01: Strategic Management

The Power of Three

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Vision. Mission. Values. These three elements form the fundamental pillars for an organization’s strategic plan. When we look at each of these as separate elements, they have inherent power. Vision is the big idea that drives and pulls the organization into its future self. Mission articulates the purpose or the reason for being in the organizational marketplace. Values are the beliefs upon which the organization exists in order to represent itself with its moral, ethical, and social character.

When these three separate elements are joined together, their power becomes solidified. Like a three-legged stool, their strength is reinforced through their reliance on each other. One leg does not function without the other two, and all three provide the basis of support for the organization’s success. Should one of the legs be weakened or break, the entire entity will topple over.

An example of how the strength of these elements work together—to support organizational and human resources success—can be found in a short interview with the CEO and President of Schneider Electric, Annette Clayton.

Click here to read the interview with CEO Clayton.

Click here to find out more about Schneider Electric.

As noted in the CEO’s responses, Schneider Electric has not only built its award-winning success on the “highest levels of business integrity,” it is deeply committed to its “people strategy,” so it can remain competitive within the industry, and future-focused to achieve its vision. As the organizational leader, the CEO can clearly articulate how organizational values shape her decision-making processes. It is also interesting to note how critical the role of Human Resources is, not only as a partner to the CEO, but also as a leadership champion for successful changes in implementing its strategic commitments to its people.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How can Human Resources use organizational values in the development of a “people strategy”?
  2. Think about your own work experiences. How did an organization’s vision, mission, and values impact you as an employee? Were these elements evident in the workplace? What advice would you give to your employer to change or improve the visibility and impact of the organization’s vision, mission, and values?

HR Tells The Strategic Story

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Once upon a time the Human Resources role had little to do with numbers, data, and analytics. The numbers used to be in the purview of the organizational finance function. Data analysis, in its early stages, may have been linked to finance, but was usually found in the Information Technology department. The Human Resources (HR) function was associated with making sure people entered and exited the organization based on the needs of other business units. As these other functions were presumed to have control over numbers and data, the HR role was not seen the active driver for organizational strategy.

This story has changed.

According to a recent global research project comparing past and present use of data and analytics in organizations, HR is now the ‘most analytics function in business.’

Click here to read the results of the global research project and HR’s role.

As noted in the results, HR respondents outpace those from the finance areas in the use of artificial intelligence, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. These areas are used to track, monitor, and forecast key HR strategic planning elements such as supply and demand for human capital, succession planning, change management, downsizing, and restructuring. All of these are the elements of our studies and provide the focus for the strategic role of HR within any organization.

The tools provided through the use of artificial intelligence, including predictive and prescriptive analytics, are rightly placed in the realm of the HR function. Through the use of analytics, HR is both the transformational agent for, and the storyteller of, the strategic organizational plan. It is HR’s role to collect and control data, translate that data into information and use that information to shape and tell the organizational story.

That story is the tale of where the organization was, where it is and where it is going, as told through the power of analytics and HR.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does predictive analytics link to the forecasting of HR supply and demand?
  2. Why is it important for the HR and the Finance function to work collaboratively when analyzing workforce data?
  3. How can HR use predictive analytics to shape a pro-active succession planning model?
  4. What is the difference in predictive and prescriptive analytics? How can each be used for HR planning?

Mission, Vision, and Values

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The mantra of mission, vision, and values has been at the core of most modern-day organizations for many decades. Even though many organization’s mission, vision and values statements are sometimes lost from creation to implementation, they are still very important to their success and defined culture.

Many are saying that in the upcoming digital transformation of the workplace, culture will be even more important to organizational success than it is today. According to Edgar Schein, Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management:

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you.”

Many organizations have great products, but if they don’t proactively manage their culture, bad things happen. Remember the Volkswagen emissions scandal?  Here is an excerpt from VW’s mission statement:

“We assume responsibility regarding the environment, safety, and social issues. We act with integrity.”

