1. As the Head of Talent Development, could you share some insights into how organizations can effectively leverage people analytics to enhance employee experience?
One of my favorite activities is simply counting the clicks when looking at what someone needs to go through to get to the desired outcome. For example, I worked at an organization that had launched an employee recognition platform. As part of the cultural work the company was doing, the recognition platform allowed you to send “kudos” and to tie it back to one of the company values (also some really great data to see what values the company often recognizes others for). But, in order to send a kudos, it took too many clicks to go to the recognition platform, and then authenticate with SSO, and then a browser popped up, and then I had to click that I wanted to send a kudos and then search for the person and then click the value and then enter something else and then click the level of transparency. I wanted to give up as it felt like too much work to just let someone know that I appreciated them.
I share this example as a way of using data to look at the employee experience. Look at the touchpoints and map out the entire process from end to end and track how many steps (or clicks) it takes to complete the task.
To go a little deeper, I’d suggest doing an organizational network analysis (ONA) to look at your workforce in terms of connections. This would be an incredibly valuable exercise if you have remote employees as you can use an ONA to see how connected your remote employees are to the rest of the team and org.
It’s important to first assess the current state, and then you can figure out your strategy of how to improve or affect the employee experience.
2. Could you elaborate on the importance of culture in driving employee engagement and retention?
All roads lead back to culture! In this case, it’s important to keep in mind the micro-cultures; ie: the culture of an employee’s immediate team. This is where their leader has the most control over the culture; too often people get caught up in the narrative “but the CEO doesn’t talk about our culture”; and the reality is there’s the organizational culture but then you have the micro-cultures which often there’s connectivity to the org culture. The important thing about culture is naming it; be clear in talking with your team about what it feels like to be a part of the team and be clear on the behaviors that support or hinder the desired culture.
For example, if your team says transparency is an aspect of the team culture then define what that looks like – for example “We value transparency, so we will never anonymously provide feedback to one another”. You’re co-creating the norms with your team and in a sense establishing a social contract of the culture on your team. If you stop being transparent, this will cause disengagement with your team and they may wonder if they can continue being successful. As culture is always evolving it’s important to check in with the team and revisit the norms and discuss how things need to be updated. You can be an amazing leader and offer really interesting work but if the culture doesn’t align between you and your team, there’s going to be issues.
3. As a board member for HR.com, you’ve contributed to the Performance Management and Career Development advisory boards. What key trends or innovations do you believe will redefine these areas in the coming years?
Fabulous question! Performance Management will definitely see innovation as a result of AI tools. I’m excited to see which organizations will be front runners in this area. There’s a lot of potential for how AI will impact coaching, and I can see where newer technologies will have built-in bias flags to let leaders know that the feedback they’re inputting is biased.
For example, perhaps the feedback addresses a recent situation; a flag might highlight it as a recency bias and provide coaching to highlight a pattern vs a specific event. AI can flag data indicating any statistical significance comparing populations that were put up for promotions or received promos, which will reduce the time needed for people analytics teams to run all the data and then present back to leadership. AI will solve the need for in-the-moment coaching/data/insights. Just a few ways that I anticipate AI advancing performance management.
Career Development, or how organizations have traditionally looked at it; is going to implode. There’s been a rise of tensions over the last decade: employees wanting to see faster growth; organizations reducing investment in L&D; and mass layoffs in 2022/2023 that caused employees to rethink the value of tenure. I believe as a result of all these tensions, we’re going to see more organizations communicate career as a jungle gym vs a ladder, and the notion of a “tour of duty” will become more and more popular. In the tech industry, you see a lot of that, a general acknowledgment that employees will stay 2-4 years and then move on. So how can a company make those 2-4 years an amazing experience for someone as they will be future brand ambassadors.
Skills as currency will become more and more prevalent as organizations hit a tipping point of critical skill gaps. Upskilling will be a large component of career development; companies will be more ouvert in communicating the skills that they need employees to develop.
4. How do you recommend HR leaders navigate resistance and foster a culture of adaptability within their organizations during periods of significant transformation?
My recommendation for HR leaders is to lean into curiosity when navigating resistance from employees amid periods of transformation.
What’s causing the resistance? Is it a lack of clarity around the future state? Is it fear of what will be lost or what needs to be given up in order to move forward? However, HR can provide clarity around the desired skills and behaviors and highlight examples of what adaptability looks like in action within the organization will help others come on board.
