What can HR do to directly influence the contribution to a firm’s strategy execution efforts? There are many ways, but two stand out. These concern metrics necessary to assess employee growth, especially in “A” positions, and to assess the strategic focus of the workforce in its efforts at strategy execution.
HR’s responsibilities to the broader-based workforce are to design means of enhancing careers, building competency growth models, posting systems, and doing whatever is necessary to grow workforce competencies. Generally, employees grow mostly by real work experiences. This means that individuals need to rotate through jobs, and such rotations are in the best interest not only of the firm, but also of the employee. As competencies grow, employees become more valuable to the organization, and career opportunities as well as compensation opportunities are enhanced. Growth through rotational assignments may also mean that part of the firm’s workforce philosophy should state that no employee owns a job, that the firm owns all positions and employees are expected to grow their competencies and become eligible for other positions.
Competency growth models for strategic positions gauge employee growth and contribute to the firm’s competitive advantage. HR time and effort should be devoted to the development of competency growth models. Employee growth and development is often random, as in promotion decision-making, including the movement from non-managerial to managerial jobs. Career development efforts are often not well managed and must be much more specifically focused than they have been to date. HR can play a significant role in making this occur.
The issue is how to ensure that employees are growing strategic competencies that impact a firm’s competitive advantage and are measured on their progress. The use of competency growth models and development discussions with supervisors can certainly help, as can a workforce philosophy that states that, in addition to the employee performance contribution, every employee must grow their competencies.
An example of a competency growth model is that for the technical workforce at DuPont, which is used for the engineering series, from Engineer I through Distinguished Fellow. This series was initiated to accelerate the growth of critical capabilities within DuPont. It is a part of a manual called “Your Career Pathways,” which has won several internal and external awards because it attempts to provide assurance that technical talent will continue to grow. In the late 1990s, many junior scientists had capabilities that were more in demand at DuPont than those of senior scientists. DuPont questioned whether it should hire more junior scientists or retrain senior scientists. The issue was, how should a firm grow the strategic talent necessary to win its future in some programmed way? The competency growth grid was a part of DuPont’s response. It is tied to pay by using compensation factors associated with the Hay system: know-how, accountability, and problem-solving. It is also a progression system, not a promotion system. Thus, when employees are measured against the next level of competence, or workforce metric, and “pass” the criteria, they move to the next level and are compensated for the “worth” of the next-level position.
Another example comes from Nissan R&D in Farmington Hills, Mich., where cars are designed for the North American market. When foreign firms take residence in another country, often they do not have an advantage with respect to the workforce and therefore must find other means to upgrade their talent to ensure that they can meet or exceed that of any competitor. This was Nissan’s dilemma. Thus, besides bringing quality engineering talent from Japan and getting the best talent that they could attract from the United States, Nissan decided that the best way to have highly competitive talent was to engage in a systemic effort to grow talent. Thus, they developed several competency grids that were designed to continually enhance and upgrade the workforce. This effort took more than two years to design using the Japanese practice of “nemawashi,” which involves a series of meetings to discuss in detail the competencies and expectations for each position (in this case, engineering, CAD/CAM, and so on) until all managers reach agreement. Thus, when the design process is complete, there is no “big event” rollout or fanfare necessary. However, once agreement was reached, the system was relatively easy to execute, because many engineers had had a significant opportunity to provide input to the final criteria. These grids, all six of them, are posted outside the design areas of Nissan and upgraded annually by a nine-member team. Each year three members of the team rotate off and new ones rotate on, and engineers self-nominate for promotion and have their portfolio assessed by members of the team responsible for certifying promotion to the next level, which carries a substantial financial reward.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. Excerpted from The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker and Richard W. Beatty. Copyright 2005 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
HR’s responsibilities to the broader-based workforce are to design means of enhancing careers, building competency growth models, posting systems, and doing whatever is necessary to grow workforce competencies. Generally, employees grow mostly by real work experiences. This means that individuals need to rotate through jobs, and such rotations are in the best interest not only of the firm, but also of the employee. As competencies grow, employees become more valuable to the organization, and career opportunities as well as compensation opportunities are enhanced. Growth through rotational assignments may also mean that part of the firm’s workforce philosophy should state that no employee owns a job, that the firm owns all positions and employees are expected to grow their competencies and become eligible for other positions.
Competency growth models for strategic positions gauge employee growth and contribute to the firm’s competitive advantage. HR time and effort should be devoted to the development of competency growth models. Employee growth and development is often random, as in promotion decision-making, including the movement from non-managerial to managerial jobs. Career development efforts are often not well managed and must be much more specifically focused than they have been to date. HR can play a significant role in making this occur.
The issue is how to ensure that employees are growing strategic competencies that impact a firm’s competitive advantage and are measured on their progress. The use of competency growth models and development discussions with supervisors can certainly help, as can a workforce philosophy that states that, in addition to the employee performance contribution, every employee must grow their competencies.
An example of a competency growth model is that for the technical workforce at DuPont, which is used for the engineering series, from Engineer I through Distinguished Fellow. This series was initiated to accelerate the growth of critical capabilities within DuPont. It is a part of a manual called “Your Career Pathways,” which has won several internal and external awards because it attempts to provide assurance that technical talent will continue to grow. In the late 1990s, many junior scientists had capabilities that were more in demand at DuPont than those of senior scientists. DuPont questioned whether it should hire more junior scientists or retrain senior scientists. The issue was, how should a firm grow the strategic talent necessary to win its future in some programmed way? The competency growth grid was a part of DuPont’s response. It is tied to pay by using compensation factors associated with the Hay system: know-how, accountability, and problem-solving. It is also a progression system, not a promotion system. Thus, when employees are measured against the next level of competence, or workforce metric, and “pass” the criteria, they move to the next level and are compensated for the “worth” of the next-level position.
Another example comes from Nissan R&D in Farmington Hills, Mich., where cars are designed for the North American market. When foreign firms take residence in another country, often they do not have an advantage with respect to the workforce and therefore must find other means to upgrade their talent to ensure that they can meet or exceed that of any competitor. This was Nissan’s dilemma. Thus, besides bringing quality engineering talent from Japan and getting the best talent that they could attract from the United States, Nissan decided that the best way to have highly competitive talent was to engage in a systemic effort to grow talent. Thus, they developed several competency grids that were designed to continually enhance and upgrade the workforce. This effort took more than two years to design using the Japanese practice of “nemawashi,” which involves a series of meetings to discuss in detail the competencies and expectations for each position (in this case, engineering, CAD/CAM, and so on) until all managers reach agreement. Thus, when the design process is complete, there is no “big event” rollout or fanfare necessary. However, once agreement was reached, the system was relatively easy to execute, because many engineers had had a significant opportunity to provide input to the final criteria. These grids, all six of them, are posted outside the design areas of Nissan and upgraded annually by a nine-member team. Each year three members of the team rotate off and new ones rotate on, and engineers self-nominate for promotion and have their portfolio assessed by members of the team responsible for certifying promotion to the next level, which carries a substantial financial reward.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. Excerpted from The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker and Richard W. Beatty. Copyright 2005 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
