lhh logo
Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management

Six Steps for Coping With Stress and Anxiety During a Pandemic

Six Steps for Coping with Stress and Anxiety During a Pandemic

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Six Steps for Coping With Stress and Anxiety During a Pandemic

It’s tempting to try and dismiss our feelings especially at a time like this when we’re all trying to cope and stay strong for those around us. But the reality is that stress response are our bodies’ way of protecting us, and early warning signs such as feeling angry or tired can be crucial indicators that we need to intervene before the stress becomes overwhelming. 

Here are six science-based tips to help you maintain your mental wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you’re finding yourself with increased levels of stress and anxiety in the past few weeks as the coronavirus has taken its hold on our world, then you’re not alone. Recent research suggests many people experienced moderate to severe psychological impacts during the initial COVID-19 outbreak in China. This is a very normal response and one we can take some practical steps to manage effectively. It’s important that we do this for a number of reasons. 

First and foremost, managing our stress levels has a significant and positive impact on our immune system and the World Health Organization has emphasized that boosting our immune system and taking adequate preventative care plays a crucial role in fighting the Coronavirus Improving our ability to cope with the situation will therefore also improve our overall well-being and the likelihood of fighting the virus. It’s also likely that this situation will continue and possibly worsen in the weeks to come; it’s important that we put strategies in place to deal with stress now so it doesn’t overwhelm us, and we can continue to be there for our families, our friends and our colleagues. Here are six science-based tips to help you maintain your mental wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Know how you’re feeling

The first step to dealing with heightened stress and anxiety is recognizing that you’re dealing with it in the first place. Stress can manifest itself in many ways including sadness, confusion, irritability, procrastination, physical tension and body pain, lack of energy and even problems sleeping. We all have a different stress response, and it’s important to know ourselves and check in with ourselves physically and mentally on a daily basis to know how we’re feeling and to recognize the symptoms of stress. Skipping this step and ignoring how we are feeling impedes our ability to be able to manage our stress.

2. Making sense

It’s tempting to try and dismiss our feelings especially at a time like this when we’re all trying to cope and stay strong for those around us. But the reality is that stress responses are our bodies’ way of protecting us, and early warning signs such as feeling angry or tired can be crucial indicators that we need to intervene before the stress becomes overwhelming. The human body has adapted over many centuries to be able to react and protect itself from external threats such as a global health pandemic, so it’s perfectly normal to experience a stress response at this time. Create a habit of making time for yourself every day to notice this in yourself and make sense of the situation in order to avoid overlooking your stress.

3. Small changes, big impacts

The good news with dealing with the early signs of stress is that often small changes to our daily routine can often make a big difference. These daily rituals and routines will differ for everyone and will depend on your typical stress response. For example, if you typically experience stress in a physical way such as feeling tired or tense in your body you may decide to go to bed 30 minutes earlier than usual or take time for a relaxing bath.

4. Avoid the common thinking traps

An important element to building these strategies it to recognize what you can control and release the need to control what you cannot. There are practical things we can all do in the current situation to protect ourselves and our loved ones. This includes good personal hygiene and practicing social distancing, but there is also a lot we have no control over. It sounds simple; but ruminating on these things won’t help. So take a moment to acknowledge those things, and then let them go. Try to be mindful of the many myths that are out there that may be misleading and stopping us from focusing on what is in our control. Avoid catastrophizing and blowing situations out of proportion; or the other common thinking trap which is where we predict a future state that is based on our biggest fears versus the facts of the situation.

5. One small step

Increasing our level of exercise can be one of the easiest and most effective ways of boosting our mental wellness and strengthen our immune system. While it may not be possible to get outside and go for a brisk walk, there are lots of routines we can do in our own homes to help get us moving. And, even better if you can have a family member or friend join you either in person or virtually.

6. The human connection

While we all practice social distancing, it’s important not to overlook the need for human connection at this time. A more useful way to think about it could be physical distancing so that we don’t neglect the need for social connection with our friends and family – as this is another important building block in combating stress. Checking in with others through a phone call or video chat can also serve a dual purpose as it could be that the other person may also be in need of a friendly human connection. 

Now more than ever, we must prioritize our individual health – and that includes our mental well-being. Leverage these six tips to recognize your feelings and maintain your overall mental health as we navigate COVID-19 together.

These tips are designed to be educational in nature and in no way a substitute for professional clinical support. If you notice that your signs are difficult to manage, please consider seeking professional help.

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management

5 Tips for Remote Networking

5 Tips for Remote Networking

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

5 Tips for Remote Networking

COVID-19 and the shift to remote work (and remote life) has caused professional networking to become completely virtual. Here are our top five tips for successful networking while remote.

1. Make a list of people in your network

Your network is likely much larger than you think it is! Make a list of former colleagues, classmates, teammates, friends of friends, etc. that you think it would be beneficial to reach out to – whether it’s their experience, their role, or the company they work for that appeals to you. Since most people are working remotely and don’t have a ton of extracurriculars going on, now is the perfect time to re-connect.

2. Utilize LinkedIn

Once you have your list, head to LinkedIn. As you may already know, LinkedIn is a great resource for professional networking. However, before you begin your outreach, make sure your LinkedIn profile presents the best version of yourself. We recommend double checking the following: an updated professional photo, your current (or most recent) job title, an accurate and up to date job history, and relevant skills. Additionally, don’t forget to fill out the summary section at the top of your profile with a brief bio about yourself.

When sending out invitations to expand your network, always include a personalized message. This intro message should be short and sweet, and if you are connecting with a 2nd or 3rd connection, make sure to reference the mutual connection you share.

3. Join online networking groups

Now is also a great time to consider joining online networking groups. Start by looking for alumni, industry, or interest groups on LinkedIn or Facebook, or even just doing a Google search. Aside from social media platforms, there are now virtual networking opportunities on sites like MeetUp, where once in-person events have now transitioned to virtual. Outside of official groups, you can also make professional connections by participating in online forums or chats; think about Reddit, StackOverflow, or other sites specific to your industry. Lastly, industry publications and podcasts often have a dedicated space for their community to connect via LinkedIn groups or Slack/Discord channels.

