Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR January 26, 2015 8 News it's time to be more proactive in talent management BY pauL JunipeR why do so many companies lack successors? I think many or- ganizations are of six minds about it. Why spend time grooming someone for a position that may not become vacant, and why train someone so she can go elsewhere if you make her wait too long? It's all very uncertain and there are so many other things that seem urgent NOW. When I talk to groups at Queen's IRC training programs about strategic workforce plan- ning, I always ask the following two questions: If you were con- sidered a high-potential em- ployee by your current employer, would you want to be told? And, do you currently work for an em- ployer who tells people? Consis- tently, people say yes, they would want to be told (usually more than 80 per cent of people asked) and they do not work for an em- ployer who tells them (some- where in the 60 per cent to 70 per cent range). Research shows recruiting from outside an organization costs more and results in a lower retention rate than building from within. In the end, most compa- nies are forced to do some of each. It is worthwhile to have an inter- nal discussion about "What is a healthy level of voluntary turn- over for us and how will we keep it there?" Many employers continue to be reactive on this subject. I am continually surprised by employers that wait until they have a vacancy before scanning the market for hard-to-find can- didates. And even fewer are pro- active about finding those who are not looking; usually, the best candidates are happily employed now — passive methods will not attract those candidates. We are in a country that is wide open to international trade. Many of the hard-to-find candidates — such as process engineers with experience in the petrochemi- cal industry — are not located in Fort McMurray. ey may be in Caracas, Houston or Aberdeen, Scotland. If you are not on Twitter, you may be invisible to those under 30. It sure isn't your parents' re- cruitment market nor technology. It's all part of a comprehensive talent management and succes- sion planning strategy for growth in changing times. e need for strategic workforce planning is continuing to increase. Do you have a comprehensive plan? Do you have a plan to create a plan? The Queen's IRC Strategic Workforce Planning program helps you develop succession plans and partnership strate- gies that can survive the blinding speed of a rapidly changing tech- nological world. Our instructors use real-world experience and evidence-based tools to help you understand the core components of succession planning and identi- fy gaps in your current workforce planning. e program offers ex- ceptional benefits to leaders who want to stay ahead of the curve. For more information, please visit us at www.irc.queensu.ca. Paul Juniper is director of the Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) at Queen's Uni- versity. For more than 75 years, Queen's IRC has provided practitioner-centred programs to human resources, labour relations and organizational develop- ment professionals, delivered in an experiential learning environment fo- cused on core competencies, practical tools, networking opportunities and strategic process development. I am continually surprised by employers that wait until they have a vacancy before scanning the market for hard-to-find candidates. "ey just want to keep the best people they've got and they're doing a good job — why would they give them to somebody else, they've spent all the time and effort?" he said. "One of the critical things is to… re vie w managers once removed, so somebody another level up is looking over the talent pool two levels down and helping to make sure that manager develops those people and releases them." Culturally, it's a mindset as well, said Lee Gonsalves, vice-president of HR at the Calgary Co-operative Association. "I always say to my guys 'It's the job of leaders to create more lead- ers' and so that has to be founda- tional… you've got to have a mind- set that 'It's our job to do this, not just extra.'" Do you tell potential successors? One of the biggest questions when it comes to succession planning is whether or not to tell potential successors they're up for succession. e answer? It depends, said Humphries. "What's important is how the organization does it," she said. "It's about the way in which you tell high-potentials and tell talent that they're important to the or- ganization and that you're going to invest in them and grow them. It's not about saying, 'You're an X, Y, Z rating' or 'You're on a list' and next year 'You're off the list.' It's re- ally important to help leaders have that conversation and give them the leader to do that." You have to remember it's a promise, said Gonsalves. "So if you don't deliver, you've got another part of the equation to manage overall," he said. "If you're going to identify someone as a high-potential, you have to deliver and everybody's got to get onboard with the success of the individual." High-potentials have probably figured this out on their own any- way, said Dakens, with recruiters telling them how good they are. "The only thing I would do is hedge the bet a bit because if I'm given a list of high-potential people and it's generated through the organization, I might hedge my bet that I'm going to tell 80 per cent of that 100 per cent that they're high-potential because I know the other 20 per cent's prob- ably not accurate. And they may not be on the list the following year," he said. "And... if your HR people are pretty good at what they do, they'll add more credibility to the pre- dictability of that list." e list will change, the people evaluating will change and it's a promise and an expectation, so you really need to manage that expectation, said Smith. "I've seen it go wrong several times. I've worked in an organiza- tion where we went too far with telling the top performers who they were, the high-potentials who they were, and then we didn't end up having enough positions for all these fabulous people. So you can run into trouble that way." Internal or external? But many companies choose to look externally for potential suc- cessors. It's more costly to buy tal- ent in but sometimes you have no choice, said Juniper. "e research says that if you buy talent in, it's less loyal and doesn't stay as long as if you de- velop people internally… you do need to have a plan for both, you do need to have both those strings active and delivering people into your organization. "e balance is going to change from time to time, depending on your needs, but we're always going to have a crisis where somebody's gone from a job where there is no successor and you are going to have to go outside." It does really depend on strat- egy — not just the overall organi- zation strategy but the sub-busi- nesses within the organization, said Humphries. "If you are growing in a different area or you have a busi- ness plan that's going to require new capabilities, then you may very well need to go outside and have a much stronger per- centage of external hires than development." It also depends on the size of the organization, said Dakens. "Larger organizations, there's no excuse, no excuse to be go- ing outside — if it's a successful company, you've got people who are already delivering the goods for you. But at much smaller companies, 1,000, 500 (people), you're not always going to have exactly the right person in place," he said. "Intuitively, internal is always the best because they know the business, they're respected by the people they work with and they have a higher chance of success, versus the outsider who you just don't know until they arrive how successful they're going to be." Both internal, external hires often required successIoN PlANNING < pg. 6 "If you're going to identify someone as a high-potential, you have to deliver and everybody's got to get onboard with the success of the individual," says Lee Gonsalves, vice-president of HR at the Calgary Co-operative Association. "e research says that if you buy talent in, it's less loyal and doesn't stay as long as if you develop people internally."

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