The year in review

One of the things I love about this job is the variety it brings. In the course of a year one gets the opportunity to meet a wide range of people and learn about the issues, challenges and opportunities they and their organisations face. This dawned on me recently when I was invited to present at a TalkPoint meeting in Melbourne. For those unfamiliar with TalkPoint, it is essentially a forum where senior HR executives can meet and talk about topical people issues (see www.talkpoint.com.au for further information). My brief was to talk about measuring and developing leadership capability in organisations. This is clearly a diverse and far-ranging topic yet the conversation reminded me of the common themes that executives in many organisations had highlighted over the course of 2007.

The first of these comes as no surprise to regular readers of Potential and to anyone in a leadership role—the difficulty in finding quality people. I have lost track of the number of conversations had with CEOs, executives and HR Directors who are frustrated by the inability to quickly fill vacancies with the right people. In addition, I am hearing increasing concern at the lack of perceived value provided by recruitment companies. Perhaps this criticism is a little unwarranted, after all in a competitive labour market everyone is finding it harder to attract and hire the best fit for their requirements. This situation is putting pressure on both companies and recruiters. But in many cases it is creating a conflict of interest as the external recruiter strives to achieve a placement while maximising fee-based revenue. This situation encourages a degree of recruiter bias to the point where many are inclined to advocate on behalf of the candidate at the expense of the organisations interests. To read more about Improving talent identification click here.

Related in some way to the previous point is the capability of mid to junior level HR staff. Attracting and retaining experienced and capable HR staff is an ongoing concern. This has been an emerging issue for a number of years and is now seriously impacting the ability to implement organisational initiatives. The ability to develop a performance culture, for example, requires access to research, frameworks and tools—traditionally provided by an HR ‘business partner’. Many CEOs and HR Directors describe not only the lack of quality candidates in general but increasingly highlight the lack of HR specialist capability in the marketplace at the mid to junior levels. In many cases there is a sizable gap between the expectations of skill and experience and the salary levels that the market is demanding.

To further compound the issue, very few organisations are investing in building this specialist capability in-house and have traditionally looked externally for HR talent. The traditional pool of capable individuals has evaporated leaving many organisations short in the number of critical HR business partners needed to support organisational initiatives. Increasingly I am seeing HR teams relegated to the delivery of transactional services when organisations are seeking transformational solutions. In many cases the average tenure of a mid-level HR adviser is less that two-years and is becoming a major issue in terms of continuity of business support and the retention of critical people-related knowledge. We recently helped one company keen to arrest this trend when they embarked on an in-house program to up-skill their HR team. To read more about developing HR business partners click here.

The final theme for 2007 involves the ongoing concern with identifying and developing future leadership talent. The lack of ‘ready made’ talent, once readily available from the labour market, combined with the scarcity of experienced and robust HR advice at mid to junior levels has put additional pressure on leaders at all levels in the organisation. The demands of an increasingly competitive landscape, advances in business productivity technology and the continuous pressure to manage costs have created an unprecedented demand on leadership capability at all levels. Leaders are experiencing greater pressure to perform against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty, ambiguity and personal stress.

One of the major challenges senior leaders face is the need to align their next-level leaders with a vision for change. This is no easy feat when some of their team feel personally threatened by the change and resist any attempt to embrace these initiatives. We have experienced an unprecedented increase in senior leaders seeking our support to help them gain buy-in and commitment to their business strategy. This is often some our most rewarding work as we get deeply involved with both the business and people issues across a wide range of industries and organisations. A recent example of this has been an assignment with a major transportation group and a recently arrived senior leader with a mandate for change. To read more about team dynamics and the issue of strategy and execution click here.

As the year rapidly draws to a close it has become apparent that we at Talent Solutions have faced many of these common challenges. Our consulting team has grown and will continue to do so throughout 2008. We have faced the difficulties of seeking out and hiring the right people for an organisation such as ours — one that is flexible, responsive and focused on high quality client outcomes. This has been no easy task as we have found that what makes one successful in a large organisation is rarely sufficient in a business like ours. Sadly we have had some people leave throughout the course of 2007 yet we have also had some great people join us. We operate in a highly competitive industry and this looks unlikely to change. Hence, we too have an ongoing need for effective leaders throughout our company.

Thank you for your ongoing interest and support in Talent Solutions. The past year has been one of incredible growth for us and we are all looking forward to continuing this trend in 2008. On behalf of the team, please enjoy a safe and relaxing Christmas and New Year.

Warm regards,

Michael Collins
Managing Director