark A, and Ulrich, Dave (2001). The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Recruitment and Training Interdependency

HR sub-processes, recruitment and training, may be operated and managed independently. But essentially, they are two sides of one coin. Therefore, if recruitment and training professionals work in isolation, then, for example, an incompatible set of metrics will be used causing inefficiencies.

Companies that measure cost per hire and hold hiring managers accountable for this outcome will see lower cost per hire over time. But, the unintended consequence of this action is usually a lower quality of new hires resulting in increasing training needs and total labor costs. Similarly, poorly designed training may be ineffective and will not bring about a change in performance. This may negatively impact employee job satisfaction which in turn influences the attrition rate. An escalating attrition rate causes greater demand for recruitment.

Therefore, when analyzing recruitment and training dynamics, a clear understanding must exist between which competencies have to be bought (recruitment) and which can be built (training and development). The traditional trade-off is; “Hire for attitude and train for skills and/or knowledge”.

In China, English is a skill that must be hired and trained for. Even so, two divergent approaches exist for tackling this challenge. The first approach involves prioritizing the hiring of employees with solid professional knowledge and mediocre English skills in hopes of improving their language skills through training and development programs. The second approach focuses on hiring employees with high levels of English proficiency while providing training in the relevant professional area. In this case, the English majors quite often pursue a part-time post-graduate business degree to boost their career.

Shopping WISELY for an ESL Provider

It is unrealistic to expect a barber to ask a customer why s/he needs their hair cut and refuse service if the customer hopes to lose 10 pounds as a result; even though the barber realizes that a new hair cut will not guarantee the desired outcome. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that a sales person will send a prospect away once you knock on their door asking for English language training. Nevertheless, a results-oriented English language training provider must be interested in determining whether or not English training is really going to solve your performance problems and if warranted, advise you to go ahead with a different solution.

So, to be successful in training endeavors, you should find ESL providers that:

Understand the art of tailor-made solutions
Tailor-made programs are sold at a significant premium and providers favor them over off-the-shelf solutions. Before you choose a tailor-made course, understand the advantages and disadvantages of both. Most-importantly however, ensure that there is adequate customization based on well-understood learning tasks and thus there is “more to it” then just your logo on the training materials.

Are able to see the big picture
Corporate training is predominantly about enhancing a company’s business performance. Choose ESL providers that focus on job application of their training solutions and care about your company’s plan to provide participants the opportunity to practice their new skills in the workplace. In addition, expect training providers to consider your company’s values, approach to leadership, strategy, and vision in order to reinforce them during the training.

Approach training evaluation as an 80:20 split
Training evaluation is an integral part of planning processes (pre-training) whereupon performance objectives and criteria should be agreed upon. Expect training providers to spend 80 percent of their time and effort on pre-training evaluation processes and the remaining 20 percent on post-training ones.

Focus on your needs instead of implementation issues
Mistakenly, some ESL providers tend to believe they provide tailor-made solutions when they work with clients on pure implementation issues as the group size, number of training hours, days on which training will take place, financial constraints, etc. Although these are notable features of tailor-made solutions, the true value lies in training material that corresponds to established objectives. Ensure ESL providers understand the art of tailor-made solutions.

Experience: A Perpetuating Myth

The premise that you can only do what you have done in the past and that if you’ve done it in the past then you must be good at it; is still an indispensable staple for the majority of jobs.

Unsurprisingly, we believe vehemently that experience counts; but evidence does not support their view*. Did you know:

• Experienced managers tend to be no more effective than managers with little experience.

• In even the most complex jobs, real learning typically ends after about two years. Too often, 20 years of experience is nothing more than one year of experience repeated 20 times!

• A situation in which experience is obtained is rarely comparable to a new situation.

• Experience is often confused with expertise. Practice makes permanent, not perfect.

Common beliefs to reevaluate are:
• The length of time on a job is a measure of experience,
• Applicants are skilled because they have experience, and
• Professionals who are experienced are good at what they do.

After all, inexperienced candidates have their advantages too.

* Robbins, Stephen P. (2005). Organizational behavior. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Internal Employer Branding Strategy

You cannot stop marketing to your employees just because they work for you. Employees must be constantly reminded of why they joined the organization in the first place and what is special about your company that causes them to stay.

A few ideas for strengthening your company’s brand internally:
• Communicate your strengths frequently; for example, your involvement in the community, awards, and successes that are acknowledged in the press or by professional associations.
• Encourage stories about what it is like to work at your company and store them as a “Story Inventory”.
• Engage employees during the interview process by having them deliver a company pitch to job candidates.
• Involve your employee’s family, if applicable.
• Celebrate your accomplishments publicly.

Internal branding efforts help build self-esteem, commitment, and increase motivation among employees.

Employer Positioning

When generating synergies between marketing and HR, one can not overlook learning from Levi Strauss or Nike. Both corporate giants offer tailor-made products to fit unique needs and desires of every individual customer.

HR departments already recognize the need to position their companies in job markets. They draft, declare, and communicate the company’s value proposition to employees and candidates. An Employee Value Proposition (EVP) in the form of a statement of why the total work experience at a given company is superior to that of another is however not enough.

EVP must be real in terms of what the employee receives from the company for their commitment and the contributions they are expected to make. VOI2C2E is a framework for detailing elements of an EVP*:

• Vision. The firm has a clear sense of the future that engages hearts and minds and creates pride among employees.
• Opportunity. The work provides a chance to grow both personally and professionally, and to develop skills and knowledge that promote present and future employability.
• Incentive. The compensation package is fair and equitable, including base salary, bonus, and other financial incentives.
• Impact. The work itself makes a difference or creates meaning, particularly as it connects the employee with a customer who uses the employee’s work.
• Community. The social environment includes being part of a team (when appropriate) and working with co-workers who care.
• Communication. The flow of information is two-way, so employees are informed about what is going on.
• Experimentation. Working hours, dress, and other policies are flexible and designed to adapt to the needs of both the firm and the employee.

Obviously, different employees will rank the importance of each element of this framework on their own accord. Therefore, an effective EVP will personalize the agreement so employees who meet expectations will be rewarded with VOI2C2E elements that matter most to them.

So, it is not only vital to differentiate the company from other companies. Just like Levi Strauss and Nike can address customers’ unique preferences, HR ought to differentiate the EVP for each employee.

The goal of HR should not be so much attempting to differentiate the company from other companies, as putting people first and differentiating effectively between them. This sort of flexibility from an EVP can build true commitment among employees.


* Ulrich, Dave, & Brockbank, Wayne (2005). The HR Value Proposition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Job Branding

Job branding is yet another concept that brings the principles of marketing and HR together in order to attract and retain talent.

Essentially, this is a technique to increase the importance of the job by tying it directly into the company’s strategy, vision, or an important initiative or major project. Accordingly, candidates and employees can clearly see growth opportunities that come with successful performance, i.e. what they can learn, do, and become.

Surprisingly though, job branding is only becoming fashionable now. But, tying each job in some way to the company’s strategy should have been HR’s task for decades. How else could HR have determined the need for new positions or additional staff in certain positions?

