Enabling A Positive Culture and Productivity

I was at a client this week listening the CEO speak to a group of his leadership team about diversity and he made a simple but very astute statement.  Paraphrasing but essentially he said "employees that are listened to, accepted and encouraged are more productive".  

I've seen so many people in leadership positions behave like tyrants falsely believing that they can brow beat or even bully people into better results that its often comical.  Granted, negative reinforcement can get an immediate "shock" and even work in the short-term, but it eventually implodes.

Having witnessed the benefits of a positive leadership style of my CEO client, my premise is that creating a positive culture where employees are accepted for who they are, valued and encouraged will result in a workforce that is more motivated and productive.  The article attached by Korn Ferry touches on research that leadership actions such as understanding work - life balance and creating an environment where people can perform at their best is spot on.  

Good insights that leaders need to understand and incorporate into their leadership style,

Source: https://www.kornferry.com/institute/work-l...

Talent and Culture Are Integral to Corporate Strategy

It's a new day for progressive companies that purposefully and thoughtfully incorporate talent and culture as key elements of overall corporate strategy.  For these companies, they understand that having talented employees that are engaged and committed (beyond just hitting a bonus payout) will create differentiation in the marketplace and superior business results.  

While many organizations spend time and resources on Talent and Culture, for too many organizations it's only addressed when a crisis arises or simply as a rote annual exercise whose outputs are filed away and rarely acted upon. Having worked for and with many Fortune 500 companies over the past 30 years, the sad fact is that few truly incorporate Talent and Culture as part of their strategic planning exercises. The implications are wide spread and most often manifest themselves in inconsistent revenue growth & operational execution, the lack of market leadership or being a fast follower or higher employee turnover.

The integral nature of Talent and Culture in corporate strategy raises several key questions - and should also raise many others - during corporate strategy exercises:

  • What type of talent do we need to successfully hit our corporate objectives? 
  • How does our current talent compare to those skillsets needed to hit/exceed our corporate objectives and to the talent trajectory of our competitors?
  • Is our culture and employment brand differentiated in the marketplace and will it enable us to attract and retain the right talent?
  • Is that culture and employment brand pervasive and consistent globally (or are do we have problem areas in certain countries or business units)?
  • How are we going to evolve talent and culture in our organization to best enable success of our corporate strategies?

On the surface, the answers to these and related key Talent and Culture questions are achievable but like many organizational challenges, it takes commitment from the top executives and leadership persistence over time to reap the rewards. For many organizations that narrowly focus only on quarter by quarter results, incorporating Talent and Culture in corporate strategy will be difficult but therein lies the opportunity for progressive organizations.

Agile HR →

Excellent article in LinkedIn by a former colleague and human capital management strategist, Mary Sue Rogers. 

One interesting element for consideration by organizations pursuing Agile HR is the notion of value created by each core HR activity.  As Mary Sue points out, company's need to make choices on which HR activities to invest in becoming Agile.  Each organization will value HR activities differently and therefore will want to focus resources and develop solutions that are unique to their organization.

That brings us back to this notion of understanding the value of each core HR activity (i.e. engagement, talent acquisition, payroll, etc.).  My premise is that organizations need to be able to assess value - to the organization (financial/non-financial metrics), to the employee (employee experience) and to customers (enabling the desired customer experience) - in a thoughtful, analytical way.

Company's that take a value-based approach will likely better focus resources and are more likely to realize the most value from Agile HR initiatives.