5 Reasons Why Talent Leave our Businesses

5 Reasons Why Talent Leaves Businesses

Retaining talented people is an important role of both line management and human resources. There are without doubt 100s of excuses people give when leaving a company, especially in “exit interviews”.

Exit interviews are great for the business and HR, but lets get real – most employees do not want to risk their reference on saying the boss was an idiot, or that it was a controlling environment and that the style of management actually stopped people from performing… now do they?

No – so the reality is – if you want real honest reasons for leaving – give an open regference first – then ask for “reasons for leaving!

In the mean time I have found this useful infographic on the reasons why people leave. Post your thoughts as comments below.

by visually via

5 Reasons Why Talent Leave

• Boss is a jerk
• Lack of empowerment
• Internal politics
• Recognition
• The company is going under

Talent Management & Identification – who are we kidding?

Seeking the Potential of, and in our People

Often we talk about succession planning, or talent management and identification. But do we really know what talent is – or how to find it?

Many organisations use tools like the Nine Box Grid or one of the many other talent management frameworks to identify, map and ultimatly manage talented people.

But as the old saying goes – rubbish in — leads to — rubbish out.

 

Identifying Talent Potential

So when we are looking to identify “talent” what are we actually seeking? talent for today, tomorrow or next year? How do we know what “talent” is required next?  For example, five years ago many firms had not heard of twitter, and thought facebook was a passing fad – now no reputable marketing or customer services function would be without either. How can talent be planned for and identified for these “black swan” events, or even the new skills or technologies which are there but not yet recognised an important. Or is it that we treat talent as “leadership” – and senior leadership at that?

Its about how we see our individuals, our organization and the business environment in which we operate.

 

What do we really see?

Many of us look at thinks and believe that what we are seeing is the “right” thing, it is only when someone shows us a different view that we sometimes change our perspective.

We have all seen the images that show the old woman and young girl – at first we only see one – but when shown we can see both. Once we are “educated” or we have “truly learnt” something it is very difficult to “forget”.

 

 

 

 

 

For example have a look at this Image:

How many squares do you see?

16.. 17?

 

So how many did you see?

 

We need your FIRST thought.. what is your instinct, for this is the mental process we use to look for potential in people – or talent spotting if you like.

 

Have a second look.

Has your view changed?

This image could be akin to an employee, a team, an organization or a market. Where the number of squares that we see is the capacity or potential of the individual, org etc. so in this instance the “potential” of this individual is 16, although some of you may have thought 17 – and the very odd few of you may have thought 30.. don’t worry, I will explain all in a moment.

 

Have a look at this page & return when done…

 

How many squares?

 

So what are your thoughts? Are you capturing the potential of your people? is your talent management system just managing that show “16″ – or is it really identifying those with much greater potential. Many mathamaticians will give you the answer 30, indeed if you look the puzzle up on the net you will see many that give that as the answer – but that is linear thinking, and identifying talent is not linear – we need to look at our resources in both creating and lateral ways.

Remember school grades rarely predicted career success – why would most talent identification approaches? As the world changes, so do the skills & attributes required. the skills that led to success just five years ago may well be the attitudes and behaviours that limit our growth today – and as for tomorrow – who knows.

 

Do competencies have a place in talent identification?

In recent years Human Resources functions have been developing various competency frameworks, in which to identify and “box” talent for tomorrow. This is a little like taking the 16 boxes above in the grid and writing a competence for each.. however the competency that may give the organization the edge for the future may very well be one of the other 3000+ (or even conservatively the 14 “hidden” squares).

I would argue that actually there are only a few REAL competencies:

Ability to:

• Rapidly Learn
• Adapt & Change
• Innovate
• Develop Others
• Build Collaborative Relationships
• Intrapersonal Awareness

With these “base level” competencies a person should be equiped to meet any future need. the only real difference between people is the speed and willingness at which they adapt – for leaders we need people that recognise when change is required and adapt appropriatly – not too early – and certainly not to late.

Everything else could be argued that it is a behaviour (not competence) or a learned skill – in which case anyone can learn it if the culture, environment and motivation are in place.