Or is it that simply with growth, companies hire more and more employees who do not (recognize how they) create value and whose work does not connect to the company’s strategy?

True, some jobs can be more directly connected with strategy than others, and there are jobs that are absolutely strategy-general, e.g. switch-board operator. However, a clear sight between employees’ work and value creation must be sought to create a win situation; for employees, customers, or shareholders.

Outsourcing and Culture

From a strategic HR standpoint, outsourcing should be considered when different company functions exhibit different cultures and assert conflicting cultural expectations. The same holds true when handling different business units that require different business strategy and thereby a distinct HR strategy*.

“One organization created a new company to market a product it developed because the reward systems required sales force effectiveness which was culturally incompatible with the values and beliefs of the rest of the organization. In another organization, the information system function was outsourced because the required culture of supporting continuous and dramatic innovation did not fit the rather pedestrian needs of the rest of the organization.”

Nevertheless, business leaders can still agree that cultural differences are acceptable or manageable across an organization. As an example, The Four Seasons organizational culture strongly advocates and supports a business strategy of customer intimacy to deliver world-class experiences for guests; whatever it takes! But, the organization’s billing and procurement function adheres to adding value through efficiency and cost-reduction.

When companies deliberate outsourcing decisions, they should seek out HR contribution. HR needs to analyze the subcultures in an organization in addition to the more traditional outsourcing assessment which concentrates on strategic importance, cost, and quality** for sourcing capabilities.


* Greene, Robert J. (1995). Culturally Compatible HR Strategies. HR Magazine. Vol. 40, June 1, pp. 115-122.
** Gottfredson, Mark; Puryear, Rudy, & Phillips, Stephen (2005). ”Strategic Sourcing: From Periphery to the Core”. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 83, No. 2, March. pp.132-9.

Creativity in the Creative Industry

Creativity is a subjective area. After all, certain creative businesses are more creative than others and there are ones which are not perceived as creative at all by their peers. Nonetheless, probably all of these creative enterprises will call “creativity” as their core competency. Creativity is the human ability to see things differently and have original ideas. Thus, talent is an essential asset for creative enterprises.

When a shortage of talent prevails, debates ignite over whether talent is born or made. In respect to leadership, the current mainstream conclusion dictates that Leaders are born and they are always made. In respect to creative talent, an increasingly common belief is that everyone has creative potential; which has to be unleashed by removing “mental locks”. In particular, the training industry and consulting which focuses on innovation are based upon this premise and consequently strive to contradict the old proverb, “You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks”.

Through an appropriate organizational culture, supportive and physical environment, creativity can be set free, fostered, and capitalized. Beyond literally thousands of tips to boost creativity, there are also a gazillion approaches, tools, and techniques. A few recent concepts to unleash creativity include Mid-level managers as key enablers, Appropriate and targeted training as intensive and thorough as the one of golf players or Thinking from Inside of the Box. Let us also not forget OD specialists and interior designers; these professionals can help release creativity by transforming companies’ workplace environment.

The point of the story is:
If you cannot buy talent (recruit), then build it (invest in training). If you can buy talent, then make sure you do not scare it away. In both cases, bind talent (retain) and build the best climate conducive for creativity. Otherwise, someone else will!

Name Game

A recent American study of first names* showed that the name an individual carries has a significant impact on how he or she is viewed, and conceivably, whether or not the individual is hired for a job.

More specifically, researchers found that common names were seen as least unique, best liked, and most likely to be hired. Unusual names were seen as most unique, least liked, and least likely to be hired.

The findings may not necessarily relate to the real world since the study was conducted in a laboratory situation. But, it is also worthwhile to keep in mind that research exists showing a strong correlation between an individual's attitudes and subsequent behavior.

Importantly, there are several practical implications of the study’s findings. These may also be considered in countries like China.

Because of bias in how people perceive names and for easier communication, Chinese employees routinely choose Western names when dealing with foreigners. Thus, when selecting a name, they may want to reconsider choosing distinctive or unique names as Purple, Sugar, Jelly, Fish, Candy, or Shellboy to name a few, so as to avoid any possible dislike of the name during their professional career.

For HR professionals, they need to be aware that there seems to be a clear bias in how people perceive names. When CVs are screened for hiring purposes names (just like pictures) should be left off to avoid potential discrimination. Alternatively, applications and CVs could be routed to hiring managers with initials only or applicant numbers.


*Cotton, John L.; O'Neill, Bonnie S.; and Griffin, Andrea (2008). The “name game”: affective and hiring reactions to first names. Journal of Managerial Psychology. Vol. 23. No. 1. pp. 18-39.

From Cultures by Accident to Cultures by Design

When it comes to marketing, companies are prompt to adopt the rule of “thinking globally and acting locally”; but, in talent management, they tend to promote values and working styles of the company’s home country.

Nevertheless, despite ongoing efforts to encourage uniform productivity, process standards, management style, performance expectations, etc., a significant degree of misalignment occurs between organizational cultures in China and global agendas. Consequently, hybrid cultures emerge from cultures carried over by expatriates, cultural dynamics of local Chinese, and the divergent third-cultures of returnees and overseas Chinese. These cultures are very much “by accident” and not “by design”.

Specifically, reasons for the development of cultures by accident include:
• People management practices can remain defunct because other methods exist for management to increase shareholder value.
• A “come and go attitude” of expatriates. Expatriates’ job embeddedness is relatively low since their connections to the community and the local organization are weak.
• High attrition rates among senior managers and employees. As the majority of employees seem to be quite new to the organization, there is no one to pass along company values and socialize new hires into the established culture. Consequently, every individual applies their own set of values when working with internal and external stakeholders.
• An inability of HR to engage in the organization from a strategy perspective and design a system to develop a desired culture. The role of strategic partner is overshadowed by the role of administrative expert.
• Scarcity of talent precludes recruiters from assessing candidates’ values and whether a cultural fit exists.

Cultures in China will become by design and play an increasing role when the following changes occur:
• Companies will run out of options for bottom-line improvements. Cost effectiveness and quality standards become uniform and will no longer differentiate the company substantially from their competitors.
• The selection of expatriate candidates becomes more rigorous. The candidates will have the “right” skills, cultural attitudes, and a long-term intention to live there.
• Companies develop strategy to effectively retain leaders and ensure their high commitment levels.
• HR professionals learn tools to uncover organizational self-perception and develop skills in culture management and change management.
• With the growing number of qualified candidates, knowledge and skill sets quickly become redundant.

Do Not Apply

When advertising positions, companies attempt to prevent unqualified candidates from applying through setting different bars.

Recently, a position for the Head of Human Resources at an “established Foreign Bank, upholding its long tradition of providing value-added services for both institutional and private investors in the region” was advertised by a third-party recruiter.

The most interesting requirement was, "candidates currently earning less than RMB 700,000 do not apply."

Obviously, this point implies that the bank is seeking a professional:
• … with experience at an established and more bureaucratic company as opposed to a smaller and more entrepreneurial company. In most cases, younger and entrepreneurial companies are much less likely to offer high salaries.
• … who has worked for an international company as opposed to a local Chinese company. Again, international companies are more prone to pay higher salaries.
• … who is older as opposed to younger. Older professionals earn higher salaries than younger ones. Ogilvy's Matthew Anderson says successful executives earn 80 percent of their net worth after the age of 40.

