Talent Report: Emerging Leaders, Planning for Your Organizational Future

Talent Report+THRIVE

Description: In this episode, we’ll explore the May edition of MRA's monthly Talent Report: Emerging Leaders, Planning for Your Organizational Future!

We’ll hear from Jim Morgan, Vice President of Workforce Strategies, on best practices regarding emerging leaders, uncover C-Suite priorities and top creative HR strategies, learn how to improve employee retention, and more!

Resources:

Talent Report+ Webinar Series

MRA Membership

About MRA

Let's Connect:

Guest Bio - Jim Morgan

Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan

Host Bio - Sophie Boler

Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR. powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.

00:00:21:04 - 00:00:42:16
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive, I'm excited to go over this month's talent report with Jim Morgan, our vice president of Workforce Strategies here at MRA. We're going to kind of go into what he's been seeing talent wise this month of May. So I know this month kind of highlighted emerging leaders as the featured topic, too.

00:00:42:17 - 00:01:12:18
Unknown
So I'm excited to kind of talk about that and put that into the conversation, too. Okay. Looking forward to it. But just as a reminder, if you aren't familiar with the monthly talent report, Jim Morgan gives an up to the minute review of what's going on in the world of business in HR., with an emphasis on talent. And that's based on input from CEOs, CFOs and H.R. leaders from MRA's 3000 plus member companies, 1000 roundtable participants and subject matter experts.

00:01:12:21 - 00:01:38:09
Unknown
So again, thanks for coming on the podcast. My pleasure, Jim. So we'll kind of kick off the episode talking about what's happening in the recruiting and retention world. So, Jim, what are you seeing here this month? Well, we found a really interesting one. This was in northern Wisconsin, and we're always talking with companies about is there a niche of people that you can attract, that you can really sort of absorb into your workplace and differentiate yourself in the market?

00:01:38:11 - 00:01:58:06
Unknown
And in this case, they had a number of Hispanic speaking people. And in that area there is a pretty good population of Hispanic people. And so they had found that, you know, they were trying to accommodate that people that had English as a second language. And as they saw more and more people coming in, they thought, you know, there's more and more that we can do.

00:01:58:06 - 00:02:22:07
Unknown
And so, one, they began to offer English as a second language to the people that were primarily Spanish speaking, but they also turned it around the other way and were helping their English speaking people learn Spanish or if they had had Spanish before. You were mentioning before the podcast that, you know, you had an outstanding high school experience and got a great grade and went on to take it in college, but then maybe you don't use it for a few years.

00:02:22:10 - 00:02:46:11
Unknown
So they would do the refresher so that people could understand a little bit more Spanish. And so then the communications began to improve. They had some interpreters that they were floating around their three shifts in an effort to help them sort of facilitate conversation. And then they actually worked with their technical college that, you know, learning a language is one thing, but learning it specific to an industry is another.

00:02:46:13 - 00:03:11:12
Unknown
And so they had the technical college come in and sit in on some of the conversations, and this was our food manufacturing business. So they learned words like, you know, volume and moisture and P-H and things that may not be in your Spanish 1 to 1 when you're learning dog and cat and things like that, but more specific to the industry so that when the harder words came up, both sides of it began to understand.

00:03:11:15 - 00:03:35:24
Unknown
They made sure all of their signs were, you know, bilingual, not only by law, but you know, in addition putting up additional signage as well. Anyway, the long and the short of this was that this began to spread through the Hispanic community. And they were saying, wow, if you come to this company, they really seem to care about making us feel at home, making sure that we can be heard, making sure we can communicate with others.

00:03:35:27 - 00:03:56:27
Unknown
And it actually has become sort of a talent supply chain issue for them now, where they're finding out that people are making a conscious choice to come work for them because of all the effort they're putting in to make them feel comfortable. And so, again, as you know, we talk about trying to match the work life balance of people to try to match what your employees want in terms of needs.

00:03:57:00 - 00:04:24:10
Unknown
Here was one where it was really a language thing, put a real emphasis on let's make that's remove the language thing from the barriers. And as a result, they've sort of become a magnet now for English as a second language group people. Scott That's an interesting recruiting and retention tactic, and I feel like it's one thing to say that you can do all of that in a company, but it's also another thing to actually implement that and yeah, kind of show that culture around.