And let me just point out one important factor – this is NOT an age thing – its an attitude and outlook approach. It is about being flexible and adaptable, and reacting to the changes that are put upon us – but also applying our knowledge and experience to good effect. this does not mean that we just change – but we adapt fully.

How we look at people, organizations and capacity is what will give us the competitive advantage, at an individual and organizational level.

 

Managing Change Successfully – a case study #cipd11

Managing Change Successfully

One of the sessions at this year’s #cipd11 annual conference was led by GSK, looking at the approach they took to transforming their organisation.

As many people know, the pharmaceutical industry (like many others) has over the last few years had to radically change some of their working practices and approaches. GSK was no exception.

Like many industries the culture and business climate that GSK is/ was operating within was changing. Customers and purchasers were changing their expectations.

For change to be effective, the team knew that it was not the launch of any change that was critical, but how to embed and ensure the initiatives around change actually “landed” fully in the business units.

Three Key Levers

To help drive the change, GSK identified three key levers:

1. Talent agenda
2. Change framework
3. Leadership framework

All of these were to be supported through the development of resilience in the business, developing HR capability and identifying appropriate measures. Not just end point, but transitional ones.

Change at multiple levels

For the change to happen, the leadership recognised that not only was the environment in which they were operating having to change (i.e. new markets, changing existing ones), but the way the organisation responded and adapted was vital. The metaphor they used was they described themselves as an “oil tanker” operating in a stormy sea, what they needs to do was transform from an oil tanker to an agile yacht, and be able to cope with both a rough and stormy environment as well as calm seas.

Agility is key

To achieve the organisational goals it was recognised that the monolithic approach was no longer sustainable. The organization at all levels needs to become more agile. To help achieve this, a program with the aim of “building change capability” was developed. This was a fusion of Organizational Development OD, LEAN and Project management. The goal was to streamline the “lab to Industrial scale process.

Renewing the senior talent pool

Part of this process involved looking at the top 200. The managed to create near to 100% movement in the top 200 population. This was achieved through a blend of internal transitions and external appointments. Retention was an important driver. Development of this and other key groups was fundamental and the GSK leadership development framework, was one of the development tools to support the transition

GSK Leadership Development Framework

This framework comprised: Managing self, Leading others, Leading managers, leading leaders to lead the enterprise.

This development program was said to be

• 70% on-the-job development through:
• “challenging self”
• 360 feedback
• expanded job responsibilities
• projects and
• job rotations/ assignments
•  20% developmental relationships:
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Associations, networks and advisory positions
•  10% Formal development
• Self directed learning
• Course and programmes

Measures

Using the “keep it short & simple” approach measures initially in the transition were quantitative rather than qualitative. For example “Do you hole quarterly talent reviews?” and “Do you have ‘ready now’ successors?”. These and other simple dashboard indicators were used to measure “embedding” the process rather than more complex and time consuming measures.

HR Development

As part of the change, HR teams also needed to be developed to accommodate many of the changes. Much of this was driven through a survey of 300+ senior leaders which provided a focus on three themes:

1. Improve HR effectiveness in building capacity, talent mgt, change mgt, leadership development and strategic recruitment
2. Evolve the operating model to simplify and improve the service
3. Upgrade and enhance HR capabilities

Summary of learning from the process

HR and senior leaders all gained a lot from the changes to these processes, some of the key learning points the organization is looking to embed further include:

• The importance of moving away from projects to sustainable change
• Execution is the new strategic and embedded is the new ‘sexy’
• Everything is an OD intervention – it’s important to leverage the whole not the part
• Create agitators – enterprise leaders, and leaders developing leaders
• HR needs to be a courageous leader

This is one in a series of articles outlining some of the talks at this years #cipd annual conferenec for HR professionals in the UK and internationally.

If you are a CIPD member

Social Media, Talent Management & Communications #cipd11

Social Media – the power of communications using internal & external talent

Social business is born and its all change for Human Resources, marketing, communication, engagement,talent management…

At one level or another we have all been impacted by some form of social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blogs, Yammer, Sametime, MSN etc. Over the last few months we have seen the Arab Spring, and many other changes to the society in which we live. On a day to day basis it is not obvious that things are changing… but stop and think for a moment. Two years ago we would not have seen the little “f” or “t” icon that is now on almost every TV show, billboard and magazine advert. Many of us are addicted** to our smart phones, updating our networks and reading the “recommendations” and testimonials people we are connected to are constantly giving.

