INSIGHTS

Improve Organizational Performance: Slow Down that Spinning Hamster Wheel

Posted by Dan Simovic, Managing Director

I’ve noticed that as we work with various businesses to improve their performance, there is a common theme that we encounter. Old habits are hard to change, particularly when they relate to addressing chronic issues. Fueling this situation is that most of the decision makers are already running fast. They have insufficient time to devote to chronic issues like lack of talent, poor management, low performers, turnover and/or inefficient internal workings between departments. Instead of confronting these obstacles, given their hectic pace, leadership just reactively works around them. I liken it to leaders running fast on a hamster wheel that never slows down.

As consultants, our job is to focus on figuring out how to slow this repetitive and unproductive pace. Note that the operative phrase is “slow down” the frantic pace. Realistically, that wheel rarely completely stops turning. Yet, by merely slowing down the out-of-control spinning, a business has more time and capacity to focus on core issues. Consistent activity - redirected to core tasks - can positively impact profitability and therefore, the bottom line of an organization. While this sounds simple, there are barriers which keep many businesses from addressing their chronic problems. For example, while they may recognize their organizational challenges, they do not believe that things can substantially improve. Compounding that is that the company may not have sufficient in-house expertise to address the issues. Next, they are looking for a quick fix and are not committed to any sustained effort. Lastly, they feel it is cost-prohibitive to fix the identified problems. So, the wheel keeps on turning faster…and faster.

However, for businesses that do make the commitment to slow down that hamster wheel, we’ve been able to document marked progress over time. Changes are seen in both operational efficiency and within the culture of the organization. Success stories appear to have all the following in common: It all starts at the top. Supportive leadership is the key success factor. That does not mean that leaders need to be “in the trenches” but it does mean that they demand their team leaders develop a strategic action plan and hold others accountable to execute to execution.

Organizations that do not possess sufficient resources, internal expertise or capacity to drive change, need to be open to using reputable consultants to assist them in driving change. One of our clients interviewed a dozen consulting firms before engaging our firm. Many consultants are academics and lack any real business experience. That makes it difficult, if not impossible to understand or adequately address very real and functional problems.

Fixes to chronic problems do not happen overnight. They require a sustained effort. The most successful CEOs are the ones who have a clearly articulated vision that they constantly reinforce and support with their team. All day to day activities are linked to supporting the company’s stated goals. Regardless of title or role, everyone in the organization must be on the same page and focused on goal-related activities. Driving change requires an investment of both time and dollars. That investment can be large or small as long as it is moving the organization forward and positively impacting its bottom line. Start with simple and practical solutions to make a quicker impact and to provide the best cost to value exchange. Then tackle those that are more complex, costly and time consuming since those are likely going to be tougher implement and sustain.

Dan Simovic is the Managing Director at TAMS Group. He works with a team of top-notch consultants to provide practical solutions to companies designed to improve employee and organizational productivity, attract, develop, manage and reward their most critical assets: their employees; and minimize workplace compliance risk.

Let’s Stop Talking About Employee Engagement

By Sandy Turba, Managing Consultant, TAMS Group

Employee Engagement: I’ll argue that it’s the most overused term in human resources. And like any phrase that’s reached a saturation point, it’s at risk of being relegated to a top ten list of business terms that should be stricken from the corporate vocabulary. But it also runs the risk of death by cliché – its importance (because it is important!) diluted by its ubiquity. We’ve heard it, we’ve read about it, we’ve talked about it, and of course, we’ve surveyed it. But have we forgotten what it really means? Have we over complicated what it really takes to achieve it?

There’s a lot to be said about it, as evidenced by the nearly 2,000,000 hits you’ll get on Google if you’re interested in reading quotes about employee engagement. My favorite? A March 2013 tweet by Neil Morrison, ‎Director, Strategy, Culture and Innovation at Penguin Random House UK: “Every time I hear the word engagement another part of me dies.”

