Business Continuity Planning for Human Resources

Friday, August 23, 2013

If you work in a corporate environment and your function has anything remotely to do with your organization’s data operations, you know that “DR”, aka, “Disaster Recovery” is a hot topic.  A significant interruption of any of the areas within your organization’s data operations can be devastating to internal and external customers.  To combat the impact of such a disruption, most large organizations have detailed plans to recover and resume normal or near-normal business data operations as soon as possible.  But what about the interruption of support functions such as Human Resources?

You may consider that as a support function, the loss of Human Resource operational capabilities would have little to no impact on an organization’s business vitality.  Since much of what HR does is often outside of the limelight, little thought is generally given to exactly what a long-term disruption would do to business operations.  While the source of disruptions can result from spectacular events, even the most mundane action can lead to the loss of business operations.  Example: raw sewer waste contaminates the basement of your office building, the health department closes the building for 30 days, thus no access to phones, faxes, computers, paper files.  Preplanning for such losses is HR management’s role.

1. At any given time, there could be dozens of job candidates in play.  If candidates cannot communicate with the organization and/or the organization cannot respond to them, a good candidate may get lost for the want of a Business Continuity Plan.

2. What happens to those data feeds directed at payroll processors, 401(k) record keepers, insurance carriers, and financial institutions?  Employees are not paid timely or correctly, insurance enrollments may be delayed, direct deposits are not posted or posted to the wrong accounts.

3. If you are in the middle of annual regulatory filings will you be able to proceed?  Even with filing extensions, a disruption may make it impossible to file without penalties.

4. It is one thing to lose data systems or telecommunications capabilities; what is the impact if the loss is key staff members resulting from a pandemic?  The loss of knowledge may have a greater effect than any system disruption.

Failing to plan is akin to planning to fail.  Even a simple plan is better than no plan at all.  A good plan today is better than a great plan tomorrow.  Business Continuity Planning for Human Resources is essential to ensure some level operational capacity following a disruption.  While it may not be “business as usual”, HR’s ability to provide even the most basic support functions will be expected, if not demanded.

At a very basic level, Business Continuity Planning for Human Resources should include:

1. Instructions and Directions – where to go and what to do in the event of a disruption and when and how to contact HR management team leaders.

2. Contact Information – for organizational members, vendors and suppliers, support staff in other organizational units.

3. Data and Data Feeds – location of critical data, format and frequency of inbound/outbound data feeds.

4. Calendar – dates for various business and regulatory filings, mailings, notices, and events.

5. Skill Sets – skills required to perform various functions and the staff who possess such skills.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Friday, August 23, 2013

 

“The law of unintended consequences is an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system always creates unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.”

 

Recently, the University of Virginia and UPS announced they would no longer offer health care coverage for employee spouses if those spouses were able to obtain their insurance on their own.  Both organizations cited the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as playing a role in their decision to act at this time.

 

In October 20112, Darden Restaurants, which operates the Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Yard House eateries indicated it would restrict the schedules of hourly workers to 28 hours per week.

 

In November, 2012, John Schnatter, Papa John's founder and CEO caused a significant uproar when it was incorrectly reported that Papa John's Pizza would cut employee hours as a result of PPACA’s mandated coverage rules.

 

A Wendy’s Nebraska franchise reportedly plans to reduce hours for non-management staff in an effort to address PPACA’s mandated coverage rules.

 

Forever21, a fashion retailer, advised workers their hours would be limited to 29.5 a week, PPACA’s mandated coverage rules sets the minimum number hours for health care at 30 hours per week.

 

Are employers beginning to react to the mandated health care requirement built into PPACA that employers with 50 plus employees and employees who average 30 hours per week must be offered health care? 

 

Will fewer employers offer health thus driving more individuals to the health care exchanges? 

 

Will there be fewer individuals with health care since the penalties are far less that the actual cost of health care premiums? 

 

Will the cost of labor rise as employees demand more in cash compensation to offset the lack of employer provided health care benefits? 

 

Will employers end up paying for health care indirectly by offsetting the coverage employees obtain through the exchanges with additional compensation? 