How have things changed?

Go back 5+ years and people were being told to put testimonials like the one below on our websites and marketing materials:

”…Best training course I have ever attended. In fact I did not ‘attend’ I was fully participating and contributing. Mike was inspirational and at the same time challenging”

But now a testimonial is different and looks more like:

 

 

Not only is it instant, it’s public. This feedback can be both positive and negative. Equally if people think you are wrong, they will tell you:

 

This has the advantage in being “real time” and “honest” as we can easily trace the person that provided the feedback. We can also use potentially negative feedback to show we are listening and have reacted. Remember M&S built a reputation of excelence customer care by putting the returns desk at the front of their stores, (its now at the back!).

A case in point

Early on at the recent CIPD annual conference in Manchester UK this week, I was aware that unlike last year where there were between four and five attendees tweeting on a regular basis, this year there were more than thirty eight conference delegates doing so on a regular basis. A little homework shows some startling facts.

Have a look at the top 30 contributors to this particular twitter stream (#cipd11):

Impressions Contributed by 523 Twitterers

Twitter name	No. of impressions
RapidBI	2,473,237
CIPD	1,175,146
hrmagazine	207,910
PeopleMgt	182,836
joningham	160,767
CIPD_Events	119,249
williamtincup	70,689
MervynDinnen	39,964
lruettimann	38,377
koganpage	34,222
Academyofrock	26,625
TimDouglasHR	24,361
dougshaw1	23,153
mwbuckingham	18,944
grahamsalisbury	16,742
JobsiteUK	16,451
MJCarty	16,136
neilmorrison	15,488
HRConnector	15,264
DPGplc	12,678
HRSolutionsUK	12,393
sczepanski	10,961
robjones_tring	10,556
charlie_elise	10,478
warwickuni	10,447
N_Thomson	10,026
signalbc	9,840
davidpaulwoods	9,522
HR_Exchange	9,436
Timothy_Hughes	8,710
garelaos	8,465

** source tweetreach.com for the tag #cipd11 on 11/11/11

Between the 500+ people that got involved this resulted in an Exposure of 5,193,637 Impressions. Not bad for a conference that had an attendance of around 1300!

From the graphs we can see that over 160,000 people say one tweet or message about the event, with more than 80,000 seeing seven or more messages. We can also see that while there were over 700 messages sent out from attendees, over 500 of those were re-sent by readers – recommendations if you like.

This type of circulation is significant, and much more than would be expected through conventional Business-to-Business (B2B) print channels. This particular event was “experienced” by over 300,000 unique individuals. That is a marketing reach not to be ignored.

If you as a business are not into social media, then I hope the evidence above shows that it’s either your messages or your competitors’ messages that will get to customers. Who’s material do you want them reading about?

It also shows that as well as growing your network, a strategic alliance with other people that have networks that cross over your market space can be highly valuable.

Internal communications & engagement too

This is not just about marketing, or customer engagement. Internally if social media communication tools were to be used, just imagine the impact that could be achieved amongst your people. Employee engagement can be harnessed to share information and learning across organizations with complex structures and multiple sites/ countries/ time zones.

If the current generation of professionals do not learn how to use these tools quickly there is one thing for sure… the undergrads of today are ready, competent and looking for the opportunity. Please do not get me wrong, I’m not saying go and hire these people. Quite the opposite, learn to use the skills and techniques before the current batch of undergrads takes your job. And to prove the point, if you look at the top 10 of the list above, there was only one person under the age of 30 contributing to one of the corporate accounts, and her personal profile while on the list was down in the late 20s! This is a skills and attitude thing – not an age thing.

Trust your staff

Throughout this conference (CIPD11) and many other conferences before it, there has been an increasing trend to block social media. Many claim it is a main cause of poor productivity, and “brand risk”. Well they said the same about the telephone in the 1980s, they said email would be a distraction (sending personal messages and potentially subversive) in the “naughties”. Both of which have proven in the main to be untrue. Social media if not already mainstream business tool in your organization soon will be. The future is employee and customer engagement – social media is one central and core tool set and strategy.