I think that’s how a lot of us feel. Employee engagement is often defined as the degree to which employees are committed to their jobs, passionate about their work and operating at a level of productivity that contributes to the organization’s success. It’s time to look beyond that definition. It’s time to take a few giant steps back to where it has to begin - with an investment.
That investment is a relationship where both employee and employer make a mutual contribution, sharing both an interest in and accountability for a result that yields something greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe it’s a subtle distinction, but making an investment requires an outlay. It mandates focus, risk, patience, vulnerability, and the willingness to take action at the right time for the right reason (because sometimes the best course of action is to part ways). The path isn’t always linear, because at its core, it’s a relationship between people.

What if we begin with a Maslowian perspective – where the path to reaching full potential hinges on meeting fundamental human needs? Beyond the foundational physiological and safety needs of employee (competitive pay and benefits, appropriate working conditions and a general level of security in the job), everything else originates from a sense of belonging and value, and I’d argue that these needs can only be fulfilled in the context of a healthy relationship. Think about relationship fundamentals as they relate to your workplace and ask yourself:

Compatibility

Do your employees have the fundamental values and competencies that your organization needs to succeed? Do you hire with that in mind?

Trust

Do your employees trust you? Do you trust them? Do people work from a mutually understood set of expectations?

Feedback

Are people communicating outside of the typical performance management process? Can employees and managers be honest with each other, giving feedback (both positive and developmental) with the intention of bettering the relationship, the work performance and ultimately, the organization? Are you recognizing contributions, growth and successes? Do employees know what they need to do to correct performance issues? Do you hold them accountable?

Maximizing Strengths

Have you cultivated an environment that can elicit, leverage and evolve the best that an employee has to offer? Are they giving you their best in return? Is the best that they have to offer aligned with what you need?

Finally, you create engagement when you create meaning in the workplace. Do your employees feel as though their work matters? Do they perform their jobs in a way that demonstrates that it does? If they do, they’ll be motivated intrinsically – and that’s what engagement is really about.

Sandy Turba is the Managing Consultant at TAMS Group. She works with a team of top-notch consultants to provide practical solutions to companies designed to improve employee and organizational productivity, attract, develop, manage and reward their most critical assets: their employees; and minimize workplace compliance risk.

I Hate HR!

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Early in my career I was interviewing for an HR management role with a fast growing technology company. They had one of the strongest employment brands in the region and an equally strong pool of candidates interested in working for them. I was excited to meet one of the division presidents whose organization I would be supporting.

After completing my research and prepping for potential questions I felt relatively confident that I was ready for the interview. The biggest question in my mind was why the preceding incumbent only lasted ten months in the role.

The Division President greeted me in the lobby with very few words and escorted me to his office. I sat across his desk with an attentive posture as he stared silently at me for about 15 seconds before smiling ever so subtly and declaring, “I hate HR.” This wasn’t a question, and no amount of interview preparation could have equipped me with a fitting response. But I felt that I had to give an honest answer because at that point I had nothing to lose. My reply was pretty succinct.

The opening was “There are many days that I hate HR, too!” I gave a few examples that I’m pretty sure every HR practitioner can relate to: in HR you tend to deliver bad news related to policies and people; you are focused on controversial topics that while very important to the organization may not be the primary business priority of the leadership team. You’re faced with trying to navigate or mediate issues with other parts of the HR organization and are left feeling like you can’t move the agenda fast enough to meet the needs of the business. Consequently, in many instances HR is not seen as a “business partner” but rather as a business impediment. I concluded my response by asserting that there would be many days where he would need me and that I could help drive the business agenda, which historically was my strongest asset.

Less than five minutes into the interview the Division President rises, shakes my hand and says that he would recommend me for the job. We walked back to the lobby. I tried to process what just took place. If they offered me the job, and if I accepted it, what kind of relationship would I have with this person? What would it be like to work for an organization that apparently viewed HR as a roadblock?

