HRO Today Global Spring Edition by Debbie Bolla

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Contents Cover Story Fast Food Growing Fast McDonald’s is looking to ramp up global hiring. That requires adapting to local tastes. By Russ Banham

Page 10

Regional Report 14

Inside APAC A roundtable of experts discuss growth, technology, hiring, and more. By Faye Holland

Leadership 30

Expatriate Games The traits leaders need to lead teams successfully. By Ryan Daly

At Your Service Treat your employees like your clients, and see satisfaction and productivity rates rise. By Jill Goldstein

Talent Acquisition 16

Competitive Advantage An on-site team of specialists guided the alignment of Nationwide’s contingent and permanent workforce, resulting in reduced costs and increased efficiency. By Russ Banham Within Reach A new report examines the current talent landscape. By Pam Berklich

Mobility 28

Navigating the Mobility Landscape 10 suggestions to improve your global programme. By Ed Hannibal

Departments 4

Editor’s Note Eyes on APAC By Debbie Bolla

CEO’s Corner “Un”Trusted Brands By Elliot Clark

Upside News from the world of work

Training 34

What’s Working in Gamification An industry CEO offers an overview—and lessons learned from the front lines. By Siddhesh Bhobe

Edinburgh Beckons 2014 HRO Today Forum Europe (11-13 Nov) to focus on talent’s new role. By The Editors

HR Trends 40

The Top 6 Challenges Facing HR An expert panel describes what HR must overcome in 2014. By Guy Ellis and Colin D. Smith

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CEO: Elliot H. Clark Elliot.Clark@SharedXpertise.com Managing Director: Faye Holland Faye.Holland@SharedXpertise.com Editorial Director: Bill Hatton Bill.Hatton@SharedXpertise.com

Eyes on APAC Growth—it’s one way to describe the Asia Pacific (APAC) market right now. Just ask Shaun Ruming. The vice president of HR and training for the fast-food giant McDonald’s is leading the company’s incredible growth effort in Asia Pacific to increase the number of employees from 450,000 to one million by 2020. That’s a tall order. Learn some of his strategies in Fast Food Growing Fast on page 10. Research findings also echo the area’s surge in economic growth. Talent2’s annual 2013 APAC Market Pulse 3 study finds that half of businesses in APAC markets have experienced economic growth in the past year, and 61 per cent predicted growth for the following 12 months. Areas like Malyasia and Singapore were more likely to forecast expansion than China, Australia, and Hong Kong. Martin Cerullo, managing director of development APAC and global lead marketing and innovation for Alexander Mann Solutions, reports two hot spots to keep on your radar: Philippines and Japan. Both countries are looking to jump into the outsourcing game to maintain their growth curves. Perhaps following suit of multinationals in North America, there is a predicted uptick in the use of contingent labour in APAC. From the 2013 APAC Market Pulse 3 study, nearly one-third of APAC businesses expect to increase the number of non-permanent staff. “In mature markets, we are anticipating continued growth in use of contingent workers,” says Cerullo. “Places like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia are showing a shift to contingent work but at a much slower rate than somewhere like Australia.” Cerullos says the benefits to contingent workers include access to the best talent; flexibility to manage headcount; the ability to staff up for specific project requirements; and the ability to access specialist skills. He also notes some challenges like visibility, control, cost, co-employment risks, and compliance factors. Roop Kaistha, solutions design director of APAC for Randstand Sourceright, says that contingent labour is a possible solution to a very real problem: talent scarcity. “Hiring temporary and contingent workers is the second most widely used strategy by companies to combat talent shortage,” she says. The 2013 APAC Market Pulse 3 finds that 57 per cent of the businesses across Hong Kong, Singapore, and China have experienced problems recruiting local qualified talent. Kaistha says that talent shortages are triggered by the labour-intensive nature of jobs and the need for workers heavily skilled in technology applications. How can contingent labour help? “Clients in Asia typically look at contingent workforce as a ready talent pool for their core workforce that at the same time provides them with flexibility,” says Kaistha. “The biggest challenge is the stigma associated with contract jobs which is a cultural issue across Asia.” Both Cerullo and Kaistha agree that APAC-based organisations are looking to third parties to help manage their contingent labour. Kaistha says that while managed services programmes are a possible solution, organisations may run into problems combining countries with lowvolume spends, different labour laws, and payrolling criteria under one single technology. Cerullo reports the rise of blended recruitment process outsourcing as a solution—managing both full-time and contingent workers under one umbrella. APAC is certainly a market we will continue to keep our eye on. Debbie Bolla Executive Editor [4]

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Executive Editor: Debbie Bolla Debbie.Bolla@SharedXpertise.com Publisher: Bill MacRae Bill.MacRae@SharedXpertise.com Managing Publisher: Gale Tedeschi Gale.Tedeschi@SharedXpertise.com Vice President of Research: Larry Basinait Larry.Basinait@SharedXpertise.com Associate Editor: Audrey Roth Audrey.Roth@SharedXpertise.com Webmaster: Michael Fernandez webmaster@SharedXpertise.com

Subscription services: For subscriptions, renewals, changes, and back issues, e-mail subscriptions@SharedXpertise.com.

About HRO Today Global magazine HRO Today Global Magazine [ISSN #15413551] is published [4x] by SharedXpertise, LLC © 2014. All Rights reserved. URL: www. HROGlobal.com. Editorial correspondence and press releases: Debbie Bolla, Executive Editor, SharedXpertise, 123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1930, Philadelphia, PA 19109 or editorial@ SharedXpertise.com. All letters should include the writer’s e-mail address and/or phone number. Business and advertising correspondence: SharedXpertise, 123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1930, Philadelphia, PA 19109, 215-606-9520. Subscriber services: SharedXpertise, 123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1930, Philadelphia, PA 19109, 215-606-9520, Fax: 276-800-2701 or e-mail subscriptions@SharedXpertise.com. Reprints: contact Foster Printing Service, 866-879-9144 or sales@fosterprinting.com. Postmaster: send address changes to SharedXpertise, 123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1930, Philadelphia, PA 19109. Fax: 276-8002701. Canada post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. This magazine cover is printed on 80# Influence Recycled gloss and the inside pages on 50# Influence Recycled gloss, both with 10% post-consumer recycled content.

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“Un”Trusted Brand We all live in a world populated by brands. Your company is worried about your consumer or customer brand, your social responsibility brand, HR, specifically your “employer brand.” Would you bet your job and career on your provider’s brand? Whether you want to or not, you will. I am not advocating only engaging the largest provider companies for your needs. Actually, some global brands may be in this space but not completely committed to it (more on that below). I am saying that there are easily identifiable and public proxies for knowing the commitment a company has to the line of business for which you may be considering them. All vendors (other than start-ups that have no choice) come into initial meetings regaling you about their size, geographical footprint, and their overarching commitment to their business. They tell you they have the most impressive history, the latest innovations, and the deepest “passion” for the service or technology in question. If everyone tells you this, how can you determine who really is passionate and committed? One way is to look at their outbound messaging. A sure sign a company is either preparing to sell or in financial trouble is that they slash marketing. A sure sign they are unsure of the product or service they provide out of that division is that they slash marketing. If any company tells you that they are a “best kept secret” in their industry, feel free to tell them that they are just a badly marketed company. Why go with a company that is not good at branding themselves and ask them to brand HR to internal employees or brand the company to external candidates? Let’s say your procurement team cannot find much evidence of their presence in the market or in the region you need services. They’re not prominent as a thought leader at conferences or telecast providers; they are rarely published and do little advertising. Chances are they pruning costs for a sale or not sure what they want to do with the business. How many people saw an advertisement from Chimes the year before they went bankrupt and stranded thousands of clients? One of the best examples of this lack of logic in the market is the segment occupied by the major multi-process service providers. They message little or nothing about multi-process HRO. To me this may suggest the parent companies (all are megamultinationals) are not fully committed or sure about this line of business, and are not investing in their brands in this service area. Yet they want clients to sign on to a five-plus year commitment to a division that their own leadership seems, frankly, tentative about. Multi-process deals are being done, but a lot more of them would be done if there was more dialogue about the multi-process service platforms, but there is not. Providers need to engage their buying audience with messaging that makes the buyers comfortable, makes them recognisable as a brand, and makes them seem sturdy and durable. Perhaps buyers should compare providers’ marketing budgets as a proxy for commitment to the line of service. I am not sure providers would agree to this, but it may be an interesting indicator. Providers will always fall back on their “rich” history, but does not always tell everything you need to know about the future. Age is not always a measure of brand strength. For example, the most recognisable brand in the world is Coca-Cola. Coke was developed as a tonic by and Atlanta pharmacist in 1886, but the medicinal ingredients (cocaine was among them) were removed in 1905 and Coca-Cola was offered purely as a beverage. About a year later a regional firm called Faygo was founded in Detroit. Faygo describes itself on its website as the “The Original Party Pop.” I bet they would rather be able to lay claim to the “World’s Most Recognisable Brand.” The companies are of similar age, but who do you think invested more in their business during early years and even today? I am sure if you were staring at vending machine behind some backwater Michigan thumb region gas station, and you had a choice between Coke and Faygo (and you weren’t from ‘round there) you would choose the one you know. You may want to think about that the next a company you never heard of tries to sell you HRO services or technology with a complimentary case of Faygo Red Pop. Elliot H. Clark, CEO [6]

HRO TODAY GLOBAL

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Wilson REDEFINING GLOBAL HUMAN CAPITAL SOLUTIONS. We deliver proactive global recruitment programs that effectively attract and retain top talent â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the quality of talent that advances organizations. Our high-touch, consultative approach to talent acquisition is transforming global RPO partnerships. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re revolutionizing global talent acquisition, one client at a time.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing >> Human Capital Consulting >> Managed Services Provider

Upside

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WORK

Full Integration Human capital management provider Allegis Group announced that it is formally combining the recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), managed services provider (MSP), and integrated talent operations of its subsidiary Allegis Group Services with the MSP and RPO operations of Australian-based Talent2 under the name Allegis Global Solutions. This continues the integration of the two businesses that has been underway since late 2012 when Allegis Group entered into a joint venture to take Talent2 private. In Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, the recruitment managed services division of Talent2 will continue to operate as part of Talent2 while the transition to the new organisation, Allegis Global Solutions, takes place.

