What's next for HR? The six competencies HR needs for today's challenges

Leading HR thinker Dave Ulrich writes exclusively for Personnel Today.

Dave Ulrich is the HR guru's guru, credited with developing the "HR business partner" model and other influential ideas in books including "HR Champions" and "The HR Value Proposition". Here, Ulrich explains the six competencies HR must develop to tackle the challenges of the worldwide economic crisis, globalisation, technological innovations and other changes. He is talking about these issues at HR Performance conference on 21 November.

HR's rich history

It is often easier to look back to what has been than forward to what might be. HR has a rich history, but an even more exciting future. In the past half-century or so, the HR profession has been through three general waves (see figure 1) and a fourth is emerging. Each wave follows a similar curve through time with start-up, learning, growth, and then stability. Wave one emphasised the administrative work of HR, where HR personnel focused on terms and conditions of work, delivery of HR services and regulatory compliance. HR was predominantly what we would describe as an "administrative and transactional utility". Wave one HR roles tended to be filled with people who did an excellent job of administration. The transaction and administrative work of HR continues today, but it is done differently through outsourcing and technology solutions.

Wave two emphasizes the design of innovative HR practices in sourcing, compensation or rewards, learning, communication and so forth. Innovations have occurred in rewards, communication, training, recruiting, succession planning and other HR practice areas. While each of these HR practice areas innovated in terms of what and how it was done, they also were integrated with each other to provide a consistent approach to HR.

Figure 1: Evolution of HR work in waves

Business success through strategic HR

Wave three has focused on the connection of individual and integrated HR practices to business success through strategic HR. For the last 15 to 20 years, HR has worked to link its work to the strategy or purposes of a business. This work has expanded HR practices from a primary focus on talent to include contribution to culture and leadership. Given a business's strategy, HR professionals would be charged with assessing and improving talent, culture, and leadership to accomplish the strategy. In this wave, HR professionals turned strategies into HR priorities to deliver on strategic promises.

The worldwide economic crisis, globalization, technological innovations, and other changes in recent years have challenged the future of HR. Some HR leaders want to look back and reinforce HR administrative work by doing basics well and others want to return to focusing on targeted HR practices. I would rather look forward to a new normal for HR.

HR from the outside in

Wave four uses HR practices to derive and respond to external business conditions, called "HR from the outside in". Outside-in HR goes beyond strategy to align its work with business contexts and stakeholders. The three earlier waves represent HR work that still has to be done well: HR administration must be flawless; HR practices must be innovative and integrated; and HR must turn strategic aspirations into HR actions. But rather than rely on these waves, future-facing HR professionals should look outside their organisations to customers, investors, and communities to define successful HR.

For HR to deliver the standards of the first three waves and the promises of the fourth (outside-in), our research shows that HR professionals must master six competencies. These competencies are based on research from more than 20,000 respondents around the world. These 20,000 respondents (HR professionals and their line and HR associates) completed assessments of HR competence on 140 behavioral and knowledge items. These six competencies are represented in figure 2, and are described below.

Figure 2: 2012 HR competency model

Credible activist

HR professionals in high-performing firms function as credible activists. They do what they say thay will do. Such results-based integrity serves as the foundation of personal trust that, in turn, translates into professional credibility. They have effective interpersonal skills. They are flexible in developing positive chemistry with key stakeholders. They translate this positive chemistry into influence that contributes to business results. They take strong positions about business issues that are grounded in sound data and thoughtful opinions.

Strategic positioner

High-performing HR professionals understand the global business context - the social, political, economic, environmental, technological, and demographic trends that bear on their business - and translate these trends into business implications. They understand the structure and logic of their own industries and the underlying competitive dynamics of the markets they serve, including customer, competitor, and supplier trends. They then apply this knowledge in developing a personal vision for the future of their own company. They participate in developing customer-focused business strategies and in translating the business strategy into annual business plans and goals.

Capability builder

At the organisational level, an effective HR professional creates, audits, and orchestrates an effective and strong organisation by helping define and build its organisational capabilities. Capability represents what the organisation is good at and known for. These capabilities outlast the behavior or performance of any individual manager or system. Such capabilities might include innovation, speed, customer focus, efficiency, and the creation of meaning and purpose at work. HR professionals can help line managers create meaning so that the capability of the organisation reflects the deeper values of the employees.