4. Participate in online classes

Taking a remote class is not only beneficial for upskilling and advancing your career, but can also be a great tool for networking. For example, when you take a class through a program like General Assembly, you will be invited to a Slack channel with your classmates and teacher to ask questions and participate in group discussions. Once the class is over, don’t forget about the relationships you made – connect with the people you “virtually” met in class. Just like that, you’ve added another layer to your network filled with people that have similar interests as you!

5. Schedule virtual coffee chats

Just because most of us are now working and living remotely, it doesn’t mean you can’t meet (virtually) for coffee! Invite your connection to a video call where you both chat over a cup of coffee or tea. This is a thoughtful and low-stress way to catch up with an old colleague or meet a new connection. These virtual coffee chats are a great way to bring familiar comfort to this new remote way of meeting with people.

Whether remote or in-person, professional networking is about building and maintaining relationships over time. Be proactive and don’t wait until you need to find a new job to start networking. Use this time of wide-spread remote work and remote life to make meaningful connections that will last throughout your career.

Source: vettery.com

Categories
Assessments & Analytics Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management People Development

Reinventing Today’s Workforce: Welcome to the Skills Economy

Reinventing Today’s Workforce: Welcome to the Skills Economy

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Reinventing Today’s Workforce Welcome to the Skills Economy

“We are definitely seeing that the knowledge economy is becoming the skills economy,” said Michael Priddis, CEO of Faethm, who shares the opportunities for companies that adopt a data-enabled and human-first approach to workforce transformation, in response to automation, COVID and recession, to rapidly upskill and reskill their workforces to transition to the jobs of tomorrow.

Ranjit de Sousa, President, LHH

After several years of diving deep into the future workforce needs of successful companies, Mike Priddis, CEO of Faethm, has come to a bold conclusion.

The “knowledge economy” is dead. Long live the “skills economy.”

“We are definitely seeing that the knowledge economy is becoming the skills economy,” said Priddis, whose company uses AI to predict the impact of forces such as automation, robotics, and the pandemic on current and future jobs. 

“Today, knowledge and access to knowledge is easy. Google is on any device we’ve got. Applying that knowledge is different. We are entering a period where learning skills will be critical.”

Priddis said many business organizations are struggling to embrace this rapid transition from knowledge to skills-based economies. That is, he said, due in part to the fact that economic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the pace and magnitude of all forms of transformation.

Priddis calls this “the slingshot to 2023” what once used to take years to design, plan and put into action must now be brought to fruition in a matter of months.

“Prior to January of this year, most organizations were preparing for a transformation of some sort. Now, the pace of transformation has accelerated at an alarming pace to ensure that companies survive. We call that the slingshot effect.”

Unfortunately, Priddis said, current approaches to education and workforce management do not match up well with the slingshot phenomenon. Most post-secondary institutions still focus heavily on traditional approaches to education, where knowledge is acquired over a period of years in an academic vacuum but never applied in the real world. Employers, meanwhile, remain wedded to buying talent or hiring people with new skills, rather than reskilling existing workers to meet new business demands.

“The best boss I ever had said ‘the half-life of learning is 30 minutes unless you get to apply it,’” Priddis said. “What that implies is that we need to have action-based learning, taking place in context. We need to be giving people not just the information but a chance for people to practice that skill.”

If you apply those principles in a real-world example—like a company forced to transform to address the impact of a global pandemic—the emphasis very quickly shifts to identifying those jobs that are vulnerable to automation, or cannot be performed effectively in a remote environment and those that have longer-term future viability.

Priddis said Faethm works with clients to analyze the impact of external trends on current workforces and the skills required to be future-ready. This analysis is predictive, he said, identifying portions of jobs that might be replaced by technology (automation), jobs that might evolve with technology (augmentation) and the new and emerging jobs that will need to be filled to support deployment of these technologies (addition).

This analysis should help companies to not only meet future skills needs but identify people within an existing workforce that can transition from vulnerable to emerging roles.

“Our biggest contribution has been to show companies that the people they are going to need in the future, they already have,” Priddis said. “It’s a pretty simple equation. It’s cheaper to retrain and redeploy than to make redundant and rehire.”

Even though almost everyone wants to take a “humanistic approach,” where the well-being of individual employees is not sacrificed to a bottom-line objective, not every organization can see the value in retraining and redeploying, Priddis said.

“We all want to do right by people,” Priddis said. “But most companies also know that it’s the lens of dollars and cents that drives decisions at the executive table. The problem is that if everybody sheds staff, they don’t need with no thought about what they’re going to do next, it creates chaos.”

Thankfully, Priddis said an increasing number of companies are starting to see that the humanistic approach may also be the most cost-effective approach.

That was certainly the experience with one Faethm client who was facing a pressing need to reduce its workforce of accountants. Few jobs have been more impacted than accountancy, Priddis said, which involves a range of skills that are easily performed by AI applications. However, a predictive analysis of other remaining and emerging jobs within the same organization revealed opportunities for the accountants to be retrained.

Specifically, Faethm was able to determine that an accountant’s skill set was very similar to that of a cyber security analyst—a high-demand job in organizations all over the world. 

“The only gap we could see was the specific cyber-security knowledge and that was a trainable gap,” Priddis said. “It didn’t make any sense for this company to shed their accounting staff, spending all that money on redundancy and then hiring new cyber security people. They could teach those accountants to be cyber analysts.”

Priddis said predictive analysis can function as a data-driven “GPS” that can help employers anticipate future workforce scenarios and inform decision making.

That means organizations need to acquire the capacity to transform their workforces in a more rapid and agile fashion as new and potentially seismic technologies arrive.

“It always struck me as slightly ambitious and perhaps slightly naïve to think that we are in a position to determine exactly where we’re transitioning to,” Priddis said. “I think most organizations, rather than trying to figure out where they are going, should be building capabilities to continuously experience these sorts of changes. The ability to change, and to have a dynamic workforce that can adjust as the context changes, is probably the single biggest muscle that organizations need to build.”