Remember that some of the key talent that can help you deliver your business goals may well sit outside the organization, they may be a supplier, a customer, a service user… its not JUST about employees.

Social media addiction**

I do believe that for the more habitual posters in the web 2.0 space, there is a form of addiction. A compulsion if you like. The reality is like most addictions you cannot stop it by saying “stop”. So if you say do not Facebook, they will but much more carefully. This could be a lost opportunity. Why not harness your people’s love for social media and their passion for your business?

Social media is changing, in the context these tools are starting a revolution in the way we communicate and collaborate. They are becoming tools of the “social business”.

Footnote – The reach of RapidBI would have been higher, as an experiment I sent NO tweets using the tag for more than half of day 2! I will start my medication soon..

Employee Engagement & Talent Management #cipd11

Engagement – heads they win, tails you lose

Who are “THEY”?

Why your competitors of course.

This article contains some of my thoughts and reflections from Day 2 of the annual CIPD conference in Manchester UK.

The recurring theme and thought at this years CIPD annual conference for HR professionals has been engagement. Some speakers have spoken about the value engagement provides to the level of customer engagement and retention, others about productivity, but the overriding factor has been that engaged staff reduce costs, reduce absence, increase sales and deliver customer fans.

So why do HR and business leaders not trust our staff to represent our brands to existing and potential customers and long term customer fans?

This manifests its self in a number of ways:

1) The way we empower and enable our staff to solve customer questions at one point

2) The way we show our distrust by not allowing staff to use social media.

While waiting for a potential client I overheard a member of staff of a well known professional body say to a delegate “sorry I’m not important enough to have a business card. Now think about how valued that person would feel and how they would represent the brand if they had £10 worth of business cards. It’s also a great way to show staff you trust them.

A few weeks ago I was involved in an accreditation meeting and the accreditation representative said the reason they were not issued business cards was for tax reasons…. Utter bull!

This simple act of ensuring that EVERYONE in your business has individual business cards sends many messages – to managers, staff and customers. Give personal cards even if the employee is unlikely to be customer facing. O2 go one further and have a text number staff can call to help give advice if they are approached by a customer, where ever they are in the world. It’s the little things.

Much like the prohibition in the US tried to stop the consumption of alcohol, when we (try to) stop people from using social media, all we do in fact is drive it underground. On the surface all is quiet, but duck under and all is alive frantic and well. Worse, if people cannot be proud of the organisation for which they work they cannot be advocates or help to grow the fan base.

It’s all about the small things. We need to show that we trust our people and that (one the whole) they will do the right things. Sure they will make mistakes, but they will learn from them if we provide positive and supportive feedback.

Most of our people are honest at heart and their only intension is to support our customers and the business.. Our role as managers is to trust, support and give them the tools to excel, not to be mediocre.

If your organisation has 1000 employees then typically 5-8 people will be involved in sales & marketing. Imagine the power and growth potential if every one of those 1000 were taking a proactive marketing or sales role? Even if only 20% did, that’s double your sales & marketing team for no cost!

Engagement needs to be more than initiative; it’s an attitude from managers, which create an attitude and set of behaviours in staff. There is no magic process or set of tools, sure regular surveys can help measure, but that is only the very beginning of the journey and not the end by anyone’s stretch of their imagination

Talent Management – how to shoot yourself in the foot in the future!

Talent Management – Easy today… pain tomorrow

Most of us agree that the success of any organization is down to the quality of its people. So why do we fail to realise that talent management is not just about the “top 50” people, but those with the potential to be in the top 50 at some point in the future, as well as talent that will enable our organization to be competitive in a sustainable way. Talent is NOT just about tomorrow’s leaders, it is about next week’s skills and next months leaders.

This was brought home to me recently by the experiences of my 19 year old daughter. She is currently at home over the summer during the summer break from University. In April she applied and was offered a summer job at a major leisure provider, her experiences have already brought her to realise that she will never want to work with the group again, and worse – she is telling all her friends (but NOT on social media – she is not stupid!)