00:04:24:10 - 00:04:42:04
Unknown
So that's cool. Yeah. And it's obviously so important to these people if they're going home and yeah, you know, telling me, telling their friends, you know, and so it becomes a topic of discussion and all of a sudden they're seeing people come in and you know, they're coming because it's a comfortable place to be. Yeah, exactly. Successful tool, right?

00:04:42:09 - 00:05:06:06
Unknown
That's right. So I mentioned earlier that emerging leaders was a topic that was highlighted this month in the talent report in MRA, just actually released their results of our Hot Topic survey on emerging leaders. So can you talk about that survey and the results a little bit? Was there anything that kind of jumped out at you? Yeah, I would say what it did was confirm some things we thought we already knew.

00:05:06:06 - 00:05:26:25
Unknown
And it is almost become I've sort of developed this hierarchy now of emerging leaders, which if I go into almost any company and I say to them, Do you have emerging leaders? And they'll say, Oh yeah, we have emerging leaders. And I said, Interesting. You know, have you identified them? We sort of know who they are and where they're at.

00:05:26:26 - 00:05:51:14
Unknown
Okay. Do they know that you've identified them as an emerging leader? And usually the answer then becomes, well, no. Yeah. And said, well, you know, why haven't you identified them? Well, we're not clear on the criteria and we don't really have a game plan for them after we've identified them. And you kind of go through this list and you're sort of realizing that everybody knows it's a big deal, everybody knows who they are, and then it gets hard.

00:05:51:14 - 00:06:13:01
Unknown
And then that sort of where it begins to drop off. And so when we started, one of the questions that we asked in the survey was, you know, what's the criteria for your emerging leaders? And they're, you know, 90 plus percent said, oh, high potential or, you know, good work ethic. And some of these you know, I'll know it when I see it, but I'm not quite sure how I put a measurement on it.

00:06:13:03 - 00:06:43:24
Unknown
And really not so much about getting a little more specific, like because they live the mission and vision of the organization, because they're looking to develop their skill side, because they have a learning plan in place and have worked with their manager to see this is how they're going to upgrade all that they're doing. And what it really began to confirm for us as we're trying to help companies with their own emerging leaders is there's got to be a whole bunch of steps put in place here that says this emerging leader program has to tie to your succession plan.

00:06:43:25 - 00:07:05:25
Unknown
It has to be tied to your mission and goals. You've got to have a career plan in place for these folks. There has to be a learning and development plan. They have to be able to apply what you're trying to teach. Because if you tell me I'm an emerging leader and what I get out of that is a whole bunch more work because, you know, I'm trying out and I'm doing things that's great and I'll feel good about that.

00:07:05:25 - 00:07:29:16
Unknown
But, you know, is there a recognition component? Is there a compensation component? Is there a promotion component? Is there a learning and development component? And so what we're really starting to see is this is really important for companies. They understand the value of it, and now they're just sort of getting to I'm not sure we can just say the emerging leaders are who I think they are, but it's criteria based.

00:07:29:16 - 00:07:49:18
Unknown
It's confirmed by the senior team, by their supervisor. Other people that work with them that, yep, you know, this is someone who goes the extra mile. This is someone who really understands the organization and then we have to put in place, okay, well, what does that mean? And then how do we continue to build them up? So we did learn that, you know, there are companies that have some criteria.

00:07:49:18 - 00:08:09:23
Unknown
They've gone through the whole thing and using some of those best practices. Now we're working with other companies to say, all right, you know, have you done this? Have you done this and have you done this Because in Emerging Leaders program that only consists of, well, we know who they are and that's the end of it doesn't really qualify as an emerging leader program.

00:08:09:25 - 00:08:31:14
Unknown
And going off of that, as you're talking about emerging leader programs, you mentioned this and talent thinking section. So you talked about how emerging leader programs can help with retention and as a kind of aid as a retention tool. So can you expand on that a little bit more? Yeah, You know, and I think we've gone through this.

00:08:31:14 - 00:08:49:06
Unknown
You know, we had a couple of years of everybody frantically trying to attract talent that just churning that, you know, as many as we can. Let's get them as quickly as we can and hopefully bringing in more people than were going somewhere else. And while that's still going on, I think that pendulum has stopped swinging quite so much.

00:08:49:09 - 00:09:06:06
Unknown
And the attraction, while still important, has now focused a little bit more on retention, like, okay, we're gonna go through all this work to try to attract these people. How do we then hang on to them and ultimately how do we hang on to the best of our best? And I would argue that that's probably your emerging leaders.

