HR Strategy & Planning Excellence - May 2023

HOW HR CAN PLAY A FOUNDATIONAL ROLE IN BUILDING THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE

- Melissa Phillippi, VP of Organizational Development and Talent Management, Vaco

The Future of HR's Role in Organizational Success

Sponsored by:

On the Cover

12 7 Strategies For Managing Direct Reports From Older Generations

Build strong relationships and lead a diverse team

- Brett Farmiloe, Founder/CEO, Terkel.io.

27 Why Your Company Culture Should Include Color Science

Bringing employees back to the office requires creative thinking and a touch of color science

- Kimberly Shaw, Founder/CEO, Color Design Development Group

How HR Can Play A Foundational Role

Navigating change and embracing AI

- Melissa Phillippi, VP of Organizational Development and Talent Management, Vaco

34 Ready To Take A Seat At The Top-Management Table?

10 CEO questions that unveil your high-performance leadership potential in HR

- Howard M. Guttman, Principal, Guttman Development Strategies

INDEX

Unveiling The Disconnect Between HR And Employee Trust

What can you do to be trusted by employees?

- Yoram Solomon, Founder, The Innovation Culture Institute™ LLC

ChatGPT: A Recruiter And Hiring Manager’s Best Friend

Four ways generative AI can make you more efficient in your role

- Matt Parkin, Business Development Lead, FindWRK

5 Tips For More Successful Digital Transformation In HR

You know digital transformation is important, but how do you implement it?

- Zachary Amos, Tech Writer, ReHack

Top Picks 09 16 29 36

Human Capability Valuation And Performance For Organization Success

Unveiling the path to assessing and building organizations for the 21st-century economy

- Dave Ulrich Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business and The RBL Group, Norm Smallwood, Mike Panowyk and Joe Grochowski, The RBL Group

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Shaping the Future of HR: Navigating Transformation and Fostering Organizational Success

Intoday's dynamic and ever-evolving business environment, HR professionals are pivotal in driving organizational success. By prioritizing talent management, harnessing the power of technology, fostering trust, and aligning strategies with changing trends, HR takes the lead in navigating transformative shifts and shaping a prosperous future.

One of the key challenges for HR in the coming years is striking a delicate balance between innovation and stability. As organizations strive for growth and adapt to emerging technologies, HR must harness the power of AI, automation, and data analytics while ensuring fairness, transparency, and ethical practices. Generative AI, in particular, holds immense potential to revolutionize HR operations by automating mundane tasks, reducing bias in decision-making, and providing valuable insights for talent management and development.

However, HR's evolving role extends beyond technological advancements. The trust and credibility between HR professionals and employees are paramount for building strong and cohesive organizations. HR leaders must actively cultivate an environment of trust, empathy, and transparency, where employees feel heard, supported, and valued. This requires HR professionals to advocate for employee needs, maintain confidentiality, provide fair and balanced feedback, and emphasize the long-term benefits of a trusting work environment.

As HR professionals navigate the future, their focus must transcend transactional activities and embrace a more strategic approach. By becoming true partners to executive leaders and leveraging their insights and expertise, HR can solidify its position as a key driver of organizational success.

This edition of HR Strategy & Planning Excellence explores the latest trends, challenges, and strategies that shape the future of HR. In her article, How HR Can Play A Foundational Role In Building

The Workplace Of The Future, Melissa Phillippi, (VP, Organizational Development and Talent Management, Vaco) explores how HR professionals are building the workplace of the future by adapting to dynamic shifts. Zachary Amos from ReHack provides 5 tips for successful digital transformation in HR. In his article, ChatGPT: A Recruiter And Hiring Manager’s Best Friend, Matt Parkin from FindWRK discusses the transformative impact of generative AI in HR operations.

This edition also includes an exclusive study by the HR Research Institute titled, The Future of HR's Role in Organizational Success, which sheds light on the challenges faced by HR professionals in meeting strategic organizational needs. The study provides valuable insights and recommendations for the future of HR in driving organizational success.

By embracing the challenges and opportunities in this post-pandemic era, HR has the potential to shape the future of work by establishing psychologically safe, healthy, and equitable workplaces.

We hope you find the articles in this issue informative and helpful and, as always, we welcome your valuable feedback and suggestions.

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How HR Can Play A Foundational Role In Building The Workplace Of The Future

Navigating change and embracing AI

By Melissa Phillippi, Vaco

Overthe last few years, the focus of human resources has made incredible shifts.

In 2020, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement thrust diversity, equity, and inclusion to the forefront, highlighting the opportunity for much-needed change within organizations and transforming DE&I from a compliance initiative to an institutional one with major organizational health, performance, and success implications.

And again, when the Covid-19 pandemic shook the world of work to its core, emphasizing the importance of health and wellness while ushering in a new age of remote work. The post-Covid spike in the labor market brought with it employee-led demands for better compensation, perks, and flexibility. With inflation came a focus on retention; and now, as economic uncertainty looms, HR departments are forced to pivot once more to prioritize employee relations and performance management practices.

The Importance of Responsiveness

While these changes demonstrate the difficulty in predicting the future of HR, they also highlight the importance of responsiveness within the industry.

The economy will continue to shift, and current events will always shape where HR must focus to optimize an organization for success.

