Recap of One Page Talent Management Briefings
On May 9th, MEA sponsored presentations by Marc Effron, author of the Harvard Business review best selling book One Page Talent Management to more than 80 Human Resource professionals and CEO’s. The reviews were highly favorable across the board.
Marc has spent many years as a Talent expert inside small and large companies, as a practice leader with a large consulting firm and now as founder of a global Talent Strategy firm. He explained his approach to Talent Management as being founded on some very simple principles. Taking a page from principles of Lean and Six Sigma, Marc has documented that talent can be developed by repeatable systematic processes that are designed to the specifications needed for that business. Marc’s challenge to the audience was to embrace the notion, used by most successful large companies, that “Better Talent Leads to Better Business Results.” If you do, then he believes that any business willing to make some changes can build better talent. He has seen this work at companies of all sizes noting that it works very well at mid-sized companies where Simple and Practical are favored by managers and supervisors.
The One Page Talent Management approach follows some key practical guidelines:
1. Be Clear about the Business Problem to be Solved. Too many HR programs are put in place based on some notion of best practices, latest trends or new technology. The most important step is often the most overlooked: How can talent support the business today and tomorrrow. Marc was of the view that the process must always begin with Senior Leadership direction on this question.
2. Start with Science. He noted that for most HR practices we have available to us many years of data driven, academic research that points to the most effective means to structure programs like performance management, leadership development, talent reviews and 360 feedback. In his book, he cites in detail the supporting research.
3. Keep it Simple. Marc noted that as with most successful programs it is all about implementation. With HR programs, they often become additive so more and more forms, reports and meetings are imposed on managers and these programs often die under their sheer weight and complexity. He told the story of how at Avon he was tasked by the CEO to develop a program to identify future leaders and was given 6 months to show results! He described a process which starts with the easiest path and then only add features that are justified under the rigorous value-complexity analysis shown at right:
As an example, he noted that research has demonstrated that performance management goals should be limited to 4 to 6 and should be SIMPLE: Specific, Important and Measurable. Likewise, 360’s should focus on no more than 3 areas of improvement to be effective.
4. Create an Environment of Accountability and Transparency. In order to make sure that change occurs, managers must be held accountable for their results. The best way to do that is often to create a high level of transparency over the process. Tell employees what is going to happen and why. This will create an expectation with employees that must be met by managers. Of course, this will be easier when the processes are simple with proven results.
Talent Framework
In order to begin this process, Marc recommends that every company audit their talent processes with the following OPTM audit framework:
The Talent Philosophy serves as the Rules of the Road for a company by setting clear Talent principles and serving as a business focused lens to evaluate each HR process for business fit. An example would be a stated point of view of how long the business will keep an average employee or an average leader. The Success Model rolls behaviors into outcomes, as contrasted with traditional competency models, to bring to life the leadership behaviors valued by a company. This also helps to create an “Employee Brand” which makes it easier to communicate your culture when attracting new talent or retaining high performers.
While it is easier to redesign core processes like talent reviews and performance management when these are in place, it is possible to begin with a focus on one such process and narrow the scope of the Talent Philosophy and Success Model as it relates to that process.
We are very pleased at the universally positive response to One Page Talent Management. Today, MEA now offers the web-based OPTM 360 surveys which several members have already used with great success. In addition, we have partnered with Marc Effron who is training MEA on the OPTM approach so that we can help our Members implement this simple but highly effective Talent framework. We will also be providing OPTM skills workshops and tools for Members interested in using this approach to achieve better alignment between business needs and talent practices.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://meainfo.org/app/uploads/2014/10/kevin-robins.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Kevin Robins
CEO
krobins@meainfo.org[/author_info] [/author]