Ultimately I decided to take the job. The experience I gained was tremendous. The biggest personal reward was the level of autonomy I was given to execute business initiatives, and the degree to which I was able to be engaged in the business operations. At the core of that positive experience was an appreciation of - and respect for the bottom-line orientation of the leadership team, and the trust they placed in me to support what the business was trying to achieve. At the outset, I was given very simple and clear goals: staff the new business segments with the best talent within the budget we’ve established; determine the right compensation structure within these parameters; fix the issues in the customer service area. The mandate was to go and do it.

The message was clear: I was accountable for making it happen.

As evidenced by the short tenure of my predecessor, the job wasn’t for everyone. There were many challenges, and while the leadership team granted me autonomy they also gave autonomy to others, which meant that among competing agendas or approaches, some of the leaders weren’t necessarily inclined to collaborate with HR.

I often reflect back on that period of my HR career. The takeaway for me is that I always considered myself a business person first and an HR professional second. In that respect I may be within the minority of my profession. That said, my approach, desire and ability to understand the business has allowed me to effectively communicate and partner with business leaders. I’ve rarely had a problem with “being at the table”, which is a key frustration among many in our profession.

Being “at the table” requires developing a strong business acumen – which is vastly different from simply understanding organization development theories, the technical elements of human resources management or HR “best practices”. Having interviewed hundreds of HR people in my career, the biggest weakness that I see is an inability to articulate HR concepts in non-HR terms so that business leaders can relate to them. The skill does not come from a textbook. It’s developed over time by a strong desire and deliberate effort to learn the business. Developing a common language and trust is the goal. It is the only way an HR practitioner has a chance to influence a senior leader. The bottom line? Be ready when someone tells you “I hate HR!

Why Managing Change is the Key to Business Success

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Dealing with change is an ongoing challenge both in our personal and work lives. However, most people and organizations do not devote sufficient time discussing change management. To use an extreme example think of how Toys R Us handled change in the marketplace. Or if we go back a little further why did Blockbuster not see what Netflix saw.

In this article we discuss why paying attention to and dealing effectively with change is a key to your business success. Here are some lessons we have learned along the way.

Keep it Simple

Within our consulting practice we follow the mantra that it is more challenging to make things simple than to make them complex. This is particularly true when you are looking to drive improvements to organizational performance and culture. Therefore when we engage leaderships teams on solving organizational problems we emphasize that our collective solutions need to be extremely simple and focused. The reason, people will have a clearer path to where change needs to take place. Complexity drives stress and frustration and limits one’s ability to change.

Identifying Roadblocks to Change

The first phase of our engagements is always devoted to assessing the current state of the organization and gaining an understanding of which areas need to improve. A key subset of this phase is to assess the leadership capabilities of the management team and the overall talent base within the organization. This determines the organizations capability to drive improvements. Inevitably we find that in most organizations there is a less than adequate capability to drive immediate change. This could be caused by a number of factors (resources, capital, willingness or knowhow). In short, we need to understand where the roadblocks to implementing changes will reside.

Adapting Organization to Change

Once a strategy is developed the focus shifts to communicating and training the team on the specific initiatives. The ultimate goal is to improve accountability, engagement and culture. However, in laying out all the specific initiatives sometimes we forget that there is an overarching goal that we are all pursuing.

That is, to improve the organization’s capability to react to and drive change.Whether you are looking to upgrade talent, improve skills, increase employee engagement, achieve productivity of new hires, introduce a new product line, integrate departments, reduce turnover, cut costs, or drive a key project; in all these areas and many more, your ability to manage change will determine your level of business success. Beyond business, just look at top performing sports teams - superior teams adapt to change faster than underperforming teams.

