Today’s Teams

June 7, 2012 By Comments

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

There was a time when “team building” was all the rage.  Each team spent a great deal of time, energy and effort clarifying goals, developing a team charter and establishing operating principles — that is, working on the process of being a team as much as any task itself.

Frankly, there is much less time for this in today’s work world.  While most work is still accomplished by groups of people, these groups do not have luxury for as much self-examination. 

It remains essential however, that each member clearly understands the goal.  Teams also need a designated leader to ensure that progress is timely and that the goals are achieved.

Is It a Team or a Work Group?

Teams used to have one leader that directed the collective work of the group.  Now, more teams are cross-functional, short-lived and project-based.  There is not always an appointed team leader. 

The team leaders are less certain of their roles, as various team members contribute their area of expertise.  The important task of team facilitation now falls to the team leader.

Whenever a group of people work or play together, they form a team. 

Purposes of teams:

  • Solve a problem
  • Improve a process
  • Design or create something
  • Perform one or more tasks

ASTD Executive Survey

Of 230 companies surveyed by the American Society for Training and Development’s Executive Survey (ASTD) (Work Teams That Work,” Training and Development. Anthony R. Montbello and Victor Buzzotta.  March 1993, pp. 59-64):

  • Seventy-seven percent agreed that teams increased productivity.
  • Seventy-two percent agreed that teams improved quality.
  • Fifty-five percent agreed that teams reduced waste.
  • Sixty-five percent agreed that teams improved job satisfaction.
  • Fifty-seven percent agreed that teams improved customer satisfaction.

Definition of Team

In the new economy of information, work groups have heightened interdependence and the need for outside knowledge, input, and help.  This means that individuals need to work together effectively to get things done.

A team is two or more people working jointly to accomplish a task(s).

In a team all members:

  • Are aware of the “unity” and striving to achieve the same thing together.
  • Have the chance to learn, contribute and work with others.
  • Have the ability to act together toward a common goal.

Reasons to Implement Teams

  • Enhance information processing
  • Increase sense of ownership and commitment to quality and output
  • Improve feeling of morale
  • Learn how to work together better
  • Gain a broader perspective of the company’s purpose and how day-to-day tasks support this purpose
  • Provide solutions and ideas from the front line
  • Complete projects more swiftly
  • Solve problems that affect more than one area
  • Anticipate problems before they arise
  • Develop solutions that benefit the company as a whole
  • Increase the ability of team members to solve their own problems

Humans have an innate need to belong and be a part of something, as evidenced in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (in which belonging is the 2nd item in the hierarchy after basics of food and water).  As long as formal structure doesn’t fulfill these needs, informal teams will exist.

Informal Teams

In some cases, informal groups can make a positive impact.   However, in other cases they can be counterproductive, such as when group behaviors undermine company goals.

Why Informal Teams Form

Doing a job is only one part of people’s needs and offerings.  There are also social and emotional needs and informal groups develop to meet these needs. The level of influence (i.e., control) an informal group has on an individual is directly proportional to how well the group meets that individual’s social and emotional needs.

Summary

Team members today barely have time to complete their work, let alone spend extra time on things such as defining a group process.  This makes it even more important for individual contributors to know how to participate fully on a team right from the start.

Whether teams are officially put in place or not, groups will form.  It is human nature.  It is better for the manager, department, or company to control the forming of groups (by establishing teams) and to provide a clear purpose and focus for each group.

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Audio/Video Presentations, Employee Performance Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Knowledge Sharing Process

February 10, 2012 By Comments

Knowledge sharing is the process of contributing and partaking in information and procedures that are effective in enhancing performance and meeting an organization’s goals. In order for knowledge sharing to occur, internal and/or external knowledge must be present. The existing knowledge is then distributed, or transferred from individual to individual or from a particular group to another group. Knowledge sharing also involves cooperation among the individuals or organization.

Sharing knowledge will only be meaningful if it is made within certain limits, as not all knowledge is useful for every individual. Sharing and distribution of knowledge involves cultural and individual limitation such as power and trust, with which the knowledge is shared.

Organizations should also implement practices to enhance the sharing of knowledge. Information and communication technology, such as intranet,  promotes knowledge sharing.

