Business-Focused HR
The global economy has changed and so businesses are changing to gain a strong position for themselves in the emerging new order. Some of the key changes:
- Increased Customer Focus
- Strategic shift toward very high Value-Added products, services, and systems
- Move to offer Customized Solutions and expertise for most strategic customers
- Shifting growth strategies to Emerging Markets, implying some decentralization
All of these strategy adjustments require change in how people see the customer relationship, how they see their jobs and how they do their jobs. The strategy will fail if leaders cannot get people to implement it, and that is where leaders need the close support and partnership of HR.
Four Ways HR Contributes to Achieving Implementation of Strategy and Change
- Change Driver: Engage employees to implement strategy
- Talent Manager: Recruit, retain, deploy the right talent for your strategy
- Leadership Pipeline Designer: Develop future leaders for your strategy
- Performance Consultant: Optimize the performance of your people
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Change Driver: Engage Employees to Implement Strategy
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MCE Business-Focused HR
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When there is a change in strategy, there is a change for the people in your organization. The more people are engaged, motivated and enabled to implement the strategy, the better your chances of success and strong results. That impacts organizational design, workforce planning, talent management, appraisals and rewards. This is where senior and line management needs the advice, coaching and implementation support of HR. The job cannot be “outsourced” to HR. Both line and HR have learned they need to work together in partnership to engage people for change.
There are six areas where leaders can engage people to implement the strategy. They are mentioned below, from the point of view of the people. The role of HR is crucial - if elements in all six areas are aligned, HR can provide a lot of value. When HR activities are not in alignment, it can be a drag on strategy implementation, and detract from value creation. Click here to read more about Leading Implementation of Strategy and Change.
Customer Proposition: Why should customers buy from us instead of competitors?
Leaders need to define a clear customer value proposition and put it at the center of the company strategy. This customer proposition needs to be well-understood by everyone in the organization (including HR). Each different customer proposition requires a different set of management and HR practices to motivate and enable people to deliver it. HR has a role to play idetifying competencies, behaviours and knowledge required.
Strategy Commitment: What does the strategy mean for my job? What am I committing to?
People have to know what the strtegy is, what it is not, and how their jobs contibute to the strategy. When they understand the sratgy, it is easier for them to commit to it and act in support of it. But, communication needs to be two-way rather than top down if people are to give their full commitment.
Performance Metrics: How will I be measured and how will I be rewarded?
Rewards and promotions need to be linked to the behaviours and achievements which support the strategy. When the strategy changes, the evaluation and reward system needs to be updated, a key HR responsibility.
Processes and Structure: What tools and/or proedures are there to help me do the job as expected?
Cross-functional processes need to be designed to deliver the customer value proposition rather than slow it down. Decision-making processes should be pushed down to the appropriate level for the strategy. The structure needs to support the processes.
Behaviour of Leaders: How do leaders enable and support me to do the job they expect?
Leaders need to know how to buid and develop their teams, deal with misaligned or lo performers, clear the path for people to decide and act, and keep energy and motivation high. Developing both leadership and technical capability in function of the strategy is a key contribution HR can make.
Culture: What are our values? How do we do things around here?
The culture of the organization is both the driver and the outcome of the decisions, activities and behaviours in an organization. At MCE we believe that a culture cannot be changed “directly” by declaring it or holding workshops on it, but rather through diligent effort over time in the previous areas mentioned.
How MCE can Help
Consulting and Business Transformation
MCE Senior Associates can consult you and your leadership team on strategy implementation, and engaging your people in a new strategic direction. Rather than the theories and “success formulas” you find with academics and consultants, our senior associates will work with you to understand your business goals and identify underlying issues to implementation of strategy.
Strategy Implementation Workshops
MCE has worked with many companies to tailor and deliver customized workshops to communicate strategy and engage people in implementation and we would be delighted to do the same foryour organization.
Communicating strategy
For communicating strategy, MCE associates can help and consult you in implementing corporate social media. This can allow two-way communication with senior management on adapting strategy to different parts of the business. It is also an ideal tool for cross-department, real-time communication around strategy implementation.
Workshops for Individual Managers
You and your colleagues may benefit from the following workshops to implicate HR further in the process of strategy implementation.
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Talent Manager: Recruit, Retain, Deploy the Right Talent for Your Strategy
One of the best known roles of HR is finding and hiring the right people to implement the strategy. In the past, the focus has been on job descriptions, best practice and market availability. Today, HR starts with the requirements of the business strategy, then how to get it done, then what specific capabilities are required and where they can be found. The challenge is to define strategy-specific competencies, screen new hires against these, assess people in the company and deploy them according to their potential.