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management Organizational Development People Development

Top Four Takeaways to Advance the Convergence of Learning and Work

Top Four Takeaways to Advance the Convergence of Learning and Work

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Top Four Takeaways to Advance the Convergence of Learning and Work

It’s time to change the way we think and deploy learning. We need this shift in thinking not only to meet future skills needs, but also to start mining the maximum value possible from human capital, the real engine of growth and success.

Ranjit de Sousa

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of the future of work colliding head-on with the future of learning.

This is a collision that has been building for a long, long time. However, the convergence of a number of powerful forces—artificial intelligence, the global skills shortage, the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of the contingent workforce—have put a new edge on the debate about how best to prepare ourselves for the future of work. 

Increasingly now, we are realizing that our future capacity to build, create and problem solve—the foundational tasks that help drive vibrant economies and create fulfilling jobs—is fully and completely determined by our ability to provide learning opportunities that are fully aligned with the human jobs of the future. While some of us are just waking up to this reality, others such as the World Economic Forum, have been predicting this for years.

“The current moment provides an opportunity for leaders in business, government, and public policy to focus common efforts on improving the access and delivery of reskilling and upskilling, motivating redeployment and reemployment, as well as signalling the market value of learning that can be delivered through education technology at scale,” according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020

Those are lofty goals that many of us in the human capital industry have been advocating for some years now. And there has been some progress. However, because of the massive corporate and technology transformation ushered in by COVID-19, there is urgency to address the lack of overall progress we have made in preparing workers around the world for the future of work. Even when individual nations or companies show us the way with innovative solutions, far too many of us lag behind unsure of what to do and when to do it. 

As the WEF report put it, a marriage between learning and work will require “a holistic approach” that must involve “multi-stakeholder collaboration between companies looking to support their workforce; governments willing to fund reskilling and the localization of mid-career education programmes; professional services firms and technology firms that can map potential job transitions or provide reskilling services; labour unions aware of the impact of those transitions on the well-being of workers; and community organizations that can give visibility to the efficacy of new legislation and provide early feedback on its design.”

This is a steep hill that we must climb. And we’re only going to reach the top if we start to reconsider some of the oldest, deeply seeded assumptions about the relationship between learning and work.

Towards an on-demand world of learning

The Higher Colleges of Technology, the largest institution of applied learning in the United Arab Emirates, did not wait for a global pandemic to start changing its approach to education. For several years now, HCT has been preparing to reimagine itself as a virtual institution. To minimize risk during the pandemic, HCT moved quickly to ramp up its plans to deliver learning remotely and took all of its courses online in March 2020.

However, HCT is doing a lot more than just taking traditional, in-person learning and moving it online; the school has adopted an on-demand model for delivering education that allows students to pursue training in specific job-oriented skills as opposed to a standard, years-long journey to a degree. Now, students can enroll and learn from anywhere and build an education plan that is less about acquiring academic credentials and more about meeting the real-world needs of a specific job.

HCT is not just an advocate of a new approach to learning; it is also practicing what it preaches. HCT now offers one of the world’s first “e-Teacher” programs, training a new generation of instructors who will have specific expertise in virtual instruction and the use of leading-edge digital learning tools. 

If we learn anything from the HCT story, it should be how this school willingly challenged all our preconceived notions about what relevant education looks like in a modern context, and how we structure learning to bridge the gap between education and occupation. 

Increasingly, employers are beginning to challenge their own notions of what skilled really means. Higher education, with its lofty price tags and years of commitment is still a valuable commodity. But employers are focusing less on academic credentials and more on things like “relevant experience.” At the same time, more and more countries are starting to invest heavily in apprenticeship programs where learning and working are perfectly married.

Re-inventing the sequence of learning and work

Everyone used to know the path to a great job: work hard in secondary school to qualify for a top post-secondary program; work hard at college or university and get a degree; use the degree to secure a good and lasting job. If we’ve learned anything during this most trying year, and in recent years, it is that this sequence is no longer viable.

Heather E. McGowan, a future-of-work strategist, recently released a book called The Adaptation Advantage, in which she argues that the “learn-to-work” pathway has been replaced with a “work-learn-work-learn-work-learn” journey. A few years ago, McGowan coined a phrase that I believe all employers should etch into their human capital strategies: “Learning is the new pension.”

On that basis, we at LHH have been encouraging leaders in learning & development and human resources to start changing the way we think and deploy learning. We desperately need this shift in thinking not only to meet future skills needs, but also to start mining the maximum value possible from human capital, the real engine of growth and success. Here are our top four takeaways to advance the convergence of learning and work:

1. Learning needs to become foundational

Employers should incorporate learning as a core element in our contracts with employees. For too long, we have focused on the individual’s obligations to the employer: engagement, productivity, creativity, loyalty. In our current context, we now know that employers must reward these commitments with our own commitment to life-long learning opportunities so that strategies like coaching, reskilling and redeployment become principal tools for managing workforces.

2. Learning needs to become more flexible, more purposeful

Old and outdated approaches to learning at work must be eliminated and replaced with new, digitally powered and on-demand education that uses the best online tools and learning strategies, and provides the best consumer-grade user experience. We have the power now to put learning literally in the palms of our hands through mobile apps and smartphones. This means we can also organize learning to be part of the workday, or outside working hours, whichever is preferable for the individual. And it needs to keenly focus on both the employers’ future skill needs, and the individual’s future career goals.

3. Leaders will need to become coaches, mentors and teachers

A key leadership function today is the ability to coach employees to develop their own abilities and become the best they can be. But effective coaching is an acquired skill. Companies should invest in leaders to build coaching capabilities that drive employee performance, including building new competencies for conducting expert coaching conversations related to performance, development and careers.

4. Learning must be viewed as an investment, not a cost

Generally accepted accounting principles require organizations to categorize investments in reskilling or retraining as costs and not investments. Many forward-thinking advocates, however, have been arguing for new accounting models that allow employers to re-categorize these expenses as investments, just the same as the purchase of a new building or a new machine. The Adecco Group has led internationally on this topic, publishing numerous white papers calling for a modernization of accounting rules so that learning is fully reclassified as an investment. This could spark a new generation of investment in learning that could future-proof our workforces.