Background

Just to give you some idea of the person and their experience puts some of what I will describe into context:

• Academic achievements – A Levels with grades A* and A’s, achieving 2:1 in a first year joint Hons course at a redbrick uni – so bright not stupid
• Work experience – 3 years working at a high street jeweller regularly achieving top sales in the store – business savvy
• Charity work – experience with children in the UK, co-ordinated youth activities, overseas orphanage work – can build relationships

This is an individual that cares about people, quality and customer experience. She builds trusting relationships with people at all levels very quickly so can communicate equally well with the company director, army captain, manager, disabled adult, very young children or people standing at the bus stop.

The role at the leisure company – a cleaner, mainly outdoor work. This is Seasonal work, and the hours are flexible on both sides. Not the best of pay, but not minimum wage either. Many of the people working at roles here are 16-23 year old students, for most it is their first taste of work.

How to create Employee dis-engagement

Here are just some of the things that have happened which have given her, me and the people she knows an insight into this particular organization and its culture… in no particular order:

• No training on use of cleaning chemicals (for people with no work experience)
• No training on how to manage sharps or glass
• No training on manual handling even though this is a key part of the task
• Poor elearning which was a “test” not learning on procedures & policy
• Issued with work-wear 2 sizes too large – poor fit means the image being projected to the customers is wanting
• “Wet weather gear” that is not waterproof by any definition – causing people to get very wet & cold and having to take time off as a result
• Wet weather gear given to staff that work inside (and don’t need it) – leaving those that work outside with jackets 3 sizes too large! – demoralising & embarrassing
• 16 year olds working 12 hour days – illegal!
• 16 year olds working 7+ days consecutively – illegal!
• Provided with a rota which would have meant 10+ days without a day off – where was the common sense?
• Not given a radio/ communications tool & then team leaders complain when they cannot find her(it’s a large site) – not to mention lone worker regulations
• Team leaders that have had no management training & lead by ego – poor productivity & employee engagement
• Team leaders allowing some workers to “pick & chose” their work activities, while “dumping” on those willing to work
• Managers & team leaders go home before telling all staff they can “stand down” leaving staff wondering what to do!
• Being part of a team of just 20-30 people and the department manager has never spoken to some of them. Seen them working but never approached and said “hello”
• A manager saying I’ll call you on return from holiday and tell you what shifts you are on – they don’t call – & when you phone they are not available – then when you do start work the same manager asks ”where have you been” forgetting that they were responsible for the individuals work schedule!
• A manager asks “why aren’t you coming to the staff event tonight” and is surprised when the reply is – “I have not had an invite or been given the information, I did not know one was happening” – this event is supposed to engage & motivate staff!
• A six week probation review that happens after 12 weeks – the outcome of this entitles the employee to “contractual perks” – now almost too late for the employee to use this!
• Given an average score in appraisal when the main comment given as to why it was not “above average” was she “needs to delegate more” – SHE IS A CLEANER! Who does she delegate to customers? This she found particularly demotivating

I could go on – but you get the picture and this is enough to get a discussion going…

The only reason she has not left by the way… not because she needs the money, but she does not want to say at some point in the future at interview – reason for leaving – I quit due to a bad company & poor management. She does not see herself as a quitter. The ironic thing was she had an interest in joining the sector post graduation. That thought has now gone!

What is the cost to our businesses long term survival if we promote people to team leader or manager post without them having the right aptitude for the role, and certainly without training and appropriate support/ coaching.

The experience of this individual will stay with her for her life time. As students we all took work that was not particularly engaging, however it was work. Here is a person not complaining about the work, but more at the way the site and she is managed, and more importantly (her words) the lack of commitment to the people that make the experience what it is for their customers. This type of business relies on repeat business. If the owners and shareholders knew of then I am sure they would not be impressed.

• Where is HR in ensuring that people in roles have the right skills?
• Where are the management ensuring that health & safety is at least meeting legal requirements?
• Where are the stakeholders seeing the brand undermined?

Anyone want to hire a 19 year old management consultant? – reasonable day rate

If a 19 year old can see where quality can be improved, customer experience improved, costs reduced and employees engaged for no outlay, what does that say about the level of managers they have employed on a permanent basis?

Of course this would never happen in your organization would it?

HR & Recruitment – what are the real rules of the game? – finding talent

Do we really tell people what we are measuring them against?