One cannot resist thinking of other motives behind this restriction.
• First, the assumption that the more one earns, the more valuable and pivotal one is. Unfortunately, compensation is not always commensurate with contribution. Furthermore, compensation does not necessarily correspond to strengths and talents, especially in cultures in which leaders are promoted based on age and status.
• The bank follows the belief that one has to climb the career ladder step-by-step instead of leaping over steps.
• The bank yearns to attract a person who has the same role at another organization. The bank probably motivates, encourages, and rewards people performance mainly with money. Consequently, the organization seeks to hire people motivated by money more than intangible elements of EVP.
• The bank is “trying to kill two birds with a single shot”. Upon completion of the recruitment process, the bank owns benchmarking data on compensation packages among professionals with similar qualifications and experience at competitor organizations (within financial or professional services industry).

The only question remains, how likely is it that professionals earning RMB 700,000 will find this job offer since they tend to be passive candidates in China’s job market. An alignment of the medium and the message is inevitably critical.

All Talk

Over the past couple of days, I read several articles on “employee retention” in China based on research data with insight into why employees stay or leave.

In short, employees are simply looking for sound interpersonal relationships, a healthy organizational culture, a sense of contribution, and opportunities to learn and grow; all of which have been considered primary retention drivers (fair compensation is classified as a secondary retention driver).

One can assume that many companies in China under deliver on these factors because of the rising attrition rates and relatively short average tenure of employees (about two years) and leaders (between 1-2 years).

Even so, when providing recommendations to subdue the attrition problem in China, the authors advise to “select the right people”. Accordingly, the candidates should be the right fit to the job, the organization, and the leadership in order to increase retention.

Yes, this is a significant challenge to find talent that not only has the skills, experience, and knowledge, but also does not mind a poor relationship with his/her boss, weak leadership, lack of recognition for their contribution, growth opportunities, and dull work.

Birds and HR

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" says an English proverb. In addition, the Polish adage goes like this: "Lepszy wrobel w garsci niz golab na dachu" (German equivalent: "Besser ein Spatz in der Hand, als eine Taube auf dem Dach"); literal meaning: "A sparrow in your hand is better than a pigeon on the roof".

In all three languages, this proverb relates to decision-making and risk-taking even though the English proverb suggests taking a chance for quantitative gain and the Polish and German proverb focuses on the qualitative win.

The current HR practice is just the opposite of the wisdom espoused in the proverb. It implies to see many candidates before hiring the “best”. So, the hiring decision is postponed until interviews are held with a handful of candidates. Even though HR will meet highly qualified candidates, it tends to continue the process by bringing in yet another candidate for an assessment and interview. Indeed, this entire process is a poor use of time and a gamble toward losing qualified candidates on-hand because HR is trying to secure better candidates (more qualified or less expensive, please decide on the one you prefer) though they may be out of reach anyway.

Thus, although well known and passed on from one generation to another, the “bird” proverb has been overruled by indecision in HR. Instead, an applied proverb would cause action once HR finds a suitable candidate. Just-in-Time HR instead of the typical 60-day recruitment cycle would be a real breakthrough.

Lastly, birds are indeed a good metaphor to help shape thinking in contemporary HR because of the way talent is flying around these days between employers as discussed in DDI’s article “Flight of Human Capital”; which I referred to in one of my earlier blog entries.

HR should report to the CEO

In about 13 percent of companies (for smaller companies the number is 22 percent), the head of HR reports to the CFO (CFO Research Services, 2003).

Per job description, the CFO represents a primarily financial orientation and creates value by saving money or cutting costs. In such an arrangement, it is easy for HR to simply become an extension of accounting with HR programs and processes being implemented for their cost-effectiveness and ease of administration.

Reporting to a CFO is reasonable when HR is focused on transactions, strives to cut costs, and/or works well with metrics. But, the first two conditions are losing relevance since HR has automated and outsourced the majority of transactional processes to various vendors thereby improving efficiency and lowering costs. In fact, HR function expenditures currently account for less than 1 percent of the company’s total operating costs (BNA/SHRM Survey and analyses of 740 publicly held firms).

Instead, HR should focus on maximizing the strategic value of the workforce. After all, total payroll expenses equal between 60 to 70 percent of operating costs.

Thus, the best firms separate the HR function from Finance and require the HR Director to report to the CEO, who, per job description, seeks to generate money by investing in high ROI resources.

Internal Blogging

Besides stay interviews, internal blogging is an excellent communication platform to increase performance and retention.

Internal blogging encourages business conversations, team building, project management, knowledge sharing, cross-shift communications, and provides a window of opportunity to learn what employees think about their company*.

Companies that support internal blogging have seen improvements in their products, processes, and quality of service as a result of employees being more communicative, more involved, and more outwardly focused. Other benefits of internal blogging include:
• Employees enjoy their work more,
• Employees connect more with people outside their teams, and
• Employees share and receive information on a whole in a new scale.

Furthermore, the best employee blogs allow for open brainstorming and problem-solving and thereby improve efficiency across the organization.

For these reasons, internal blogging has a great potential to become another “HR best practice”. However, before your organization can deploy internal blogging, it must be considered either this framework is appropriate given your organizational circumstances.


* Wright, Jeremy (2006). Blog Marketing. New York: McGraw Hill.

Holiday Countdown

With 10 days of public holidays and an average of 10 days for annual leave, healthy employees in China work 241 days a year. This comes up to 1,928 working hours; 241 lunch hours in-between working hours and up to 582 hours of traveling time (to and from work).

Yet, quite a few employees go to work counting their next upcoming days off from their employer. Comments like the following are not unusual: “Another two days to go before the weekend”, “I already booked the flight, another three weeks to go”, “We just came back from our holiday and now must wait 7 weeks for Labour Day Holiday”, etc.

All too often, holidays are the key impetus for satisfaction in employees’ professional life.

Understandably, holidays are something to look forward and a break from a routine. But, employers should learn to distinguish between holiday excitement and holiday relief. After all, they expect employees to arrive back from their holiday revitalized and not sorry to be back at work.

A reluctance to return may signal that the company does not challenge, inspire, and motivate the employees. Leaders and managers should change a defunct culture by designing meaningful work experiences so that employees view 31% of their life each year as a contribution rather than a sacrifice.

Outsmart the Proverbs

„Jak cie widza, ... to pracuj” – When they see you, ... then work (Original: How they see you, that's how they perceive you.)

„Kto pod kim dolki kopie..., ten szybko awansuje” -- Who digs a trap for others, ... gets promoted faster (Original: Who digs a trap for others ends up in it himself.)

„Gdyby kozka nie skakala, ... to by nie dostala podwyzki” -- If the goat didn't jump, ... she wouldn’t receive a pay increase (Original: If the goat didn't jump, she wouldn't have broken her leg.)

Service Orientation

In China, businesses still do not quite get the change necessary to bring about high quality customer experiences. Employees’ behavior remains inadequate despite the rising customer expectations. Weak organizational cultures are responsible for this poor understanding of customer care amongst employees.