 

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

Filed Under: Adult Learning

Effective Consulting: Looking Beyond the Presenting Problem

May 5, 2011 By Comments

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. Candidate in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Sometimes what is best for a client in a consulting relationship is not doing exactly what the client asks of the consultant in the exact way the client wishes for it to be accomplished.  Effective consulting sometimes means looking outside the scope of the presenting problem for answers that will address the root causes of the problem.  These causes are often multifaceted, and sometimes a client may not realize that a cause exists separate from – and is hidden far beneath – the problem; all he or she knows is that some type of “pain” is present (Block, 1981); he or she may think he or she knows where that pain is located, though he or she may not actually know what is causing the pain.

McLachlan (1999) said, “Putting the client first is not necessarily the same as doing what the client wants.”  This is true in that sometimes a client does not realize that he or she does not know what he or she wants.  Block (1981) said, “As a consultant, I never accept the presenting problem as the real problem without doing my own data collection and analysis.”  It is the responsibility of the consultant not to do what he or she is told, but to gather the right data, analyze it, and find ways to address the underlying causes of the organization’s pain.  

As Chicago-based consultant Lee Johnsen stated in a recent interview, “A physician may deal with the symptoms, but that only goes so far – the causes also need to be dealt with.”  We must keep this idea in mind when deciding whether to please our clients or do what is best for them; sometimes the best course of action might be to make recommendations that hurt the client’s feelings or break the status quo.  

As Pat Lencioni said in an article for Business Week, “Clients are looking for transparency, humility, vulnerability, and honesty-the opposite of what is often given to them.” Honesty is clearly an important tool in an effective consultant’s arsenal, even when it causes discomfort or resistance.  We must be honest with our clients when we find root causes that require us to offer recommendations that might fall outside the scope of the presenting problem.

References

Block, P. (2000). Flawless consulting: A guide to getting your expertise used. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Lencioni, P. (2010). Naked consulting: what clients really want. Business Week, February 23, 2010. Retrieved April 20th, 2011, from http://www.businessweek.com

Ron, D. M. L. (January 01, 1999). Factors for consulting engagement success. Management Decision, 37, 5.)

 

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Filed Under: Consulting Tagged With: ,

The Cognitivist Theory as An Adult Learning Model

April 20, 2011 By Comments

The cognitivist theory of learning was advanced by Koffka, Kohler, Lewin, Piaget, Ausubel, Bruner, and Gagne. It views the learning process as an internal intellectual process which includes the aspects of insight, processing of information, memorizing and conceiving a certain perception about what is learned. Its locus of learning is internal cognitive structuring unlike the external stimuli in the behaviorist theory. It focuses primarily on the internal structure that enables the learning process to happen. This is very important in adult education since the model used must be appropriate to the internal structures of adults. It must be understood that, adults carry a lot of issues in their minds and the model of learning used must fit their intellectual structure.

The cognitivist theory views the purpose of education as being to develop the capacity and skill to learn better by creating the necessary environment for internalization of what is learned. This is the basis of any learning process since what is learned must be understood and internalized even before it is practiced. The role of educator is seen as purely to structure the learning process and contents in a way that it can be understood easily by the learning group. This is a very essential concept in adult learning since what is being learned must be presented in a way related to what the learners are facing. Learning content must be relevant in order to draw their attention. The learning model used must take into consideration the needs of the learning group and consider how the content will help them. This is because adult learning is focused. In the adult learning process, this theory insists on the cognitive development of the learners. The content of learning must not be too difficult for the learners to understand. Adults easily learn how to learn by themselves and the learning model used should facilitate their self-directed learning.

The cognitivist theory emphasizes taking into consideration the learning content according to the cognitive ability of the learners. The cognitivist theory sees learning as a process that involves the structuring of the intellectual and cognitive processes of an individual. It sees learning as that which brings about new knowledge in an individual.

Summary

All learning theories have an aspect in themselves that may definitely help adults in their learning process. These theories take into consideration the learning environment, the contents of leaning and the impact of learning to the individual and the society. Therefore they should be the basic theories to consider when putting into practice any adult learning model.