When an organization is looking to recruit new talent (or people in normal business language), do you think they are looking for people with the skills they need or are they looking to see if potential employees can guess the rules of the game you are trying to get them to play?

When asking or expecting someone to play football, golf or tennis you would think you begin by explaining the basic rules of the game to give them a fair shot… so why in HR & recruitment do we like to make life difficult for potential employees and ourselves?

A case study on highly effective talent

A colleague of mine contacted me earlier in the week to say that they had just been turned down from yet another selection process. Despondent, he was starting to question his competence and ability to find employment again after being without a permanent role for some 2+ years when he was made redundant.

Let’s look at this individual.

He is in his mid 50’s, well qualified in his field. Over the years he has held senior change management roles in several blue chip organizations. Each in a different sector, and each for between 2-7 years (so stays the distance). In each case he received glowing appraisals, achieved all goals set and was a well respected professional by his peers and internal customers alike.

What happened?

Let’s take the last recruitment process, having got through initial selection (something he feels due to his age is increasingly difficult) he attended a selection assessment centre. This comprised three activities, an interview and two half hour roles plays.

At the feedback he was told that he interviewed well, but at the role plays he did not show what they were looking for. Now in his mind he was limited to 30 minutes and managed the meeting as best he could to get to a conclusion. There were other issues which he briefly highlighted, but due to time constraints did not fully explore. In reality he felt that a one-to-two hour meeting was required to really meet the needs, but working within the constraints given he prioritised for the sake of exercise.

Because of this both he lost out on a role, and the employer on an experienced professional. It transpires the person that got the role was some 20 years his junior. How someone with less than 10 years post grad experience can offer insight greater is beyond him… and me.

Why was he not successful?

Simple – he was playing the game to one set of rules – the employer another set – but at the end of the day the rules” required for the job were in fact commonly understood.

Why are HR functions increasingly hiding behind unrealistic role play, and not looking at the whole.

This is like a football club asking a potential player to come for a trial, having them undertake some activities, but not telling them that the assessment criteria is not the rules of football but that of basketball!…. even though they want a football player!

What transpired in feedback he received was that the selection process was there to help reduce the staff turnover they had experienced over the last few years… mmm well if you select basket ball players to a football club of course people will leave sooner than expected. The sad thing is some of these employers just do not realise that they are measuring the right things in the wrong context so by default will recruit the wrong people.

Competency assessment

It’s all very well having a paragraph of what a “competency” means, but unless you know the context and how this will be assessed it is meaningless to the average job hunter. Worse, if you are in HR you may consciously or unconsciously try to second guess what the competency means and how it will be assessed putting the applicant at an even greater disadvantage.

Where is this all going?

Now there is the $64M question. What we see in most industries is the most experienced people unable to stay in a sector, and people 2climbing the ladder” younger and younger. That is all very well now, but what happens when these 20 & 30 something’s get to be 45-55 and beyond? Where will they go? What will they do? For if the current trend increases we will have less and less experienced people in more and more senior roles, with little experience. How many senior managers in the current major recession experienced and carried the lessons from the 1980’s? Who of the current crop of people will be in post for the next big crash?

The business and recruitment world needs to look carefully at what it is doing if it wants sustainability and the right people with appropriate experience in post.

Top 50 HR blogs in the world

RapidBI listed as one of the Top 50 HR blogs in the World

Today whilst traveling back home from running workshops across the UK all week I picked up on a twitter thread about top HR Blogs. With Jon Ingham congratulation several people for their blogs. Low an behold RapidBI was one of them!  Thank you Evan Carmichael!

So RapidBI is included in Evan Carmichael’s site (the Internet’s #1 resource for small business motivation and strategies) as a Top 50 Human Resources blog to watch (or read!) in 2010

It’s wonderful to be in such good company, and I’m excited to be part of an increasing UK contingent in this US/ International who’s who of HR blogs:

• Jon Ingham’s Strategic HCM
• XpertHR
• Personnel Today Editors’ Blog
• “Rick” ’s Flip Chart Fairy Tales
• Anna Farmery’s The Engaging Brand

Congratulations to everyone on the list.  To all my readers: these are great resources for you!

