hrbp - ldcexcelling in an hrbp role depends in large part on executing these types of high-profile...

Third Quarter 2017HRBP QuarterlyA Magazine for HR Business Partners and Strategic HR Professionals

In This Issue

The Behind-the-Scenes HR Business PartnerFive Unseen Moments That Distinguish the Best HRBPsPage 6

Getting Feedback from Line Leaders: When to Ask, What to Say, and How to Use ItPage 27

In the News: – Win Big on Culture with

Small Nudges– Dollars and Sense for HRBPs:

How You Can Reduce the Real Cost of Pay Inequities

– The Way We Work Is Changing—So Should the Way We Manage

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Performance Management: How HRBPs Can Improve It Even When They Don’t Own ItPage 31

Spotlight on the Business: Finance and CommunicationsPage 39

4 A Look at the Average HRBP’s Development PlanInfographic

6The Behind-the-Scenes HR Business Partner: Five Unseen Moments That Distinguish the Best HRBPs

39 Spotlight on the Business: Finance and Communications

50 HRBPs’ Top 5 Resources from Last Quarter

Editors

Katy Connealy Weber

Amanda Joseph-Little

Brian Kropp

Meg Zolner

Authors

Katy Connealy Weber

Bethany Horstmann

Amanda Joseph-Little

Andrew Kim

Monique McCloud-Manley

Susannah Schools

Meg Zolner

CEB Creative

Graphic Designer Cameron Pizarro

EditorNicole Paraboschi

Third Quarter 2017

HRBP Quarterly

Contents

11In the News: -Win Big on Culture with Small Nudges -Dollars and Sense for HRBPs: How You Can Reduce the Real Cost of Pay Inequities -The Way We Work Is Changing—So Should the Way We Manage

31 Performance Management: How HRBPs Can Improve It Even When They Don’t Own It

36Designing Your Passions A Conversation with Dave Evans—Author, Professor, Consultant, and Business Leader

27 Getting Feedback from Line Leaders: When to Ask, What to Say, and How to Use It

24 How to Keep Employee Roles Clear in a Blurred Digital Environment

44 Voices Within the HRBP Community

HRBP Quarterly© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.Detail about CEB and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.

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http://gartner.com/ceb-offices

Letter from the Editors

The HRBP role carries with it many high-profile and high-stakes responsibilities: HRBPs facilitate talent review discussions with current leadership teams to clarify future ones, they set ambitious talent-related goals as they build the HR strategic plans of their client groups, and they shape plans for how change will be implemented and communicated across large parts of organizations, to name just a few.

Excelling in an HRBP role depends in large part on executing these types of high-profile and high-stakes responsibilities well. However, other parts of the equation are often overlooked. And while less high profile and with lower stakes, these responsibilities are still critically important to your success as an HRBP.

We begin this issue with a closer look at these often-overlooked opportunities for impact. All professionals have moments like those listed, where their physical presence and visible contributions are critical to a process’s or initiative’s success. But effective HRBPs are increasingly distinguished by how they work “behind the scenes,” selecting the right moments to influence and share their guidance with others in a less visible way. We then highlight how you can evolve your approach as a behind-the-scenes HRBP by gathering targeted feedback from your line partners and by leveraging the guidance of peer HRBPs.

We continue with perspectives on how HRBPs can use external trends to inform how they advise their internal clients behind the scenes, including how digitalization is blurring the lines within and beyond your organization’s walls, how changes to the way we work are shifting how we need to manage our employees, and how pay equity is influencing your employees’ day-to-day work experiences.

Finally, we hear directly from HR leaders who have applied these approaches as they championed and evolved new talent management initiatives at their organizations. We speak with Sheena Martin, HR Manager at Rogers Media, and James Dalton, HR Manager at Royal Dutch Shell, about their successes managing new leadership development and career pathing initiatives, respectively, within their client groups.

Don’t forget we welcome your feedback on HRBP Quarterly, including what you’d like to see in future issues. Send any comments, suggestions, or questions to [email protected].

Brian Kropp, Amanda Joseph-Little, Meg Zolner, and Katy Connealy Weber

Q3 2017© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Detail about CEB and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.

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mailto:meg.zolner%40gartner.com?subject=


Infographic of the Quarter

A Look at the Average HRBP’s Development Plan Over 3,500 HRBPs have clarified their strengths, development areas, and next steps for development with the HRBP Career Diagnostic. You’ve let us know what parts of your job are most important and what parts of your job you have—and haven’t yet—mastered. When you pair the important aspects of your job and your mastery of those same aspects, it clarifies what should—and shouldn’t—be on the average HRBP’s development plan.

By Katy Connealy Weber

Avoid including tactical activities on your development plan. HRBPs already perform well when it comes to tactical activities, such as managing terminations and mediating conflict; they also recognize those activities aren’t a high priority for their roles. These tactical, high-mastery but low-priority activities shouldn’t make it onto your development plan.

Prioritize strategic activities that are high priority but of which you have lower mastery. The strategic part of the HRBP job is the hardest to execute effectively, so your development plan likely already includes strategic responsibilities. Prioritize the right strategic activities: those especially important for your job role but that you don’t yet feel confident managing.

44% Gap

58% Gap

21% Gap

54% Gap

14% Gap

37% Gap

What Shouldn’t Be on Your Development Plan?

Advising an Employee on an HR Policy

Mediating a 1:1 Employee Conflict

Managing Employee Terminations

0% 40% 80%

What Should Be on Your Development Plan?

Building and Managing Change

Communication Plans

Analyzing the Strength of Your

Client Group’s Talent

Creating Individual Development Plans

(IDPs) for Line Leaders

0% 40% 80%

Your Mastery Your Priority Your Mastery Your Priority

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/benchmarks/survey/hr-business-partner-career-diagnostic.html

Three particular activities rose to the top of the development to-do list given HRBPs’ belief they’re very important but very difficult to execute well.

What Should Be on Your Development Plan

During change, HRBPs often don’t have all the information they need to communicate effectively. Even when they do, it’s difficult to diagnose what to share with different employee groups.

To develop here: Use the HRBP Guide for Change Communication to work with Internal Communications, leaders, managers, and employees to build honest, two-way change communication plans.

1. Building and Managing Change Communication Plans

Gap Between Your Importance and Mastery

HRBPs’ client groups are complex, diverse, and ever changing, which makes it difficult to understand the talent you currently have and the talent you need. To start, take advantage of events where a significant number of line clients are coming together, such as talent reviews and performance calibration discussions, to understand the strength of your client group’s talent.

To develop here: Learn how to conduct holistic, future-focused talent reviews with our CEB Ignition™ Guide to Conducting an Organizational Talent Review.

2. Analyzing the Strength of Your Client Group’s Talent


HRBPs can develop themselves when looking after the development of others, especially their most-senior line clients. While creating an IDP may not feel strategic immediately, doing so for leaders improves HRBPs’ internal networking, business acumen, and coaching skills.

To develop here: Use our HRBP Guide to Creating an IDP for Line Leaders to build trust with your most-senior line leaders and advise them on their development needs.

3. Creating IDPs for Line Leaders


Want to know how your IDP compares?

58% Gap

54% Gap

37% Gap

Complete the HRBP Career Diagnostic to see what should be at the top of your development to-do list.

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/16/hrbp-guide-for-change-communication.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/ignition-guides/ceb-ignition-guide-to-conducting-an-organizational-talent-review.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/ignition-guides/ceb-ignition-guide-to-conducting-an-organizational-talent-review.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/tools/16/hrbp-guide-to-creating-an-individual-development-plan-idp-for.html


The Behind-the-Scenes HR Business Partner

Five Unseen Moments That Distinguish the Best HRBPsBy Meg Zolner

Fanfare and notoriety aren’t typically reasons HR talent, including HRBPs, join the profession—HR talent tend to be motivated by work environment, relationships, and sense of duty. For example, HR professionals are more likely than other workers to move roles for a friendlier work environment, a highly skilled direct manager, and a higher level of social responsibility. 1 Unsurprisingly, given their roles within HR functions, the “people” portion of a job experience carries significant weight for HR professionals when evaluating what’s next—and what’s most important—at work.


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The people portion of the job is also what distinguishes top HR, especially HRBP, talent. We found the top 25% of HRBPs spend more time working with non-HR staff, especially Finance staff, and spend less time working alone. 2

Relationship-building and connection-making are key differentiators for top HRBPs—they are also work that, more often than not, goes unseen. The takeaway? Just because these contributions are unseen doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable to your business. The best HRBPs recognize the power of working “behind the scenes” to achieve organizational goals, and they know when—and when not—to work in this unseen way.

What Is an “Unseen Moment”?

Any professional can have an “unseen moment” at work. At its core, an unseen moment is an interaction, behavior, or contribution that, as the title suggests, isn’t readily apparent to others. The potential impact of that interaction, behavior, or contribution often goes unnoticed, too.

Unseen Moments

Interactions, behaviors, and contributions at work, including the impact of those interactions, behaviors, and contributions, that aren’t readily apparent to others

All employees could likely identify work experiences that fit into this category. Given the size and complexity of organizations today, we just can’t realistically catalogue an employee’s every interaction, behavior, and contribution, so a fair amount of work is bound to go unnoticed. But while we all operate behind the scenes at some point, this method shouldn’t be how we conduct all of our work.



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Are All Unseen Moments Created Equal?

No—being unseen isn’t always good. If the majority of your support is unseen, stakeholders may question the level of your contribution and overlook the hard work you’re doing. However, if the majority of your support is “seen” (i.e., highly visible), stakeholders may struggle to recognize your differentiating areas of expertise and may not know when to seek your consultation. The success of the behind-the-scenes HRBP hinges on the balance of seen and unseen moments.

First, use these criteria to identify when visible support is most appropriate in an activity or project:

• Seniority of stakeholder(s) involved—Are there senior stakeholders involved in this project, indicating greater importance (and greater need for HRBP involvement)?

• Scale and complexity—Is this project large or complex enough to require an HRBP’s widespread purview and expertise?

• Level of HR expertise required—Does this project need specialist support from another non-HRBP HR stakeholder?

• Frequency—Do we have frequent opportunities to get this project right, or would a poor outcome be more costly?

• Criticality to HR processes—Would this project set off a chain reaction if executed poorly (without close HRBP involvement)?

It’s likely you already use such factors to prior-itize your ongoing support, and they work well when identifying when you should work in a vis-ible way, too.

Prioritizing the Right Unseen Moments

Prioritize the following five unseen moments to maximize your performance as a behind-the-scenes HRBP:

1. Conducting a 1:1 Line Leader ConversationTo maximize this unseen moment, share the business knowledge you gain with nonobvious stakeholders. As the primary liaisons between

HR and the line, HRBPs are typically the first point of contact for HR-related questions from their line clients. In practice, that role can often lead to HRBPs receiving questions better suited for other HR colleagues, which can be taxing. The silver lining is HRBPs, of all HR leaders, likely receive the most unfiltered, unmetered access to the business’s needs. Use that access to share the business knowledge line clients provide behind the scenes with other HR colleagues.

