10 Important Questions to Help Identify High Potential Leaders

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

We all want our Talent Management processes to identify High Potential Leaders as early as possible in their careers — here are 10 questions that can help….

Rise Performance Group

By Dario Priolo

According to research from the Corporate Executive Board, 40% of internal job moves made by people identified by their companies as “high potentials” end in failure. Many organizations make the mistake of looking simply at ability when assessing an employee for a management job. Think of the hot-shot sales rep or the genius software engineer. It is incredible how often high producing individuals get promoted into management jobs that require a totally different mindset to be successful.

The reason these people fail often comes down to three critical factors: leadership behaviors, aspiration and engagement. Aspiration entails whether the candidate really wants the position and is willing to make the sacrifices it may require. Engagement involves the employee’s commitment to the company and its mission. In focusing on whether an employee potentially can do a job, many organizations neglect the question, “Does he want to…

View original post 322 more words

Self Confidence — How Does Body Language Affect it??

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

Interesting article, describing how Body Language can make you feel more self-confident, and also make you appear more self-confident to others.

Self Confidence – The Management Pocketblog

This is the first part of an extended correspondence course in management. You can dip into it as you go, or you can follow the course, right from the start. If you do that, you may want a course notebook, for the exercises and any notes you want to make.

Self confidence is the starting place for any manager. Your promotion to managerial role has probably been triggered more by your expertise in doing your previous job, your reliability, and your character, than by any specific evidence of your managerial capability. And that’s fine, because it is the way most of your colleagues were promoted too.

But it can leave you feeling a little nervous about your suitability to manage and, when your boss tells you to ‘get on with it – I have every trust in you’ you can feel a little isolated. Your boss leaves you to it, your new management peers don’t yet trust you, and your team are wary of how you will treat them, now you have become a manager.

Here are three exercises to help boost your self-confidence.

Exercise 1: A Reassuring Word

In your notebook, complete the following sentences:

‘I earned my managerial role because…
‘My three most valuable managerial assets are…
‘The managers I learned most from are…
‘I will know I am doing a good job as manager when…
‘Things will go wrong; that’s life. If they do, the people I can go to are…

Exercise 2: Seeing Success

Imagine it is Monday morning and you are in work, ready to start the day. In a minute, close your eyes and picture yourself there. Picture your first few conversations and meetings going well. Notice yourself handling the situations effectively, feeling well-prepared. As you go through your morning, picture everything you do going as planned. At each stage, notice how good that makes you feel. At the end of your morning, imagine how positive and confident you will feel.

Now, close your eyes and play that movie in your head for several minutes.

When you have done this, make a note in your notebook about how you felt at the end of each part of your morning. Write down what you did to achieve your successes.

This is an exercise to repeat several times over the coming days. Each time you do it, choose another day and either the morning or afternoon. Every time you do it, you will increase your base level of confidence.

Exercise 3: Power Poses

One of the reasons some people feel more confident than others is simply levels of hormones in their bodies. For example, increased testosterone levels increase confidence, whilst increased cortisol levels decrease confidence. Perhaps it is surprising, but your gross posture affects levels of both of these hormones and, whether you are a man or a woman, you can increase testosterone levels and decrease cortisol, by adopting power poses.

You can do these poses for two or three minutes before going into a stressful situation and you can maintain confidence-boosting hormone levels by maintaining upright, open postures during your day.

Power Poses

Stand upright, legs apart – slightly wider than shoulder width – and put your hands on your hips. If there is a table, counter or a solid back of a stable chair available, place your hands firmly on it, about 70-80cm apart (wider than your shoulders) and lean forward. Adopt these poses for two minutes or so.

If you have a chair to sit on, try sitting upright, legs apart, with feeet firmly on the floor. Plant your hands firmly on your upper thighs, with elbows outwards. Lean your body back a little, with head a little forward. Or try putting your feet up on a table, leaning back in your chair, with your hands clasped behing your head, elbows splayed out. Adopt one of these for two minutes.

If these poses remind you of a typical ‘old-school alpha-male boss’, they should. The difference is that you will adopt these poses privately for a few minutes at most, to boost your confidence for the next meeting; rather than maintain it in the meeting to intimidate your colleagues.