Defining Individual Change Quotients

While change management has always been a focus within organizations, defining change expectations for each role/individual is not always done adequately. For example, a sales representative’s role is to grow sales, but a key “change quotient” could be to grow more new business as a percentage of total sales. A manufacturing operator may be focused on running a machine, but a key change quotient could be to improve material utilization. Countless examples can be made of what change requirements are necessary for each role- from top leaders to lower levels. Thinking through and applying these change expectations to each role is where many organizations do not devote sufficient time and energy.

With advances of technology the pace of change in the workplace continues to increase. Finding, attracting, screening, upgrading and promoting talent that can assimilate to your form of change is a requisite. Likewise, if a particular role does not require a significant focus on change, you also need to know that. How many times have you heard or read about millennials turning over because they are bored and want greater change and variety within their job? Again, the principle is the same. You need to know the change quotient of each role and align your strategies appropriately.

Summary

It is imperative to develop teams that are effective at managing and driving change. Connecting all talent acquisition and management strategies to this simple principle will allow you to assess your workforce capabilities and determine where you need to improve. So start by assessing your readiness and capacity for change. Examine your:· Culture· Leadership· Organizational structure· Hiring· Talent developmentAre you prepared to change?

You’re not as good as you think you are.

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Learning through hands-on experience is one of the best ways to improve in business. Over the course of my career I’ve been fortunate enough to work for a couple of leading organizations that were ranked nationally in the top of their peer group. When I joined these organizations they were highly focused on achievement and consistently managed year over year growth. Similarly my consulting company has been fortunate enough to support several such high performing organizations. So there were plenty of opportunities to learn what drives success.

You will be surprised to learn that my greatest learning experience with high performing organizations was not always from their days of being on top but rather how they reacted to changing market conditions and adversity. The best organizations reacted to situations by developing appropriate strategies and rallying the team. Others went from being on top to literally imploding in quick fashion.

Not too long ago one of our clients purged their whole leadership team. The story would not be overly unique except for the fact that in the preceding two years the company was recognized by various publications and business experts as one of the top performing organizations in the region and country. There were many articles in the media praising the senior leadership team, their organizational culture and management philosophy. They were a case study for success. So how could they fall from the top so fast? Is it an isolated instance?

The timing of the organizational implosion was somewhat of a surprise to me and my team. The fact that it happened was not. We sensed that in spite of their growth the organizational culture lacked a true team identity and was not positioned to foster long term success or stability. After all, profits and stock were appreciating at historically high levels in comparison to similar organizations.

This recent experience reminded me of how many times I had seen this radical drop happen. Below are some common threads when organizations go from the top to the bottom in fast order.

First and foremost, the C-level leader does not have the right functional leadership team. In turn they are not getting the appropriate level of feedback, counsel and vigilance as to what is happening on the ground. Instead managers are simply riding the wave of success and not looking beyond the short term gains. In reality that success might be driven more by market conditions (example: high margin product/service that is in demand) rather than financial results being driven by effective management of sales and operations. Consequently there is a false sense of accomplishment - one that is short term.

Second, the C-level leader is not paying attention to or objectively assessing opposing or critical views. In my experience, sometimes those who offer opposing views are seen as not understanding the winning business recipe (that which is driving success). From personal experience I have been told “you don’t get it” when questioning certain aspects of our strategic approach. A couple of years down the road those same leaders are out and the company is imploding. Had they been more open minded and further assessed the opposing views it could have possibly saved the organization.

That gets us to the third point, which is that a culture has to be built on a common set of beliefs that are genuine. Everyone within the organization has to believe in them. In other words, employees know what to do in the absence of day to day management. They do not need to wait for the leader to tell them what to do. They simply execute within established performance norms. In the absence of this common alignment the cultural foundation is weak and will inevitably crack. Most of the organizations that I have seen dropping from the top were not aligned internally. In the face of a business crisis the organization as a whole was not prepared.

Lastly, based on my inherent cynicism, my feeling is that you are never as good as you think you are. You must constantly reassess what you are doing, how you are driving success and how things can improve, even when you are on top. Failure to do so can lead to rapid decline which will be difficult to stop or turn around. Having an open mind, listening and assessing opposing views is a great way to keep yourself and your ego in check.

