This report is a monthly compilation of findings from various print and online resources, intended to keep you abreast of trends and new developments in the field of people development. The report includes article summaries and key data points to increase knowledge and aid in improving organizational performance.

Rebuilding Business: Aligning to Goals

The economy, and the expectations that people have for it, have fundamentally changed. Slight to moderate growth is the new normal; gone are the days of double-digit profits. As a result, companies are not looking to increase the number of people they are hiring. Instead they’re trying to rebuild sales and profitability by using existing staff.

This causes a strange mix of emotions in the workplace. The challenge for companies, then, is to move people beyond this fear and uncertainty and start planning for the future again. Here are some helpful tips:

• Re-engage and Revive. Organizations need to find a way to get employees who are too inwardly focused moving forward again. That means managing the state of mind—and heart—of these workers. Leaders must cultivate managers who understand how to create this positive work environment as well as diagnose and treat underperformance.
• Driving Performance. Leaders must get people focused and working on the right things again. This means understanding the important role that vision and alignment play in motivating people to higher levels of performance. Leaders looking to help their people make this shift have to focus on three key areas: defining reality, setting a clear direction, and managing energy.
• The Power of Alignment. Once vision is set, leaders must focus on getting everybody aligned and moving in the same direction. Vision sets the course, but alignment clarifies objectives. If people are not clear on the direction the organizations is heading and how they can contribute, they are going to stand still or march off in their own direction.
• Leadership Matters. In times of crisis, leadership is even more critical. Anxiety and uncertainty will only get worse if they are not addressed. Leaders must set a clear vision, show employees how they fit into the plans, and address their concerns. Otherwise, the risk is remaining stuck where they are, or worse, regressing.

Good things don’t happen by themselves in the workforce. For organizations willing to actively move forward by investing and growing the capability of their people instead of standing put, the rewards will be substantial.

—Chief Learning Officer, January 2010

Talent Executive Guidance for 2010

After extensive surveys and thousands of conversations and corporate plan reviews, The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) has arrived at the following statistical analyses of past, ongoing, and future business trends related to talent management. Further, it has identified six enemies of post-recession performance that can significantly undermine organization recovery, erode profitability, and make past performance levels unattainable:

1. Sharply lower marketing and sales productivity due to changed customer needs.
2. Productivity losses due to top talent disengagement and flight.
3. Larger and more frequent losses due to increasing risk velocity.
4. Risking losses and steeper penalties due to high levels of employee misconduct.
5. Low returns from IT budgets due to targeting a shrinking share of enterprise information.
6. Productivity losses due to misplaced leaders.

Two of these enemies—top talent disengagement and misplaced leaders—fall squarely within the responsibilities of human resources officers and talent managers.

Top Talent Disengagement and Flight

As would we expect, in 2009, workforce reductions have driven down employee engagement. Most organizations try to engage high potential employees by stressing the stability of their jobs. They drive speed of change and execution by making top-down decisions and communications regarding re-organizations, job design, strategy, and goals. And they have reduced recruiting costs by focusing only on candidate applications where they have a specific need.

On the other hand, the best organizations are not taking for granted the retention of high-potential employees and are:

• Nurturing a talent pipeline for future need, even if applicants aren’t suited for current positions.
• Setting accurate employee expectations of stability.
• Involving employees in job design decisions.
• Enabling employee mobilization at lower levels in the organization.

Misplaced Leaders

The knee-jerk reaction in many organizations to any real or perceived legacy leadership issues is to get rid of old leaders or conduct another round of leadership training and development exercises. This is not wrong per se, but it is often an inadequate response to what is a much more systemic problem.

Going into 2010, the strategy to improve the performance of the leadership team should focus on activating existing capabilities and deploying leaders in the right way, rather than massive, across-the-board development exercises.

What the best organizations are doing to ensure that they avoid future misplaced leadership challenges is to better align the trajectory of the personal growth of their leaders with the trajectory of the change in needs for a specific role. By more effectively aligning these two, organizations will be able to ensure the effectiveness of the leadership team well into the future.

—Talent Management magazine, January 2010

Moving Into the Majority

Generation X moved from just less than one-half of the workforce head count in 2007 to slightly more in 2008, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers Saratoga’s 2009/2010 U.S. Human Capital Effectiveness Report.

Not surprisingly, the number of workers eligible for retirement in the next five years grew to 19% in 2008, an increase of 11% from the previous year.

Of those eligible for retirement, more than 36% were managers and 27% were executives, according to PwC Saratoga.

—Human Resource Executive^®, January 2010

Obstacles to Training Threaten Prosperity

A new survey reveals that the U.S. is at risk of losing its competitive edge—and workers’ economic potential—by not addressing a growing demand for a better educated and better trained workforce.