Balance in the Nine Box Grid for Talent Management

Removing Line Manager Blocks to Encourage Talent Management

Its not all about people that are identified as being in the top right of a model. Talent is required at all levels and for all jobs. If all a business employed were high fliers then staff turnover would be unsustainable. True talent management is about harnessing and utilising what we have.

The nine box grid is a valuable and yet simple tool in the planning and management of people talent in any organisation. Its simplicity is its strength.

Key points to remember:

1) People identified in one area may advance or regress over time

2) There is no “right place” to be

3) All employees need to be included

4) The nine box grid is just a tool, not a decision making process

5) Managers need hands on involvement

History

The nine box grid or matrix, is believed to have originated within McKinsey to assess different business units and to prioritise the investment in individuals. This was developed for GE in the late 1960s and 1970s to enable them assess the potential of individuals in its business and prioritize their investment and overall strategy.

Application

The nine box grid is often treated as the process – it is not – it is the output from a process. One approach is to identify what staff would fit in which area:

The only area of danger on this grid is the bottom left – or marginal performers. Those with a low performance and a lot potential for improvement.

We need people in all the other positions, not just the top right.

Any effective talent management process should encompass all staff and not just the high flyers. For the process to add value to both the individuals and organisation the process needs to be transparent. The criteria for each “box” or performance assessment needs to be an integrated part of an appraisal process. Some of the most effective talent management processes may well be designed by HR or OD functions, but they are owned and managed by the line. Managers need to be rewarded for supporting and proposing promotions and transfer of people out of their responsibility – or the biggest barrier to talent management in any organisation is the manager that does not want to lose his/ her best employee/ performer to another part of the business. What gets measured gets done – and this is just as true for the identification of talent as it is anything else.

All managers in an organisation need to know their role in the development of people for the succession plan and future performance of the organisation – not just the KPIs that matter this week.

Traditionally talent Management schemes have been owned and driven by HR – for them to be truly effective in a sustainable way, the line needs to own the process – supported by HR/ OD.

*Note the talent management application graphic is NOT included in our ppt downloads

Other articles on this type of talent management methodology:

http://rapidbi.com/management/nine-box-grids-for-talent-management/

http://rapidbi.com/management/talent-management-and-nine-box-grids/

Nine box grids for talent management

Tool for identifying & retaining key talent in organizations – 9 box grid

Background

The nine box grid or matrix, is believed to have originated within McKinsey to assess different business units and to prioritise the investment in individuals. This was developed for GE in the late 1960s and 1970s to enable them assess the potential of individuals in its business and prioritize their investment and overall strategy. It is claimed that it is based on the Boston Consulting Group and their “Boston Box” of business or product potential, applied to individuals. (The GE–McKinsey nine-box matrix) *

Identify and retain talent

Before we can retain key talent we need to identify who and what key talent is. We also need to understand that not every quality employee is a High Potential, High Performer employee.  Just because someone performs well in their current role does not make them a potent performer in the next role. Indeed, many managers and leaders fail as they were promoted on the basis of their technical job performance, not their management or leadership potential.

The concept

The horizontal of 3 boxes assesses (leadership) performance and the vertical assesses (leadership potential). A combination of these makes up the box within the grid that the leader is placed.

Why use the nine box grid?

1. It’s a straight forward way to assess any population of leaders on two important dimensions
2. It’s a useful tool to facilitate a dialogue amongst a senior leadership team. Teams can use it to calibrate their expectations and ratings
3. With an open debate, the multiple perspectives provide for a much more accurate assessment compared to one person’s opinion
4. The process when used by all managers can facilitate a shared sense of ownership for the organizations talent pool
5. It’s an effective way to identify the development needs of individuals and explore the transition towards development planning
6. Provides a framework for succession planning

Putting the nine box grid to use – Talent Management

Every individual has unique capabilities and talent. An employee of the organization will be able to contribute effectively if the talent he or she possesses suits the job profile otherwise it will be regressive for both the employee and the organization. The company will have to hire new resource or retrain an existing one leading to wastage of resources. That’s why we say that it takes talent to find talent.

