Category Archives: Talent

Want Supply Management Pros? Avoid the Culture Clash!

Chief Executive recently ran a good, but short, article on Talent retention that said “More than Money: Culture is the Key to Employee Retention” that is worth a read by every Supply Management Director looking to recruit and retain talent, which, due to a lack of talent development programs, is in short supply at many Supply Management organizations.

Noting that in this economy, however, companies can’t afford increased salaries and lots of perks for employees, the article also notes that, however, that though employees do care about how much they’re making, there are many other things that you can do to keep employees engaged and motivated, which includes corporate culture.

Quoting a USA Today article that covered GreatPlaceToWork.com’s list of the 25 best multinational workplaces, the article noted that companies with exceptional workplaces have three things in common:

  • employee trust in management
  • pride in the company
  • camaraderie with colleagues

This is because everyone wants a positive work environment. The article points out the obvious when it notes that you should treat your employees with respect, and that employees who have pride in what they do can make up for other organizational shortcomings, and misses the obvious that employees want to feel empowered, want to feel like they are contributing, and want to look forward to getting up and going to work in the morning. This requires all three of the elements of culture outlined above, and, in the doctor‘s view, also requires

  • employee accomplishment

A dedicated professional wants to feel, at the end of the day, that he or she accomplished something and made a difference. This is why your talent must be trusted by management to work on meaningful tasks, empowered to do so, given the support they need to succeed, a peer group that has common goals, recognition of their results, and pride in their work. Hit these nails on the head and your chances of recruiting and retaining top talent go up a notch or three.

CBTM #5: Fighting the War for Talent – Focus on Career Management!!!


Today’s guest post is from Anne Kohler of The MPower Group and is the fourth in a series of seven posts on Competency Based Talent Management.

We’ve been hearing about the “War for Talent” in the Sourcing / Supply Chain space for quite some time and it does not seem to be improving. In our previous posts, we explored how the lack of a holistic approach to competency based talent management (“CBTM”) is the root cause of the problem. In addition, we have advocated that to be sustainable, CBTM must cover ALL five phases of an employee’s journey through a company — recruiting, performance evaluation, training / development, career management and succession planning.

Let’s focus here on one element – Career management. According to Wikipedia, Career Management is the combination of structured planning and the active management choice of one’s own professional career. While career management should ideally be the responsibility of the individual, it MUST be driven by the organization. To start, employees need to know which skills / competencies are required to be successful today and how those skills /competencies need to grow and develop in order to progress within the company. These can only be defined by the organization and are the foundation for CBTM. A well-defined competency model, which is critical here, can also be used and integrated into the other four phases of CBTM. In addition, individuals need to see the career options (career path) and the expectations associated with moving through the path. How many Sourcing / Supply Chain organizations have actually taken the time to not only define the competencies but also lay out a career path for their employees? Not many. By the way, the first people to leave because of the absence of career management are the people you most want to hold on to — your high potentials. They are off listening to other companies who seem to be able to articulate a career path – can’t all companies do this during the recruiting phase even if it is all smoke and mirrors?

Without a Career Management process in place, you will:

  • lose your best people
  • constantly be recruiting (this is an expensive proposition)
  • never realize the full ROI of your asset (your people) base
  • lose the opportunity to infiltrate (love that word) the rest of the organization with Sourcing / Supply Chain thinking
  • never get beyond tactical contribution (real value comes thru competency growth)

The consequences of ignoring Career Management as part of your talent management program (if you have one) can be devastating to an organization. While the official definition of Career Management places the responsibility with the individual, the organization needs to put the infrastructure (process tools, metrics, mentors, etc.) in place AND drive the adoption and execution of the process. If we look at Career Management as benefiting both the employee and the organization then we MUST ensure that it is happening — tools are of no use unless they are being utilized.

What do you need to do to fix the career management void? Here are a few Next Practice tips:

  • Develop a competency model which allows employees to see their path for success
  • Tie career progression to competency growth
  • Ensure that competency growth is NOT about “what you know” but more about “what you DO with what you know”
  • Link career paths across functions by competency
  • Ensure career management is integrated into ALL phases of CBTM
  • Create a “success culture”, providing organizational mobility and access to new opportunities
  • Provide employees with “stretch” assignments to further competency growth
  • Ensure your organization is the “place to be” to ensure professional growth
  • Provide ongoing feedback and coaching so that employees can grow and take advantage of new opportunities

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to follow this topic further, here are a series of critical activities coming up:

  • Release of the results of the Executive Forum we just facilitated at the IACCM Global Forum for Contracting & Commercial Excellence on Talent Management.
  • A major research project to not identify the problem one more time but to identify Next Practices to solve the problems.
  • A webinar with IACCM on CBTM.
  • A White Paper to focus on Next Practices in CBTM.

Please contact Crystal Jones at crystalj <at> thempowergroup <dot> com for more information.

CBTM #4: Mind the Gap – Training vs Competencies


Today’s guest post is from Crystal Jones of The Mpower Group and is the fourth in a series of seven posts on Competency Based Talent Management.

