The Optimized People Development System

Category: Performance Management

  • Optimized People Development Systems Drive Better

    Optimized People Development Systems Drive Better

    The car is sliding sideways, the engine screaming, rear tires smoking, the front tires turned into a series of long, violent skids that change quickly and often. Everything is moving fast as the driver uses a combination of the car’s controls to keep the tire smoke boiling and keep it swinging wildly into the next turn.

    This is one modern-day definition of drifting – lots of speed, lots of adrenaline. Course adjustments yield instant results. The ability to guide the speeding car effectively is a critical skill.

    Steering something that moves at a snail’s pace offers a whole new set of challenges and requires unique skills for those doing the steering.

    Workplace culture moves slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, and sometimes when we wish it wouldn’t. Gallup recently published an insightful article called How to Steer a Drifting Culture in which they highlighted some of the dynamics that cause this slow drift.

    Alongside some great advice for managing constantly-shifting cultural influences, there is also an underlying challenge for organizations to consider how well their internal workforce development system functions as a whole. In other words, is their people development system optimized to help provide the guidance required?

    The People Development System

    The article highlights three important system requirements:

    • The system must provide clear feedback.
    • The PDS should be purpose-driven.
    • Communication and relationships across the PDS are vital.

    Information Needed

    The authors suggest, “…leaders should measure the strengths and weaknesses of their one-of-a-kind culture…”

    The PDS has to provide various types of information to help determine conditions. If the recruiting is strong but training is weak, culture will be negatively impacted. If retention efforts are weak, a strong onboarding process will be less successful. A robust performance management element will help bolster retention. An optimized PDS provides this data.  

    Communication transmits culture. And that flow of communication starts at recruiting and continues all the way through to retention and performance management. Capturing strengths and weaknesses in this type of system can only happen when communication is open and flowing through an optimized PDS.

    A poorly connected siloed PDS will be unable to read the culture properly. Continuously improving the PDS ensures that leaders are getting useful and timely feedback. 

    Purpose Drives Culture

    “…the best leaders consider their purpose and brand when designing their culture…”

    In a recent post, I suggested that a workforce optimization system that understands its reason for being will behave differently than a system that simply aims at obviously significant goals. Taking this idea further, the Gallup article highlights the connection between purpose and brand and how employees can be motivated if they understand both.

    Optimizing the PDS helps to refine the system operation so that these two important drivers are clearly embedded as team members encounter the system from beginning to end.

    Clear, Continuous Communication

    The authors suggest four questions helpful in determining where and how culture drift has occurred. These questions relate to:

    • Subtle unseen changes that occur within the system.
    • Affected perceptions of employees (and other stakeholders).
    • What the PDS is promoting about the culture.
    • The employee value proposition (telling the organization’s story to existing and potential team members – from the start of the conversation (recruiting) all the way through to retention).  

    All of these dynamics can be difficult to ascertain. The system has to be able to understand subtle shifts and monitor things like mood and attitude. As I see it, the only way to effectively answer these questions is by having an optimized people development system operating as a system, not as five siloed areas. A system that is sharing data and having connected conversations.

    Drifting cars require several system elements for control – brakes, throttle, transmission, steering – all working in concert. Steering a slowly evolving culture also requires a system that works together.

    In short, if the system that organizations use to find, train, and retain people is taken for granted; if it is not subjected to continuous improvement and optimization; if its complexity is unappreciated and unaccounted for, it will struggle to guide critical adjustments over the very slow drifting cultural journey.

  • After A Great Start

    After A Great Start

    Growth requires the ability to maintain a type of momentum. The Aspin Institute hosted a webinar today, one of the best I’ve seen in a while, titled Opportunity by Design: A Discussion on Growing Worker Skills and Talent in the Workplace.

    The panel included representatives from two large employers, a national labor/management organization, and a researcher from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

    The discussion was very insightful, with the panelists sharing best practices and describing innovative programs they had launched. The research findings described the needs, as well as some of the gaps that exist. Personal reflections and advice were offered, with a high level of passion that each felt for their work.

    Preparing for Momentum

    As I listened to the exchanges and read the comments that came across the chat window, I couldn’t stop thinking about the small to midsized employers. How would their internal workforce development efforts need to change in order to handle these new approaches to finding, training, and retaining people?

    Unless their people development system (PDS) is optimized, it is unlikely that they will be able to sustain this new direction.