To share high-quality business knowledge, prioritize gaining your line clients’ perspectives in three main areas: business unit (or client group) priorities, organizational priorities, and environmental pressures.

Before scheduled conversations, HRBPs should informally check in with their key talent management partners and clarify current gaps in their business knowledge and any concerns they have. After a line conversation, HRBPs should relay information the business leader shared—even information that’s seemingly irrelevant—to their HR colleagues. HRBPs will become better informed about HR priorities, solidify their value as liaison in the eyes of key HR partners, and influence the delivery of more aligned HR support with their line partners.

Three Components of Strong Business Knowledge

3. Environmental Pressures

Conditions external to the organization that would influence its development or success

1. Business Unit Priorities

Crucial goals to achieve for the overall success of a particular segment of the organization

Source: CEB analysis.

2. Organizational Priorities

Crucial goals to achieve for overall company success


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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/general/17/business-knowledge-guide.html


2. Supporting a Leadership TransitionTo maximize this unseen moment, don’t leave it to the transitioning leader to define his or her move. Business leader transitions occur often, but successful leader transitions are rare. About half of all leaders underperform during the course of their transitions. And their teams often underperform, too—the direct reports of a struggling transitioning leader perform 15% worse on average (compared with those reporting to a high-performing one), and those same direct reports are 20% more likely to be disengaged or leave the organization.

HRBPs can intervene to prevent leadership transitions from breaking down. Instead of focusing your seen and unseen efforts on the new leader, focus your unseen efforts on the new leader’s team. Ideally, take action before the transition even occurs, as transitioning leaders often have underprepared support communities.

Connect early with key stakeholders, including the leader’s former manager (if the new leader is moving internally) and new manager, team, and peers. The conversations should focus on understanding those individuals’ objectives and making sure those individuals see themselves as active shapers of the transition. With this behind-the-scenes preparation, leaders will arrive to an agreed-on set of objectives and a community of colleagues who know their exact support roles from day one. This is groundwork your transitioning leader won’t have to cover.

3. Monitoring Employee SentimentTo maximize this unseen moment, proactively evaluate shifts in employee sentiment. HRBPs are masters of making nonobvious connections between talent processes (e.g., a conversation with a manager about an upcoming reorganization flags a need to readjust employee performance expectations). Making these mental connections with employee sentiment is crucial for two reasons:

• The opportunity cost of not understanding employee sentiment is very high—satisfied (or dissatisfied) employees can set off a chain reaction of potential outcomes for our organizations.

• Employee sentiment is hard to nail down—the tools we use to measure sentiment don’t always capture it in an accurate, complete, and timely way.

As you have informal interactions with employees, keep the following questions in mind to stay ahead of the potential implications for employee sentiment:

• Do I think this particular employee’s perspec-tive is predictive of the direction of the work-force’s sentiment?

• Are the results of this particular talent process different from prior instances of the process? If so, what do the differences tell me about the direction in which my client group is moving?

Move Beyond an Executive-Centric Transition Approach Components of Successful Leadership Transitions


Focus of the Typical Leadership Transition

Additional Components of the Most Successful Leadership Transitions



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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/13/high-impact-leadership-transitions.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/13/high-impact-leadership-transitions.html


• How often does this employee speak up? Do I trust this employee to prioritize concerns and only ask for help when he or she truly needs it?

The implication isn’t to over invest in tracking the specifics of employee sentiment but to maintain a working definition of current employee sentiment—and make it easier for you, in real time, to identify outliers behind the scenes.

4. Performance Evaluation Discussion

To maximize this unseen moment, start calibrations before the actual calibration session. Of all HR topics, HRBPs feel most confident supporting performance management–related activities. 3 But are you confident you’re taking full advantage of all unseen moments throughout the performance management process? The success of these performance events—from promotion discussions to talent reviews—is contingent on participants having sound judgment, which doesn’t happen automatically.

Some HRBPs already prepare individual line managers for calibrations, but there’s an underused opportunity to scale their behind-the-scenes support. HRBPs should draw on their internal connections to bring together different groups of stakeholders for group learning in advance of and following performance events. This could include:

• Hosting a mock group-calibration discussion with new managers, where they practice pre-senting a candidate, comparing their candi-date to others, and contextualizing their per-formance beyond the performance rating; or

• Meeting with peer HRBPs supporting other business functions to review competency models, performance expectations, and performance trends to understand the potential for internal mobility across functions.

Given calibration and evaluation discussions typically involve many stakeholders, acting behind the scenes to prepare different, smaller groups of participants before the discussion will ensure the full session’s time is well spent.

5. Analyzing Talent Data

To maximize this unseen moment, act now to improve data quality. Incomplete or inaccurate data can stall even the most data-savvy HRBPs. Talent analytics leaders are aware of that challenge—in a CEB survey, over 200 heads of talent analytics cited data quality as the top barrier

to talent analytics effectiveness. 4 But the real frustration for talent analytics professionals is that the data quality challenge can’t be solved by them or their teams alone. The data’s producers and consumers, which include HRBPs and line clients, are just as involved with improving data quality as talent analytics teams.

Behind the scenes, the HRBP responsibility is twofold:

• First, in partnership with any talent analytics colleagues, HRBPs can help alert their colleagues in the business and HR to the data quality challenge. For example, the talent analytics team at Citizens Financial Group began presenting data as is—with its imperfections front and center—to their stakeholders to drive urgency for cleaning it. These informal and likely candid conversations around the limitations of current data can help initiate the improvement process.

• Second, HRBPs can recognize their roles as consumers of data. Instead of being passive (e.g., lamenting poor-quality data, reviewing or inputting data in the same way they always have), HRBPs can be active partners in committing to everyday changes to improve data quality.

HRBPs alone won’t solve the data quality challenge. But by using informal conversations and connections to understand where the data quality challenge manifests on a day-to-day basis, HRBPs will help lay the groundwork for improvement.

Being an Effective Behind-the-Scenes HRBPBeing unseen isn’t always the right answer, but when applied appropriately, it is a smart one. The best HRBPs constantly evaluate the optimal moments for seen and unseen contributions. As they do so, though the external signal value of HRBPs’ contributions may not be as visible, their business value will be off the charts.

1 CEB 2017 Global Labor Market Survey.

2 CEB 2013 HR Business Partner Survey.

3 CEB 2017 Future of the HRBP Role Survey.

4 CEB 2017 Talent Analytics Agenda Poll Survey.


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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/case_study/17/citizens-banks-show-do-not-tell-data-quality-cleanup.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/case_study/17/citizens-banks-show-do-not-tell-data-quality-cleanup.html


In the NewsEach quarter, our “In the News” stories highlight trends impacting the HRBP role.

This quarter, we focus on three topics that remain consistently among popular headlines: culture, pay equity, and people management.

Today, there’s a lot of general discussion about corporate culture—what it is, what makes one “good,” and how to change it—but fewer specific strategies for organizations to apply in response. Using “nudges” to informally push employees to behave in certain ways is emerging as one of those strategies.

We also discuss pay equity. Employees and or-ganizations generally want fair pay, but pay gaps persist. HRBPs can play a key role in sizing and prioritizing responses to reduce—and eventually eliminate —pay gaps.

Finally, we tackle an ever-present question—what do the best people managers look like? The answer surprised the 200 heads of Learning & Development we surveyed.



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Win Big on Culture with Small Nudges By Katy Connealy Weber

Culture change is frequent—three in four HRBPs expect their organizations to undergo a culture change in the next three years. 1 It’s also never been more difficult to manage. With more complex organizations and less predictable day-to-day work, trying to implement and shift organizational culture can leave HRBPs and their organizations uncertain of the start and finish lines. Only 31% of business leaders say their organization has the culture it needs to support future strategy. 2

Overwhelmingly, organizations aim to implement their ideal cultures through the following:

• Senior Leader Role Modeling—72% of organiza-tions have senior leaders demonstrate desired, culturally aligned behaviors with the expecta-tion employees will model their behaviors after leaders.

• Organization-Wide Communication—92% of or-ganizations send standardized messages about the organizational culture to all employees.

• Performance Review Processes—56% of orga-nizations reinforce the organizational culture through performance appraisals (by recogniz-ing the behaviors and contributions the culture values most).

But these strategies limit the success of culture implementation because they are infrequent and fail to help employees overcome barriers in their daily work to transition to the new culture. As a result, employees default to old behaviors.

In response, many organizations are turning to “nudging.”

What Is Nudging?

Nudging is the concept of using indirect suggestions to prod people toward more beneficial behaviors, often by placing the suggestions in locations that are difficult to avoid or making them the default option. For example, a “nudge” could be the display of healthy snacks throughout the office, auto-enrollment in training courses, or strategically locating on-site flu clinics in high-traffic areas.

A common example of nudging is 401(k) auto-enrollment, which research has shown results in much higher participation rates (and higher contribution rates) than an opt-in system. When the default option is to participate, employees are more likely to do so because it takes more effort not to. 3 Instead of telling employees that financial responsibility is an important part of organizational culture through organization-wide communications, auto-enrollment makes it very easy for employees to demonstrate their commitment to that value.

Behavioral Nudges

Indirect suggestions that encourage people to engage in desirable behavior or to make a desirable decision that advances organizational culture


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Typical Approach Not Using Nudging

Leader Role Modeling: Senior leaders demonstrate desired, culturally aligned behaviors with the expectation employees will model their behaviors after leaders.

Organization-Wide Communication: Internal communication includes standardized messages about the organizational culture and the rationale for any upcoming changes to all employees.

Performance Review Process: Organizations embed feedback about acting in accordance with culture and values into their performance processes through 360-degree peer assessments, within evaluations, or through goal setting.

Adapted Approach Using Nudging

Leader Workflow and Process Design: Most barriers to making behavior routine lie in the systems that determine work processes, not individual skills or motivation. Rather than coaching leaders on how to demonstrate these behaviors, HRBPs can educate leaders on where barriers to acting in a culturally aligned way may exist in employees’ day-to-day work. For example, if innovation is an organization’s core value, leaders could adjust the financial planning process to make it easier for teams with novel ideas to get funding faster. This approach allows leaders to work on the components of their organizations they’re most familiar with and creates a self-sustaining employee nudge that doesn’t require continuous leader or manager intervention.

Personalized, Constant Communication: While the inclination to communicate is a good one, top-down, consistent communication don’t help employees understand what culture change means for them. Two-way communication allows organizations to gather information about what prevents employees from enacting the culture as well as share senior leaders’ vision for the culture, but organizations don’t always have a mechanism to encourage employees to share that honest feedback. Here, nudges could be in the form of highly visible and very accessible employees within certain parts of your organization—people with whom employees feel comfortable sharing candid feedback and asking questions.

Day-to-Day Coaching Conversations: Many organizations are moving toward more continual performance management for good reason. More frequent, informal performance feedback and coaching allows managers to course-correct employees’ behavior and contributions. There’s a great opportunity for embedding nudges in these settings, too, by acknowledging culturally aligned behavior and addressing cultural missteps in real time. Discussing culture during a performance conversation reinforces the importance of acting in a culturally aligned way and reminds employees how to enact the culture in their day-to-day work.



