Ireland's Executive Talent Management Commentary 2012 - Back to the Future
-
Upload
hrmrecruitment -
Category
Business
-
view
270 -
download
2
Transcript of Ireland's Executive Talent Management Commentary 2012 - Back to the Future
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
Employee Value Proposition -Competing for Talent- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Navigating a Changed RewardLandscape- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
High Performance Leadership -Is the Leader Performing?- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shattering the Glass Ceiling
ireland’s executive talent market commentary 2012
Back to the Future –
The link between talent, performance and future organisational success
Before the global economic crisis we
lived in a world of optimism and
ambition.We expected a future of
personal and economic growth, of
security balanced with risk, of enterprise
and development. Since the financial
crisis in 2008, every generation in every
developed country in the world has been
impacted by the most difficult economic
period since the Great Depression. For
many if not most, the journey to
recovery is far from over.
Organisations will either adapt or cease to exist. Having been through
periods of cost cutting, hiring freezes and budget constraints, the
transformation challenge that businesses everywhere now face is getting
back to having a future. A transition that means building confidence and
developing the capacity to take on the challenges of new growth. Central
to this is the issue of talent.
Despite the continued rise in unemployment in many countries,
organisation leaders and their HR teams know that a lack of the right skills
and personal competencies is the biggest obstacle to organisational
growth. With workforces generally aging fast and with little current
appetite for graduate recruitment, the competition for talent is rising in its
intensity. Talent management therefore, will be a core strategy for years to
come for any competitive organisation.
contents:
01 introduction
04 article oneEmployee Value Proposition - Competing for Talent
07 article twoNavigating a Changed Reward Landscape
11 article threeHigh Performance Leadership - Is the Leader Performing?
14 article fourShattering the Glass Ceiling
17 final note
i n t r o d u c t i o n
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
02 introduction
Our 2012 commentary Back to the Future, proposes that
organisations of all shapes and sizes who wish to grow
must get back to planning for a positive future. The
themes we reflect on here, relate to aspects of Talent
Management and in each case we have invited subject
experts to share their perspective.
We begin with Graham Morris, HRM’s Managing Director
on the subject of Employee Value Proposition (EVP). This
coincides with the release by HRM of the largest survey
ever conducted in Ireland on EVP. The research across ten
professional categories and twenty industry segments
looks at the challenges of managing other people’s
perception of your organisation as an employer and its
impact on their decision whether or not to engage with
you as a candidate or as an employee.
Reward is naturally a key element of any talent
management strategy and rarely far from the minds of
leaders and HR specialists in these economically
constrained times. We invited leading compensation
consultant Pat Gurren of Gurren Compensation to share
how global organisations are currently re-designing their
compensation systems to achieve a more effective reward
structure and the steps your company needs to take to
maximise its value from this investment.
While attracting, retaining and developing talent all
require their own talent strategies, the overall goal is high
performance. We are delighted that one of the most
interesting strategy consultants we have met on this
subject, agreed to share his thoughts. Brian MacNeice is a
partner at Kotinos, who draw their intellectual property
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
ireland’s executive talent market commentary 2012
Back to the Future –
The link between talent, performance and future organisational success
on how to create a high performing organisation, directly
from the source. Their research interviews span some of
the most exciting organisations in the world, from the All
Blacks to NASA and draws on the type of performance
insights few of us ever get to see first hand.
In looking to the potential for untapped talent within
organisations, we asked former journalist and broadcaster
Orlaith Carmody to pen some thoughts on the barriers
that women all too often seem to face in their
organisations. A communications expert, TV producer,
media trainer and Non Executive Director at RTE, Orlaith
works with female executives on how to overcome glass
ceiling obstacles and identifies a key step women can take
to help realise their potential and drive the development
of their own careers.
HRM’s core differentiator is the outstanding judgment we
bring to our clients, borne from our commitment to high
quality research. Our Research Team provides clients with
a range of services including executive research and talent
mapping. In addition, they support our own research
agenda leading to the release of highly valued market
reports throughout the year. “Showing a Lot of Promise –
What matters in your Employee Value Proposition”,
released in February 2012 and available at www.hrm.ie is
an essential guide to the steps organisations can take in
order to achieve better quality talent pipelines and higher
levels of employee engagement. We hope you enjoy and
find value in the content of our 2012 commentary. If you
would like to know more about any of the contributing
authors, get in touch through the address below.