Change champion

Effective HR professionals develop their organisations' capacity for change and then translate that capacity into effective change processes and structures. They ensure a seamless integration of change processes that builds sustainable competitive advantage. They build the case for change based on market and business reality, and they overcome resistance to change by engaging key stakeholders in key decisions and building their commitment to full implementation. They sustain change by ensuring the availability of necessary resources including time, people, capital, and information, and by capturing the lessons of both success and failure.

Human resource innovator and integrator

At an organisational level, a major competency of effective HR professionals is their ability to innovate and integrate HR practices around a few critical business issues. The challenge is to make the HR whole more effective than the sum of its parts. High-performing HR professionals ensure that desired business results are clearly and precisely prioritised, that the necessary organisation capabilities are powerfully conceptualised and operationalised, and that the appropriate HR practices, processes, structures, and procedures are aligned to create and sustain the identified organisational capabilities. As they do so with discipline and consistency, they help collective HR practices to reach the tipping point of impact on business results. The innovation and integration of HR practices, processes, and structures, directs HR more fully toward impacting business results.

Technology proponent

For many years, HR professionals have applied technology to basic HR work. HR information systems (HRIS) have been applied to enhance the efficiency of HR processes including benefits, payroll processing, health care funding, record keeping, and other administrative services. In this HRIS round, we see a dramatic change in the implications of technology for HR professionals. At the organisation level, high-performing HR professionals are now involved in two additional categories of technological application. First, HR professionals are applying social networking technology to help people stay connected with each other. They help guide the connectedness of people within the firm and the connectedness between people outside firms (especially customers) with employees inside the firm. Second, in the high-performing firms, HR professionals are increasing their role in the management of information. This includes identifying the information that should receive focus, bundling that information into useable knowledge, leveraging that knowledge into key decisions, and then ensuring that these decision are clearly communicated and acted upon. This updates the operational efficiency competency and will add substantive value to their organizations.

It is a great time to be in HR because the future holds not only a promise, but a pathway to business impact. As HR professionals master these six competencies, they will not only be seen as more effective HR professionals, they will add explicit value to their business. Our research shows that being a credible activist helps HR professionals gain personal credibility, but being capability builders, HR innovators and integrators and technology proponents have more impact on business performance.

Dave Ulrich is professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group. His latest book is HR transformation - six competencies for the future of human resources, published by McGraw Hill Professional in 2012.

If Your Recruiting Isn’t Going Mobile, You’re Going to Be Left Behind

by  Lance Haun

It shouldn’t be news now that smartphone use is big (and is getting bigger). In late 2012, estimates pegged the number at over a billion smartphones with that number doubling by 2015.

If you’re a smartphone user, you’ve probably increased your reliance on the device steadily. I now expect my device to do everything but poach my morning eggs.

When you send a candidate or someone in your talent community or on your mailing list a notice of a new job, what are they going to see when they click through on their mobile device? Will they be able to do anything with it? And if you’re not there, how do you start and what does an optimal solution look like?

You need to be mobile to be competitive

With 70 percent of smartphone owners already having used their phone to look for a job, if you aren’t at least preparing for a mobile future, you won’t be competitive with other search firms much longer. According to a Simply Hired’s new Mobile Recruiting Outlook, candidates like being able to know about job openings quickly; and while few have applied for jobs via phone, more would if recruiters made the process mobile friendly.

That’s what the mobile talent acquisition platform iMomentous has tried to explain in its latest research on the subject.

“As mobile technology continues to play an increasing role in both personal and professional activities, the companies that neglect to include mobile in their recruiting and talent management processes will be at a serious disadvantage,” said Ed Newman, vice president of Strategy for iMomentous, in a statement that was released with the report

A four-part approach

The report a four-pronged approach to making your recruiting mobile-enabled:

1. Optimize your content — All of the content on your career site should be able to be read on a mobile device. If you send out links in your e-mails to candidates, you need to make sure that the system auto-detects the device so that it can serve the proper page.
2. Connect with your visitors — Whether through SMS messaging, mobile advertising, or even cutting-edge ideas like gamification, people spending more time on their mobile devices means that if you advertise jobs, you need to be there too.
3. Engage using a native app — Native apps shouldn’t be just a replication of your jobs site; it should be an application that is valuable in engaging users with push notifications and additional functionality that can create a talent community.
4. Integrate technology structure — Making sure that redirects work properly, that the ATS feeds jobs into the mobile site, and that it can take applications from there are hurdles that can’t be underestimated.

If that sounds a little too ambitious for you, especially if you are still trying to get to any mobile presence (and many firms and employers are), it recommends you start with something small and work up from there. For example, you can have a mobile-friendly landing page that can take an e-mail address or phone number for SMS and some areas of interest.