Employee Engagement and Retention: Digging Below the Surface

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Addressing employee engagement and retention traditionally involves examining areas

that may feed the problem: effectiveness of candidate screening, compensation/rewards positioning, career path progression and broad work culture assessments particularly focused on leadership and management. All that said, turnover continues in some organizations even when these areas are examined and strategies are applied. As an example, some of our clients groom talent through rotational development programs.

They spend top dollar to attract talent and invest in their learning and career development. However, two to three years later a significant portion of these individuals leave the organization, creating a talent hole, not to mention the loss of investment dollars and time spent by others in developing them.

While turnover is accepted as a business reality for certain jobs and industry segments, in recent time turnover seems to be increasing in many non traditional areas. To this point, Department of Labor statistics indicate that, on average, for all jobs, employees entering the workforce will have roughly four jobs in the first ten years of their career. With the economy picking up steam that number could possibly get worse in the future. So you could say that we live in a transient work world where change is constant.

As noted above, most organizations address traditional areas when dealing with engagement and retention. Beyond these fundamentals I thought about two simple overarching factors that influence organizational stability and turnover. These factors need to be discussed, assessed and baked into the overall engagement and retention strategy.

The first is the concept of genuineness. In other words when we interview and select candidates there is a communication exchange which follows a simple pattern. Candidates are quizzed about their past work history, behavior and career interests, including compensation. Hiring managers/recruiters describe the job and to some degree sell the candidate to join the organization. Within this dynamic communication exchange, the degree of genuineness exhibited by both the candidate and company management will dictate how well expectations are aligned and will significantly influence tenure.

The issue in today’s marketplace is that candidates are experienced at interviewing often and answering questions in a politically correct fashion leaving the employer to guess if they will truly work out. Assessments help to some degree but do not fully alleviate the problem. Likewise companies do not invest the time to thoroughly communicate the pros and cons of their organization and leadership team. It is only after the employee is there for some period of time that reality manifests itself.

Connected closely to this first factor of genuineness is the concept of relationship. If we combine the two you can call it a genuine relationship. The definition implies that there is a common appreciation between the employee and the organization. It is a trust factor. When it’s done right the employee is fully engaged and supports the efforts of the organization while the management team genuinely looks out for the best interests of its team members. However, in recent times the relationship concept has deteriorated and we have realistically moved to a “transient” relationship. There are many historical reasons for this, economic, social and other. Nonetheless building genuine relationships should be the overarching goal of every organization. This is equally important as compensation, career paths, and other traditional considerations.

While this approach sounds simple, it is very challenging to build the genuine relationship concept into the organization and company culture. It takes commitment and vigilance. It is a broad effort which starts at the leadership level and cascades down to day to day business decision making. Not all leaders, managers or employees are comfortable with being completely transparent and open. Consequently, the relationship and trust factor evaporates quickly, rendering these strategies useless. One can see a similar correlation within our personal lives, where the success of personal relationships is dictated by day to day engagement. The best relationships are built on authentic and transparent relationships.

Are you overlooking high performing talent?

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Identifying, hiring and developing top performing talent is becoming increasingly more challenging in today’s competitive job marketplace. Top performers at all organizational levels have options and use that leverage to decide where their next move will take them. On the flip side of that there is a limited supply of top talent and many companies are losing out on landing those individuals. Consequently companies might be left with the best available talent to choose from, which over time weakens organizational bench strength.

Where Are They?

So the question is, are there any hidden places where you can find high potential talent? The answer is that for some jobs there might be and in some instances they are right in front of you. The biggest challenge is to effectively recognize talent when you see it. It requires straying away from the traditional recruiting focus on technical and industry specs and giving greater weight to behavioral competencies and accomplishments. Based on our experience, surprisingly this approach is not broadly utilized and in some organizations is considered taboo.