Michael O’Leary | Chief Executive
HRM Recruitment Group
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
introduction 03
04 article one
It seems paradoxical that talent
management should be such a critical
strategic issue for companies in Ireland
at a time when unemployment is
running at its current level. Yet the
competition to attract and retain
professional talent is as high today as
experienced just before the peak of the
boom. This may well be because,
despite the high numbers of
unemployed in Ireland, the Central
Statistics Office indicates that the
professional / technical / managerial
group represents just 10% of the overall
Live Register. While this is no comfort to
anyone out of work, it explains why
supply in professional labour categories
is not as fluid as some might believe. To
this add current emigration levels, at or
around 60,000 to 70,000 people
annually, of which the peak age range is
between 25 to 44, an increasing
majority of whom are Irish nationals
and the challenge becomes more
apparent.
Ireland’s employment landscape is
changing more rapidly and more
permanently than at any previous time
and with it the skills and experience
demanded. As global markets become
more competitive and more challenging
- acquiring, developing and retaining
the skills necessary to achieve
organisation goals become central to
organisational strategy.
In the first of our articles Competing for
Talent, Graham Morris, Managing
Director at HRM Recruitment Group
talks about how Employee Value
Proposition can boost your Talent
Management Strategy. The article
discusses how to make your
organisation more attractive to passive,
discerning talent in the external labour
market and increase commitment from
current employees.
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
c o m m e n t a r y
mployee Value Proposition (EVP) in many ways,
shapes your organisation’s overall Employer
Brand. Whether you apply strategic perspective or
simply ignore the subject altogether, by design or
default your company has its own Employer Brand. EVP
therefore, is how the external labour market characterises
your organisation, it feeds the decision making process for
a candidate considering whether to apply or work for you.
For your current employees, EVP represents the value or
deal an employee receives as a consequence of being
employed by you. This “value proposition” is not limited to
compensation elements of their relationship with your
company, but also includes many other factors, such as
the quality of your managers, the stability and success of
your organisation, the kudos that may be attached for an
employee by working for your company, the career
opportunities you provide and the work/life balance you
create.
Competitive organisations who develop clear and
implementable EVP strategies, report substantial tangible
returns from their EVP activity and investment. These
include; greater access to passive talent, better alignment
of talent pools with organisation goals and values. For
existing employees retention levels are generally much
higher, while performance and effort also improve. Many
well known studies point to a clear correlation between
levels of employee engagement and cost of sales. The
Employee-Customer-Profit Chain developed by the US
department store chain and online retailer, Sears Roebuck
in the late 90’s, links Employee Value to Customer Value to
Shareholder Value. Engaged employees grow service
experience and profit.
We know employment relationships have both physical
and emotional elements. While the former includes
“hard” aspects such as reward and working environment,
emotional elements include the often more powerful
“softer” characteristics of a workplace. For example, the
relationship with colleagues and the esteem in which a
person may be held by them, the satisfaction of a job well
done and knowing that the effort and contribution an
employee makes, actually matters, along with the belief in
being part of a bigger worthwhile mission. We spend as
much if not more waking time with work colleagues as we
do with family and friends, so it is not hard to see how the
article one 05
E
Employee Value Proposition -Competing for Talent
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
06 article one
psychological impact of our work can contribute to our
overall sense of well being.
In the largest ever external survey on EVP to be conducted
in Ireland, HRM undertook to evaluate what matters to
Irish professionals to the extent that it would attract
them to, or keep them at any particular organisation. Over
10,000 people participated in the survey, the full results of
which published in February 2012, outline the key
determinants that make up a strong EVP for any company.