On the Move D. Zachary Misko joins SharedXpertise as vice president and executive director. Misko will have global responsibility for HR association management, product development, association strategy, and client delivery. The widely known Misko brings to the role significant experience in all areas of talent management and outsourcing, including talent acquisition, RPO, performance development and training, employee engagement, employee relations, recruitment strategies and methods, sourcing plans, recruitment technology, and onboarding. Misko has worked with Fortune 500 companies throughout the world to develop and implement processes that improve and drive human resources and workforce solutions. “I am pleased to expand upon my experience by joining SharedXpertise and continue to provide talent strategy and thought leadership within HR and the outsourcing industry,” says Misko. “I have been a member of the HRO Today Services and Technology Association for 10 years and co-chaired the publications and practices committee, served on the membership and marketing committee, as well as the North America board. “›I have always enjoyed the opportunity to network, share best practices, and learn from the members of the association. I look forward to bringing together my history with the association and my HR practitioner and global outsourcing work experience to provide the support and leadership needed [8]

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D. Zachary Misko to maintain and grow a world-class organisation. I am excited to work with the global membership, thought leadership councils, and the executive boards in my new capacity!” Misko joins SharedXpertise with more than 20 years of human resource practitioner and management expertise in a variety of arenas, most recently from KellyOCG, where he was a global vice president. Prior to joining KellyOCG, he held HR practitioner/director roles in the biotechnology, life sciences, and direct merchant industries. Misko is a LEAN Six Sigma certified expert and has contributed to the global human resources industry as a speaker, chair, board member, and author with many organisations, events, and partners. The Recruiting Awards/TalentHQ named him as Innovator of the Year, in part for his utilisation of LEAN methodologies within the recruitment process. Additionally, Misko has delivered and spoken at more than 200 seminars and conferences on a variety of human resource topics. He also holds a Certified Outsourcing Professional (COP) designation.

EUROPE

11-13 November 2014 l Edinburgh www.HROTodayforum.com/EU

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Supporting:

Cover Story

Fast Food Growing Fast McDonald’s is looking to ramp up global hiring. That requires adapting to local tasBy Russ Banham

McDonald’s is looking to ramp up global hiring. That requires adapting to local tastes. By Russ Banham Shaun Ruming started his career at McDonald’s behind the counter serving up Big Macs and fries in his native Australia. Today, he is leading the effort to double the size of the company’s workforce in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa (APMEA), increasing the number of employees in these regions from 450,000 to one million by 2020. This enormous responsibility is in good hands, given Ruming’s resume, which includes stints in HR, employee training, and the corporate office, in addition to that teenage restaurant experience. Not only is the giant fast-food company spreading its wings further across the globe, it has no interest in pushing American tastes on foreign palates. Rather, it

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plans to pull insight on food choices in the different regions before serving it up. Indeed, Ruming and his colleagues in operations have the rare opportunity to innovatively refashion McDonald’s on a global scale. While its restaurants will always serve signature dishes like Big Macs, patrons may have it with curried soup on the side in an environment that looks, well, much less like McDonald’s. Key to the company’s expansion plans is finding the right human capital skillsets across APMEA, training them, and then growing their capabilities. Ruming acknowledges the

Cover Story

importance of customer service, as much as the McDonald’s menu and ambience, to win diners in APMEA. “There is a great desire for popular brands in emerging markets,” says Ruming, McDonald’s vice president and chief people officer in APMEA. “And we have one of the best-known and well-respected brands anywhere.” He backs up his assertion citing a new McDonald’s in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. When the first restaurant opened in the country, 35,000 people showed up that initial weekend, the lines stretching around the block as if a Taylor Swift concert was playing. Says Ruming, “We figured we’d be busy, but we never expected it would be that much.” Customer Focus McDonald’s is employing a variety of different business models in the disparate regions. In Australia, for instance, the company uses the conventional franchise model it follows in the United States, whereby the franchisee owns all the capital stock, runs the business, and absorbs the cash flow, paying rent and royalties to McDonald’s, which owns the building and the land it sits on. In the Philippines, all of the Middle East, and in 17 other markets, the company pursues a developmental licensee model, whereby McDonald’s corporate has no capital invested in the business, but lends its expertise and support to a local entrepreneur who pays royalties to the company (the case in Vietnam, where Henry Nguyen, a Vietnam War veteran who always wanted to open a restaurant, returned to the country of his birth to launch its premier McDonald’s). In China, the company pursues both of these business models, as well as variations.

“There is a great desire for popular brands in emerging markets. And we have one of the best-known and wellrespected brands anywhere.” —Shaun Ruming, vice president and chief people officer in APMEA, McDonald’s

While these business structures are important, Ruming maintains that the biggest challenge for McDonald’s is hiring the right people. Certainly, in places like China and India, finding people is no problem. The problem is recruiting individuals who are people-people—naturally consumer-centric. They also need to have accumulated at least the equivalent of a high school education, want to work in a retail setting, and will steadfastly support and communicate the company’s brand and value proposition, “telling our story in an authentic way,” Ruming says. Obviously, transforming from 450,000 employees to one million in less than six years is a huge engagement process. But the opportunity for individuals who do hire on is enticing, to say the least. McDonald’s believes the company offers the means to lift someone from one socio-economic group to a higher one. In places like Mongolia, a job at the company can literally move an entire family out of poverty, Ruming says. Just like he did over his career, employees can start with a relatively SPRING 2014

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Cover Story

menial job, and by participating in McDonald’s training curriculum rise to a management position—possibly senior management levels. Even at the bottom of the company’s employment pyramid, workers will acquire lifelong skills, such as food safety, cash management, customer service, collaboration, and leadership.

“Education is a huge retention strategy

McDonald’s employment value proposition is predicated on the objectives of its workforce, rather than defined or dictated by HR, says Ruming. He points to a company survey in APMEA three years ago, in which employees were asked what had attracted them to a job at McDonald’s, why they have stayed with the company, and what they liked most about their work.

their child learning useful skills.”

Their responses indicated: • the importance of an environment in which their friends and families would feel welcome; • a place that was community-focused; and • sheer enjoyment about working in a team-based atmosphere. Ruming says the findings of the survey guided the company’s recruitment and retention strategies across APMEA. For instance, in some regions McDonald’s touts the flexibility of job hours, a boon to working mothers and teenaged students. “We’ve enabled it so their lives come first, then their jobs,” he adds. In many regions, the company sponsors employees’ undergraduate education and MBA studies. McDonald’s curriculum also provides local classes in English as a second language, particularly in Japan and Korea, where employees are put through an accelerated programme. In some cases, this learning is provided over the Internet. “Education is a huge retention strategy for us,” Ruming says. “I’ve never heard from a parent that they didn’t want their child learning useful skills.” Also part of the company’s retention efforts is social networking. McDonald’s sponsors more than 450 social networks across APMEA, permitting a worker in Jerusalem, for instance, to reach out to someone in Sydney, Australia, with a question. [12]

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for us,” Ruming says. “I’ve never heard from a parent that they didn’t want

The company ultimately hopes to connect all its 1.8 million employees across the planet via social networking, which makes tremendous sense given the 16 different time zones its employees now work in. These networks are not just of value to hamburger flippers, dishwashers, and the smiling faces at the cash register. “We might get a fantastic idea from one restaurant through the network that we can apply in other restaurants,” Ruming explains. Recently, McDonald’s learned over the network that a hamburger called the Prosperity Burger in Malaysia, sold during the Chinese New Year, was a particular diner favorite. The company subsequently sold the burger with the same name in Singapore and Hong Kong during the following year’s Chinese New Year, yielding “an absolutely huge uptake,” he notes.

Cover Story

Tomorrow’s Fast Food Like all mature brands, McDonald’s yearns to innovate without affecting its core competencies, brand value proposition, or the expectations of consumers. Rather than develop cookie-cutter franchises across APMEA, its restaurants and menus are customised to the particular culture and its denizens’ tastes. In China, for example, patrons can order a Big Mac with a side of several different rice dishes, which are not available in the U.S.—well, not yet. Since the U.S. is a melting pot of the many cultures represented by APMEA, it would make great business sense for the company to take what it learns overseas and apply it, where appropriate, to domestic and other markets. The operational challenge is the complexity this would present for the company’s supply chain. Fast food is a business based on volume—a focus on ground beef dishes can assist a price point appealing to large groups of people watching their pennies. In short, McDonald’s will apply its lessons from APMEA gradually.