 

Will certain employers or certain industries continue to offer health care in order to maintain their competitive advantage? 

 

Will small employers find it increasingly difficult to keep their top talent as that talent migrates between organizations who cannot afford health care to large organizations which can?

Job Descriptions: Are They Still Important?

Friday, August 16, 2013

 

Putting aside the regulatory and compliance issues for creating and maintaining job descriptions, are they still important to both employers and employees?  To answer that question, it is necessary to look at the anatomy of a typical description.  Job descriptions contain several basic elements, including a title, summary, explanation of duties, knowledge, skills, and abilities, and the environmental and physical demands of the job.

 

Job Title:  While it may seem obvious, the title is often what internal and external prospective job candidates focus on first when considering whether to apply for a job or not.  Think of it as a gateway, its goal is to be informative while funneling qualified applicants into the screening process.

 

Job Summary:  A paragraph of 2 – 3 sentences providing a high level explanation of the duties of the job.  Again, once the candidate has decided that this job has an appeal for them, the Job Summary provides additional detail to entice the applicant to continue to explore the job or conclude it is the wrong job for them.

 

Explanation of Duties:  This is the heart of the description.  The nuts and bolts of the job’s duties are located here. The reporting and supervising relationships are detailed in this section.  The What, When, Why, Where, How, and How Often of the job are spelled out in what is the body of the description.  For the job candidate, this part of the description should allow them to understand the performance expectations of the employer for the job’s incumbent.

 

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:  Every job requires some level of Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities.  This section explains to the prospective candidate where and how those attributes were gained and to what level of proficiency the job requires, including alternative means of acquiring such talents.

 

Experience: This section generally describes what kind of experience, how much, where, and when that experience was obtained.  Was the experience progressively more responsible or complex?  In what kind of a business, industry, environment or geographical location was the experience earned?  Over what duration of time was the experience earned and was it at various levels?

 Environmental and Physical Demands:  Although this section was originally derived to address issues with regulatory mandates, it can assist the candidate to understand what demands will be placed on them from a situational standpoint.  Candidates may include or exclude themselves based on their perception of the environmental and physical demands of the job as described.

 

As a recruiting tool, the job description functions to filter candidates in to or out of the selection process.  If unqualified candidates are finding their way into that process, one possibility might be that the job description either under or over states the job’s duties and/or requirements.  Something to consider, is that a poorly written job description may lead to a mis-match between the employer’s and the employee’s performance expectations resulting in higher than desirable rates of both voluntary and involuntary turnover.

 

Jobs are not static and neither are job descriptions, thus they must be written with enough specification to meet the needs of candidates, employers, and employees alike. Jobs can and often vary widely from employer to employer.  While pre-written and canned descriptions may seem to be the expeditious means of creating a placement ad, conducting a  performance evaluation or building a succession plan; they may result in an higher than expected price in the talent war.

Where Is Your Talent Management Toolbox?

Friday, August 9, 2013

 

No, I am not talking about the latest talent management smart phone app.  I am talking about how management and the organization define and direct talent.  The value the organization sees in talent.  How that talent is nurtured, shaped, and molded to meet the organization’s needs now and in 3, 5 or 10 years.  Does anyone within the organization know who these individuals are, what their talents are, and where and how they might benefit from mentoring?  Has anyone sat down, face to face, and talked to these wunderkinder about where they see themselves within the organization?  How can an organization expect to attract, retain, and motivate talented individuals, if that organization cannot articulate, at a minimum, some kind of a coherent talent management plan?

 

BillMillar, a contributor for Forbes Insights suggests in his April 24, 2013 article, “Essential Tools of Talent Management”, it may come down to priorities.  If management is busy growing the business, they are not focused on what is happening to their top talent.  As a result, the organization is losing the leverage that top talent would, should, and could bring to a fast growth business.  In the end, an organization’s top talent gets lost with everyone else and then they jump ship.  Any by the way, they took two of the organization’s top store managers with them to the competition!