A comprehensive analysis of the responses is detailed in
the report including how ten different occupation types
responded, how needs change up the career ladder and a
gender based breakdown. On that last point and linked to
an article later in this report by Orlaith Carmody, of the
five career levels (Director - Functional Head - Senior
Manager - Middle Manager - Specialist/Stand alone
professional) that respondents to the survey were given to
describe their current position, males outnumbered
females in percentage terms at the top three levels of
seniority by two to one. The ratio at the highest level
“Company Director” between male and female
respondents was almost four to one. Women only
outnumbered male respondents at Middle Manager or
below.
Developing an EVP strategy can be challenging as in effect
you are dealing with the management of perception,
particularly in terms of the external labour market. Ask
yourself how much today is known about your company?
What is being said about your organisation on the
internet and not just as a place of work? What do your
current employees say about your business when they get
home to their families at night, or meet friends for
dinner? From our EVP survey report, we can tell you that
the top five organisation characteristics or behaviours
that professional candidates identify as influential on the
perception of your organisation as an employer are:
1. How your organisation shows respect for employees.
2. Your organisation’s approach to ethics.
3. Your organisation’s approach to quality standards.
4. Your organisation’s reputation with customers.
5. The level of employee empowerment that is
encouraged.
With these in mind, go back and ask yourself again the
questions contained in the previous paragraph.Graham Morris is Managing Director of HRM Recruitment
Group. For more information, visit www.hrm.ie
The HRM EVP Report “Showing A Lot of Promise – What
matters in your Employee Value Proposition” covers all
aspects of employee proposition including ”Career
Development”. The top influencers in this category are the
perception of your “Organisation’s Stability” and the
quality of your organisation’s provision of “Performance
Feedback”. Female respondents to the survey in particular
regard this latter aspect as “Highly Important”.
As recruiters, one of the most frequent mistakes we see
organisations make is mishandling the recruitment
process, often without even realising it. The top four
“Hiring Process” related factors that would significantly
impact a professional candidate’s decision, whether or not
to accept a position with your organisation are:
1. The level of rapport between them and their likely new
manager during the interview process.
2. The level of interest shown at interview by the
interviewers.
3. Timely communication throughout the recruitment
process.
4. Being met by a relevant senior manager at the first
meeting.
As your organisation works to get back into the habit of
planning for a successful future - particularly if you are in
the aftermath of headcount, compensation or operational
cut backs - developing a sustainable EVP is essential. An
effective EVP simply reduces costs, improves talent
pipelines and grows performance. As you seek to commit
your employees to using their “discretionary” effort and
align them to your high performance goals, creating an
overall “deal” that touches on all the elements of the
employment relationship makes total sense. In an article
later in this report, compensation consultant, Pat Gurren,
talks about steps you can take to create more value from
the pay aspects of your total rewards programme. The
contention made here is, that as your organisation seeks
to emerge from the global economic crisis, the ability to
attract and retain the right talent will be essential. This
means understanding the total experience an employee
or prospective employee has with your organisation and
the value they place on each and every element of that
experience.
e m p l o y e e v a l u e p r o p o s i t i o n - c o m p e t i n g f o r t a l e n t
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
Graham Morris’ article on EVP makes it
clear that performance and engagement is
about so much more than just
compensation. Yet, Reward remains a
central component around which many HR
strategies are based. These are challenging
times for Reward professionals. Attitudes to
money changes dramatically in a recession.
Those who risked capital to grow value in
good times, are deemed to have received
their “just desserts” if all comes tumbling
down around them. With less disposable
income available, employees often
question much more than just their rate of
pay. Society influences much of this shift.
Consider that the word “Bonus”, previously
the key link word between performance
and pay, now more associated with greed
and avarice.
article two 07
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
It is in this climate, that organisations must
find methods to attract, grow and retain
high performing talent. In reviewing their
Reward systems, many companies have
learned that far from being at the heart of
driving their businesses, their “incentive”
pay barely related to individual output or
organisation goals. Having been through
rounds of salary reductions, withdrawals of
benefits etc., companies now face the most
important change in their reward structure;
making it count.