On the other hand, Ruming says the company’s experiments in restaurant design may take root a lot sooner. “We’re always learning how to make our physical plant and restaurants more contemporary and appealing, with cafes and wireless,” he notes. “We’re also looking to do things where people order a Big Mac and fries from their tablets or smartphones and a guy on a motorbike delivers it.” In these various instances, APMEA will be both a testing ground and McDonald’s new playground. In fact, the latter is already the case. More than 250 of its restaurants dot such faraway places as Brunei and Singapore. There are 15 McDonald’s in Oman, 18 in Cyprus, and 28 in Qatar. Even the tiny Pacific Islands can count 14 locations where locals can buy their McNuggets. Who knows? Someday one of the employees at the three McDonald’s in Mauritius could become the company’s next CEO. As McDonald’s itself would say, “I’m lovin’ it.” Russ Banham can be reached at www.russbanham.com

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Regional Report

Inside APAC A roundtable of experts discuss growth, technology, hiring, and more. By Faye Holland In February 2014, the board of advisors for APAC chapter of the HRO Today Services and Technology Association discussed how they expect their regional market to develop in 2014 and beyond. The group agreed that the Asia Pacific region can be divided into five or six markets based on maturity and country-specific needs. • In Australia and New Zealand, second- and third-generation buyers understand what they need and have a sophisticated view of outsourcing recruitment and other HR services. • Hong Kong and Singapore have larger and more advanced talent markets, with high volumes and educated clients, many of whom understand outsourcing. • In emerging markets, mainly in Southeast Asia, outsourcing is a new concept and buyers are inexperienced; India and China are more mature. • Japan and Korea are widely viewed as challenging markets which require in-country delivery. This diversity among countries in the region creates the

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need for a variety of HR services and technology, but also opportunity for regions to learn from each other and also from the experiences of clients in Europe, Middle East, and Africa and North America. Within all APAC markets, there are also company-specific differences. Organisations with central-buying patterns may have sophisticated buyers operating in less sophisticated markets. Plus clients in industries where scale is important are moving into cheaper countries. Many clients in APAC are multinationals, finding that salary inflation is driving up costs. To curb this, they are looking for good market access in order to support talent attraction, engagement, and development. HRO providers are stepping in to deliver more complex service offerings to suit these needs. In 2013, global managed service programmes (MSP) emerged very strongly out of North America to help gain visibility into cost and use of contingent labor. Multi-region deals have contributed to APAC showing an accelerated maturity in this space. During 2014, the idea of ‘total talent’ programmes will

Regional Report

gain momentum. Organisations will look to manage both full-time and contingent labor through one management programme. APAC clients are increasingly asking providers to design or extend global programmes, but they may not have previous experience of that level of complexity—comparable to the US or U.K.—which is creating change management issues. New Methods of Talent Acquisition Providers are finding APAC employers becoming more interested in how to acquire talent in novel ways, which is linked to a trend towards specialism in HR skills. Identifying passive candidates is critical in APAC; the technical ability to source well and find candidates who are currently in jobs but not actively looking will be the key client requirement over the next 12 months. Social media. Social media is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. Sourcing through social media is increasingly being used in a more structured approach. This allows for organisations to measure its effectiveness and integrate it into the entire recruitment process. Employee referral programmes. Clients are also becoming more open to formalised employee referral programmes. In the past, programmes were mainly informal and not wellstructured, well-measured, or strategic. However, progress in gaining acceptance for referral programmes is gradual and requires a change in mindset to ensure employees have interest and will participate. Branding. As a direct source market, branding is also a challenge, but some companies are reluctant to address it. Providers are trying to work with them to help them understand and develop their branding. One approach is to conducting surveys. This will allow organisations to gain a better for their image and how it is viewed in the marketplace. Tactics to improve branding will make direct sourcing programmes work better. Bleeding-edge approaches. Gaming, realistic job previews, and situational judgment type testing are all new types of methods of finding and evaluating talent. While APAC companies are starting to take an interest, they are hesitant in executing them at their organisations. Providers see the value of these approaches: In markets where competition for candidates is strong, employers can gain an edge if they have a hiring approach that is compelling and better than competitors. Something to consider: In Asia, most candidates are head hunted so it can be more difficult to put them

through a screening process which uses a technique such as gaming. Only time will tell if interest and adoption grows. Engaging Employees In Asia, the majority of people can access the internet on their phones and do—so a mobile strategy is essential, particularly for campus hiring and recruiting younger workers. The way people use technology in APAC is very integrated, and providers are trying to leverage this. Mobile apps need to be updated and improved constantly to align with how candidates want to use them. The market is increasingly looking to push procurement of technologies and social media tools to a third party rather than clients themselves having ownership. Since most candidates are recruited by a headhunter in APAC, and there is very low unemployment rates in the fastgrowing economies, employee engagement programmes are essential. APAC clients are increasingly asking providers for them. Another key trend in APAC is the integration of multiple technology platforms in the recruitment process. Organisations are trying to consolidate information and processes through a new approach to technology. Clients are moving towards a preference for simplified systems which create the appearance of a single provider. This provides a single touch rather than multiple platforms which require integration. Technology providers are consolidating, also reflecting the trend towards integration of multiple technology platforms. But a roadblock: Technology partners are not ready to deliver on this yet so the timeframe often goes beyond 12 and 18 months.

HRO TODAY ASSOCIATION – APAC BOARD OF ADVISORS • Rocky Esquerra, Procter & Gamble • Danny Choo, ISG • Girish Tutakne, Accenture • Sue Campbell, Futurestep • Peta Steele, IBM • Rob Line, Cartus • Caleb Baker, Allegis Talent2 • Doug Edmonds, Randstad Sourceright

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Talent Acquisition

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Talent Acquisition

Competitive Advantage An on-site team of specialists guided the alignment of Nationwide’s contingent and permanent workforce, resulting in reduced costs and increased efficiency. By Russ Banham

Following the crisis of 2008, many financial organisations confronted a dire reality—a substantial dearth of specific skill sets to execute complex and rapidly developing regulatory demands. A fluctuating market that percolated the previous six years now boiled over, as HR departments ransacked the globe for the needed proficiencies. Recruiting this talent became a strategic imperative for many enterprises, given the competition for skills in short supply and the growing global demand. This was the case whether the human capital was deployed on a fulltime or contingent basis. Few companies would disagree that having the right people in the right jobs is the most vital business asset—by far. Nationwide Building Society in Swindon, England, the world’s largest building society, the second-largest savings provider and a top-three provider of mortgages in the U.K., would concur with this assessment. Eighty per cent of Nationwide’s workforce is permanent full-time staff. The remainder is comprised of the high-level skill sets that many other financial services organisations were competing for—IT project managers, software developers, and engineers, not to mention temporary workers. “We often need to bring in expertise for system upgrades, and we need these skills on a flexible basis,” explains Robert Aldrich, Nationwide HR director. “In the past, we’d be deluged by outside recruiters sending us resumes for people who would come here for a week to a couple years. For example, if we launched a big campaign involving attractive savings rates, we might need to build a customer support staff for three months.”

WHY ENGAGEMENT MATTERS Engaged employees positively affect corporate performance outcomes, according to a recent meta-analysis of 1.4 million employees by Gallup, a global research organisation and consultancy. The firm’s 2013 study indicates that engaged employees result in the following organisational benefits: •

37 per cent lower absenteeism

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25 per cent lower turnover (in high-turnover organisations)

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65 per cent lower turnover (in low-turnover organisations)

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28 per cent less shrinkage

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48 per cent fewer safety incidents

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41 per cent fewer patient safety incidents

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41 per cent fewer quality incidents (defects)

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10 per cent higher customer metrics

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21 per cent higher productivity

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22 per cent higher profitability

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Talent Acquisition

Since partnering with Advantage xPO in February 2009, the workforce solutions engagement has delivered on its promise, cutting recruitment costs, increasing the quality of internal hires, and producing a 22 per cent cost savings in the first year. Both parties are now pursuing an extension for another five years. The problem was managing the more than 100 recruitment providers that submitted resumes for consideration each time a need for contingent labour arose. Since this employment ranged from highly skilled project managers to less skilled, clerical positions, the pay rates ran the gamut. Then, an encounter between Aldrich and Karen Browne, former president of workforce solutions provider Advantage xPO, charted a way out of the morass. “I met Karen, we talked, and I soon realized that her firm could handle all those different providers for us,” Aldrich says. “But, what sealed the deal was the unique way in which they would do this work.” The singular value proposition of Advantage xPO is to put its people inside the four walls of its clients. To the outside eye, they would appear to be actual employees of the companies they service. “Karen told me they would work right here in Swindon as part of our (recruitment) team, get to know the culture and special needs of our organisation, and provide a much higher level of efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” says Aldrich. “Right from the outset, she said they would consolidate our spend on contingent workers and centralise

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the supplier relationships, driving down the cost of recruitment while improving service levels and innovation,” he adds. “I was sold.” Although Nationwide subsequently went through the usual process of sending RFPs to providers, Advantage xPO had an advantage from the start—its on-the-ground managed services. As Browne puts it, “To be successful as a solutions provider, you have to absolutely position yourself as a seamless extension of the customer. We’ve taken this to mean literally operating within their HR structure. Our people perform work as Nationwide, not Advantage xPO—we are a true extension of their internal team.” Bodies in Motion The five-year partnership between the organisations is financially substantial, the parties contend, with industry scuttlebutt estimating significant cost savings for Nationwide. “It’s a pretty sizable deal for us,” Aldrich acknowledges. “And we’re a pretty sizable building society.” Founded in 1846 as the Provident Union Building Society, the firm has grown through more than 100 mergers into the world’s largest building society as well as a major provider of credit cards, and tallies a membership of 15 million people or one in four U.K. households. It is owned and run for the benefit of these members, much like a mutual insurance company in the United States. From an administrative standpoint, Nationwide is equally outsized, with more than 18,000 permanent and contingent workers serving its huge customer base, one fifth of them constantly in flux. Since partnering with Advantage xPO in February 2009, the workforce solutions engagement has delivered on its promise, cutting recruitment costs, increasing the quality of internal hires, and producing a 22 per cent cost savings in the first year. Both parties are now pursuing an extension for another five years. The key to the partnership, Aldrich maintains, is having Advantage xPO support staff right outside his office door. “They understand and share our values, which ensures that we sell the organisation in a consistently positive way [to job candidates],” he explains. “What marks this out is the closeness of the relationship. I’ve got 15 people from their team within a shout, in addition to 350 of my HR colleagues—all right here. They’ve all gotten to know each