By Shirley J. Caruso, M.A., Human Resource Development

 

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Filed Under: Adult Learning, Employee Performance, Instructional Strategies Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Future of Human Capital Analytics

February 27, 2011 By Comments

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. Candidate in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Predictions

The future of human capital analytics (HCA) looks bright. Technological innovations and the continuing development of the field of HCA, along with the ever-increasing interest in human capital measures by managers and investors, indicate that HCA will most likely be more widely adopted and more often used for decision making as the years progress.

In 2005, a SHRM survey revealed the following: “76% of HR professionals predict an increase in top-level executive backing for investing in human capital measurement over a three-year period” (HR Focus, 2005, p. 7). It would be great to view more current predictive measures of this, in addition to revisiting these results from 2005 and comparing them with 2008 data to see how accurate the prediction was. Unfortunately, this data was not easily accessible, so such an examination will have to wait.

Kevin Wilde (VP, Organizational Learning and Chief Learning Officer at General Mills) speculates that the bright future of HCA will be enabled by three main things:

  • Continued investments in technology, making it easier to access the right information and gain insight
  • More critical thinking about what matters and what drives performance
  • Advancements in how business HR leaders manage the function to add value (Fitz-enz, 2010, p. 280)

Concerns

According to Joanne Bintliff-Ritchie, chief strategist at DoubleStar, Inc., HR professionals lack strong analytic and decision science skills (Roberts, 2009). Capabilities needed to be a successful human capital analyst include “quantitative analysis, psychometrics, human resource management systems and processes, and employment law” (Davenport, Harris, and Shapiro, 2010, p. 58). Unfortunately, according to a 2009 SHRM survey (Babcock, 2009), only eight percent of respondents reported that they were “well-staffed and can deliver predictive analytics to the CEO regularly.”

With this in mind, we should try to build these skills in some of our existing employees; it also may be smart to include this type of skill building in MBA, HRM, HRD, and related programs in order to build a work force of tomorrow that is capable of conducting deeper analyses and making better decisions based on the output of those analyses. As Fitz-enz (2009) said, leading indicators, such as the ones discussed previously, will drive the future of HCA, so HR practitioners of the future should be prepared to ask the right questions, collect the right data, analyze it, and use the information to create competitive advantage and value.

References

Babcock, P. (2009). Predicting corporate success through people data. Retrieved 11 21, 2010, from shrm.org: http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/orgempdev/articles/Pages/SuccessthruPeopleData.aspx

Davenport, T., Harris, J., & Shapiro, J. (2010, October). Competing on talent analytics. Harvard Business Review, 88(10), 52-58. Fitz-Enz, J. (2009, August). Predictive leadership. Leadership Excellence, 26(8), 20.

Fitz-Enz, J., (2010). The New HR Analytics. New York: AMACOM.

HR Focus, (2005, August). SHRM predicts the human capital metrics of the future. HR Focus, 82(8), 7-10.

Roberts, B. (2009). HR metrics, analytics key to advancing business strategy. Retrieved 11 21, 2010, from shrm.org: http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/technology/Articles/Pages/HRMetricsAnalyticsAdvanceBizStrategy.aspx

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Career Development Tagged With:

Identifying Performance Behaviors

February 24, 2011 By Comments

Identification of performance behaviors required of employees to perform their jobs is accomplished by interviewing or observing employees in action.  Once a specific performance behavior is identified, it is further analyzed to identify the needs of clients.

The steps in identifying performance behaviors are as follows:

  • identify the discrepancy in performance (what performance is presently taking place and what is the desired performance);
  • determine if the discrepancy is worth pursuing (will it affect costs);
  • determine if the discrepancy is due to lack of skill (could it be performed if their lives depended on it?);
  • determine whether it was performed in the past (are employees capable of performing);
  • is it frequently used (maybe a refresher course is needed);
  • can the job be made easier (by adopting a new method or adding a tool);
  • do employees have the know how (is lack of training the issue);
  • is performance punished (are employees purposely avoiding the desired performance due to some sort of detrimental outcome);
  • is the lack of job performance rewarded (do employees enjoy the same result regardless of their efforts?);
  • does it matter how the job is performed (are the end rewards the same either way?);
  • are there any obstacles preventing job performance (inadequate resources such as a telephone for a telemarketer);
  • are there limits on possible solutions (are the employees incapable of performing or is there something preventing a solution such as a union contract).

