Over the Seas

Driving Productivity Might Revolutionize HR or Kill It

by Kevin Wheeler on March 10, 2010

How different is what you do today from five years ago? Are you able to do it faster than before? Have you invested in systems, technology and process improvements to lower costs and improve the speed to hire, develop, retain or engage your employees? If not, you are clearly lagging behind those who have and will have a tough time catching up. HR will be (and maybe already is) under full assault from the third-party world.

The evidence shows that increases in productivity significantly lag the investment in tools and process improvements. We normally first use new technologies to emulate what we already do in another way. It’s only after significant time that we begin to find new and innovative ways to use the tools and adjust our processes accordingly.

An example is the introduction of the typewriter. In the early days of the typewriter a manager would dictate to a stenographer who would take shorthand and then use the typewriter to create a document. This took 2 people and three steps. It took decades before we got to the point of eliminating the stenographer by having the manager learn to type and enter the document directly. But when this occurred, the profession of stenographer disappeared (as did shorthand), efficiency went up, and the number of people an office needed went down. While this is a very simple example, it illustrates what I mean: It takes a lot of time from the introduction of a new technology for people to learn how to use it and to adjust processes and structures.

From the 1970s through the mid-1990s organization globally were investing heavily in computers and software and everyone assumed that because of those tools productivity would soar. For anyone old enough to remember, that did not happen and lots of economists called this the productivity paradox. It seemed that no investment in technology, computers or software caused any major change in productivity. Then, around 1995 everything changed. Suddenly productivity began to climb and averaged 2.6 percent until 2000. Then another amazing surge occurred when productivity jumped to 3.6 percent through 2003. It has now settled back into a comfortable 2.4 percent per year growth which is still greater per year than those before 1970. The great lesson is that investments in technology and process improvements pay off – but it takes time for that to happen.

Resisting technology and the related process improvements it requires means you are not investing in quality nor are you investing in developing people. This is a strong statement but technology forces forward movement. It makes us all figure out what could be more meaningful or useful for people to do. Rather than big ditches and plow fields by hand, we have machinery that makes that work faster and safer and frees individuals up to do work that machines cannot. Rather than takes work from people, technology creates new opportunities.

Education
In education, this means actively finding ways to turn the delivery of facts, data and information over to the Internet and the sources it makes available. It means using games and simulations to teach math, science, history, and many other subjects. It means that eventually one teacher/mentor/coach could work with hundreds of people — some virtually and some perhaps face-to-face — with no loss of quality. But to achieve this, would require new processes, new ways of thinking about education and the implementation of lots of new technology. Fortunately, the technology is relatively cheap compared to just a decade ago, mostly lives in the Cloud and is distributed by ASPs. Small apps mean lots of things can be downloaded to mobile phones and laptops.

Recruiting
In recruiting, it means investing in software that will increase your ability to interact with candidates. This includes all sorts of things from websites and highly-targeted marketing systems to candidate relationship management (CRM) tools. The goal might be to refine how candidates are sourced and to reduce the number of people needed to do each step of the hiring cycle. The goal might be for a single person to attract, source, screen and present a candidate while the administrative tools automatically track everything that is happening and generates the appropriate reports and paperwork.

Career Development
In career development, it means leveraging the advice and testing tools that are freely available in the Internet. It might mean developing self-guided career dialogues and realistic video-bsed job previews. It could be linking to blogs and commentaries about careers and work that would inform and guide decisions.

In almost every field of HR there are more possibilities than I can imagine. Some outsourcing firms are already investing heavily in developing technology and new systems to raise productivity. IBM and many Indian companies fully understand the productivity paradox and realize that every dollar spent today will pay itself back many times over down the road.

Technology, combined with process improvements, will either revolutionize a stale and unproductive function or force its services to be outsourced to more efficient and effective third-parties.

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Changing Nature of Work: The Labor Recession Will Outlast the Economic Recession

by Kevin Wheeler on February 28, 2010

Negotiating the conditions of employment, hedging one job with another, being wary of accepting full-time jobs that put at risk other work or that compromise skills — those are becoming the normal patterns for accomplished professionals.

Individuals are finding new freedoms and exploring their own capacity and taste for change and entrepreneurism. Some organizations are looking for ways to adapt to all of this without endangering their own success, but it may be that these two different needs are not compatible. We will find out over the next 10 years or less. Certainly manufacturing firms and companies where hands-on work is required will not be able to flex to these changes. They will face friction between the workers whose jobs allow them to be virtual or part-time or flex-time and those whose work does not.

Here are some of the issues, paradoxes, and changes that employers, candidates, recruiters and human resources are faced with. These have already complicated the employment market and created confusion as work itself is being redefined and re-calibrated.

Flexible Working Times

Every one wants to work when they want to, whether that is at night, weekends, or during what we call a “normal” working day. Mothers want time with their children and would like to work when the kids are sleeping or in school. Others are more productive in the wee hours and want to sleep in the daytime. And still others want to vary their schedules depending on their mood or family needs.

Individual contributors who can work alone are most likely to be able to find work with flexible schedules. People who might enjoy such flexibility include data-input people, researchers, web developers, programmers, and others whose work spans time and is done individually.

