HRM540W-02 Journal Entries
Week 1:
Talent
management is a very important factor in the organization's performance, not just for Human Resources, but for
managers, CEO, and senior executives. While managers are the most responsible
for all things people-related, the other roles serve a very important purpose
as well. As an HR professional, I'm interested in reading how Human Resources can
better prepare and guide managers to develop their people successfully. One of
the key components of Talent Management is Performance Management, which I feel
my current organization is lacking. Demystifying Talent Management points out that organizations are 50 percent
more likely to outperform companies that don't have strong performance
management programs. This very compelling data proves the need for a
robust performance management program. I can sympathize with Janson's
view of the HR function as a "fire-fighting" approach. This perfectly describes how
I feel my role has evolved, making it difficult to focus on long-term
strategies. As a result, I often encounter many short-term challenges that use up my time
and resources and leave me with little time for other long-term challenges.
Learning
and development is a component of talent management that I'm very interested in
learning more about. It seems to be one of those areas that are evolving very
quickly, and I'm somewhat at a loss of where to start. It seems
difficult to keep up with the different avenues for engaging employees in
learning and development with technology constantly changing. The webinar "Learning Trends 2022: The Future of
Learning in a Continuously Evolving World" touched on some trends, of which I found
particularly interesting was L&D in a hybrid workforce and using "immersive
realities." Our organization, like many others, is exploring a hybrid workforce, and with it should come appropriate L&D opportunities. I foresee this being
a challenge would like to gain more insight on how to ensure employees that don't
physically sit in an office are still afforded opportunities for growth and
development. Another resource the webinar touched on was virtual reality and
using it to become a powerful tool in shared learning. This could actually be a useful tool for my organization as we are a global company and
knowledge is spread in all different countries. Our equipment is highly specialized, and one of the problems we encounter is this technical knowledge being limited
to certain people. Using a product suggested in the webinar, such as an oculus,
would allow an expert service technician to guide and assist an inexperienced
technician in a different country in real-time. This kind of advanced technology
could help to bridge the distance gap between people and increase shared
learning.
At
a former company I worked at, Competency Modeling was an important focus in the
Assessment Services department I worked in. However, when I look back, I don't
feel the competency models were truly effective at addressing skill gaps and
were linked to the needs of the business. They were too general. I would like
to start by initially focusing on using competency models for the recruitment
and hiring process. Making sure to hire the right person for a role is very
important for the talent management process. Still, without identifying the
required competencies for the role, it's difficult to know if the candidate is
truly qualified. By hiring the right person initially, the higher the
chances of retaining them in the long term. I can think of a couple of different occasions
where the candidates selected didn't have the necessary competencies, which was
very apparent from the beginning. Once the competencies are identified, I
can create interview questions that will uncover any skills gaps and whether they are gaps that can be filled with training and development.
Week 2:
Performance Management is an area where I truly see value in
improving at our company. As Janson states in Demystifying Talent, it can
be hard for managers to be honest, but not doing so, only wastes the
company’s time and resources. While I understand how important it is to set performance
expectations, one of the struggles we have is coming up with expectations for
our long-tenured employees. It’s not unusual for our company to have employees
that have been with us for 20 to 45 years. Most will remain in the role they
are in until retirement. What I see are managers that copy and paste the same
comments in performance reviews year after year. When I question it, the response
I get is, “They’ve been in the position 30 hours. What new performance
objectives could there be? How could they possibly continue to improve upon
performance?” I understand their sentiment, and I agree to some degree that if
the employee continues to perform their job well, what’s the point. However, as
a company, we have largely evolved over the last 50 years and our processes
must continue to evolve as well. For this reason, it’s important to encourage
our long-tenured employees to evolve as well, as this can be accomplished through
new and improved goals. One of the gaps I see in the review process is a lack
of calibration. Pouring over hundreds of reviews, it’s clear the managers are
not defining the ratings the same and this is resulting in inequitable and
inconsistent ratings. This year, I discovered one of my manager’s definitions
of “Meeting Expectations” meant the employee was performing just to the
standard and therefore wasn’t eligible for a full merit increase. This was not
the case and I realized there needed to be a formal session to discuss the
ratings and be sure everyone was consistently applying them.
The Employee Engagement Survey exercise was an interesting
assignment as I’ve been going back and forth on whether to conduct a formal
survey for our company. As far as I’ve been told, an employee engagement survey
has never been conducted. As I read through Bersin’s papers, I started to think
of some possible questions for the survey. One of my hesitations to conducting
the survey is ensuring that I follow up with the results and take appropriate
actionable steps. Failure to act on the information provided in the surveys can
result in a lack of employee trust and lead to further disengagement. Our CEO
has also questioned the value of conducting similar surveys, so I also must
effectively and intelligently be able to explain the value they can bring.