Segment your talent pool
Faced with rising talent retention costs, companies are segmenting their talent, rather than taking an expensive (often wasteful) blanket approach to retention. The most talented employees require higher and more creative investment to keep in their positions; other segments need cost-effective development for better job effectiveness.
New sourcing
As the need for specific skills increases, the traditional pool of talent from traditional sources is decreasing. Particularly in some fast-growth markets, the challenge is to hire and develop more local employees as part of a localization programme, and then ensure these employees are motivated to perform to high standards. Many of these same markets are also working to increase female participation in the workforce. All of this means that companies will be drawing on less conventional sources of talent – older or younger employees, and more women. Companies in countries with shrinking demographics will hire more immigrants and be challenged with integration. Companies in countries with fast-growing demographics will hire more young locals and will be challenged to develop and motivate them.
All companies have to work harder to hold onto the best-skilled people. Employer branding and employee value proposition then become more than buzzwords or side projects. In order to avoid salary costs getting out of hand, companies must find other ways to make the most attractive employees prefer to work there, and keep them loyal.
Measure your talent potential
Most hiring decisions, job postings, development needs decisions and selections for special talent programmes are based on subjective information, guesswork and bias, and how well the candidates sell themselves. This leads to mistakes and wasted investment. Other parts of the business measure their performance scrupulously to improve it – finance, operations, IT, etc. But companies do not measure their talent, their most valuable, and often most expensive, asset. There are personality tests but these do a poor job of predicting whether someone will be successful in a given role. Some companies are improving the return on their talent investments through Talent Analytics.
How MCE can Help
Define and Assess Competencies according to your Strategy
MCE Senior Associates with senior HR and Talent Management experience can consult you and your leadership team on identifying the competences required in your organization, as determine by the requirements of your strategy. MCE Senior Associates can consult you on all aspects of your talent management strategy.
Talent Analytics
MCE can perform competence assessments for individuals, teams, divisions or new hires, against the strategy. This gives you a reliable measurement and predictable assessment of people’s potential for a particular job role, eliminating guesswork and bias.
Addressing Competence Gaps through Programmes
MCE has the widest range of open enrolment workshops and capabilities for desiging and delivering customized workshops to address your skill gaps. We can do this in different languages and geographies covering almost all management topics. From our network of Senior Associates, we can match you with someone who understands your industry through experience.
Integrating Diversity
MCE can help you with diversity issues, from a change in hiring strategy, to post-acquisition integration, to iniatives to promote more women or other groups into management positions.
Employer Branding and Employee Value Proposition
MCE can help you retain your best talent with a relevant employee value proposition. Once an EVP is determined, MCE can also help you with implementation.
Workshops for Individual Managers
Individual managers may benefit from analyzing talent management issues and planning their resolution in a workshop setting. They will gain from the input of a small but diverse group of peers from different countries and industries. Each workshop is led by an MCE Senior Associate with many years of international experience in HR.
Is Talent Retention and Development a Major Issue in Your Organization?
In fast-growing countries, keeping the best talent is a challenge. In fast-developing countries, the challenge is developing nationals to be able to take on senior roles in the company. If you are in either situation, MCE can help you.
Leadership Pipeline Designer: Develop Future Leaders for Your Strategy
How do you develop your future leaders? Generic skills, or do you tailor your learning and development to the strategy of the company? What kind of leaders get ahead in your company? The ones who support and uphold the strategy, values and desired culture, or those who fit some other criteria?
Developing future leaders is a long-term investment with uncertain returns. But HR can bring more certainty and even capture some immediate returns when it is able to tailor development programmes to the strategic direction of the company, and also combining them with strategic cross-functional projects that support the strategy.
How MCE can Help
Developing Talent and Future Leaders
Working with you, MCE Senior Associates with senior management experience can custom design and deliver workshops to your high potential talent, to prepare them for taking on higher responsibility in the company. Our experienced HR associates can help you with your Leadership Pipeline planning.
Corporate University Services
MCE can help you plan and manage your entire leadership development curriculum, all in alignment with your company’s business strategy.
Workshops for Individual Managers
Individual managers may benefit from a workshop setting. They will gain from the input of a small but diverse group of peers from different countries and industries. Each workshop is led by an MCE Senior Associate with many years of international experience in HR.
For HR managers:
For your high-potential development targets:
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Performance Consultant: Optimize the Performance of Your People
Manage performance – you can only manage what you measure
Performance appraisal, compensation and rewards have an important impact on behaviour. Yet, they are the most overlooked areas when seeking ways to get people to change. In many cases, the company is telling people to do one thing, but is still rewarding for a different thing.