Some organizations allow flexibility within defined parameters or with prior approval. Only a few are truly open to a varied, unpredictable schedule even if work is done in a timely way and all deadlines are met. My own website is coded and maintained by a person who has a full-time job that gives her flexibility and control over her time and allows her to take on additional work.

More firms are offering flexible working times and slowly are focusing on results rather than time as the measures of performance.

It will be tough to convince very good people to work for organizations that do not allow flexible work. Employment branding and messaging should be clear about the time requirements, and you should target an audience where flexibility might not be a critical consideration such younger men and single folks who do not have children or other responsibilities. You can also target baby boomers who have grown up in a business world without flexibility and are comfortable with that.

Multiple Jobs

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines multiple jobholders as people who are either hourly or salary workers who hold two or more jobs, self-employed workers who also hold an hourly or salary job, or unpaid family workers who hold an hourly or salary job as well. Currently official figures indicate that about 5% of Americans fit this category.

Organizations still expect and seek loyalty, even though they have shown their employees little of that when times get tough. Young workers, especially Gen Ys, often do have more than one source of income. They rarely make that public. They know it would be frowned on or even be the reason for getting them fired. There is very little a recruiter can do about this, but if you reject those who you suspect of having multiple jobs you will significantly reduce your candidate pool and the quality of that pool.

Virtual Work

Having employees working from home or from remote work centers is common, and more employers are allowing this due to a variety of converging reasons including the desire to save energy, increased travel times, skill shortages, and a global workforce.

Over the past decade so many companies have encouraged virtual work that it almost expected. People are comfortable working with their laptops and smart phones and have access to Skype accounts and collaborative workspaces. All of these tools make working away from a physical place practical, convenient, and cheap.

There is no doubt that this form of employment will grow rapidly and, in my opinion, may make up as much as half the U.S. workforce within a decade as most employers recognize the benefit of allowing workers to be located remotely.

Temporary Work

More employers are looking for temporary employees. This used to signal the beginning of a recovery as employers hired temps and then converted them to regular employment as the economy improved. We have seen a significant surge in temporary hiring, but very few are likely to be converted to regular employees. Both sides are wary of commitment. Employers are not convinced that the economic recovery is sustainable and are reluctant to take on labor that may not be needed. Potential employees are not sure they will have a job that lasts and may be happier with one or two temporary jobs that spread out their risk. This recent article in the Huffington Post seems to bear this out.

Generational Mindset

As many have written, there are large differences in attitudes about work and time between the three major generations in the workplace. Baby Boomers (those over 45) are generally traditional and are comfortable with being physically at work, in an organization, and working an 8-hour or longer day.

Gen X (those between 30-45) is also comfortable working in traditional ways, but they are more open to virtual work and demand flexibility for their family.

But Gen Y (those under 30) are the change agents. They do not really want to work for any organization but especially those with layers of hierarchy and reams of policies and procedures. They want flexible, virtual work and are more likely to have multiple jobs. They are the hardest to recruit and the hardest to retain. Yet, they are the future of most organizations as Baby Boomers age and move out.

Long term unemployment will likely be the new normal and both employers, recruiters and candidates will find a host of ways to engage people outside of ”regular” employment. In fact, the term “regular employment” is becoming meaningless. This article in the New York Times gives some insight into the pain of a changing economy, as does this one from the Wall Street Journal.

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Plays Well With Others

by Kevin Wheeler on February 24, 2010

When you were in elementary school I bet you received a report card with a section that indicated how well you played with the other kids in your class. Strangely enough, schools have been promoting collaboration in this way for decades, even though it has become a sort of joke.

Yet, for reasons that are unclear, as we moved into high school, college and into the workplace, the ratings stopped and no one placed much importance them. It seems that independence and doing things in your own way became more important than how well you “played” with your fellow workers.

Most organizations that I am familiar with place individual accomplishment way above teamwork, although they may espouse teamwork publically. In every team I was ever part of, someone was vying with someone else for recognition, credit or even the rights to an accomplishment. Teams were competitive environments where political savvy and first mover advantage were prized.

Not surprisingly, most people in the corporate world have little use for teamwork, which is often synonymous with wasting time or for helping someone else get credit for what many others actually did. There is little willingness to give up titles and position power to achieve goals. There is also a belief that competition between individuals is healthy and leads to innovation and other improvements. Teams, people often believe, lead to group think and stall progress.

Some corporations are now offering classes in collaboration and slowly the focus is on how to create synergy between departments and people. Gen Y – those in their twenties – have grown up in a collaborative, group-oriented world. School activities are centered on team sports and group projects. Very little individual work is required. It is likely that these people will continue to work in project and group focused ways throughout their careers.

And that will change the nature of the workplace significantly. It also leaves the question of whether playing well with others will lead to more innovation or productivity than the world we live in today. IDEO, the design company, has made group work its hallmark. People at IDEO assume various roles, work in cross-disciplinary teams and have created a host of new products for their clients. So for them success clearly lies in hiring people who work well together.

A recent book entitled Collaboration by Morten Hansen of U.C. Berkeley shows how more firms are generating better products by leveraging the power of teams and by focusing on ways to encourage and reward people for collaborating, sharing and learning from each other.

So it may be that the scorned and mostly forgotten report card rating about how well you play with others will become the best indicator of future success.

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