Against this backdrop, with growing competition for the
best talent and a need to justify every cent, HR, Line and
Reward managers must address this challenge. In
Navigating a Changed Reward Landscape, Pat Gurren and
Brid Cudmore, Reward Consultants at Gurren
Compensation, outline how to ensure the lessons of
previous years are learned and steps to take to ensure
your Reward system drives future organisational success.
c o m m e n t a r y
Contingency & Retained Search, Contract &
Interim Selection through 3 Practice Areas:
professional services groupscience & technology groupcommercial & support group
HRM Recruitment Group | p: (+353 1) 632 1800 | e: [email protected] | www.hrm.ie
perfection
he economic environment over the last three
years has confronted organisations and HR
professionals with reward challenges and
opportunities not experienced in over a
generation. Organisations have dealt with these
challenges or opportunities with varying degrees of
success. Some have surprised themselves with what has
been possible to accomplish either because of, or in spite
of, the economic environment. Here we seek to set out
some signposts for organisations or HR professionals on
how best to navigate the changed reward landscape.
These steps are drawn from our experience in the design
of compensation systems for many different
organisations in Ireland and overseas, facing a wide
variety of compensation challenges and opportunities.
Signposts for successful navigation
1. Stick with the knitting. The Total Rewards Model (see
Figure 1) still holds. We start with this premise as the
model that has both stood the test of time and
continues to have the virtue of common sense
underpinning it. We know that come what may in the
future, organisations will continue to need the ability
to attract, motivate, retain and most importantly
engage their employees. The emphasis and application
of particular elements of the reward strategy may
change over time due to environmental factors but
fundamentally the model continues to apply.
08 article two
T
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
navigating a changedreward landscape
2. First things first. An organisation’s total reward
strategy can only be effective if it is integrated with
and driven by the organisation’s business strategy,
organisational culture and overall HR strategy. One
“blessing”of the economic turbulence over the last
three years is that a lot of the “fluff” in terms of
communicating and creating linkage between an
organisation’s business strategy, organisational culture
and HR strategy was eliminated as organisations
focused on survival. As the economic environment
stabilises and begins to improve, organisations should
resist the temptation to fall back into their old ways.
Organisations that retain the ability to crisply
communicate and articulate both business strategy
and organisation culture, will retain a competitive
advantage as the foundation for both their HR and
Total Reward Strategy will be robust. For example, they
will have the ability to effectively link performance
related pay programmes to business strategy.
3. It’s all about synergy. The individual elements of the
Total Rewards Strategy (See Figure 1) are relatively
straightforward to design and implement within
organisations. The real challenge for an organisation
lies in creating the synergy between all the elements
(compensation, benefits, performance etc.) so that
they work in harmony with one another. Creating this
synergy is easier said than done. Sustaining this
synergy over the medium to long term in an ever
changing environment (internal and external) is even
more difficult. Organisations who are the most
successful in sustaining the synergy required tend to
do the following;
a. Focus on designing a finite number of reward
programmes very well rather than designing an
infinite number of less relevant programmes. Reward
professionals must continuously challenge and decline
requests for new reward programmes that are either
unnecessary or incompatible with the overall total
rewards strategy or business strategy.
b. Demonstrate clear linkage between every reward
programme implemented and how it fits with the
organisation’s business strategy, organisational
culture, HR strategy and overall reward philosophy.
Typically, successful organisations are merciless in
eliminating or not implementing in the first place,
programmes that do not fit overall business strategy.
c. Focus on reward strategy in a holistic manner
over the medium to long term. Reward professionals
must have a clear vision of the desired end state for
the organisation’s total reward proposition. They
should manage consistently in a strategic manner to
achieve this end state. In the absence of this clear
vision, it is easy to lose direction over time.
d. Understand what employees value when it
comes to reward. Organisations who have
mechanisms (for example employee engagement or
organisation climate surveys) to establish how
employees perceive various reward programmes are
best positioned to design an integrated reward
strategy. It is particularly important that when
employees are surveyed on how they value reward
programmes that they are forced to prioritise
their responses via forced ranking of preferences.