I think most would agree that knowingly falsifying diesel emissions is not in alignment with the mission statement.  How does an organization’s culture get so off track? If you believe Schein, VW failed to manage their culture and they paid dearly for the misalignment, some say up to $33 billion for the scandal.

Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of Human Capital Management (HCM) Innovation at Ultimate Software, believes we need to reorder how we manage our organizations. Vision still comes first, and she also believes in putting culture before strategy. She believes culture is the true driver of any organizational strategy.  (Click here to read her article)

Discussion Questions

Research a company from a traditional industry and compare it to a new hi-tech company. Compare their mission, vision, and values.  How do they define each of the workplace cultures?

As a new HR professional, do you think workplace culture will be more or less important in organizations that are undergoing a digital transformation?  Support and defend your position.

Going for the Gold

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In the spirit of the Olympic games, the media is full of inspiring stories featuring passionate and committed Canadian athletes focused on the achievement of excellence. That achievement comes with multiple rewards, including the high honour of Olympic gold, given for outstanding athletic performance.

Gold-winning strategies are not the domain of Canadian athletes alone, however. Every year, the online publication Canadian Business highlights and gives awards to the Best Managed Companies in Canada. For the fifth year in a row Napoleon Grills, a used-to-be-small manufacturing company located in Barrie, Ontario, has hit the list as a gold winner for outstanding business performance.

Click here to read about gold-winning Napoleon Grills.

The article shows that this is no typical Canadian business success story. When reading this piece in view of our studies, it becomes apparent that Napoleon Grills has implemented numerous elements that could have been pulled directly from our textbook on strategic human resources planning.

This particular company been able to put its ‘big picture’ corporate strategy into daily practice. While the end goal is the production of a high quality Canadian product, that goal is achieved with the combination of:

  • effective leadership;
  • sound corporate culture;
  • high levels of employee engagement;
  • future-focused succession planning;
  • a commitment to excellence.

Most importantly, the article highlights the need for a clear and consistent strategic vision that drives every decision, every contact, and every product that Napoleon Grills makes.

A gold winning performance indeed!

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. From your reading of the article, identify and explain the link between the organization’s vision and its success to date.
  2. If you were the Human Resources director for the Napoleon Group of Companies, how could you ensure that the company continues to be successful through the succession management process?
  3. Identify and apply the seven steps of “Strategic Planning Process” from your text book readings to this article.

 

Upcoming HR Trends, 2018

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HR trends may not be radically changing year after year, but they are becoming more intense and more critical to organization success. Every year the HR professional should consider what the current success driver for HR is in their industry. You never want to be the dinosaur asking, “does anyone else feel it’s getting colder here?” To avoid becoming obsolete in your profession you need to stay on top of what is happening in the external business world, and reflect on industry trends.

  • Here is a 2017 survey that sums up some of the current HR trends:
  • Less transaction, more strategy
  • Less formal but more frequent feedback
  • Less manual process, more data

Click here to read about the Paycor HR trends survey.

These are not radical trends, nor are they particularly disruptive, but they are important changes in HR. Each one should be reflected upon by the HR professional. All HR professionals should ask themselves the following big questions every year:

  1. Which transactional activity does HR do that is obsolete?
  2. What is the most important area of business strategy I should focus on this year?
  3. How can HR improve the employee performance management system this year?
  4. What HR data should we keep tracking? What data should we stop tracking? What data should we start tracking?

Doing this on a regular basis will keep you and your organization current, and will enable your organization to be proactive instead of reactive. This is what Jim Collins calls the flywheel effect in his book “Good to Great”.

Combine the flywheel concept with a reflective HR practice and there is business success in the forecast.

Discussion questions:

Read the Paycor HR trends and survey. Pick the HR trend you feel is the most important, explaining your decision. In addition, research a company that is a leader with respect to that trend.

Click on this link. Pick one of Jim Collins’ articles and create a 3-minute presentation summary of the topic.