To overcome employees’ poor service orientation, leaders should define the desired culture along with specifications of how people should behave. While the former will dictate how customers perceive the company’s culture, the latter will drive employees’ behavior.

As an example, visitors to a Disney theme park experience the friendly Disney culture. This means that Disney employees smile, make eye contact, answer questions cheerfully and accurately, offer to help anyone who looks lost, or try to bring laughter to tired or irritable children.

Complexity of Customer Service

What makes for great service at a restaurant? Which type of service would you prefer and ascribe to under the following scenario?

Scenario: Hotel Restaurant in Bali
You and your friend sit down at a restaurant and then the waiter serves both of you. He comes to your table several times in order to take an order, deliver the drinks and dishes, and present the bill. During this entry time, you are engaged in a heavy conversation with your friend. So, should the waiter do his job:
1. Without really calling for too much attention from you and your friend or
2. Gain your attention every time by interrupting your conversation with a friendly “excuse me Sir/Madam” followed by the name of the item ordered as he places it in front of you.

Do you:
1. Fully appreciate the politeness and continuous attentiveness or
2. Think the waiter is a bit annoying or
3. Feel that his sincerity is not genuine because of this constant and robotic-like politeness.

Balinese staff’s frequent interaction with either an “excuse me” or “hello” accompanied by a smile and eye contact may be part of the local culture or behaviors that were taught and reinforced through a behavioral training to offer a high level of customer service. As for the latter, L&D managers were quite successful at promoting a pre-defined level of hospitality.

An important point to realize is that when substantial resources are exerted for teaching, improving, and “reinforcing” customer service, the L&D team should strive to understand the company’s customers and their expectations first. Then, the most important question remains; what kind of service is warranted, appreciated, needed, and wanted by the customer group? Customer service is only excellent in the eyes of the beholders.

New Words to avoid Old Connotations

Semantics and the need for connotation free terms cause us to increasingly relate to workforce as talent. Words direct our actions, help us to persevere, and can even cause a shift in thinking.

In the 90’s, management’s policy-arm “Personnel” evolved into what is now commonly referred to as “HR”. At the same time, the department was expected to go beyond the administrative role and instead provide human resources management with essential functions of recruitment, training, performance appraisal, C&B, etc. However, HR did not deliver what the “new name” pledged while the need to create value through people intensified and skill shortages escalated during the first decade of 21st century.

As a result, to breakaway from the traditional role of support and administration, many organizations crafted novel offices as the one of Chief People Officer, People Performance Process Owner or a Talent Director, etc. Some went even further to separate L&D units from HR altogether while leaving HR responsible for the numerous routine tasks connected with talent management as completing forms, collecting documents from staff on-time, and organizing Christmas parties and staff breakfasts.

If these new functions (regardless of the name they may operate under) do not deliver results, then we will be brainstorming new names once again. Hopefully, next time it won’t just be old wine in a new bottle.

Presenteeism

One thing that can kill an employee’s enthusiasm toward a new position is the need for presenteeism.

Presenteeism corresponds to absenteeism and refers to employees’ extra presence at work despite workload.

Drawbacks from the culture of presenteeism include encouragement for face-time instead of performance and results. In addition, presenteeism does not acknowledge and entrust employees to adopt the “new” way of working: anytime from anywhere. Furthermore, presenteeism:
• Supports style over substance,
• Hinders productivity and effectiveness,
• Diminishes work-life balance,
• Encourages mobbing and bullying,
• May breed insecurity, fear, and even intimidation among employees,
• May deter empowerment among employees, and
• Reinforces hierarchy and differences between management and employees.

Employment Security

In China, many MNCs have been spoiled by the abundance of labor and view people, particularly in non-managerial positions, as a commodity. Until recently, those companies were not troubled by high attrition rates and poor work design leading to burnout, stress, work-life-imbalance.

Nevertheless, as the salary levels rise, companies are increasingly concerned with the effectiveness of their workforce. More and more companies have embraced the concept of employee retention and strive to increase the productivity, accountability and responsibility among their workforce. Employee engagement programs are frequently utilized solution to achieve such objectives.

Employers however remain not very effective at defining what is it that they want the workers engage in. They also remain unable to effectively operationalize organizational objectives and link them to performance expectations, essential for increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Corporate missions in such companies are reduced to creating a “fun” place to work, participating in CSR initiatives, and postulating empowerment. At the same time, profit targets and business objectives are tabooed, not shared with employees with overall financial literacy remaining low.
What do the companies try to hide, that they do not make money at all or have solid profit margins and are simply afraid to share it with the workforce.

I believe however, that demand for improved productivity requires that employees understand how the company, as a for-profit entity, is doing toward achieving their essential objective (profitability) and how everyone is contributing to this end. How else can one instill ownership?

Profits should not be hidden. Only profits can guarantee long-term employment security. If the company does not make profits, it goes bankrupt and lay-offs all employees.

In turn, employment security is one of the most valued elements of Employee Value Proposition and a critical piece of high performance work arrangement. Then, innovations in work practices and productivity improvements can be only sustainable when employee to do not fear that that by increasing productivity they will work themselves out of their jobs.

Developing Retention Strategy

Retention must be approached strategically to achieve measurable, sustainable, and long-term impact for your organization.

In order to develop an effective retention strategy, start with the following four steps:

1. Understand your company’s strategy
Determine what sort and type of talent should be retained.

2. Collect employee demographic data
Analyze your workforce in terms of age and career stages (for example, early career, mid-career, late career), gender, management level, etc. List any reasons why the employee accepted a position in your company from the beginning.

3. Analyze your attrition rate
Investigate the attrition rate over several years by distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary, internal and external, and dysfunctional (of high performers) and functional (of low performers) turnover. Apply the fishbone diagram or other tools to solve complex problems.

4. Conduct stay interviews

The keys to a successful retention strategy involve knowing:
• What works within the parameters of your company’s culture,
• What works for your employees, and
• What employees value about your company and their work.

Bad Vibes through Seating Arrangements

Leaving aside interview techniques, a pure seating arrangement can influence the status and power dynamics of a job interview.

Location of chairs and their height (from the floor level) can create an atmosphere of seriousness, partnership, or compassion. Besides, the chair size and its accessories may also have impact on the mood.

Typically, an interviewer and interviewee sit directly opposite one another as on the attached picture.

In this seating arrangement, the most power is exerted and a defensive and competitive atmosphere prevails. In addition, the table becomes a solid barrier between both parties.

Therefore, the competitive position almost implies that the parties are meeting to work out why they should not enter an employer-employee relationship. At the same time, the idea of a shared vision and moving together in the same direction is pushed into the background. Without a doubt, this position does not foster understanding and does not put an interviewee at ease when speaking with the interviewer. In addition, conversations tend to be significantly shorter in this position.

The competitive position can be quite detrimental to recruitment practices.

Tell me the Future

HR and Finance represent two different kinds of expertise to help the CEO grow the business.