During the pandemic, as we’re all struggling to meet a tidal wave of new challenges, we risk losing sight of the opportunities that come with change. Now is perhaps our greatest opportunity to re-imagine our approach to learning so that it is part of the basic contract between employer and employee. Those organizations that accept the challenge and seize the moment will find they have unleashed a future full of potential and success.

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management Coaching People Development

Living Your Best Life: 4 Key Lessons that Will Advance Your Career

Living Your Best Life: 4 Key Lessons that Will Advance Your Career

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Living Your Best Life 4 Key Lessons that Will Advance Your Career

If you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, then your career path needs to be much more deliberate

Caroline Pfeiffer Marinho

After three years away from the corporate world, Shanthi Flynn knew she was ready to take a step forward in her career.

A former top executive at some of the world’s largest and most iconic companies—including Ford Motor Co., The Boots Company and A.S. Watson Group—Flynn had taken three years off to focus on her family. It wasn’t clear when or even if she would return to the corporate world.

And then one day, she uttered seven words that would ultimately serve as a turning point in the evolution of her professional career.

“My older daughter, who was three at the time, kept biting her younger sister on the face,” Flynn said recently in an LHH Conversations Series live-stream event. “I found myself saying, ‘Stop biting your sister on the face’ repeatedly. It’s not something that I ever thought I’d be saying.”

The desire to return to the corporate world was getting quite strong. However, Flynn conceded that it wasn’t clear she could return to a senior job with a large corporation, something that she very much still wanted. “When I took my career break out, it tested my value proposition,” she said.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got three kids now, it’s hard to step back into a separate world.’ I had been used to making fast decisions and I was confident. Being out of the game for three years created doubt in my ability to return. My confidence had a dent for the first time in my career.”

Unexpectedly, a headhunter contacted her about a high-level job with Walmart Asia and—within months—she was back on her career track once again. “I’m a strong believer that if you make the right choices, you’re competent in what you do and can tell your story in a compelling way, then it won’t matter if you take time out to do different things.”

Flynn would go on to work five years for Walmart before striking out on her own as a strategic leadership consultant. In early 2016, she accepted the position of chief human resource officer with the Adecco Group in Zurich. Two years ago, she went back to her own consulting practice, with a focus on keynote speaking and advising executives and boards, leveraging her deep and broad HR expertise as well as business leadership.

Through her varied, three-decade career as an HR executive and business leader, Flynn said she learned many important lessons about how to manage a career, how to thrive as a woman in what is still largely a man’s world of business and, last but not least, how a well-structured network is your best lifeline at key career inflection points.

How women can thrive without giving into the temptation to ‘act more like a man’

Flynn started her career at the Ford Motor Company plant in Dagenham, a suburb of East London and a seminal monument in the history of United Kingdom labor law. It was there, in 1968, that 187 female Ford employees walked off the job for three weeks. The strike was a catalyst for the 1970 Equal Pay Act which attempted to prohibit the inequitable treatment between working men and women.

“My choice to join Ford Motor Company in the UK was probably my most foundational choice,” Flynn said. “I spent nearly 10 years there; my first three years were in a car plant where there were probably about 30 women and about 10,000 men. So, as you can imagine, it was a pretty male-dominated environment.”

Although the atmosphere was generally tough for the women working there, Ford was a “truly global company that invested heavily in its people.” Flynn was able to move very quickly through several jobs, which not only built out her resumé but “helped me build my confidence.”

The lessons acquired from being one of the few women in a male-dominated company still resonate today. “As a woman, you can be tough and decisive,” she said. “Those are not male attributes. You just have to be yourself. If you try to copy all the men in the room, you’re not bringing anything different to the table.”

If you learn anything in your career, learn to be opportunistic

Flynn said that even with all the best laid plans, no one can completely predict the course of their careers. Especially today, when so few people spend their entire working lives with one organization. The trick for those people who want to get ahead is to focus keenly on what kind of job they ultimately want to hold, and then look for those opportunities to realize that dream.

That will mean using a broad interpretation of “opportunity.” Don’t get hung up on obtaining a particular title, or on the idea that every move you make needs to be upward. Try to assess the potential in every opportunity, no matter how unlikely it may seem at the time.

“If you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, then your career path needs to be much more deliberate,” Flynn said. “You need to know all of the steps you have to take on that journey. Look for those opportunistic moments that allow you to make a different decision or take a different course.”

No matter where you go or what you do, keep building your network

When Flynn first went to Hong Kong in 2002—she followed her husband who had received a teaching position—she admitted to having a huge gap in her career network. Back in the UK, Flynn said she had developed an extensive, high-level network of contacts who both sought and offered support.

In Hong Kong, however, it was like starting over. “I had absolutely no network in Hong Kong,” she said. “So, I went to a headhunter and said, ‘I’m not looking for a job, but I would like to know who are the best networkers in Hong Kong in my space. Ultimately, the headhunter helped connect me to a network with nearly 200 people.”

After developing a new network, Flynn said she set about applying best practices to allow her to get the most out of the people she was meeting. At the top of that list was to not rely solely on connections made through social media. 

“LinkedIn is a blessing and a curse,” she said. “With social media, sometimes you can be in contact with people and not really in contact with people. You have to meet people and have a tangible conversation to develop a network connection. Go for a coffee or try to have a phone or video call, to build presence.”

After building presence, it is important to also remember to be deliberate in what you want from your network. “Before you reach out to your network, you have to have an idea of what it is you want from them in terms of advice or even sponsorship. ‘I’d like to work for the company you work for, how do I do that?’ You have to have some questions that you need answered.”

The best advice I’ve ever received

Flynn said that one of the best parts of cultivating a solid professional network is that you are exposed to some truly sage advice. Of all the things she has been told over the years, Flynn said advice on being “bold and fearless” stands out.

“Sometimes, people overthink things. You have to think through your career decisions carefully but there’s always an element of leap, where you cannot know everything, you cannot gather all the facts.”

Now having moved from an operational role into an advisory and consulting role, Flynn said she still tries to practice a bold and fearless approach to her life and career. She will never stop learning new skills or challenging herself. Her focus, as always, is to help others grow.

