Development

Team Learning = Team Building

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Team building is a concept that has been around for a long time. No matter how team structures in organizations have been put together, there has always been a focus on how to improve the relationships between, and the productivity of, those who are ‘forced’ to work together. Most of us have choices about who/whom we want to spend our time with, and how much time we want to spend with them, outside of the work environment. Within a work setting, however, we may not have people and time options as we have to spend a set amount of time together with workplace colleagues who have been chosen for us. Given how much time is spent together each and every day with others in the workplace, it is no wonder that organizations continue to focus on how to nurture effective teams through on-going training programs that develop group learning processes.

An interesting article from 2001 outlines the positive impact of group learning on the long-term effects of team building.

Click here to read the article on group learning and team building.

While dated, the article reinforces concepts of team training and group development that are still relevant in today’s organizational learning culture. Many companies continue to offer team retreats where colleagues can challenge each other (and themselves) through various physical activities – such as Tree-top Trekking and Rock-wall Climbing. These adventure-based sessions are used to build trust and team accountability, which should translate back into the work environment in a productive way.

In addition to these physical or traditional team building efforts, the opportunities to apply learning that develops team problem solving and brainstorming skills are on the rise. For example, creative team building options come with access to events such as ‘Escape Rooms’ where participants must work together using ‘mental capacities’ such as ‘brainpower’ and ‘logic’.

Click here to read about ‘Escape Rooms’ as a team learning program.

No matter what or how the opportunities are provided into the future, what has not changed is the understanding that good teams come from forming good relationships, sharing good learning, and experiencing good times together.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Thinking of the team you work with most recently, which type of team learning session would be more challenging for the group – ‘Tree-top Trekking’ or ‘Escape Room’? Explain your rationale.
  2. What are the cost-benefits, based on the investment of both time and money for adventure based learning, in the development of team-based organization culture and productivity?
  3. How does informal team-building impact work-place productivity? Do you agree that it is beneficial? Explain your rationale.

The Disengagement Gap

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In many of the HRM NOW! blogs, I have talked about various gaps.

We have the pay equity gap, the PPE gender gap, and now we have a new gap for HR professionals to ponder – the disengagement gap.

But before we get to that, let’s discuss pondering.

Pondering is something more HR professionals should do. HR is good at strategizing, executing and implementing, but pondering is something to add to the HR toolbox.

To ponder is to weigh in with the mind, think about and reflect on, and with this disengagement gap, HR may need to ponder the causes. There seems to be some illogical human behaviour in the disengagement gap, and this is something HR should definitely ponder.

What is the disengagement gap and why is it happening?

An article on HRD calls the disengagement gap ‘a complacency conundrum’:

This DG or the complacency conundrum seems to be incessant in modern day workplaces. A recent North America survey showed the following:

  • 70% of employees are disengaged
  • Only 35 % are planning to leave their organization

This is a strange workplace behaviour. Employees are not happy with their work but are unwilling to change jobs.

This is especially strange when North America has some of the lowest unemployment rates in years. Low unemployment rates should make it easier for employees to leave jobs they do not like.  However, this was not happening in 2018, where 74% of employees were willing to leave their jobs, but in 2019, only 35% are.  Why the drastic drop?

HR professionals must consider why the change in employee’s attitudes. It’s not because employees love their jobs, because most do not.  All HR departments should begin a quest to understand how to engage their employees on a personal level. HR departments that start to ponder and develop some solutions to resolve this disengagement gap will see great performance benefits.

Discussion Questions

Improve your skills as a new HR professional by clicking on Dr. Natalie Baumgartner’s website. Pick one of her posts to read and review, and then ask yourself how an HR department could start to implement some of her ideas about employee engagement.

Smart tips for HR professionals

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Developing employees is a critical skill set for all HR professionals. But how do you know which system is the best to develop your employees?

There are many different performance management systems. Like any other complex organizational issue, there is never one right answer to an HR problem. Most of the time the right solution is dependent on many organizational factors. The best an HR professional can do is to learn and analyze many systems, and then make a judgement call on what is the best intervention for their organization at that moment in time.

You may want to start looking at what is happening in performance management trends. It seems that many HR professionals and organizations are rethinking their annual performance review systems.

Jason Averbrook in his new book called, the Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience – Leap for a Purpose, shares this thought with us: “Employees don’t want feedback, they want attention.”