So, for the two to work collaboratively, both should have equal weight and influence. For this reason, Liz Ryan suggests that professionals in the top HR spot should receive the same compensation as the CFO. After all, “Why would a company hesitate to pay its top people officer just what its top money officer is earning? Beats me -- unless the company doesn't value its people as much as it says it does.” Ryan writes.

Interestingly, according to Michael Page’s Salary Survey for 2007/2008, a CFO at an established company receives an annual salary of HK$ 1.5 - 3 million+ whereas the HR Director at a large company earns HK$ 1.4 million+.



This discrepancy demonstrates that:
• Firms are more interested in past harvest (apples) than in future earnings potential (apple tree roots),
• Firms value Finance’s oversight role on how and where dollars are spent more than HR’s role in talent management,
• Firms appreciate building a fiscally sound company (Finance) more than an organizationally sound company (HR),
• Finance departments are incapable of applying financial thinking to an area where value is largely intangible (HR) and therefore do not support a significant investment in the people officer position,
• HR departments are incapable of addressing the value that they create in financial terms and therefore cannot change its image of cost centers.

Yet, for both areas, there is a long way to go to be strategically significant; for HR to be able to create intangibles and for Finance to be able to grasp them in a future-oriented Intellectual Capital Balance Sheet.

Stay Interviews (Part II)

Following up on my earlier post on the role of stay interviews, a question emerged on Xing’s “Human Resources in China” forum as to the difference between the stay interview and the suggestion box.

What the stay interview and the suggestion box have in common is that both tools seek out opinions of a company’s workforce during the actual employment phase and not after and toward the very end of an employment period as an exit interview does. Furthermore, both tools also require an action plan for implementing findings or suggestions to be effective.

As to the differences, the suggestion box is definitely a more efficient way to receive employee feedback since it does not require as many resources of both the interviewee (time and productivity costs) and interviewer (e.g. consultancy fees).

Most importantly however, the stay interview and the suggestion box differ in terms of their underlining objective. The suggestion box is not specifically a HR tool and is an outlet open for comments about business, business processes, customer relationships, etc. But, the stay interview is an individual-centric HR tool; it is about the employee’s well-being, development, and their perception of the employer.

Notably, suggestions can also be requested in a stay interview (What would you do differently here?) but rather in respect to the way the company manages its people than the business as a whole. After all, asking employees to provide suggestions engages them in solving organizational problems and helps to generates support for change initiatives.

Magic in Your Workplace

March 8th is International Women’s Day. This day brings about awareness of women’s issues, recognizes achievements, and encourages leadership. Women business owners, leaders, community role models, mothers, and wives are commemorated and celebrated while pinpointing diversity, work-life balance, and glass ceiling concerns; still very dominant in the business world.

In fact, only 16 percent of all senior executives in Fortune 500 companies are held by women. Worst still, research shows that top women leaders feel like outsiders in their organizations.

But, women leaders in general excel at overtaking the responsibility for workforce performance. They strive to establish bonds with their workforce, develop genuine interest and understanding toward their staff, manage by sending signals about what is valued, and what is appropriate, etc.

On a personal note, one word connects two remarkable women I met this year. Both, Ruth Ang, Managing Director of TBWA\ and Alexandra Hynes, Co-Owner and CEO of Salzer Consulting place magic in the centre of their leadership approach. They motivate by creating magic, believe that they can achieve results through magic, and seek out magic as the highest performance level.

So, when was the last time you experienced magic in your workplace?

Organizational Self-Awareness

An increasing body of evidence supports the linkage between an organization's culture and its business performance. However, managerial and non-managerial staffs in Shanghai rarely talk about their company’s culture at ease.

During the past several weeks, I conducted very sporadic and unsystematic research in China to gauge employees’ and especially recruiters’ ability to describe their company’s organizational culture. The majority of professionals that I spoke with had very little to say when asked; third-party recruiters knew the least.

Comments were usually limited to: young staff, international team, big and established company, dynamic environment, processes to foster innovation, specific culture, unique culture, very distinctive culture, etc. Well, let’s stop before we get even more vague and tautological.

So, how can employees provide more substantive responses when referring to their company’s culture? One way of doing so involves increasing organizational self-awareness through:
• Learning dimensions of organizational culture,
• Understanding how the company scores against these dimensions, and
• Communicating the above to employees regularly (message reinforcement).

Raising organizational awareness can increase recruiters’ ability to promote the company to talents, managers’ ability to engage employees, and employees’ understanding of their own roles.

Cultural Fit

Cultural fit is the congruence between individual and organizational values.

Nevertheless, the concept of cultural fit is ambiguous because the choices of values are limited and organizational cultures are rooted in relatively similar if not the same values.

For example, accountability, integrity, and creativity are among the favorite values articulated by companies of different sizes and in different industries. But, companies can go differently about them in every day situations. Regarding accountability, one company can develop a very rigorous performance management system while the other still tolerates low performers and has no processes in place for exiting them. In respect to integrity, this particular value can be non-negotiable for some companies while perfectly negotiable for others. Additionally, creativity can be differently celebrated and practiced differently at various companies.

In fact, companies do not differ so much in the selection of values but in terms of how they cultivate values and are able to impact conditions where they flourish. Similarly, sometimes the values individuals think they embrace (ideal values they should have because of outside influence such as family, religion, or employer) are actually different from those they live (actual values).

Thus, when determining cultural fit, there are two useful tests to run in order to identify peoples’ actual values:
• Calendar test - How much time do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
• Checkbook test - How much money do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
The same questions apply of course to companies as well.

Importantly, prerequisites to success for assessing cultural fit are a solid self-awareness of employees and candidates and a sound company’s own organizational awareness.

Economic Crime means HR has failed

When codifying their desired culture, companies also formulate core values including the corporate governance/ethics issues expected of each employee. Even so, economic crime occurs in various companies and often this is not an isolated incident only.

In February’s issue of Shanghai Business Review, the nuts and bolts of economic crime in China were covered along with advice on how businesses can protect themselves. Key ideas presented include:
• Ensure that ethical culture emanates from the top,
• Provide regular training with real world scenarios,
• Establish a confidential hotline for whistleblowers,
• Make a public example of wrongdoers,
• Investigate reasons behind employees’ refusal of a promotion, employees’ unwillingness to take holidays for fear of replacement (possibly exposing a scam), and employees’ access to files that are unnecessary for their job,
• Introduce control systems to prevent a “Fraud Triangle” (motivation, opportunity, and rationalization), and
• Talk with customers to ensure that employees are conducting themselves ethically.

Notably, all of these activities fall underneath the field of HR. Indeed, HR’s job is to establish guidelines for ethical behavior and constantly reinforce them. However, overcoming a systemic problem with unethical behavior by leaders in certain industries (e.g. health care) or countries (e.g. China) may be out of HR’s reach and relates more than anything to Don Quixote’s Fighting Windmills. Nonetheless, I believe HR’s responsibility for designing a strong ethical culture translates into their partial responsibility for economic crime.

CNY Resolution: Walk the Talk

In 2008, financial rewards will continue to be the company’s chief weapon in the War for Talent.