DOS AND DON’TS FOR USING BIG DATA HR

Big Data has become the latest buzzword to hit the HR world. Experts say it’s going to revolutionize business. But what is big data? Can it really change the way human resources works? What can you expect from it? Are there risks?

What Big Data Is, and Why It’s Invading HR

In short, big data is any type of analytical software program that can track and analyze small actions on a large scale. At such scales, conventional statistical programs do not have the computing power to draw valuable conclusions in short time scales. For HR, big data represents the decline of spreadsheets and classical databases, and a renewed emphasis on the value of minute changes at an individual level.

Whereas old data systems could identify obvious trends—perhaps that engaged employees are more productive—big data is better able to make specific recommendations—like how long a lunch break should be in order to maximize positive recognition.

There’s now more data available to employers than ever before. Big data can make it easier to sort through everything from salary trends to performance, from applicant sources to office size.

Why Do Companies Say “Yes” to Big Data?

Many businesses and HR divisions have welcomed big data with open arms. They say that it helps them make better hiring choices in a market saturated with highly qualified employees, helps them target indicators of poor performance earlier, and helps them provide more evidence for the underlying value of HR as a functional department.

When Is Big Data a “Don’t” for Companies?

Big data is not without critics. Information overload can make it difficult to decide what to do next, and can take the “art” out of management. For employees, it can make HR feel more difficult to approach, and can devalue the importance of individual relationships.

The Most Important “Do” of Big Data

Big data may not be for everyone, but it doesn’t need to be, either. By allowing computers to take on more of an analytic and forecasting role in the HR space, it frees human resources to focus on more complex, multifaceted, and messy strategic tasks.

The right data can answer the most important questions that HR professionals need to know, making it easier to find time to develop solutions. How is the HR brand affecting recruiting? Are certain tasks more effective at certain times of day? Where is time being wasted?

The best way to grow a business is to understand its vital data, and to respond quickly to it. Big data is one more powerful way of doing exactly that.

source : TribeHR.com

How To Do A Good Performance Review

The ingredients of a bad performance review are haste, lack of focus, a non-empathic attitude and a mechanical approach to the process. A good performance review obviously calls for a diametrically opposite approach. Here are some tips for managers whose duties include conducting performance reviews of their team members.

Be Prepared: The intention behind a performance appraisal is to have a fruitful discussion based on previous findings. Meaningful preparation for a team member’s annual appraisal includes referring to old emails, memos and other communications as well as mental notes pertaining to his or her performance. This is, in fact, a two-way process. The employee should be asked to complete a self-appraisal against the previously set goals, backing this up with all possible documentation. This reduces potential fireworks and enhances the quality of the discussion.

Set A Positive Tone: A manager should keep in mind that most employees tend to be anxious about their annual performance appraisals. After all, a lot of things that affect them directly depend on it. Reaffirm that the purpose of the meeting is to help both the employee and the organization to benefit from his or her work. The last thing that a manager should do is allow the employee to feel trapped or confronted. The best way to begin is by asking the employee to present his or her self-appraisal. During this, the manager should pay careful and courteous attention while the employee relates key achievements during the year.

Identify Performance Gaps: After the self-appraisal, the manager can proceed with his or her own appraisal of the employee’s performance. This should focus on whether the employee’s perceived accomplishments are in line with the performance goals set in the previous year. The purpose here is to identify gaps between the actual and expected performance. The employees should be made aware of how a particular performance deficit or achievement/goal imbalance impacts the organization. Employees tend to agree if they see how their work fits into the larger picture. The manager needs to watch out for signs of defensiveness or any kind of negative reaction, keeping in mind that the objective is not to confront but to find solutions.

The manager should:

• Allow the employee to articulate disagreement
• Not pass judgments or make depreciating personal comments
• Stick to areas that matter
• Use praise as well as criticism

Agree On An Action Plan: The employee should be allowed to suggest an action plan first. There should be no spoon-feeding from the manager at this stage. The manager should, however, ensure that the plan is smart, doable and addresses the established performance deficits.

Summarize And Set New Goals: The performance review discussion should lead to the establishment of new goals, or amendments to the previous goals. Again, this is a two-way process which should take into account the employee’s skills and capabilities. The manager should explain how these goals relate and lead to organizational success, and how business would suffer if the mutually agreed goals are not achieved.

Set A Follow-Up Plan: Even if the conversation has been tense, the manager should ensure that the final summary includes performance strengths. The final task is to set up monthly meetings for following up on the mutually agreed plan.