Analyzing Data

Data gathered is reviewed for the purpose of determining the consequences of the performance related to the information obtained.  This information can then be organized and presented to clients.

If the human resource development (HRD) professional chooses the proper means for gathering information, analyzing the information becomes a much easier process.

Conducting Informal Discussions with Clients

An informal meeting with the client prior to presenting a final report provides an opportunity to share unofficial information, rouses suggestions of how the final report should be presented, and allows for discussion of the areas in which intervention/change may be most beneficial.

Presenting Findings to Decisionmakers

After informal meetings have been achieved, the information obtained must be presented in a formal manner to the person(s) responsible for decisionmaking.  The main purpose of the formal meetings is to discuss with clients the meaning of the information gathered and the proposed recommendations.

Determining Action Steps

Action steps are based upon the results of the information gathered and the recommendations discussed and presented.  They include identifying intervention/change/improvement strategies to help the organization improve its performance capacity.

Filed Under: Adult Learning

Valuing Intangibles and Phillips ROI Methodology

February 18, 2011 By Comments

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Phillips (2002) says, “Intangible assets are key to competitive advantage in the knowledge era and are invisible, difficult to quantify, and not tracked through traditional accounting practices” (p. 3).  It is fairly common to divide intangible assets into three categories: research and development; intellectual assets; and knowledge, a category which is then subdivided into tacit and codified knowledge (Phillips, 2002, p. 4). 

One popular method that requires the evaluator to place dollar values on intangibles is the Phillips ROI Methodology (Phillips, 2005), which is especially popular for calculating the ROI of training and development initiatives, though it can also be applied to many other types of programs.  “ROI” stands for “return on investment.”  Phillips views ROI as a fifth level that should be added to Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation (Phillips, 2005), though Jim Kirkpatrick, the originator of the Four Levels of Evaluation (reactions, learning, transfer, and results) disagrees; Kirkpatrick’s company is now pushing the “Return On Expectations” method, or “ROE,” (not to be confused with the unrelated “ROE” of the finance field, which stands for “Return On Equity”) as a direct competitor with the Phillips method.  (Side note: Both of these companies are, of course, in the business of selling certification courses, videos, books, job aids, evaluation instruments, and speaking engagements.)  The ROE method does not place dollar values on intangibles, so we will focus this discussion only on the ROI method.

Phillips (2005) uses the following formula to calculate ROI: ROI (expressed as a percentage) = (Net Program Benefits / Net Program Costs) x 100 (Phillips, 2005, p. 2).  This seems fairly simple and straightforward until one examines the way that program benefits and costs are calculated.  This method goes beyond calculating only the items that are already expressed in dollars; it requires a conversion of intangibles to monetary values.  So how do we do this?  In sum (this is a bit of a purposeful oversimplification) we do the following (adapted from concepts in Phillips, 2005):

  1. Ask stakeholders how much they think something is worth in dollars
  2. Ask the same individuals to express, as a percentage, how certain they are of their estimates
  3. Convert the percentage to a decimal
  4. Multiply the dollar figure (perceived value) by the decimal (level of certainty)
  5. Arrive at a conservative conversion estimate (in dollars)
  6. Qualitatively report any unconverted intangibles along with the ROI figure   

This method is clearly not completely accurate, but it is a common method for reporting the ROI of programs that have intangible benefits.  With this understanding, though, it is easy to understand why accountants, who are concerned with the accuracy and reliability of reported numbers, are often concerned with the use of such methods; this might, in turn, help us understand why such conversion methods have not been adopted into the generally accepted accounting principles (hereinafter referred to as “GAAP”) that govern financial reporting in the United States.

So how does GAAP treat intangibles?  Basically, the only intangibles that are addressed are ones that deal with “intangibles acquired in a business combination” (Foster, Fletcher, & Stout, 2006), with the most common being the monetary value of intellectual property, particularly in companies whose money is derived from the sale or exploitation of it; in the knowledge era, this is becoming increasingly common.  Goodwill, which might be explained as brand power and reputation, can also be reported under GAAP guidelines.  The monetary value of various aspects of human capital, such as specialized knowledge that is not patented, synergy, training processes and capabilities, effective leadership, and corporate culture, cannot currently be reported on standard financial statements.  The United Kingdom’s former Secretary of State, Patricia Hewitt, created the Accounting for People Task Force to address these issues in that country (Weiss & Finn, 2005); perhaps the United States will eventually follow suit, if we haven’t already instigated such an initiative.    

