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.