    The People Development System

    Small employers typically have limited resources. It is difficult for most of them to launch new workforce initiatives, connect to external workforce development systems, or secure funding. Although, due to the volatility of the labor market, many are open to these changes. However, there is the challenge of sustaining these efforts, once they are underway.

    Managing Momentum

    The panelist talked about building career ladders and development pathways. These are extremely important and versatile tools that take time to design and implement. Using these tools effectively over time requires a strong training element within their PDS. It also requires that all the PDS stakeholders utilize these tools in a timely manner as the person climbs the ladder or travels their path.

    It is one thing to attract new talent and quite another to retain it and continue to help those folks develop as they grow into their career. Enhancing the retention and performance management elements of the PDS will also be crucial to sustaining momentum.

    Connecting to the greater workforce development system offers another sustainability challenge. The webinar participants encouraged these connections, as did many attendees via the chat box. The internal workforce development activities must align with these external systems in several important areas to take full advantage of these options and to ensure that new momentum lasts.

    Sustaining Momentum

    Most organizations have an internal system for finding, training, and retaining people. Many do not actually see it as a connected system that could benefit from continuous improvement; what I call optimization.

    Being a system, it can benefit from a systems-thinking approach and from lean thinking. Helping organizations build a culture of learning, actually seeing themselves as a learning organization, can also aid in building the type of PDS that can make a lasting impact with these new approaches to job designs and learning opportunities.  

    Done well, designing jobs with advancement in mind and expanding learning opportunities for workers would definitely produce growth for small to midsized employers. Though, it seems that most of the discussions around these opportunities center on the need for change and the importance of implementation.

    If these initiatives are to have staying power, the company’s internal workforce development system has to be ready to take the momentum from these opportunities and translate it into sustainable practices. Helping them optimize this system can ensure successful implementation and translate into long-term success.

  • Improve Workforce Training to Fight Inflation

    Improve Workforce Training to Fight Inflation

    A continuous improvement mindset is a critical trait; now more than ever as inflation rages on. In the fight to offset rising prices, there is a need to look at all parts of the organization, and the system we use to find, train and retain people is no exception. This people development system (PDS) and its five elements can be optimized to provide a competitive advantage to the organization. An honest and in-depth examination of the training portion of the PDS can present opportunities to reduce waste, add new capabilities and increase engagement.

    Waste in Training

    Inefficient or poorly designed training efforts can waste time and effort. Change in our work systems is forever impacting the need for training; however, many training processes are slow to adapt. Over time, new processes are introduced, technology is added, raw materials are substituted, or other changes occur. How often are the training programs reassessed to absorb these changes? Using outdated material or training processes wastes the time and efforts of the new team members and the trainers.

    Wasting time can happen in a variety of ways with regard to training. Besides ineffective training, there’s the waste of the trainer’s time to be considered, and even the time needed for remedial training. Also, delivering training in a way that does not promote learning is a type of waste. This could be through a mind-numbing stream of videos that each person is required to endure on day one, or it could be in an ineffective classroom setting.

    Continuous improvement includes continuous learning. How often do long-established team members experience training? Is that training updated? Is it being delivered effectively – utilizing new learning tools and technologies; employing time valuing approaches like micro-learning or short webinars? Training is often out of sight, out of mind. Making the effort to truly see the process is a good start toward identifying waste.

    Expanding Capabilities

    Adding or upgrading capabilities can create new opportunities. This can include enhancing a technical skill or adding new knowledge such as conflict resolution, communication or leadership skills. Keeping staff these days is challenging and losing them is expensive. A culture of learning that invests in their capabilities can be a powerful determining factor when it is time to decide to stay or to go.

    Upgrading the teams’ skills is a part of continuous improvement. Helping each person to advance along their development pathway can help the organization realize untapped potential. For example, training the team to be better problem solvers can uncover hidden savings through the elimination of waste or the implementation of new and better ways of working. Improving the capabilities of those delivering training can also be beneficial. Train the trainers so that they are more effective and then give them the tools they need to do it well. Training is a key capability that can add value across the organization.    

    Deepening Engagement

    Keeping trained, knowledgeable people is good for the bottom line and development is a great way to support retention. Evaluate how well the current training regimen is performing with regard to these efforts and look for improvement options. A personalized development pathway helps to communicate the value that the organization puts on their learning journey. This also helps enhance performance management by establishing goals and highlighting growth. Using training and development to engage people is a tried and true technique. People who feel valued and can see how they are making progress within an organization tend to be more loyal.

