Executive Summary
table of contents
Title
Speaker(s)
Key Themes
Page
3
Workforce 2024: Transforming Your
Mindset for the Evolution of Work
Tammy Erickson, Founder and CEO, Tammy Erickson Associates
5
Engaging a Changing Workforce Through
Evidence-Based Practice and HR Analytics
Joseph Cabral, SVP, CHRO, North Shore-LIJ Health System
8
The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from
the Socialstructed World
Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Institute for the Future
10
Fostering a Culture of Respect and
Inclusion
Philip Lenowitz, Senior Advisor to the HR Director, National Institutes of Health
13
Innovation for the Changing Nature of
Work: How 3M is Preparing for the
Workplace of Tomorrow
Jan Shimanski, VP, Global Talent Solutions, 3M
15
Developing High-Potential Female Talent:
Challenges and Opportunities
Nancy Carter, Ph.D., SVP, Research, Catalyst, Inc.
17
Crowdsourcing: Transforming the Way
Work Gets Done
Jason Averbook, Chief Business Innovation Officer at Appirio (Moderator)
Matt Crampton, Co-Founder and CTO, Gigwalk
Heidi Spirgi, SVP, Strategy Services Practice, Appirio
Gary Swart, Venture Partner, Polaris Partners
20
Biographies
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
24
2
Key Themes
Overview
Big changes are coming in the world of work. Both the
composition of workforces and the nature of work itself are
rapidly evolving, and few of today’s organizations are well
equipped for the future that is envisioned.
The human resources profession needs to get out in front
of these changes, to understand their genesis and implications. The SHRM Foundation’s February 2014 report Evolution of Work and the Worker details transformational trends
projected over the next decade. Multiple forces will converge
to reshape the workplace—forces that are generational,
demographic, educational, and technological in nature.
It is incumbent upon HR leaders to understand what these
transformations in work and workers will mean for their
organizations. How will talent strategies have to adapt to
support the business in this brave new world? What will
be the ramifications for leadership development, corporate
cultures, talent management processes, organizational
structures, and business strategies? How can HR help
organizations capitalize on the opportunities and meet the
challenges that an evolving workplace will present?
The economists, futurists, and trend-spotters have spoken.
Their vision of the future is a call to action for HR. “We need
to demonstrate that our profession is ready to guide our
organizations through the sweeping transformation of work
and workers coming our way,” said SHRM Board Chairman
Bette Francis. “You are the leaders of our profession, and
you are the only ones who can get that done.”
Key Takeaways
The workforce of 2024 will be very different from
today.
Over the next decade, the workforce is expected to look and
be fundamentally different in terms of life stages, values
and priorities, backgrounds and perspectives, and motivational drivers. That means that HR’s strategies for attracting, retaining, developing, motivating, and managing talent
may have to change.
The workforce of the future will be:
▪▪ More multi-generational, with septuagenarian baby
boomers working alongside the 20-somethings that
Tammy Erickson calls the “Re-Generation,” and everyone else in between. Organizations will need to look
to diverse and inclusive workplaces like the National
Institutes of Health as a model for harmonious intergenerational collaboration and for reaping full value from the
contributions of older employees.
▪▪ More female. Females are outnumbering men in higher
education, suggesting more prevalence in the workforce
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
of tomorrow. Yet female talent is underutilized by employers, Catalyst reports. Organizations will be challenged
to root out the unintentional institutional bias keeping
women earning less than men and butting up against the
glass ceiling that is still firmly in place.
▪▪ Less self-sacrificing. Demographic and educational
trends suggest that corporate America will be more Hispanic a decade from now. It is important to realize that
in that culture, family comes first, period. Hispanic workers won’t spend 60 hours a week in the office to prove
their dedication. Nor will the up-and-coming Re-Generation, who will be more interested in creating their own
opportunities than heeding an employer’s rules.
Workforce changes will compel HR practices to
change.
Corporations will need new strategies to attract and retain
younger workers, older workers, female workers, and Hispanics or will lose ground in the “talent wars.” This means
understanding what is important to these workers and
adapting organizational policies in perhaps uncomfortable
ways (more flexible working arrangements, for instance).
Fully leveraging talent assets will be just as critical as
attracting them. More objectivity in leadership development
and talent management may be key to making full use of
talent assets. HR performance metrics can help ensure
that bias doesn’t pollute promotion processes and that the
most deserving employees get opportunities to advance,
says Catalyst’s Nancy Carter. So can employee assessment systems based on observable leadership behaviors,
versus the more subjective and less controllable leadership
attributes, says the head of 3M’s global talent solutions, Jan
Shimanski.
HR metrics have been instrumental in the organizational
success of North Shore-LIJ Health System. Former CHRO
Joseph Cabral oversaw the implementation of an award-winning, metrics-based talent management system there.
He believes that HR professionals must develop greater
capacity to help their businesses succeed, and that HR
metrics provide the means. Metrics are the key to talent
management, in his mind, as “you can’t manage what you
can’t measure.”
How work gets done is changing too, challenging
the primacy of traditional employment models.
Futurist Marina Gorbis sees the nascent signs of a sweeping transformation under way in how work gets done.
Increasingly, software and algorithms are handling what
organizations were built to do in coordinating the delegation
of work. What she calls “socialstructed” value creation is
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Key Themes
taking place whenever online platforms like Uber or Wikipedia organize the doing of work. As a result of these value-creation engines, many industries are vulnerable to the
kind of disruption that changed newspaper publishing and
music distribution.
The world of work will be quite different in a socialstructed
world. There may be less planning required. Work may be
more task based and project based, performed by independent contractors versus employees. There are huge
potential labor cost efficiencies in store for companies that
rely more on outsourcing and less on traditional employment
models.
Some organizations are already reaping tremendous value
from “crowdsourcing,” or outsourcing work to the “crowd.”
Representatives from three online companies that help
organizations tap into the power of crowdsourcing compared
notes on their business models, clients, and workers. Out
of that discussion came a fascinating list of what motivates
the growing armies of freelance workers. Incentives like the
freedom to self-select what they work on, when, and in what
quantities are not levers that HR typically uses to engage
and drive performance. The implications for new kinds of
internal work models that drive unprecedented levels of
engagement are profound.
Call to action: HR leaders need to guide their
organizations into the future.
At 3M, HR leaders such as Jan Shimanski are busy assessing 3M’s preparedness for the workforce of the future. They
know they will need to make changes to meet coming skills
and talent deficits, facilitate telecommuting, and defuse
multi-generational culture clashes.
Other HR leaders need to do the same, figuring out where
and how their organizations should change to get ready for
a vastly different world of work. It falls to HR to identify the
opportunities and the challenges, communicate them, and
start the gradual process of adapting the organization. That
is the only way to ensure that the organization will have at
its disposal in the future the talent assets it will need to
compete and succeed.
But companies that embrace crowdsourcing may face new
kinds of HR challenges as well as opportunities, such as
attracting freelancers, who self-select their work. That could
mean creating a whole new kind of employment brand, with
new sorts of worker value propositions.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
4
Workforce 2024: Transforming Your Mindset
for the Evolution of Work
Tammy Erickson, Founder and CEO, Tammy Erickson Associates
Overview
The February 2014 report Evolution of Work and the Worker
produced by the SHRM Foundation and the Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU), raises important points about trends
reshaping the workplace, including demographic shifts,
educational realities, technological advances, and rising
workforce diversity.
Tammy Erickson’s research focuses on what the emerging
world of work will look like in a decade. She predicts five big
workforce changes by 2024: more Hispanic, more female,
older, more entrepreneurial, and more mobile.
Change #1: The American workforce in 2024 will be
much more Hispanic.
One big change Ms. Erickson forecasts is rising ranks of
Hispanics in large corporations, for two reasons: 1) Hispanics are growing as a percentage of the American population;
those ages 18-65 will represent 55% of the nation’s workers
by 2050; and 2) the cohort is becoming more educated,
having now surpassed Caucasians in college enrollment
rates (Figure 1).
Will organizations be ready to attract and retain the important new talent segments in effective ways? With clear understanding of how these population segments think about
life and work, HR can help organizations adopt the mindsets
they need to optimally adapt.
Context
Tammy Erickson shared her research on the evolving workforce, describing how it is likely to change over the next
decade and what HR can do to help corporations prepare.
Key Takeaways
Five big changes are reshaping the workforce over
the next decade—will HR be ready?
How can companies prepare for the uncertain future described in the SHRM Foundation EIU’s February 2014 report?
With a picture in mind of how the future workforce will look
and think, new best practices for organizations come into focus. But these may be easier identified than executed, since
they often require a readjustment of corporate mindset. The
workers of tomorrow are bound to want very different things
out of work and life than their predecessors and most
corporations aren’t structured to accommodate those needs
yet. Traditionally-minded cultures are likely to be resistant.