Upright Postures

For all-of-the-time posture, keep to standing with feet at hip or maybe shoulder width, head upright, as if pulled by a puppet string, and arms by your sides. This open body, coupled with upright posture, will not only make you feel more assertive, but will enhance your breathing, your vocal tone and projection and present your image as confident and authoritative.

Get Connected — Make Your Networking Count: David McQueen

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

Great article describing positives of networking — it’s not all “work”

How Can HR Help Their Organizations Succeed in 2013?

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

HR INSIGHTS, HR MANAGEMENT -TLNT

HR’s Big Challenge for 2013: How Do We Help Our Organizations Succeed?

John Hollon on Jan 7, 2013, 7:00 AM | 0 Comments

What did you learn today?

“Morning Joe,” which is a show that I watch on MSNBC, always asks the most profound questions at the end of every show. Each guest talks about their learning moment for the show.

During the hiatus from work last week, I heard the question asked and thought about it in the context of what I do as a consultant, blogger, and social media enthusiast.

Given that it was the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, I looked back and thought about 2012 and what I learned.

What did you learn?

HR has been headed into an unrelenting storm. Transforming HR has been the focus for the past few years. It makes you wonder: where are we headed and when will we get there? Then again, maybe you are already there. I do know that there is no one size that fits all. Best practices, while good to be aware of, are not the silver bullet.

HR is in an enviable position at this point. Our work is being discussed in the board room; our work is being discussed by the CEO (CEO Insomnia Index).

As David Ulrich said in his book, HR Transformation: Building Human Resources From the Outside In,“Simply stated, we propose that the biggest challenge for HR professionals today is to help their respective organizations succeed.”

That, to me, is our overriding mission and that is my learning point for 2012. How do we help our organization succeed? That is the big question in all of our lives — or it should be.

We have better buckle up because the runway is clear. There are no planes ahead of us. We are positioned to take off. We have to become students of our own profession.

The organizational environment has become far more complex than ever before, both the internal complexity as well as external forces of Hurricane Sandy magnitude. This complexity has been driven by huge technological changes, layoffs, industry disruptions, economic turmoil, and more. In every walk of our professional lives, change is at the forefront.

These changes have in turn been an equal opportunity affecter. Whether in your industry, your organization or individually, change has permeated our environment. The world in which we all operate has become extremely complicated.

Do you understand the position you are in?

What are the main issues facing your organization? That should be at the top of your 2013 to-do list. HR must know what it takes to get your organization back on track, or to stay on track for that matter.

How can HR make sure that alignment between the organization, its employees, and other stakeholder groups stays aligned? As Dave Ulrich said, “How can we help your organizations succeed?”

Today, organizations are more complex than they were 10 or 20 years ago. The factors that I see that are:

The economic environment (which includes the organization’s financial situation as well as the competitive and general economic environment).
The technological environment has disrupted our entire society. How do we play in the new environment?
The social/cultural environment.
The sustainability environment (what is your organizations strategy and how does that align with your people?).
The regulatory and legislative environment. New taxes, new health care laws will be felt for years to come.

This is the whirlwind that has engulfed your environment. The unrelenting pressure shows no sign of letting up. But then this is not be a pity party for HR because Marketing and IT and other departments are all both trying to navigate this within their organizations.

So as we analyze what we have learned and use those as anchor points to move forward, we must remember what I think are the four most important words in our lexicon: Read, discuss, analyze, and formulate.

Happy New Year and welcome to the new normal.

John Hollon is Vice President for Editorial of TLNT.com, and the former Editor of Workforce Management magazine and workforce.com. An award-winning journalist, he has written extensively about HR, talent management, and smart business and people practices. Contact him at john@tlnt.com, and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnhollon

Tags: Best practices, HR management, HR trends, HR values,Leadership, Management

Share on email Share on linkedin

|More Sharing ServicesMore

The Workforce Institute Predicts Top Trends in Workforce Management for 2013

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

The Workforce Institute is the latest group to make predictions about the Workforce in 2013. These predictions go beyond Social Media to include topics such as Obamacare.