4. Get the basics right. Reward professionals tend
to be relatively conservative in nature. There is good
reason for this which many organisations have learned
the hard way during the economic downturn. Many of
the elements of the Total Rewards Strategy are
structural in nature i.e. they have cost and/or legal
entitlement elements which once implemented are
extremely difficult to dismantle or remove from the
total reward proposition. Furthermore as organisations
have also learned during the economic downturn, the
cost of providing reward programmes is not as
responsive to economic cycles as they may wish. Going
forward organisations should take the following
lessons into consideration when seeking to best
manage the structural elements of their reward
programmes;
article two 09
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
Figure 1: Adapted from WorldatWork’s Total Rewards Model
10 article two
Pat Gurren is Principal Consultant and Brid Cudmore is a
Senior Reward Consultant at Gurren Compensation, an
independent HR consultancy specialising in compensation
and benefits. See www.gurren.ie for more information.
a. Know the numbers. Reward costs tend to represent
a significant percentage of an organisation’s total
operating costs. Organisations and reward
professionals must be on top of these numbers.
Companies need key metrics in place to monitor
performance in this area; Total Reward Costs as a
percentage of Total Operating Cost, Total Reward Cost
per employee, Year on Year Changes in reward costs,
Variable Reward Cost as a percentage of Total Reward
Cost etc.
b. Clarify the fixed versus variable percentage of its
reward costs that best meets the business model of
the organisation. The variable element should flex up
and down with the performance of the organisation.
While variable pay programmes like bonus/long term
incentive plans have been in place for decades, it is
surprising that in most organisations today the
variable pay element represents a very low percentage
of the organisation’s total reward cost. In most cases
this percentage can be measured in single digit
figures. There is a real opportunity for organisations
who wish to have more pay contingent on the
organisation’s performance to design this into the mix
so that future pay costs will flex more with economic
conditions.
c. Manage the structural elements effectively -
salary ranges, merit matrices, job sizing/pricing
processes. Some organisations found to their cost
during the economic downturn that their salary ranges
were no longer fit for purpose, range mid points were
not properly aligned to target market position and
employees had been allowed drift up within the salary
ranges. The management of these “basics” is essential
to the structural integrity of total reward cost
management over the medium to longer term.
5. Communication. One of the more interesting
developments to emerge during the downturn is that
in some organisations, employee engagement scores
have increased considerably. At a first glance this may
appear counterintuitive but on reflection it makes
logical sense. In most cases this increase in employee
engagement levels can be linked back to an increased
level and improved effectiveness of communication
within organisations as they grappled with surviving
the challenges they faced. In the economic downturn
many managers needed to put more emphasis on
ensuring employees understood what was going on in
their organisations and what performance levels were
required of the employee. As we emerge from this
economic downturn organisations should ensure that
they communicate their reward strategy effectively. In
particular as organisations make changes or decisions
in relation to pay programmes, how these changes
will be applied and the impact upon employees must
be thought through and communicated thoroughly.
Communication is central to capitalising on the
contribution that reward can play in enabling
organisations to drive high levels of employee
engagement. For high levels of employee engagement,
employees must perceive that their reward
programmes are fair both internally (relative to
internal peers) and externally (equitable with the
external market rates). How effectively the
organisation communicates its reward strategy is at
least as important as the quantum of the rewards
provided.
As with life, times of great challenge and adversity test
and teach us much more than times when all is going
well. As we emerge from the economic downturn it will be
tempting to put it behind us as soon as possible and get
back to undertaking what we perceive as more “positive”
initiatives. However, the challenge that reward
professionals face going forward is how to ensure that
these hard learned lessons are applied and maintained to
optimise the success of their organisations in the future.
n a v i g a t i n g a c h a n g e d r e w a r d l a n d s c a p e
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
f a c i n g c h a n g e s ?Interim & Contract Professionals from HRM
In a 2011 article global consulting firm McKinsey ask “Do you have
the right leaders for your growth strategies?”They investigate
whether there is a confirmed link between growth and specific
leadership traits by comparing their own data on organisation
growth performance, with a database of performance appraisals
belonging to international search firm Egon Zehnder. Ultimately, they
arrive at the conclusion that “leadership quality is critical to growth,
that most companies don’t have enough high-quality executives, and
that certain competencies are more important to some growth
strategies than to others.” It is for this reason that proportionately
speaking, the current volume of change at executive level in most
international recruitment markets is several times that of middle
management or lower.