00:09:06:08 - 00:09:34:16
Unknown
And so this is a group of people that, you know, that they're high fliers, you know, that they're high motor, their high energy. They're looking to be recognized for that. They're looking to have growth opportunities. They're looking for opportunities to, you know, move up in their career. And so now it has become a retention strategy that says we can't just say we have an emerging leader program and say, hey, self-congratulation, journey, emerging leader.

00:09:34:18 - 00:09:55:10
Unknown
That doesn't mean much to Sophie or if we say to Sophie, what we'd like you to do now is we're going to do a skills assessment of you and see where you're strong, in which case we'll just keep building on those and maybe some areas where you haven't had the opportunity for experience. And we'll give you more of that and make you more broad based and give you a little bit more breadth in what you know about the organization.

00:09:55:13 - 00:10:18:21
Unknown
Will give you some applicable opportunities. Maybe we'll have you run a project, we'll have you get on a volunteer board somewhere, will expose you to the executive committee and the board of directors. Those types of opportunities that now say, Wow, somebody has recognized what I'm doing. They publicly recognize it to say, Hey, these are our emerging leaders for the year and here's what's about to happen.

00:10:18:23 - 00:10:37:05
Unknown
And so I think now they're seeing, oh, I've got a future here. People are taking an interest in me because if they become unengaged, that's when they start looking. What if you're keeping sort of that carried out there that says there's opportunities for you, there's growth for you now that's become part of. All right. You know, we've got these best and brightest.

00:10:37:05 - 00:11:14:17
Unknown
How do we make sure we keep them? It seems like there's more of a strategic plan involved with the emerging. Yeah, and that's a really good point, because first of all, if there isn't any plan that bad. Second, if the plan is almost department by department, that's that's good. But it's not a strategic initiative for the organization. Whereas if the organization has said, now, look, we need we're going to need to fill position, you know, the number of people that are saying, yeah, of our 12 leaders in the organization, seven of them are going to retire in the next three years, or we just lost 200 years of experience with our last round of retirements

00:11:14:17 - 00:11:39:13
Unknown
in the past 12 months. Those are things that people are having to start to plan for now. And an emerging leader program is really, you know, sort of the way to build that bench and build those succession planning for sure. So is there anything else you want to highlight in that talent thinking section? Well, I think, you know, really your point on the strategy part of it that says this is our succession planning.

00:11:39:13 - 00:12:03:03
Unknown
This is not only trying to fill the C-suite positions, but to try to fill all of our critical positions. And that might be, you know, somebody on the factory floor, might be somebody in the accounting department, it might be someone at the front desk. There are jobs that, you know, are going to be important. And when that person goes, you're going to have to try to figure out what are we going to do in all of these and how are we going to fill them.

00:12:03:03 - 00:12:25:20
Unknown
So I think it really that strategic part is really become a big part of, yeah, all of the emerging leader work that companies are doing. Mm hmm. And you just talk about succession planning and that's kind of been a buzzword, I feel like nowadays. And just more frequently I feel like I've heard that. But in terms of C-suite level, what are leaders really doing with that and what are they doing now?

00:12:25:23 - 00:12:53:09
Unknown
You know, I think people always want to say they've got a succession plan and I think people are really trying to push now to say, you know, the succession plan doesn't come when the person gives three weeks notice. The succession comes long before that. And I think there's two sort of parts of this. One is, you know, not to be crude, but what's the succession plan if the person gets hit by a bus tomorrow and we don't see them again, because that's a next day.

00:12:53:10 - 00:13:14:01
Unknown
Yeah. And it happens. And that may not be the long term fix, but who is the person that you know? Okay, let's take you you're running our social media. If you're not there the next day, does anybody know what we're doing in social media? It doesn't have to be their primary job. It can someone walk in the next day and say, wow, here's everything that you had planned.

00:13:14:03 - 00:13:39:25
Unknown
They may not be our permanent solution, but there's somebody who can step in the next day. And from the external world, they don't know that we miss a beat so that succession planning part one and then part two is did we plan someone that was going to be the next person up to say, okay, this person can get us through the next two weeks, three weeks, the month, but then we've got to get this other person off speed and they can take it on the long term.

00:13:39:27 - 00:14:01:07
Unknown
So I think from the C-suite perspective, they're trying to look at both. And then they're also with the emerging leaders. You know, this is kind of a balance to say right now, if I said to you, congratulations, you're an emerging leader here. I can't really follow that up and say, you know what? And in six months you'll be our director of marketing, because I don't know if that's what's going to happen.