News Feed Item

The Workforce Institute at Kronos Predicts Top Trends in Workforce Management for 2013

BY BUSINESS WIRE
JANUARY 3, 2013 09:04 AM EST

At its recent annual board of advisors meeting, board members of The Workforce Institute™ at KronoIncorporated discussed their predictions about the top trends and issues that will impact the field of workforce management in 2013. Predictions were also captured on video and via a visual map.

Top Trends for 2013

Big Data & Analytics – Availability of an ever-increasing amount of data presents a challenge for organizations. How can they distinguish between what is interesting versus what is important? New technologies and services will help organizations find value in Big Data via function- and industry-specific analytics tools. Board members believe these tools will continue to gain attention throughout 2013 as more organizations adopt data-driven workforce management practices.
Mobile – Mobile technologies will continue to transform the way organizations operate and interact with their employees, customers, prospects, and the world at large. Tablet devices have taken mobile to a new level and board members predict that new technologies in this space – coupled with increased adoption – will continue to revolutionize the way organizations manage their workforces this year.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Compliance – More commonly referred to as “Obamacare”, PPACA compliance will be a major focus for many U.S. organizations in 2013. Leadership will need to determine what the Act means for their organization, understand associated costs, and make informed decisions about labor scheduling and utilization.
Managing an intergenerational workforce – A tight economy and changing notions about the concept of retirement mean that more workers over the age of 60 are remaining in the workforce for longer. The usual challenges of attracting and retaining the right workforce are exacerbated by the increasing age difference in the workforce.
Closing the skills gap – Unemployment is still relatively high, but many organizations are hiring. Depending on the business, the current applicant pool may not have the skills that employers seek. How can this problem best be addressed? Much attention will be paid to this issue this year with public/private partnerships emerging to help close the gap.
War for Talent – The Great Recession put the war for talent on ice, but board members think 2013 may be the year that it heats up again. As organizations pull out of the economic doldrums and begin to perform better, employees who have been sitting tight will start looking for new opportunities. As a result, organizations will need to be ready to fight for the best and brightest talent.

The Workforce Institute at Kronos Board Members

Board Members of The Workforce Institute at Kronos are: David Almeda, chief people officer, Kronos Incorporated; Ruth Bramson, CEO, Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts; Andy Brantley, president and CEO of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources; Bob Clements, senior principal, Axsium Group; David Creelman, CEO, Creelman Research; John Hollon; vice president for editorial, ERE Media; Sharlyn Lauby, The HR Bartender and president of ITM Group Inc.; Joyce Maroney, director of The Workforce Institute at Kronos; Susan Meisinger, SPHR, JD, columnist, speaker, consultant on executive management issues and former president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); John-Anthony Meza, vice president, Workforce Readiness, Corporate Voices for Working Families; Dr. Tim Porter-O’Grady, senior partner, Tim Porter O’Grady Associates, Inc.; and William Tincup, SPHR, CEO of HR consultancy Tincup & Co.

Supporting Resources

Join us for a Tweet Chat about our 2013 predictions on 1/9/13 at 12pm EST Hashtag: #KronosChat
Visual map
Connect with Kronos via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, andYouTube.
Subscribe to our workforce management blogs.
Take a look at the lighter side of workforce management in our Time Well Spent cartoons.

About The Workforce Institute

The Workforce Institute was founded by Kronos Incorporated in 2006 as a think tank to provide research and education on critical workplace issues facing organizations around the globe. By bringing together thought leaders, The Workforce Institute is uniquely positioned to empower organizations with the knowledge and information they need to manage their workforce effectively and provide a voice for employees on important workplace issues. A hallmark of The Workforce Institute’s research is balancing the needs and desires of diverse employee populations with the needs of organizations. For additional information, visit www.workforceinstitute.org.

About Kronos Incorporated

Kronos is the global leader in delivering workforce management solutions in the cloud. Tens of thousands of organizations in more than 100 countries — including more than half of the Fortune 1000® — use Kronos to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Learn more about Kronos industry-specific time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, HR and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics applications at www.kronos.com. Kronos: Workforce Innovation That Works™.