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How Nudging Can Enable Culture Change

Seeing the effect of nudging on health and wellness programs, organizations are beginning to use nudging to reinforce, implement, and shift organizational culture. To make employee behaviors reflect a desired culture, embed cultural nudges throughout employees’ day-to-day experiences rather than relying on more traditional implementation strategies.

How You Can Get Started with Nudging

To facilitate culture change, you don’t need to implement many nudging strategies all at once. Instead, thoughtfully target a select few opportunities. To get started, consider a given organizational value and ask the following questions:

• What behaviors demonstrate this value in employees’ day-to-day work?

• Where do those desired behaviors occur in employees’ regular routines?

• How can living the value make employees’ lives better?

• What visible reminders can we use to help employees live the value?

Moving Forward

Culture change is a significant undertaking for organizations and their HR functions. While nudging alone doesn’t represent the full strategy organizations should use to manage a culture, the big effect that small nudges can have would surprise most HR leaders. And, as nudges rely on close knowledge of particular employee groups and segments, HRBPs are the perfect people to identify opportunities to nudge their employees.

1 CEB 2017 Future of the HRBP Role Survey.

2 CEB 2017 Future of HR Agenda Poll.

3 Lena Groeger, “Set It and Forget It: How Default Settings Rule the World,” ProPublica, 27 July 2016, https://www.propublica.org/article/set-it-and-forget-it-how-default-settings-rule-the-world?utm_campaign=bt_twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social.


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Join Us Later This Year

The Cultural Evolution: Creating a Culture That Performs

In this meeting, you will learn to:

• Accurately assess the performance of your client group's culture,

• Recognize where to over-invest and underinvest to embed the culture and drive behaviors within your client group based on your strategy and values, and

• Identify opportunities to reinvent senior leaders’ role in creating and supporting the culture.

Register today to join us in person and discuss how leading organizations are creating a business-aligned culture faster and more cost-effectively.

2 November, New York

9 November, Atlanta

14 November, London

16 November, Chicago

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/events/meetings/17/the-cultural-evolution-creating-a-culture-that-performs-staff-briefing.me108292.html



In today’s evolving, often highly specialized HR functions, most aspects of employee compensation fall to specialized Compensation

professionals rather than to HRBPs. That division of labor works well for many compensation priorities, but when it comes to pay equity, HRBPs can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. HRBPs should consider pay equity a topic worthy of their time and attention for three key reasons:

1. The global workforce is concerned about pay, especially fair pay. Employees care about pay—it’s the top factor that influences employees to select a potential employer. 1 They also care about being paid fairly—if employees perceive a pay gap, the effect on their intent to stay with their organiza-tion is 50% worse than experiencing a pay freeze. 2 Significant media attention on the topic has ele-vated employees’ awareness of pay inequity, which means the reputation of an organization or even a particular business unit may suffer if pay equity

isn’t a priority. Failing to prioritize pay equity could result in greater attrition among current employees and lower-quality prospective employees, among other negative outcomes.

2. Pay equity is a core part of every diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy. Diverse talent is more susceptible to pay gaps, and they represent an increasing proportion of the global workforce. In the United States, the share of women and racial or ethnic minorities of the civilian labor force is approaching 60%. 3 As a key steward of D&I messages to the line, the D&I component of pay equity may be lost on line partners if HRBPs don’t personally share this message with their line partners.

3. Pay equity is personal; it can affect HRBPs as employees themselves. As an employee, you have your own perception about your market worth given your background, experience, performance, and other factors. If there’s a difference between that perception and your current salary, are you confident you’re not being affected by a pay gap?

However, prioritizing pay equity does not guarantee progress—only 28% of organizations believe they have been successful at closing existing pay gaps. We highlight key strategies HRBPs and their HR functions should apply to facilitate progress.

Pay Equity 101

Pay equity progress, of course, requires knowledge of its current state. There are two types of pay gaps:

1. Group-to-Group Gaps—A group-to-group gap is a discrepancy in pay resulting from certain environmental

factors, such as a person’s job choice, education, or location. Think of this type as comparing a doc-tor’s pay relative to a nurse’s pay. While there is likely a difference, it is more related to deeply in-grained social norms or practices that influence how individuals make decisions (e.g., the concen-

Dollars and Sense for HRBPs: How You Can Reduce the Real Cost of Pay InequitiesBy Monique McCloud-Manley and Meg Zolner

Source: Rachel Holman, “French Women Walk Out of Work to Protest Gender Pay Gap,” France 24, 11 November 2016, http://www.france24.com/en/20161102-france-women-walk-out-work-protest-against-gender-pay-gap; Joshua Robinson and Matthew Futterman, “US Women’s Soccer Team Stars Allege Pay Discrimination,” Wall Street Journal, 31 March 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-womens-national-team-accuses-u-s-soccer-of-pay-discrimination-1459429306; Willis Towers Watson, “Only Half of US Employees Think They Are Paid Fairly,” Nasdaq, 10 November 2016, https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/11/10/888883/0/en/Only-half-of-U-S-employees-think-they-are-paid-fairly-compared-to-counterparts.html.

French Women Walk Out of Work to Protest Gender Pay Gap

Only Half of US Employees Think They Are Paid Fairly

US Women’s Soccer Team Stars Allege Pay Discrimination

Pay Equity

The degree to which the actual pay of an employee reflects his or her worth to the organization, free of discrimination


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https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/payequity.html

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/11/10/888883/0/en/Only-half-of-U-S-employees-think-they-are-paid-fairly-compared-to-counterparts.html




tration of women in certain occupations and indus-tries, the cumulative effect of motherhood over the course of a career). While meaningful, this type of pay gap is more complex for organizations to address.

2. Role-to-Role Gaps—A role-to-role gap is a discrepancy in pay resulting from operational or personal factors,

such as a person’s gender, race or ethnicity, age, nationality, or religion. Think of this type as comparing a male nurse’s pay relative to a female nurse’s pay. If there is a difference, it is directly related to how organizations manage certain talent processes (e.g., hiring, promotion) and any inherent biases people bring to those processes. Organizations have more control over managing this type of pay gap.

Correcting role-to-role gaps represents an opportunity for HRBPs and their HR functions to advance a crucial priority area.

Three Strategies to Make Pay Equity Progress

1. Sustain Equity Through Integrated Assessments

Today, organizations typically conduct individual pay audits (which often include moving funding from other priorities and hiring a vendor or creating an internal team to do the work) and make ad hoc adjustments for segments of the workforce. In practice, these types of audits only treat symptoms of pay gaps, not the root cause, and are unsustainable over time.

Your Total Rewards function should make pay audits standard practice and integrate them into the function’s core responsibilities over time. Start by developing an internal audit practice or strategy that can identify individuals with role-to-role gaps, and then integrate your HR partners in monitoring pay equity trends within the business.

HRBPs should embrace their role in auditing and monitoring pay gaps through participation in compensation audits and regular compensation tracking within their client group(s). But you should also work with your Compensation partners to understand and share important context about when and why to act. For the client group(s) you support, consider the following questions: How has overall pay equity progress changed over the past year? Have certain countries, levels, or salary grades made more progress? What changes have affected this progress? What is the cost of getting all segments to our goal, and how can we incorporate that into next year’s budget?

2. Manage Perceptions Through Open Communication

Today, organizations hesitate to communicate transparently about the status of any pay gaps and often withhold information on the topic. This lack of com-munication leaves important compensation-related informa-tion up for interpretation. One in three employees perceives a pay gap, and the intent to stay of employees who do perceive gaps is 16 percentage points lower than the intent to stay of employees who do not perceive gaps. 4

Your Total Rewards function should recognize the growing risk of not communicating to the workforce about efforts to improve pay equity. While organizations have legitimate reasons for being hesitant to communicate about pay equity, you can more quickly correct employees’ pay perceptions by communicating openly and gaining employee trust in the process.

Employees Overestimate Gender Pay Gaps: The true US average of the role-to-role gender pay gap is 7.4%, while men assume it to be 13% and women assume it to be 18%.

Race Pay Gaps Are Perceived to Be More Significant: The role-to-role race pay gap is perceived to be twice as large as the perceived role-to-role gender pay gap.




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HRBPs should identify all the productive pay eq-uity touchpoints through which employees can receive pay equity communication (e.g., individual manager communication, enterprise-wide com-munication, public communication) and work with their Compensation partners to share ready-made discussion support materials for each, just as they would when communicating other organizational priorities with the workforce. You can also ensure you are prepared to answer those questions inde-pendent of your Compensation partners.

3. Keep Pay Gaps Closed Through Proactive Prevention

Today, HR leaders acknowledge their organizations’ talent management processes are contributing to pay gaps. Over half of HR leaders cited hiring decisions, promotion decisions, incentive pay decisions, recruiting processes, and performance assessments as contributing to pay gaps at their organizations. 5

Your Total Rewards function should assume all core talent processes are contributing to pay gaps in some way (instead of the opposite assumption) and treat every talent process occurrence as an opportunity to act on pay equity. Total Rewards functions should embed key pay equity checkpoints in talent processes but should also lean heavily on HRBPs to make day-to-day changes in their work with their line partners.

HRBPs should have discussions with their Compensation partners to prioritize their focus on equity across the talent life cycle. Common action steps to create a more equitable talent cycle include:

• Focusing hiring managers on the value of the job and encouraging pre-committing to desired skills or qualifications to avoid potential variations in pay candidate to candidate;

• Curating candidate pools that mirror available talent to hire more diverse talent and ensure all talent receive fair compensation offers;

• Considering programs to better support moth-ers returning from leave to ensure motherhood does not impact pay in any way; and

• Training managers on unconscious bias to raise their awareness of how bias impacts pay decisions.


Recruiting

• Attracting diverse talent

• Building diverse candidate pipelines

Performance Management

• Managing bias in performance reviews

• Allocating bias-free incentive rewards

Compensation Aspects of the Talent Life Cycle

Hiring

• Valuing the job, not using candidate’s previous salary to set offers

• Pre-committing to qualifications

• Determining equitable salary offers

Promotion

• Developing a diverse leadership pipeline

• Mentoring diverse talent

• Approving equitable promotion-based increases


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Moving Forward

Many factors comprise the pay equity challenge. Rather than letting it overwhelm you, throw yourself toward this challenge with full force. HRBPs should use these strategies together with their Compensation partners to foster a more equitable organization and, in the process, generate more dollars and sense for all involved.

For More:

• Learn more about these strategies by reviewing an executive summary of our research effort on addressing pay equity. CEB Total Rewards Leadership Council members can access the full research study on the member website.

• Shore up your compensation fundamentals with the replay of the Compensation 101 HRBP Masterclass. To access the full HRBP Masterclass Series on Becoming an Effective Compensation Advisor, please contact your account manager.

• Stay ahead of pay equity and diversity and inclusion news with CEB Talent Daily.