Another way that intangibles are handled is by conducting what Ulrich (2005, p. 52) refers to as “intangibles audits,” which are composed of qualitative measures of intangible performance factors and ultimately end with action plans for the future improvement of those measures. The burning question, though, is this: Are qualitative measures really enough?  Might it make sense to figure out a standard, GAAP-approved method for the valuation of intangibles, in addition to these qualitative reports?

References

Foster, B., Fletcher, R., & Stout, W. (2003, October 3). Valuing intangible assets. Retrieved 12 12, 2010, from:

http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2003/1003/features/f105003.htm

Phillips, P., & Phillips, J. (2002). In Action: Measuring Intellectual Capital. Alexandria: ASTD Press.

Phillips, P., & Phillips, J. (2005). Return on Investment (ROI) Basics. Alexandria: ASTD Press.

Ulrich, D., & Brockbank, W. (2005). The HR Value Proposition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Weiss, D., & Finn, R. (2005). Hr metrics that count: aligning human capital management to business results. Human Resource Planning, 28(1), 33-38.

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Employee Performance, Evaluation Tagged With: ,

Human Capital Analytics Models & Processes

February 8, 2011 By Comments

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. Candidate in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Only a small number of human capital analytics (HCA) models exist.  The most basic model found in the literature reviewed for this report is a three-step process used to measure human capital.

The most widely known model is the “LAMP Model” by Cascio & Boudreau (2008).

Dr. Fitz-enz (2009) is known for his “Five Steps of Analytics,” which is more of a process than a model.

Fitz-enz (2010) also came up with a model of his own, which is called the HCM:21 Model.  This new model is arguably the most comprehensive model for conducting HCA.

Other Measures Worth Noting

Measuring the Value of Employee Engagement

Survey instruments like the Gallup Q12 can be used to measure employee engagement, but is this truly worth measuring? Is engagement a valid measure of contribution to the bottom line? The answer to this question depends on who is being asked.  Gallup certainly believes in it, but Gallup is also selling a tool to measure it, so its expert opinion on the subject is considered by some to be somewhat suspect.  The numbers, however, may speak for themselves:

The most “engaged” workplaces (those in the top 25% of Q12 scores) were 50% more likely to have lower turnover, 56% more likely to have higher-than-average customer loyalty, 38% more likely to have above-average productivity, and 27% more likely to report higher profitability. (Labarre, 2001)

Some companies place great value on measures of employee engagement and continuously strive to improve those numbers because, to them, the numbers mean something substantial.  Best Buy, for example, has even put a dollar figure on the value of its stores’ engagement levels.  The company figured out that “the value of a 0.1% increase in employee engagement at a particular store is worth $100,000” (Davenport, Harris, & Shapiro, 2010, p. 55).

What is the correlation then between engagement and high performance?  Does engagement drive high performance or do high performing organizations lead to employee engagement? 

Sales Per Employee

Another measure that can be analyzed beyond its own face value is sales per employee (Dow Theory Forecasts, 2005).  This number is a dollar figure; it is calculated using the following formula: annual sales divided by average employees.  “Average employees” is calculated by adding the number of employees at the beginning of the year to the number of employees at year’s end, and then dividing that number in half.  Analysis of this metric can yield some useful information, such as changes in productivity over time and valuable benchmarking data against industry-specific competitors; the latter can be leveraged to make strategic decisions, such as pricing, that have a heavy impact on profitability, even though those connections do not appear on the surface (Dow Theory Forecasts, 2005).