In our previous posts we talked about designing your talent management program and implementing a recruiting plan. However, these are only parts of a larger Competency Based Talent Management (CBTM) program. You have hired the people you needed. So what? How can you make sure they are integrated into your organization and are able to hit the ground running, creating the optimum amount of impact? Not only do you need to look at training your existing team, you need to create a training program for new recruits as well.

This sounds well and good (and perhaps a bit easy). However, it is not as easy as it sounds. We have heard from many of our Sourcing / Supply Chain peers, particularly at our last NPX, that they are struggling with their training efforts. Training is completed, but the learning is never adopted. So what can they do to change the results?

Adoption brings us back to our vowels (AEIOU). In the past we have talked about the importance of Adoption, Execution, Implementation, Optimization and Utilization in any organizational effort. However, training is just not about the act of learning (a consonant); it is about adopting and implementing that learning to drive business results. Using the vowels ensures that the people being trained start applying what they learned. Implementing the vowels is the key difference between training people and developing competency.

To effectively turn a training program into competency development, you must have a good understanding of your desired needs. This requires that you start with the strategic direction and objectives of the company and what role your organization will play. This will show you which organizational competencies you need and will give you an understanding of the gaps you have within your organization. Now, the closure of those gaps can be tied directly to the company’s strategic direction and the role your organization will play, adding value not just for individuals, but for the company as a whole. Sending 2-3 people at a time to some public seminar designed for the masses may develop individual competency but it is never going to develop organizational competency.

Your gap closure strategies must follow a multi-faceted approach (coaching / mentoring etc.). Make sure your entire approach is rooted in Adult Learning Theory and has experiential learning as its basic tenet. Making people sit through day long lectures with no ability to actually practice the new behaviours and competencies in a safe learning environment is of little value. In addition, the curriculum must include the strategic competencies found during the initial gap assessment. A program consisting of functional or process skills alone is doomed. The strategic competencies must also be integrated into the core process modules so that people know how to actually deploy the new process.

Your training strategies must look beyond the technical skills and focus on the strategic skills needed to be successful like change management, communication, collaboration, and decision making. Oftentimes these skills are overlooked when training, although they are the most important to organizational success. Anyone can learn to use any process and those are the skills most organizations worry about when hiring and training. However, developing strategic skills can take your team to the next level and have more lasting effects on the group. It takes your group from Best Practices to Next Practices.

Developing the right competencies within your organization is not easy. It takes a lot of thought and energy to train and develop your team. Sometimes closing the gap can make you feel like you are trying to build a bridge across the Grand Canyon. If you start by looking at competency development in terms of AEIOU and strategic alignment, you will no longer need to build a bridge across the gap. You will find that your organization will soar.

In our upcoming posts we will continue to address Next Practices associated with the Competency Based Talent Management lifecycle.

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to follow this topic further, here are a series of critical activities coming up:

  • Release of the results of the Executive Forum we just facilitated at the IACCM Global Forum for Contracting & Commercial Excellence on Talent Management.
  • A major research project to not identify the problem one more time but to identify Next Practices to solve the problems.
  • A webinar with IACCM on CBTM.
  • A White Paper to focus on Next Practices in CBTM.

Please contact Crystal Jones at crystalj <at> thempowergroup <dot> com for more information.

CBTM #3: Help!!! Recruiting Next Practices Needed!


Today’s guest post is from Anne Kohler of The MPower Group, co-founder and COO.

We have been hearing about Sourcing / Supply Chain organizations which are looking for up to 400 people. How does any company find themselves in a situation where they need that many people all at once? I guess one could blame an ill managed recruiting function but I suspect that the entire Talent Management program (if there is one?) is broken. As noted in our last post, Talent Management has five phases, all of which must be integrated and treated individually and collectively as a system in order to be effective. We advocate that a talent management program MUST be competency based (“CBTM”) to be sustainable and must cover ALL phases of an employee’s journey through a company. In addition, each of these phases must be supported by:

  • A clear understanding of the role the Sourcing / Supply Chain organization will play for the company
  • A definition of the Intended Consequences the Sourcing / Supply Chain function is trying to achieve for its customers / internal business partners
  • Clear goals and objectives for the group which are tied back to corporate goals
  • A clearly defined competency model to support the defined role, intended consequences and goals of the organization

Let’s begin with the first phase which is Recruiting. Keep in mind that having a strong recruiting function is absolutely useless unless you can retain and grow the talent you bring in. This is why CBTM MUST be viewed as a system. Any weak link in that system can find your best people returning to the job market out of frustration. Think about a high potential that is told they are an asset of the organization only to find themselves in a position where they are given little to no training or development, no clear goals or metrics, no career development support or no clear path for advancement. Some asset!! How long do you think that “high potential” is going to stick around? Keep in mind, bringing new people into an organization can be a VERY expensive proposition if they end up leaving in a short time. For recruiting to yield a positive return on investment, the other phases of CBTM must be in place to ensure employee retention.