3 US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,” 8 February 2017, https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm; CEB analysis.

4 CEB 2016 Q4 Global Labor Market Survey.

5 CEB 2017 Pay Equity Benchmarking Survey.



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https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/payequity.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/total-rewards/research/17/addressing-pay-equity.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/events/replays/17/hrbp-masterclass-compensation-101-session-1.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/events/replays/17/hrbp-masterclass-compensation-101-session-1.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/talentdaily/diversity-inclusion/


The Way We Work Is Changing— So Should the Way We Manage

By Bethany Horstmann

What Today’s Most Effective Managers Look Like

The way we work is changing. As a result, how we think about management must change. Today’s managers are also experiencing these work environment shifts themselves, so they don’t have the time or effort to devote to identifying what the shifts mean for their own employees or management styles. And employees have noticed: employee satisfaction with manager quality has stayed stagnant over the past four years (hovering around just 35%).

How Are Our Managers Currently Managing?

Our new research has identified four roles through which managers approach employee development: Teacher, Always On, Connector, and Cheerleader.

Manager Approaches to Employee Coaching and Development

Changing Approach a Big Ask for Stretched Managers

35% of time spent in meetings

45% of managers lack confidence to develop the skills employees

need today.

122 e-mails sent and received daily

9 direct reports

n = 7,309 employees.Source: CEB 2017 Manager Effectiveness Survey; The Radicati Group, “E-Mail Statistics Report, 2015-2019,” The Radicati Group, Inc., 2015 March, http://bit.ly/1GofscG; Scott Dockweiler, “How Much Time Do We Spend in Meetings? (Hint: It’s Scary),” The Daily Muse, http://muse.cm/1yDLMri.

Connector Introduces employees to the right people for their development needs• Provides targeted feedback• Connects employees to others for

coaching and development• Creates a positive team development

environment

Cheerleader Enables employees to take their development into their own hands• Provides positive, empowering feedback• Encourages employee self-development• Has a hands-off approach to development

Teacher Develops employees using expertise and experience• Provides advice-oriented feedback• Drives employee coaching and

development• Teaches based on own expertise

Always On Provides continuous coaching and feedback across a breadth of skills• Provides frequent feedback• Directs employee coaching and

development• Develops across a breadth of skills



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https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/learning-and-development/manager-led-development/ebook-form.html

http://bit.ly/1GofscG

http://muse.cm/1yDLMri


These four approaches reflect current ways managers are guiding and developing their teams. As you look across these four, which style would you guess is most effective?

If you answered “Always On,” you’re with over 200 heads of Learning and Development (L&D). Those HR leaders shared with us that they want Always On managers at their organizations. As our organizations have gotten more complex and experienced significant levels of change, the instinct to have our managers be Always On makes sense—we want our employees to feel their managers have open-door policies and are always available for coaching and skill development.

However, our recent research finds the Always On approach is actually the least effective management style of the four for improving employee performance. Always On managers could actually do more harm than good. This management approach can often disengage employees because they feel like they’re getting irrelevant, inaccurate, and overwhelming coaching and development. With this style, we’re often relying on managers to coach on all skills, knowledge, and experiences even if our managers aren’t experts on those things.

What style was most effective? Connector managers were the best for improving employee performance. This manager makes connections

at the employee, team, and organizational levels to drive employee performance rather than trying to do all of the coaching and development themselves. Connector managers triple the likelihood their direct reports are high performers.

What Distinguishes Connector Managers

Connector managers are defined by five key truths:

1. Not Just Delegating—Connectors don’t just delegate development responsibilities but take an active role to ensure high-quality development connections.

2. Same Time Spend—Connectors spend as much time as other manager types on coaching and development but prioritize that time differently.

3. Still Coaching on the Core—Connectors are still providing key development activities, such as communicating performance standards and having career conversations.

4. Big Network Not Required—Connectors don’t necessarily have a bigger network but instead help employees get more value from their development connections.

5. Performance—Connectors not only improve employee performance by up to 26% but also increase employee engagement by up to 40%.


Detail about CEB Inc. and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.

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How HRBPs Can Start Building Connector Managers

HRBPs work with managers every day. While building Connector managers won’t occur overnight, follow these three steps to start moving your managers in the right direction:

1. Ensure you and your L&D team understand what Connector managers look like, and take a unified approach to sharing those connector expectations. Connector managers use a different set of skills than the other three types of managers. They tailor development to employee needs and interests, promote reciprocal and real-time development within their teams, and ensure their employees are making quality development connections beyond their own purview. A clear definition of a Connector manager should come before any other step.

2. Support Connector managers as they shift their management mind-sets. Don’t underestimate the energy required for manag-ers to shift their mind-sets from an Always On (or another) style to a connector style. Knowing they don’t have to be Always On can be liberating for managers, but they also need a clear sense of what they should do instead. Partner with managers on begin-ning to make this mental shift. You can start with very simple statements managers can use to act like connectors:

The Connector Manager


Partner for Best-Fit Connections

Connectors ensure quality development connections outside of the manager and team.

Power the Team for Peer Development

Connectors promote reciprocal and real-time development within the team.

Personalize for Employee Resonance

Connectors tailor development to employee

needs and interests.

Organization

Team Employee

• As they work with individual employees, Connector managers say, “Let me better understand your needs and interests so I can help you…”

• As they work with their teams, Connector managers say, “As we kick off this project, let’s review our development goals.”

• As they and their staff work across their organization, Connector managers say, “Let’s discuss your development goals for your upcoming conversation with Ella, our senior leader.”


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For more on building Connector managers:

• CEB Learning and Development Leadership Council members can view the full research study by visiting the member website.

• Organizations that do not have access to the CEB Learning & Development Leadership Council member website can view an executive summary of the research on our public website.

3. Reevaluate your own management style. The effectiveness of the Connector management style applies to all employees, including managers working in HR. Use this new Connector manager profile to reexamine how you work with your own team and identify how you can work as a Connector manager. Start with key questions to identify those opportunities:

• What do our employees think of us as managers?

• How well do we know our employees?

• What is my personal footprint within my team?

• How well do we work with our internal interfaces?



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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/learning-development/research/general/17/a-new-manager-mandate.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/learning-and-development/manager-led-development/ebook-form.html


How to Keep Employee Roles Clear in a Blurred Digital Environment

Constant change has been the norm for

decades. Yet today, we see an unprecedented

level of disruption to the organization due

to the digitalization of the marketplace. Last

quarter we introduced you to the concept of

digitalization and how HRBPs should think

about personalizing employees’ experiences

as a result. This quarter, we focus on how

digitalization blurs day-to-day boundaries:

both within the organization (between

business units or departments) and beyond

it (between the business and the external

market). But first, let’s briefly revisit and

redefine: what does digitalization mean and

why does it matter to HR?

By Bethany Horstmann

What Is Digitalization, and Why Is It Important?

Before responding to digitalization, organizations must understand what it means. Broadly, we define digitalization as the use of data and technology to enhance existing products and services, improve channel coordination and performance, and optimize enterprise activities.

This definition sounds broad, and for good rea-son—digitalization has sweeping implications on:

• The products organizations can and are expected to offer,

• The way organizations connect with customers and distribute products to them, and

• The way employees get work done within our organizations.

This article is part two of an article series on how digitalization impacts HRBPs. You can review the first article in the series on our website.


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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/17/hrbp-quarterly-q2-2017/how-to-personalize-the-digital-employee-experience.html


Understanding the Impact of Digitalization

HRBPs and their HR functions should be prepared to respond to six critical digitalization shifts. To help HRBPs understand how these shifts will affect the workforce and their role, we will examine the talent implications of these trends over the next several HRBP Quarterly editions. This quarter, we focus on another trend: Internal and External Boundaries Blur.

Internal and External Boundaries Blur: What Does It Mean?

Collaboration isn’t new for organizations, but digitalization has brought about changes in how that collaboration occurs. Increased transparency and access to virtual communication means collaboration is much more open; complex workflows and processes influence work instead of

Six Critical Digitalization Shifts

1. Demand Grows More Personal

• Customers seek services that align with their preferences and values as individuals (not segments).

• Customers demand lower-effort, nonintrusive service.

2. Products Become Information-Rich Services

• Value creation shifts toward information-rich services.

• Companies facilitate or broker services through an interface.

3. Data Reliance Deepens

• Customers rely on data, especially from peers, for purchase decisions.

• Managers and employees use data for virtually every business decision.

• Overabundance and uncertain veracity of data make it harder to reach decisions quickly.

4. Work Adapts to Broader Role for Machines

• Automation and machine learning move into more complex, less structured activities.

• Employees must demonstrate greater judgment, creativity, flexibility, and collaboration.

5. Internal and External Boundaries Blur

• Companies collaborate through open models.

• Functional boundaries and hierarchies give way to fast- changing matrices.

• Employees pursue flexible roles, employment models, and career paths.

6. Everything Accelerates (Except Large Companies)

• New capital-light competitors scale rapidly.

• Demand changes at a faster rate.

• Size, complexity, and regulation slow incumbent responses.


Not Staying Within the Lines

n = 2,419 business leaders.Source: CEB Digital Enterprise 2020 Survey.

74%of business leaders expect their companies to have many internal initiatives spanning multiple functions by 2020.

traditional divisions between teams and business functions. These blurred lines have two main outcomes for our employees:

1. Our employees must have more cross-functional skills to support new, digital ways of doing business.



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2. Our employees will be working with external organizations more frequently (as they partner with different vendors, contractors, customers, and technologies), which raises new opportunities and risks. In this setting, employees are less clear on the interests of their organization as opposed to the external partners with whom they’re working.

Implications of Blurred Boundaries for HRBPs

This shift doesn’t mean the future is one connected organization with no boundaries, but it does mean that how HRBPs work to find, develop, and manage employees (both within their purview and beyond) should change. Start by reflecting on four key questions, and clarify what these changes mean for you:

1. How should your client group manage talent within its value chain but outside of your organization? Our traditional approach is to manage and develop talent within our own organization, but now people outside your organization are affecting the quality of the product or service your organization provides. Given this type of talent materially affects your client group’s performance, shouldn’t they be included in your management strategy? Some organizations are already extending programs beyond their employees within their formal structures. For example, Cargill redesigned its leadership development programs to include action-learning projects directly with customers. PwC also tapped into the gig economy by launching a marketplace where freelance workers can apply to work on projects for PwC’s clients. Can you think of similar opportunities for your organization to do the same?

2. How should you help employees build the cross-functional skills required in a digital organization? Your employees were already working with more people on more complex projects—as a result of digitalization, that complexity has substantially increased. Now employees must work across corporate functions, external organizations, and communication styles they’re less familiar

with. How can you help them develop the skills to engage and collaborate across functions? Do you know what skills those are? How should you partner with your learning and development colleagues to introduce enterprise-wide opportunities to build these skills?

3. What does increased transparency mean for your organization? Employees today see and hear more, both virtually and in-person, than ever before; often, employees are already aware of changes that will affect them before you even begin to communicate those changes. HRBPs can help their organizations’ senior leaders recognize this situation. Then, they can identify key points across standard change management and employee engagement processes where leaders can more proactively communicate with employees. These actions help organizations use transparency to their benefit, not their detriment.