The Human Capital Value Metric

Employees at Mellon have come up with something called the “Human Capital Value Metric,” which “expresses the worth or value of the individual to the organization as the minimum expected contribution to the profit of the organization” (Bukowitz, Williams, & Mactas, 2004).  This measure is especially useful when making compensation decisions; it helps the analyst figure out which employees contribute heavily to the company’s profit and, when coupled with information about an individual’s attrition risk, might come in handy for making tough choices regarding pay.  Factors taken into consideration when determining the value of a person’s contribution include:

  • Time and risk dimensions
  • Learning curve
  • Wage
  • Turnover
  • Tenure
  • Position
  • Industry

With this measure, it is possible to justify the approval of seemingly high compensation packages if an individual’s profit contribution is high enough.  It might make sense, in certain instances, to retain a high contributor with an exorbitantly high level of compensation, because the value of keeping that employee on board, even with a high salary, might be higher than the value of replacing him or her with a lower-paid individual.  This is a good example of how the outcome of decisions based on HCA data might differ from conventional, gut-level wisdom.

References

Bukowitz, W., Williams, R., & Mactas, E. (2004, May/June). Human capital measurement. Research Technology Management, 47(3), 43-49.

Cascio, W., & Boudreau, J. (2008). Investing in People. City: FT Press. (Amazon Kindle e-book)

Davenport, T., Harris, J., & Shapiro, J. (2010, October). Competing on talent analytics. Harvard Business Review, 88(10), 52-58.

Dow Theory Forecasts. (2005, May 9). People power. Dow Theory Forecasts, 61(19), 1-2.

Fitz-Enz, J., (2010). The New HR Analytics. New York: AMACOM.

Fitz-Enz, J. (2009, Autumn). Predicting people: from metrics to analytics. Employment Relations Today, 36(3), 1-11.

Fitz-Enz, J. (2009, August). Predictive leadership. Leadership Excellence, 26(8), 20.

Labarre, P. (2001). Marcus Buckingham thinks your boss has an attitude problem. Retrieved 12 15, 2010, from fastcompany.com: 

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/49/buckingham.html?page=0%2C0

Poppler, P., & Stark, E. (2010, May). Rare and inimitable: creating human capital advantage. Chief Learning Officer, 9(5), 26-48.

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Employee Performance, Resources & Tools Tagged With: , ,

Analyzing Analytics for Organizational Effectiveness

February 7, 2011 By Comments

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. Candidate in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

What does it mean to be analytical?  Dr. Fitz-enz (2009) notes three types of analytics in his article, Predicting People: From Metrics to Analytics: descriptive, prescriptive, and causation (also known as cause-and-effect reporting).  Descriptive analytics “reveals and describes relationships and differences between … groups,” while prescriptive analytics “relates what you know currently to what you want to know about the future” (Fitz-enz, 2009, p.5).  Cause-and-effect reporting is the most valuable, and probably the deepest, level of analysis (Fitz-enz, 2009).  According to Sharon Spence (2010), the Human Capital Business Leader at Mercer New Zealand, “Facts about cause-and-effect relationships add the greatest human capital intelligence because they allow you to predict the impact that decisions about human capital can have on performance or other outcomes.”

Why Should We Bother to Predict Anything? 

Why not just continue reporting our past and present measures?  According to Fitz-enz (2009), “Predictive analytics combines information on what has happened in the past, what is happening now, and what’s likely to happen in the future to give you a complete picture of your situation” (p.8). 

In 2007, The Hackett Group reported (as cited in Fitz-enz, 2010) that corporate earnings can grow 15% just by improving a company’s talent management function; they also “found a strong correlation between improved financial performance and top-quartile performance in four key talent-management areas”: strategic workforce planning, staffing services, overall organizational effectiveness, and organizational design and measurement (Fitz-enz, 2010, p. 55).  Let’s consider each of these for a moment.  Strategic workforce planning involves forecasting future employment levels based on projected growth and change.  Successful staffing services – particularly recruitment, which we will revisit momentarily – require valid predictive measures of employee success.  Organizational effectiveness includes performance management, which involves predictions about what will motivate people and how their individual competencies might be developed.  Organizational design and measurement involves picking the right measures (asking the right questions) and designing organizations in a way that is projected to be most efficient and effective in both the present and future.  Clearly, predictive analytics are the key to optimal organizational planning and bottom-line results. 