This is particularly important when we consider new factors such as artificial intelligence, which is poised to completely transform the next era of work. Many are skeptical and some are even afraid of AI, and while they are right to be wary of emerging technology, especially technology that is largely unregulated and untested, fear cannot prevent its existence or expansion into our world. AI is here to stay. As HR professionals, we can either accept that and ensure its introduction into HR, especially performance management, is safe, equitable, and beneficial for all, or we can avoid it and risk the organizations we represent becoming irrelevant and losing their competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Unique Opportunities Also Present Unique Challenges

HR and organizational development (OD) professionals are no strangers to the challenge of serving multiple interests, and at times, competing ones. Not only do we play an important role as

innovators, but we also serve as a critical touchstone. We are both the support system for change and the protectors against potential fallout.

This is especially true in difficult times when businesses start viewing people essentials, like performance management programs, as “nice-to-have” instead of “need-to-have.” Regardless of economic cycles, however, talent management – and performance management – are critical components of a thriving organization.

The world of work over the past decade has seen change increase at a faster rate than ever before, and the change fatigue affecting all employees – HR included – is real. Now more than ever, a clear vision, set of values, and goals must be communicated and translated into daily jobs, and performance and talent management are the disciplines for which these messages are cascaded within organizations.

As we train and ask our employees to develop job and behavioral competencies documented on their individual development plans, we must also lead the way as HR and OD professionals in our ongoing education and growth in competency. No one leader has “arrived.” In fact, the complacent HR leader is the irrelevant, and dare I say dangerous,

leader. If we are to capitalize on the power of new impacts to the world of work such as AI, we must submit our own selves to constant feedback and growth opportunities.

The Future of HR Builds on the Basics

Over the decades, HR has evolved beyond compliance and the initial goal to create safe working conditions. We can do more, and organizations thrive when we do. If we work to establish a psychologically safe, healthy, and equitable workplace, then we can empower all leaders, managers, and employees to be proactive instead of reactive in their leadership. This incubates high performance and arms individuals with the tools and resources they need to do their jobs well, while also ensuring managers have what they need to coach up or out low performers. Doing so directly decreases the number of hard conversations around costly events, like terminations or layoffs.

Whether it’s examining the integration of AI into our work tech stacks, maintaining proper spans of control, cultivating a culture of feedback, or creating an equitable organizational structure, these are just a few foundational ways in which HR will continue to play a key role in the evolution of the workplace. We have a unique ability to pivot to the times and the needs of the day, but our focus on building psychologically, physically, and emotionally safe workplaces remains paramount.

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Melissa Phillippi is the Vice President of Organizational Development and Talent Management at Vaco, a global professional services firm serving more than 12,000 clients across the globe with 10,000 employees.

Unveiling The Disconnect Between HR And Employee Trust

What can you do to be trusted by employees?

By Yoram Solomon, Ph.D.Innovation Culture Institute™ LLC

The HR professional is ideally positioned to build trust in the organization, but to do that, they must first be trusted by the people they should be helping.

However, a 2022 Crucial Learning survey showed that 75% of employees don’t trust their HR leader cares about their needs. Only 9% felt that their HR leader would advocate for them, and 47% didn’t feel safe confiding in or getting assistance from the HR leader.

One of the HR functions is to care for the employee’s welfare, and some would say that it’s the most critical function. Given the impact of engaged employees on the organization’s success, you couldn’t argue with that.

This article discusses why HR is not trusted as much as it should be, what are the symptoms of HR not being trusted, and what they can do to be trusted.

Why Don’t They Trust HR?

HR professionals are caught between a rock and a hard place. In a post on the SHRM blog titled “Why HR Doesn’t Exist to Help Employees,” an HR director is quoted saying, “I truly am struggling and considering leaving my HR director role as I am constantly being reprimanded for looking out for the best interests of the employees.”

That should make you wonder, what is the role of the Human

Resources function in the organization? Different publications offer different answers to this question. Perhaps the most succinct one, from ADP, provides the following as the role of HR:

● Administrator: Running payroll, writing job descriptions, creating workplace policies, and procuring benefits packages are typical of HR administration.

● Change manager: HR professionals must monitor regulations and communicate

policy or procedural changes with employees to help support compliance.

● Personnel manager: Managing people entails resolving conflicts, overseeing training and development, and fostering employee engagement.

They further state, “Human resource management is the strategic approach to nurturing and supporting employees and ensuring a positive workplace environment.”

But the research quoted at the beginning of this article suggests that’s not really what’s happening in reality. But why?

A Culture of Litigation

Perhaps the answer to that question is rooted in the following insights. The Norton Rose Fulbright law firm published in their 2023 Annual Litigation Trends Survey that companies spend $1.7 million in litigation for every $1 billion of revenue. Of the 430 U.S. and Canadian general counsels

and in-house litigation leaders, 44% expected the volume of lawsuits to rise in 2023 (versus 13% who expected it to decline), and 48% felt more exposed to employment and labor disputes (versus 10% who felt less exposed). The leading litigation area in the past 12 months was employment and labor (65%), more than contract, regulatory, cybersecurity, class actions, and product liability.

What Does It Mean?

The Prospect Theory, developed in 1979 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (for which Kahneman received the Nobel Prize for economics) and many other models developed since then support a simple idea: that we respond much stronger to negative experiences or fears than we do to positive experiences or opportunities. Applied to the role of HR, top management is more worried about being sued by employees than motivated

by the outcomes of keeping employees happy and engaged.

As a result, top management typically sees the role of HR as protecting the company from its own employees rather than caring for those employees. And when you consider that pay flows from the top down in a company, who do you think the HR professional would serve the most? The employees? Not really.