Based on the information I read about composing surveys, I plan to start with a
very short survey (approximately 5 questions) and touch on the main drivers of
engagement that Bersin mentions: Relationship with Manager, Feeling Valued and
Appreciated Happiness and Commitment, Job Fit, and Mutual Trust.
Onboarding is one of the areas I feel well-versed in and am
confident we have a positive experience in place. As I was reading through the
information and viewing the various videos, I started to think about what enhancements
I could make to the process. It has been approximately 2 years since I made any
sizable changes and in those 2 years our company has gone through a positive transformation
that I don’t feel is truly captured in our onboarding. For example, I’ve worked
tirelessly this year to insert various fun and humorous activities and events
throughout the year, but I don’t showcase these “fun” events anywhere. One of
the ideas I had is to add a montage of video and pictures to the slideshow that
tell new hires we encourage fun and humor in the workplace! Our CEO even participates
in these activities and I’ve seen firsthand the goodwill it buys from
employees. I’ve made some notes on how I plan on slightly changing the
onboarding and new hire process to showcase our culture and make it a more
enjoyable experience.
Week 3:
This week I started to think about all of the systems and processes currently in place at work and whether or not they are actually solving the problem trying to fix. The starting point should always be a gap analysis to determine the problem, but I don’t think this is always done. When trying to solve a problem it’s important to take into account different perspectives from all stakeholders. One solution may help one stakeholder, but not another. As we saw in the dog biscuit this game week, it’s all about balancing interests.
The dog biscuit balancing exercise was a really fun exercise to link metaphors to workplace systems. I would like to replicate this exercise in one of the management training I conduct monthly. There are multiple lessons to be learned from the activity and I feel like the managers would really enjoy it.
It was interesting learning about the different learning styles. My exposure to learning styles is very limited. Reading through them all, the only one I am very familiar with is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. When I worked in the public sector this test was used frequently and it was interesting to see the types of results different people got.
One of the areas I am most curious to learn about and apply in the workplace is instructional design. I hadn’t heard of any of the different models: ADDIE, ISD, Dick and Carey, Holland Process, Pebble in the Pond, and Rapid Prototype Learning. I’ve saved the worksheet that allows you to fill in the strengths and weaknesses of each of the models so I can better determine which would be the most appropriate. Rapid Prototype Learning is the one I would like to do more research on as it’s directed towards e-learning. I would like to design quick, e-learning modules for those employees not located at our headquarters. Having employees working in all different states out in the field, e-learning is one of the more efficient ways to provide training. One of the diagrams that looked very familiar is the Performance Analysis Flow Guide. Our Sr. Director developed a model that closely resembles this one to help take managers through the Behavioral Intervention and Coaching Analysis. Basically, it helps uncover the root of the performance problem. The last option is to terminate, but there are at least a dozen steps before that to help get to the root of the problem. This has been incredibly helpful for me when a manager comes to me and says, “I need John gone. He’s not performing.” Yet, there are no documented situations that John is not meeting expectations. I immediately take out the Behavioral Intervention and Coaching Analysis to go through the steps with the manager. I see this being a resourceful tool for other systems and processes, such as the interactive process (ADA Accommodations) and conducting workplace investigations
Week 4:
The video on gamification was very interesting. The LMS our organization has capabilities for this, but I don't have any experience in using it. I've made a note to research more into gamification and possibly use this as we create our "university" for work.
As I was thinking about aligning the right solution to correct a problem, I thought about past situations in companies. In one particular company, our department failed to nail down what the true problem was, resulting in a solution that didn’t fix the problem. To make matters worse, the solution cost the organization six figures. When it came down to it, the people running the department didn’t have the skills needed to fix the solution. Had the leadership team worked to determine what the real problem is, they would have saved a significant amount of money.
Integrating essential knowledge with competencies is something our performance appraisal process is lacking. While the appraisal measures the person's ability to demonstrate a specific competency, there is nothing on the appraisal that demonstrates the person's knowledge of the job. Essentially, all of the appraisals are the same and are not differentiated by position. This is important, as Spector states because essential knowledge makes up the ingredients and competencies that represent the baking actions. You need both to make it work.
Working with subject matter experts is something I had a lot of exposure to when working in Assessment Services for the City. In order to create assessments to evaluate an applicant's qualifications, an SME was used to create the assessment content. One thing I found when talking to them was the overabundance of information they would try to include in the assessment that wasn't pertinent to assessing the applicant's qualifications. I often would have to scale back this information as it wasn't necessary. This was similar to the experience shared in the video when the SME provided dozens of notebooks of content. It’s important to understand what is necessary, and unnecessary, for the purpose of building content.
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