“It almost feels to me like we’re in a tug
of war, with corporations pulling in one
direction to get what they want from work,
and the individuals who make up the
workforce within large corporations pulling
in the other direction, wanting different
things. It feels like we’re kind of fraying.”
—Tammy
—
Erickson
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
Figure 1. In America, Hispanics’ college enrollment rates now top
those of whites.
Work plays an important part in the lives of Hispanics, being
a major source of pride and perceived as a route to upward
mobility and economic security. Moreover, Hispanics surveyed say they want to work for big, well-established firms
with recognized brands. In contrast, Gen Ys (as a whole)
prefer to work in small organizations. As a result, in 2024,
Hispanics are likely to be the most important source of
talent for large firms. Some implications for HR:
▪▪ White males will become less prevalent in the leadership pipeline. Middle-aged whites will drop as a percentage of the U.S. population by 2020, as the ranks of
Hispanics/Latinos rise (Asians and African Americans
will rise too, but less so).
▪▪ Large companies need a strategy to attract and retain
the Hispanic/Latino cohort. Those who don’t have one
will lose a valuable talent pool to competitors.
▪▪ Two themes can help organizations attract and retain
Hispanic workers:
—— Traditional values. Family plays a big role in the Hispanic culture. Therefore, Hispanics seek family-like
characteristics in employers. They want a trusted,
well-respected brand; a solid reputation; and financial stability. Communicating these attributes is an
important lever for cultivating loyalty.
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Workforce 2024: Transforming Your Mindset for the Evolution of Work
—— Nontraditional management practices. Since family
is a critical cultural priority, Hispanics require flexible
work arrangements so they can meet family commitments as needed. Expecting Hispanic workers to be
there for the company instead of their family won’t fly.
It doesn’t comport with the cohort’s values.
“You need to offer forward-thinking
practices because [Hispanics] demand
flexibility. . . . Our old practice of thinking
people will sacrifice their family to be
there for the company doesn’t fit this
cohort’s values.”
—Tammy
—
Erickson
Change #2: The global workforce of 2024 will be much
more female.
Around the world, women are underrepresented in the workforce, even though they have been out-achieving men in the
educational sphere (Figure 2). Companies are underutilizing
this highly educated talent source. Also, once in the workforce, women are not promoted at the same rates as men.
“The numbers show the steady tick, tick,
tick of women achieving more and more
in the educational sphere than men. . . .
If you want a highly educated workforce,
women will be a key part of it. ”
—Tammy
—
Erickson
“I’m a big fan of task-based work. We need
to start looking at all we’re doing in the
corporation and move away from broadly
defined roles like ‘Senior Vice President
of Marketing’ to very specific tasks, like
leading a task force to launch a product.”
—Tammy
—
Erickson
▪▪ Make flexible hours the norm. Equating long hours with
the price of success has a profoundly negative effect on
women’s emotional commitment to a company.
▪▪ Show approbation for diversity. Leaders who exhibit a
warm acceptance of diverse perspectives and curiosity
about different viewpoints are more inviting to women.
One participant said flexible work arrangements meet
with much cultural resistance in most companies, where
“visibility means credibility—if you’re not seen, you’re not
working.” That model is regrettably “attendance-based, not
leadership-based.” Counter that cultural norm, Ms. Erickson
responded, by questioning its assumptions. “We’ve always
done things that way” is often the response proponents
state. Happily, this norm is changing as younger workers
move into the workforce; they see little point in simply being
present at an office.
Change 3: The non-retirement of Baby Boomers will
mean an older workforce.
Older workers will be increasingly common as economic
forces forestall Baby Boomers’ retirements. They won’t
retire but will instead “downshift” their involvement in work
as they age. As they downshift, they will be doing part-time,
contingent, task-based work versus holding full-time jobs.
Companies need to shed the attitude that old people need
additional support. Instead, their experience and continued
contributions to productivity should be leveraged. As with
retaining and attracting women, task-based, project-oriented
work will be key.
Changes 4 and 5: The Re-Generation’s arrival will bring
increased mobility and entrepreneurial drive.
Figure 2. Globally, women leave men in the dust when it comes to
educational achievement
Implications for HR: If forward-thinking organizations want
competitive talent assets, they need strategies to remedy
this underutilization of talent. Three important strategies:
▪▪ Consider the benefits of task-based work. Structuring
work only to be done on a full-time basis severely limits
its attractiveness to women (and many men). Moreover,
more task-based project work will help even out compensation inequities between men and women.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
Surveys of young teenagers (the “Re-Generation”) reveal
very different attitudes than the Gen X and Ys before them.
For HR, their entry into the workplace is still a decade away.
The best way to prepare for them is to understand that as a
group they are:
▪▪ Fiscal conservatives. Even as children, they save for
major purchases. They are leery of taking on debt, a
legacy of economic conditions since 2008. They don’t
equate material possessions with status or self-worth.
Many say they’ll always rent, never wanting a mortgage
or even credit cards.
▪▪ Urban dwellers. They will want to live in cities, where they
can pool resources and access goods on a communal
basis.
6
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Workforce 2024: Transforming Your Mindset for the Evolution of Work
▪▪ Entrepreneurial. They are very interested in starting their
own businesses. They believe in self-sufficiency.
▪▪ Compromisers, willing to sacrifice for the collective
good. Compromise comes easily for them. They are willing to make tradeoffs for the sake of the collective good.
▪▪ Digital natives. Mobile technology, social media, and the
collaborative ways of working remotely are second nature
to them.
▪▪ Devoted to community. They care greatly, more so than
Gen X and Y, about sustainability and responsibility to
community.
“If Gen Ys are collaborators, this group
takes collaboration further: They are
compromisers, willing to make tradeoffs. . .
Their fundamental mindset is that we live
with finite resources, and together we have
to make the most of them.”
—Tammy
—
Erickson
Lynn C. Outwater and Jackson Lewis P.C.
are proud to support the
2014 Thought Leaders Retreat
With over 770 attorneys practicing in 55 locations throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico,
Jackson Lewis provides creative and strategic solutions to employers in every aspect of
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LYNN C. OUTWATER, ESQ., SPHR
SHAREHOLDER • JACKSON LEWIS P.C.
(412) 338-5140 • [email protected]
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
7
Engaging a Changing Workforce
Through Evidence-Based Practice
and HR Analytics
Joseph Cabral, SVP, CHRO, North Shore-LIJ Health System
Overview
With strong beliefs in the central role that HR metrics can
play in talent management, and in the central role that HR
can play in an organization’s financial and competitive success, Joseph Cabral implemented an award-winning talent
management system for his former employer North ShoreLIJ Health System. Simple, clear, and objective, the system
measures what matters. Data is translated into actionable
insights to advance organizational objectives. The system
aligns the behavior of everyone in the organization under the
institutional priorities of quality care, good patient experiences, and sound financial performance.
By getting everyone in the organization rowing in the same
direction, this talent management system has contributed
greatly to North Shore-LIJ’s achieving its care-related and
financial goals. The well-run, integrated healthcare system
now is well positioned to thrive amid uncertain industry conditions, and is well positioned for future workforce challenges.
Context
Joseph Cabral shared lessons for HR leaders from his experiences heading HR for the North Shore-LIJ Health System.
The talent management system of which he led implementation won him the 2013 Human Resource Management
Impact Award and helped win North Shore-LIJ the Taleo
Customer Innovation Award.
Key Takeaways
North Shore-LIJ is a case study in the effectiveness
of metrics-based talent management.
The nonprofit North Shore-LIJ Health System is one of the
nation’s largest healthcare systems, providing care at every
point in the care continuum, from birth through hospice. The
organization has an annual operating budget of more than
$7 billion and a workforce of more than 48,000 employees.
By combining its formerly disparate systems into a fully
integrated network, North Shore-LIJ has leveraged efficiencies of scale and achieved measures of financial success
that make any for-profit organization proud. By implementing
award-winning HR management practices, North Shore-LIJ
has aligned employee behaviors with organizational goals,
improving patient satisfaction and care quality outcomes.
The talent management system aligns employee
performance with organizational goals.
The transformation of North Shore-LIJ’s HR practices was
grounded in Mr. Cabral’s belief, “If you can’t measure it, you
can’t manage it.” He spearheaded the development and
implementation of a new talent management system based
on metrics. The system:
▪▪ Measures what matters, and turns data into actionable
ideas and insights. “When you pay attention to metrics
that matter, you discover an awful lot.” For instance, by
paying attention to new hire metrics, the organization
realized that 57% of new hires, about 7,000 a year, were
millennials. That prompted the CEO to want to better understand that large segment of employees, which he is
doing via breakfast meetings with a group of millennials.
Metrics are also being used to predict and respond to
future workforce challenges among doctors and nurses.
For example, the mean age of nurses in New York is 47
and 75% of nurses in the state are over age 40.
“When you start to pay attention to metrics
that matter, looking at data and translating
data into information, you discover an
awful lot.”