“I don’t think I would change anything about my career,” she said. “I very rarely ever look back. Learn from the past and always look forward.”

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Change Management Coaching Organizational Development Workforce Transformations

5 Core Practices to Build an Effective Virtual Onboarding Program

5 Core Practices to Build an Effective Virtual Onboarding Program

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

5 Core Practices to Build an Effective Virtual Onboarding Program

Onboarding has always been a critical link in the talent management process at Numeris. Jennifer Knibbs, National Director of People and Culture talks about what went into the design of their award-winning virtual onboarding program and how it ensures new hires are prepared to hit the ground running in their new roles.

Cara Danielson, SVP, Leadership Development Programs, LHH

When Numeris realized the pandemic would indefinitely put the brakes on in-person onboarding for new employees, they knew they were prepared to meet the challenge. Fortunately, well before “pandemic” and “COVID-19” became part of our lexicon in human resources, Numeris—an audience measurement whose origins go back nearly 80 years—had built the foundation for its virtual onboarding program.

All onboarding documentation had been migrated to fully digital channels, a digital toolkit was built to help new hires navigate onboarding, and a comprehensive online “100-day journey” was formulated to introduce and immerse a new employee in the company’s culture and values.

“We worked very closely with LHH, particularly on the digital toolkit, to ensure our onboarding program gives our people a complete sense of the values of our organization, our history and structure,” said Jennifer Knibbs, National Director of People and Culture at Numeris. “Everything we created and had been using prior to the pandemic has been shifted to virtual in a seamless fashion. We focused on a program that was flexible and easily adapted. That has really helped us through the crisis.”

Onboarding has always been a critical link in the talent management process at Numeris. Making sure new hires are prepared and equipped to hit the ground running in their new roles is essential to retaining top talent and keeping them engaged.

Research reported by the Society for Human Rights Management (SHRM) has clearly established the relationship between effective onboarding and both retention and engagement. SHRM reported results from a survey conducted by BambooHR, a workforce management software company, that showed up to one-third of respondents had quit a job in the first six months because of what they perceived to be an unfriendly environment, a lack of guidelines about responsibilities and too few training opportunities.

Conversely, research by the Wynhurst Group, a Washington D.C.-based consultancy, showed that employees who had the benefit of a structured onboarding process were nearly 60 percent more likely to be with the same company after three years. The Corporate Leadership Council weighed in with yet another study that showed properly onboarded employees were more engaged, more productive and more likely to engage in discretionary effort for their new employers.

Knibbs said Numeris has always tried to keep in mind that new hires who struggle with onboarding—which can leave recruits with too many questions and not nearly enough answers—are unlikely to become highly motivated, highly engaged employees. 

A degree of virtual onboarding has always made sense for Numeris, Knibbs noted. With a head office in Toronto, and three additional offices in Montreal, Richmond (B.C.) and Moncton, New Brunswick, the Numeris workforce has always been highly dispersed.

When social distancing and working from home became standards in the response to COVID-19, it created an opportunity for Numeris to test the limits of their virtual onboarding experience.

“The nature of our business, and the structure of the company, meant that we were already changing how connections were being made between new hires and our managers,” Knibbs said. “Now that we can’t do any of the onboarding process in person, we’ve found that our program does a very good job of creating a good experience and makes our new people feel welcomed and supported, and that they have all the tools they need to succeed.”

The key element in Numeris’ virtual onboarding is the “100-day Journey” for employees and leaders. Knibbs said the program features a broad array of programs and content that covers company values, culture, history and structure. The online materials are augmented with a “Leader Stream,” where new employees can meet virtually with many of the company’s leaders and directly discuss culture and expectations. 

The journey concludes with a survey which asks employees if they got all of the information they need to integrate into their new organization, she added.

Organizations that have acted proactively to embrace virtual onboarding build a foundation on a handful of core principles

1. Onboarding is a journey; take your time

Many organizations try to compress onboarding to limit the amount of “down time” an employee spends getting acclimatized. But a rushed or incomplete onboarding process will create a myriad of problems down the road, including an increased likelihood the employee in question will leave within the first six months.

2. Embrace onboarding as a best practice

According to onboarding research by TalentLMS, only 27% of companies have a fully online onboarding process, 33% use a blended offline and online approach, while 40% have yet to move any part of their onboarding program online. But organizations that do embrace online onboarding and make full use of virtual technologies retain top talent longer and have better overall employee engagement. Map out everything a new hire needs to know in the first 30 days, 60 days and 100 days and make it a formal offering.

3. Think like a new hire

If you ask new hires what they really want, they would tell you that logging onto the company network and meeting key leaders and peers are two of their top priorities. Unfortunately, many onboarding programs get bogged down at the start with endless paperwork. Identify, simplify and digitize all forms and resources so that new hires can complete everything online without feeling overwhelmed on their first day.

4. Reach out and make contact with managers and mentors

Take steps to recreate formerly in-person aspects of onboarding in a digital environment by making full use of video conference calls with managers and mentors. New hires need to work with their managers to make time for self-directed learning, mentoring, coaching and cross-functional knowledge sharing. Build in milestones that allow new hires to develop a goal-orientated mindset.

5. Get an early start

There are huge benefits to be reaped by starting the onboarding process before a new employee’s first day. Introducing them to the online onboarding journey and getting HR paperwork done as early as possible will allow new hires to focus on absorbing the culture and values of their new organization. 

Focusing on these core elements, Numeris was able to create a virtual onboarding process that was purpose-built for the pandemic. “We were thrilled to be recognized with a Brandon Hall Award for our all virtual onboarding program. We don’t expect employees to simply figure things out for themselves. We’ve created a scalable onboarding journey that’s driving efficiencies and consistency. When lockdown hit, we were ready.” 

“A lot of organizations think onboarding is something that you can do in one week,” said Knibbs. “It takes much longer to prepare a new employee. And the research shows that the first 100 days is a critical period in the process of building that new relationship. We didn’t want the pandemic to impact our onboarding process and it appears that we haven’t skipped a beat.”