How Do You Know If the Employees Trust You?

“The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one” (from the Pilot for the HBO TV series The Newsroom). To build trust in the company, the HR professionals must first be trusted by the employees (not only by top management). How can they tell if they are trusted or not?

People typically don’t tell you that they don’t trust you. If they trust you, they will tell you they do. But if they don’t trust you, they would still tell you they do because they don’t trust your reaction if they told

you they didn’t. So, you must rely on symptoms that indicate if employees trust you, the HR professional. Those include:

● Do employees come to you with their problems?

● Are they willing to be vulnerable with you?

● Do they only share positive things?

● Does their body language indicate they are afraid of you?

● The turnover rate

● Posts on workplace review websites such as Indeed and Glassdoor

● The content of exit interviews

What Can You Do to Be Trusted by Employees?

Here are a few ideas:

● While it is clear that you have loyalty to the company and its top management and that your pay comes from the top and not from the employees, don’t balance it against your responsibility towards the employees. Adopt an attitude that includes both roles. You shouldn’t choose between them.

● Keep your loyalty to the employees, and not only the company. Just like you keep company confidentiality, you must maintain employee confidentiality and not share employee information given to you in confidence with management.

● How do you handle the tough conversations around performance, reorganizations, and especially around reductions in force? Those are some of the situations in which employees feel the most vulnerable. They will trust you if you genuinely have their back. How you treat employees that demonstrate low performance, have to be reassigned to another job in the company, or get caught in a RIF would be known to the employees that stay behind. Based on how you handled those situations, they will observe and decide if they can trust you.

● Make a case for the positive correlation between employees who feel trusted and who can trust the company and its management and company performance. There is plenty of research to support this link. One example is that when trust levels are high, projects end on time, on budget, and as planned, 45% of the time more than if trust levels are low. Another example is that when trust levels are high, public companies deliver 286% higher shareholder returns (through stock price and dividends). When the level of trust is high, employees stay with the company longer, recommend it to

other potential employees, and take fewer sick days. Those are all cost savings!

● Remind top management that when employees leave, they go somewhere. You may encounter them as your competitors, suppliers, or even customers. If they didn’t trust you (or the company) as employees, they wouldn’t trust it in any other roles.

● Finally, remind management that happy employees don’t sue their companies. If the company is afraid of the rising costs of employment-related litigation, increasing employees’ trust in the company, its top management, and the HR department will reduce that risk.

Yoram Solomon, Ph.D., MBA, LLB, is the author of The Book of Trust®, host of The Trust Show podcast, founder of the Innovation Culture Institute™ LLC, and facilitator of the Trust Habits™ workshop. He is a regular speaker at SHRM events.

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Note: this article draws from a podcast episode featuring guest Fiona Passantino

7 Strategies For Managing Direct Reports From Older Generations

Build strong relationships and lead a diverse team

By Brett Farmiloe, Terkel.io.

From learning to involve more experience in conversations to practicing “Ask First, Speak Second,” here are seven answers to the question, “What are your best strategies for managing a direct report who is much older than you?”

● Tap into Experiences, Perspectives, and Concerns

● Take their Contributions Seriously and Earnestly

● Be Direct and Be Proactive

● Learn from Each Other

● Use Effective Communication

● Create a Culture that Openly Discusses Belonging

● Practice “Ask First, Speak Second”

Tap into Experiences, Perspectives, and Concerns

One strategy that I use for managing a direct report who is much older than me is to prioritize active listening and open communication. It is essential to set aside time to understand their experience, perspectives, and concerns.

I start by acknowledging the value of their experience and expertise, and actively seeking their input and feedback on work-related matters. Be aware of biases and approach each team member as an individual with unique strengths and challenges.

Take their Contributions Seriously and Earnestly

As HR leaders and managers, we often find ourselves in the unique position of having to manage direct reports who are much older than us. With the experience gap between us, it’s important to remember that our job is to support the employee while still being seen as a credible authority.

Linda Scorzo, CEO, Hiring Indicators

One strategy to manage a direct report who is older than you is to earnestly take their contributions seriously. Acknowledge their wisdom when earned and show appreciation for their experience and knowledge, as this helps foster respect between yourself and your senior coworkers. Creating an environment of mutual trust and respect allows everyone in the team space to feel comfortable making suggestions, contributing ideas, and providing feedback that works towards both the success of the team and achieving business goals.

Be Direct and Be Proactive

Karolina Kijowska, Head of People, PhotoAiD

The very last thing you want to do when you have an older direct report is to let the situation fester and become more awkward. You should always take them aside and very directly address the elephant in the room; otherwise, you risk creating a very uncomfortable dynamic simply due to inaction.

You might still have an awkward dynamic, based on your management style and the employee in question, but there is only a way forward out of the situation if you address it and come to an agreement on the best way forward.

Dragos Badea, CEO, Yarooms

Learn from Each Other

Managing someone your senior can be an intimidating task. If not handled properly, resentment, jealousy, and pride can overshadow productivity. For starters, you must engage in a respectful and highly communicative relationship.

Trying to prove that, “You know best, and that’s why you’re in this role–not them,” is not the way to go. Remember, you have nothing to prove, so instead, shift your mindset to how you can learn from your elder instead of trying to mold them into something else.

You should also be mindful of differences in generational learning. While they might not be the best at technology, they may excel at solving hard problems. Uncover their strengths, leverage them, and work on making incremental (but necessary) changes after trust and respect are already established.