© 2013 Kronos Incorporated. All rights reserved. Kronos is a registered trademark and The Workforce Institute is a trademark of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

How to tell the difference between good and great HR analytics – part 1 « All about Human Capital by Morten Kamp Andersen

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

All about Human Capital by Morten Kamp Andersen

How to tell the difference between good and great HR analytics – part 1

14/12/2012 at 15:42 9 comments

Question: What is the difference between good and bad analytics?

The answer is probably best illustrated like this;

This is bad analytics:
You have received the latest performance management data from all five divisions. You know from experience that the data is questionable – in two of the divisions many of the inputs are the default settings. You also hear that the managers have a somewhat relaxed attitude towards the accuracy of the data (to say the least). Your report show that absenteeism is flat at a reasonable level. You report this with satisfaction.

This is ok analytics:
You get the latest voluntary employee turnover data and see that the figures are trending upwards. The level is above the 6 month moving average. You dig deeper into the data and see that it is in particular in three division the employee turnover has been higher than expected. These division have three things in common; a new leader has been employed, workload has increased and they are client facing. You contact the relevant HR partner and suggest that they implement the usual retention initiatives.

This is great analytics:
You get the latest voluntary employee turnover data and see that the figures are trending upwards. The level is above the 6 month moving average and 2 %-point higher than sector-adjusted benchmark. You dig deeper into the data and see that it is in particular in three division the employee turnover has been higher than expected. These division have three things in common; a new leader has been employed, workload has increased and they are client facing. You then decide to interview relevant people in those divisions including leaders and employees as well as the HR partners. You read relevant academic research and case studies on effective measures against voluntary turnover in your particular sector and discuss this with experienced managers and HR partners within your company. You suggest three actions; coaching for the leaders, competency profiling to match job demands and team building. Your data suggest that these three initiatives will reduce the voluntary employee turnover from the current rate to 1 %-point below the benchmark at a ROI of 55%

So what is the difference? Great analytics

are made with reliable data
are combined with quantitative data
use an evidence-based approach
is predictive

How to tell the difference between good and great HR Analytics – part II « All about Human Capital by Morten Kamp Andersen

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

All about Human Capital by Morten Kamp Andersen

04/01/2013 at 14:17 Leave a comment

In my last post I argued that great workforce/HR analytics share four common traits; they are

predictive
made on reliable data
combined with qualitative data (and perhaps some intuition)
used an evidence based approach.

But there is one thing missing and probably the most important thing; It must be based upon a strategic approach. I know that”‘strategic” is such an overused word in HR now and frankly most of what is said about strategic is anything but. However there is no getting away from the fact, that you can do good analytics with the above four traits without actually adding much value. Without doing analytics on the right things AND in the right way it really amounts to very little.

Or to put it in another way: Workforce analytics without a strategic approach will only with the help of luck turn out to be truly value added.

What does strategic approach mean in practice? The best way to illustrate this is to look at the difference between a bottom-up or top-down approach.

Analytics can be bottom-up (operational) or top-down (strategic). The bottom-up approach is the approach many take. They combine their data into Big Data and look through interesting ways of diagnosing, measuring, illustrating, visualizing, trending and reporting the data. They find interesting links between employee turnover and profits (no kidding!), talent profiles and performance or particular training programs and customer satisfaction. That’s when they are good. Sometimes they just show which divisions are experiencing lower employee turnover!

The top-down approach on the other hand start with your HR strategy (which of course is aligned with the business strategy). You then look at which areas you want to focus your HR efforts. Then you find the desired knowledge you require to make the right decision. The you design the data required to provide you with this knowledge.

Good analytics made from a bottom-up approach can give good results; they can surprise you, show links you hadn’t seen before and even challenge your strategy. BUT that approach must not stand alone. The primary use of analytics should be top-down. That’s the strategic approach and that is likely to support you most.

Remember: Workforce Analytics is ‘just’ a tool to make better HR decisions. It is a great tool for that, but if you are an HR executive looking to make strategic HR decisions, your analytics has to be strategic too. Don’t look at the data you’ve got and make the best of them but instead look at what data you need to create the most value-added predictive analytics.

Entry filed under: Analytics. Tags: HR analytics, Human Capital Strategy.