Talent Management - January 2009 - (Page 45)

INSIGHT continued from page 41 For mid-career individuals, we focus on technologies and capabilities and what we’re trying to do around the world so individuals really want to be part of a company recognized as one of the world’s leaders in communication and information technology. Third, we look at marquee players, individuals that have distinguished themselves in a career in the military or government. Or they are industry subject matter experts, and [we focus on] how they can help us penetrate markets and how we can help them further their careers. static information to a more live capability. But what we’ve really looked at is, in a technical environment, you really need to have multiple career paths. Some individuals want a technical career path, and we’ve created that. Others want a management career path, and still others want a blend of both. We have those three paths in place to allow individuals to work to their fullest capability. We allow individuals to grow and achieve very high levels of compensation, reward, recognition and sta- TM: How do you measure workforce performance? When individuals get to certain levels, we measure their performance, but also their potential. We assess where the individual can go and what kind of capabilities they have, which helps us to drive their careers in a multitude of directions. We also look at our organization. We assess organizational performance with regard to external factors like market conditions or product or service, where we’re headed globally and what that looks like. Shuman: “We believe by providing inﬂuence into the school systems we work in, we can provide a feeder pool of talent for the future.” – Jeff Shuman, Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Relations, Harris Corp. We measure our leaders in terms of traditional metrics like our ability to retain and recruit individuals. We measure our ability to forecast our business for particular needs to make sure we have the right mix of four generations in our workplace with no gaps as people near retirement age or contracts change. We also measure and hold our managers accountable for employee engagement. We use traditional surveys for that so we can make sure our employees are fully engaged. We rate individuals as high, successful and low performers. We’ve seen a marked trend of low performers either shift into successful performers because they’ve taken it seriously, improved their particular performance or they self-select out of the company. Managers that truly manage and develop their people, their attrition rates are better than those who don’t. Through engagement, we’ve got evidence that shows if your workforce is engaged and challenged and enjoys the work and their supervisor, retention is higher. That allows us to go after the positive and negative areas where we can inﬂuence the organization at the greatest level. tus in one of those career paths. When individuals see they have career options and can grow, individuals are more inclined to take charge of their career and look at things inside rather than outside the company to get the experience or capability they want. TM: Shuman: What’s next for talent management and workforce development at Harris? One, we’re actively working on our ability to on-board talent and be more effective at having individuals be able to hit the ground running quicker. Another is making sure individuals know what their total reward remuneration is and not have it as static information pulled from a variety of sources. Then they can see what kind of value they have and what kind of value the company is delivering based on their performance. Third, we’re constantly revamping learning and development to make sure we go after skill sets we need for the future. Finally, we’re working with universities differently in our university relations. We’re anticipating changes in the skill sets we’re going to need in the future, and how can we make sure the feeder pool is getting into college? It’s going to take a long time to look at that ROI, but we believe by providing that kind of inﬂuence into the school systems we work in, we can provide a feeder pool of talent for the future. We have transitioned our succession planning from more of a traditional approach involving binders and TM: Shuman: How do you handle succession planning? January 2009 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 45 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - January 2009

Talent Management - January 2009 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Integrate Web 2.0 Into the On-Boarding Experience Show ’Em the Money: Compensation Trends 2009 Transition at the Top How Hollywood Manages Talent and What You Can Learn Get the Most Bang With Limited Training Bucks Life After Layoffs Attract Specific Talent Groups Performance Management: Its Time Is Now Helping the Helpers Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - January 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.