Bottom line–drop your pride, be kind and communicative, don’t be afraid to learn from each other, celebrate wins, and gently fuse your leadership style with the wisdom they bring to the table.

advantage. Showing the proper respect to an older generation and acknowledging their experience often goes a very long way in gaining their respect.

Thomas Hughes, Human Resources Consultant, Red Clover

Create a Culture that Openly Discusses Belonging

The thing about being human is that there’s often a fair amount of ego and insecurity involved. So, it’s important that no matter what age either person is, you have open conversations and understand what matters to them, what their goals are, and how they view their strengths and growth.

Begin by learning how you can best support and manage them. As with employees of any age, respect, feedback, and acknowledgment can go a long way to creating a positive work relationship. I would also suggest setting up ground rules around expectations to reduce any lingering uncertainty.

Bethany Jeffreys, Career Advancement Consultant, Pivot Management Group

Use Effective Communication

Managing employees who are significantly older has been much easier than I initially expected it to be. While it might seem simple and straightforward, figuring out their ideal communication style is the best initial step you can take.

Once you can establish effective communication with the employee, you’ll be able to learn more about them as both people and professionals. Use that open line of communication to learn from them and leverage their previous experience to your

The reality is that ageism in the workplace is real. We all have misconceptions that, unless discussed, can create a negative work environment. Older workers may question the ability of a younger manager, and vice versa.

Creating a culture that openly discusses these things can help everyone feel like they belong, can add value, and grow. Which, as the research shows time and time again, is what most of us want.

Andrea J Miller, ACC, SHRM-SCP, CEO, LeadWell Company

Practice “Ask First, Speak Second”

As a millennial manager, one of my biggest fears was managing someone older than me. Of course, this had nothing to do with the older direct report differing from younger direct reports but rather came from my own insecurities.

My manager gave me some expert advice on this subject, though, and I frequently repeat it to myself. She said, “Just because someone is older doesn’t mean they’re more skilled, talented, or even mature. Treat them as you would anyone else, but start by asking first and speaking second.”

What I’ve found works best when managing an older direct report is just that: asking first and speaking second. An older direct report may have a treasure trove of experience that other managers never tap into simply because they never ask enough questions.

Ironically, I’ve started using this strategy with my younger direct reports, and it works just as well!

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Bogdan Zlatkov, Lead Instructor for HR and Hiring, Growth Hack Your Career

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder/CEO and currently the CHRO of Terkel.io

ChatGPT: A Recruiter And Hiring Manager’s Best Friend

By Matt Parkin, FindWRK

The HR industry is constantly evolving and adapting to new trends and technologies. One of the most exciting and transformative technologies to emerge in recent years is generative AI. Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize HR operations by automating timeconsuming, repetitive tasks and providing insights that can help

HR professionals make more informed decisions.

Generate Interview Rubrics

One of the main benefits of generative AI in HR is the ability to reduce bias and save time during the recruitment process. For example, generating inter-

view rubrics for teams that may not already have them can help reduce bias and ensure that all candidates are evaluated fairly and consistently. This can be especially helpful when hiring for positions that require a specific set of skills or experience, as the rubric can help identify the most qualified candidates more quickly and efficiently.

Four ways generative AI can make you more efficient in your role

Create Training Scenarios

Another way that generative AI can be used to save time is by creating training scenarios to diversify and improve onboarding and training. This can be particularly useful in industries where the workforce is constantly evolving and new skills are needed to keep up with changing trends and technologies. Employees can also use this to reflect on scenarios they experience and how they could have responded differently.

Identify Transferable Skills

Generative AI can also be used to screen for transferable skills, which can be especially helpful in industries that are experiencing a short-

age of qualified candidates. HR professionals can expand the pool of qualified candidates and fill critical positions more quickly and efficiently with the ability to recognize applicants with transferable skills from other industries.

Personalize Development Plans

Finally, generative AI can be used to personalize development plans for employees, empowering managers to quickly suggest growth and training opportunities and resources for their team. If employees are feeling lost, ChatGPT can serve as a personal coach to help

them explore the next steps in their career growth and alleviate coaching time from peers. For example, one can explain to ChatGPT their strengths and areas for improvement, and ask it for suggestions on what they can do to upskill in their industry.

In conclusion, generative AI has the potential to transform HR operations by automating time-consuming tasks, reducing bias, and providing insights that can help HR professionals make more informed decisions. By leveraging the power of generative AI, HR professionals can streamline their operations, improve employee engagement and retention, and support business growth. The four strategies outlined above are just a few examples of how generative AI can be used to improve HR operations, and there are countless other possibilities waiting to be explored. As the HR industry continues to evolve and adapt, it will be exciting to see how generative AI is used to shape the future of HR.

Matt Parkin is the Business Development Lead at FindWRK. He helps employers quickly connect with hourly employees without needing a job posting. Would

The Future of HR's Role in Organizational Success

Sponsored by

INDEX

The Future of HR's Role in Organizational Success

Build a more strategic and potent HR function

Exclusive Study By The HR Research Institute

Survey conducted by: Sponsored by

The HR Research Institute, powered by HR.com, the world’s largest social network for Human Resources professionals, is a key part of our mandate to inform and educate today’s HR professionals. Over the past three years, the HR Research Institute has produced more than 85 exclusive primary research and state of the industry reports, along with corresponding infographics in many cases, based on the surveys of thousands of HR professionals. Each research report highlights current HR trends, benchmarks, and industry best practices. HR Research Institute Reports and Infographics are available online, and always free, at www.hr.com/featuredresearch

The Future of HR's Role in Organizational Success

Build a more strategic and potent HR function

MostHR professionals know they need to become more skilled as strategists, but according to the HR Research Institute’s latest research, the majority aren’t there yet. In fact, since 2021, HR may have actually lost ground in terms of its ability to meet the strategic needs of the organization.

