Tuesday 17 June 2014

Talent Planning, Chef Style

In the movie Chef, Chef Carl Casper is a talented but hot-headed chef who threatens to leave restaurant-owner Riva high and dry on one of the most important nights of the year. Riva is calm as he thinks he has a competent sous chef and line cook who can step into the void. While Riva is by no means an ideal manager (it's never good when one of your key employees regularly sleeps in his car) common kitchen hierarchy, known as brigade de cuisine, means that there are always a couple of understudies who can help out if a key contributor leaves.


Even if you do not employ temperamental chefs, it's smart have have a talent management strategy in place. Over the last six years, the baby boomers have started to retire. According to a US survey released earlier this year, 21% of employees plan to change jobs in 2014. Employers should be prepared to rehire almost a quarter of their workforce this year just to preserve the status quo (those in growth mode will have even greater hiring needs.)

Many employers are reactive when it comes to staffing: they do not think about hiring until someone quits or a skills deficiency causes a problem (these are the clients who call me asking if I can have someone hired within a couple of hours.) As a recruiter, I love the challenge but the trouble with this approach is that you are starting out behind the eight ball -- the cubicle is empty, the skills deficiency is obvious, the client has nobody to call -- and you need to fill the role as quickly as possible. You don't have the luxury to think about who the best hire would be and so simply try to hire someone who most closely represents the last person who filled that position. Each new hire represents an opportunity to make organizational change and having a talent plan in place can help you optimize the recruiting process.

We asked Jen Lawrence of Process Design Consultants about the key components of a talent management strategy and turn the blog over to her…

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Hello there. Thanks for this opportunity to share my views on strategic hiring. While it is often a huge inconvenience and expense when an employee quits or retires, it is also a wonderful opportunity. Every time a position becomes available, you have the opportunity to rethink the role. The natural reaction to a resignation is to find an exact replacement as quickly as possible so you don't disrupt the status quo. In some commodity-like roles (think outbound telemarketers who follow a tight script) hiring a immediate replacement is exactly what you want to do. In more senior positions, however, chances are you want to disrupt the status quo as each new hire represents the opportunity to more closely match your talent pool to your company's current and future goals.

For example, when a company is in start-up mode it might need lots of employees with a strong lead generation capability whereas when the company matures it might need to add people who can manage the order pipeline and mine existing relationships. A company that once had an engineering competency might have morphed into one with strength in technology and therefore might need to shift the hiring profile to reflect the company's new direction. Perhaps a company is expanding into a new geographic market and needs people who speak other languages. Or your vertical manager might need less of a focus on oil and gas and more on alternative sources of energy. If you don't have a talent plan in place that aligns people with your overall strategy, you might miss out on an opportunity to move your organization closer to its vision through your hiring practice.

I'll keep with the Chef theme to illustrate my point. Think of your company as a cake and your people as the ingredients that make the cake a success or a failure. A good cake is the result of mixing together the right ingredients in the correct amounts and then baking it at the right temperature. You don't just randomly start throwing sugar and butter and eggs into the oven: you need some sort of plan.

First, you need an overall vision for your cake. Is this cake for a bachelor party or a five year-old girl's princess-themed birthday party? Each requires a very different kind of cake. How many people does this cake need to feed? In this case, our vision is that we want to bake a cake that will dazzle a group of 15 princess-crazy party-goers.You want to see the face of the birthday girl light up as you carry the cake to the table. What is the vision for your company? Are you a luxury hotel chain where the care and comfort of your guests is your focus? Are you a company that brings the latest technology to the masses? Who are you? What do you bring to your customers? Why do your employees get out of bed in the morning?

Once you have a vision, you need to figure out a strategy that will bring that vision to life. If you want to dazzle pre-school princesses, look is probably more important than taste. You might do some market research to discover that sweet and sugary is popular among the Dora set. You are going to need a big fancy cake, preferably with a lot of glitter. Subtle flourless chocolate cakes need not apply. What strategy is going to bring your corporate vision to life? Are you the low-cost provider or do you provide white glove service with a smile? If you are the low cost provider, you need to manage your margins and your volume. How are you going to do that?

Now that you have a general idea of the type of cake you require, you need to make some concrete plans. You research "fancy princess cakes" on Pinterest and decide on the pink glitter castle cake. Perhaps there are detailed instructions for decorating the cake but no recipe for the cake itself. You know that you will need a stable base for the heavy fondant icing and glitter. You ask around and get a recipe that has worked for other people's castle cakes. You now know what ingredients you need. Once you have a clearly defined vision and strategy and start to think about action planning, you are ready to think about the skill sets you need to make your vision come to life. These are your ingredients: you need someone who is great at managing an international supply chain; you need someone who is excellent at negotiating vendor terms; or you need the best concierge in Paris to look after your guests' needs.

Now you can source the ingredients to make your cake. How full is your pantry? If you have been minding the kitchen you should have the basics in place. Hopefully your have an oven and some bowls and a spoon. Perhaps there is some flour around. And some butter. If you are new to baking or things have changed (perhaps you used to avoid sweets entirely) you may need to bring in a lot of new resources. In the leadership and development world, we call this a talent audit. What skills do you have? What skills do you still need? Who can you train? Who must you hire?

Perhaps your pantry is full and you only need vanilla extract. If you have vanilla beans and vodka on hand, you can make your own (think of this as employee development) Otherwise, you will need to go outside to source the vanilla extract. What type of vanilla extract do you need? How important is this vanilla extract to the success of your cake? Do you need the organic, hand-blended variety in the fancy glass bottle or is the generic label variety alright? (And as an aside, if you need the organic, hand-blended variety in the fancy glass bottle, you might want to hire a recruiter like Nancy to help you with that!) What is your budget? Does your local store have stock on hand? Are you willing to bring in the vanilla extract from another town? Your needs will dictate the sourcing strategy. Generic vanilla -- such as the type required for our sugar-soaked princess cake -- can be found quite easily. The fancy stuff requires a trip to a speciality store. A line manager should work with a recruiter (internal or third party) to draw up a list of specific skill requirements for the new role. It's tempting to simply use the existing job description but if you want to maximize this hiring opportunity it makes sense to think about exactly what skills you need today and in the future.

So there you have it. That's talent planning. It's looking at where you want to go as an organization and figure out how your people are going to take you there. You need to train and develop the people you have and add in new talent whenever you need to. When you break it down into smaller steps, building a great organization through people is, well, a piece of cake...


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Happy hunting!

Nancy


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