00:14:01:07 - 00:14:19:09
Unknown
We've got a director of marketing and he does a wonderful job. So I don't know if he's going to be here or not be here, so I can't say that to him. So from a C-suite perspective, I think there's almost a there's no promises here. I can't guarantee you a raise or a promotion or whatever. What I can tell you is we're going to support you in all of this.

00:14:19:09 - 00:14:38:03
Unknown
We'll put resources into you and you are going to be in a much better position that should that job open up or should that opportunity become available, you'll be ready to fill it. And that's, I think, what we're trying to prepare that next generation. And as much as someone might say, okay, if I do this in six months, how much more money do I make?

00:14:38:06 - 00:14:55:17
Unknown
I'd love to be able to tell you that. But if you're still doing the exact same job right, then that's not something that I can. Yeah, that's a good point. So trying to make sure that everybody is realistic in their expectations that we're going to make sure you are as ready as you can possibly be. Yeah. And then we just have to sort of see what happens.

00:14:55:18 - 00:15:17:07
Unknown
Yeah. I feel like being realistic is a great point to bring out because you don't want to make any promises that are going to come true or give high hopes to someone that I don't know. Those things might not happen to them. Yeah. And we also then, you know, we added that to the CEO, to the C-suite, that there was a new CHRO poll that came out sort of asking what they were thinking.

00:15:17:07 - 00:15:39:06
Unknown
And we confirmed this, you know, with some of the CEOs and CFOs, too. But there seems to be for the first quarter anyway, at least some optimism that the world is settling down a little. And I say that because we're going from completely frantic hair on fire to maybe just completely frantic. Yeah, that's still better step down. But it's not like we're all sitting back and, you know, enjoying life.

00:15:39:06 - 00:15:57:27
Unknown
But at least the turnover has stopped a little. It seems like the are out the door, back in the door. All of that has slowed down a little. And when we just had the Talent Report, one of the questions we asked is, you know, sort of where are you at right now? And one of the choices is, hey, I at least I have time to breathe.

00:15:57:29 - 00:16:20:07
Unknown
And a majority of the people said at least they have time to breathe. So that's a little bit better. And at least can you do some strategic thinking? The first quarter went relatively well for most industries, so nowhere near normal when I think people feeling just a little bit better about what's going on for sure. Mm hmm. Well, earlier we talked about some of the characteristics of emerging leaders.

00:16:20:07 - 00:16:51:27
Unknown
But I know you have a chart that it kind of explains the criteria used to also identify emerging leaders. So can you talk about what's on the chart or a few points on the chart? Yeah. You know, and as I said a little bit earlier, when I was talking about the emerging leaders that, you know, high performer, high potential and there's almost an intrinsic like, yeah, I know the people that are getting stuff done and those, you know, were like, you know, in the nineties but those were followed relatively closely by demonstrated motivation and desire.

00:16:51:29 - 00:17:10:23
Unknown
The behavior aligns with the organizational values. They're a team player. And so I think you're starting to get, you know, some of them maybe more subjective. They're doing the things that we want them to do. Now, measuring some of those are difficult, but even team player, you know, that's coming from other folks who are saying, you know, I enjoy working with Sophie.

00:17:10:23 - 00:17:36:29
Unknown
She's easy to work with. She's flexible. She, you know, listens to other people ideas. And so, you know, they had some of those things in there. And then I'd say, you know, the next round still, you know, in the 70% influence and it inspires other employees, has a real knowledge of the organization, takes the initiative they're those people are I didn't you know you didn't have to go say hey, this isn't getting done.

00:17:36:29 - 00:17:51:05
Unknown
You know, they're the ones who say like, I'll do it. Yeah, you know, might be outside their area, but you know that they're going to step up or you're sitting in a meeting and you just say, Boy, we really need some help on blank. It's the person who raises their hands as well. You know, I can do it.

00:17:51:05 - 00:18:16:27
Unknown
Yeah. And so, you know, you see those things and other people see it. So you start getting a little bit of. That's what's going on out there. Mm hmm. And then lower down. But I think the pandemic sort of showed this. It's it's the, you know, who's who's willing to be the person that's there who was willing to just kind of roll with it and say, okay, I'm going to be flexible here.