Performance metrics, departmental and individual scorecards, appraisals, and criteria for career advancement all need to be in line with the requirements of the current strategy. Or people will feel a big disconnect between what they are being asked to do and what is actually being rewarded or punished. It seems logical but it is very hard to achieve.
Motivating and Rewarding
There is increasing pressure to keep costs down, and so companies look for ways other than bonuses and raises to motivate people. Further, diverse employees will be motivated by different things and so HR has to be flexible with benefits.
Motivating and monitoring the performance of the most talented people who hold skills that are in short supply is a challenge. These people are in demand and they expect more to work for you, so how do you keep them happy?
As more work is automated or outsourced, the jobs of people within the company become more complex, more knowledge-, innovation- and project- oriented, requiring different performance criteria and rewards than the “traditional” era.
MCE Senior Associates with Senior HR Experience
Our Senior Associates with senior HR experience can consult with you and your leadership team on aligning your appraisal, compensation and benefits and reward systems in line with your strategy to motivate people to implement the strategy. We can help you with all aspects of measuring and managing performance, in function of the strategy.
Workshops for Individual Managers
Individual managers may benefit from a workshop setting. They will gain from the input of a small but diverse group of peers from different countries and industries. Each workshop is led by an MCE Senior Associate with many years of international experience in HR.
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Talk to MCE about HR Business Strategy
MCE's Senior Associates
MCE Senior Associates have 20-30 years of senior management experience, and we have a team of associates who come from senior HR careers. They have led strategy implementation and change themselves many times. They can help you partner with your leadership team in implementation of strategy, not just from theory but from what works in real life, in different contexts.
Our Senior Associates can work with your organization at all levels, helping to align different departments and divisions to your corporate strategy. They can work with your HR team to craft HR strategy, policies and processes that support the business strategy.
Our Senior Associates apply their expertise in a wide variety of services, including:.
Open Enrolment Workshops for Individual Managers
Every business professional—and every business—is dealing with constant change and long-term uncertainty. Having robust skills in multiple areas reduces uncertainty and opens up a whole new world of possibilities for success. That’s why thousands of people have turned to MCE for professional development that moves their skills to a higher level—fast. MCE’s development programs focus on personal relevance—how YOU benefit. Guided by expert course leaders, you will learn new skills with a small group of peers from various industries and a diversity of cultures. You will be ready to integrate new knowledge and ideas the very next day.
Click on each workshop title below to see detailed information about the workshop.
Change Driver: Engage Employees to Implement Strategy
Talent Manager: Recruit, retain, deploy the right talent for your strategy
Leadership Pipeline Designer: Develop future leaders for your strategy
Performance Consultant: Optimize the performance of your people
Develop your ability to meet tomorrow’s challenges and adapt successfully to changing conditions.
Click the arrow to request more information about MCE's Open Enrolment Workshops.
In-Company Leadership and Management Development Workshops
Customized to Your Specific Needs. Talented managers and leaders in key roles make all the difference in taking smart decisions and leading strategy implementation to success. Identifying talent potential and developing that talent to take on greater responsibilities is crucial for ensuring leadership succession as the older generation retires. MCE can help you with talent assessment, pipeline planning, and tailoring career path plans to achieve your future senior management needs.
Your future leaders need to understand your business, the broader business environment, how to make strategic business decisions, and how to lead and manage people in complex organizations. They need a cross-functional understanding of how the organization works together to get things done. We can customize a programme to run exclusively in your company for your future senior managers.
Increase the ability of your managers and leaders to meet tomorrow's challenges and adapt successfully to changing conditions.
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Business Coaching and Mentoring
MCE senior associates provide flexible one-on-one mentoring and coaching to key people in your organization at middle or senior levels. MCE associates mentor and guide based on their own business experience. This can be on a particular business issue or project, or for general career development. It could be about filling a knowledge gap in a specific area in preparation for taking on a more senior role.
Move your career to a new level with an MCE Mentor or Business Coach.
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Advice on Organizational Development and Talent Management
Your people are your most expensive asset. Success depends on making sure this asset is productive. An important part of this is developing your people in the competencies related your your strategy. MCE can work with you flexibly and in a variety of formats. Management Centre Europe can help you custom-design a development curriculum for the individual managers in your leadership pipeline.
For management learning and management academies, MCE can help you lay the foundation and get started. We can help you decide what your curriculum should be in support of your strategy and learning and development needs. We can also supply content for your curriculum. For corporate universities and management academies that are commercializing their programmes for an external market, MCE can help you with strategy, business model, curriculum planning, content and launch.
Talk to MCE about developing talent for productivity, engagement and the leadership pipeline.
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