Nonetheless, employers’ competition for talent based on compensation is as dreadful as market competition based on price. Undercutting prices can lead to an increase in market share in the short-term; however it can impact the profitability in the long-term. Comparable, companies can successfully lure talent, but may have difficulties to gain their loyalty and commitment over the long haul.

DDI’s Retention Drivers and Employee Commitment Model confirms that monetary incentives have a short life. Employees particularly fall prey to higher financial rewards (tangible elements of EVP) from a competitor, when they feel dissatisfied with the level of leadership, growth opportunities, and culture (intangible elements of EVP) at their current company. Thus, talent can be successfully attracted with EVP tangibles but must be retained with EVP intangibles.

So, to stop this vicious cycle of turnover, companies should design a distinctive EVP and actually walk the corporate talk of “employees are our greatest assets”. Surely this could be a valid Chinese New Year’s Resolution.

A Happy Year of the Rat!

Personal Impact Map

The rise of job branding clearly shows that companies are unable to communicate to their employees how each and every one of them creates value.

Thus, only a few employees can share bottom-line accomplishments like increased revenues, decreased costs, increased prices, increased product/service quality (so that it leads to one of the previous three) or efficiency improvements (better, faster, cheaper) during their tenure.

The vast majority of the workforce does not even believe they make a difference let alone their performance or lack thereof can have an impact on the company’s profits. As a result, when applying for a new job, many applicants have difficulties specifying their achievements.

Managers should start changing this reality by helping employees develop a personal impact map. Together with HR professionals, they should undertake job redesign to create positive benefits, better outcomes, or further progress toward employee career goals.

As a result, each employee will understand how specific activities that he or she performs contribute to the organization’s vision. They will also better recognize their accomplishments.

Lastly, job branding and personal impact mapping can act as catalysts for meaningful and purposeful jobs across the board.

Candidate Value Proposition ?

Recently, a Candidate Value Proposition (CVP) has been recommended to position a company on the job market more effectively and attract talent more successfully. I do not follow the logic of this concept because CVP inherently misses the value-transfer.

CVP probably has its roots in a (Customer) Value Proposition (VP) (marketing) and an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) (HR).

While VP is the sum total of benefits which a vendor promises that a customer will receive in return for the customer's associated payment; an EVP is the sum of everything employees experience and receive while they are part of a company for meeting expectations, exhibiting desired behavior, and producing results. Furthermore, just as VP targets customers and prospects; EVP focuses on both employees and job candidates.

CVP seems thus to be obsolete and possibly confused with 4 P’s of Marketing and the AIDA sales process.

Talent Pivot Points

In the book, “Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital”*, Boudreau and Ramstad show how HR can evolve to fulfill its potential as a source of strategic advantage.

The authors reviewed what they termed the “Peanut Butter Approach” used by HR in respect to HR strategies; the essence of which is equality and maximizing the company’s investment in its workforce by providing the same incentives, engaging all employees in the same way, and applying HR initiatives equally across the workforce.

Boudreau and Ramstad recommended that HR needs to develop and implement a differentiated and optimized approach to managing human resources. To support their line of thinking, they appraised principles of production and marketing and its relevancy toward HR. For example, the former does not let every machine run at maximum capacity, but optimizes output. The latter on the other hand, focuses on differentiating between customer segments and exposing only certain customer segments to maximum advertising. Just as marketing professionals will ask what customer segments will make the biggest difference to the company’s strategic success, HR professionals should ask where the improvements in talent performance make the biggest difference to the company’s strategic success. Those places are referred to as talent pivot points and are identified using talentship process. The authors then distinguish between vital and pivotal positions using examples of employees at theme parks: “character”, wearing a costume of a cartoon character, and “sweeper”, cleaning; and at the airline: “pilot” and “gate agent”.

The “character” and “pilot” are both vital positions for strategy execution and performance must be maintained at a specific and consistent level.

On the contrary, the “sweeper” and “gate agent” are pivotal since a small difference in performance can make a big difference to customer. Employees in these positions have a lot of opportunities to interact with customers and so may innovate at their own discretion to create great customer experiences.

HR professionals and all employees should think over what specific employee duties can make the biggest difference to the success of their organization. Whatever responsibilities those may be, these talent pivot points must be included in job descriptions and measured in employees’ performance appraisals.


* Boudreau, John W. & Ramstad, Peter (2007). Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

New Intelligence

Generating intelligence through cross-departmental learning can help your HR department transition from a traditional to strategic approach.

Marketing wisdom and departmental know-how can be applied by HR departments in the following ways:
• It is less expensive to retain high performing employees than to attract new ones just like it is less expensive to keep a customer than to attract a new one
• Employees and managers just like customers do not have needs--they have problems. They do not sit down and think 'I've got a need'. Instead, they experience problems and hence seek solutions to these.
• Every employee is mildly dissatisfied with their employer just like every customer is mildly dissatisfied with a product and/or service.
• Applicants are very smart and will often wait for companies to outbid each other in hopes of receiving a higher salary just like customers are smart and will wait around for a lower price in the market.
• Failure to coordinate HR functional activities results in a lost opportunity and meager business impact just like failure to integrate multiple media in an advertisement campaign will yield poor results.
• Just like marketing, HR creates impact gradually, not immediately. Strategic HR results emerge over time, not overnight.
• Just like marketing efforts must occur continuously, treating employees as valuable assets must occur regularly and often.

Adopting Marketing Practices in HR

How would marketing professional address HR challenges and problems?

Using marketing practices and principles, marketing professionals would set the following priorities in the HR department:
• Continually track shifts in the external environment, learn quickly, and then adapt HR strategy to the changing business world.
• Develop an employer brand identity.
• Target the message and develop creative slogans and memorable job advertisements.
• Segment employees based on performance (high versus low performers) and management level.
• Give high priority business units, programs, or high potentials special treatment.
• Differentiate the retention strategy and avoid running with the “herd”.
• Stay in touch with employees and managers without being viewed as a pest.
• Collect employee data (e.g. surveys, polls) and analyze what employees think.
• Build better tools to enable efficient and effective communication between employees and HR.
• Do not focus on the HR program but instead concentrate on its benefits - how the HR program can benefit the business?
• Solicit feedback at the end of each HR program–can you improve anywhere?
• Measure the effectiveness and return on investment of the recruitment campaigns, training interventions, any other HR initiatives.
• Ensure that all managers, management systems, measures and rewards work together "in unison".
• Communicate to others in dollars, the universal business language.

Addressing HR using a marketing/sales perspective can strengthen organizational learning and bring forth synergies.

Role of Managers

“People join companies but they leave managers.” Gallup

“People don’t work for companies as much as they work for other people.” Ruth Branson

"Money can't replace good management." Ann Howard

One of the most impact driven elements of a sound retention strategy is the role of the manager. Regardless of how hard HR professionals work on the retention strategy and how attractive and accommodative the company’s culture and values are, if the managers do not have basic managerial skills, then there is no way the company will succeed and thrive.

Management basics for supervisors and managers include:
• Goal setting,
• Performance evaluation,
• Knowing how to provide feedback – both positive and negative,
• Knowing how to motivate employees,
• Knowing when and how to praise employees,
• The ability to develop other people, and
• Coaching skills to help employees reach greater levels of achievement.