The argument is that it is much easier and faster to teach technical knowledge than develop certain behavioral competencies such as communication, critical thinking, creativity, leadership and strong results orientation. Yet in vetting candidates we disproportionately focus on the technical, product and industry segment fit. Many top performers rarely get past submitting their resume or having an initial screening, as they are filtered out early on for not matching the ideal specs.

Identifying Top Performers

The applicant tracking system and key word searches do not effectively gauge success and high performance. Moreover, our traditional biases of only including candidates with specific experiences limit our candidate pool. If by chance we see candidates with a strong performance track record, but outside of our traditional specs, we wonder why they are even interested in our job and company. But in reality some individuals may have limited choice within their industry segment, they want to remain in the geographic area or they may want a change from their current career track. Just because they do not fully match the specs does not diminish their potential to drive results and grow fast in the role.

To illustrate an extreme example of not recognizing talent when it is in front of you let’s review the case of Brian Acton. In 2009 this software engineer with previous work experience at Yahoo and Apple was turned down by both Twitter and Facebook. His skill set did not appeal to them. Consequently he created a startup with another Yahoo alum, called WhatsApp, a cloud based messaging company. Four years later Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion.

More recently we helped several people in career transitions. These are very high producers with years of documented accomplishment. I was amazed at the lack of traction they were initially getting in the marketplace. From what we could tell their flaws inevitably included: lack of exposure to company’s operating systems; lower than desired years within industry; too experienced versus the “up and comers”; previous earnings were higher than target; junior recruiter screening the initial batch of candidates did not see their strengths. Moreover, some of the interviewers were intimidated by how strong some of these candidates were and consequently they were taken out of the running.

Our strategy to help these high performers gain traction is to put them in front of more senior leaders through warm introductions. Upon doing so we immediately saw them gain traction and move through the interview process, even where there was no formal opening. Why? Because some of the senior leaders recognized their accomplishments, strong skills and capabilities. Issues related to not fully matching the ideal specs became secondary as most of those areas can be overcome if you have the right person.

Changing Our Approach

The message here is that there is a limited supply of top talent that will match the exact spec of the job. Consequently, you will spend long periods of time chasing those specs and in many instances redefining the position to match the best available candidate. Our approach is to be more inclusive from the start. Look at as many candidates as possible without bias. By placing greater value on past achievement versus technical or industry knowledge you will build a cadre of performers to fill your succession ranks.

It is understood that this approach cannot be employed for a number of jobs, particularly niche roles, but for many others it can be. The leadership team must empower the recruiter to have greater latitude and open mind to identify high performing talent. Identifying the best talent is all about turning over every rock and seeing if there is some hidden talent. This requires a different mindset both from a recruiting perspective and from a corporate culture perspective. It is a team effort. Organizations that take this approach outperform their competition.

Beyond the business world we particularly see this creative approach to identifying talent in sports. Successful organizations always seem to identify hidden talent not recognized by other teams. It is a difference maker in winning and losing.

The Future of Human Resources: Managing the Art and the Science of Human Capital

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Have you clearly defined and communicated the roles that employees need to play?

Are those roles optimally integrated into the business strategy and operations?

Are you consistently reinforcing the expectations and holding people accountable?
As the economy continues to pick up steam and market competition increases, organizations continue to struggle to find the right talent and effectively manage business outcomes.

Beyond developing the right strategy companies are searching for ways to connect strategic initiatives to day to day tactical execution. From our experience to reach that ideal state there are three simple key success factors that all organizations should focus on.

Clarity and Simplicity

All strategies and tactics must be clearly communicated and understood by every member of the organization. In other words, every team member knows what is expected of them both from a productivity and behavioral standpoint. Our mantra is to make things clear, simple and easily understood. Winning cultures devote significant time and effort to this endeavor.