—Joseph
—
Cabral
▪▪ Aligns the whole organization with North Shore-LIJ’s
three priorities: care quality, patient experience, and
financial performance. The organizational priorities are
kept simple and limited to three, eliminating any chance
of confusion over what people should be working to
achieve. These priorities are explained well to every
new hire. Managers also discuss individuals’ goals,
how to reach them, and why doing so advances the
organizational objectives. Everyone understands what
is important and what to do to serve the organization’s
best interests. For example, a hospital laundry worker
would not return a washed sheet with an iodine stain on
it back to the ward, because that would be incongruent
with North Shore-LIJ’s patient experience goals.
“We want every employee to understand
that this is what’s important to the
organization, so we’ve kept it simple.”
—Joseph
—
Cabral
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Engaging a Changing Workforce Through Evidence-Based Practice and HR Analytics
▪▪ Links metrics to performance. Performance reviews are
now objective and the evaluation criteria are metrics
based. They simply show whether employees have met
their established goals. Those who don’t face ramifications up to and including termination. Now, not only does
everyone know exactly what they need to do to advance
the organization’s priorities, but everyone feels personally on the hook to deliver it. Besides goal achievement,
employees are rated on engagement metrics, which data
shows are highly correlated with patient satisfaction, and
on living the organization’s values of excellence, caring,
integrity, teamwork, and innovation.
▪▪ Automates as much of the talent management system
as possible, promoting transparency. Individual employee scorecards feed data into dashboards that tell leaders what they need to know to manage the organization’s
human capital in real time. HR’s talent management
cycle (based on GE’s) is “hard-wired” into HR processes
and is transparently available to the entire organization
(Figure 1).
Lessons for HR: To help the business you must first
understand the business.
Mr. Cabral shared these important lessons for HR
professionals:
▪▪ HR professionals need to understand their organizations’ business to help them weather uncertain times.
The healthcare industry is undergoing a particularly difficult time, with forces pressuring it to change its traditional modes of operating. But it is not alone: nearly every
other industry is being forced to adapt to increasingly
educated consumers, generational/cultural changes,
and new competitive forces enabled by technology and
innovation. Companies that don’t transform themselves
will go the way of Radio Shack, ceasing to be meaningful
contenders in their market. In such high-stakes environments, HR can’t focus solely on benefits and compensation. HR practitioners in every role must understand their
business so they can help their organizations survive
and thrive. CHROs need to figure out how to align the HR
function and manage their company’s human capital in
ways that create value for the company and position it
advantageously for the challenges ahead.
“To be successful in any of your roles
[in HR], you need to understand your
business. If you don’t understand your
business, you can’t contribute to your
business.”
—Joseph
—
Cabral
Figure 1. The talent management cycle is “hard-wired” into
HR processes and transparent to the organization
▪▪ Leverages the best practices of other organizations. For
example, employees’ easy-to-use and extensive “My HR
Portal” was based on Starbucks’ great employee portal.
▪▪ May in the future incorporate predictive modeling capabilities. North Shore-LIJ is working on developing predictive modeling systems to help support the businesses.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ HR professionals also need to be effective leaders. Unless leaders are effective, they are not able to get their
initiatives implemented within the organization. Cabral
stated that if HR leaders truly believe their organization’s
workforce is a competitive advantage, then they must be
leaders in building programs and convincing the organization to make investments to sustain that advantage.
▪▪ You can’t manage what you don’t measure. HR metrics
yield valid, valuable insights that inform smart human
capital management decisions, help organizations leverage their talent assets for competitive advantage, meet
business goals, and position themselves optimally in the
face of looming workforce challenges.
9
The Nature of the Future: Dispatches
from the Socialstructed World
Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Institute for the Future
Overview
Increasingly, online platforms and software are assuming
the roles that organizations have traditionally played in our
economy and society, coordinating the delegation of work.
Industries are being disrupted, and new breeds of workers
are emerging. When people in pockets here and there start
operating in new ways, it signals to futurists the early stages
of transformation.
Marina Gorbis expects such activity to snowball into a
major transformation of how we work and create value in a
“socialstructed” world. The new ways of working represent
a threat to the organizational structures, but not an urgent
one. There is no reason for HR to react at this time with
bold moves to restructure or recreate, but there is every
reason for HR to understand the changes that are afoot,
educate organizations, and start dipping toes in these new
waters.
Context
Futurist Marina Gorbis shared her vision of a radically
different socialstructed world and the implications for work,
workers, and HR.
Key Takeaways
A sweeping transformation is under way, toward a
“socialstructed” world.
The Internet is a distributed communication system that has
fundamentally changed how people communicate. Whenever
communication infrastructure changes, that changes people’s interactions and social and economic systems.
media is sufficient, as shown by recent demonstrations that
shut down Hong Kong streets.
Moreover, the very essence of the organizational structure is
being challenged by new ways of creating value. The reason
that organizations exist is essentially to lower the transaction costs of producing at scale. But the transaction costs
of Internet-based production and distribution are close to
zero. And, algorithms can make many of the decisions that
middle managers do.
“The economic rationale is shifting. . . . Why
do we need a company? Why do we need
to do it in this way?”
—Marina
—
Gorbis
Marina Gorbis has dubbed these new ways of creating value
as “socialstructed” creation, connoting both new structures
and a social aspect. She defines “socialstructing” as:
“creating value by aggregating micro contributions by large
networks using social tools and technologies.”
In a socialstructed system, people can be thought of as
distributed nodes, capable of production, connected to every
other node, who are potential consumers of that production. There is lots of room for connecting and aggregating
people/nodes in new ways. Every day we hear about a
new Uber-like platform. These are early signs of the huge
transformation to come—the “Uberization of everything.”
The challenge for the next few decades will be to organize
production around this new kind of distributed system.
The transformation implies dramatic changes in the
world of work.
These days, people on their own or in small groups can do
things that only larger organizations could do in the past—
publish, broadcast, produce music, etc. They can distribute their work to wide audiences using Internet tools and
resources. There is little economic rationale for the newspaper industry anymore. Many industries similarly are being
dislodged by the arrival of more efficient ways to produce
their product or service.
Employment in the future is bound to change dramatically. Already, we’re seeing new kinds of workers emerge in
response to socialstructed creation (see box). They work
however they want, whenever they want, in flexible, temporary relationships with work providers. Their work is task
based, and they are employed by no one. oDesk is one of
the platforms that unites these independent workers with
those who have work.
Particularly disruptive are platforms that connect suppliers
and consumers, cutting out the middle man. An example
is Uber, which is disrupting the taxi business by offering a
more efficient way to hail a cab. But not even a dedicated
platform is needed to organize people for any number of reasons, political, social, charitable, business, or other. Social
Companies that hire these workers don’t care about their
resumes, majors, GPAs, or where they went to college; they
just want to know what they have produced before and
how satisfactorily. Reputation metrics are what matters,
and workers in the top 5% often draw higher compensation
rates.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World
This new way of working holds potential cost efficiencies for
companies, as the salaried employment model often means
paying for a person’s downtime. A task-oriented contractor
hoping for a good rating may be more productive, producing in four hours what a salaried employee turns around
in eight. With this model of work, less planning may be
involved; work may occur more spontaneously as needed.
“This socialstructed creation, this new way
of creating value that’s highly distributed—
it’s unpredictable, it’s emergent, we can’t
plan . . . it’s uncomfortable in many ways.
—Marina
—
Gorbis
There will be kinks to work out during the transformation
toward more such work, including taxation and regulatory
issues. This will take time. It was decades before the Industrial Revolution spawned the regulations and systems that
eliminated sweatshops and resulted in smooth and efficient
operations.
The best advice for HR is to start slowly, gradually
acclimating the organization.
Ms. Gorbis’s vision of a socialstructed world suggests several insights with great relevance for HR:
▪▪ The world is moving away from organizations toward
organizing platforms. Platforms and algorithms increasingly can handle much of what management traditionally
has; e.g., distributing tasks, allocating resources, and
figuring out the most efficient processes.
▪▪ Sophisticated reputation systems are replacing traditional forms of worker credentials. Reputation systems
tied to compensation rates are taking over the credentialing role that higher education has traditionally played.
Academia is out of step with the times, with systems
that grade students on the conveyance of information
that can easily be accessed online by consulting their
networks or other resources.
“Somebody said to me, ‘When I go to
college, it’s like I have to step into a whole
different century.’”
—Marina
—
Gorbis
▪▪ Workers participate in these new systems for non-monetary reasons. They get more out of participating than
the money and benefits that organizations traditionally
view as compensation. Consider the millions of people
who have helped build Wikipedia for free. It behooves
HR to figure out what incents such workers and whether
their corporations can offer some of that.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ There is not urgency to react boldly, but HR should
start learning about the implications of the approaching future. Both the incumbent models and systems of
work and the socialstructed ones will co-exist for quite
a while before incumbent ways disappear (and they may
not ever completely). HR should start learning about
socialstructed creation and its implications for organizations. Most companies probably have employees
who are participating in it in some form. Learning from
them is important. Become part of their networks to see
where trends are heading.
