Talent Management - October 2008 - (Page 46)

“People need to know what their next career move is. They need to know what they need to do to get ahead. They need to know that they have a chance to get ahead. And if they’re not going to make it, they need to know that, too.” – Linda Sharkey, Vice President of People Development, HP The other thing we look at in terms of performance is external assessments of our executives. We know how we stack up from a high-performance perspective. We know the level of talent that we have and what we’re driving for. Another [thing] we look at it is retention and turnover. Are we promoting the right people into the right jobs? For our critical roles, do we have top talent in those jobs? We track that on a regular basis. So we have a lot of ways that we look at the health of our workforce. period of time, the company’s hurting. There’s no question about that. So we track time to ﬁll. And since I’ve gotten here, we have ratcheted down the time to ﬁll for signiﬁcant jobs substantially. I think that’s a bottom-line result. TM: SHARKEY: Tell us about HP’s compensation strategy. We are a company that’s moving towards a meritocracy. We expect high standards and high performance. We use the various levers that you have — the typical suspects — to make sure our rewards are differentiated to those people that embody the elements of a high-performing organization. We do a series of what we call one-over-one reviews. So before the business can actually go forward with its reward strategy, we have one-over-one reviews with the next-level-up leader to discuss [whether] these people are exemplars of the culture and performance that we’re trying to drive in the company and [whether] the performance reward that we’re allocating is commensurate with what we think their contribution is. This all ties back to the company performance, achieving your goals and individual performance. You can’t just ride the system and get ahead if the company performs. You’ve got to perform, and your unit and your team have got to perform, as well. It’s the challenges that impact any company that wants to be high-performance and have the best talent. It is really about executing against some very straightforward principles. People need to know where they stand. People need to know what their next career move is. They need to know what they need to do to get ahead. They need to know that they have a chance to get ahead. And if they’re not going to make it, they need to know that, too. The people that have to share that information are their managers and their leaders. What we have to make sure is that we are holding our leaders and managers to a high standard, and they’re not promoting somebody just [because] they know and feel comfortable with [them], but that they’re really doing those rigorous, thorough assessments of their talent and developing their talent the way we expect them to. TM: SHARKEY: What challenges impact talent management in your organization? TM: October 2008 How have your performance management activities contributed to your company’s bottom line? It’s continuing to reﬁne what we do. It’s continuing to make it part of the fabric of the company. It’s continuing to cascade it through every level of the organization. It’s continuing to move it away from a discussion about HR practices and what “box” is this person in, to much more a discussion around our organization’s vitality and strength to execute against what we’re trying to do in the marketplace. This is about having an organization plan and approach that’s as rigorous as having a business ﬁnancial plan. Because we are not constrained by what we’ve been doing in the past, we are open to what we need to do going forward to make sure that we’re the best. I think HP is on a talent journey. TM: SHARKEY: What’s next for your organization in terms of talent management? SHARKEY: The more we have top talent in our company that is ready to step into open positions, the better off we are from a bottom-line perspective. Every time a job stays open, a signiﬁcant job, for a long 46 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - October 2008

Talent Management - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations The Three Pillars of Executive On-Boarding Role-Based Assessment: Thinking Inside the Box Who's Going to Speak Up for Health Care? Obey the Push to Automate Managing the Star Performer No One Wants to Work With Adopting a Mutual-Funds Model for Talent Management Hewlett-Packard: Simple Talent Management in a Technical World Team Effort Pays in Talent at London Business School The Employee Survey: What’s in It for Me? Why Most Managers Are Stuck Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - October 2008

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