The once-a-year performance review does not give the employee enough attention. Averbrook goes on to say that 60 percent of companies are beginning to reshape their performance review systems.

Click here to read more about Jason Averbrook’s ideas. 

For decades, organizations have been using the traditional annual reviews that rate and rank employees. These annual rating and ranking systems seem to be of less value as time moves on and as organizational needs and employees’ values change.  Traditional performance review systems focus on the employee’s past behavior, and not their current behaviour. Today’s organizational deliverables are changing rapidly; looking back over the last year of an employee’s behaviour adds minimal productive value to the HR equation and therefore adds little to the employees’ or organization’s performance.

If the annual employee performance review systems are no longer viable, HR departments must begin to implement new modern day performance measurement systems that meet the needs of the employees and the needs of the rapidly changing business world.  Here is a list of the some of the recent trends in performance management:

  • Frequent real-time feedback instead of one-shot annual reviews
  • Decoupling performance reviews from administrative practices such as annual merit pay or bonuses
  • Dropping the ranking systems: think of what an employee can do, not what they have done

Employees want more frequent and focused attention to help them develop and perform. HR needs to investigate these new trends in performance management, and then begin to implement new methods to keep improving performance results.

Discussion Questions

Research and identify three large organizations that are moving away from the annual performance review system, then discuss what they are using to replace it.

Strategic Funding

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Money talks.

3d rendering robotic hand holding gold coins isolated on white
Phonlamai Photo/Shutterstock

To paraphrase a familiar saying, ‘show me your budget, and I’ll show you what you value’. The allocation of strategic funding sets up the symbiotic relationship between financial resources and organizational goals. Organizations need both the long-term strategic vision and the immediate allocation of resources to achieve that vision for the future.

When organizational planning take place within the broader context of environmental scanning, the future is determined by actions in the present. We can see an example of strategic forecasting through funding when we look to the 2017 Canadian federal budget announcements.

As part of these announcements, the federal government allocated $125 million to develop and promote Canada as a world leader in digital innovation.

Click here to read a summary of the funding announcement.

Click here to read the impact of the announcement on industry. 

From a Human Resources strategic planning perspective, this is a big deal.

The environment of the workplace being shaped now, through both funding and resource allocations is based in the digital world. This means that the workforce will need to understand and develop a proactive approach to artificial intelligence and digital infrastructures. The traditional approach to who performs the work and what work is performed is changing as we continue to deploy digital innovations in Canadian workplaces.

The breadth and scope of the implementation of artificial intelligence and digital knowledge ‎in those workplaces will determine who is part of the workforce of the future. Based on these funding announcements, it looks like the money might be on the robots.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What are the pros and cons of creating jobs that will be needed in the ‘fintech’ industry?
  2. As a Human Resources practitioner, how can you plan for the creation of jobs that are based in artificial intelligence?
  3. Why does Canada need to be part of a push for digital innovation?

Talent Champion

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Who to develop?

superhero businessman looking at city skyline at sunset. the concept of success, leadership and victory in business.
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The psychological contract of a lifetime of work with one employer is long gone. In our globalized workplace it was replaced with the concept of developing oneself in the workplace.

According to Daphne Woolf, many senior leaders are not as good at developing talent in others as they think they are or as they should be. Her video illustrates the concepts of “Talent Champion” who understand that they are responsible for developing others more than developing themselves and if they don’t have this skill set it can be developed.

Many successful senior leaders obtained their position by being operational experts in their industry, not necessarily talent experts. But when they reach that senior level they must be both an operational expert and a talent champion.

Click here to watch a video with Daphne Wolf

Daphne Wolf believes a Talent Champion can be developed by doing the following:

  • Assessing the senior executive strengths in developing others.
  • Embed the concept in the senior executive that developing others is a fundamental responsibility of their role.
  • Give them the skills and strategies on how to mentor others.

Developing Talent Champions within an organization needs to become a proactive activity not just a passive activity. This can only happen if the senior executive is naturally affiliated to develop others. HR departments need to take a leadership role in ensuring that the coaching and mentoring of others is a core competency of all senior executives.

Discussion Questions

  1. Research to see if you can find a simple but effective mentoring-others self-assessment tool.
  2. Once you have found a tool use it to measure yourself on your ability to mentor others. Where are your strengths and where are your areas of improvement?
  3. Review some senior executive’s job description. Determine if they have ‘developing others’ as part of their job description. If so, identify some common terminology.