▪▪ HR needs to start experimenting. Start experimenting
with small initiatives that leverage trends to the company’s advantage. For example, offer intrinsic rewards that
make people want to be a part of your organization the
way Google makes its campus a pleasurable place to
hang out.
“This curve is just beginning to emerge,
and there’s going to be lots of experiments,
with lots of mistakes. You don’t need to
reorganize your company or recreate
anything, [but] just dipping your toes in
this world is really important.”
—Marina
—
Gorbis
▪▪ Consider the implications for your business of the
“Re-Generation’s” anti-consumption priorities. As
Tammy Erickson’s session discussed, this up-and-coming
generation of workers won’t be consuming when they
reach adulthood in the volumes that prior generations
had. Their status symbols won’t be cars and houses, but
may have more to do with what they create. There are big
implications for economies, industries, and companies.
▪▪ It is HR’s role to communicate these ideas throughout
the organization so that it may prepare. The responsibility to share these ideas with organizations is squarely
HR’s. No other function has a foot in both the social and
economic aspects of work and life.
“The whole purpose of future thinking is
to help people prepare for the future by
making better decisions today. So the more
possibilities we can explore, the better off
we are.”
—Marina
—
Gorbis
11
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World
Six New Breeds of Socialstructed Worker
The explosion of socialstructed work is giving birth to
new kinds of workers:
1. Always-On people are always working, connected
24/7, always looking for the competitive edge
(think: stock traders watching for arbitrage opportunities).
Other Important Point
▪▪ Exploring scenarios. No one can predict the future, including futurists. Futurists explore different scenarios, as
the more scenarios explored, the better prepared people
can be. Notably, a socialstructed world is just one of four
scenarios the Institute for the Future has identified.
2. Microworkers sign up for work on multiple platforms
and spend their days doing little tasks like delivering groceries. They love the flexibility and strive for
reputation ratings in the top 5%.
3. Dream Builders separate what they do for money
from what they do to give their lives meaning. “Day
jobs” are balanced with artistic pursuits or other
passions.
4. Platform Makers are the “re-combiners” who find
creative solutions to streamline processes and
enable incumbent industries’ disruption.
5. Amplified Entrepreneurs use online platforms and
resources heavily, outsourcing everything as they
create projects and companies. They are self-starters for whom work is an adventure.
6. Culture Hackers live and work together, creating
companies and pooling resources. They blend work
and life, colleagues and friends, profession and
family.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
12
Fostering a Culture of Respect
and Inclusion
Philip Lenowitz, Senior Advisor to the HR Director, National Institutes of Health
Overview
The workplace of 2024 will feature unprecedented diversity,
particularly multigenerational diversity. As Baby Boomers
remain well beyond traditional retirement age, working
alongside generations whose outlooks seem quite alien, a
unifying organizational culture couldn’t be more important. A
deeply felt mission can provide the glue.
The workplace at the National Institutes of Health represents a microcosm of this ideal. The NIH’s mission of
science in the service of health excites and unites an exceptionally diverse workforce. Older workers are sought after,
valued for their experience and intellectual capital. Veterans’
unique needs are supported. Acceptance of differences is a
hallmark of the culture.
Such a culture doesn’t just happen; it is created through a
series of intentional actions and a wide range of programs
that help to promote inclusivity. They reflect HR leaders’
abiding belief in the organizational value created when
people of diverse ages, perspectives, backgrounds, and
lifestyles work together toward a common purpose.
Context
Philip Lenowitz, senior advisor to the director of human resources at the NIH, provided an overview of the NIH’s effort
to attract and retain older workers, as well as programs that
promote a culture of respect and inclusiveness.
Background
For the past 12 years the SHRM Foundation has highlighted
an organization with an effective HR practice in its annual
DVD. For the first time, the SHRM Foundation selected a public organization: the National Institutes of Health. Featured
in the new DVD Investing in Older Workers, the NIH demonstrates how to build a culture of inclusion and diversity,
particularly for older workers. The NIH is composed of 27 institutes and centers and has more than 19,000 employees.
Key Takeaways
The NIH views diversity as a tool for achieving its
organizational mission.
NIH’s focus is on scientific research and discovery. Since
the organizational capacity needed for research discoveries is human talent, and since “human talent comes in all
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
shapes, sizes, matters, and forms,” said a NIH representative on a video, “we value diversity as a tool for achieving
our mission.”
In particular, NIH greatly values the intellectual capital
that older workers represent. The organization recognizes
multiple advantages of attracting and retaining older talent,
including:
▪▪ A research-focused culture is inherently collaborative.
New knowledge is built on old knowledge. It is important
for young employees to learn from mature ones.
▪▪ Older employees want to stay engaged in productive
work.
▪▪ It is difficult for NIH to fill jobs that require advanced
training or specialized skills without recruiting and retaining older workers.
▪▪ An over-50 workforce ensures deep experience in areas
of expertise.
“Having a workforce over the age of
fifty ensures that we have people who
have deep experience in their areas of
expertise.”
—Philip
—
Lenowitz
The values of diversity and inclusivity are reflected
in meaningful programs.
NIH lives its values, with programs that communicate the
importance of diversity and inclusivity and that embed appreciation for these values in the culture.
Inclusivity-Promoting Programs
NIH is focused on creating a culture of inclusion, which it
brings to life as soon as a new employee joins by emphasizing the organization’s mission. Important programs related
to inclusion are:
▪▪ Falling in Love: HR has developed an orientation program for new employees called “Fall in Love.“ It fosters
appreciation for NIH’s mission of science and discovery
and excitement about being a part of it. New hires learn
about the history of the NIH, tour facilities to meet fellow
employees and learn what drives them, and connect with
each other. Teamwork is built as new hires see firsthand
the diverse workplace operating productively and happily.
13
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Fostering a Culture of Respect and Inclusion
“[On the orientation tour, new employees]
see people working together . . . old and
young, men and women of every ethnic
group, scientists and administrators, suits
and sandals, liberals and conservatives.”
—Philip
—
Lenowitz
▪▪ Connect More: This program is designed to teach HR
staff about the business of the NIH. It features short
meetings or workshops with a variety of scientists
talking about their work. HR personnel gain useful knowledge about interesting pockets of research at the NIH,
such as brain development in young adults.
▪▪ Fish Stick: NIH leadership encourages giving awards and
recognition to scientists and staff at each level of the
organization. Recognition of important scientific work is
a way to build a feeling of inclusion. One example is the
“Fish Stick,” awarded by first-level supervisors for a stellar accomplishment. Senior leadership in each division
and institute participate, which makes the honor more
meaningful for the employees.
These programs foster inclusion because they help align
everyone with the mission of the organization. They also
reflect an inclusivity-fostering spirit of fun that runs throughout the NIH culture. NIH director Dr. Francis Collins sets the
tone, often with his guitar (e.g., imitating Mick Jagger at an
awards ceremony, singing “Here Comes Your 19th Government Shutdown.”)
▪▪ Recognition of the value that the disabled can contribute. Project Search introduces developmentally disabled
young people to the work at NIH, which often leads to job
opportunities.
The NIH has taken steps to address barriers to
inclusion and diversity.
Large, diverse organizations will always have employee
conflicts, which NIH recognizes as barriers to its goals of a
happy, productive workplace. To overcome these barriers,
NIH has created structural initiatives focused on conflict
resolution:
▪▪ NIH Office of the Ombudsman. Employees can go to this
office for confidential counseling and support to help
resolve issues.
▪▪ Employee Assistance Program. Employees can get guidance on navigating personal or professional challenges.
▪▪ CIVIL. This program was developed to promote civil behavior in the workplace and prevent workplace violence.
“When I talk about inclusion and
support, it is hard not to address conflict.
Everybody’s got it, and there is no sense in
hiding it.”
—Philip
—
Lenowitz
Diversity-Supporting Programs
Anecdotes illustrate a happy, productive workforce.
Several programs demonstrate the value of workplace diversity. These include:
As part of NIH’s culture and focus on its mission, NIH
employees show great dedication to their jobs and routinely
make extraordinary efforts to help people find and access
medical resources.
▪▪ Mentoring. Young scientists are matched with a senior
scientist not only to facilitate the bond with the NIH, but
to provide a framework to pass along scientific knowledge. This has been expanded to provide opportunities
for staff at all levels to connect with a mentor.
▪▪ Administrative Fellows Program. This program was established to address the impending attrition of hundreds
of administrators. AFP is a job-recruitment and training
program for individuals with master’s degrees involving
administrative duties, job rotations, and mentoring.
▪▪ Attraction and retention. The NIH sees great value in attracting older workers, particularly researchers, who have
deep experience and expertise in particular fields. Further, analysis has shown that older workers have greater
staying power. Among employees ages 25–30 hired in
2009, 51% have stayed at the NIH for at least five years.