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management Organizational Development Workforce Transformations

The Seven Worst M&A Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The Seven Worst M&A Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

The Seven Worst M&A Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The world has not lost its taste for M&As despite evidence that the gross majority are “abysmal failures.” LHH looks at the seven biggest mistakes organizations make during M&As and offers some practical suggestions on how to overcome them.

Charles de Sabran and Joanne Layne

Nearly three years ago, Prof. Roger Martin of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management uttered one of the most infamous quotes ever about the state of global mergers and acquisitions.

“M&A is a mug’s game,” Martin wrote in the June 2016 issue of The Harvard Business Review, “in which typically 70%-90% of acquisitions are abysmal failures.”

Martin may have been guilty of hyperbole, but he certainly had the case studies to back up his claim: Microsoft and Nokia, Google and Motorola, Hewlett Packard and Autonomy, News Corporation and MySpace. These were all multibillion-dollar deals that ended with the acquiring company forced to sell off the acquired asset and write off nearly all of the money invested to bring the companies together.

Despite Martin’s assessment, the world does not seem to be losing its appetite for M&As.

In 2018, nearly $3.9 trillion in M&As were announced. It was not a record, but had the proposed marriage between U.S. cellular carriers Sprint and T-Mobile been allowed to proceed—it is currently in a state of limbo at the direction of regulators—it would have been one of the busiest years ever in M&A activity.

Given that every year sees a new wave of M&A activity, why do we continue to see such a poor record of success? Theories abound.

Currency fluctuations and trade wars can derail some deals. Sometimes, proposed M&As collide with shifting markets or unforeseen technological complications. And in many cases, acquiring companies simply overpay for an asset and underestimate the costs of integration.

There is, however, a common thread running through most botched M&As: failed cultural integration.

Deloitte has estimated that failed cultural integration is a primary cause in about 30 percent of failed M&As. Bain & Company has identified cultural integration as the number one cause of M&A failure. 

After reviewing the details of M&As that Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) has seen up close, we’ve identified seven common mistakes related to cultural integration that bring down many promising M&As.

The Seven Worst M&A Mistakes

The New Company Obsession

Trying to deliberately erase one of the legacy cultures. Every company has a unique DNA that, like humans, is deeply ingrained in all that they are and do. Many leaders make the mistake of thinking that the DNA of an acquired company will just disappear. However, experience tells us that there will always be trace elements of the DNA of both organizations in an integrated company. Failure to acknowledge this reality can lead to fear, resentment and—ultimately—a failure to fully integrate.

The Ivory Tower Syndrome

When fear invades the senior leadership team. For many leaders, an M&A can trigger fears about their own careers. They may worry about losing influence, status, power or, ultimately, their job. This anxiety is exacerbated by the fact that integrations can take many months, if not years, to complete. This can make many leaders feel estranged from their day-to-day duties and disinterested in the outcomes of the M&A.

The Mirror Effect

Projecting the fears of leaders onto the entire organization. When leaders are fearful, they can project those fears onto an entire organization. For example, a recent client undertaking an M&A guaranteed to all employees that there would be zero job cuts for the first three years. But when we met the executive team, they were convinced that these assurances did not apply to people at the senior leader level. Their concerns about “unofficial” job cuts eventually invaded employee discussions at all levels of the organization. Once employees saw that their leaders had lost faith in the organization’s pledge, they also began to lose faith.

The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Scenario

Making rash decisions and falling off the proverbial cliff. Those of us who grew up watching this iconic cartoon may remember that no matter how hard he worked or what gimmick he employed, Wile E. Coyote could never catch the Road Runner. The problem was that the Coyote, in his desperation, was willing to try anything without pausing to consider the wisdom of his schemes. This is certainly a scenario we see in M&As.

When attempting M&As, leaders sometimes believe they must always be making, announcing and implementing integration decisions. If too few managers or employees are involved in formulating those decisions, however, there is a high risk of disengagement. Before announcing any decision, it’s important to reach out to as many people as possible to discuss the ramifications. Just as Wile E. Coyote discovered, making bad decisions quickly and in isolation can lead you over the proverbial cliff.

The Broken Record Syndrome

Keep selling the rationale of the deal instead of tackling practical issues. We often see that, in order to meet communication expectations, leaders fall into the habit of just repeating core messages over and over again and never acknowledging that new problems have arisen. When the message is out of date and deliberately ignores new developments, it can completely undermine leadership’s reputation. Sometimes, it’s better to be silent rather than redundant.

Abandonment Issues

Not supporting middle managers. Middle managers form the backbone of most organizations. They are the frontline for all the questions, fears, anger and confusion an employee may experience in the midst of an integration. Despite that reality, middle managers are often forgotten when it comes to managing an integration. If the leaders of an M&A starve middle managers of information and leave them unable to answer the most basic of questions, those managers and their teams will quickly lose faith in the integration.

The First Spring Flower Syndrome

Claiming success prematurely. Anyone who has lived through an M&A knows it can be a long, unpredictable and sometimes uncomfortable journey. Despite this, senior leaders are sometimes quick to claim victory once the process has been launched. This is particularly true of cultural integration. It will take months, maybe even years, for two different cultures to mesh and find a happy, productive common ground. Claiming victory prematurely can frustrate workforces and actually lengthen the gestation period for a full integration.

The challenge of avoiding these pitfalls of cultural integration often falls to HR leaders. Based on our experience working side-by-side with HR leaders in the throes of integration, LHH has identified several best practices that can help bridge the cultural gap experienced during many M&As.

These best practices include but are not limited to:

Best practices that can help bridge the cultural gap experienced during many M&As

Create a “cultural” workstream led by the senor leadership team

A workstream focused on cultural integration can determine the distinct qualities in the DNA of both organizations and identify what is shared and how to create common ground. A cultural workstream ensures both entities respect each other’s values and histories.

Measure the truth

Regularly survey the field to get an honest assessment of how the integration is progressing. When events are unfolding rapidly in an M&A, we tend to demonstrate greater biases and make more assumptions. To figure out exactly how well the organization is handling an integration, it’s important to survey different levels of the organization and encourage an open dialogue so that everyone knows what’s really going on.