In their defense, HR professionals have been very busy just trying to keep up with all the social and economic changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many had to scramble to make remote work relationships effective during the pandemic and have since been trying to figure out the best ways to handle return-to-work and hybrid work arrangements. They’ve also faced a series of challenges such as the “Great Resignation,” an erosion of employee engagement (sometimes known as “quiet quitting”), dissatisfaction that compensation rates haven’t kept up with inflation, large downsizings

in much of the technology industry and now the promise and perils of generative AI.

HR has been reacting to events, often with great energy and even creativity, making it especially hard to “get ahead of the curve” to act and think strategically. To learn more about the key challenges HR professionals face, how well they are positioned to thrive, the roles where they are succeeding and struggling, how the function will change over the next several years, and more, the HR Research Institute conducted a study entitled, The Future of HR’s Role in Organizational Success.

Key Findings

● Most HR departments are average at best in meeting the strategic needs of stakeholders.

● HR is an equal partner in the strategic planning process in about half (49%) of organizations and has average performance in key performance areas.

Exclusive Study By The HR Research Institute

Sponsored by:

● Talent shortages are the most influential external challenge facing HR.

● HR suffers from a number of skills gaps affecting its preparedness for the future.

● Leadership development and maintaining positive organizational culture are top focus areas in the near future.

● Technology is anticipated to influence employee experience, succession planning, and learning over the next two years.

HR Struggles to Meet the Strategic Needs of Its Stakeholders

Almost half (48%) of respondents believe HR struggles to meet the strategic needs of employees.

Based on the perspectives of the following three groups, how well does your HR department meet the strategic needs of your organization?

Almost half (48%) say their ability to meet the strategic needs of employees is low (1 to 6)

In 2021, HR had risen to the challenges of the pandemic and most of the strategic requirements revolved around setting up remote work and ensuring the physical and mental well-being of employees. However, with time, HR now has to balance the varying requirements of executive leaders, who

often demand greater productivity, and the needs of employees, which revolve around greater flexibility at work.

While contributing to the strategic needs of the organization is important, the transactional activities of HR cannot be overlooked. For instance, errors in

From the perspective of HR From the perspective of employees

From the perspective of executive leaders

attendance, payroll, or other routine HR activities can cause significant disruptions in employees’ lives and can negatively impact their employee experience.

How well does HR balance these needs? We found that just under half (48%) believe HR is equally good at managing both strategic and transactional activities, while about two-fifths (42%) say HR is better at transactional activities. A slim minority (11%) say HR is better at strategic activities.

HR Is Sometimes a Full Strategic Partner, But It’s Not So Great at Future Planning

For HR to make a full contribution to business strategy, it needs a seat at the executive table when strategic planning takes place. This ensures any strategic decision incorporates people management needs and goals. However, HR is an equal partner and is involved early in the process

in the strategic process in only about half of organizations (48%).

In about a quarter of organizations (27%), HR is only asked for talent-related input during the planning process. And, in 17% of organizations, HR is asked to develop a talent strategy only AFTER the strategic plan.

How good is HR at driving and achieving business-related HR goals?

We asked respondents to choose to what degree HR engages in a list of activities ranging from 1 (very low extent) to 5 (very high extent).

HR professionals are most likely to give themselves high ratings for maximizing employee experience—almost 7 in 10 (68%) say HR does this to a relatively high extent (4 or 5).

to what extent does the HR department in your organization do the following?  Editor’s

Just 34% of HR professionals give themselves high marks for planning well two years into the future

What Are Challenges Facing the HR Function?

What external challenges will impact HR over the next two years? We asked respondents to identify their top four. They are, in order:

● talent shortages (60%), a problem that has hindered many organizations in recent years and is likely to continue 1

● economic conditions (49%), an issue that could become dominant if the economy truly turns sour and that already has a serious impact given the recent rates of inflation

● changing workforce demographics (38%), a factor becoming more important as Boomers continue to retire and Gen Z enters the workforce and as the workforce becomes increasingly ethnically diverse 2

● changing work arrangements (37%), an issue that organizations continue to struggle with regard to return-to-work, hybrid work and other flexible work arrangements

HR Has More Success in Some Areas Than Others

As we’ve seen, talent acquisition remains a top challenge facing organizations today, but it’s also an area in which HR professionals feel they are at least fairly successful. Nearly three-quarters (72%) say they are fairly (52%) or very (20%) successful at attracting and hiring great employees. They’re also relatively successful in the areas of ensuring a positive corporate culture (68%), engaging employees (64%) and ensuring employees have the necessary skill sets (63%).

HR Needs to Close Various Skills Gaps to Succeed Better in the Near Future

HR’s preparedness for the future has remained relatively stable over the last three years. That is, the proportion of respondents rating their preparedness for the future 8 or above on the 10-point scale was 47% in 2021, 43% in 2022 and 49% in 2023.

In a separate survey, HR professionals were asked which five HR-related issues will be especially important in their organization over the next 12 months. The top issue chosen by 295* respondents is employee retention. This is followed by employee experience. These two top issues are interconnected and organizations must take a cohesive approach to these issues. Other top issues are talent acquisition, legal and compliance issues, and employee well-being.