4. How should available career opportunities change, if at all? The most productive employee careers are “portfolio based”—they involve more frequent switching of roles, often horizontally, to increase the portfolio of skills and experiences employees have. This type of career works especially well within a digital environment, but it requires greater visibility from HR and managers to identify what diverse role options could satisfy employee interests. How well does your organization currently facilitate this visibility? How can you think about these current policies and how your approach to career guidance may need to adjust?

As internal and external boundaries blur, HRBPs are presented with additional opportunities to become strategic partners to the business. These opportunities include helping line managers coach their employees through changes to how they work and helping their HR partners clarify the different-in-kind support systems employees need as a result. Stay tuned for next quarter’s article on additional ways HRBPs can stay ahead of the digitalization curve.

“ The boundary of our company is getting very Swiss cheese–like.”

Head of Organizational Assessment

Consumer Products Company


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When to Ask, What to Say, and How to Use It

HRBPs find themselves answering to two “managers”—the HR manager they report into and receive formal feedback from and the line leader (or leaders) they partner with. While 81% of HRBPs report into a member of the HR function—meaning HR determines the objectives, competencies, and skills that formally shape and assess their performance—the best HRBPs know feedback from their line partner is just as important. Line leaders are the greatest source of feedback on capabilities such as an HRBP’s knowledge of the business unit, his or her ability to apply HR solutions to business unit needs, and his or her ability to challenge the line leader to think differently about talent priorities.

How can HRBPs get performance feedback from line leaders?

Although most HRBPs don’t report into line leaders or aren’t formally assessed by them in performance reviews, that shouldn’t deter HRBPs

Getting Feedback from Line Leaders

By Amanda Joseph-Little

from getting the performance feedback they need. Ongoing, informal conversations about performance are one of the most effective ways to drive employee performance and can improve employee performance by up to 12%. 1

To initiate performance conversations with your line leader, first consider when these conversations would most benefit you and your line leader.

Opportunities for HRBP–Line Leader Performance Conversations

• Regularly scheduled check-ins (e.g., monthly, biweekly)

• The beginning of a new, critical project for the business leader

• On completion of a critical project for the business leader

• When rolling out a new HR or talent management initiative

• During a major change to the business unit’s goals or strategy

• During transitions of key business unit leaders into or out of the business unit



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In addition to considering when performance conversations would be most valuable, it’s important to consider what to discuss with your line leader. Tailor your questions to the scenario (i.e., is this part of a regularly scheduled conversation or at the close of a critical project?), as well as to your personal development priorities. Further, limit your discussion to three performance areas so you can discuss each thoroughly, allowing time for follow-up questions and discussion on development opportunities and next steps.

Suggested Questions for HRBP–Line Leader Performance Conversations

• How thorough is my understanding of the strategy and workflows of this business unit? What additional knowledge do you think would help me perform better as a business partner? What are your suggestions for how I can acquire that knowledge?

• How well do I apply my knowledge of HR and talent management practices to inform talent and business decisions? Can you provide an example of when I did this well and an example of when I could have done this better?

• How well do I analyze and apply talent data to inform talent and business decisions? Can you provide an example of when I did this well, and an example of when I could have done this better?

• How well do I challenge you to think differently about a talent problem or opportunity that you have? Do I ask you thought-provoking questions or propose alternate solutions?

• How well do I own the talent strategy for this business unit? Am I proactive enough in devising the talent strategy and communicating my recommendations to you?

• Thinking about my performance in general, what skills do I have or activities do I perform that you think are strengths of mine?

• Thinking about my performance in general, what skills or activities do you think I can improve on?

• What will you do differently to ensure we collaborate effectively to develop and implement talent strategies that help achieve business goals? How can you support my development?

Finally, devise a plan to determine how you will use the feedback you received. Consider the following steps to take full advantage of the conversation and progress against your development goals:

• Reflect on the conversation afterward. Do you have additional questions or concerns? Are your strengths and development areas clear?

• Share your conversation with your HR manager. Does your HR manager agree with the feedback you received? Brainstorm ways to improve your performance and how your HR manager can support you.

• Seek guidance from more experienced HRBPs. Discuss actions they took to improve their performance as well as strategies they find most effective for collaborating with line clients.

• Create an individual development plan (IDP). Create an IDP to improve against two to three areas identified in your conversation with the line leader. Populate the IDP with specific suggestions discussed with your line leader, HR manager, and peer HRBPs as well as your own ideas. Use our suite of customizable IDPs to get started tailoring your own IDP.

• Talk to your line leader again…and again. Regularly seek performance feedback from your line leader. Discuss steps you took and progress you made since your last performance conversation, and discuss future opportunities and development needs as business needs change.

The best HRBPs do not allow formal reporting relationships to prevent them from getting the feedback they need to perform their best. Instead, they get valuable feedback from line leaders by considering when to seek that feedback, what feedback to ask for, and how to use that feedback to improve their performance and their relationships with line leaders.


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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/tools/14/hr-business-partner-individual-development-plans.html


Support to Get the Feedback You Need

We offer a new tool for collecting and aggregating feedback about HRBPs from line leaders. Use this Excel-based tool to deploy a customizable survey to your line leaders asking for their feedback on specific HRBPs. In addition, you can use the tool to aggregate the results for a team-level view of your HRBPs’ performance. Specific uses include the following:

• Use the individual results to improve individual HRBP performance and improve the relationship between the HRBP and his or her line leader.

• Use the aggregate results to develop learning and development curriculum for your HRBPs or to aid in HR transformation efforts.

To get started, access the complete HRBP Customer Feedback Tool on our website.

Snapshot: HRBP Customer Feedback Tool

1 n = 23,339, CEB 2012 High Performance Survey; n = 10, 531, CEB 2014 Enterprise Contribution Workforce Survey.




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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/tools/17/hrbp-customer-feedback-tool.html




Evolve Your Development Plan

Through your participation, you’ll receive a personal results report with a focus on how to increase your strategic impact across your core responsibilities, including HIPO management, talent analytics, line leader and manager coaching, and performance management.

For teams that complete the career diagnostic, aggregate reports are also available. Please contact your CEB account director to learn more.

Complete the always-on HRBP Career Diagnostic and clarify where to spend your development time and effort in the year ahead.


Performance Management: How HRBPs Can Improve It Even When They Don’t Own It

By Amanda Joseph-Little

The past few years have seen much debate about performance management. A main topic is how to “fix” performance management to more accurately assess employee performance and reduce the burden on managers. HRBPs are critical to the success of performance management practices within the business units they support, but they typically don’t own or develop the performance management processes and practices the organization is expected to follow. Fortunately, HRBPs can improve performance management without a major overhaul of their organizations’ formal performance management practices or going rogue and sidestepping those practices.

Research reveals three strategies organizations should implement to fix performance management, potentially improving employee performance by up to 14%.



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Performance Management Strategies Impact on Employee Performance

Provide Ongoing, Not Episodic, Performance Feedback

Increasing the frequency of informal performance conversations allows managers to provide more timely feedback to employees and to adjust expectations with employees based on organizational changes or past performance.

12%

Make Performance Reviews Forward Looking, Not Backward Looking

Assessing and discussing future performance provides managers and employees with a more accurate understanding of employees’ abilities to meet future business needs and how to improve those abilities.

13%

Include Peer, Not Just Manager, Feedback in Evaluating Performance

Collecting feedback from peers who understand employees’ work helps managers more effectively assess and discuss employee performance in an environment where employees must increasingly work with peers to be effective.

14%

n = 23,339 (2012); 10,531 (2014).

Source: CEB 2012 High Performance Survey; CEB 2014 Enterprise Contribution Workforce Survey.

HRBPs can take informal steps today to implement these strategies and improve performance management within their lines of business. Use the following approaches for each strategy.

1. Ongoing Performance Feedback: Provide Guidelines for Effective “Pulse” Conversations

HRBPs are well positioned to provide managers and employ-ees with guidelines, suggestions, or best practices for having valuable, informal, and ongoing

performance conversations. CA Technologies, a multinational technology company, refers to these conversations as “pulse” conversations. CA Tech-nologies provides a framework to managers and employees to help them effectively conduct pulse conversations but gives them the discretion to de-termine the frequency, timing, location, and scope of the conversations; it also encourages both man-agers and employees to initiate those conversa-

tions. CA Technologies found that the simpler the process and the more flexibility it allowed, the more the workforce adopted the conversations.

If your organization already offers guides for effective informal conversations, work from those guides and distribute them to managers and employees. For example, remind managers and employees about the importance of informal, ongoing performance conversations and available resources:

• During any one-on-one conversations you have with managers or employees in your business unit;

• In a follow-up to central communications about the formal performance appraisal process (e.g., following a central HR communication, e-mail managers and employees directly to kick off the annual appraisal process); and

• During calibration sessions or talent review sessions.

12% Potential Impact on Employee Performance


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https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/case_study/14/cargill-everyday-performance-management.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/tools/13/manager-guide-focusing-performance-reviews-on-future-performanc.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/case_study/12/w-l-gore-associates-inc-crowdsourced-associate-evaluatio.html


Source: CA Technologies; CEB 2012 High Performance Survey; CEB 2014 Enterprise Contribution Workforce Survey.

CA Technologies’ Framework for Effective Pulse Conversations

Align

Adjust

Accelerate

Accelerate

Giving and receiving relevant and timely coaching and feedback

Adjust

Modifying actions and behaviors to drive

business results

Align

A framework to ensure actions are in line with

corporate goals

Pulse conversations can focus on one or more of four topics:

• Goals

• Career aspirations

• Coaching and feedback

• Stay discussions

2. Forward-Looking Conversations: Help Managers and Employees Discuss Future Capabilities, Career Interests, and Networks

Conversations about employee performance tend to focus on what has already happened—what the employee accom-plished (or didn’t) and how well (or poorly) they accomplished it. Conversations about past performance are necessary to ensure the manager and employee are on the same page when it comes to performance and to clarify the rationale for promotion and compensation deci-sions. But limiting the conversation to employees’ past accomplishments misses an opportunity to discuss future expectations of the employee and to help them develop and progress.

Even if existing performance review forms and practices don’t prioritize future performance, HRBPs can coach managers and employees in their

business units to have informal, future-focused conversations. Specifically, encourage managers and employees to discuss future capabilities, career interests, and networks using the following guidance on the next page.

For additional manager guid-ance on discussing future ca-pabilities, career interests, and networks, access our complete

Manager Guide to Focusing Performance Reviews on Future Performance.