Talent Acquisition

other extremely well, which makes this seamless from a business-client perspective.” With more than 75 per cent of the original team still in place, Advantage xPO has developed an integral business partnership with Nationwide. “Whether it be a professional contractor to design a new banking platform or an hourly temp to handle the administrative needs of a new customer, our tenured team understands what they are looking for,” remarks Chris Evans, head of strategic accounts for Advantage xPO. “We’re finding the right talent to keep pace with the emerging compliance and regulatory pressures of the business by being on the ground and anticipating where the industry is moving.” This profound collaboration yields superior recruitment processes. Says Aldrich, “I have the confidence that we will have the best program managers, people with absolutely the right skills who share our culture, when I need them.” This ability to have the right people in the right positions at a specific time when they are needed is a powerful competitive differentiator. As Aldrich attests, there is intense rivalry for the specific skill sets Nationwide seeks, a competitive battle that continues to heat up. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the proportion of employers reporting a “war for talent” increased sharply from 20 per cent in 2009 to 62 per cent in 2013. Six in 10 companies report difficulties filling key employment vacancies, at present. Obviously, companies can’t grow and prosper if they cannot attract the right skill sets. When they have these proficiencies, the financial benefits are substantial. A study by the Academy of Management Journal indicates that the top 15 per cent of companies with superior recruitment and talent management practices achieve considerably higher sales per employee, market value per employee, and profits per employee. This may explain why company CFOs have ranked the “ability to attract and retain qualified workers” as one of their five major concerns over the past two years, according to a survey by Duke University and CFO Magazine. Certainly, no organisation can afford the time to wait for capable candidates to fill vacant slots, even on a contingent basis. If a company hesitates, its competitors will sneak in and take the best. Small wonder why Nationwide puts such a premium on the consistent

“They understand and share our values, which ensures that we sell the organisation in a consistently positive way. I’ve got 15 people from their team within a shout, in addition to 350 of my HR colleagues. They’ve gotten to know each other extremely well, which makes this seamless from a business-client perspective.” —Robert Aldrich, Nationwide SPRING 2014

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Talent Acquisition

The partnership has paid off for Nationwide with a decrease in the overall cost of talent acquisition. This can be attributed to the fact that Advantage xPO has whittled down the number of outside recruiters. “Fewer recruiters provide better people,” Aldrich says. marketing of its employment brand and culture. “With more than 100 (recruitment) providers, we needed a way for all of them to see us as we are, in order to tell the story of who we are,” Aldrich says. “Advantage xPO ensures that they do just that.” Long-Term Flexibility One way the partnership is working proactively is their collaborative approach to workforce planning. “I cannot know in advance exactly what skills we might need on a contingent basis two years down the road,” Aldrich says. “Even if I did know, the requirements could suddenly change. This insists upon a high degree of analytical insight and flexibility. Advantage xPO is extremely customer centric in terms of being flexible.” Browne agrees. “Overwhelmingly, we are partnered with large organisations that have little influence over their monthly talent forecast. True excellence is our ability to meet the scalable needs of these growing organisations.” Achieving this goal requires a real-time, in-step approach to on-site strategic account management. “We are highly customer centric,” Browne says. “Our hybrid approach calls for on-site, customer-facing value added services that are supplemented by offsite support when the solution requires this.” She adds, “What we don’t have is 300 recruiters sitting in a centralised hub outside a client’s locale thinking they know what needs to happen for that company. This is why we have been successful in helping clients recruit higher-

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Talent Acquisition

end IT and engineering roles; the candidates that are in short supply and high demand.” In fact, research shows that 100 per cent of Advantage xPO’s clients report that the firm’s approach and execution is improving their talent acquisition operation. The partnership has paid off for Nationwide, Aldrich contends. The overall cost of talent acquisition is down because Advantage xPO has whittled down the number of outside recruiters. “Fewer recruiters provide better people,” he says. He cites several other positive metrics, including: • 83 per cent of employees believe that Nationwide delivers great service to its customers, compared to 71 per cent in the financial services industry. • 93 per cent of employees understand the relationship between their job and Nationwide’s overall goals (financial services industry average is 80 per cent). • 71 per cent recommend Nationwide to family and friends as a place to work (financial services industry average is 66 per cent). • Employee engagement and enablement scores, as well as employee retention rates, are among the highest in U.K. financial services. Engaged employees are vital to Nationwide’s success, the HR director asserts. “When recruiters bring in people that don’t fit our culture, we incur a cost to rehire,” Aldrich explains. “In addition, this can be very disruptive to the business, affecting customer satisfaction, as well as other employees’ peace of mind. Disengaged employees take a toll on all companies, no matter how superior their products or services are.” Engaged employees hired on a contingent basis can also serve as a pipeline of potential candidates for longer-term jobs. “We’re putting more and more interns, for example, into permanent positions,” Aldrich says. “This is because they were the right people from the start.” Certainly, having right people in the right jobs is the best way of turning human capital into financial capital. Having them there when needed most is the icing on the cake.

Russ Banham can be reached at www.russbanham.com

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Talent Acquisition

Within Reach A new report examines the current talent landscape. By Pam Berklich

Far from simply filling existing gaps as quickly and economically as possible, recruiting has become a highstakes competition to foresee economic conditions and business projections, estimate critical talent gaps as early as possible, and source the highest-quality talent available. Even in the face of economic recovery in many global markets, recruiting top talent remains a major concern; in particular, a shortage of skilled labour continues to vex hiring managers. Accessing quality talent remains a top concern. As many recent studies confirm, among the biggest challenges HR professionals face is recruiting quality talent. The 2013 PwC CEO Survey found more than half of United States CEOs report a shortage of skills is a potential threat to growth this year. Respondents to our RPO survey report similar frustration. Sixty-one per cent say they experience difficulty recruiting staff, and of those, 87 per cent blame a shortage of skilled recruiting staff in the roles required. Other critical challenges include being unable to offer a competitive salary (49 per cent) and offering an undesirable work location (30 per cent) —both of which only sustain the all-important challenge of attracting and retaining top talent.

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Hiring Challenges A shortage of high quality talent is a serious problem for more than two-thirds of companies. Sixty-eight per cent report talent shortages slow or stall the hiring process (see Figure 1). Among other top factors slowing the hiring process: hiring manager satisfaction (37 per cent), time-to-hire (36 per cent), cost-to-hire (25 per cent) and quality of recruiters (23 per cent). Not surprisingly more than a third report their organisation’s average time-to-hire is more than 45 days, a statistic signaling that despite reports of high unemployment, a number of roles are still very difficult to fill. Time-to-hire is still a difficult statistic to benchmark given variation by type of hire, industry, company size, and outsourced vs. inhouse recruiting. As a point of comparison, however, the Society for Human Resources Management reports the average time to-hire for large organisations—those with more than 1,000 employees—is 43 days. Time to hire for small organisations—defined as having fewer than 1,000 employees—is 29 days. Hiring appears robust for the coming year, both for internal full-time labour as well as contingent hires. Nearly three quarters (73 per cent) of companies surveyed plan to increase the number of internal full-time hires

Talent Acquisition

Figure 1 CONDITIONS THAT SLOW OR STALL THE HIRING PROCESS

in the next 12 months, and 57 per cent plan to increase the number of contingent hires. These numbers show robust hiring growth will continue across the globe in the coming yearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;despite reported high levels of unemployment. Talent Shortages In the industrialised world, 40 million workers are unemployed according to the International Labour Organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;yet more than ever, companies are

suffering critical shortages of key talent across the globe. A 2012 study from Oxford Economics shows the imbalance of talent supply and demand across the globe will deteriorate over the next 10 years due to shortages in particular disciplines (e.g. so-called STEM jobs), as well as regional imbalances of labour supply and demand. In particular regions, severe talent shortages will define the next decade. For example, in the developed Asian economies, the demand for talent in the business services sector will increase by more than 50 per cent, while SPRING 2014

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Talent Acquisition

Figure 2 HOW WILL YOU USE OUTSOURCED RECRUITING FIRM FOR HIRING IN NEXT 12 MONTHS?

the demand for talent in life sciences within the same region will rise by only 8.2 per cent. In North America, the energy sector will require a 22.7 per cent bigger workforce, while the demand for talent in financial services will drop 8 per cent.

recruitment firms to augment recruiting needs, the most common applications include sourcing, screening and testing (86 per cent); applicant and recruitment performance tracking (45 per cent); and reference checking (43 per cent). (See Figure 2.)

Even in the face of relatively high levels of unemployment, recruiting professionals are still vying to capture top talent—a heated competition that will not abate anytime soon.

In this case, third-party recruiting is a carved-out function, a tactic applied to parts and portions of the recruiting function. Almost 70 per cent use outsourced recruiting for less than a quarter of their hiring—meaning outside assistance is likely only used for particularly challenging hires. The majority of recruiting is still conducted within country borders. More than half of respondents (56 per cent) say less than 10 per cent of vacancies are filled cross-borders.