Organizations put their best efforts to attract and retain best performing employees and hence talent management is a crucial aspect for them. Talent management is the process of managing the current top performers and attracting the new credible individuals to join the team to attain high professional performance in accordance to company’s goals. It is basically the art of putting right people at the right place and utilizing them to their full potential. Many companies are now realizing the need of the hour by putting up strong teams and incorporating talent management into their business strategies.

From talent management’s point of view, an employee is evaluated on the basis of two aspects: potential and performance. The track record or previous performance of the employee forms the basis for his or her selection for a particular role. But talent management also looks into the potential of the employee to evaluate how an employee will perform if appropriate skills are made available. The nine box model of talent management as illustrated in the figure specifies the categories of employees depending upon the various potential levels plotted against performance levels.

Talent management is a key element to an organization’s succession planning process

Lets have a look at these categories:

Enigma

These are the kind of employees who are completely wasted in an organization. They are the people with high potential but deliver low performance. They are either wrongly placed or are working under wrong managers who have been unable to harness their full potential. This scenario requires external intervention and a heart to heart with the employee and the manager can yield good results.

Dilemma

The employees having average potential but showing low performance fall under this category. The reason could be many: not upgrading as per the job requirement, not falling in line with the changes in the company. They can perform better if given proper opportunities and motivation.

Under performer

These employees are the individuals with low potential coupled with low performance. They under perform and don’t show any scope for improvement. Here the management has to take a tough decision of either throwing the ball in their court and giving them some time to improve their performance or asking them to leave the organization.

Growth employees

This category has employees that constantly show high potential but the performance is not up to that standard. They may not be getting enough motivation or inspiration to move forward. The company should value the talent and should try to extract the best out of every employee. These kinds of employees can become great assets for the company by giving them enough challenges and by praising them as they achieve goals. It further instills a sense of confidence and the performance is bound to increase.

Core employees

This category has employees that more or less perform up to the job potential but there is always a chance to achieve higher performance by giving them necessary push. They are just like employees in the category dilemma but are more promising.

Effective

These are people with specific talents as they show higher performance as compared to their potential. They may have reached their full career potential so here the talent management team can keep them engaged, focused and motivated to get the desired results.

Future leaders

These employees are the leaders of tomorrow and are the best possible options for succession at senior positions. They depict leadership qualities and yield results. People listen to them and they know how to get the work done. Talent management team should recognize their efforts and should reward them appropriately. Promote them and give them the chance to grow as an individual and also as a part of the organization.

High Impact Performers

High impact performers are those who by some grooming and motivation can become the future leaders. They may have lost pace with the changes in the organization like dilemma and core employees but can be among the top talent.

Trusted professionals

Trusted professionals perform much higher than their potential because of some special talent they may be having. Your effort should be to retain them by rewarding and recognizing their efforts. You can always take their help to develop high performers.

This nine box model shows how you can do effective talent management by recognizing the categories of employees using the appropriate techniques to retain and groom the top talent pool. The talent management system is of even more importance in tough economic times as it helps in optimizing the performance of the employees and achieving profound growth in the organization. So go ahead and execute a proper talent management system.

*This was first mentioned in a publication in 1979 in Fortune, volume 100 (unable to verify) and again in 1981 Strategic marketing: betas, boxes or basics (loose ref)

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Talent Management and nine box grids

In recent months, despite the Credit Crunch impacting budgets there appears to be an increasing interest in talent management. Now is this because there is a real interest in managing talent, or is it an attempt to show that firms are interested in people but cannot or will not invest? It must be the cynic in me.

Many firms are looking at using nine box grids on which to map individuals. These are usually 3×3 grids with potential plotted against performance. For example:

Matrix or grids like this are often used, and managers and HR teams asked to identify names of individuals into each of the nine boxes. As a short term tool this has its place, however the danger is when names are not reviewed. It is not unusual for an individual to be under performing due to outside influences – sick children etc, and performance does change over time. To ignore these dynamics is putting an organizations whole talent management strategy at risk.

Once people have been identified it is not unusual to focus all development activity on high performers – attempting top get more out. Ironically there is evidence to suggest that if effort is put into the low and middle performers – they raise their game. High performers are already performing well and any investment is not likely to increase performance, so the ROI on these people in the short to medium term is often poor. Sure it is important not to ignore these people, but they are often self motivated and need opportunities to SELF develop – not structured events.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

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