Targets

Forecasting for Diversity

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How can organizations address the ongoing issues of diversity gaps in leadership?

This question is one that is explored by Rocio Lorenzo in the Ted Talk posted below.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPtPG2lAmm4[/embedyt]

As identified through Lorenzo’s research, organizations have two decisions to make:

  1. Who to hire?
  2. Who to develop and promote?

These two simple questions are critical when considering the development of the HR forecasting plan. When diversity in leadership is actively embedded into strategic goals, the answers to these two questions help to build a better organization.

Not, as Lorenzo says, that changing the face of leadership is about checking the targeted hiring box. Token targets through diversity plans are not enough to bring innovative change. Instead, organizations that think and build creativity into their forecasting plans use leadership development programs, tools and pools as a solid investment for future success. In order to change what leadership looks like at the top, a commitment to filling the diversity gaps through the HR forecasting process must drive through all levels of the organization.

The content for this Ted Talk is based on evidence based research. According to Lorenzo, diversity in leadership is not just a theoretical ‘nice-to-have’. The research tells us that it is an organizational ‘must-have’. As Lorenzo points out, achieving diversity with women in leadership roles is doable.

It takes an organizational commitment and the organizational decision to do better in order to make the doable achievable. In order to be achievable, the HR forecasting plan must come into play through targets and goals which implement diversity as a plan of action.

Diversity goes hand in hand with innovation. Together they drive organizational success, for real.

Discussion questions:

  1. Do you agree that organizations should establish active and measurable targets in order to implement diversity, specifically for women, in leadership? Explain your rationale.
  2. Identify how an HR forecasting plan can address both short and long term diversity goals.
  3. What types of HR programs and policies need to be in place in order to support an HR forecasting plan that promotes innovation and diversity?

 

 

Motivation Gone Mad

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Concept of failure of a businessman--man fed to sharks
alphaspirit/Shutterstock

Our compensation studies focus on the push and pull of organizational rewards systems, and their direct link to employee behaviours. These systems are built on theories of human motivation, which guide our thinking about the way employees are supposed to react and respond in order to achieve organizational goals.

Usually these rewards systems focus on positive outcomes based on targeted goals. Positive outcomes are meant to reinforce constructive employee behaviours. What happens, however, when the pressure to achieve an expected goal overwhelms the employee’s ability to behave in a positive way?

The TD Bank Group has been in the news recently due to its targeted sales practices that have resulted in allegations of unethical and possibly illegal employee behaviours.

Click here to view the CBC report.

Click here to view the follow up CBC report.

While the allegations by employees in these reports are shocking, the revenue goals for the bank have been achieved. Bank profits have increased. Sales targets have been met. Underperforming employees have been placed on ‘Performance Improvement Plans’ to align expected behaviours with targeted sales-based performance objectives.

The questions must be asked: At what cost? Do the ends, in this particular situation, really justify the means?

This case appears to provide an extreme example of fear-based motivation. Fear of job-loss overrides the ethical judgement of employees and forces them into negative behaviours. The negative behaviours have a lesser consequence for employees than that of losing their jobs. In the context of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory (outlined in our compensation studies), job-loss for these employees means that they will be unable to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. The choice to ensure that an employee’s personal food and shelter needs are met has a stronger pull than making ethically sound decisions for others.

This case points an accusing finger, not at the individual employees, but at the senior executive managers within the TD Bank Group, and at the system of rewards that are in place to motivate and influence the whole.

Discussion Questions:

  1. After reviewing the two articles, identify specific elements of motivational theory that are evident in employee reactions.
  2. As a bank manager, what types of rewards would you implement in order to influence employees to achieve profit-related targets?
  3. As an employee required to achieve these types of sales targets, how would you respond? What decisions would you make based on your personal ethics and values?