Approaches to Outsourcing As complexity of the talent management function grows, companies rely on outsourcing to fill gaps— particularly recruiting high-value professionals. We asked companies whether they outsource HR activities. Specifically, we wanted to understand to what extent companies outsource parts and portions of recruiting to multiple vendors (e.g., screening, sourcing, assessments, interviewing), as well as whether companies are using end-to-end recruitment process outsourcing (i.e., outsourcing the entire recruiting process to a single vendor). The complexity of the HR function—as well as the pressure to attract and retain high-value workers— continues to stretch the resources and technology of in-house HR departments. Not surprisingly, well over half (58 per cent) plan to use third-party recruiting firms to engage hires in next 12 months. Of those using

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One step beyond external recruiting support is recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), which was first introduced nearly 20 years ago. An RPO firm manages the end-to-end recruiting process, including onboarding of new hires. It differs from traditional staffing and recruitment outsourcing because it assumes full ownership of the recruitment process, including strategy, systems, methodology, and technology. Unlike traditional outsourcing, the full continuum of recruiting activities— for all or a select group of skill sets—is handled by a single vendor, which is solely responsible for delivering results. In the hunt for high-value talent—and in particular

Talent Acquisition

In the 20th century, capital was the basis of advantage, but in the 21st century, talent will drive global advantage. “knowledge workers” who work in fields like engineering, technology, and the sciences—companies are turning to RPO providers to outmaneuver the competition. RPO firms offer dedicated infrastructure and expertise to find and secure scarce talent, and in many cases operate across multiple employment markets. Familiarity with RPO is still not the norm. Fifty-four per cent of respondents say they are only somewhat familiar or not at all familiar with RPO. And only 26 per cent fully outsource their recruiting/hiring process using an RPO model. Overwhelmingly, companies that outsource recruiting services hire vendors on a stand-alone contract, separate from other HR outsourcing services (68 per cent use a separate provider). Companies are most likely to use a third-party recruiting firm to hire professional staff (50 per cent), though thirdparty recruiting is also common in hiring temporary or contingent labour (36 per cent). Of those respondents who do not currently outsource a whole or part of the recruiting function, 40 per cent indicate they would like to do so in the future. Areas of particular interest for outsourcing include professional recruiting (48 per cent), contingent or temporary labour (38 per cent), and outsourcing all recruiting responsibilities (34 per cent). Overwhelmingly respondents cite “faster time-to-hire” as the key benefit of a third-party recruiter partnership, followed by integrating multiple sourcing channels (58 per cent) and lower cost to recruit (51 per cent).

Talent Supply Chain These findings support a more general, growing interest among global companies to adopt a talent supply chain management mindset. As the name suggests, talent supply chain management is much like traditional supply chain management: directing a network of suppliers and resources to ensure the optimal mix of price, access, and risk. The high level of interest in RPO—including professional recruiting as well as contingent and temporary labour staffing—demonstrates a greater degree of sophistication about balancing the cost of recruitment against other critical variables, particularly access. Whereas a decade ago outsourcing was usually a costsavings tactic, in the future, talent-related outsourcing is as likely to be related to accessing top-flight talent or improving time-to-hire ratios. In fact, in a 2013 Talent Supply Chain study sponsored by Kelly Services, companies defined as best-in-class were three times more likely to “strongly agree” they take greater risks to secure the talent they need, and two times more likely to “strongly agree” accessing high quality talent when needed is more important than cost. For many global organisations, recruiting the right talent at the right time is the single most influential factor driving growth and innovation. In the 20th century, capital was the basis of advantage, but in the 21st century, talent will drive global advantage. Far from simply filling existing gaps as quickly and economically as possible, recruiting has become a high-stakes competition to foresee economic conditions and business projections, estimate critical talent gaps as early as possible, and source the highest-quality talent available. All of this is part of a larger trend toward managing talent needs holistically across all categories of work—a discipline called talent supply chain management. Outsourcing recruiting is no longer primarily about carving out an existing internal function and giving it to the lowest-cost provider. Rather, outsourcing recruiting allows organisations to access niche expertise that is simply too difficult or too expensive to grow in house. Third-party recruiters and RPO firms offer companies expertise in particular disciplines or geographies,

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Talent Acquisition

Figure 3 WHAT DO YOU EXPECT A VENDOR/PARTNER TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE?

Responses only by those who may outsource recruiting in future.

Outsourcing recruiting is no longer primarily about carving out an existing internal function and giving it to the lowest-cost provider. Rather, outsourcing recruiting allows organisations to access niche expertise that JT TJNQMZ UPP EJGmDVMU PS UPP expensive to grow in house.

Figures 4 and 5 PLAN TO INCREASE NUMBER OF INTERNAL FULL-TIME HIRES IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?

import effective processes and procedures, and present regulatory and risk-management expertise. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, RPO allows companies to make intentional decisions about whether to prioritise cost savings, access to talent, or risk-control (or some optimized mix of the three) depending on the category of work and area of expertise.

PLAN TO INCREASE NUMBER OF CONTINGENT HIRES IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?

Organisations surveyed project a strong growth in hiring: 73 per cent to increase number of internal, full-time hires and 57 per cent to increase contingent hires in the coming 12 months (see Figures 4 and 5 ). Given this and the competitive landscape for attracting quality talent, we expect organisations may increasingly look to external recruiting partners to augment their own capabilities or fully outsource the recruiting function in the years ahead.

Companies we surveyed are optimistic about the benefits of outsourced recruiting. Eighty-eight per cent believe outsourced recruiting offers faster time-to-hire, 58 per cent say outside providers integrate multiple sourcing channels, and 51 per cent cite lower cost of recruitment using a third-party provider. (see Figure 3).

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Pam Berklich is senior vice president of direct hire practices for KellyOCG. The above was excerpted from the report Global Trends in RPO & Talent Recruitment 2014, prepared by KellyOGC in partnership with the HRO Today Services and Technology Association, HR.com, the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network, and the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.

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[27]

Mobility

Navigating the Mobility Landscape 10 suggestions to improve your global programme. By Ed Hannibal Recent research from Mercer reports that most multinational employers intend to increase the number of employees they send on both long-term and short-term global assignments over the next two years. The goal of most relocation programmes is to attract and transfer the right employees for the right amount of timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all while controlling costs. Here are 10 ways to help navigate the global mobility landscape. 1.

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Step back and get some perspective. Knowing where your assignment policies stand versus those of your peers is an important first step in maintaining an effective global mobility programme. Some of your policies may vary significantly from those of your competitors. Employers need to know where their mobility programmes fit in the competitive landscape, and decide how to adjust outlying elements. As the general economy emerges from an austere, cost-cutting time, some employers may find they have reduced too much to remain competitive. Other employers that have not benchmarked their plans for years may find that HRO TODAY GLOBAL

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they are overpaying in areas such as incentive premiums or housing for mobile employees. That variation may be justified, but employers should at least know its direction and extent. 2.

Get assignee feedback from the right source. Surprisingly, assignees rarely express dissatisfaction about their compensation and allowances in opinion surveys. But issues that typically bother them mostâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;poor communications, lack of relocation support, ineffective service providers, and repatriation planningâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;cannot be fixed simply by spending more money. To get candid feedback that can result in meaningful policy improvements, consider using a third party. Such companies supplement surveys with interviews and focus groups. Having an unbiased party involved will garner more honest responses.

Expand your map. Many employers are pushing beyond typical expatriate locations of Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, and Dubai to less typical ones. As the global

Mobility

economy recovers, traditional expat cities are no longer central. Companies are investing where the gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow at aboveaverage rates such as the emerging “MINT” countries of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey as well as Eastern Europe and second-tier cities in China. Make sure to incent your employees and have the proper support programmes in place for transferees to adjust to—and succeed in—non-traditional host locations. 4.

Find the right balance. While managers may be pushing for more flexibility with decision-making, it can lead to greater complexity in managing your programme and less equity among expatriates. Exceptions to policies will occur, but be sure managers track them—and list reasons for them. Give your leadership clear metrics to understand the balance of priorities. Important metrics to track include total programme costs, average cost per assignee, and turnover among assignees within two years after their assignments. Today’s technology offers the ability to track these metrics automatically as well as reporting. Scout host neighborhoods for new expatriates. Housing costs are often the largest discretionary portion of total mobility costs (after salary and related taxes), and local housing markets can change significantly during the year. For expatriates heading out in 2014, be sure to use timely, accurate, neighborhood-specific housing cost data for “host” cities. Set appropriate rental guidelines and communicate them clearly to expatriates and relocation firms before they search for housing. Consider moving your approval process farther up the chain of command so that senior managers must approve exceptions to stated policies. Align expatriate programmes to talent management strategies. As your company expands in other countries, it becomes increasingly important that senior executives have hands-on experience outside their own home countries. Even if they are solid managers in their home countries, they may flounder in international settings unless they have prior experience as an expatriate. Build a pipeline of potential leaders by placing talented employees in important geographies so they can earn critical skills for leadership development. This may require some forecasting. Be sure to calculate how long current leaders are expected to serve in their roles, what skills their successors will need, and where to invest in staff across the globe.

Track your business travelers and short-term assignees closely. As governments seek new areas of potential tax revenue, employers need to know precisely how many days per year their business travelers and shortterm employees are situated in which locations, both domestically and internationally. Some organisations will outsource the task of tracking employees’ locations and duration of time abroad to large travel agencies or relocation firms – but this approach will work only if all employees are required to make their travel plans through the designated agency. It is critical to also manage remuneration. Consider regular expensereimbursement programmes or a policy based on serviced flats accommodations with cost-effective per diem expenses.

Consider “local plus” as a compensation programme. Are some of your expatriates hired locally or directly hired on one-way or indefinite assignments? If so, a “local plus” compensation package may be more appropriate. This programme supplements local salaries with a handful of allowances. This approach has gained traction in Asia in recent years.

Localise when stay is extended. If your transfer has been in country for five or more years, it may be time to consider localising them. This means aligning expatriated employees’ compensation and benefits package with local market levels.

10. Tweak index-based allowances. Re-examine assumptions made when computing cost-of-living allowances and hardship premiums based on differences between home and host locations. Consider segmenting allowances for different levels of employees. Most cost-of-living indexes embed assumptions about employees’ familiarity with host location spending patterns. And if an organisation has not revisited their allowance methodologies for a few years, they can result in overly generous cost-ofliving allowances in many host cities. Global mobility experts have as many as six different indexes to choose among, and they vary by how efficient employers expect their assignees to be when shopping in their host cities. Changing those indices can be both cost-effective and realistic.

Ed Hannibal is global leader for Mercer’s mobility services.

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Developing Leaders

Expatriate Games The traits leaders need to lead teams successfully. By Ryan Daly

More and more jobs are being added overseas. In fact, 35 of the largest multinational companies based in the United States are adding jobs overseas at more than twice the rate as they are domestically, according to the Wall Street Journal. Fortunately, emerging markets are ripe with talentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a recent Fortune magazine article cited Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s booming IT sector, with no shortage of talented engineers.