For those ages 50–55, it is 62%. So, older workers, with
greater life experience, are more likely to stay longer.
▪▪ Appreciation of veterans’ contributions. Veterans Recruitment and Retention Force (VRRF) is an effort at the
NIH to employ and retain veterans.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ Mr. Lenowitz once called the deputy director of the National Cancer Institute to find out how to help the son of
an acquaintance who had been diagnosed with testicular
cancer. Although they had never met, this doctor not only
took the time to talk with Mr. Lenowitz but also spoke at
length with the patient’s mother. He even arranged for a
consultation with Lance Armstrong’s physician.
▪▪ An audience member spoke about his son’s experience
at an NIH facility, where he received multiple transfusions. All of the blood that his son received had been
donated by NIH employees—a remarkable testament to
the devotion to mission that NIH people feel.
Other Important Point
▪▪ Real people. Diversity is shown through numerous
examples in day-to-day life at the NIH. For example, a
former principal deputy director at the NIH is an openly
gay, black man and adoptive father whose nontraditional
lifestyle was widely accepted, a nonissue in the culture.
Transgender employee Michael/Michelle was warmly
supported during gender reassignment surgery.
14
Innovation for the Changing
Nature of Work: How 3M is Preparing for
the Workplace of Tomorrow
Jan Shimanski, VP, Global Talent Solutions, 3M
Overview
Innovation is in 3M’s blood, and the time has come for innovating itself. Senior leaders at 3M “get it.” They recognize
how the world of work is changing and recognize the ramifications for 3M’s future competitiveness in talent markets—
and therefore in product markets—if the company fails to
transform itself. Six newly identified leadership behaviors
serve to point the way forward.
Context
Jan Shimanski explained how 3M is transforming itself to
be more competitive in future talent markets to secure the
workforce it will need.
Key Takeaways
Innovation has long defined 3M and now is defining
how it is preparing for the future of work.
3M is known for innovation. Chances are that within three
meters of you is a product invented by 3M. The company’s
inventions range from low-tech Scotch Tape and Post-It
Notes to high-tech healthcare devices, solar energy products, and automotive products. Beginning in 1948, long
before companies aspired to build innovation capabilities,
3M’s R&D department instituted a “Time to Think” policy. By
allocating 15% of people’s work time to ideation, the company granted institutional permission to be creative.
How 3M thinks about innovation has been expanded to permeate every function, not just R&D. That includes innovative
new approaches to attracting and retaining talent.
“We’re changing how we think about
innovation, to make innovation permeate
each and every function. . . . Innovation is
the heart of 3M. It’s our culture.”
—Jan
—
Shimanski
In the past, 3M had taken a passive, “build-it-and-they-willcome” approach to attracting talent. That changed after
CEO Inge Thulin took the helm more than two years ago. He
realized that to create the high-performing, diverse workforce that 3M needed, given its business and geographic
diversity and the steep competition for top talent, a rallying
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
cry that inspired passion was needed. Hearts had to thrill
at the opportunity to work at 3M. The rallying cry that was
crafted is: “Every day to advance every company, enhance
every moment, and improve every life.” That message has
been well received worldwide.
About six months ago, Jan Shimanski was asked to take the
reins of the HR function as head of Global Talent Solutions.
The intent was for Shimanski to build the company’s employer brand just as she had built the company’s 3M brand as
head of marketing.
Four trends identified in “Evolution of Work” are
calls to action for 3M.
Having never previously worked in HR, Dr. Shimanski had to
get up to speed quickly. She read the SHRM Foundation’s
February 2014 report Evolution of Work and the Worker and
realized that four of the megatrends identified aligned with
issues that affected 3M. The company would have to do
things differently if it still expected to have a high-performing
talent base by 2024. The four trends that 3M is focusing on
are:
▪▪ Scarcity in critical skills. 3M’s businesses require a
steady supply of well-educated, skilled people, including
STEM field majors in R&D and high school graduates
at the production facilities. The scarcity suggests that
3M will have to develop new capabilities to better find
and attract the needed talent as well as become flexible
enough to move work to where skilled individuals are.
“One worry that keeps us up at night is
this scarcity in critical skills. . . . We’re now
embracing borderless talent, looking at
where those STEM resources are, how to
attract them, and how to become flexible
enough to move the work to them.”
—Jan
—
Shimanski
▪▪ Increased competition for top talent. With declining
unemployment in the U.S. and other critical countries,
attracting top talent will be even more of a challenge.
Another challenge will be ensuring that people with the
right technical training in places like India and China also
develop needed communication skills.
15
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Innovation for the Changing Nature of Work: How 3M is Preparing for the Workplace of Tomorrow
▪▪ Increased telecommuting. At 3M, just 30% of workers
telecommute, far fewer than the norm in India and fewer
than the future workplace will likely dictate. The 3M
culture may not be as flexible as it needs to become in
terms of work arrangements.
▪▪ Multi-generational culture clashes. Many 3M employees
spend their entire careers at the company; the culture
highly values “seasoned” employees and the company
even tries to induce employees who have left to come
back. (Dr. Shimanski herself is a “boomerang” employee
who returned to 3M after leaving). As a result, there are
many older employees; it is uncertain how successfully
the culture will blend in the younger generations.
“When we look at the workforce of
tomorrow, 3M has to be innovative . . .
adaptable, maybe more than in the past . . .
and take action with leadership behaviors.
. . . We ‘get’ the trends.”
—Jan
—
Shimanski
When it comes to developing high-performing leaders capable of handling diverse assignments, play to win means
training in innovative ways, like simulation games.
#2: Act with Integrity and Transparency
Acting with integrity is all about playing to win in the right
way, with the utmost ethics and transparency. 3M’s code of
conduct isn’t buried in fine print, but is well communicated:
Be good, be loyal, be respectful. It serves to attract and
engage employees as well as guide their behavior.
#3: Innovate
Innovation at 3M is no longer limited to R&D but is now
happening in areas such as marketing, finance, the supply
chain, and HR. An example of an HR innovation is a social
media recruiting contest, held in Eastern Europe, to attract
millennials. The prize was a job at 3M. Contestants competed by developing marketing plans and business strategies,
and participating in business simulations; 400 submitted
videos. Three were hired and now have jobs at 3M in Russia, Poland, and Turkey.
#4: Prioritize and Execute
Critical to building the workforce of the future will
be 3M’s re-envisioned conception of leadership.
In January 2014, a big change in the performance review
system was enacted in response to insights from employee feedback. The leadership attributes against which 3M
traditionally assessed people were replaced by leadership
behaviors. Employees felt that using behaviors was fairer
than attributes.
This employee feedback came out of 3M’s new resolve to be
more accessible and approachable to employees. This was
quite different from the company’s traditional culture, which
had tended to “hide who we are.”
Six leadership behaviors give shape to what 3M
needs to do to be ready for the future workforce.
Now, all 89,000 employees worldwide are held accountable
for living up to six behavioral standards of leadership. A
great deal of discussion about what these behaviors mean
in practice has imparted an organization-wide clarity about
the 3M point of view and has been “extremely engaging.”
Having these six leadership behaviors as guideposts is
helping 3M see what it needs to do to meet the challenges
of the evolving workforce. These six behaviors are:
#1: Play to Win
When it comes to hiring, play to win means not compromising in the search for the right person. It also means
doing innovative things to attract talent, such as setting up
recruiters in a Silicon Valley office to compete for software
development talent against the likes of Google, or involving
senior company leaders in recruiting promising candidates.
The idea is to “wow” prospective employees. At job fairs,
3M packs its booth with its most awesome technologies.
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
3M is taking an innovative approach to strategic leadership development, identifying the types of leaders needed
to head businesses in various business conditions. For
example, fast-growing businesses are best led by builders
of value; businesses that are under strategic review require
fixers. 3M places leaders accordingly and works to develop
leaders with diverse experience, who can prioritize and execute well under various scenarios.
#5: Develop Others and Self
To continue to evolve its leadership development capabilities, 3M is identifying the 300–500 “game changers,” or
high-potentials, in the company and actively managing their
experiences for broad exposure throughout the company.
To cultivate an interest in STEM fields among young people,
3M is working in schools with 5th to 8th graders as well
as high school students. Additionally, 3M has six Learning
Centers around the globe with state-of-the-art technology
that facilitates teleconferencing and working remotely. So
employees in India and China and the U.S., for example,
can meet in conditions that closely simulate a real physical
meeting.
“We’re starting young, building that brand.
. . . I think we all know that in developing
others, we develop ourselves.”
—Jan
—
Shimanski
#6: Foster Collaboration and Teamwork
3M has several employee resource networks that support
its diversity and inclusion goals. Collaboration is fostered
through active affinity communities.
16
Developing High-Potential Female
Talent: Challenges and Opportunities
Nancy Carter, Ph.D., SVP, Research, Catalyst, Inc.