5. In your experience, what role does coaching play in nurturing talent and fostering leadership development within an organization?
I believe that coaching plays a crucial role in fostering leadership development and nurturing talent within organizations. My very first leadership role was within an organization that truly valued coaching, even calling front-line leaders “coaches” rather than supervisors. This experience has stayed with me throughout my career, and I’ve seen coaching as a powerful tool for developing talent. More and more organizations are embedding coaching within leadership programs to upskill leaders with this capability.
Coaching as a style empowers people. “What do you want to do? What does good look like? What do you need”; it truly puts people in the driver’s seat in coming up with ideas and actions and helping to self-reflect.
6. As someone deeply involved in employee listening initiatives, what methods or strategies have you found most effective in gathering and acting upon employee feedback to drive organizational improvement?
Great question! The most effective strategy I’ve seen for acting upon employee feedback is frequent communication. Consider this: the organization shares the high-level results of the engagement survey and perhaps the executive leadership team shares the commitment to action. And then, six months later the organization launches another engagement survey but doesn’t see progress in the areas that the ELT committed to. Do employees remember what the commitment was? Are employees able to connect actions that have been taken with the commitment? My team made it a practice the month before the engagement survey to reiterate our commitment and list out all the actions that had been taken that aligned to the commitment. At the time my hypothesis was that employees weren’t truly able to make the linkage, therefore we needed to make it for them.
It’s so important to over-communicate as when employees believe that actions will be taken, they’ll continue giving feedback. Survey fatigue comes from a lack of action vs too many surveys.
Also, this advice is applicable to anyone: whether you’re a people leader, you’re a leader of leaders, you oversee a function or you’re a member of the Executive team. Build into your normal team rhythms a way to provide updates on the feedback you’ve heard and actions that are being taken and prior to a survey, recap all the work that has been done. You’ll see a marked difference in your survey data.
7. What advice would you give to HR professionals aspiring to advance into leadership roles within their organizations?
Moving from an individual contributor (IC) role to one of leadership is a conflict of skills. You go from being rewarded for what you’ve accomplished to being held accountable for your team’s accomplishments; how they get the work done; and how they build relationships and collaborate with others. For an HR professional who is aspiring to advance into leadership, I’d advise seeking out roles that allow you to test out this skillset; perhaps you can offer to lead a cross-team project or lead an intern, or offer to be a new employee onboarding buddy. Build out the skillset of consistently providing clear feedback, and seeking feedback from others. Look at how you recognize people. Challenge yourself in how you can foster engagement with your “team”.
Also, it’s 100% ok if you decide that a formal people leadership role isn’t for you. I strongly believe that leadership isn’t a title, and you can be a leader without having direct reports.
I’d suggest reading “You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader” by Mark Sanborn; it’s a great book that highlights how you can be a leader in any role.
8. Recently, Great Britain has introduced a pilot project of a 4-day working week. What’s your opinion about it? What advantages and disadvantages do you see both for employers and employees? Would you take part in the experiment, and why?
I think it’s fantastic to see organizations challenging the working structures that were born out of the industrial era. A work week norm of Monday through Friday, from 8 to 5 pm doesn’t truly work in the era of knowledge work. Some immediate advantages I see for employers are this is a unique value proposition they can offer in terms of recruiting talent, as well as retaining talent. A 4-day work week doesn’t cost any additional money, and employees “earn” an extra day off every week. Furthermore, it may alleviate burnout and dispel antiquated cultures that tend to encourage workweeks of 60 hours or more.
For employees, it offers more flexibility; and more time to recharge. The ability to pursue hobbies outside of the office and to enjoy more family time. In addition, just the simple ability to take appointments such as the dentist and doctor versus either trying to fit them in on a lunch break, taking time off, or using the weekends depending on the availability of the provider.
At an early point in my career, I worked in a call center and they had a few shifts that were 4 days, consisting of 10 hours each day. This was back in 2005. And it worked because the call center needed to be staffed 7 days a week and they could offer a myriad of schedules that allowed flexibility for employees. With having that experience and seeing it in action, I am definitely a proponent for more organizations to try it out and see if it works for them.
I’d gladly participate in the experiment as it’s good to challenge my assumptions around what the 4-day work week can look and feel like and then to better understand how to potentially lead an organization through the change management to bring others along onto the journey.
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