One of the most basic management fundamentals that is frequently overlooked is a clear job description. What we see in many organizations is that individual roles have not been formally reviewed or updated for years. In a world of ever changing work priorities and fluid matrix reporting relationships (being accountable to more than one person), organizations need to devote the time to clearly define expectations and nuances for each job.

On the flip side of not having well defined job descriptions, we work with many organizations that have literally become job description happy. As an example within some larger organizations we see thousands of documented roles. Likewise, in smaller organizations we also see an inordinate number of defined roles for a small employment population. Simplifying and aligning the organization to a reasonable number or job roles provides better operational clarity. Finding that right balance is what every organization needs to strive for.

Alignment and Structure

Beyond clear individual role definitions, winning organizations spend significant time in aligning their organizational structure. For example, we recently worked with an organization and noted that many departments touched the customer. However, the departments only looked at that customer interaction from their individual vantage point. Sales sold the deal, finance booked it, engineering needed to participate in estimating, tech support needed to understand the technical support demands and so on. In this example, while each area had its own KPI’s, there was not a common process flow, reporting or forum to address the activity as a whole. So the focus became to align and optimize the work flow structure. ERP systems can help in this effort but they are not the sole solution and need to be aligned with clear lines of communication between key stakeholders.

Reviewing organizational alignment and structure needs to be a formal practice within all organizations, large and small, even if the organizations mission does not change very often. This helps to guard against complacency and silo mentality. A key success factor for this effort is to build the business acumen of the leadership team as they need to be the guardians of optimal alignment. Their ability to think beyond their functional area and to holistically view organizational interdependencies is crucial. Training, development and mentoring of key leaders in this area is essential.

Executing and Reinforcing Expectations

This is where business strategy and talent strategy really intersect. Hiring the right talent, establishing appropriate goals, managing performance, improving skill levels, compensating, incentivizing, communicating and engaging employees are all factors impacting organizational success. Moreover, how you manage these areas defines the type of organizational culture you will produce.

Most organizations tell us that their greatest challenge in executing their business plan is having the right talent base. From a strategy standpoint, this means that you will need to optimize your recruiting process and develop the capability to quickly move the talent through the ranks once they are hired. And by the way, you have to do this in a very challenging marketplace where turnover is high and employee engagement is not where it needs to be.

Having a well developed talent strategy and connecting it to your business strategy is paramount. For most organizations it is the most crucial element of achieving organizational objectives and a determinant of what type of culture you will have. Getting there requires a lot of small steps and significant attention to connecting strategy to tactical execution.

Connecting Your Business and Talent Strategy

By Dan Simovic, Managing Director, TAMS Group

Have you clearly defined and communicated the roles that employees need to play?

Are those roles optimally integrated into the business strategy and operations?

Are you consistently reinforcing the expectations and holding people accountable?

As the economy continues to pick up steam and market competition increases, organizations continue to struggle to find the right talent and effectively manage business outcomes. Beyond developing the right strategy companies are searching for ways to connect strategic initiatives to day to day tactical execution. From our experience to reach that ideal state there are three simple key success factors that all organizations should focus on.

Clarity and Simplicity

Alignment and Structure

Executing and Reinforcing Expectations

If you have the top two areas covered, the third and most critical area is to execute and consistently reinforce expectations. The best laid plans will not drive business success unless they are consistently executed and reinforced.
This is where business strategy and talent strategy really intersect. Hiring the right talent, establishing appropriate goals, managing performance, improving skill levels, compensating, incentivizing, communicating and engaging employees are all factors impacting organizational success. Moreover, how you manage these areas defines the type of organizational culture you will produce.

INSIGHTS

Improve Organizational Performance: Slow Down that Spinning Hamster Wheel

Let’s Stop Talking About Employee Engagement

I Hate HR!

Why Managing Change is the Key to Business Success

You’re not as good as you think you are.

Employee Engagement and Retention: Digging Below the Surface

Are you overlooking high performing talent?

The Future of Human Resources: Managing the Art and the Science of Human Capital

Connecting Your Business and Talent Strategy

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