Notes

1 Glass, G. (2023). You need to address skills gaps before it’s too late. here’s how. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur. com/leadership/you-need-to-address-skills-gaps-before-its-toolate/441584

2 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022, September). Employment projections: Civilian labor force by age, sex, race, and ethnicity. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-summary. htm

* This number of respondents is as of May 2, 2023.

Why Your Company Culture Should Include Color Science

Bringing employees back to the office requires creative thinking and a touch of color science

By Kimberly Shaw, Color Design Development Group

“The walls are closing in on me!”

This common refrain, sometimes heard from a stressed-out employee, is actually rooted in color science and color psychology. Scientific research has proven that the hues around us can directly and meaningfully impact mood and productivity.

Yet, designers, landlords, and property managers often select paint and decor colors in business environments. They may base their decisions on costs,

interior designer recommendations, or their own personal tastes.

A whopping 39 percent of employees say their workplace is having an impact on their mental health, something businesses must meaningfully address as return-to-work efforts continue

Companies often consider a combination of activities, snacks, and technologies as ways to encourage employees to return to physical offices, hire and

retain new talent, and create healthier and more inclusive workplaces. However, something as simple as a wall or art color can directly impact employees,’ colleagues,’ and candidates’ feelings in your environment.

For example:

● Green walls can create a more soothing and unplugged mood in technology-intensive areas. Green relaxes the muscles that move the eyeballs. Painting walls behind computer monitors may relax employees and build morale.

● Blue stimulates creativity and is associated with trustworthiness. In a conference room, it can boost collaboration or ease tension during negotiations. Holding a brainstorming session? Think blue.

● Neutral colors are often considered “safe” in office environments. However, too much white can be daunting for employees. The blank canvas effect it creates driving them inward. Alternatives like gray and beige are great as a grounding base color for common areas, with added pops or calming accent colors providing a sense of relief in a space.

Look to nature for ways to upgrade office decor. Biophilic design (using plants) is attractive and part of today’s healthier, sustainable workplace. Artwork can also brighten a drab office. Choose prints and sculptural accessories that are colorful and upbeat. If you use large TV monitors in your displays, think about what’s on the screens when they aren’t used for meetings and presentations. Some options include

lifestyle videos and mission statements rich in color that share a well-thought-out message about your company and its culture.

Many brands like to showcase their company colors throughout their workplace. Striking a balance between brand consistency and awareness and considering how that color may affect employees’ brain functions is key For example, bright red is great for consumer packaged goods and retail signage because it screams, “Look at me NOW!” but too much of that hue in a workplace can result in anxiety and feeling overwhelmed.

What are your next steps from here? Before grabbing a paintbrush and overhauling your office space, or asking your CEO for a bigger HR budget to redecorate headquarters, think about ways to implement color science in the short and long term. Small improvements over time as you expand into a new space or welcome employees back in person can lead to impactful changes in performance. Most of all, incorporating color science into decision-making processes provides an added layer to address employee needs.

Kimberly Shaw is the Founder/CEO of Color Design Development Group and its sister company Color Educate. She has 20+ years of experience and training applying color science and psychology to business and consumer decision-making and revenue generation. Kimberly has worked with real estate professionals, multi-family/multi-use properties, student housing, planned communities, and senior housing. She speaks at industry events about color’s role in commercial development and trends. Kimberly is trained by the International Association of Color Consultants (IACC) and the Business of Color.

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5 Tips For More Successful Digital Transformation In HR

You know digital transformation is important, but how do you implement it?

By Zachary Amos, ReHack

What company isn’t incorporating more digital assets these days? From software to robots, businesses are getting imaginative on how technology can improve bottom lines and make the workforce enjoy being at the job more. The name of the game is automation and efficiency.

What Is Digital Transformation, and Why Does HR Need It?

Since HR manages everything from onboarding to health insurance documentation, how they organize information impacts everyone. If HR adopts digital tools, the rest of the company must do so as well.

HR sets the precedent for how workflows look and where to locate stored data.

HR digital transformation is automating and digitizing operations to focus more on data-driven decision-making and oversight. Every company in each sector is moving to digital resources for a good reason — the benefits are among some of the most notable workplace enhancements in history.

For too long, departments have relied on antiquated methods that result in lost data and time-consuming record-keeping. Digital transformation makes HR more dependable and, therefore, more reliable to every employee in the building.

1. Only Improve What’s Necessary

Using process discovery, departments can discover what ineffective, inefficient and time-consuming processes lower workforce quality of life and company betterment and find tools to solve those

pain points. Here are some helpful questions HR teams can ask when beginning their audit:

● Would we benefit from a centralized hub where all data is collected?

● What are the most frustrating processes within the department and for those interacting with us?

● Do we have tech-savvy team members that can assist with the transition, or will there need to be additional resources and funding for training programs?

● What are the priorities for choosing providers and vendors? Is it financial, or is it based on service offerings?

Implementing technology for the sake of it isn’t reason enough to download and train on new software. It might overcomplicate a simple procedure, so HR departments must be discerning and

implement tech that aligns with business goals. The process also encompasses reevaluating existing digital tools and considering how well they function. Are there better alternatives out there?