Since several decades, many companies rely on management training programs to build and enhance the talent pipeline for future managers and leaders. During management training, trainees at German companies in China familiarize themselves with various aspects of the company’s operations and develop technical skills and industry knowledge.

A major drawback exists though in most of these management training programs. They simply do not nurture talent in skills related to working with people. This is a significant concern because management is really all about communication.

Teams: Easier Said Then Done

Teams have been all the “rage” for over a decade and it still remains a buzz word. But companies are realizing fewer gains in performance than anticipated from their attempts to acts as a team. Thus, a team often turns out to be a collection of professionals instead of people excelling at collaboration, symbiotic dependence, and synergy.

Per definition: "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

Most teams score poorly against this definition. In particular, the following points are cause for concern:

1. The skills of team members should complement each other. The recruitment division seldom compiles information on Executives’ profiles that could help in the formation of effective and productive teams. Yes, cross-functional teams distinguish themselves because of various skills and functional expertises; but even so, too often complementary soft skills are overlooked.
2. The essence of a team relies on a common commitment to a common goal. This point is difficult to ascertain given the different priorities of professionals in an organization. Specifically, a CEO’s priority is shareholder value and the price of the company’s shares. Finance professionals seek to get the most out of money allocated; comply with government regulations, and certify accuracy of financial results. On the contrary, marketing and sales professionals seek more sales resources and higher sales commissions to maintain strong morale for the sales force while seeking out low and easily achievable quotas. Regarding HR professionals, they tend to look at the individual who makes up the workforce; most frequently from the support function angle. However, HR staff is increasingly committed to improving workforce productivity. Thus, team members may frequently differ in terms of goals and agendas.
3. Transforming the common purpose into specific and measurable performance goals is the surest first step of a team. As shown above, an individual’s role in a venture/an organization dictates how they perceive various aspects of strategic execution. A lack of agreement on common goals corresponds to business leaders’ inability to communicate the business strategy and create an environment where all employees are united with certain shared performance goals. Watson Wyatt conducted research involving nearly 14,000 employees across Europe and discovered that clarity over a company’s strategic direction is the most important driver of employee engagement. However, only 13 percent of surveyed employees were classified as value creators, i.e. those who scored high for both commitment and line of sight. A lot of room exists for improvement in this area.
4. High-performing teams must also agree on a common approach with respect to the way they work together to accomplish their mission. At the departmental level, each team member has specific trigger points and their own worldview while they all may lack the big picture view. But, even within the department, professionals may work in isolation and thereby create conflicts within the system. One of the problems is that companies encourage team work while jobs remain designed around individual contributions (OD division), raises are based on individual achievements (C&B division), and training is conducted to strengthen more so individual skills (L&D division). So, team-based rhetoric fails when embedded in a HR management system designed around individual behaviors.
5. Productive teams must develop a sense of mutual accountability. However, if there is disagreement, “it’s usually expressed in a manner that lays blame, polarizes opinion, and fails to reveal the underlying differences in assumptions and experiences”.* Moreover, “teams break down under pressure. The team may function quite well with routine issues. But when they confront complex issues that may be embarrassing or threatening, the ‘teamness’ seems to go to pot”.**

The struggle with teamwork prevails among companies as in Universities. Indeed, students do not develop an appreciation for collaboration and acquire solid teamwork skills for the workplace. The reasons being include:

1. Student teams are constructed randomly and even when teams are formed among friends (although this is not a prerequisite for creating a team); students’ most likely lack an understanding and knowledge of each others’ skills.
2. Usually formed “to complete the assignment”, the “common purpose” is the only characteristic of the team that seems to be fulfilled by the student teams.
3. Members of student teams differ in terms of performance goals. In fact, only a small fraction of students would approach an assignment with the aim of earning an A. The majority leave the question of the grade to chance.
4. Student teams are rather quick in setting a schedule and assigning particular tasks among each other. However, team members rarely discuss authority, decision making processes, and rather hope that things will be taken care of indirectly. Most importantly, students also clash in terms of commitment and willingness to invest time and effort.
5. Students habitually avoid accountability and do not care that other team members work more and take on added responsibility for completing an assignment (since all group members receive one grade). Notably, students lack the means to evaluate themselves and other team members toward performance and to exclude underperformers.

When criteria for a successful team cannot be met, Executives should rely on individual leadership skills. As another alternative, companies could attempt to break the structural bias within teams’ through effective team building and HR programs.


* Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization. London: Random House.
** Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming Organizational Defenses. Facilitating organizational learning. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Applicants as Customers

Following the logic of viewing employees as customers; job applicants and short-listed candidates can be classified as prospects or even leads. In this regard, every successful sales professional will tell you that to be successful in sales; you must treat your prospects as if they are already your customer. Taking this advice could make recruiters and hiring managers in China more in control of whether a candidate accepts an offer. After all, the recruitment process symbolizes how valued one is to the new employer.

How well does your HR department serve applicants as customers?

To find out, critically review the applicant’s journey and experience with your company from the moment they submit an application or initiate contact. There are several points to consider:

“If you want to work here, you’ll have to find us.”
Is your HR department easy to find? Are there any signs to direct job applicants to your HR department? Is the career website easily accessible and informative at your company’s website?

“If you wish to receive an acknowledgement for submitting an application, please attach a self-addressed envelop with proper postage.”
Do you write back to applicants confirming that you received his/her application? Are you utilizing an auto-response feature for online applicants?

”We will keep your CV on file.”
Do you store resumes of applicants? Or do you really review those CVs toward new vacancies?

“We only contact short listed candidates.”
Are unsuccessful candidates simply forgotten? Do you ever thank applicants for their interest in your company and position?

“Thank you for coming.”
Do you communicate to short-listed candidates reasons why they were not successful? Do you provide valuable feedback to stimulate candidates’ self-development efforts? Do you maintain a communication loop to create evangelists for your company?

Post Interview Satisfaction Survey
Do you investigate the applicants’ perception about the recruitment process and their satisfaction levels with the job interview? Are results of such a survey part of the performance review of recruiters and hiring managers? Do you explore what candidates think about your company?

First impressions and administration of the recruitment process sends a powerful message to applicants and candidates. HR can set an example by maintaining the communication loop with potential employees regardless of the outcome. Simply put, show that your company cares and treat potential hires like they were already your HR customer – they just haven’t signed an offer yet.

Employees as Customers

In a service economy, every organization and department now looks after customers. Students are customers of Universities, the general public is the customer of police, job seekers are customers of job centers, etc. This trend and understanding has been incorporated into HR as well since employees are also referred to as customers.

Looking at employees and managers as customers helps HR move from a tactical (administrative) to strategic approach (leadership and consultancy).

For your HR department to be more customer-friendly, HR professionals need to aim at achieving high customer satisfaction levels. A pyramid consisting of 4 levels of customer satisfaction can be used to guide you along.


First, HR must be accurate. At this level, employees expect to receive the benefits they enrolled in, the payroll slip to reflect all information accurately, and for HR staff to answer questions competently. It does not matter how friendly HR employees are, if the HR department consistently fails the accuracy test, then customers defect.