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CapabilitiesA strength or ability that has potential for development or use

Why It’s Important Prepares the employee for future organizational and role needs

What to Discuss How to improve these capabilities for future success and organizational needs

Example Discussion Topics • Skills the employee wants to learn

in the future• Development areas the employee

must work on to continue to provide value in his or her role

Career Interests An employee’s plans and aspirations

Why It’s ImportantEnsures the employee’s career interests fit with future role and organizational needs

What to DiscussWhether career interests align with the direction of the organization and how these interests can be fulfilled in the future

Example Discussion Topics• Whether the employee’s future

career aspirations align with the organization’s vision and purpose and, if not, how the two can align

• Possible career paths available to the employee given the organization’s future vision and strategy

Networks An employee’s ability to make, use, and sustain useful connections

Why It’s ImportantEnsures the employee participates in the networks most useful for his or her future performance and organizational needs

What to DiscussWhich networks the employee should join for future success

Example Discussion Topics• The employee’s current networks

and how they can contribute to future performance

• The types of networks the employee must develop to be successful in future roles

3. Peer Feedback: Encourage Employees to Share Informal Feedback with One Another

While informal performance conversations between man-ager and employee are critical, peer-to-peer conversations also

provide important perspective on an employee’s performance. Employees spend less time working with their direct managers and more time collab-orating with peers. In fact, peers often understand an employee’s work better than his or her own manager does. How can HRBPs encourage peers to have informal performance conversations with one another and ensure those conversations are constructive?

Again, HRBPs can encourage peer-to-peer perfor-mance conversations—even if current performance management practices don’t emphasize such con-versations—by providing simple guidance on peer feedback dos and don’ts. Start by encouraging employees to consider if they have valuable feed-back to offer in the first place. For example, have the employee consider the following questions:

• Do I have visibility into this employee’s work, skills, and knowledge?

• Did I work with this employee on a shared project or toward a common goal?

• Have I worked with this employee long enough to identify patterns in their performance?

Then share guidelines to help employees provide effective peer feedback.




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Provide feedback if you feel you do not know the employee well enough to give an accurate and honest peer review.

Discuss your review with colleagues.

Use generalized or ambiguous language.

Use information you received secondhand.

State your interpretations of your observations.

Focus only on negative observations about your peer’s performance.

Provide feedback on personal characteristics not related to work.

Provide suggestions on how you think management should use this information.


Although HRBPs may not own the formal per-formance management practices at their organi-zations, they have ample opportunity to improve performance management. HRBPs can improve employee performance by as much as 14% by improving the performance management strate-gies used within their business units. Specifically, HRBPs should provide guidance for effective, in-formal pulse conversations, help managers and employees have forward-looking performance conversations, and encourage employees to share informal feedback with one another.

Suggest ways you believe an employee can improve on a development area or build on a strength.

Focus on specific behaviors the peer displayed.

Remain objective; describe behaviors in terms of their impact on the team, project, or organization.

State only your observations of an employee’s behavior; your interpretations could be incorrect or missing relevant information.

Provide both positive feedback and developmental feedback.

Be as specific as possible when describing an instance where an employee exhibited a strength or demonstrated a need for more training.

Focus on traits or tasks that you alone may be able to view or that are outside the visibility of managers.

Dos and Don’ts for Peer Reviews



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Designing Your Passions A Conversation with Dave Evans—Author, Professor, Consultant, and Business Leader By Andrew Kim

Dave Evans is the coauthor of the New York Times best-selling book, Designing Your Life, where he teaches you how to “design” a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage. Dave holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and is a cofounder of Electronic Arts. In Evans’ current career, he’s focused on helping organizations build innovative cultures where people can do great work and love doing it.

In a recent edition of the CEB Talent Angle podcast, we spoke with Evans to answer one of the most frequently asked questions—and one he is excited to help people answer: What should I do with my life?

In his own efforts to answer that question, Evans draws from his background in mechanical engineering. In mechanical engineering, you discover, test, and refine your solutions to challenges that arise, so why not do the same when following your own passions? “Design thinking” is the answer Evans proposes to help employees find the “best” job for them—one where their passions are aligned with their long-term goals.

At its heart, “design thinking” is a modern approach to finding solutions to problems. It relies on consistent iterations and versions. Evans argues this approach works perfectly when applied to finding your passions. With a general end goal in mind, employees should experiment along the way to see what works and expect they’ll need to fine-tune their current roles (and maybe even the end

goal). As they work with employees, HRBPs should use three design thinking principles: encourage curiosity, support experimentation, and reframe work passions.

1. Encourage CuriosityToday, employees feel they should know their passions and future life goals very early on, but Evans believes, “only 2 out of 10 people can confidently answer what their passion is, which leaves the other 8 out of 10 not knowing their passion” and that this is perfectly normal. We should think about passion as an outcome of searching and finding what you enjoy rather than an immediate input into our lives.

Evans encourages HR teams to advise the “whole person” when they work with their teams—they


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should make time to discuss where employees are in their current life stages and work with them to develop insights about their future career goals.

Having select questions available to ask employees helps make these types of conversations more common. Try asking the following:

• What were you doing on days when you left work happy and energized?

• What do you do for fun outside of work? Are there any similarities between those things and parts of your current job?

• What jobs at our organization do you wish you were qualified for?

• If you could shadow one person at our organization, who would it be and why?

• Hypothetically, if our organization shut down in a year and you had to do something totally different from your current job, what would that look like?

Similar to other lines of questioning HRBPs use at work, these types of discussions help employees consider nonobvious opportunities.

2. Support Experimentation When teaching organizations how to build an innovative culture, Evans notes, “At the start of building a new product or at the start of the design process, we rarely know exactly what to do. Only after we have finished do we inadvertently change the story and act like we knew what we were doing all along.” Given it’s next to impossible to get something as complex as culture right the first time, Evans shares the key to success is iterating, learning from your mistakes, and constantly repeating.

Helping employees find their passion follows a sim-ilar pattern. We shouldn’t expect employees to say, “I knew my passion all along.” Instead, we should push them to experiment with different career op-portunities and try out new work tasks. Workers will discover more of their passions by putting their life goals and work experiences to the test.

This idea is something many HRBPs are already advocating for but have struggled to convince employees of. For employees, experimentation can feel risky, so it’s important HR helps employees shift their mind-set.

For HRBPs, you can support employees by allowing them to experiment with career choices and helping them develop well-rounded opinions on what works for them. In practice, the support helps employees develop their personal “brands,” or how they (or potentially others) would describe the unique value they bring to the organization.

By helping employees build their personal brands, you are helping them develop insights on their passions and take actionable steps toward reaching a long-term career goal. And, given a personal brand is specific to the person (and not the person’s current role), that brand can travel with employees and help them feel more supported as they experiment.

Building Your Personal Brand

• Build self-awareness. Employees reflect on their past experiences, analyze career high and low points, and identify common themes.

• Communicate value. Employees learn how to describe their strengths and how they use them in their work. They then practice communicating the value they bring to the company, work, and customers.

• Build reputation. Managers support employees to connect with the individuals and communities that fit their strengths and career aspirations.

3. Reframe Your Passions Evans strongly feels people can have many passions. “A singular passion,” he says, “creates a false perception that there’s only one of you, like the Dave Evans who is passionate about design thinking. But don’t let that get in the way of other, better possible versions of you, such as the Dave Evans who is passionate about sailing or people or education.”



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Rather than fiercely clinging to a single passion and trying to carry one narrative through all work experiences, Evans finds employees must learn when it is appropriate to challenge their assumptions about work. If employees have always had specific working definitions of themselves and their passions, it can feel jarring to take a critical look at that definition. Evans believes HR and line managers play important roles in establishing spaces where employees feel supported in considering new perspectives.

“It’s about looking very honestly at your circumstances and asking what room you have to maneuver. You can think, ‘No one knows the future, so let’s work on designing our passions as we go along.’”

Reframing passions can take many forms. If HRBPs feel a particular employee is too set in his or her definition of one single passion, for instance, they could ask that employee to argue against that passion as a productive career choice. Is that employee able to identify the shortcomings of that role, function, or profession? Do they have an unrealistic perception of what that passion would mean professionally? If reframing is practiced by HRBPs and managers, employees will become smarter consumers of their own career options.

Ultimately, design thinking isn’t about becoming your perfect self. Evans shares, “It’s about looking very honestly at your circumstances and asking what room you have to maneuver. You can think, ‘No one knows the future, so let’s work on designing our passions as we go along.’” Finding your passions is a long process that requires curiosity, experimentation, and new perspectives—with these three principles in mind, HRBPs are in an exciting position to help unlock those options.

The CEB Talent Angle is hosted by Principal Executive Advisor Scott Engler and produced by Isaac Liu, Hannah Muldavin, and Andrew Karr. For more information on making work better for employees, listen to the full podcast episode on CEB Talent Angle, also available on gartner.com/ceb and iTunes.


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Spotlight on the Business: Finance and Communications

By Susannah Schools

Communications Spotlight: How You Can Use Communications to Change Perceptions

Communications functions have a difficult charge—they’re tasked with influencing customers and stakeholders amid an increasing body of voices, channels, and messages. Unfortunately, our research shows they’re falling short of that goal as nearly 80% of PR campaigns fail to change perceptions.

HRBPs are well-equipped to support clients in Communications because they face many similar challenges in their day-to-day work. Like Communications professionals, HRBPs compete for time and attention from line leaders, managers, and employees as they advise on HR challenges and solutions. Whether advising employees within the Communications function or crafting persuasive communications yourself, follow these three steps to increase the likelihood of shifting your listeners’ perceptions:

HRBPs recently cited business acumen as their top skill-development area in the coming year, 1 knowing they can provide higher-quality support by understanding how their organizations make money, how business operations contribute to that outcome, and how industry trends affect that process.

Our “Spotlight on the Business” article series aims to help HRBPs build that kind of knowledge. This quarter, we focus on two prominent corporate functions—Finance and Communications—and highlight recent developments within those functions, drawing from our best practice research in both areas. If you support one of the featured functions, we can help you gain a crisper sense of your line partners’ priorities. Even if you aren’t currently paired with these functions, it helps to know more about potential trends affecting your organization overall.

Filter

Increasing channel coverage and message frequency

Co-opting noncorporate, more credible sources

Adapting channel mix to match preferences of key audiences (e.g., social media, video)

Using attention-getting data and stories


Message is consumed,

understood, and remembered.

Perception Change

Target Audience

Sample Communications Tactics to Change Perception in an Information-Saturated Environment



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1. Challenge mental models. Goal: Make your customer or client say, “Hmm, I hadn’t considered that.”

Background: To change someone’s perception, you need to know where they’re starting from (i.e., their current perception).

Strategy: Instead of using broad and diverse data to outline the perception you want someone to have, intentionally choose content and data based on what information would change the assumptions and beliefs driving existing perceptions. If you’re not sure what those assumptions and beliefs are, you can start with direct customer interviews.

2. Motivate cognitive effort. Goal: Make your customer or client say, “This is worth some serious thought.”

Background: Shifting entrenched perceptions is hard work. To shift perceptions, your listeners need to know the effort is worth something.

Strategy: To motivate cognitive effort, communications must overcome two challenges—

• Communicators must dispel the brain’s natural resistance to change and focus on efficiency to convince it to put effort into cognitive processing.