“The American Workforce” survey findings show a glaring and growing need for workers with higher levels of skills and credentials, sharply contrasted with employers’ modest efforts to provide training and workers’ reluctance to pursue education and training because of serious obstacles holding them back. For example:

• 50% of employers say they currently have such a serious gap between their needs and employees’ skills that it affects their productivity.
• 48% of employers do not provide or require ongoing education or skills training for their employees, primarily because of costs.
• 80% of workers—regardless of income or education level—show keen interest in pursuing further training and education.
• 70% of workers think the recession is costing people jobs regardless of education or skill level, when in fact the downturn is falling hardest on low-wage workers who have less education and lower skill levels.

—Government Elearning!, based on findings from the Springboard Project

A Look at the Industry in 2010

According to survey data, chief learning officers display guarded optimism for 2010.

Overall, companies believe the outlook for the learning function is similar to that of industries overall—it will be difficult, but there will be positive developments in the way organizations leverage and align learning , use tools, and refocus on providing value to the organization.

—Chief Learning Officer, January 2010, based on survey results from Chief Learning Officer magazine’s Business Intelligence Board (BIB)

Learning Trends for Talent Management

In its just-published research Learning and Development: Arming Front-line and Mid-level Managers to Deliver People and Performance Results, Aberdeen Group surveyed executives from more than 525 organizations, including 189 that have current formal learning and development (L&D) efforts in place specifically for front-line and mid-level managers, to understand what Best-in-Class organizations are doing to develop these key members of the organizations.

Here are some key findings:

• 58% of respondents cited the uncertain economy and an increased focus on business performance as the pervasive pressures driving organizations to focus on L&D for front-line and mid-level managers.
• Providing front-line and mid-level managers with the skills to respond to new challenges while ensuring organizational success can be a critical business performance differentiator. Best-in-Class organizations enjoyed a 6% year-over-year increase in revenue, versus an 8% decrease among Laggard organizations.
• When organizations were asked to rate the leadership issues that were of greatest concern to them, the top three trends were identified:
  1. The need to capture knowledge and organizational insight from leaders before they leave the organization.
  2. Younger, high-potential future leaders leaving the organization for opportunities to advance more quickly.
  3. Fewer experienced leaders available in the marketplace requiring the organization to grow more leaders internally.
• One of the characteristics of top-performing organizations was their ability to make managers aware of development opportunities, a capability cited by 78% of Best-in-Class organizations.
• Best-in-Class companies are 25% more likely than Industry Average companies, and more than 2.5 times more likely than Laggards to involve executives in the development of front-line and mid-level managers. This buy-in is so important for building engagement among this key managerial group.
• 29% of Best-in-Class organizations link manager compensation to the learning and development progress of their direct reports, nearly twice the number of Laggard organizations that do so. Accountability for developing others can and should be cascaded throughout the organization.

Managers are such a crucial part of an organization. It is important to ensure that managers are supported by the organization, and are provided with the skills, knowledge, and development required to execute on business strategy, as well as manage their teams.

—Government Elearning!, December 2009/January 2010

Change on the Horizon

The coming year will bring dramatic changes to corporate learning. Here are the biggest trends to consider as you make learning resolutions.

• Formalize informal learning. New training programs must incorporate elements of social learning, embedded learning, on-demand learning, coaching, and performance support. Formalizing informal learning is an imperative for all training organizations in 2010.
• Embrace social learning. Communities of practice, wikis, blogs, discussion groups and expert directories are just a few of the ways to help employees solve problems faster while bringing new efficiencies.
• Focus on deep specialization. Some organizations have found an upside to budget cuts. Doing less means organizations can focus on building deeper levels of expertise in their audiences. CLOs have the opportunity in 2010 to re-engineer programs for even greater levels of specialization.
• Do less with less—and then do more. Over the past year, most L&D organizations have been downsized, forcing them to do less with less. This actually has been a healthy process, according to many executives. Nearly 70% of all companies surveyed in 2009 told us they were reorganizing their L&D teams for efficiency. When budgets do grow, these new structures can be used to deliver more efficient programs.

—Chief Learning Officer, December 2009

Ongoing Activities That Promote Loyalty

In addition to keeping employees employable by giving them new challenges and opportunities that align with overall company goals; adding more manager support and coaching through career development conversations; and providing a clear picture of overall company health and direction, companies should add ongoing programs that will create a positive, healthy work atmosphere.

These tactics should support a company’s employee loyalty program and align with the company’s goals. Employees feel better about the places they work when there is an honest, positive vibe felt throughout the halls and conference rooms. Here are a few examples:

• Develop a monthly business update. The update should communicate the company’s specific objectives and overarching strategy and how employees are meeting these goals. This communication also should provide actionable tips and tools to help employees become a bigger part of these company objectives.
• Enable direct communication to the top. Allow employees a way to communicate with top management—ideally the CEO. With e-mail and blogs, this is easier than ever to manage. Companies should also consider making this leader or CEO available once a month to respond to employee questions.
• Create an awards program that honors top work. This can be a monthly, quarterly, or annual awards program, but it should be consistent and made to be a big deal. Employees should feel proud of their work, and such programs often inspire others in the office to find ways to excel.
• Allow flexibility. Many employees find they are much more effective working on an intensive program from home one day, and employers must recognize that as long as they have quantifiable goals in place they should allow their employees to work more on “their terms.”