We understand in general what traits a good leader must
have, depending on the challenges they face. But defining
what great leaders actually do to create a high
performance organisation is not always so easy. What are
the elements and activities that a leader brings, that drive
an organisation to greatness?
In High Performance Leadership – Is the Leader
Performing? Brian MacNeice of Kotinos Partners talks
about the results of his organisation’s research in to some
truly remarkable organisations. MacNeice’s own career as
a top management consultant with leading global firms,
along with his experience in sport as a Heineken Cup
Referee and an Irish Cricket Selector gives him first hand
experience of the essential dynamics that enable great
organisational success.
article three 11
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
c o m m e n t a r y
ver the last seven years we have been
researching the world’s greatest performance
environments to help us develop a deep
insight into what drives better performance
from any group of people. The research has taken us all
over the world from sport (New Zealand All Blacks), the
arts (Julliard School of Music, New York), military (US Navy
Seals), science and technology (MIT and Harvard),
business (Google) and many other examples of genuine
high performance. Each year our research continues and
our understanding deepens. We apply that thinking to our
work with CEO’s, Leadership Teams and Executives to
deliver great outcomes for our clients.
There is, however, a constant underlying premise that lies
at the core of our research and is of profound importance
to any executive with responsibility for managing
performance of people.
The premise comes in three parts:
1. People change when their circumstances change – as
Darwin proved we are adaptive beings, shaped by our
environment and will react or adapt accordingly.
2. Certain changes in circumstances will stimulate
improved performance in the population of people
impacted by those circumstances – this is a logical
conclusion from above. In other words if we are
shaped by the environment around us and adapt
accordingly surely there is a specific set of
circumstances that can be created that will lead to a
reaction called improved performance.
3. Our role as leaders is to implement the specific
circumstances that stimulate improved performance
in our population of people – if 1 and 2 are right then
the natural progression of this theory is that any
leader (CEO, Senior Executive, Manager, Team Leader,
etc.) has a duty to ensure that they create the right
conditions in their environment that will lead to
improved performance from the people within.
12 article three
O
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
High Performance Leadership –Is the Leader Performing?
If you are in a leadership role - executive, functional, or
line – then a key part of your role is creating and
managing a high performance environment for the
people under your responsibility. What our research has
helped us understand is that as a leader if you are not
creating the right conditions for delivering better
performance from your people, then bottom line, you are
not doing your job!
But how do you go about setting the right environment
for performance in any group of people? This continues to
be the unique focus of our research. We have found that
great organisations are made, not born. They are made on
the back of a set of organisational capabilities that, over
time, are built into the DNA of the organisation and that
lie at the heart of its performance environment. We have
also found that these organisational capabilities can be
developed by the leaders within the business to ensure
that better performance is delivered and sustained over
time.
Our research has shown that the same organisational
capabilities are common across virtually all of the high
performing institutions we have studied and more
particularly they have been cultivated over time in a
deliberate way by the leaders of these institutions. We do
not explore each capability in depth here – that is the
focus of a series of articles that tackle each one
individually. However, the following is a summary of what
we have found.
Setting Unreasonable Ambition – the best institutions are
constantly setting and aiming for great challenges.
Being Strategic – they have a clear understanding of the
two or three things that matter more than anything else
in determining success.
Maintaining High Standards & Expectations – they set
ridiculously high standards in the areas that matter most
and are explicit about what represents acceptable and
more particularly unacceptable performance.
Being Decisive, Promoting Decisions – they build a culture
that allows, encourages and expects people to make
informed decisions and take responsibility at all levels
within the organisation.
Brian MacNeice is a founder and Managing Director of
Kotinos Partners Limited, a niche advisory firm working
to help CEOs and their teams achieve sustained high
performance. For more information, visit
www.kotinospartners.com.
Promoting Development Through Effective Feedback – they
create and foster a feedback rich culture.
MeasuringWhat Matters Effectively – they isolate and
identify the measures that give an accurate picture of
current performance in the areas that really matter and
they ensure these measures are effective.