Overview
Research shows that gender inequality in the workplace is
alive and well. Even in this day and age when companies
invest large sums on programs to develop female leaders,
the glass ceiling remains. Organizations are not consciously
discriminating against women, yet the fact remains that female high-potentials don’t advance up the corporate ladder
as fast as or in the numbers their male counterparts do.
Companies’ underutilization of their female talent carries
high costs for individuals, organizations, and economies.
HR has an important role to play in solving this problem.
Catalyst wants to help.
Context
Nancy Carter shared research showing that the playing field
isn’t even for women in the workplace, explored reasons
why, and called on HR professionals to help.
“glass ceiling” is keeping women from advancing beyond
a certain point. Female executives still seldom ascend to
senior leadership ranks.
Presented with this news, most people think, “Give it time.”
But plenty of time has been given. From 2003 to 2013,
women heading Fortune 500 companies increased, but only
from 1.3% to 4.8%. That is fewer than 25 of the 500 CEOs,
meaning that women are still grossly under-represented at
the highest levels of corporate America.
“We’ve given it a lot of time, and the glass
ceiling still isn’t broken. So what’s going on?”
—Nancy
—
Carter
Organizations’ female talent assets are underutilized the
world over. That reality not only hurts the individuals involved
and tethers the potential of their companies but also constrains the GDP growth of entire economies. Figure 1 shows
impacts Catalyst has quantified.
About Catalyst
Catalyst is a 53-year-old nonprofit membership organization. It works with companies and professions to
expand opportunities for women in business and create
more inclusive workplaces. Its 700 members primarily
are large, Fortune 500-sized corporations. Historically,
the New York City-based organization conducted its
international work virtually, but in recent years has
opened offices in Canada, Switzerland, India, Japan,
and Australia. Catalyst has an ambitious, inspiring
vision: to change workplaces and thereby change lives.
Key Takeaways
Figure 1. What’s good for women is good for the world
The underutilization of female talent impacts not
just companies but economies.
High-potential women aren’t promoted as often or
as fast as their male counterparts.
Even though in many parts of the world women attain greater educational heights than men and represent 50% of the
workforce at entry levels, their representation declines the
further up the corporate ladder. There is a “leaky pipeline”
phenomenon.
Three major Catalyst studies have contributed to plentiful
data on the careers of high-potential men and women in
large corporations: a 2009 benchmark study of practices
within Catalysts’ member companies; a study that since
2007 has followed the careers of 4,500 graduates of top
MBA programs; and a qualitative study using information
from interviews and surveys. Some findings:
In this day and age, it seems improbable that women still
face discrimination in the workplace. So most people figure
that the leaks must reflect women’s voluntarily dropping
out of the leadership race. However, examination of where
leakages occur reveals that is not the case. The so-called
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ Initial disparities snowball. From their very first jobs,
women lag men in both salaries and positions. They earn
$4,600 less than men on average and are more likely to
17
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Developing High-Potential Female Talent: Challenges and Opportunities
start in an entry-level position. Inequities accelerate over
time, with the salary gap growing to $31,258. Controlling
for numerous variables still yields big disparities.
“From the first job, women lagged both in
terms of salaries and positions they were
given. . . . The effects were so large that no
matter what we controlled for, they were
still there.”
—Nancy
—
Carter
▪▪ Companies do invest in leadership development for
high-potential women. Most Catalyst member companies have well-developed programs to cultivate female
talent: 75% have mentoring programs; 65% have leadership development programs; 80 have women’s employee
resource groups (ERGs). But in relatively few companies
with ERGs for women (20%) is ERG leadership tied to
both performance appraisal systems and succession
planning.
▪▪ Men experience better outcomes as a result of leadership development programs. After emerging from leadership development programs, both men and women often
received good assignments in equal measure. However,
men were given international assignments nearly twice
as frequently. Also, men were assigned positions with
P&L responsibilities more often than women, and more
saw their departments’ budgets increase by over 20%.
(Disparities in job rotation opportunities were unclear,
since a third of the companies that offered them didn’t
even track who was getting them.)
▪▪ Women are held in leadership development programs
longer and promoted less afterwards. This potentially
suggests a “deficit model perspective” regarding women’s participation in the programs; i.e., they need the
help and need more of it. Men enter these programs later and emerge sooner, more often to promotions, which
may suggest a more strategically targeted career plan.
A year post-program, 51% of men had been promoted
versus 37% of women.
▪▪ The hot jobs go to men more often than women. Both
men and women got desirable project-related work in
equal measure, but the assignments men received had
budgets on average twice as large as women’s. Men got
more mission-critical assignments, more access to the
C-suite, and more direct reports.
“Women were receiving less experience in
mission-critical jobs. They were getting
less P&L responsibilities, managing fewer
direct reports, and not managing as many
budgets of $10 million and above. Does
this ring true to you?”
—Nancy
—
Carter
Catalyst board members, who are CEOs of major corporations, initially were dubious of these findings, thinking that
the methodology must be flawed, until Ms. Carter convinced
them otherwise. They decided to examine the salaries of
500 high-potentials in their own companies and report back.
To their surprise, their results were consistent with the
research findings. The CEOs decided immediately to adjust
the pay of all of the women who had been disadvantaged.
Why do gender opportunity inequities persist?
Because people promote people like themselves.
“It’s embarrassing,” said an audience participant, speaking
on behalf of the HR profession. “How can something so obvious have gone on the way it has? . . . It’s just an incredible
denial of reality.”
“The puzzling thing,” replied Ms. Carter, “is that it’s not
intentional, is it?” Large corporations invest huge sums
to expand opportunities for under-represented groups and
build inclusive work environments. “So what’s going on?”
Suggested explanations from the audience:
▪▪ Perhaps women enter leadership developing programs
with a learning mindset versus a purpose-driven mindset. That might reflect natural tendencies and/or how
women are mentored (“The experience will be good for
you”) versus how men are (“Go and learn X, Y, Z”).
▪▪ Women tend to make sure they are completely ready
for a challenge before accepting, whereas men jump in
when just 35% ready and figure it out as they go.
But Catalyst and others have studied what men and women
do to advance their careers, and found no significant difference. There are four different types of career advancement
strategies that people pursue, each associated with different behaviors and degrees of proactivity. Similar percentages of men and women fall into each group.
Figure 2. Women are judged to need more leadership training, but
programs yield more fruit for men
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
Rather than anything that men and women themselves do
differently, what might account for their divergent career
success rates, Ms. Carter suggested, is institutionalized human bias. Corporate cultures have unwritten rules, set from
the top, such as “Think manager, think leader, think male.”
18
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Developing High-Potential Female Talent: Challenges and Opportunities
Moreover, the people making promotion decisions tend to
choose people who are like themselves, reflecting a natural
human tendency.
HR’s call to action: Drive unintended bias out
of promotion decisions by using more objective
systems.
HR professionals who would like to help their organizations
better leverage the important talent asset that women represent, and help women employees compete on a more level
playing field, have the means.
First, they should investigate how decisions that affect
careers get made in their organizations, looking for the
subtle influences, to learn where unintended bias might lurk.
For example, when recruiters return from visits to business
schools, which resumes end up at the top? How do they get
there?
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
To break the cycle of unintended bias, Ms. Carter recommends instituting non-subjective systems for assessing who
deserves the plum opportunities that lead to advancement.
These systems should rely not on human judgment but on
performance metrics, such as Joe Cabral recommended
in his presentation. They should assess not attributes but
behaviors, as Jan Shimanski advised in hers. Perhaps these
can be the same systems that HR uses to identify high-potentials in the first place. And there need to be checks and
balances put in place all along the leadership pipeline to
ensure that human bias is driven out of the equation.
Catalyst would like to work with HR professionals and their
organizations to effect change together.
19
Crowdsourcing: Transforming the Way
Work Gets Done
Matt Crampton, Co-Founder and CTO, Gigwalk
Heidi Spirgi, SVP, Strategy Services Practice, Appirio
Gary Swart, Venture Partner, Polaris Partners
Moderator: Jason Averbook, Chief Business Innovation Officer, Appirio
Overview
Traditional retailing didn’t disappear with the arrival of
e-commerce 20 years ago. Likewise, traditional employment
will always be with us, panelists feel, but companies also
will have an alternative option for getting get work done. It’s
called “crowdsourcing,” and the panelists’ companies are
facilitators, offering online marketplaces where workers and
those with project work can connect and transact business.
The work often gets done faster and better by more engaged
workers, because the new model’s motivators are unlike any
that traditional employment offers.
Context
In this interactive session, the panelists described their
innovative companies, each representing an online marketplace that enables work to be done via crowdsourcing, and
discussed the implications of these new models for the
future of work.
Key Takeaways
The panelists’ innovative companies help
organizations leverage the power of the crowd.
The concept of “the crowd” is as ambiguous to some as
“the cloud.” It has a lot of definitions, but the simplest way
to think of it is that the crowd is you. If you’ve ever clicked
“Like” or posted a product review, you’re part of the crowd.