Second, HR must be available. At this level, employees expect an open door to their HR department; this means that the HR staff is available anytime, anywhere, and can notice that important, “I need help now” look.

Third, HR must act as a partner to employees and managers. At this level, employees want their HR staff to listen to them, to be responsive to them, and to make them feel that they are on their side of the fence. Employees and managers who feel understood and enabled to execute the strategy are one step closer to real satisfaction and genuine advocacy.

Finally, HR must provide genuine advice. At this level, employees and managers feel the closest bond to their HR staff because they have helped them learn and achieve goals.

The first two levels, accuracy and availability, barely prevent dissatisfaction. The greatest benefits arise at level 3 and level 4. After all, partnership provides HR the opportunity to create positive feelings of satisfaction and advice constitutes the most advanced level of customer satisfaction.

Unemployable Trio

In one of his recent articles, “How NOT to Hire Tiger Woods!”, Dr. John Sullivan discussed 10 recruiting errors that would prevent a company from hiring exceptional talents like Tiger Woods. Sullivan defines Woods as a game-changer, meaning top caliber talent, top performer, or innovator.

The article mentions several interesting points in every recruiting error raised while using a truly exceptional example. In reality, such an individual is more likely to turn to entrepreneurialism rather than the route of an employee.

Nevertheless, looking at turnover from the recruitment perspective, recruiters not only fail to hire Tiger Woods but frequently overlook a bunch of interesting candidates, including:

Candidates with too much education
Education is the key to opening up doors for an applicant interested in a corporate career. But too much education is not welcomed either. Few companies build their businesses around highly qualified talents (knowledge-intensive businesses and high-tech companies) and even fewer focus predominantly on post-grads. Review of non-managerial posts will leave you with the impression that a bachelor degree will suffice for the longevity of most white collar jobs.

The recruiters detect instantly that a higher level of education can have an adverse impact on a manager-subordinate relationship, team dynamics, and a favorable impact on job expectations. Not surprisingly, job satisfaction is more important for those employees with high cognitive ability, education, and vocation-specific training (who, presumably, would tend to be better performers).*

Candidates with multidisciplinary work experience
In today’s “war for talent”, employers increasingly implement job rotation programs as part of their retention strategy or succession planning. Job rotation programs are highly valuable initiatives to provide qualified employees with the breadth of exposure of an entire operation, facilitate changes in thinking and perspective, and increase job satisfaction. However, from the performance perspective, these programs cause high inefficiencies due to continuous learning curves. Strangely enough, these companies do not value applicants with the know-how and experience in more than one functional area and rarely take the risk to engage such a candidate in a new role in the first place. Even though the glamour of transferable skills continues, working sideways and wearing different hats ought to be left out from the CV.

The recruiters view multidisciplinary work experience with suspicion, are confused over the candidate’s expertise and skills, and thereby favor a candidate with an overly linear profile in terms of their career path and competencies.

Candidates with entrepreneurial experience
Self-employment (entrepreneurial track) is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome by the applicant while seeking out employment opportunities. After all, an entrepreneur is the one who left an employer years or months before to make it happen for him/her. Given the nature of entrepreneurship, major reasons for going back to corporate life include push factors like failure of the entrepreneurial venture, soaring profitability, poor work-life balance, high level of uncertainty, and one could even argue too much accountability and thus stress. While big companies can provide a significant shelter for low-performers in particular, there is no place to hide in a start-up or small organization; the trail is very clear. On the whole, entrepreneurial experience is most valued in the U.S. with self-employed applicants being able to receive higher compensation packages vis-à-vis candidates with an employee work history only (provided certain circumstances of course). In European countries, the opposite is true and I also believe that Asia tends to be more in line with Europe on these aspects.

The recruiters are probably never interested in the entrepreneurs in the first place since these candidates tend to exhibit strong self-directing skills, require flexibility, and may experience difficulties adjusting to the corporate environment. Ironically, while entrepreneurial spirit is a much sought after aptitude among employers, the entrepreneurs can challenge companies fixed and stable processes and top-down decision making. Furthermore, even though entrepreneurs regularly leverage teams and resources, from the corporate perspective, this group is perceived as “lone rangers” rather than team players.

* Trevor, C.O. (2001). Interactions among actual ease-of-movement determinants and job satisfaction in the prediction of voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 621-638.

Stay Interviews

A stay interview is one of the tools for HR professionals as they manage the shift from a tactical to strategic approach.

Tracking and reporting turnover rates and causes after the fact is a tactical approach whereas alerting managers in advance about which employees are likely to quit and recommending effective retention tools is a strategic approach.

Designed and administered properly, stay interviews can provide warning signals and help to identify issues and problems at an early stage. Conducted with new hires, the stay interview may allow an employer to discover workplace issues particularly visible to novices before they too “go native” in the new company. However, prerequisites for success include:
• Conducting interviews on a regular basis,
• Asking open-ended questions, and
• in similar fashion to the “suggestion-box”, creating an action plan and implementing it in a timely manner.

When analyzing stay interviews, it is important to isolate the results of high-performers, especially those in key positions or “at risk” individuals. You must also analyze your low performers to find out what keeps them in your company!

On another hand, stay interviews allow employees to evaluate the employer’s performance and communicate what is important for them to maintain a high quality work life. It should be expected that this feedback loop will become more and more critical as employees shift to Free Agents (professionals who invest their human capital with the expectation of getting a return on their investment in the form of new experiences that can be added to their work portfolio).

Stay interview questions may be found here.

Talent: Half empty or half full

Over the Christmas holiday, I read, “The Elephant and The Dragon”*. Meredith compiled a fascinating comparative study of the present and contemporary history of the world’s two most populous nations while connecting their economic, political, and socio-cultural realities to the West.

While not much credit has been given to any educational system (China, India, and USA), China’s priority for rote learning was described as a primary reason for the low proportion (10 percent) of Chinese graduates suitable to work at MNCs. More specifically, the Chinese educational system yields mediocre English-language skills and performs meagerly in terms of creativity, problem solving, and teamwork skills (p. 73, p. 93). These recurring issues have been mentioned in other blogs and articles as well (here, here, here, and here)

On an upbeat note though, Meredith recognizes that Chinese students are upgrading their skills fast.

Indeed, one cannot oversee the fact that many Chinese graduates are more hardworking, ambitious, and determined than their counterparts in developed countries. Importantly, some of their disadvantages can be turned around to advantages by companies that offer a compelling working environment, coherent value set, and an engaging culture. After all, since new graduates have not worked before in local companies, they have not internalized work habits typical of a state run economy. Thus, the fact that these graduates do not know “how things are supposed to be done” either is also beneficial. “Tabula rasa” graduates can be trained to demonstrate strategically relevant behaviors from day one. Fortunately, learning new behavior from scratch is easier to do as opposed to changing habits.

For companies that know how to onboard and socialize new hires, “the talent pool is pretty impressive”**.

* Meredith, Robyn (2007). The Elephant and The Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
** Dennis Lam, Director of Microsoft’s Global Technical Engineering Centre in Shanghai. – In Meredith, 2007, p. 73.