Some organizations are constantly trying to “find” the right people. In many cases this is because:

  • they didn’t define the right requirements (competencies) up front
  • the defined requirements were not tied back to actual needs
  • they did a poor job marketing (selling) the position and / or the company
  • they found the right people but couldn’t keep them
  • the screening process was conducted by individuals that did not have subject matter expertise (HR perhaps)
  • candidates were not a good culture fit for the company

Constantly trying to find the right people is expensive, as is on-boarding and training new hires. Here are a few Next Practice tips to strengthen your recruiting practices:

  • Understand the role you are expecting your Sourcing / Supply Chain organization to play — Tactical executor? Strategic business partner? Change agent? The role (whatever it is) will determine the competencies required and those MUST be defined
  • Clearly defined requirements that are tied to customer needs / intended consequences and are supported by required competencies
  • A marketing plan that allows you to present your company in the best way to attract the best candidates
  • A screening process that ensures the right functional and cultural fit
  • A rotational program for new hires that may be high potentials but who do not yet know where they fit
  • A process that closely matches candidate competencies with the open position — putting a high-powered Sourcing professional in a tactical buying position will do nothing but frustrate everyone involved (and vice versa) and cause the employee to leave
  • An on-boarding process that gets the new hire off to a strong start
  • Ensuring the other phases of CBTM are in place and being utilized

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to follow this topic further, here are a series of critical activities coming up:

  • Release of the results of the Executive Forum we just facilitated at the IACCM Global Forum for Contracting & Commercial Excellence on Talent Management.
  • A major research project to not identify the problem one more time but to identify Next Practices to solve the problems.
  • A webinar with IACCM on CBTM.
  • A White Paper to focus on Next Practices in CBTM.

Please contact Crystal Jones at crystalj <at> thempowergroup <dot> com for more information.

CBTM #2: Our People Are Our Key Asset


Today’s guest post is from Dalip Raheja of The MPower Group, who declared that Strategic Sourcing is Dead last year, and who has returned to stir up a new hornet’s nest.

Our people are our key asset! How many times have you seen this on the walls of major corporations? If this is true, then should we be applying some sort of asset maximization strategy to this key asset? I would assume that any expenses (training, coaching, recruiting, etc.) associated with maximizing this key asset have a very high priority and are one of the last items cut from budgets? By the way, how much of your capital dollars are you allocating to this asset? To truly embrace this thinking, you have to adopt a mental model of viewing your organization as a consulting company whose only value producing assets are the employees. In our last post, we laid out the case for Talent Management. In this post, we will address Competency Based Talent Management (“CBTM”) and then talk about some of the key issues in developing and executing a CBTM strategy.

The first step is determining the Intended Consequences (“IC”) of your Sourcing/Supply Chain organization. These ICs need to be directly derived from, and tied to, the overall corporate objectives and strategy of the company. Are you an organization measured by the year-over-year price savings that you get from your supply base while reducing lead time and improving quality? Or are you an organization that is measured by the impact you have in reducing sales cycles, increasing margins on existing deals, and streamlining the time to market of new product introductions? Think of this as defining the market you are trying to serve as a consulting company. Are you aspiring to impact tactical and operational Value Drivers or are you also looking to directly impact the overall corporate goals and strategy and therefore be a direct part of the elusive CEO’s agenda? That will help you determine the required characteristics of the asset base you will need to deliver on the Intended Consequences. This role definition then becomes the foundation for your desired competency model. From there, it’s on to determining where you are today, the gaps between where you are today and where you need to be, and then making sure that you have an asset maximization strategy in place that is funded for the next 3-5 years to close the gaps. Voila! All done! Obviously it’s a bit more complicated than that and we will be happy to share a very detailed model and an approach to getting it done. Here are a number of challenges that you should be aware of:

  • Commit only when you can deliver to expectations.
    CBTM will raise the expectations of the employees so make sure you are ready to launch and deliver.
  • Designing the solution is only a start.
    Focus on the adoption issues and invest as much in them as in solution design, if not more.
  • Competencies are applied skill and knowledge towards the Intended Consequences.
    The focus has to be on demonstrated application whether you are recruiting or promoting.
  • Shortage of talent is a symptom, not a cause.
    Apply systems thinking to the entire life cycle of Talent Management (recruiting, training/development, performance evaluation, career development and succession planning). Otherwise, you will always be recruiting.
  • Hold your direct reports accountable for success of CBTM.
    Ensure it’s in their goal sheets in a meaningful way.
  • It’s not a tactic — it’s a strategy.
    Account for appropriate time for the strategy.
  • Think asset portfolio maximization.

In our upcoming posts we will address some of the Next Practices associated with each of the five phases in the Competency Based Talent Management life cycle.

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to follow this topic further, here are a series of critical activities coming up:

  • Release of the results of the Executive Forum we just facilitated at the IACCM Global Forum for Contracting & Commercial Excellence on Talent Management.
  • A major research project to not identify the problem one more time but to identify Next Practices to solve the problems.
  • A webinar with IACCM on CBTM.
  • A White Paper to focus on Next Practices in CBTM.

Please contact Crystal Jones at crystalj <at> thempowergroup <dot> com for more information.