“Crowdsourcing” is outsourcing from the crowd; it allows an
organization to leverage the collective talent of the crowd
to get work done, often in more efficient and cost-effective
ways than the traditional employment model. It’s up to each
HR professional to figure out what the power of crowdsourcing could mean for their organizations.
The panelists’ companies all facilitate crowdsourcing in
different ways, via different models:
▪▪ Gigwalk was born of the realization that the armies of
people walking around cities with smartphones and
small pockets of time could be deployed as a temporary,
ad hoc workforce for organizations with small tasks to be
done, like checking milk prices at a nearby store and uploading photo evidence to the Gigwalk app. They are paid
automatically via PayPal as soon as they finish a task.
People work whenever they want. The more jobs they
complete satisfactorily, the higher their reputation score,
and the more sophisticated are subsequent tasks. There
are 650,000 Gigwalkers today in 6,500 cities in the
U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the U.K. These are often people with busy lives, like students or stay-at-home moms,
who find that quick and easy gigs fit seamlessly into
their lives and provide needed extra cash. The types of
tasks offered often represent work that didn’t get done
in the past; it was too impractical to hire the volume of
people needed for such discrete, short-term tasks.
“All of a sudden, you can hire 1,000 people
and you don’t have to interview them. . . .
Instead, you can look at their history and
decide whether they’re going to be right.”
—Matt
—
Crampton
▪▪ Appirio.com represents a global community of 700,000
IT developers, designers, and data scientists. The
company leverages these experts to provide its clients
with cloud-based IT solutions. Clients are major organizations—including Google, Salesforce, IBM, and GE—who
know that to remain competitive in today’s dynamic
markets they need to leverage global expertise. Giving
a problem to an employee to work out over time is not
nearly as fast or as effective as throwing it out to a
competitive community to see who can come up with the
best solution. In this crowdsourcing model, work isn’t assigned to specific individuals but offered up as a contest
to the entire community. Chosen ideas are returned to
the community for further development and refinement,
with further opportunity for prize money. Besides offering
traditional consulting, Appirio offers subscription-based
access to its Top Coder community, so that customers
can tap these experts’ know-how and creativity on an
ongoing basis.
“To remain relevant and competitive in the
global marketplace, [companies] have to
leverage global expertise. No longer can
they assume they have the smartest and
best people within their organizations. They
need to find that expertise, regardless of
where it exists, when they need it.”
—Heidi
—
Spirgi
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Crowdsourcing: Transforming the Way Work Gets Done
▪▪ For eight years, Gary Swart was CEO of oDesk.com,
an online marketplace uniting more than 10 million
knowledge workers in 160 countries with 2 million client
companies that have projects for them to do. “It’s the
eBay of work,” said Gary Swart. The model is similar to
Gigwalk’s except oDesk workers can work from anywhere
in the world. Client companies hire, manage, and pay
workers via the web instead of on premise. oDesk takes
care of the back-office red tape (tax forms and such). It’s
“the world’s largest online workplace.”
“Our vision was that workers and businesses
should have freedom and boundless
opportunity. . . . [Our] thought was: Why
shouldn’t online work be like online
commerce? Both are about finding the
right good, getting delivery of that good,
and paying for it, all via the web.”
hundreds of experts working simultaneously on innovative solutions (the Appirio model), speed-to-market times
are significantly shortened.
▪▪ The ability to tap global communities of brilliant
thinkers. The opportunity to advance innovation and
problem solving by tapping such massive pools of brainpower, the likes of which no company has in-house, is
unprecedented.
“[Crowdsourcing] opens up the world,
allowing companies to access brilliance that
may not have been previously available.
It’s really exciting, both for the future of
work as well as for the individuals who
haven’t found a home in the traditional
employment model.”
—Heidi
—
Spirgi
—Gary
—
Swart
Crowdsourcing models open up valuable
opportunities for both organizations and workers.
The work these platforms enable is a godsend for many
freelance workers. Many skilled and diligent workers are
shut out of traditional employment opportunities for reasons that have nothing to do with their ability to contribute
productively. They might move frequently with a military
spouse, have a disorder or family responsibilities that keep
them homebound, or live in a remote area where knowledge
work is scarce. They could be brilliant iconoclasts who just
aren’t cut out for the rules and regulations of office cultures.
Those who lost jobs in the recession may find new meaning
and purpose in life through freelance work.
For companies, crowdsourcing represents:
▪▪ Relief from “the talent wars.” With crowdsourcing, there
is no fight to attract or retain the best talent. There is
little risk in trying someone out on an initial project because there is no commitment to use them again. Hiring
the wrong person, conversely, could be quite costly.
Crowdsourcing holds lessons for HR about what
may increasingly motivate workers in the future.
HR also has much to learn about the future of work from
these models, particularly what may motivate workers of
the future who prefer working under these new conditions to
traditional employment models.
Among motivators cited, oDesk workers love the:
▪▪ Freedom and flexibility offered.
▪▪ Ability to grow and develop by doing work they are passionate about.
▪▪ Ability to get a second paycheck by working after returning from their day jobs.
Gigwalkers “really dig” the:
▪▪ Variety of work that is available and the interesting exposure to different industries.
▪▪ Feeling (especially among the long-term unemployed)
that they “matter again,” doing something worthwhile.
Appirio community members are driven by:
▪▪ Cost-effective alternative to traditional employment
models. These new ways of engaging talent are cheaper
than paying salaries, healthcare benefits, and payroll
taxes.
▪▪ The challenge of hard-to-solve problems.
▪▪ Better-quality work. Freelancers are usually extremely engaged and motivated because they choose their
projects and aim to please in hopes of earning good
reputation rankings. Conversely, salaried employees
usually have little say over what work they do under what
conditions; lack of autonomy dampens engagement.
▪▪ Community. A challenge Appirio faces is to keep community members, who aren’t paid unless they win a contest,
actively engaged.
▪▪ Speed. Turnaround times may be expedited owing to
differing time zones (projects assigned at the end of one
day may be in inboxes the next morning). Moreover, with
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ Competition and recognition. The community is “very
competitive, very quantitative, and very recognition
oriented.”
Ms. Spirgi pointed out that a common motivator across all
three panelists’ models is “the self-selection by the worker
of the work.” That in and of itself “increases the quality of
output you get versus employees who are not selecting the
work they do on a day-to-day basis.”
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Crowdsourcing: Transforming the Way Work Gets Done
On HR’s to-do list: Exploring crowdsourcing’s
implications for the workplace of the future.
Will workers of the future prefer these new models to
traditional employment? Some may, but just as e-commerce
didn’t prove to be the death of brick-and-mortar stores,
the panelists suspect that crowdsourcing will co-exist with
traditional employment, and not replace it. Crowdsourcing
presents HR professionals with food for thought:
▪▪ How might organizations incorporate internal marketplaces for sharing ideas, competing on problem solving, and
assigning task-based work to reap some of crowdsourcing’s motivational benefits?
▪▪ How can organizations learn to re-envision work in discrete projects and tasks? Some of Appirio’s clients have
difficulty with this; yet without breaking down work into
digestible projects, Ms. Spirgi said, “crowdsourcing is
not a big success.”
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
▪▪ How can companies attract, retain, motivate, and engage
the extended external workforce, differentiating themselves from others offering crowdsourced work?
“Just as you try to keep your workforce
engaged, you have to do things to keep
your community engaged—how do you
spread the word for your contest? . . . A lot
behind the scenes goes into building these
talent markets.”
—Jason
—
Averbook
Mr. Swart’s advice for HR: “Just recognize that the workforce
and the worker are changing. Some percentage of work going forward will be done this way. Embrace it by getting your
toe in the water.”
22
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biographies
As Chief Business Innovation Officer of
Appirio, Jason Averbook leads Appirio’s
human capital management business.
Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in the HR and technology industry,
Jason works closely with customers to
creatively drive business outcomes.
Jason was formerly the CEO and co-founder Knowledge
Infusion, which was acquired by Appirio in 2012. While at
Knowledge Infusion, Jason was responsible for the vision
and strategy that propelled the company to be the recognized leader in HR consulting.
Prior to Knowledge Infusion, Jason held senior management
positions at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, where he built strong
relationships with customers and strove to provide unrivaled
service to HR organizations around the world.
Jason is deeply involved in the global HR community and
speaks frequently at industry conferences, including HR
Technology, IHRIM and major enterprise software vendor conferences. He also frequently contributes to publications that
include Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Talent Management
Magazine, HR Executive and Workforce Management. A native
of Minnesota, Jason holds a bachelor’s degree and M.B.A.
from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.
Joseph Cabral is the Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer
for the North Shore-LIJ Health System.
