Talent Analytics – Important Aspect of Workforce and People Management

Did you know that we can help you integrate Talent Analytics into the way that you do business?

Used for quite some time in many areas, analytics is becoming important in people and workforce management. Google, a forerunner in many areas of people management, uses analytics to gain insights into the impact of interviews and sources of hire. Facebook uses analytics to analyse factors that correlate with  high performer retention. SAB uses analytics to evaluate its training.

Good Reads

There have been some interesting reads on the internet this week. Here are a couple worth your time.

Culture Change

• Have you ever wondered how much more productive it is to engage people in the change process? About 5 times, according to research mentioned in this article.
  The article contains 3 great questions that fed information to one CEO:

Embarking on a Culture Change Initiative? 3 Keys to Success

Culture can be defined as the set of beliefs and behaviours of an organisation’s workforce. It is created from the messages that are received about how people are expected to behave. Cultures bind people together through shared goals, beliefs, approaches, routines, needs and values. Peer pressure helps behavioural norms develop over time, and these are influenced by the type of work performed, organisational history, successes and failures, physical conditions, the workplace environment and the demands of external entities such as customers, stakeholders, economic conditions etc. But the strongest influence on cultural norms are the senior leaders and managers within an organisation. It is the messages and the behaviours of this group that is most influential in shaping the culture of an organisation.

What we have been reading

There have been some interesting reads on the internet this month. Here are a couple worth your time.

Managing Clever People

• A short reminder that creative, clever people can be fun to work with and inspirational. However, managers often see them as their greatest challenge, wanting them to conform to the “normal’ workplace culture.

Innovation in Organisations

innovation Mind Map by Paul Foreman http://www.mindmapinspiration.com

I am currently preparing templates (using Harrison Assessments) to select the most suitable people to attend a high level program on Innovation. We are calling them Innovation Success Formulas. Now, there is nothing like a focused activity such as this to set me thinking in spare time about the topic. Innovation, I believe, is a critical component of the long-term viability of any business/ organisation.

Innovation is not only the conception of new products and services. It can be the creation of new processes that streamline your business, a radically different structure that will ensure goals are more readily met and strategies are successful. It can be about the mix of people that you employ, where and how they are seated, the hours that are worked, management and leadership techniques, and so forth. It can be within your branding and marketing. It is not only about product and services, it is about how, why and where you do business, and with whom, in order to achieve greater business results and financial benefit.

Ideas are the raw material for the process of innovation.  Innovation in any area, starts with an idea and proceeds through the stages of making that idea concrete, practical and profitable.  It results in a successful outcome, a solution, or a successful state of affairs. Another way to think of it is that creativity is a mental activity, while innovation is the broader process of make that mental activity bear fruit.  Innovation includes the process of creativity and much more.  It includes all the stages of progress required to bring about a new reality. — Karl Albrecht, The Creative Corporation, 1987

Great Companies, Humble Leaders, One Pointed Business Determination

It is interesting to be re-reading an article on Level 5 Leadership by Jim Collins, summarising the results of a five year project on companies that went from good to great and then sustained that greatness. He wrote a best selling book about this work — you have probably read it.

I have seen companies develop and mature, but it is that sustainability that is critical. Companies not capable of sustaining greatness falter and then flip-flop through periods of ordinary performance, good performance and occasional great performance.

Although Jim wrote this article some years ago, his summary findings continue to resonate today. At the beginning of his research

Mentoring your Mind

Written by Anama Morriss, Associate Consultant

Have you ever thought how important your mind is to your life?

Through our minds we create the results in our workplace, care for our families and ponder purpose and meaning in our lives. Arguably the brain is:

the biological base for the mind, and is affected by the mental and physical aspects of our lives.  It is the control and coordinating centre of the central nervous system, and seat of thought, memory and emotion (Collins Concise Dictionary).