Annual performance appraisals have their place as a formal system. They serve as a discussion forum that allows all concerned to examine an employee’s performance over the bygone year. However, this process must always be balanced and complemented with abundant recognition and real-time feedback throughout the year.

A grey area in training ?

They say ‘learning never stops' and if this statement didn't ring true, Sachin Tendulkar would have been without a coach today, right? Several experienced learners have paved the way forward for the more senior and experienced leaders of India Inc to learn, unlearn and relearn

But for this workforce that has already over the years experienced learning, the idea of deriving learning (and not imparting it) could baffle them. 1) Why get trained when I am nearing retirement? 2) Why learn, when I have my experience to boast of? 3) Isn't it a crazy idea to go back to school? Ken Simper, executive GM of BlessingWhite tries to answer this conflicting behaviour by stating that top sportsmen are not in any way ashamed to have a personal coach; in fact, at times more than one.  Around the world, there is a growing understanding of the need for and acceptance of the benefits to be derived from training senior managers. After all, it can be ‘lonely at the top'. "Most often than not, people around them are working hard to tell them what they think they want to hear. It is really hard for those in top management to get candid and solicit corrective feedback," he states.

Senior employees at Wipro have no qualms in getting mentored by their ‘less-experienced' and younger colleagues (read: reverse mentoring). After all, aren't fresh from college colleagues often the fiercest users of technology, and as a result, could be powerful advisors in creating innovation based on these technologies? Abhijit Bhaduri, chief learning officer and head - CHRD, Wipro Corporate agrees, "Leaders build their knowledge of working in a multi-generational workplace. They learn valuable lessons in collaboration and influencing. Feedback from junior peers and team members can play an important role in helping senior leaders understand where they should focus their learning on. The 360-degree feedback is a powerful process of documenting developmental gaps and strengths and is devoid of age."

But training the trainer isn't an easy task. Dr. Ariff Kachra, Strategy Professor – Richard Ivey School of Business & MD – Ivey India who points out the above feels that senior managers are not served well by training. He opines, "Senior managers need programmes that develop their ability to think about complexity and structure ambiguity in ways that allow them to design strategies to outperform competitors." Surinder Bhagat, country HR manager, Freescale Semiconductor India also emphasises that average training content may not go well with them and HR plays a key role in choosing the right module, making it interesting and also useful. Though an increasing lot of senior leaders are open towards leaning, they do harbour reservations w.r.t the quality of training and development offered by most institutions; the method of instruction used in development programmes and the ability of the instructor to really understand the challenges faced by senior managers.

The three key elements needed in encouraging learning and training programmes among senior employees, according to Bhaduri are environment, content and convenience. Environment refers to the stature and value that the facilitator and other participants bring to the programme. Experienced leaders like to learn from someone who has 'walked in their shoes' and can provide insights that could be leveraged. Content of the programme has to be readily translatable to the problems the leaders are grappling with. Just an academic framework is not enough. Convenience of being able to get the content just in time to solve a real-world problem makes it attractive for senior leaders.

It's not easy to plan a training agenda for older workers, so there ought to be certain parameters to be taken into consideration while formulating a training plan for the older workforce, says Shah: 1) Understand their profile: study the background and accomplishments of each learner. The purpose of retaining this information is to capitalize on their experiences in a very specific way; 2) learning method: Blend your learning method with activities such that you cover all styles of learning – visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Another big challenge is dealing with some of the older trainees who feel like they are close to retirement, so they presume they can't really apply—or don't need to apply—the learning. 3) Setting the expectation: Seek their expectation i.e. what they would like to learn from your session. Weave their unique expectation into what you want to cover; this will help you get their buy-in. They want to see relevance from your session right from the start.

Wipro's leadership development programmers’ help in managing role transitions from the time they first start leading a team to the time when they become Enterprise level leaders. We give them inputs on Customer Leadership and use psychometric instruments in helping them understand themselves better. We have multiple consortiums where we work with non IT companies on crafting a curriculum that helps leaders address a strategic business challenge. Leaders learn from unconventional sources and immersion experiences. Last month we had taken twenty of our leaders to the Jaipur Lit Fest to teach them storytelling so that they could become more effective communicators. Therefore, the process of learning is not bound by time and both, organizations and senior employees are translating this very belief into real-time application.