00:18:16:27 - 00:18:42:07
Unknown
I understand there's a hardship here. I'm going to take this. This isn't really my job, but I understand there's somebody else here who can't do it. This person dealt with an illness, this sort of thing happens. So they really were good under fire, I think in almost every organization as they went through the pandemic, you just saw certain people who just sort of ducked down and said, I'm just going to hope this thing passes and I'll still be here.

00:18:42:09 - 00:18:58:04
Unknown
And the others who stepped up and said, All right, we're not going to able to do things the way that we used to do them. So I'll come in and I'll help with this part. Might just be for a month, might be for a year, might be until, you know, normalcy returns about now. But they were the ones who just always raised their hand.

00:18:58:05 - 00:19:19:12
Unknown
Yeah, that's interesting that you can identify, I don't know, a high performer, high potential from a global pandemic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, for all the bad things that happened, it certainly nothing else the pandemic sort of showed us. Yeah. Who can work remotely. Exactly. Who can step up and who is adaptable. Yeah, we did pick up on those.

00:19:19:14 - 00:19:47:08
Unknown
Well, as we kind of wrap up here, I've always got to ask if you can give us a sneak peek to what next months our part looks like for June. Yeah, I'm very excited. We're going to talk about employee engagement and employee assessments and, you know, similar to almost what we talked about today, there's a lot of companies that will say, Oh yeah, you know, we want to know more about employee engagement and yeah, we want to know how our people are feeling and they might do it from a gut feel, which isn't all bad, you know.

00:19:47:10 - 00:20:13:13
Unknown
But you also really want to find out what people are thinking and why they're thinking that and once you get those results, you really want to put something in place that says, All right, look, they told us this and that. We got to dig deeper into that and maybe do some focus groups and sit down with a group of employees or by department, have some different discussions because, you know, if you don't ask the questions, you don't have any idea what the answers are.

00:20:13:16 - 00:20:31:19
Unknown
And the flip side of that being is if you do ask the questions, you better do something about it. And so we're going to have a discussion with Kristie Haase about just, you know, what do some of those assessments look like? What happens when you're done with those assessments? What is some of the follow up, you know, and what do you see from companies that really do it well?

00:20:31:22 - 00:20:53:10
Unknown
And what are some some of the best practices out there? So again, with this emphasis on retention and keeping people happy, one of the things that we're really, you know, seeing more and more because of the pandemic, because of the these last two generations, is you really have to start to know the individual and what they want. And sort of a one size fits all doesn't really work anymore.

00:20:53:10 - 00:21:20:11
Unknown
Yeah. So we'll have some pretty, I think, interesting discussions around best practices and employee engagement and employee assessment. Yeah, awesome. I'm looking forward to it. Do you have any last pieces of advice you want to leave the listeners and I know you've given a lot, but any and I know your last mike Drop my, my mike drop. Okay Yeah I think my mike drop is, you know, sort of hanging in there and we just had our our conference, we had about 500 people there.

00:21:20:11 - 00:21:41:23
Unknown
And, you know, we were surveying them on different things. We did a word cloud on, you know, how are you feeling? Yeah. And, you know, I think people are still stressed. They're still a little overwhelmed. But like I said, they're feeling a little bit better about what's happening. I don't know that the end is in sight, but at least they feel like we're we're moving in the right direction.

00:21:41:26 - 00:21:58:25
Unknown
And we had some really good conversations around mental health and, you know, people being overwhelmed and strategies to deal with that. So from an H our point of view, I would encourage, you know, the people that about the center of the storm, you got to take care of yourself because you spend a lot of time taking care of a lot of other people.

00:21:58:26 - 00:22:27:26
Unknown
Yeah. You know, don't be afraid to, you know, spend some time on yourself. Yeah. Self keep yourself healthy. Yeah. Good, good. Lasting advice. Well, thank you for being on the podcast stage and sharing this month's talent report to our listeners. We hope you liked our chat today and the topic today, so I'd encourage you to share this episode and leave a comment or review and make sure to share it with your coworkers and on social media and then consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already.

00:22:27:28 - 00:22:54:00
Unknown
Like always, we have all the resources you need in the show notes below, and we've got some resources from today in the show notes and Jim's contact information there too, if you want to get in touch with him. Otherwise, we'll see you next week. And thanks for tuning in. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcasts updates, check out other Amari episodes on your favorite podcast platform.

00:22:54:00 - 00:23:03:19
Unknown
And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.