Awbery Management Centre Ltd
Talent Forum Report How do we best measure the return on investment from development of talent?
Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
Awbery Talent Forum Report Leadership and management development specialists Awbery Management Centre hosted the second in their popular series of ‘Talent Forums’ on Thursday 23 rd May. Invited to discuss the question ‘How do we best measure the return on investment from development of talent?’ HR professionals and business leaders from public, private and third sector organisations enjoyed a lively debate over lunch at Nottinghamshire’s Colwick Hall. The Talent Forum was led by Jane Rawden, Awbery Management Centre’s Head of HR Services and facilitated by Kevin Goodman, Group Director of Babcock International.
Attendees Dr Howard G. Awbery
Tom Gray
Awbery Management Centre
Actons Solicitors
Mary Sisson
Ian Hebb
Awbery Management Centre
Nottinghamshire Police
Jane Rawden
Ian Hodgkinson
Awbery Management Centre
Hodgkinson Builders
Kevin Goodman
Sumeet Kanwar
Babcock International Group
Department for Business Innovation and Skills
Mark Abberley
Vanessa Lane
Amateur Boxing Association
MHA
Claire Bell
Karen Morris
Actons Solicitors
North Midland Construction PLC
Claire Bicknell
Richard Radford
Catena
BPR Medical
Walter Brady
Viv Tolley
Northamptonshire Probation Trust
Smith Cooper
Andrew Cholerton
Thalej Vasishta
TRANSEARCH International
Paragon Group
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
Executive Summary The Chartered Management Institute recently noted that the current economic climate is ‘encouraging businesses to become increasingly concerned with measures for tracking their return on investment from talent development’. Attendees at the most recent Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum highlighted the importance of knowing ‘what good looks like’ and creating an environment that facilitates ‘deliberate practice’.
Jane Rawden, Head of HR Services at AMC commented, “yet again we enjoyed a fantastic debate with excellent contributions from all our participants. We covered a huge amount of ground and it was clear that we are all committed to measuring the results of our talent development initiatives.”
“There is also a very real need to focus on what it is we are trying to measure.” “It was clear from the group that attitude and behaviour are the biggest measures of whether or not talent development is working; namely what an individual WILL do rather than simply CAN do. As a leadership and management development professional I took away many valuable points and ideas, and we have attempted to share these with you over the following pages.”
The Awbery Management Centre team is grateful to Kevin Goodman, Group Director of Organisation and Development at Babcock International Group, for his expert facilitation throughout the discussion. Kevin’s industry knowledge and experience led the Talent Forum participants through a lively, supportive and occasionally provocative discussion. In this ten-page report, we aim to summarise these discussions, highlighting throughout individual views and points of agreement.
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
Knowing what good looks like Values, a common language, strong induction programmes and behavioural modeling can all help employees to understand ‘what good looks like’. One business leader commented at the Forum, “As leaders we must set the example and be the mirror image of the people we want them to be. We need to show them the behaviours and instill our own passion in them.”
Facilitator Kevin Goodman echoed this, underlining the importance of a ‘passion for talent’ in managers, before stressing that what is ‘good’ in one organisation may not be ‘good’ in another. “Companies must invest in being good at inducting people, showing them how to belong and ‘what good feels like’”.
We are all aware of the analogy of the star footballer, who moves to another club for an exorbitant transfer fee and then subsequently suffers a significant dip in form. A good footballer does not become a bad player overnight; consider perhaps that his new team hasn’t worked out where he best fits in – or explained the culture and what is expected of him. The importance of clearly articulated and understood values was also noted, with one delegate noting.
“New recruits can bring a clash of values. Equally, if the values on the wall are not the same as the ones in action; a new person might go for the latter in order to fit in.” Awbery’s Jane Rawden reminded delegates of the importance of measuring managers on their ‘behaviours not status’ and an analogy was drawn between talent
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
development and parenting, with the need to define, measure and then reward good behaviours.
In defining ‘what good looks like’, businesses must first develop a clear picture of what it is that they are aiming to measure. Back to the footballer analogy and this may mean goals scored or passes completed. Kevin Goodman suggested that every business should have five things, key to their business, that they measure every day. For example, an estate agent might measure the number of new For Sale boards erected, sales agreed or average commission levels negotiated. Unique and relevant to each business, these five measures then allow you to measure relevant behaviours.
Other tips shared by the group included giving everyone in the company the sight of a customer to encourage engagement and the value of devolving talent development from head office wherever possible.
Process supports; deliberate practice enhances Whilst we need to be able to measure its outputs, the group largely concurred with Kevin Goodman’s statement that talent management is “not a process and should not be given to HR”, noting that “process and planning alone are no good without passion (that word again!) and an interest in people development.”
Certain public sector organisations clearly need to have a visible focus on process although assessing attitude is becoming increasingly important for them too, with one delegate commenting: “In the police force we have historically had a clear demarcation between officers and staff. The focus has always been on talent development of officers through very specific processes. We are now focusing more
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
on assessing attitude but it’s essential that we have a level playing field – and process helps with this.”
Whilst it was recognised that due processes and this level playing field are needed to avoid miscarriages of justice, delegates largely felt that an over-reliance on process can inhibit talent development.