2. Always Consider Stakeholder Opinions

Stakeholders are investing in the products, and HR departments must convince them the investment will bring a return. Funding is void if the department doesn’t provide a solid justification. Though that may seem like a failure, it’s an insight into what will make an impact — if a department struggles to justify why it needs software to replace filing cabinets, is it necessary? Since their money is on the line, they will be more swift and judicious on the essentials.

However, this also puts pressure on HR teams to rally solid defenses for tools and distill and clarify those needs to those outside the HR world. Only 41% of companies believe in the ROI of training programs, so proving the value of digital transformation and fronting as many resources as possible is essential for buy-in.

3. Find Ways to Manage the Transition

Digital transformation could be highly disruptive to daily operations among training, installation and adoption. When HR departments carry such essential roles in a company’s flow, they must plan intermediary solutions to these interruptions. Planning these solutions should happen before any part of the digital transformation process.

4. Acclimate to Modern Data Management

HR departments have numerous data points on employees and the inner workings of businesses. That data must remain safe and accessible, but it often sits unused. Companies can leverage data to gain more insights about managing employees better or save companies money.

However, importing data into systems with AI, for example, could prove how many employees take on health insurance or call out sick. How does this impact company profits or efficiency?

Whatever the company wants to gain from that data, collecting that info and using it should be transparent to employees. HR departments may have to collaborate with IT teams to ensure it’s safe from cyber threats and that they’re not collecting more data than they need.

5. Never Stop Improving

Digital transformation may feel like a large-scale one-and-done business improvement. Using the technology will be a constant assessment of usefulness. Everyone using it will have suggestions and thoughts on user interfaces and experience. These are all invaluable tidbits that can inform future decisions.

The bulk of the improvements and installation of programs and ideas may happen simultaneously, but seeking new and better tools is a constant state of being. Technology will always get better, faster, more capable and maybe cheaper. Settling for what you have should only be a temporary phase.

Making HR More Tech-Forward

Digital transformation has the chance to bring HR, and therefore entire companies, into a streamlined future of data management. Recruitment, record-filing, and information acquisition become more straightforward and faster when programs and other tech resources can automate and retrieve data with a few clicks.

Zachary Amos is a tech writer with a special interest in HR technology, automation, and cybersecurity. He is the Features Editor at ReHack

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Ready To Take A Seat At The Top-Management Table?

10 CEO questions that unveil your high-performance leadership potential in HR

By Howard M. Guttman, Guttman Development Strategies, Inc

From time immemorial, HR professionals have wondered why they are often denied a seat at the top-management table. CEOs just don’t “get it” many CHROs seem to feel, and this might be true in many cases. But not all. Let’s run a little test. Pretend your CEO wants to test whether or not you are a high-performance leader of your HR team and camera-ready to occupy that vaunted seat at the top-management table.

What kinds of questions would your CEO likely put to you to test your high-performance leadership capability? And how would you answer them?

Close your office door, and candidly answer these 10 questions:

● Have you led an alignment effort to ensure that everyone on your team is clear and committed to a common strategy and set of operational

goals, to clarify roles and accountabilities, to ground rules for decision-making, and to transparent business relationships?

● Do you require that your team act as if it were a mini board of directors, on which each team member puts aside functional self-interest and “owns” team results?

● To what extent have you encouraged your team members to hold one another accountable for business success? And that they hold you accountable—and say so?

● How attuned are you to the leader/player dynamic of each of your team members? Do you adjust your behaviors—directing, coaching, collaborating, delegating—to the player and situational needs?

● Do you cling to the old leadership story, “As a leader, I get paid to make the decisions?”

● Do team members view you as an answer man, night watchman, referee, enabler—or as a questioner/coach with a maestro’s baton?

● Do you role-model effective leadership behavior in leading your team—and in how you manage upward: say, to your board of directors?

● Think about the last time a team member disagreed with you: Did you (a) say thank you and dispassionately assess the contrarian position; (b) use sarcasm, avoidance behavior, or seek rescuers from your team; (c) become unglued; or (d) press the eject button?

● When was the last time you asked your team to give you a reality check as to whether or not you are a leader who contributes to the team’s ability to reach high-performance goals and expectations?

● When you look behind you, do you see a team of leaders—or followers?

If your answers reveal that you are a high-performance leader and team builder, one who is strategically focused and not functionally driven, one who is flexible as a situational leader, a straight-talk relationship builder who is adept at managing conflict, then there’s a good chance your CEO will not only ask you to join the team but insist you do so.

Howard M Guttman is the principal of Guttman Development Strategies, a Mt. Arlington, NJ leadership and organization development firm specializing in building high-performance teams, organizational alignment, executive coaching, and leadership development. He is the author of When Goliaths Clash; Great Business Teams; and Coach Yourself Win.

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Human Capability Valuation And Performance For Organization Success

Unveiling the path to assessing and building organizations for the 21st-century economy

By Dave Ulrich Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business and The RBL Group, Norm Smallwood, Mike Panowyk and Joe Grochowski, The RBL Group

Arecent and exceptional Summit on Workforce Valuation and Performance conference at the Ross School at the University of Michigan brought together thought leaders from multiple disciplines (government regulators, attorneys, economists, statisticians, investors, academic researchers and consultants in strategy, information, and HR) to explore the topic:

“To get even basic information about the workforce to enable valuation and to guide investment decision-making. We need better information on the twenty-first century economy to inform capital allocation, policy, research, and management. That is the premise behind this gathering.” (Thank you to Jerry Davis as sponsor and host.)

To make progress on this important agenda of accessing information to assess and build organizations for the twenty-first century economy, three questions arise.