    Pursuing perfection in the PDS can help fight high inflation. Last week we looked at optimizing the recruiting and onboarding efforts to lower costs. Continuous improvement in the way we train people requires a determined effort to see how time is spent and effort is expended. It requires that we look at workforce training delivery, at training materials such as job breakdowns, work instructions, and training modules, and at the technology we use. Thinking long-term about improving the people development system will help in this era of high inflation and will continue to pay off when inflation recedes.

  • Employers: Fight Inflation by Improving Your Workforce Development System

    Employers: Fight Inflation by Improving Your Workforce Development System

    Covid 19 and inflation have this in common; few escape the impact that they have inflicted. These wide-ranging effects are felt everywhere – at home, at work, and in every community; demanding that we change and adjust to their presence. In the case of inflation, the first line of attack for businesses usually includes the search for lower material prices, cost savings in operational areas, and, unfortunately, the perceived need to cut staff levels. However, with supply chain issues complicating matters and labor market challenges confounding the picture, there is a need to look in other places for efficiencies, savings, and improvement opportunities. As organizational leaders search for these elusive prospects, don’t forget to look at your people development system (PDS).

    Continuous Improvement for the PDS

    Although the concepts of continuous improvement have gained ground in many industries, often times, the PDS is overlooked as a system ripe for improvement efforts. For clarity, the typical PDS consists of the processes needed to attract, train, and retain talent:

    • Recruiting
    • Onboarding
    • Retention
    • Performance management, and the engine that drives the PDS
    • Training

    Even if these workforce training and development processes seem to be doing well and yielding acceptable outcomes, the system as a whole, and each of these processes separately, can still be examined to identify waste and opportunities for improvement. In future posts we’ll explore the potential of improvement in other PDS functions, but for now, let’s consider the processes for recruiting and onboarding.

    Look for the Less Obvious Options

    At a chamber of commerce sponsored event last week I heard a panel of employers discussing the changes they made to improve their efforts to attract and retain talent. The bulk of the conversation focused on the obvious levers – increasing wages, offering flexible schedules, increasing benefits, etc. Not much was said about the less obvious opportunities. Those opportunities that are often part of the system and can easily become invisible. These are varied and can include things like creating more inviting job postings that appeal to different audiences. Connecting to new and different recruiting avenues in the community that might help diversify the team. Evaluating recruiting sources and methods. Looking closely at communication pieces that are shown to potential new team members or to the community. How might these tools used during the recruiting effort be improved?

    The Importance of Connections

    The optimized PDS operates as a complete system utilizing connections and feedback from all five areas. For example; does the training program inform your recruiting efforts by helping to identify the ideal candidate’s knowledge, skills, and abilities? Does the training program also help build out the job descriptions and job postings thereby increasing the probability of training success? By connecting training to recruiting, the PDS becomes more efficient and can ultimately save money by making the recruiting process more effective. Connections should exist across the PDS, how might they be strengthened?

    Versatile PDS Tools

    Enhancing employee engagement can reduce turnover, driving down costs. These efforts start in the recruiting stages, gain momentum in the onboarding process, and are sustained throughout the other PDS processes. Using an onboarding plan and schedule can help with new employee engagement and potentially reduce attrition at the early stages of their time with the organization. Presenting a new hire with a personalized development pathway can increase the likelihood that they will stay connected longer, allowing the company to realize an ROI. This pathway is created by and used throughout the whole PDS. If you have this tool, how well is it performing? If you don’t, can you add it to your PDS tool kit? Also, a well-designed onboarding process will optimize the time and effort of everyone involved. Another source of savings.

    Other Potential Improvements

    It seems as though, pressured by current circumstances, many companies have made the screening process less strenuous by lowering standards and eliminating requirements and steps. After all, there is a need to get people in the door quickly. Could this be contributing to the cycle of high turnover that many are experiencing? There’s a future blog post on this whole idea, but for now the question is; can the recruiting and onboarding process be improved by updating screening tools and methods? Bringing the right person on in the right way could help reduce losses when a mismatch results in their departure. When they walk out the door, the organization’s investment up to that point goes out the door too. Perhaps the better investment is to be more selective in the early stages. It might seem counterintuitive, but certainly worth debating.

    Improving the PDS Adds Value

    For organizational leaders, in the face of stubborn inflation, the challenge is to find innovative ways to offset higher costs by gaining efficiency, cutting waste, and improving processes in all the systems within their control. Since every organization has a PDS in some form, operating at some level of efficiency, it stands to reason that working to continuously improve this important system can contribute to the bottom line, often in dramatic ways.