 

It is difficult to visualize the issues surrounding talent management until you consider that even during the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression; many employers struggled to find the right talent to meet their needs, even with unemployment rates approaching 10%.  The Manpower Group’s 2013 Talent ShortageSurvey, ‎continues to report that many organizations are finding it difficult to staff their organizations at all levels with employees who possess the requisite skills.  The shortage of talented employees is not just an issue with the US, or even western developed societies; it is an issue around the globe.  The survey reports that a major force behind talent shortage, and hence the need to manage talent, is a lack of hard skills in many potential employees.  Of course the trickle-down effect of this is an inability to serve the organization’s customers, both internally and externally.  To mitigate this and other outcomes, organizations have increased training and development efforts for their current staffs, redefined job requirements and expectations, enhanced cash and non-cash rewards, and upped starting salaries.

 

All organizations have to do is to map their needs to their resources and identify the gaps.  To do that employers must identify and prioritize their needs, attract, retain and motivate the necessary talent, deliver that talent when, where, and in what quantities they are needed.  Harkening back to Millar’s observation, it just may come down to priorities and setting those priorities at the same level as capital formation, acquisitions, and product development.  It all boils down to a case of logistics, having the right tools in the organizational toolbox at the right time and place to get the job done.

Do Performance Reviews Still Matter?

Friday, August 2, 2013

 

No one likes performance reviews.  Regardless of which side of the table you are on, giving or receiving a performance assessment often is not fun.  Many organizational performance reviews are perceived as one-sided, unfair, invalid, and ineffective.  Managers have to do them, employees have to endure them.  Most organizations, large, small, and in between, still require periodic reviews be given.  Being late or failing to complete employee reviews can affect the performance outcomes for managers.  Like a Sword of Damocles, annual employee appraisals are dreaded, even feared by managers and employees alike.

 

Although some employers have embraced 360 or peer reviews and self-assessments to supplement the manager’s review, these are often seen as just another add-on that must be endured.  An additional trend has been to separate the performance review so that any adjustment to compensation is completed at a separate time.  But do performance reviews still matter?

 

There is an evolving thought that traditional manager-employee performance reviews no longer matter, are not relevant, and are more harmful and less than helpful in improving performance.  The emerging analysis on the subject of the ineffectiveness of performance reviews is beginning to mount.  A simple survey of recent publications makes one rethink the role of performance reviews.

Why "ConstructiveFeedback” Doesn’t Improve Performance, - Ray B. Williams

Be Excellent AtAnything,- Tony Schwartz, Jean Gomes, Catherine McCarthy

Abolishing PerformanceAppraisals,- Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins

Catalytic Coaching, - Garold Markle

Why Feedback Doesn'tWork and Other Supervisory Lessons, - Charles Jacobs

Get Rid of PerformanceReview,- Samuel Culbert

The Problem WithPerformance Reviews, - Tom Szaky

Why PerformanceAppraisals Don't Improve Performance, - Brad Hall

Why so few performancereviews lead to any change, - Anne Fisher

The PerformanceAppraisal: A Workplace Evil, - Kevin Kruse

If performance reviews as so destructive, why do organizations perpetuate them and what will replace the annual performance appraisal?  For the first question, Tevye said it best, “tradition”.  Performance reviews pervade our culture.  Quarterly corporate profit reports, annual reports or public school performance, and consumer product reports abound as a means of determining who’s on top and what's on bottom.  Share price, teacher bonuses, and product sales are swayed by performance reviews.

 

As for what might replace the manager-employee performance review, possibilities include more of a continuous coaching, feedback approaches coupled with a pre-review to set expectations, and a personal career development plan.  But isn’t this occurring already?  From the examples above, in many organizations the once a year, one-sided annual review is still more or less the norm.  It is also clear that many managers are not equipped to deal with good or bad employee performance.  Ignoring both levels of performance will only serve to extinguish the desired performance and reinforce unacceptable outcomes.

 

How can employers expect to attach and retain their best talent, if those individuals have no clue as to the value they bring to an organization, what growth opportunities abound, and where that value will take them?