The Use of Predictive Analytics in Recruitment

The use of predictive analytics in recruitment warrants further discussion, because it is one of the most vital components of any organization’s success.  Companies need to select high-performing individuals in order to maximize productivity and results, so the selection and use of instruments and processes that identify such talent is critical.  It is important that these measures are valid predictors of success on the job, not only for the sake of performance, but also because this documented validity is important in employment litigation.  The best predictors of success on the job, according to a study by Schmidt and Hunter (as cited in Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006) are “measures of general mental ability,” such as IQ scores which, across studies, appear to have a correlation to performance of somewhere around (or just under) 0.4, with intelligence accounting “for no more than 16% of the variation in performance”; other successful predictors that they note include work sample tests, job tryouts, structured interviews, and conscientiousness.  Measures of general intelligence should be used with caution, however, because scores are only valid predictors of success on the job up to a certain threshold; differences beyond this threshold are somewhat meaningless (Effron & Ort, 2010). 

Person-job and person-team fit should also be taken into account during recruitment.  According to Presser (2006), in reference to person-team fit, “fit is key to increasing human capital.”  She is a champion of “the metric of human capital synergy,” which she defines as the “measurement of the effect that happens when we put the right people together” (Presser, 2006).

As the selection example indicates, being analytical can yield great benefits.  Davenport, Harris, and Morison (2010) note seven important benefits that come from being analytical:

  • Help manage and steer the business in turbulent times
  • Know what’s really working
  • Leverage previous investments in IT and information to get more insight, faster execution, and more business value in many business processes
  • Cut costs and improve efficiency
  • Manage risk
  • Anticipate changes in market conditions
  • Have a basis for improving decisions over time (p. 3)

Marketing materials for SPSS, a software product sold by IBM, also list a number of benefits brought about by analytics:

  • Get a higher return on your data investment
  • Find hidden meaning in your data
  • Look forward, not backward
  • Deliver intelligence in real time
  • See your assumptions in action
  • Mitigate risk
  • Discover unexpected opportunities
  • Guarantee your organization’s competitive advantage (as cited in Fitz-enz, 2009, p.8)

Summary

According to Pfeffer & Sutton (2006), it is important to keep in mind that systems are often more important than people, but because the two are so tightly interwoven in the workplace, human resource professionals and human capital analysts should also pay close attention to people-related systems when engaging in the analysis of human capital.  Many systems in the workplace affect people, so the interaction between people and systems should be considered when diagnosing problems or analyzing extant data.  Systemic issues might not always be part of our measurements, but they may be part of a problem’s root cause.  Analytics related to this interaction might be a good topic for further study, research, and development, because it is difficult to find existing analytics that address this.

References

Effron, M., Ort, M. (2010). One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Fitz-Enz, J., (2010). The New HR Analytics. New York: AMACOM.

Fitz-Enz, J. (2009, Autumn). Predicting people: from metrics to analytics. Employment Relations Today, 36(3), 1-11.

Fitz-Enz, J. (2009, August). Predictive leadership. Leadership Excellence, 26(8), 20.

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. (Amazon Kindle e-book)

Presser, J. (2006). Approaching a metric of human capital synergy. Retrieved 11 21, 2010, from shrm.org: http://www.shrm.org/Research/Articles/Articles/Pages/CMS_015839.aspx

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Employee Performance, Needs and Task Analysis Tagged With: ,

Why Are Adults Driven to Learn New Skills?

January 20, 2011 By Comments

Andragogy places its focus on the adult learner and his or her life situation. Knowles’s Andragogy is based on a number of assumptions about the adult learner Knowles supported the idea that learning should be more self-directed and focused on the development of the individual.

According to Malcolm Knowles, individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.

Today’s changing demographics, globalization, and technology are three main sociocultural/economic forces that are driving adults to learn new skills and acquire new information. Although we may be well established in our professional roles, constant changes in the workplace influenced by such aspects as new technology, demographics, and adoption of new ideas or new structure, require that we engage in a set of activities or experiences that lead to learning.

Resources

http://www.eadulteducation.org/adult-learning/socioculturaleconomic-forces-driving-adults-to-learn/

 http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/res.nsf/65A482A5B617746780257272003D5D42/$file/adult-education-image.jpg

Filed Under: Adult Learning, Career Development, Employee Performance Tagged With:
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