    It’s Worth the Time and Effort

    Like improvement efforts on all complex systems, it will take time to explore the PDS for opportunities. Numerous studies, papers, and articles suggest that high inflation is going to be with us for a long while. Which means that the time invested to improve the system should allow the ROI to be realized in the current circumstances and any changes implemented to pay dividends even after inflation is tamed.

  • How Well do You See This System?

    How Well do You See This System?

    Most organizations have this system but many are missing the opportunity to optimize it. That’s because nearly everyone is familiar with each system component, however, few see how they work in concert. This difficult-to-see system is the people development system. It is responsible for many, many deliverables with regard to finding, training, and retaining people. By many measures, it is the most important system within the organization because it empowers all of the other in-house systems. The PDS underpins numerous relationships and fosters communication across the organization and, for those that choose to maximize its performance, it offers opportunities to realize gains and improvements that otherwise might go unrealized.

    More than the sum of its parts  

    The PDS encompasses all necessary steps that bring people into the organization and connects them to organizational activities. But it is more than that. It may be more commonly known as workforce development or perhaps the human resource system, but I prefer the name People Development System because it is a reminder that real people with real names and real faces are the ultimate focus of these processes. This system is the mechanism by which value is exchanged; the value that the individual brings and the value that the organization brings. The PDS humanizes business plans. That is; it facilitates the human interactions that power those plans. The five functional components of the PDS are:

    Communication Channels

    Within the system, communication should occur all through the PDS. For example, information is passed through the system to determine performance, identify needs, and for planning and additions, etc. A well-connected PDS will pass communication through these five areas so that the different stages of the systems are all aiming for the same outcomes and using the same measures. Communication from the system to the team member begins in the recruiting process and that effort should become an ongoing conversation throughout their tenure. There should be a continuity to those conversations that both parties value and honor. To optimize the PDS, the organization can closely examine these communication connections and the tools and data used. Even if the current methods are good, there might be opportunities to make them better.  

    The PDS communicates via:

    • Data – what is happening, performance measures, system conditions, etc.
    • Artifacts – development pathways, reports, storyboards, etc.
    • Leadership – talking about the PDS, conveying info through the PDS, one-on-one discussions, and generally managing the system.

    To get the most out of each of these, a close examination might reveal some improvement possibilities. Are we getting all the data we need? Can all stakeholders see the PDS and how it is performing? Are leaders (this includes all leaders, not just the HR pros) equipped to manage the PDS effectively?

    Developing Relationships

    All five functional areas of the PDS are relationship driven. When a new team member is added, the obvious intention is that they will experience all five dimensions of the system. An easy analogy might look like this:

    Creating conditions and mechanisms that foster strong relationships can add strength to the organization. Conditions are mostly a factor of the organization’s culture. Does it support relationship building? Tools can include development pathways and career ladders, while leadership development strategies can help build stronger coaches, more empathetic leaders, and better communicators. Continuous improvement here can pay huge dividends.

    Hiding in Plain Sight

    As the PDS functions, significant system processes are transactional and therefore hard to recognize. Some aspects are visible – job postings, onboarding plans, training schedules, etc. However, crucial conversations occur at different times, development plans are discussed privately, appreciation activities are held, and coaching and mentoring play out somewhere in the organization. A visible system like that involved in the manufacture of some object is easy to see. The PDS is a non-linear system, with functions happening in various places and at various times all over the organization. A system like this can be easily overlooked for improvement opportunities.

    What if you didn’t have to rely on an image that pops into one’s head when the PDS was discussed? Some system functions are invisible and happen “behind the scenes” so to speak. But a flow map and some simple graphics could help the team begin to define the connections and their importance. Development pathways (a.k.a. learning plans, progression plans, etc.) can also help because these can be used throughout the PDS journey from recruiting through performance management. Helping employees make this personal connection to the big picture could potentially heighten engagement. Ideally, making the PDS visible to all stakeholders could help them relate to the system in a more meaningful way.

    Finding the Potential

    The processes that organizations use to find, train, and retain people is a dynamic system that can be difficult to see. This system, like all others, is open to the concepts of continuous improvement. A good place to begin is to look more closely at the whole system, the connections between the five areas, the tools, the data, and the leadership that administers the system. There are certainly benefits to be found by optimizing this system. This process, like all continuous improvement efforts, takes time and effort, however, the payoff can strengthen the most important of organizational systems.