Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find the very best posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces about metrics, people as parts, hiring and smiling, pay for performance, and the 2010 IBM Global CHRO Study.
From Stephen J. Gill: Count What Counts
“Are we measuring what really matters in organizations? ROI, market share, profit margin, cost savings, EPS, P/E ratio, EBITDA, and employee job satisfaction are common measures in business organizations today. While these are relatively easy to measure, the question we should be asking ourselves is, “Is this what we want to know?†Are we measuring these indicators because we can or because they truly measure what matters? A relevant quote attributed (probably erroneously) to Albert Einstein is, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.””
Wally’s Comment: I think that the question of what to measure will get more and more attention in the years just ahead. I recently touched on this topic when I blogged about the dangers of relying solely on economic measures in “Call off the Accountants.” A good guide on this issue is the following from Russell Ackoff: “It is better to use imprecise measures of what is wanted, rather than precise measures of what is not.”
From Derek Irvine: Inmates or Teammates: Rehumanizing the Workforce
“During the last couple of years, I get the feeling that corporations have reverted to workplaces of the Industrial Revolution, where people are seen as just another cog in the machine that can be easily pulled out and replaced if necessary.”
Wally’s Comment: I think Derek is right. Recently we’ve seen more of the “people as parts” practice of management than we’ve seen for quite a while. The practical problem of treating people like parts is that parts don’t think and in today’s business world you need all the thinking you can get.
From SmartBlog on Workforce: How good managers keep their workers smiling
“I once had a colleague ask how we trained our employees to smile. I told him we didn’t. We hired the people who smiled during the interview, and then told them to just keep smiling when they worked.”
Wally’s Comment: This post is by Arte Nathan. He’s an HR veteran who’s spent most of his career in the hospitality industry. The insight in this post is so simple that you may be tempted to shrug it off. Don’t. This post is based on Nathan’s experience, but there is a great deal of research that underlines the fact that people don’t usually change in significant ways after they’ve eased into adulthood. In other words, grumpy people do not suddenly become cheerful, lazy people do not become industrious, and selfish people do not suddenly become team players. The practical application of this is that what you hire is pretty much what you will have as long as the new person is with you. If you want people to smile at customers, hire people who smile.
From Compensation Cafe: The Merits of Merit Pay for Teachers and
Why Merit Pay for Teachers Doesn’t Work… And Why We Shouldn’t Stop Trying
“A few months ago, my Cafe colleague Jim Brennan wrote a post on The Merits of Merit Pay for Teachers. Beyond his observation that there seem to be few people with substantive experience in performance pay involved in the debate, Jim also identified some of the conditions generally seen by experts as necessary for the success of any pay for performance effort; he identifies nine of them for starters. These conditions are, as Jim notes, challenging to meet even in private industry where management has total control. They are monumentally more difficult in the typical public school setting. Without the right environment to support teacher merit pay, Jim concluded, it cannot succeed. Hot on the heels of Jim’s post came the release of this study (also described in this USA Today article) from Vanderbilt University; the “first scientifically rigorous test” of merit pay for teachers, confirming exactly Jim’s conclusion. The study found that offering middle school teachers bonuses up to $15,000 did not produce gains in student test scores. Unfortunately, though, it would seem that the researchers overlooked Jim’s most important point. It’s the system, stupid.”
Wally’s Comment: Here are two interconnected blog posts on the subject of pay for performance. Even if you don’t care a fig about merit pay for teachers, you’ll learn a lot about pay for performance and the conditions that support it from these posts.
From IBM: Insights from the 2010 IBM Global CHRO Study
“The insights provided by more than 700 Chief Human Resource Officers around the world show how workforce investment is shifting. Companies are beginning to focus more on growth, expanding into new markets and offering new products and services. But to make the most of potential growth opportunities in today’s dynamic global marketplace, organizations need to find ways to address the “borders†that are currently impeding their workforces. Based on the key capability gaps revealed in this study, we believe organizations should focus on three critical workforce imperatives: cultivating creative leaders, mobilizing for speed and flexibility and capitalizing on collective intelligence.”
Wally’s Comment: This is a collection of insights from CHROs around the world. It simply drips with things you’ll want to know. I’m pointing you to the main page. It points you to many resources derived from the study.