Question 1: What is Organization?

Determining what information to collect starts with a clear definition of what constitutes an organization. This definition of what comprises an organization seems simple: “An organization is a setting where I work, play, learn, live, shop, and worship.” But underneath this definition are five assumptions or views that define “organization,” each with a model and framework so that information can be collected to improve how organizations operate (see figure 1).

Figure 2 offers images, exemplar authors, and representative books for each of the five views.

Five Definitions of an Organization

Without a clear and accepted view of how to define an organization, different people will examine organizations and source information, like the ancient Buddhist parable of blind people touching an elephant and having different interpretations. For example, the statement framing this summit (“information about the workforce . . . to inform capital allocation, policy,

research, and management”) is based on a definition of organization as collection of individuals rather than the other four views.

Each of the five organizational views is a legitimate way of defining and collecting information on organizations. However, creating and agreeing to a

Figure 1:

Figure 2: Logic of Organization Form

standard framework and language of what makes up an organization has profound implications. A classification framework is the basis for scientific inquiry by

organizing otherwise complex ideas into actionable categories (see figure 3 for examples in a number of settings).

As noted in the last row of figure 3, we don’t have a generally accepted classification typology for organizations that would:

● Focus attention on what information to collect to improve organization operations.

● Avoid piecemeal (single item) measures of organization.

● Organize innovative initiatives (e.g., skill-based organization, hybrid work, digital efficiencies) into accepted categories for evolving and cumulating insights.

We have proposed a human capability framework that cuts across the five views of organization and classifies a myriad of people and organization initiatives into four pathways:

● Talent: human capital, workforce, employee, labor, and individual competence or skill

● Leadership: individual leaders at all levels and collective leadership reputation

● Organization: capability, workplace, culture, teamwork, and system

● Human Resource: HR practices, department, analytics, and people

Within this human capability framework, new and innovative initiatives will inevitably emerge, while the four pathways can remain relatively stable (much like new diets will emerge but the four food groups remain stable). Figure 4 shows 38 initiatives in the four human capability pathways.

Figure 3: Value of a Classification Framework

Four Human Capability Pathways and 38 Initiatives

The human capability framework integrates the five views on organizations (see figure 5) and offers a robust definition of organization that can “enable valuation and to guide investment decision-making” as this summit proposes.

Figure 4:

Figure

Question 2: Why Does “Organization” Matter? Who Will Use the Information Collected?

With a clear definition of “organization” (as human capability suggested in figure 4), information can be collected “to inform capital allocation, policy, research, and management.” Often, information is collected based on what is available rather than what has impact. An old joke goes like this:

A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight; he asks the drunk what he has lost. He replies that he lost his keys, and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, “This is where the light is.”

Likewise, looking for information in existing databases is easy because they are relatively effortless to access. But this information may not help organization stakeholders make better decisions. This is like adding up and reporting uniform numbers for competing sports teams; the information is accurate and easy to access but not relevant to winning the game.

Relevance comes by identifying organization stakeholders who will use human capability information to make better decisions. Organizations interact with an array of stakeholders who each get unique value from their interaction with the organization. Information about human capability investments should be linked to the value created for each stakeholder (see figure 6).

Figure 6: What Each Stakeholder Receives from Improved Human Capability

Question 3: How Do We Better Access Information on “Organization”?

Defining what organization means and offering relevant insights to stakeholders shapes what informa-

tion to collect and why it matters. How to access such information becomes the next challenge. Five different data collection tools come with pros and cons.

Existing data

Observation

Interviews

Access current databases (discussed above)

Inductive: Explores options as case studies

Idiographic: Deep dive into case study

Available and often reliable data

Identify issues that others may not see

Explore cause and effect

May not lead to relevant insights

Not scalable across firms or time

Limited to an individual experience

Surveys

Deductive: Predictive analytics that confirm and test patterns in data

Provides graphs and charts about what has happened or might happen

Limited to questions asked, sample, and analytics tools

AI/natural language processing

Validate what people/ organizations do (not say) at scale; scrape or score databases to determine what has been done

The bad news is that each of these information collection methods has limitations. The good news is that they can be combined to help business and HR leaders make more informed human capability decisions. We have worked with numerable clients through interviews and tailored advice to improve their specific human capability agenda. We have done extensive, large-scale surveys to offer norms and guidance for how human capability investments deliver stakeholder outcomes (called the Organization Guidance System: www.rbl.ai).

More recently, working with AWS, we have utilized AI and NLP to scrape data from 7,000 firms reporting their human capital to the SEC in 2021 and 2022 (see figure 8 for high-level summary).

Scalable and reports content, context, and evidence without survey biases

Newer methodology not fully deployed; relies on accessing reliable data; some technology limitations

Figure 7: Information Collection Methods for Human Capability

SEC Human Capability Scores 2021 and 2022

With this large database and AI methodology, we found that the total human capability score explains 44 percent of employee productivity, 26 percent of cash flow, and 25 percent of future investor confidence.

What Does All This Mean?

This article contains a lot of information around how to make progress on human capability valuation and

performance. In this exceptional Summit and other settings, talented colleagues are exploring ways to provide “information on the twenty-first century economy to inform capital allocation, policy, research, and management.”

The three questions we raise at least partially answer and provide progress on this important effort.

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Dave Ulrich is Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Norm Smallwood is Partner, The RBL Group, Mike Panowyk is Senior Consultant, The RBL Group and Joe Grochowski is Managing Director, The RBL Institute.

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