Clarify expectations around new leadership behaviors

Successful organizations take early steps to articulate the leadership values and behaviors necessary to facilitate the integration. Clearly communicating these expectations lets leaders know that they must be prepared to change their own behaviors to successfully drive an integration.

Invest heavily in the middle managers to build foundational leadership skills, fill intercultural gaps and mitigate unconscious bias

 The capacity and willingness of middle managers to adopt the new integrated culture can make or break an M&A. During the early stages of an integration, where important first impressions are made, middle managers must know why and when things are happening so that they can keep the workforce up to speed and solidly invested in the integration.

As an HR leader, don’t get caught up in the technical aspects of the integration

To avoid getting caught in the tall grass of technical details, organize collaborative workshops with key leaders from both entities. These forums can help leaders quickly flag issues and deliver solutions that demonstrate that the new integrated organization is just as concerned about people as financial projections.

Secure your key talent

Senior talent not only drive results, they retain the knowledge and experience necessary for future success. Incentives and tailored working conditions will be essential to retaining these people. Retaining key talent will prove to be much more cost effective than having to go out and replace them.

The one positive aspect of the “abysmal” record of M&A success is that it has provided us with an abundance of data about what companies are doing wrong, which can actually help us draft a blueprint for a successful integration.

In M&As, as in life, we can always learn from the mistakes of others and commit to doing things a different way.

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management Workforce Transformations

Putting Your Best Skills Forward in Career Transition

Putting Your Best Skills Forward in Career Transition

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Putting Your Best Skills Forward in Career Transition

Navigating the hiring market can be difficult at the best times. For professionals and executives currently in transition, securing a new opportunity may be especially challenging as unemployment rates continue to increase. 

To succeed in this ultra-competitive hiring market, candidates will need to adopt a new approach to gain the attention of hiring executives. In this one-hour webinar, Kevin Tennant, Partner, Executive Interim Management, will outline a proven strategy for landing a new interim or permanent role during these unprecedented times of economic uncertainty. 

He will discuss: 

  • How to articulate your skill-set as a solution to current business challenges.
  • The right way to communicate your unique value proposition to land meetings.
  • Strategies for networking in a virtual environment.
  • Proven tactics for securing a new engagement through proactive outreach.

Watch it now:

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Career Transition, Outplacement and Mobility Change Management

6 Tips for a Successful Redeployment Strategy

6 Tips for a Successful Redeployment Strategy

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

As organisations restructure themselves to be future-ready, redeploying existing talent into new roles seems like a clear win-win, but can often be simply the path of least resistance . Read these 6 tips for a successful redeployment strategy.

It’s almost impossible to miss the many articles about the future world of work where we are told that by 2025 more than a third of roles will no longer exist; skills and capability requirements will continue to change at an accelerated pace and job tenure will continue to shrink!

It comes as no surprise then, that we should expect a significant increase in redeployment – the transfer of an employee to another role within the same organisation.  

Most organisations offer some form of redeployment support to their impacted employees.  Redeployment success is frequently measured via number of employees with role changes who source another internal role i.e. we redeployed 50% of people whose roles no longer exist in our structure.  However, this is not the true indicator of a successful redeployment strategy.  Real success is to be found in the number of employees who redeploy, who are engaged to perform well in their new roles and express a desire to actively develop their careers and capability in partnership with their employers, taking into consideration not just for current role requirements but also looking to the future.    

So how do we reinvent redeployment to ensure that employees are career agile and future skilled for new economy jobs?

Success in the new economy requires a considerable mindset shift.  We need to reconsider redeployees to better harness their talent and potential, recognising the opportunity to source new roles internally, through developing their careers in ways that contribute positively to their future job satisfaction, employability, and the achievement of organisational performance.  We need to move away from the label “Redeployee” to a more accurate and optimistic epithet “Talent”.

In my experience, redeployment often consists of providing information about available roles and assistance with internal recruitment processes.  The opportunity exists to support employees to develop career agility, future proof their skills and make improved and informed decisions about their next role, as illustrated via Sarah’s story.

“I was told that my role was redundant but the company wanted to keep me on; I was given information about new available roles and I had 4 weeks to make a decision or take a redundancy.  I really liked my old job, my leader, the team, the task content, so I was mourning the loss of that and really confused about what I wanted to do next. 

I spoke to friends, family and my manager and managers of some of the areas that had new roles and received a lot of different advice that to be honest made me even more confused.  In the end, I took a role because it was there and I was scared to leave the company in what I thought was a tough job market.  It turned out to be a big mistake.  I didn’t gel with the team and my day to day activities gave me no satisfaction.  6 months later, I found myself in performance management for the first time in my life!”

Sarah’s story is a lose: lose: lose scenario – for her; her leader and the organisation.  Sadly, this story is repeated in various versions every day. 

To establish truly successful redeployment processes, the potential of your organisational “Talent” needs to be genuinely embraced. Here are 6 ways to design and implement a redeployment strategy that contributes positively to building an engaged and talented future workforce. 

1. Be clear on what you want to achieve from your redeployment strategy. 

How can you futureproof your employees’ careers and skills to align with current and future organisational needs? What does success look like and how you will measure outcomes?  Advances in survey technology make it easier to collect engagement and performance data specific to individuals who have redeployed.

2. Provide employees with professional career decision making support. 

In Sarah’s words – “I really needed someone independent and skilled in career planning to put structure to my thinking – if I’d had that I am confident I would have made a different decision re my next role and development plan”.  An added benefit of good career planning is the ability to self-reflect on current capability and how that aligns to future skill requirements.

3. Ensure good systems are in place, so that employees can source information about opportunities. 

Information about available roles, how to apply, and practical assistance with resume and interview skills remains important but it’s not enough by itself in today’s rapidly changing world of work.  For larger organisations, consider creating a digital talent exchange, by establishing systems whereby talent can search for opportunities and leaders can search for talent. 

4. Enable your leaders to engage in effective career conversations by building their capability. 

Many employees are great impression managers – but are often afraid to share detail pertinent to their career with their Boss.  It can be difficult for an employee to say : “I really want to step back for the next 6 months” or “ I really want to make a career change”.  Supporting leaders to ask open questions about skills, values and interests facilitates a deeper and more meaningful outcome.