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Despite that good news, when it comes to finding managers for work in emerging markets, companies are feeling the crunch. For example, 67 per cent of multinational organisations operating in India struggle to build an effective management team, according to a study from ManpowerGroup. Why?

Developing Leaders

It might seem that the reason is international assignments aren’t for everyone. After all, managing a team is difficult; managing a team through language and cultural barriers is exponentially more difficult. But these usually aren’t the reason expatriate managers fail; most fail because they lack basic leadership skills. Organisations tend to promote individuals for one of two reasons. Some promote individuals based on their apparent leader-like behavior, i.e., for being willing to take charge. Others promote individuals based on performance. However, willingness to take charge indicates ambition, not leadership; meanwhile, research shows that only 30 per cent of high performers are potential leaders. Not only that, when you promote a talented performer without leadership potential, you end up losing a good technical person and gaining a bad manager. At its essence, effective leadership is the ability to build and maintain a high-performing group. People universally look for four characteristics in a leader:

Managers face an additional set of challenges. They must manage through cultural and communication barriers and the stress and social isolation of an unfamiliar environment. That requires a unique set of skills. So it’s no surprise that only 29 per cent of executives surveyed by Ernst & Young said their companies effectively place employees into overseas assignments without a big disruption. Research psychologists from National Taiwan University and the University of Illinois studied a group of 83 expatriates working in Taiwan to test whether certain personalities more easily adjusted to international assignments. The team measured personality characteristics using the Five Factor Model of Personality, a model that measures extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and their opposites. They found that three characteristics accurately predicted improved performance in overseas assignments. 1.

Extroversion. Extroverted expatriates were more willing to interact with their overseas subordinates, colleagues, and boss. They were also more likely to socialise outside of work, easing their transition into a new environment.

Judgment. The success or failure of organisations depends on decision-making. Judgment has two parts: pre- and post-decision. Most business failures are the result of bad decisions that are compounded by an unwillingness to evaluate the decisions and change direction.

Agreeableness. Individuals who were more agreeable were more likely to establish friendships with locals and embrace local cultural norms, alleviating the sense of isolation many expats experience.

Openness to experience. Expatriates who were more open to experience had an easier time adjusting to novel living conditions and culture.

Competence. Good leaders are perceived as knowing what they are talking about, as being competent in the team’s business. Subordinates see leaders who lack business acumen as empty suits, and are unwilling to follow them.

Of course, there are dozens of variables outside of personality that can influence the success or failure of an expatriate assignment, ranging from ease of relocating and cost of living in the host country to previous overseas experience and arranging a work visa for expatriates’ spouses.

Vision. Good leaders explain to their team the significance of their mission and how it fits into the larger scheme of things. This vision clarifies roles, goals, and the way forward, thereby facilitating team performance.

Integrity. Integrity is the most important characteristic of good leaders. We want to know that the people in charge won’t take advantage of their positions: They won’t lie, steal, play favorites, or betray their subordinates.

By using these four basic characteristics as a framework for judging leadership potential, organisations can drastically reduce their failure rate among their managers. But is that enough?

However, many of those factors vary from case to case, and are therefore hard to incorporate into an expatriate selection program. By assessing candidates’ basic leadership skills and the personality characteristics that predict more successful adjustment to a foreign assignment, companies can drastically improve the success rate of their expatriate managers. Ryan Daly is a content analyst for Hogan Assessments.

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Market Insight

At Your Service Treat your employees like your clients, and see satisfaction and productivity rates rise. By Jill Goldstein

Most organisations measure their success solely based on how they are satisfying the needs of their customers. But there is a new approach to consider: Forward-thinking firms are introducing a mindset that views employees as the consumers. Taking an employee services approach—one that views employees as consumers—requires organisations to better understand employees’ expectations and to rethink how they deliver service their workforces. Today, most HR organisations are structured around traditional areas, including recruitment, learning, and payroll management. This same structure is used to service

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their workforces. But, in reality, employees don’t think in terms of these silos. Bottom line: They want their questions answered wherever they fall on the HR spectrum. A focus on high-touch employee services can provide thoughtful, end-to-end support to address employees’ concerns. But some areas will happen more frequently, and require some coordination for proper execution. The most common scenarios involve activities related to onboarding, transferring jobs, or termination. These are “moments of truth” for employees. They represent circumstances in which almost all employees—including the technically savvy Millennial generation—appreciate a personal touch. They also present opportunities

Market Insight

for organisations to offer better and more satisfying experiences that foster positive perceptions of the company, produce meaningful outcomes, and exceed expectations.

Creating seamless employee services at a given “moment of truth” requires an integrated operating model—one that coordinates multiple processes and systems. It also calls for trusted advisors who can act as a single point of contact for the employee confronting a “moment of truth.” These advocates, when trained to anticipate expectations and concerns, can more easily and completely satisfy employees’ and managers’ often unspoken requests. They become, in effect, the face of a highly personalised HR experience.

Things to Take Into Account Here are three additional considerations for adopting the employee services model: 1.

Start slow. Given the amount of change that may be required to offer end-to-end employee services, organisations should initially focus on just a few “moments of truth.” They should select the moments that have the strongest potential return and will materially affect workforce productivity, engagement, or satisfaction. In all likelihood, an organisation will find that a number of their employee and manager processes are candidates for change. In those circumstances, it is helpful to apply filters to narrow the list. For example, organizations may want to begin with processes that employees find least satisfying, involve a high number of transactions, or need to be completed during the work day. Define and redesign. Key activities within these “moments of truth” must be identified and the processes must be redesigned from both the employee and manager perspective. Although there may be a handful of moments—such as moving a personal residence—that can be handled solely by HR, most will require coordination with other groups including finance, procurement, and IT. Once organisations have designed the new processes, they need to think about operationalising them. This step requires asking tough questions: What are the access channels available to the workforce? What can we make easily available to our employees through technology? Where does it make sense to invest in high-

touch services? And for those services, what re-training is required of our contact center representatives and other HR professionals? 3.

Measure success. When it comes to metrics, indicators such as process accuracy and timeliness will continue to be important. So will the quality of employee experiences. Measuring the net promoter score, employee/manager satisfaction, and productive work time are all key indicators that should be considered. One company that made the switch to employee services reached 100 perc ent user satisfaction ratings. For a recently completed client pilot, employees who were on child-care leave returned to work one day earlier which, for this particular client, resulted in nearly 1,000 additional productive work days. Another company, for example, was able to return three hours of time each week to retail store managers. These types of outcomes have a direct bearing on a company’s bottom line.

While traditional HR processes will continue to deliver the lion’s share of services, the value of the employee services approach will become increasingly clear in the coming years. While not a blanket solution, for those “moments of truth” that are pivotal, a consumerism mindset and hightouch services can fundamentally change employees’ and managers’ experiences with the company. Employee services can set the stage for the next level of maturity for HR shared services and put the “human” back in human resources. Jill Goldstein is global lead of talent and HR BPO services for Accenture.

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Training

What’s Working in Gamification An industry CEO offers an overview— and lessons learned from the front lines. By Siddhesh Bhobe

Interest in gamification has accelerated in the past six months. While enterprise-wide large-scale deployments are still hard to come by, gamified applications increasingly are being seriously evaluated for their ability to engage and get more productivity out of employees, replacing traditional notions of employee appraisals, rewards and recognition, knowledge sharing, and learning. Here’s one surprising development: The most innovative uses of gamification are occurring in industries that you would expect to be slow at adoption—pharmaceutical and manufacturing. Here gamification is being used for enlivening and strengthening processes around audits, regulatory compliance, and promotion of best practices. Onboarding and learning are other key drivers fueling this trend. Organisations are looking to enrich employee training methodologies. From culture and voice training in call centers, to role-play games for senior project managers and customer service reps, gamification engages learners by

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creating memorable experiences. Starting with employee training is perhaps the best way to introduce gamification to a skeptical organisation, because it does not entail a major shift in organisation-wide policies, as would be required, for example, if you tried to change the way appraisals are conducted. For most organisations, gamification has primarily been about implementing a reward-points system coupled with leaderboards and badges in order to drive engagement within a closed user group. In our journey, we have quickly realised that such a points-based economy serves admirably for a few weeks until the novelty wears off. Then the incremental gains start to drop off drastically. So what are some simple ground rules that should significantly improve the chances of success in your gamification endeavors?

Training

The 4A Model of Engagement For Employees The most basic tenet of gamification is the levels of engagement. The 4A model—aware, active, addicted, and amplified—is well understood in the context of retail and eCommerce, and should form the core of your user engagement strategy for any application, workflow, or portal that works with real people. Unless you measure the engagement scores of your employees, on an individual basis and in real time, and emit the right signals, your initiative is unlikely to connect with your employees, who will quickly drop off in pursuit of something else. For example, when I land on any eCommerce site through a Google ad, I am only an “aware” customer, and at this point, the site needs to let me consume. Blanking out the site and requiring me to login to Facebook is the online version of demanding that I swipe my credit card on the billing counter before I am allowed to browse the merchandise in the store. So it’s no wonder that 98 per cent of customers are dropping off without buying anything—and in many cases, without even bothering to window shop on the portal! It is easy to understand why most gamification initiatives

fail. If you launch a gamified knowledge management portal, and expect employees to start contributing without a chance to do some “window shopping,” it should then be no surprise that they leave, and never come back. What if your gamification solution could actually track your employees’ behavior and engagement levels with the company, and emit the right signals, thereby pushing employees toward behavior that reinforces their strengths or addresses their weaknesses? Using innovative engagement analytics against past behavior, comparisons to industry benchmarks, and a big data store, organisations can understand what motivates and drives their employees, and guide them toward actions that create high-performance team members based on their unique level of engagement and skillset. For example, say you have an employee who has earned lots of kudos for her communication skills. Your performance management system can encourage this employee to share best practices or case studies. Alternatively, this employee can be suggested for a role in the sales organisation. There is a lot of data out there about your employees that

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Training

can be revealed through social, gamified applications. The question is: Are you able to use this data to your advantage? Myriad Applications At Persistent, a leading outsourced software development company based in India, more than 7,500 employees worldwide use eMee’s performance management and appraisal system. This platform provides a social gaming environment for 360-degree, continuous assessment and feedback. Since shifting to eMee, the company has saved numerous hours every year by eliminating the end-ofyear appraisal. More than half a million data points are captured on employee performance each year, which is used to provide insights on employee capabilities and training requirements. Anupal Banerjee, vice president HR at Viacom 18, has recently deployed eMee and says, “There’s a lot of work we are doing to dial up our performance management process further, and we believe that one must have the right tool and platform for effective delivery. For a media and entertainment company like ours, a gamified approach also fits in perfectly with our culture and demographics.”