—Talent Management magazine, January 2010

Succession Planning in C-Suite is Lagging

A Korn/Ferry Institute study finds that the majority of companies do not have a C-Suite succession plan in place.

1. Have you identified a successor for your position?

   No	41%
   Yes	59%

2. Does your company have a defined and structured succession program?

   No	59%
   Yes	33%
   Don’t Know	7%

3. If your president or CEO resigned today, do you know who would take charge of your company?

   No	44%
   Yes	56%

4. How damaging would the departure of your president/CEO be to your business?

   Extremely damaging	15%
   Somewhat damaging	53%
   Not at all damaging	21%
   Would be beneficial to our company	11%

—T+D, January 2010



Management Development in 2010: Getting Back on Track

The top-line findings of Freemont Learning’s recently completed comprehensive “State of Management Development” study—which is based on in-depth interviews with CLOs of 50 large global companies—found CLOs are employing a combination of pragmatism, focus and innovation in response to challenges. There are six management development approaches that distinguished them in the course of the research.

1. Focusing on key managers: Forced to rationalize, many CLOs reported they were focusing more on high potentials and new managers, to the exclusion of broader groups of seasoned managers.
2. Becoming their own general contractors: The high satisfaction with internally delivered management development programs has given CLOs the air cover they need to push more delivery internal, even for higher-level executive groups.
3. An increase in blended learning: 40% of CLOs are now employing blended learning for new management development programs. The designs of these programs were quite sophisticated, incorporating online moderated, manager-only communities, on-demand rapid response virtual sessions, and user interfaces to assist managers in finding what they need.
4. Trading group development for individual development: CLOs are devising low-cost individual development options, such as in-house coaching and mentoring and even homegrown surveys.
5. Creating suitcase programs: CLOs are devising suitcase programs where they create a curriculum and take it to local offices around the globe. The programs are delivered by local trainers and local leaders.
6. Continuing to experiment: Budget cuts have not cut too deeply into CLO’s willingness to take risks in program format and design.

CLOs are redefining their own roles in response to budget cutbacks, and it appears this repositioning will be lasting and positive. There are four emerging roles of the CLO to look for in 2010 when it comes to management development.

1. Building broader internal capabilities: It’s likely that CLOs will use the current pause in hiring and promotion to bring more of the actual design and delivery of management development in-house.
2. Fully embracing technology: As competition for management talent begins to heat up again in 2010, look for some forward-thinking CLOs to begin using their technology-based management development strategy as a recruiting tool.
3. Operating as a just-in-time organization: It is likely leading learning organizations will create a rapid response capability to address urgent needs. In 2010 look for CLOs to form rapid response teams that can mobilize new management development initiatives with only weeks notice.
4. Becoming a connector and an aggregator: Most managers do not have the time to simultaneously perform their day-to-day responsibilities and investigate the various trends that may impact their business. CLOs may fill this void by vetting and finding the right thought leaders and experts for the management team.

—Chief Learning Officer, December 2009

Coaching Benefits: From Winning the Race to Winning in the Office

A new survey pinpoints the top benefits of coaching, according to the coaching clients themselves. ICF surveyed more than 155,000 people and found that

• The majority of coaching clients achieve positive changes in their goal areas, emerge pleased with their coaching experience, and realize a significant return-on-investment, both individually and for their companies as a whole.
• The two most commonly reported reasons for clients to turn to coaching are a desire to improve self-esteem or self-confidence (79%) and work-life balance (76%).
• The two most important reasons to entreat a coach’s service are to improve career opportunities (15%) and business management practices (14%).
• Personal development or growth is the most commonly reported benefit of coaching (35%), followed by lifestyle improvements (13%) and improved awareness, realization, insight, and knowledge (13%).
• 86% of all company clients made their initial investment back, with a median profit of 700%.

The Clients’ Bottom Line

Some of the common changes that clients experienced after coaching include:

• Improved ability to relinquish control and delegate responsibility
• Strengthened ability to make a career decision
• Improved overall outlook
• Strengthened sense of being more “in-tune” with their work/office environment
• Enhanced ability to apply past learning to assist them in new situations
• Improved planning skills (corporate strategy)

—T+D, January 2010

C-Level Boot Camp

Many senior executives need further training in their job responsibilities.

Skills that senior-level executives most need to improve:

Leadership	67%
Strategic Thinking	53%
Communications	53%
Building Teamwork	47%
Vision	47%
Motivating People	46%
Engaging Others	42%
Managing Others	38%
Decisiveness	33%
Interpersonal Abilities	32%
Creativity	24%
Managing Their Own Expectations	18%

Ways that organizations are helping senior executives build their skills:

Outside Coaching	74%
Outside Training and Education	48%
In-house Coaching	38%
Assigning Leaders to Project Teams	29%
Pairing Leaders with Mentors	20%

—T+D, January 2010