5. Innovate and create

Initiatives such as career months or internal career fairs; lunch and learns which share stories about critical career steps taken by your leaders; identify and share research articles and webinars about future careers and the changing world of work.

6. Create a culture of continuous learning and career management 

More organisations are flagging change earlier with their employees, sometimes 2-3 years out, identifying the need to develop new capabilities and skill sets for future economy roles and developing support strategies based on a shared responsibility between the organisation and the individual to reskill. 

About The Author
Helen Burton is the Executive Director of Lee Hecht Harrison in Qld and has over 25 years’ experience in restructuring, change, redeployment and career transition. 

Source: lhh.com

Categories
Change Management Organizational Development Workforce Transformations

Organizational Culture: The Real Reason Transformation Fails

Organizational Culture: The Real Reason Transformation Fails

Let us help you turn
your workforce into a
true force

Contact us

Organizational Culture The Real Reason Transformation Fails

A new generation of machines – and machine learning – may be driving workforce transformation. But make no mistake about it, organizational culture will determine whether that transformation is successful.

Organizational culture

Far too often, organizations overlook issues of culture when tackling a transformation challenge. The focus is almost always on the new shiny penny – digital technology, artificial intelligence, applications of machine learning – the things that will ultimately change how and what we do in the workplace.

But what about an organization’s capacity to absorb transformational change? Are leaders prepared to take the point on transformation? Do employees have the mindset and agility to dedicate themselves to a whole new approach to work? 

In a recent survey of senior HR leaders conducted by LHH in partnership with HR.com, we identified the most common external drivers of workforce transformation. Not surprisingly, 70 percent of respondents said that advances in digital technology are triggering the need to re-imagine workforces. However, the focus shifted from machines to culture as soon as we asked about the forces that work against a successful transformation.

In fact, 54 percent of respondents cited culture as the single biggest barrier to a successful transformation. To really appreciate that figure, and why it may be the single greatest insight into transformation initiatives, we need to do a deep dive into what we mean by culture.

Organizational culture is made up of the beliefs, behaviors and attitudes of employees across the business and at all levels of hierarchy. An organization demonstrates its culture through how work gets done, how priorities are established and how people work with each other.

Good organizational culture is evident through the accountability of leaders and the clarity with which they communicate organizational expectations, as well as the enthusiasm with which employees execute on those expectations. You find positive cultures in supportive and respectful workplaces. One key indicator of culture health is whether or not existing employees would recommend their company to friends looking for work.

Bad culture is pretty easy to spot as well. Conflict is everywhere, and employees have a decided lack of trust in leadership at all levels. The general environment at work can be toxic, with harassment and bullying commonplace. Worst of all, senior leadership hoards information about the business strategy, leaving employees unsure why they are doing what they are doing.

Changing a flawed culture can be a gargantuan task, so much so that many organizations are daunted by the thought of tackling it head on. There are, however, some foundational steps that can help make the task less burdensome.

Create Agents of Change

Whenever the issue of cultural change comes up, there will be tension between those who want to move the company along in a new direction and those who are still holding on to the old way of doing things. It is vital for everyone to understand the rationale behind the change and their individual role in the culture’s transformation. 

At the very top of an organization, executive leaders are chiefly responsible for driving transformation. Along with effective communication about the nature of the transformation, senior leaders must also identify people within their organizations who can champion the very cause of transformation. 

These are the people who will amplify the transformation message and play a key role in convincing others to invest in the changes that will occur. These influencers will keep others in the company up to date on all transformation developments while providing a channel for questions and feedback. These champions will also help eliminate ambiguity, which is one of the biggest barriers to an effective transformation.

Agents of change will need information about the transformation so they have answers to anticipated questions, as well as the skills to pass this information on effectively. People move through change at different rates, so your leaders should use patience, empathy and openness and make a genuine effort to listen to and understand how their teams are reacting to the changes.

Create an Accountability Culture

Creating a culture of accountability must start at the top. When transformation fails, there was often nothing to ensure leaders were accountable for achieving results.

In these cases, leaders failed to engage in difficult conversations. They did not address poor performance, consider employees’ feelings and input or follow-through on concerns that arose during the transformation. In organizations with a lack of accountability, transformation initiatives can take much longer than anticipated and produce fewer meaningful changes. Simply put, a lack of accountability, combined with the challenges of learning new ways of doing things, can wreak havoc on your timelines.

Whatever is driving your transformation agenda – from introducing new technology, reinventing your talent pipeline or evolving your business strategy to meet new consumer demands – you’re unlikely to achieve your goals if you ignore the need for full accountability on the part of all those driving the transformation.

Create a Road Map

To determine whether your culture can support a transformation initiative, it’s first important to define your current culture and discuss and debate what practices, behaviors and roles need to change.

To do that, you need to engage in some unflinching self-analysis. Encourage your senior leaders to be as frank as possible about existing culture, what works, what doesn’t and what you may need to address before undertaking a transformation.

You’ll need to know how employees see the organization and the people who lead it, whether or not the organization lives up to the values it espouses, and what aspects of the current culture may inhibit the growth and innovation that must accompany transformation.

In our experience, there are 15 key cultural characteristics that are common to organizations that have achieved successful transformation. We have found that this list typically holds true across industries and sectors. Using the list below, survey your leaders and employees to measure how well your people demonstrate these behaviors:

Organizational Culture: The Real Reason Transformation Fails

In Summary

When developing a transformation strategy, always define your current culture and what you want it to look like in the future. Empower those who will take responsibility, and set clear expectations and measurable goals. Ask your people for their input, and let them know you are listening. Regularly review results and address any gaps as they arise—and remember to recognize and celebrate milestones along the way.

Successful transformation is not a matter of luck. It isn’t organic and self-propelling. It requires deliberate attention to detail and meticulous planning. And that begins with a frank, unblinking assessment of culture.

Download the full research report, People Power: A Catalyst for Transformation, a 2019 Global Workforce Transformation Trends Study.

Source: lhh.com

LHH uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more Accept