Creating Performance Pressure – they create mechanisms
to ensure that the performance pressure is strong within
the environment and there is no room for complacency.
Injecting Meaning – they develop a strong sense of
purpose or meaning that drives people and this is
reinforced through action not just words.
The core of every leadership role in any organisation is
about creating and maintaining the right conditions for
people to deliver better performance. This is a
fundamental and is non-negotiable. The performance
pressure on every business today is greater than ever. As
we have found, great organisations are made not born.
What are you doing to make your organisation great?
After all it is your job ...
article three 13
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
c h a n g i n g f a c e s ?Interim & Contract Professionals from HRM
The environment in which organisations have found
themselves over the last few years, has resulted in a
continuous need to drive to improve employee and
organisation performance. Necessity is the Mother of
real talent analysis and petty biases are begining to be
put aside. Yet while the level of female presence in
boardrooms and senior management teams is slowly
rising, statistics show females still lag behind their
male counterparts in achieving higher office.
14 article four
In any organisation today, how much talent sits untapped,
simply due to gender? How often does the very leadership
potential companies seek to secure their future, remain
overlooked within, purely because it is female? Why do so
many Irish companies today have no females on their
board or in their CEO positions?
While the basis for this has historically been regarded as
being down to institutional bias, many commentators
now suggest that it is in fact women who need to adapt
in order to thrive. The challenges are to understand, how
frequently superior female people skills, can be developed
to achieve more productive relationships between
executives and help to work mutually through periods of
organisation conflict. That female executives, rather than
adopt the perceived stereotypical behaviours of their male
counterparts and risking the “ball breaker” tag, need to
balance their personal strengths more effectively with
organisation dynamics.
In Shattering the Glass Ceiling, former journalist and
broadcaster Orlaith Carmody discusses some of the subtle
communication elements that women need to adopt to
propel their own careers. As a Non-executive Director and
leading media/communications consultant, Orlaith
Carmody argues, that organisational elements women
often dismiss as irrelevant, such as internal politics are key
for them to embrace. And that there are many
opportunities available today for women to break through
to the highest levels, if they are prepared to invest
thought and time in developing a strategy.
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
c o m m e n t a r y
was once told that you should publicise your plan but
keep your strategy secret, and it was good advice. A
plan is a stated commitment to growing sales,
increasing turnover, expanding the customer base or
making it to management level. Proudly stated, a plan
shows drive, ambition and the existence of goals, all of
which imply career focus and direction and generally
impress the management team.
A strategy is a different thing entirely. It is more about the
moves you will make today, quietly and often unnoticed,
in order that the plan will fall into place tomorrow. It is
about having a clear picture of the end of the road, and an
understanding of the twists and the turns that have to be
negotiated in order to get there.
The problem is that women often mistakenly think that
spending time on this sort of thing is playing politics, and
something that they don’t have the patience to dwell on.
Typically, women focus on doing a job really well, and
believe that this should speak for itself.
But when Mary, who is running her department like
clockwork, is passed over for promotion and John, running
the department next door – she would suggest not half as
efficiently – gets the management job, Mary is left
wondering what on earth happened. Perhaps the answer
is that no one knew how well her department was
running! While she had her head down attending to the
micro, John was putting less time into the day to day, and
his extra available time into the macro – his strategy of
networking and making sure that everyone important
knew about all his achievements.
Taking the John and Mary analogy further, in the tall
building with the slow lift John lurks in the foyer in the
morning until he sees the CEO about to get in, and hops in
beside him for the ride up and the golden opportunity to
tell him how well that project turned out. Mary is about
to get into the lift beside the CEO one morning,
completely by accident, but she pauses instead, checks
something on her mobile phone, and catches the next lift
up instead. Why? Because she thinks she would have
nothing to talk to him about - she doesn’t play golf, and
he hardly wants to hear how her kids are doing.
The change in mindset obviously needed here is that
office politics is not an optional add-on to the job, it is the
job. Skills and accomplishments are only part of what gets
us jobs in the first place. The other part, and a very
significant part, is our ability to relate, negotiate and
manage relationships. If we want to demonstrate that we
can manage people down the line, we must be able to
manage them up the line too.