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A large pharmaceutical company leverages eMee’s gamified quiz and assessment platform to deliver security and compliance questionnaires to its lab staff, successfully converting a critical-yet-boring activity into an enjoyable, social “game.” With more than 1,000 quizzes taken each month, data that is critical for audit and training of employees is now collected on a very regular basis. The gamification hype cycle is at its peak, but there are lots of exciting examples of successful gamification projects that should convince the fence-sitters. The use of rich gameplay, visualisations, and big data analytics, coupled with some simple ground rules, can help organisations exploit the same core human tendencies and habits that made computer and online games a multi-billion dollar industry. Gamification promises to fundamentally change the way we work, bringing fun and excitement back into the mundane as well as the critical, resulting in business success and benefit to all stakeholders. Siddhesh Bhobe is CEO of gamification platform company eMee in Pune Area, India, and an associate vice president of software company Persistent Systems, also of Pune.

Training

A few, simple ground rules can make a big difference to the success of your initiative: 1. Link points to real rewards and recognition. An overemphasis on points and badges will quickly lead to fatigue among the â&#x20AC;&#x153;players,â&#x20AC;? unless the points actually lead to career growth, financial rewards, and/or peer recognition. 2. Make it relevant to your business. Your gamification initiative should provide direct benefits to the business, and add to the value created by the employee. 3. Consider your demographics. The real benefits accrue when the game is in line with your company policies, vision, and culture. Expectations around user interface, collaboration, sharing, and rewards change dramatically based on geographies, age groups, and industry verticals. Your underlying platform needs to be able to adapt accordingly. 4. Avoid duplication of work for sake of the game. Nothing hurts more than additional overhead on already-stressed employees. 5. Keep it fresh. Even if you have everything ready, deploy only one subset at a time. Users will be thrilled at the continuous updates, and the strategy will help maintain interest when fatigue for the game starts to set in. 6. Create appointment dynamics. Ensure that users have some reason to keep coming back to check on status updates in the game. This is absolutely critical in the initial days when the game is not yet a habit with users. 7. Avoid gaming the game. There is nothing worse than knowing other users can game the system and do better than you. Build enough safeguards and approval workflows. 8. Have an internal champion. Before embarking on the project, ensure there is a passionate champion with direct approval and blessing of senior management. 9. Avoid over-simplification. This is related to points 1 and 2 above. Ensure that the use case you choose to gamify brings some real value add to the organization. 10. Start small and simple. Attempting to change an employee appraisal system thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been in use for a decade can be a very difficult target to achieve, but starting with gamified rewards and recognition and then gently nudging the company toward a new appraisal regime is a better action plan.

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Practitioner Training

Edinburgh Beckons 2014 HRO Today Forum Europe (11-13 Nov) to focus on talent’s new role. By The Editors

The growing influence of talent will be a key theme of the 2014 HRO Today Forum Europe summit. It’s scheduled for 1113 November in Edinburgh, U.K. If you’re like most HR practitioners, you’re finding that HR’s value equation is including more and more on how top talent drives HR programmes and business outcomes. HR programmes that successfully address talent—how to find it, how to get it, how to keep it, and how to get the most of it—will give their company’s real and lasting advantages in the marketplace.

• Career development: Build your own skills, and create succession plans for yourself. • Workplace engagement: How to boost productivity and increase employee retention. The keynote speaker will be Nita Clarke, one of the founders of Engage for Success, a voluntary movement for increasing employee engagement. She’s the director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA). She was the vice chair of the MacLeod Review on employee engagement and co-

Top of mind for most HR professionals is employee engagement. Engaged employees are more productive, and no one wants to think they aren’t getting the most of their talent. HR can drive overall success of the business by driving engagement—but one key is how. Content for the Forum will include what partners, technologies, and best practices you need not only to get employees engaged and productive, but a host of similarly strategic HR topics as well.

author of the report, Engaging for Success.

Content will be focused around the practitioner. The 2014 event will have visible HR mentors who will lead sessions (both plenary and tracks), will be available for lunch table discussions and for one-on-one meetings.

field of HR across Europe. Networking forms a strong part of

Topics to be discussed will include: • Employment branding: How to leverage your employment brand to attract and bring onboard top talent. • Sourcing: Create standardised policies and processes that both protect your company and get the best value.

Another highlight will be the HRO State of the Market, as defined by the HRO Today Services and Technology Association (formerly HROA). This will involve a presentation of leading research that answers questions about how talent can achieve business outcomes, as well as presentation showcases by some of the providers that are shaping the the Forum with activities across the breaks, receptions, and dinner. Tracks include: • Evidence-based HR • Payroll • Engaging your workforce

• Total workforce solutions: How to better manage both fulltime staff and contingent workers under one umbrella.

• Enabling technology (which will include the annual iTalent

• Big data: How to leverage data to drive the bottom line; also, the limits of big data, what it’s best used for, and when you need it.

• Sourcing, and

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competition)

• Talent acquisition.

GLOBAL

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APRIL 2014| |www.hroglobal.com www.hrotoday.com SPRING 2014

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HR Trends

The 6 Top Challenges Facing HR

An expert panel describes what HR must overcome in 2014. By Guy Ellis and Colin D Smith

What are the top challenges facing HR? Answering that question is no easy feat. In fact, it took a range of globally based delegates, supply-side professionals, and experts from human resources and the outsourcing industries to narrow it down to six. This was all part of a lively discussion about the roadblocks HR must overcome at the HRO Today Forum Europe in London. One consideration that came up was the economy. Let’s fact it: A challenge economy has been part of the corporate landscape for the last few years. By now, it feels like business as usual. The numbers suggest that we’re coming out of the recession and consumers might be regaining lost confidence and buying again. Some large organisations are grappling with whether now is the time to unlock capital reserves and begin to selectively invest. The discussion produced the following challenges: 1. Engaging your workforce. Many organisations during the recession showed willingness to keep staff even when business levels have fallen. However, employee memories are short. Most likely, staff will only remember the small pay increases and lack of development opportunities. History shows that most companies see an increase in employee turnover—especially high performers—as economies emerge from recessions. [40]

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While the evidence is starting to mount up as to why employee engagement so important, the recession has kept companies from investing heavily in it in a systemic way. However, economic growth coupled with the threat of losing key staff might just ignite the whole sector. The key challenge for HR: Ensuring that employee retention tools such as salary increases, development opportunities, training, and internal job movement are sufficiently funded and available to appropriate employees. In addition, HR should start to spend a lot more time supporting line managers as they engage and seek to retain key employees. Managers will need to focus on identifying those key employees, tracking the external marketplace, and acting as a conduit between the needs of individual businesses and the organization as a whole. 2. Building your workforce. Recruitment has been a significant driving force for change in human resources for many years and this will not change for the foreseeable future. This HR challenge continues to be driven by the widespread use of social media by all candidate generations, tried and tested SaaS technology, and the increasing acceptance by all levels of the organization of the benefits of a diverse workforce. Savvy HR teams recognise that both traditional (agency and

HR Trends

head-hunter) and second-generation (job boards) attraction channels are simply not enough. Traditional selection methods need to be complemented with new approaches in order to minimise recruiter bias. This will encourage finding the best person for the role as well as minimise potential business risks. The key challenge for HR: Being creative and resourceful in candidate attraction/selection. Multi-channel attraction strategies are critical to reach both diverse and passive candidates. The industry is also seeing a rise in employee branding programmes driven by the fact that candidates are increasingly making employer choices based on a range of criteria, including ethical and value judgments. After decades of hiding in the top drawers of HR directors, workforce planning has re-emerged since technology has made it a more viable option. Through technology, organisations have started to explore how they can extend existing talent processes to link business strategy and operational talent need. The key challenge for HR: Ensuring that workforce planning doesn’t become the rigid process it once was, and that management is properly engaged so that the resulting plans are both realistic and timely. 3. Enabling technology. Whilst money has been available to large companies to invest in technology over the last few years, there hasn’t been a large appetite to do so. This has been driven by economic uncertainty, greater capacity in employees, and the rapidly changing IT landscape with the emergence of ‘cloud’ technology. The HR space has been dominated for a long time by the industry giants. With the emergence of Software-as-aService (SaaS) options based in the cloud, niche IT providers are starting to create specialist solutions which are cheap to install, user friendly (often feeling like Microsoft or Apple consumer products) and use standardised processes. The latest development in this space combines outsourcing with high levels of customer interface. What has also become clear over the last few years is that SaaS is not always a substitute for on-premise software, but can be a powerful complement. In the next few years, HR will experience the widespread emergence of BYOD or bring your own device as a policy. This is driven by allowing employees to use their own tablet, smartphone phone, and laptop to access their organisation’s