The organization has an annual operating budget of more than $7 billion and a
workforce comprised of more than 48,000
employees, making it one of the largest healthcare systems
in the country, with 16 hospitals, several long-term care
facilities, an internationally recognized medical research
institute and New York State’s first new allopathic medical
school in more than 40 years, the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ
School of Medicine. North Shore-LIJ, along with PepsiCo and
Procter & Gamble, was recently awarded the 2013 Human Resource Management (HRM) Impact Award, the first
international award to honor organizations with outstanding
evidence-based HR management practices.
With more than 19 years of experience developing and
executing strategies that enhance cultural and organizational
change, he has spent the past seven years driving the health
system’s business objectives, vision and values forward in
all aspects of Talent Management and Human Resources
operations in order to achieve the organization’s goals.
Mr. Cabral has held key HR leadership roles at New York
Presbyterian Hospital and Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA,
and has been cited by Time Magazine, Business Week, The
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes and other industry publications for his expertise in “Best Practices” in Human Resources. He accepted, on behalf of North Shore-LIJ
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
Health System, the Taleo Customer Innovation Award for creating a strategic, efficient talent management process that
has helped the organization achieve its operational financial
goals. He holds an M.S. in Quality Systems Management.
He has taught as an adjunct professor in Human Resources
Management at the University of Massachusetts. He also
served as a Baldrige Examiner and serves as a trustee for
one of the largest Taft-Hartley Pension Plans in the country.
Additionally, he was appointed by the Governor of New York
to serve on the Regional Economic Development Council.
Nancy M. Carter, Ph.D., leads Catalyst in
developing groundbreaking research on
issues related to women’s advancement
in business and the professions. Prior
to joining Catalyst, she was Leverhulme
Visiting Professor at the London Business
School and held the Richard M. Schulze
Chair in Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas,
Minneapolis. She has worked professionally in advertising
and marketing research and works closely with government
and private sector initiatives promoting women’s advancement. She has published and speaks widely on gender, organizations, strategy, and entrepreneurship. Her book, Clearing
the Hurdles, documents women’s challenges in accessing
resources for building their businesses. In 2007, she was
honored with the prestigious Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research for her work on the Diana Project, a research
initiative on women entrepreneurs and the venture capital
industry. Her research on women and minority entrepreneurs
has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the
U.S. Small Business Administration, the National Business
Women’s Council, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research
Institute. In 2009, Dr. Carter was appointed Visiting Scholar
at INSEAD, a graduate business school with campuses in
France, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi.
Dr. Carter received her PhD in Business Administration from
the University of Nebraska, an MA in Mass Communications
from California State University, and a BA in Journalism from
the University of Nebraska.
Matt Crampton is the co-founder and CTO
of Gigwalk. He originally founded Gigwalk
to create a marketplace to help businesses mobilize people to get work done.
Since launching in May 2011, Gigwalk
has grown into a local visibility software
platform that facilitates brand and retailer
collaboration with the world’s largest on-demand mobile
workforce, also known as Gigwalkers. Prior to Gigwalk, Matt
lead software development teams at Yahoo! Buzz, and HotJobs (starting in 2005), and lead front end development for
AOL Shopping and Alerts (starting in 2000).
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16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Biographies
Tamara Erickson is a McKinsey Award-winning author, a leading expert on generations in the workplace and a widely
respected expert on collaboration and innovation, the changing workforce and the
nature of work in intelligent organizations.
She has three-times been named one of
the 50 most influential living management thinkers in the
world by Thinkers50, the global ranking of business thinkers
created by Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer. She has written
a trilogy of books on how individuals in specific generations
can excel in today’s workplace: Retire Retirement, What’s
Next, Gen X? and Plugged In, and is working on a fourth book
for the generation under the age of 17 today. Tammy has
authored or co-authored numerous Harvard Business Review
articles and the book Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the
Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent. Erickson holds a B.A.
degree in biological sciences from the University of Chicago
and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration. She has served on the Board of Directors of
two Fortune 500 corporations and is the founder and CEO
of Tammy Erickson Associates, a firm dedicated to helping
clients build intelligent organizations.
Marina Gorbis is Executive Director of
the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit research and consulting organization based
in Silicon Valley. She has brought a futures perspective to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government
and philanthropy. Marina has blogged and
written for BoingBoing.net, FastCompany and major media
outlets, and is a frequent speaker on future organizational,
technology, and social issues. Marina’s current research
focus is social production and how it is changing the face of
major industries, a topic explored in detail in her 2013 book
The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed
World.
Philip Lenowitz recently retired as the
Deputy Director of Human Resources
at the National Institutes of Health in
Bethesda, Maryland. In that role, Phil
oversaw the delivery of HR services –
from recruitment and hiring to education
and training – to the NIH workforce of
19,000 employees. Under Phil’s direction, NIH was ranked
first in AARP’s Best Employers for Workers over 50, co-sponsored by SHRM, making NIH the only Federal agency to
achieve this distinction. He has presented at a variety of
conferences, including SHRM, on issues such as recruiting
and retaining the older workforce, and mentoring programs.
Phil received his Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial and Labor
Relations from Cornell University and began his career in HR
with the Veterans Administration (VA). As a Labor Relations
Specialist, Phil had the opportunity to travel the country representing the VA in union negotiations and arbitration hearings. After five years in DC, Phil began a second career as
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
a stock options trader on the floor of the Philadelphia Stock
Exchange and later formed his own broker-dealer company.
He spent 11 years in this second career before returning
to employee and labor relations at VA Medical Centers. He
began his NIH career in the HR office at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research
Triangle Park, North Carolina. He then moved on to become
NIH’s Director of Employee and Labor Relations. After retiring in April 2014, Phil continues to work part time as the
senior advisor to the HR Director sharing his institutional
knowledge with the senior HR leaders and mentoring the
new Deputy Director. In addition, he serves on the Executive
Steering Committee of the US Department of Health and
Human Services “Hire to Retire Modernization Program.”
Jan Shimanski, Ph.D. is Vice President,
Global Talent Solutions for 3M. Previously,
she was Vice President, 3M Global Marketing Excellence, and before that served
as Vice President, 3M International Marketing and Strategy, a $20B franchise for
3M with over 4,000 marketing professionals. Jan rejoined 3M in April, 2008 after a twelve year career
at Medtronic, Inc. Jan has her Bachelor of Arts and Master’s
of Science in Business from the University of Wisconsin –
Madison. She also earned her PhD in Business from the
Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota with a dissertation on “Patterns of Strategic Change in
Firms from Start Up through Adolescence.”
Heidi Spirgi is senior vice president of
Appirio’s Strategy Services practice. She
leads a team responsible for helping organizations be more thoughtful and strategic
in planning for their technology investments, including looking at the people
and process components. She is the former president and
co-founder of Knowledge Infusion. Spirgi has more than 15
years of experience in HR and talent management.
Gary Swart is a Venture Partner investing
in technology companies for Polaris. He
was previously the CEO of oDesk. Gary
serves as a thought leader on the future
of work, how best to hire and manage
teams, and on the rise of the “freelance
economy.” He has spoken at the Inc. Leadership Conference, The Economist’s Ideas Economy Panel, SXSW , TechCrunch 50, GigaOM Net:Work, and at HBS – which teaches
a case study on oDesk. His commentary has appeared in
a variety of publications including LinkedIn, Forbes, TechCrunch, The Washington Post and The Next Web. And he’s
appeared on TV and radio outlets, including CNBC, BBC,
Bloomberg TV, National Public Radio, Startups Uncensored,
NPR, and the Fox Business Network.
25
16th Annual Thought Leaders retreat
Major funding for the Thought Leaders Retreat is provided by the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM) and the HR Certification Institute.
The Thought Leaders Retreat was started in 1999 as a way for SHRM Foundation board members to interact
with outside experts and to generate new research ideas. From that beginning, the event grew each year to
include members of the other SHRM boards and special guests. Since 2002, Thought Leaders programs
have targeted a senior executive audience and focused on strategic issues such as HR leadership at the
board level, attracting and retaining top talent, and positioning your organization for recovery. To view content
summaries of past events, visit www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/Pages/default.aspx#3.
The annual event brings together a select group of leading-edge thinkers and practitioners in the HR field.
Participants explore critical human capital issues from a new perspective.
At the SHRM Foundation, we help predict where the workforce is headed because we have been studying
its evolution for over 40 years. Our vision is a world of inspired business leaders implementing the winning
combination of employee fulfillment and business success. We offer unmatched workforce knowledge for
the benefit of professional workforce leaders with a total focus on studying and reporting the management
practices that work. Supporting the SHRM Foundation is a chance to contribute to an ongoing study of the
direction of human resources in society. The SHRM Foundation is the 501(c)3 nonprofit affiliate of SHRM. The
Foundation is governed by a volunteer board of directors, comprising distinguished HR academic and practice
leaders. Contributions to the SHRM Foundation are tax-deductible.
This summary was prepared by Bullseye Resources for the SHRM Foundation.
SHRM Foundation
1800 Duke Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Tel: (703) 535-6020
Fax: (703) 535-6474
www.shrmfoundation.org
© 2014 SHRM. Created for SHRM by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
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