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.