TM - March 2008 - (Page 40)

looks like goofing off actually may be thinking or incubating. This may occur in organizations where lab work is common. It’s also important to consider that more and more employees today are connected 24x7, particularly if they work on a global team. High-performing employees likely know when they’re most productive, and if they can be encouraged or enabled to decide how and when to work, they are generally more effective. “If you’ve got a call at 6 in the morning and another one at 11 at night, in order to maintain some balance, there is a need to take some time during the day to take care of personal matters,” said Jodi Starkman, COO of global consulting for ORC Worldwide. “We have a client who talked recently about how he hired this exceptionally brilliant young marketing guy, and he said, ‘The guy likes to work at some place like Starbucks on an Apple computer, even though the company uses IBM. He has his own way of doing things.’ He said at first he had to deal with the fact that he had preconceived notions about the way people should work, which is not necessarily sitting in the office from 9 to 5.” Flexibility and setting performance expectations are especially important when considering a formal or informal stance on nonwork related activities. Talent managers must establish clear goals regarding deliverables and deadlines, be less rigid about enforcing a specific work structure and avoid watching to see who’s sitting in his or her seat looking or behaving a certain way. Communication and feedback also are important as talent managers begin to move from a more traditional management style. “Coaching for high performance, how to enable people to work more productively is not necessarily about providing more structure,” Starkman explained. “Seeing people looking busy is not necessarily seeing people accomplishing anything: The outcomes are more important.” The most important thing is that employees meet their objectives, said Laura Reeves, chief talent officer at the American Cancer Society. “We need to be able to allow people in this technology age to think a little bit creatively — it’s empowering people to get the work done in the way they need to get it done. The way that people do work has changed with all of the tools that we have. It’s important to be flexible and provide an environment where people are empowered to get the work done in a way that’s best for them. That does enhance productivity.” Aside from technology, some of the impetus for the shift in work taking place is due to the influx of the Net Generation and the Millennials, who prefer to work in a different way, said David Smith, managing director of human performance for North America at Accenture. “The past clock in, clock out, eight hours on the job is an old metaphor,” he said. “Now they work in spurts. They do a lot of work, then research, then take some time to do something different, listen to music, explore, surf the net, Facebook collaborate, something. Then they’ll do (more) work. Their dimension of time is vastly different and the winners are being forced to adapt to this new way of work, but do high-performing talent managers understand that output is the key? Obviously, output has constraints to it, but if you shift your measurement system to output and don’t try to control different factors like the exact time of day one is doing the job, you can begin to drive the levels of productivity you want.” Build Awareness T uesday, March 18, 2008 • 11AM PT/2PM ET T alent Management 2.0: Strategies to Retain Your T T op alent FACT: There will be a shortage of 15 million skilled workers by 2010. FACT: Sixty percent of new jobs require skills only 20 percent of workers have. FACT: Twenty-eight percent of young workers actively are looking for a new job. Solving these problems is critical to your organization’s short- and long-term success. Join Jon Desenberg, senior consulting director at The Performance Institute, and Maksim Ovsyannikov, director of product strategy at Saba, for an educational discussion on the changes occurring in talent management. After this Talent Management magazine Webinar, sponsored by Saba, you will walk away able to define the meaning of talent for your organization and determine what attributes of people drive measurable success; execute your talent management strategy during transitions; and create a genuine talent management culture that will have a sound impact on the organization. T uesday, March 25, 2008 • 11AM PT/2PM ET The T alent Management Experience Series With Bersin & Associates: Part 1 – The Manager’s Experience In collaboration with Talent Management magazine and Bersin & Associates, Cornerstone OnDemand presents the “Talent Management Experience Series.” In this unique, three-part Webinar series, Leighanne Levensaler from Bersin & Associates will address talent management initiatives from all angles — from the perspectives of managers, employees and business leaders. Attend all three to help you ensure your talent management strategy meets the needs, expectations and interests of all stakeholders, as well as drives user engagement and bottom-line results. In this first Webinar, learn what managers need when it comes to talent management systems and processes to impact employee retention, performance and development, and how to get support and buy-in from this important user audience. T register, go to o www.T alentMgt.com/ events. Now featuring “Quick Register” for returning attendees. In order to incent and promote the level of performance necessary to compete and win in today’s global marketplace, Smith said talent managers must be self-reflective in their own behaviors. This may http://www.TalentMgt.com/events http://www.TalentMgt.com/events

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - March 2008

TM - March 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance - The Paradoxically Gifted Leading Edge - Reverse Engineering: Shifting Focus to HR's Cause Learning Connection - Sharing Talent On the Hunt for Talent Unlock Employee Motivation Through Personality Testing HR Crucial to Executive Compensation Process Downtown Management: Surfing May Not Be Slacking Think Tanks Aid Government in Talent Management Creating Consistency: Enterprise-Wide Succession Plans Battle Retention Deficits With On-Boarding Sunbelt Rentals: A Mid-Level View of HR From the Trenches Butterball: No Chicken When It Comes to Talent Management Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources Full Potential - Choosing Change

TM - March 2008

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