systems. There is huge potential for better integration of an employee’s work/home balance, allowing greater employee flexibility. BYOD also offers easier access to training and development and a way to connect with Generation Y members. The key challenge for HR: Avoiding the vast implications for IT security. 4. Managing workforce partnerships. Outsourcing has been changing over the last few years. Deals have got smaller and more specialised as companies (and providers) have come to realise that outsourcing is both complex and often not cost efficient. The latest talk in the outsourcing industry is version 3.0. Whilst there is still some debate as to what this means, there is a no doubt that the industry wants to move away from process efficiencies and cost reduction and toward innovation and partnership. This presents an enormous challenge for HR and companies in general. Whilst outsourcing has enabled companies to generate immediate cash savings, many outsourcing deals have gone sour because of the difficulties of capturing the complexity of an organisation and their marketplace whilst providing the reassurance of a ‘reasonable’ profit for the third party. Relationships have had to develop from the contractual black and white of version 1.0 but the move to a relationship that encourages (i.e. rewards) innovation and therefore tolerates risk and mistakes is a huge step. The coming year will see outsourcing companies market their innovation credentials to their clients. The key challenge for HR: Ensuring it can experience firsthand what outsourcing companies mean by ‘partnership’. It will be a great opportunity to learn and develop their own skills for working with their internal customers. 5. Evidence-based HR. Made possible by the SaaS evolution but distinct enough to be a separate challenge, evidencebased HR or ‘big data’ seeks to integrate employee, financial, marketing, and other organisational data into an easy to manipulate IT system. While generations of HR professionals have typically justified investment in HR and employee focused programs based on “gut feel”, “doing the right thing”, “it’s what the competition are doing”, and “we are legally required to do this”, there is a growing awareness that HR must start using quantifiable data that is linked to profit and productivity gains. What makes this an especially important challenge for HR is

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HR Trends

that using evidence-based HR will allow the function to build their credibility within their organisation by focusing on hard (i.e. quantifiable) data. While SAP and Oracle have been trying to do this for years, SaaS has bought the cost down considerably and more important, made it much easier for non-technical people to link data sources and run reports. Unfortunately for those companies who are pushing this ground-breaking technology, they face two fundamental barriers that they have to overcome. The first is the almost pathological aversion that HR has to either the function or its activities being measured. Whilst this has never held back marketing (whose activities almost mirror HR except that they deal with customers and not employees), decades of repeating the mantra that you cannot measure people behaviour has made most of HR myopic on this subject. The second barrier is that for many HR professionals, a lack of data manipulation skills is almost a badge of honour. Outside of the reward function, there is a commonly held belief that you cannot be both a ‘people’ person and a ‘numbers’ person. The key challenge for HR: Shifting ways in order to measure and quantify activities to demonstrate credibility to the C-suite. 6. Innovation. Touching the previous challenges but big and important enough to warrant its own place in the ‘top six’, innovation is the final challenge. The external environment will begin to force organizations to review the way they approach and treat their employees. Market facing opportunities will continue to take the majority of investment funds meaning that HR has to become more creative and innovative to address these concerns. However, with the rapid advances in technology, the constantly changing environment, wider usage, and greater clarity of social media strengths and weaknesses, the push by third parties to form true partnerships and the growing awareness within HR of the need to embrace data in order to build their own credibility, HR has never been in a better place to deliver innovative, targeted solutions to organizational issues. The key challenge for HR: Reinventing itself to be at the forefront of the organisation’s drive to maximise its return on its people.

administration to subject-matter experts. Still struggling with the concept of ‘business partnership’ and what it means in practice for all parts of HR, the skills and attitudes of many HR professionals are still not at a level to meet their ‘partnership’ promises. The last few years have been tough for HR professionals who want to develop their personal skills. Training budgets were often the first to go and no more so than for HR discretionary spend. A lack of realistic alternatives have left many HR directors offering short ‘taster’ sessions and hoping that HR professionals can work it out for themselves. HR finds itself in a difficult dilemma: Knowing that it spends too much time looking inwards, the function has to put its concerns about its role and purpose to one side and find the confidence to start participating at all levels of the organization. For HR directors, the significant changes in the coming year will force them to address deep-rooted issues about the capabilities of their function. Where they identify gaps, the lack of mid-market providers and business-focused solutions will force them to either use costly external consulting firms or time-consuming in-house solutions. In either case, whilst we’ll not see any visible changes until much later in the year, the more strategic HR directors will be laying the groundwork very early on. For HR managers and stand-alone professionals, the rest of the year will create a lot of opportunities to get involved at all levels of the business. Whilst formal programmes will continue to be light on the ground, the rapidly changing external environment will create opportunities for them to get involved in traditionally non-HR related activities: opening new business lines, understanding consumer/buyer behaviour, the continued importance of the organisation’s brand (especially employee brand), and driving innovation to name a few. For HR managers in particular, supporting their team’s professional development need not be expensive provided they have a clear idea of what they want to achieve. While HR has not always put its own development first, with foresight and planning, these challenges can become wonderful opportunities to demonstrate the true capabilities of HR and the values that it can deliver.

What Does This Mean for HR? The HR function has undergone significant change over the last 30 years and has moved from staff welfare to [42]

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Guy Ellis is a director of Courageous Workplaces and Colin D Smith is the founder of Dexterity Solutions.

Highlight Reel All you need to know about the HRO Today Forums.

As you read this, we will have recognised more than a dozen submissions from around the globe at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HRO Today Awards Gala in Philadelphia, as well as executed the North America Forum covering the key topics for HR to an unparallel level of practitioner delegates. You may even be sitting in the HRO Today Forum APAC (21-22nd May) having participated in the practitioner session pre-Forum, and preparing to be informed by more than 20 leading speakers from the region. Either way, there is plenty more learning and best practices sharing in store. Registration is live for the HRO Today Forum EU later this year

EUROPE HIGHLIGHTS ŕ Ž

We are pleased to announce the line-up for the opening plenary which will include Nita Clarke, OBE, Engage for Success. As engagement continues to gain momentum, Clarke will provide great insight and experiences that can be implemented globally.

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The HRO State of the Market will be presented by the HRO Today Services and Technology Association (formerly HROA), as well as insights into leading research that answers the question on how talent can achieve business outcomes.

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in Edinburgh (11-13th November) and we are extremely pleased with the level of speakers that once again are committing to take to the stage. As is outlined on page 38, the key change to the 2014 events globally is the more active participation of the practitioners. Many sessions and discussions are going to be led by our practitioner â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mentors,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; helping to build connections and share experiences with people who have the same challenges as yourself. If you are interested in potentially being a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mentor,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; please contact my colleague Cynthia.Lawton@SharedXpertise. com who can explain the details of the programme.

APAC HIGHLIGHTS ŕ Ž >L HYL SVVRPUN MVY^HYK [V [OL (7(* -VY\T ^OLYL M\[\YL THNHaPUL content will cover some of the key subjects including: ŕ Ž )\PSKPUN [OL )\ZPULZZ HUK ,TWSV`LL ,UNHNLTLU[ [OYV\NO HR Outsourcing with Rocky Esguerra, Associate Director â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Procter & Gamble ŕ Ž 0Z @V\Y *\YYLU[ /9 :LY]PJL +LSP]LY` >VYRPUN MVY @V\ ^P[O 1\SPHU )Y`HU[ /9 :LY]PJL +LSP]LY` 17 4VYNHU ŕ Ž (JOPL]PUN /9 )\ZPULZZ 6\[JVTLZ ^P[O 976 ^P[O 9HJOHLS 7VNZVU Region Head Talent Acquisition, International Operations, Novartis Consumer Health ŕ Ž /V^ [V 0TWYV]L 9LJY\P[TLU[ ^P[O 1LYVK -\URL /LHK .SVIHS Talent Acquisition â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Tyco ŕ Ž /9 ;LJOUVSVN` ,]HS\H[PVU -YHTL^VYR ^P[O 9HNO]LUKYH :PUNO Vice President, Shared Services - Singapore Post Limited

(9(176 A series of webinars are available at www.hrotoday.com/association including: ŕ Ž /96 4HYRL[ 6]LY]PL^ ŕ Ž ;OL 4PNYH[PVU VM /9 :OHYLK :LY]PJLZ 0UZV\YJL ]Z 6\[ZV\YJL Service Delivery ŕ Ž ;OL :[H[L VM 3LHYUPUN )\ZPULZZ 7YVJLZZ 6\[ZV\YJPUN ŕ Ž /9 ;LJOUVSVN` :OV^JHZL! (SNVYP[OTZ H[ >VYR ( 5L^ ,YH VM ;HSLU[ ŕ Ž ;HSLU[ (JX\PZP[PVU ŕ Ž ,]PKLUJL )HZLK /9 Check out the links in the Tools section for the topics relevant to you, and bookmark the events page so you can keep informed on collateral, discussions and future webinars. Downloads of sessions will be available for the North America and Asia 7HJPĂ&#x201E;J -VY\TZ WSLHZL JVU[HJ[ )PSS 4HJYHL':OHYLK?WLY[PZL JVT MVY details. The best way to keep up-to-date is to join the mailing list as this updates all the time! Contact Bill.Macrae@SharedXpertise.com to register on the appropriate lists.

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You’ve got a great process. Now make it a great experience. The business of attracting talent doesn’t end with the attraction stage. Today’s candidates want to be engaged at every step of the recruitment SURFHVV ś IURP VFUHHQLQJ DQG DVVHVVPHQW WKURXJK WR RƬHU DQG RQERDUGLQJ That’s why Futurestep never stops innovating to put improved candidate experience at the heart of our RPO solutions. The way we’re using advanced video technology is just one example. Now candidates are able to choose when, where and how they’re interviewed for a role. And whether they’re successful or not, our in-depth feedback reports mean they’ll leave the whole process with a greater understanding of their own strengths and motivations. To discover how we can transform your candidate experience and add value at every stage of the recruitment process, contact marketing@futurestep.com or visit www.futurestep.com

Talent with impact