• Once the brain is evaluating information, the communication must stand up to the rigorous evaluation involved in how we process information. Here, people compare what they learn with what they already believe or hear from other sources.

To overcome these challenges, content must resonate with what’s important to the customers—beyond just being in familiar language and relevant to their interests. Because what’s important to your customers may vary, consider segmenting them into smaller groups to make more targeted appeals.

3. Minimize the cognitive burden. Goal: Make your customer or client say, “This isn’t too hard to think about.”

Background: This step, when paired with the prior step, motivates your listeners to exert effort and makes it as easy as possible for them to apply that effort.

Strategy: Push yourself to simplify messages where possible. Present content in an easy-to-understand format and remove noncritical information.

Only 21% of current Communications campaigns have each of these three elements and are successful in changing perceptions. Whether you use these strategies yourself or help your Communications partners implement them, you’ll be well on your way to changing perceptions.

Read the full brief to learn more about this three-step approach, and visit the Communications section of our Functional Support Center.

Percentage of Communications Campaigns with Key Elements

Challenge the Mental

Model

Motivate the Cognitive

Effort

Minimize the Cognitive Burden

48% 48%

38%

Change the Mental Model

21%

“This is worth some serious thought.”

“Hmm, I hadn’t considered that.”

“This isn’t too hard to think about.”

n = 56.



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Finance Spotlight: What High-Performing Finance Talent Looks Like

The same volatile, uncertain business environment that affects the HR function is affecting your Finance talent. Like HR, Finance faces an increasing expectation to deliver a new kind of judgment-based analysis instead of only offering support decisions by fulfilling relatively standard requests. Now, Finance must analyze scenarios with partial or flawed data and, as a result, requires judgment to inform decisions.

What does that mean for Finance talent?Regardless of the structure of your organization’s Finance function, the potential roles a Finance function can play remain fairly consistent: “policeman,” “service provider,” or “challenger.”

Across these three roles, the challenger role, or profile, matters most—the best Finance employees

act as advisors and adopt the role of the Finance challenger during business interactions.

As an HRBP, you are responsible for identifying challengers among candidates and current Finance employees as well as helping other Finance employees develop their challenger skills. To fulfill these responsibilities, you must ensure Finance talent knows what behaviors to exhibit in their day-to-day work:

• Finance challengers teach—Reframe the way Finance’s partners view their business and their needs to more effectively compete in the market.

• Finance challengers tailor—Link the Finance function’s capabilities to your partners’ individual goals.

• Finance challengers assert control—Openly pursue goals in a direct, but not aggressive, way to overcome increased business partner risk aversion.

“Policeman”

Objective:Ensure the soundness of financial data.

Activities:• Accounting• Audit• External reporting• Internal controls

Importance Trajectory:Decreasing

“Service Provider”

Objective:Fulfill requests in a timely and accurate manner.

Activities:• Cost management• Forecasting• Transaction processing

Importance Trajectory:Stable

“Challenger”

Objective:Drive sustainable enterprise growth.

Activities:• Performance inflection• Risk management• Strategic planning

Importance Trajectory:Greatly increasing


Additional Characteristics of a Finance Challenger

• Understands the operations of the business Comprehends the root causes of business results and teaches these to the business

• Provides a different view of the world to business partners Engages in microeconomic discussions around macroeconomic issues

• Teaches business partners the financial impacts of critical decisions Provides strong analytics around profitability, P&L, etc.

• Creates constructive tension between finance and the business Creates healthy debate with business partners on critical decisions by playing devil’s advocate and other roles to pressure-test ideas

• Questions underperforming projects mid-cycle Installs financial rigor into project performance reviews

• Challenges business partners’ assumptions about value drivers and presents alternate assumptions Reassesses the business partners’ preconceived notions of success


The Three Roles Finance Professionals Typically Play



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Finance challengers also know how to exhibit those behaviors in their day-to-day workflow. Challengers take the following steps by asking themselves a series of questions:

• Engage—How do I build credibility with line clients and overcome suspicions about Finance? How do I demonstrate knowledge of the business environment and my client’s personal motivations? What is my client’s impression of Finance generally and me personally?

• Diagnose—How can I identify the root causes of financial issues and compare them with assumptions?

• Reframe—How can I contextualize financial challenges and capture all potential solutions? How can I use questions, independent analysis, empathy, and teaching to reframe my client’s view of the challenge and potential solutions?

• Deliver—How can I clearly communicate credible solutions? How can I prepare for client interactions in advance? How can I tailor my negotiations to take advantage of my line client’s personality and negotiation style?

• Enact—How can I spur my clients to take action? What difficult questions can I prepare to answer?

Finance talent who demonstrate these behaviors at the right times are their function’s highest-performing employees. There are also many similarities between Finance challengers and the most effective HRBPs who lead, influence, and challenge their line partners. As you look to develop your organization’s Finance talent into challengers, take advantage of the opportunity to apply key takeaways to your role as an HRBP, too.

Read the full brief to learn more about Finance challengers, and visit the Finance section of our Functional Support Center.

1 CEB 2016 HRBP Advisory Council Welcome Survey.


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How well do you really know the functions you support?

Visit the updated resource center to learn more about the priorities of and the trends affecting your clients in a variety of corporate functions, including Finance, Sales, Marketing, IT, Communications, and more.

Build your functional knowledge quickly with the Functional Support Center.



Voices Within the HRBP Community

In this quarter’s Voices, we speak with HR leaders who have successfully championed new talent management programs at their organizations.

We begin with a conversation with Sheena Martin, HR Manager at Rogers Media. Sheena and her team evolved a leadership, or “mini MBA,” program within her client group, Sportsnet, designed to build the well-rounded leaders Sportsnet needed for the future.

We continue with a conversation with James Dalton, HR Manager at Royal Dutch Shell. James and his team recently launched a career-pathing initiative to clarify what it takes for employees to build successful careers in Finance at Shell. We also hear more from James about what he’s learned over his varied career, both within and beyond HR.


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• Anyone who works on the Sportsnet property (about 700 people) is eligible to apply via one standard application provided their managers have endorsed them. The first time we ran this program, we largely admitted employees within middle management. Within this year’s cohort, only two participants are managers; the rest are individual contributors.

• Acceptance into the program is primarily based on the quality of the application but also considers performance and potential in consultation with the applicant’s manager. This consideration ensures, where appropriate, we can invest in those applicants we’ve already identified as rising leaders, although this isn’t required for us to admit someone.

How would you describe Sportsnet’s Leadership Program (SNLP)?

The course description we provide within our syllabus is, “Provide strategic learnings of the various functions in the Sportsnet business through in-class and experiential learnings, networking opportunities, and a team project. Students will be provided with a voice to senior leadership, will be given opportunity to develop outside their area of expertise, and will build their business acumen, leading to their greater development and stronger realization of their potential.”

Generally, though, this is an application-based leadership development program based on the core capabilities and knowledge that well-rounded, effective leaders within Sportsnet need. On the capability side, we focus on things like financial acumen, communication, and storytelling. On the knowledge side, we want to educate participants about what makes our business work, including production of our TV programming, business operations, marketing and branding, and content strategy.

Finally, we made a few very intentional choices about the program design that have worked well for us:

• The application is simple, but it also encourages creativity. It asks for standard information, like the applicant’s tenure, title, and role, but it also includes an assignment where applicants are asked to do two things. First, they must explain why they should be chosen for the program and second, they must explain an idea they would present to our executive team if they had one hour with them.

Sheena MartinHR Manager, Rogers Media

Sample Session: Storytelling

Presentation and Discussion (90 minutes) Key questions addressed:

• What are the elements of a good story?

• What are good ways to draw in an audience?

• What does a good story “hook” look like?

• How do you present on different platforms or using different technologies?

• How do you track the impact of your story?

Homework (Complete After the Session)

Create a pitch for a brief story, designed to be aired on TV, that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Toronto Blue Jays. Be prepared to pitch your story idea to the group in a subsequent session in two weeks.

After this session, we were excited to see that a number of these story pitches actually ended up being used on the air by our production team!



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What are the main reasons the program is successful?

The top reason I’d highlight is we deliver the pro-gram with a true partnership between the HR func-tion and the leaders of our business. Training fa-cilitation can so often feel like an additional to-do for leaders. However, our leaders are truly owners of the sessions they’re responsible for delivering. I believe we achieved this because we got leaders involved from the beginning of the process, even as we were evaluating applicants. By seeing the lev-el of effort applicants put into their applications, I think our leaders quickly recognized what it would take to match the energy and contributions of our participants. We also end the program by creating small teams within the cohort that build a strate-gy to address a real business challenge Rogers is facing. Each team presents their recommendations to all of Sportsnet’s senior leaders. The quality of those presentations absolutely astounded our se-nior leaders and us. Seeing results like that is a great incentive to share ownership of a program like this.

• The time commitment struck the right balance in terms of what we were asking for from our participants and facilitators. We’re asking participants to spend about 40 hours in the classroom with us, with additional homework to complete between sessions, and our senior leader facilitators to spend a minimum of two to four hours with the cohort. We felt this amount of time communicated the seriousness of the program without seeming too difficult to balance with ongoing work responsibilities.

• Finally, we tried to make parts of the program fun, active, and practical—these sessions weren’t always just someone speaking at the front of a room. For example, as Sportsnet manages the game broadcasts of the Toronto Blue Jays Major League Baseball team, for one session, we take our cohort to a game and show them what’s involved in delivering a game broadcast. They learn things about our business but can also network and bond with their cohort.

What was the initial motivation behind creating the program?

Of course, employee development, especially of rising leaders, is always a priority. Before the start of the program though, we noticed we had talent who were really sharp with one or two core skill sets required in their roles, but there was a larger gap between that role profile and the skillsets required of Sportsnet’s senior leaders. We wanted to introduce something that would help bridge that gap—for rising leaders, it could act as a realistic introduction to what we need from our senior leaders; for senior leaders, it could act as a way for them to hone their coaching skills and get to know rising talent; and for HR, it could expand how we were engaging and developing promising talent.

Participant Feedback: What is the one thing you enjoyed most about SNLP this year?

“ The people. I have created a strong bond with many people at Sportsnet that will last for years to come, both my peers in the program and other people we met along the way.”

“ I thoroughly enjoyed being given a ‘real-world’ issue or problem facing the business and immersing myself in that ‘world’ to learn more about it.”

“ I learned as much from my peers as I did from the executive team.”


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Second, we knew our general mandate was improving leader performance and development, but we didn’t initially have additional budget for this priority. Of course, a program like this requires significant effort to deliver—so, where possible, we really tried to draw from (and almost repurpose) existing training materials our learning and development (L&D) partners had already created for other parts of Rogers. We started by cataloging what training had been created in the past and then brainstormed with our L&D colleagues about what tweaks could be made to fit our purposes. This way, we were able to minimize the time spent on creating training content but still deliver a very strong curriculum.

What’s surprised you about this program and/or your participants?