“It’s about attitude. People need to follow procedures at work but the people who love your business and will do whatever it takes are the ones you need to identify.” Referring to the pre-event reading material* given to the Talent Forum delegates, Awbery Management Centre’s Mary Sisson raised the notion of deliberate practice in developing talent, proposing the view that specific and focused practice is more important than innate talent. This was echoed by one Talent Forum attendee, who joined the event from a national sports organisation: “There is a fallacy around innate talent…. individuals need the right environment and the right system to allow them to reach their potential. It’s more than process but we do need systems that promote deliberate practice. Focused coaching and practice can develop expertise and ability.”
So it is system rather than process that facilitates talent development and the measures of its success. This system must, however, support focused and specific practice that is aligned to the desired outputs. In describing how his team is measured by podium
finishes,
our
sports
delegate
above
described how “we talk about the system, not the process. A good system allows talented individuals to perform.” 6
Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
Don’t leave it to HR alone to measure talent ROI
“Can we inspire individuals to chart their own impact and come to us with the measures?” This question, posed by Awbery’s Mary Sisson, prompted considerable debate around the theme of personal responsibility for talent development, together with the role of middle managers.
There was consensus around the notion of encouraging line managers to show the ROI they are achieving from talent development, and a delegate explained how big pharmaceutical companies are moving towards more of a ‘dragons den’ for talent development, where drug discovery teams compete for research and development budgets.
This example from the world of life sciences also underlines the
importance of knowing what it is that you are trying to measure.
Middle managers are a key cog in talent development programmes yet an unwillingness to co-operate or lack of understanding of what is expected of them, can lead to poor outcomes. Dr Howard Awbery shared how participants on Awbery Management Centre’s leadership programmes regularly complain that their managers do not support them; with a common theme being ‘I don’t know why I am here.’
Returning to the theme of personal responsibility, delegates identified the importance of “identifying people who want to grow and develop”, and then helping them onto the pathway of developing their own talent. A third-sector Forum guest explained that whilst they continue to attract ‘graduates with a social conscience’, they are now able to offer them very clear career paths: “We limit the ad hoc stuff and encourage self-management, which includes e-learning.”
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
The fast-flowing debate also threw up a growing recognition that individuals are less willing to make lifestyle changes (such as relocations) to take advantage of development opportunities. Kevin Goodman explained how Babcock, with its farflung offices and out-posts, addresses this: “we give individuals sight of the excitement and the challenge of the project.”
In considering how both line managers and the individual can contribute to measuring the outputs of talent development, the discussion moved onto appraisals, with a number of Talent Forum guests speaking favourably of 360 degree appraisal systems:
“360
degree
appraisals
help
both
managers and individuals to reflect and can be a valuable tool in measuring ROI”. And “360 degree appraisals are a valuable tool and a chance for conversation.”
Delegates suggested that appraisals should be supported by informal and timely one-to-one conversations, which can act as a valuable gauge of behaviour and attitude.
One delegate, who lamented an over-reliance on email and a seemingly forgotten ability to converse face to face, highlighted a general decline in communication skills that was recognised by other delegates: “basic soft skills are evaporating and the importance of walking the floor is forgotten”.
Independent measures are also valuable, with a delegate from the Sports sector commenting, “Our athletes get asked independently what they think of the development programme. We get some hard truths; athletes have a real time definitive view that is not always true of managers.
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
Taking the long view The discussion moved naturally towards a debate around growing your own talent or bringing in talented individuals. Whilst the notion of buying in talented individuals can be a seductive one (and perhaps essential for a small business), a lack of time spent preparing a detailed brief for recruitment consultants can lead to poor human capital investment decisions.
“We spend longer choosing a new dog than a new manager… So we deserve the naughty dog we get if we don’t invest the time!” Equally there was agreement on the notion that managers have a tendency to recruit on what is needed now, rather than looking at future development. This short-termism, coupled with risk aversion can explain why organisations so frequently end up with “caretaker managers rather than the architects of the future they need to drive their organisations forward.”
Short-termism can have numerous causes - sometimes fiscal (it’s the FD’s fault!), perhaps political pressures or simply lack of time. A delegate described their major investment in talent development over the past five years and how they measure its success through improved outcomes for clients, concluding: “It can be a very slow process to measure these outcomes and political short-termism is definitely a problem for our organisation, particularly when we are being regularly tasked with doing more with less.”
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Awbery Management Centre Talent Forum Report
In Summary Awbery’s guests from their broad spread of organisations and industry sectors largely affirmed that talent is neither solely innate nor can be easily bought. It was also apparent that measuring the return on investment is far from easy. To measure the ROI from talent development we need systems (rather than process) and a commitment to measurement throughout the organisation, not least from the individual themselves.
Defining what ‘good’ looks like is key for every organisation and this can be helped through a common language, common values and a common understanding of the behaviours that define ‘good’. Only once we understand these behaviours can we begin to successfully measure the returns from our investment in talent development.
* References Burkus, D. & Osula, B. (2011) Faulty Intel in the War for Talent: Replacing the Assumptions of Talent Management with Evidence based Strategies, Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 2011 Vol. 3
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