Politics is not a dirty word – it is simply opening lines of
communication with decision makers within the
organisation. It is about building networks and finding
ways to get your ideas aired in the right place, and to take
credit for things you have achieved. It is about
understanding where power comes from and how it can
be harnessed and used well.
Some people describe it as a bit like running for office, at
the office. That is, presenting your case in the best
possible light to the best possible audience all of the time,
not just when a job or promotion is coming up.
And it is also about confidence, the confidence to know
that we can employ skills we use in all kinds of real life
situations every day, and apply them to the workplace. We
expertly manage homes, parent-teacher relationships,
community projects, elderly parents and a whole range of
other commitments and we can easily do the same on the
job.
Unfortunately, despite all the advances made towards
gender balance in the workplace, studies are still showing
that women have less career confidence than their male
counterparts. In a survey on the subject last year, only 50%
of women state that they have high career confidence
compared with 70% of men. And very interestingly, while
over 20% of men will ‘chance’ going for a job or promotion
above their skillsets, only 14% of women will have a go.
There is no magic wand that will create confidence
overnight, or erase the ‘imposter syndrome’ that many
women report – a feeling that they got the current job or
promotion by accident and they are bound to be found
out soon. But by starting to campaign for your career, and
gathering ‘votes’ from people that matter, you will begin
to feel a small surge of confidence that can be the
platform for further development.
By gathering ‘votes’ I mean working out the hidden lines
of communication within an organisation, as opposed to
the formal lines of communication, and finding a way in;
developing a personal ‘brand’within the organisation;
building relationships with people who may mentor you,
or eventually even actively campaign for your
IShattering the Glass Ceiling
article four 15
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
16 article four
advancement; and creating visibility by taking on high
profile projects.
There are still only thirteen women CEOs at the head of
Fortune 500 companies in the US, but there has never
been a better time for women to make their mark.
Worldwide research is showing that companies with more
women in leadership roles are actually giving higher
returns. It seems that the more consensus building and
collaborative approach of women is coming into its own in
the current age, and the bottom line will always be a great
driver.
At home, a range of state board appointments advertised
since 2009 have had a gender quota which made it very
attractive for women to apply, and in the UK the Davies
review recommended that by 2015, 25% of the directors
of publicly quoted companies should be women.
This is a time of great opportunity for women: women
who believe they have a right to a place at the table –
management, boardroom or political. You have the
education, the skills and the experience. All you need now
is the mindset.
Orlaith Carmody is a Director of Mediatraining.ie and sits
on the Board of RTÉ. She runs a workshop for executive
women, Shattering the Glass Ceiling. Details at
www.mediatraining.ie
s h a t t e r i n g t h e g l a s s c e i l i n g
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
Contingency & Retained Search, Contract &
Interim Selection through 3 Practice Areas:
professional services groupscience & technology groupcommercial & support group
HRM Recruitment Group | p: (+353 1) 632 1800 | e: [email protected] | www.hrm.ie
Great Minds(think apart)
Since our inception over twenty years ago, clients
have trusted HRM to deliver the very best talent
into critical Senior Executive and Middle
Management, Specialist and Senior Support
appointments.
We are a single-source for a wide range of talent
acquisition services including Contingency and
Retained Search, Contract and Interim Solutions,
Talent Mapping and Recruitment Outsourcing.
Today our client base ranges across industries,
from start-ups to global giants and is split
between Ireland, Western Europe and UK. Our
talent reach however is global. Our internal
research team and external research providers
build on our unique understanding of client
needs to deliver outstanding selection results.
HRM’s investment in technology, in training and
in selection tools means we can assess
candidates, not just for the immediate need, but
also for their likely future behaviour and stretch
potential. We seamlessly integrate process steps,
market research and outstanding judgement to
generate unique insights and solutions for our
clients.
HRM, an Irish Business with a European
Customer Base and a Global Talent Reach.
f i n a l n o t e
hrm – the inside leadership series 2012
final note 17
HRM Recruitment Group,
47 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2.
p: (+353 1) 632 1800
www.hrm.ie