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Article from Hong Kong Human Resources, April 2010
Hong Kong Human Resources – April 2010 Issue
Get Ready for Workforce Planning and Employer Branding
For most businesses, 2009 was a uniquely challenging year. Starting from around Q4 of 2008, unprecedented events such as the collapse of 160+ year-old Lehman Brothers shock the world – close to US$12 trillion’s worth of market capitalization from global equity markets were wiped out! The financial services industry, in particular the banking and home mortgage sectors in the U.S, gave the world a great many rude shocks. Job cuts were massive.
What do these changes auger for us, HR professionals? You will recall well that we had our hands full coping with the changes in manpower needs resulting from the poor business climate. The retrenchment axe had to be sharpened and used more than once for some companies. Moving forward, there is one thing clear in my mind – HR professionals cannot, but play a much more strategic role in the business – and to put it bluntly, and simply, to justify our continued existence. Here are just some of the key challenges.
Workforce planning
Chief of the challenges would be – how do we forecast what is the optimal workforce size so as to minimize the chances that we have excess manpower again? To spice things up, many of us have regional responsibilities. How do we ensure that the company has the right number of people, at the right place, at the right time, with changes and challenges happening so frequently?
Here are some key strategies that you may consider.
Be proactive - Work strategically with your recruitment partners towards having a pipeline of potential candidates for key roles. In supporting outplaced job seekers assigned to us by their ex-employers, we always dish out this piece of advice – when making an unsolicited approach to a potential hiring organization, do not direct your application to HR. Why? Because (sadly, but this is reality) most HR departments we know, are passive and reactive. We coach them to write in to the hiring manager – they cannot but be the ones who know best if your experience and profile would be useful to their business needs or not. We need to change this. HR has to be the “go-to” focus point for anyone seeking to join the organization.
Work more closely with the line leaders – Communicate with them to understand their mid-to-long term manpower needs, such as numbers and profile. Having said this, we may also have to provide the necessary training to equip our leaders to be able to make business projections, and to be able to communicate their (specific) hiring needs more effectively. Many of them may not have had the benefit of under-going leadership training and courses when they assume leadership roles. We certainly should not assume that they will be able to pick up such skills during their leadership journey. Better still, give them a framework to work with – some of us feel more comfortable working with a template. In short, give your leaders what it takes for them to be effectively working with you, and they will thank you for this pro-activeness.
Plan ahead - Only when you do this can you plan ahead to insure the organization have the right people, at the right place and the right time. I know this has been one of the tag-lines of HR for many years already. The key difference is that, as of now, we seriously have to deliver the goods.
Look strategically at the profile of your exiting talent pool - Sometimes we over-look the basics. Human capital is usually the most valuable asset of the company. Having these assets is one thing, keeping them is another. Age, qualifications and individual career pathing, these are areas that you would be wise to pay attention to. If you have a workforce consisting primarily of Baby Boomers and Generation Xs, you will have to work out retention policies and compensation polices that are different from those that have mostly Generation Ys, for example. Remember here not to generalise. For example, not every employee who is a Baby Boomer will be motivated by the same factors. Consider the impact of an ageing workforce. How are you going to treat them – fire them and get younger ones? Matured workers have their own unique set of values. The challenge is how to keep them useful and motivated in their current (or re-designed) jobs that could be a win-win for them as well as the company. Also, do not overlook the needs of female employees. Many have left, or are thinking of leaving the workforce, to take (better) care of growing kids. Again, can you work out win-win arrangements?
Performance management - Never before has this been more important than now. How do we ensure that your line managers communicate effectively to employees what they have done well, and where the performance gaps are? The annual / bi-annual performance appraisal system is usually over-rated. Feedback has to be on-going, not once or twice a year. Consider the use of (performance) coaching as a performance management tool. Put your managers through the basics of the use of coaching as a talent intervention tool. Empowering leaders is the way to go – given an increasingly lean organizational structure.
Compensation and benefits - There is a good reason why good C&B talent are always in demand. They play such a vital role in talent retention. Given the complexities of a multi-generational workforce in many companies, it is imperative that reward policies and processes must always be kept relevant and competitive. Besides this, flexibility in tweaking the policies must be an option. Do not caste your policies in stone. When an unprecedented change happens, for example when the entire department of private bankers resigns to join a competitor, you must be able to react quickly to arrest the situation. Your reaction may include identifying a targeted few to make a counter-offer with the intention to retain them . I would not be the first to advocate that “money” be used as a retention strategy, but in some situations, it may not be possible to avoid this. In this scenario, having a close working relationship with your business colleagues, as well as external recruiters, may also allow you to play a role in helping to salvage the situation by bringing in fresh/replacement talent as soon as possible.
Employer branding
HR professionals must work hand-in-hand with their corporate communications colleagues to work towards a “preferred employer” brand for their organizations. With competition for the best talent in the market, the ‘correct’ branding is necessary to continue attracting such talent to consider joining your organization. HR has as much need to be the “public face” of the organization as the CEO. There are at least three platforms that you can use – campus recruitment, participating as speakers in HR-related conferences, and building relationship with the media. You will be targeting the fresh school leavers, as well as the general working population via the three platforms – almost everyone that could be a potential employee. Be comfortable sharing best practices that you have instituted in your organisation. Made these known to the mass market, especially those that showcase your innovativeness and pro-activeness in putting in-place HR policies and practices that appeal to the “current” set of talent.
Being in the outplacement industry, we have seen an unprecedented number of HR professionals losing their jobs over the past 15 months. One key reason is that these folks have not been able to demonstrate that they have the competencies to play a strategic role in the business. This should serve as a red flag for HR professionals – and the simple but important message is – shape up, or ship out.
We have also been seeing a rise in the number of corporate executives re-examining their priorities and entire life, and making plans on how to better maintain and enhance their employability, and what their options are, post-corporate life. Perhaps another value that HR can bring to their organisation is providing the infrastructure for life coaching expertise to be available to their leaders.
Paul Heng, CMF, ACC
Founder/Executive Coach
NeXT Career Consulting Group, Asia
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