One thing that surprised me—but has definitely become a key takeaway for me—is that, with the right design and marketing of a leadership program, participants’ own investment in that program will be significant! The first time we offered the program, we were a little concerned introducing an application and creating a curriculum with about 40 hours in the classroom would discourage people from wanting to participate. But we were blown away—we received over 80 applications and accepted 15 participants; we had to turn away more participants (due to the size of the group we could accommodate) than we originally expected. As I mentioned, this type of investment from our participants also incentivized our senior leaders to be actively involved in, and even own parts of, the program. The energy and contributions of our participants is what made this program flourish.

What’s next for the program?

Even from just the first program cohort to the second that’s currently underway, we’ve identified ways to evolve the program. Participants contributed much

of that perspective, as we sent a feedback survey to them when the first program ended to ask about the impact and experience of each session as well as the value of various homework assignments. Within that survey following the first cohort, we were delighted to see we received a 100% net promoter score, but we have also identified a select few areas for improvement where we can continue to build on the success of the program.

First, we added a dedicated session for networking per participant feedback—we heard our sessions were helpful in learning about our business but that networking sometimes felt harder to embed within those sessions. Also, initially we had designed the curriculum to be delivered face-to-face, not virtually, but we recognize we can reach so much more talent if we expand our virtual delivery capabilities, so that’s also on our priority list.

All these ideas are meant to enable the continued success of our participants—we were excited to see that, of the 15 participants in our initial cohort, about half have already been promoted for their contributions to the business, including some who have chosen to take on new, more nonobvious roles. So, looking forward, we know we’re on the right track, but there’s always room for improvement in growing talent at Rogers.



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James DaltonHR Manager, Royal Dutch Shell

Almost two years ago, you were featured in our HRBP Success Stories series. We’re excited to speak with you again! We would love to hear more about how your role is changing and evolving.

I’m happy to chat a bit about what’s changed, as I’ve actually moved through one other role since we last spoke and recently started in a new role. Now I’m working more closely with the Finance part of our business, whereas when we last spoke, I was in a more central, strategic HR role.

My former role was more about thinking, planning, and working directly with the business on talent management. In the middle of 2016, I moved from that central HR role directly into the Finance group, and as of the start of 2017, my role falls squarely within what CEB [now part of Gartner] would define as an HR Business Partner role. My current role now essentially has me embedded within my client group (Finance) but advising in an HR capacity. I position myself with senior Finance leadership as someone who provides strategic, people-related insights and advice.

What are your main priorities now?

I’d call out three major priorities based on what I’m working on right now. First, a big challenge I’m focused on, like most (if not all) HRBPs, is organizational change. There’s already been a lot of change in managers and leaders within my client group, so I’m really focused now on building strong relationships. That objective spans my conversations with my senior stakeholders—where I’m focused on getting to know their key business deliverables and work preferences, trying to positively influence their leadership style, and understanding how their careers have developed—and conversations with my more junior stakeholders—where I’m focused on identifying early on what skills these groups must develop to be successful and reach their ultimate potential.

I think my second and third priorities are very interrelated: I’d call out diversity and inclusion and high-potential employee development (or generally making sure we have the right people in the right roles within my client group and organization). There’s an element of proactively managing the right, diverse talent into new roles and getting them to stay long enough to learn new skills and round out their development. But also, as we look at our future leadership needs, the disparity between what skills our leaders have today and what skills our leaders need in the future becomes more apparent. So those role transitions become harder and require a more hands-on approach for us to facilitate.

It was actually that challenge that spurred a recent large-scale project across the Finance community in Shell. The key question we were trying to answer was: How do we make people successful and make sure they have the right tools and support for both their current and future roles in the organization?

Can you tell us more about that project? How would you define success?

Yes, as we were looking at the differences between the profiles of existing talent, our current leaders, and the types of people we believe we need in the future, we realized we could do a better job providing employees with a sense of how to bridge those gaps. Ultimately, this led to the introduction of a large career-pathing initiative. Our goal was to help professionals at all levels develop a strong, base-level understanding of how to build a future career in Finance structured around the core skills and full range of experiences needed to be successful in the longer term.

This goal was closely aligned with our business strategy and our anticipated future organizational footprint, with links to our existing learning portfolio plus some additional on-the-job opportunities. We also included a number of career case studies of


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current senior leaders across different divisions to make the whole thing more real.

We were especially focused on that “employees of all levels” piece, as one theme of the feedback we received early on was that we needed to ensure we spent enough time engaging with senior- and mid-level leadership to gain their support and buy-in for the initiative. So we dedicated a lot of our efforts to making sure early career professionals weren’t the only ones who could benefit and that we engaged with everyone in the organization before we launched this change journey. While all our Finance employees were at different points in their own career development, they still felt they could benefit from smart career guidance and better transparency on what is required to get to the more senior levels and how the organization can support them on this journey.

As our career-pathing project picks up more momentum, I would like to see more people taking advantage of the tools we produce to support those everyday career-pathing moments and for leaders to take an active role in supporting this initiative. We’ve designed the tools to help employees develop their conversations with leaders and seek different job experiences that may be initially less obvious—or perceived as less attractive or less beneficial for career progression—but are still valuable learning opportunities that support long-term growth as a Finance professional.

We also want to send a strong message that certain types of skills and capabilities are required to succeed, which should not come as a surprise to most of our employees. The vision is to be transparent and consistent in the career and work processes that occur within the organization.

Given the diversity of HR roles you’ve held, what are the one or two things you think helped you be successful?

From an HR perspective, I know (and I imagine many of your readers know) we in HR help organizations achieve business goals by ensuring we deploy our available human capital as effectively as possible to maximize their contribution to the business’s deliverables. We want to proactively manage talent instead of reacting to what our line partners believe and tell us they need. I’ve recognized that what my partners tell me they need may not be the solution that is the most prudent at that point.

A more general point, and I think one that many HR professionals would share, is on the importance of building a broad base of skills—especially skills found in different parts of the business organization. Without getting exposure to new business functions and making the connection between what you do and how the business makes money, your line of sight becomes dangerously narrow.

Finally, I actually would measure success by the contribution you make outside the HR space—not just by bringing HR topics to the table but also by contributing as broadly to the organization as you can. For most people, practically speaking, that could be as simple as learning about how the business works, being intellectually curious, and learning to speak the language of the business. Expanding your network and talking to lots of different stakeholders is very important, as most people would tell you.

At the end of the day, for me, it’s really about listening to understand what an individual is doing, getting an insight into what makes them effective or ineffective, and identifying what HR can do to help leverage their talents and deliver stronger performance. That benefits everyone involved.



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HRBPs’ Top 5 Resources from Last QuarterHere you'll find the most shared, favorited, and viewed resources by you and your HRBP peers last quarter.

Don’t miss our spotlight on hot topics below. Check them out to see how they can help you in the coming months!

By Susannah Schools

Spotlight Topic Center

Spotlight CEB Ignition™ Guide

Spotlight Event

The Cultural Evolution: Creating a Culture That Performs (Staff Briefing)

Join us and your peers in person for a full-day session to learn how HRBPs can help facilitate culture change faster and more cost-effectively within their client groups.

Register for a nearby session today:

• New York | 2 November

• Atlanta | 9 November

• London | 14 November

• Chicago | 16 November

Employee Engagement

HRBPs expected employee engage-ment to be the number-two priority for heads of HR this year, but only one in five business leaders believe their engagement and retention initiatives are driving business results. Use our Employee Engagement Topic Center to progress in the following key em-ployee engagement activities:

• Assessing employee engagement

• Creating and implementing an action plan

• Communicating engagement data and action plans

CEB Ignition™ Guide to Designing Compelling Presentations

Use this guide to scope, create, and communicate presentations. Specifically, this guide will share answers to the following key presentation questions:

• How can I better understand what my audience wants in a presentation?

• What does a compelling presentation look and sound like?

• How can I deliver my presentation effectively?

50 HRBP Quarterly© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.Detail about CEB and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.




https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/assess-employee-engagement.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/assess-employee-engagement.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/create-and-implement-an-action-plan.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/create-and-implement-an-action-plan.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/communicate-engagement-data-and-action-plans.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/topics/employee-engagement/communicate-engagement-data-and-action-plans.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/ignition-guides/ceb-ignition-guide-to-designing-compelling-presentation.html

https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/ignition-guides/ceb-ignition-guide-to-designing-compelling-presentation.html


What’s Next??When you apply our content to your organization, the following questions may help you strategize:

• Are these resources new to me?

• What opportunities can I expect from sharing these resources with my colleagues?

• To what extent do my current projects and priorities compare to those of my peers based on these resources?

• Might any of these resources represent an opportunity for me to enrich or grow my role?

• What will my bigger projects be in the coming two to three months, and to what extent do I feel I've used these resources to prepare to execute them?

Growing Your Business Knowledge: A Guide for HR Business Partners

1Whether you’re a new or experienced HRBP, you can benefit from consis-tently realigning your support to the business needs of your line clients. Use this guide to create a specific plan for building and demonstrating that busi-ness knowledge.

Change Story Guide 2

Even the most effective change management processes can fall flat without an effective change “story,” or narrative, surrounding them. Use this customizable template to create a change narrative that will highlight the rationale for organizational changes and foster discussions within your client group.

Improving Leadership Bench Strength 3

Go back to basics and review the foundational elements of a strong leadership strategy, including:

• Setting goals for your leadership strategy based on demand for and supply of leaders,

• Broadening, not just deepening, your search for future leaders,

• Identifying and developing future leaders for a few different roles, and

• Rebalancing your leadership team regularly and not assuming succession ends with placement in role.

Six Ways to Fix Performance Management 4

Many HR teams (83%) have recognized the need to significantly change their approaches to performance manage-ment. While HRBPs may not own per-formance management themselves, they can take specific steps to make progress. Read this brief for more as well as the article summarizing the brief earlier in this edition.

Liberty Mutual’s Change Conversation Workshops 5

Liberty Mutual facilitates honest, “two-way” change conversation workshops that help employees understand what change means for them and what they personally should do to respond. Review this best practice to see how Liberty Mutual:

• Identifies employees’ fears and assumptions regarding change,

• Transforms employees’ feelings of change nervousness into a sense of change control, and

• Enables employees to personalize change through question-based action plans.

© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.Detail about CEB and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.

51Q3 2017






https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/tools/17/change-story-guide.html



https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/17/improving-leadership-bench-strength.html



https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/report/17/six-ways-to-fix-performance-management.html




https://www.cebglobal.com/member/corporate-leadership-council/research/case_study/16/liberty-mutual-change-conversations.html




About HRBP QuarterlySupporting and enabling HR Business Partners and strategic HR professionals is a continued priority for us. As a result, we are excited to bring you HRBP Quarterly, a quarterly publication featuring trends, research insights, and peer support for the global HRBP community, designed to help you develop your capabilities and get your jobs done.

Feedback on what you see?Which articles in this publication did you find most helpful? Is there a topic or type of content you would like to see in future editions? Send your feedback on HRBP Quarterly to [email protected] today.

© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.Detail about CEB and its subsidiaries, now part of Gartner, can be found at gartner.com/ceb-offices.

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