Rahul Shah, head - learning solutions with DDI warns you against a few goofups that ought to be kept at bay while training older workers:

Being theortical: They will lose interest if you are unable to engage them by balancing seeking and telling. Since an adults' attention span for a lecture is about 10 minutes; then, a change in pace or activity is needed. Seek examples that allow them to share their experiences; 

Don't be a ‘know-it-all' guy: They will challenge you in everything if you come across as a 'know it all' person. This may impact your session and participants may challenge all the concepts and can drive others to their way;

Exercise self-esteem management: Older employees' self-esteem is on the line when they enter the classroom; therefore, a safe and an encouraging environment is a must in managing their esteem needs. Keep the trainer environment "safe", so they have the ability to practice without ridicule from peers.

Tips for creating error-free resumes

Job seekers take note: One resume error, one false stroke at the keyboard could send your resume into the "circular file."

Executives were asked, "How many typos in a resume does it take for you to decide not to consider a job candidate for a position with your company?" Their responses:

One - 40%
Two - 36%
Three - 14%
Four or more - 7%
Don't know/no answer - 3%

"Employers view the resume as a reflection of the applicant," said Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps. "If you make errors on your application materials, the assumption is you'll make mistakes on the job."

Unfortunately, typos and other slipups are easy to make, and spell-check won't always catch them. To illustrate the point,following are some real-life errors made in resumes, applications and cover letters.

• "Hope to hear from you, shorty."
• "Have a keen eye for derail."
• "Dear Sir or Madman."
• "I'm attacking my resume for you to review."
• "I am a rabid typist."
• "My work ethics are impeachable."
• "Nervous of steel."
• "Following is a grief overview of my skills."
• "GPA: 34.0"
• "Graphic designer seeking no-profit career."

Accountemps offers the following tips for creating error-free resumes:

1. Get help: Enlist detail-oriented family members, friends or mentors to proofread your resume and provide honest feedback.
2. Take a timeout: Before submitting your resume, take a break and come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. You might catch something you missed the first time.
3. Print a copy: It's easy to overlook typos or formatting mistakes when reading a resume on a monitor, so print it out for review. Read through it slowly and pay close attention to font styles and sizes, in addition to spelling and grammar.
4. Try a new perspective: Sometimes readers inadvertently skip over parts they have read previously. Review your resume backward to help avoid this problem.
5. Read it aloud: Your ears might catch errors your eyes have overlooked.

Survey Methodology: The survey was developed by Accountemps, the world's first and largest staffing services firm specializing in accounting and finance. It was conducted by an independent research firm and is based on telephone interviews with 150 senior executives from the nation's 1,000 largest companies. With more than 360 offices worldwide, Accountemps offers online job search services at www.accountemps.com.

Social Media Recruiting and Mobile Technology

Recruiters have always been quick on the uptake when it comes to new and innovative technology, especially if this technology makes it easier to stay connected. Lately, there’s a lot of buzz surrounding social recruiting and mobile recruiting – and many recruiters are blindly jumping on the bandwagon. But what’s just buzz, and what will become a permanent part of every recruiter’s toolbox?

Mobile Recruiting: Apps and More

Mobile recruiting allows recruiters to do what they do best: stay connected. How? Apps. There are a few recruiting apps that I really like:

• Job Science puts the functionality of an applicant tracking system in recruiters' pockets.
• Instant Customer is a handy gadget for business card and contact management.
• Global Recruiting Round table gives users access to top industry news and trends, and allows them to plug in to a community of experts.
• Job Speek adds a new dimension to job postings: audio.

Mobile SMS and QR code recruiting is getting some serious attention. However, recruiting leader and sourcing consultant Geoff Peterson says, “The technology’s not 100% there.”

Social Recruiting: Plan for Your Slice of the Pie

Recruiting has always been social, but social media has opened a new can of worms. And if you want a piece of the social recruiting pie, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

• You need a strategy. You may have a Twitter account, but that doesn’t mean you have a social recruiting strategy. You need clear goals, an execution plan and metrics for measuring success. Otherwise, you’re just filling my Twitter feed with white noise.
• Don’t bombard, engage. Anyone can post “an exciting opportunity” on LinkedIn. If that’s all you're using your social media accounts for, however, you’re going to lose your audience fast. Share an article you enjoyed, link to something interesting you’ve come across, just don’t bombard them with jobs.
• Keep the social in social media. You can get all the Facebook fans and Twitter followers you want, but unless you’re engaging your network, they’re just numbers. There are a number of communities out there that revolve around social media in a number of industries.

About the Author: Kyle Lagunas is the HR Analyst at Software Advice. He blogs about trends, technology and best practices in HR and recruiting by day, and drinks entirely too much wine by night.