Strategic HR: Demographics Alert

For many of you this may have gone unnoticed. For some of you your thought may have been "that is interesting" or "I am not surprised." If you are a strategic HR person your thought should have been "What impact will this have on our employee base? How will this impact our HR system as a whole?"

"What is he talking about?" you ask. What I am talking about is the article that appeared in the WSJ on the September 29 Online edition. The article was entitled New Vow: I Don't Take Thee - Young Single Adults Surpass Married Peers Amid High Divorce, Cohabitation Rates. Author Connor Dougherty starts off with " For the first time since the U.S. began tallying marriages, more Americans of prime marrying age have stayed single rather than tied the knot, the culmination of a tectonic shift in the role of marriage and relationships that began in the 1960s."  The author continues with "... data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show that for the first time the proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have never been married exceeded those who were married in 2009—46.3% versus 44.9%, according to an analysis by Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a non-profit research organization in Washington." If you combine this with adults who have been divorced the married population has dropped to 52%, the lowest share in history. Compare this to 72.2% in 1960.

The article talks about a lot of the "whys" of this, but to get that information you need to read the article. What I was most interested in, and want you to think about, are the implication for your particular workforce in the coming 5 or more years. I want you to think strategically. What will this impact possible be for you and how will you be prepared to handle it.

Here are some of my general thoughts:

• Recruitment- Might this have the effect of opening up a market of candidates that might be more willing to relocate in the future? What effect might this have on your pool of candidates? Will it make it easier to find people?
• Compensation- Because there are more women getting college degrees and more women in the workforce who are now forestalling having children will this raise the overall compensation of women in the workforce. Will this have any impact on your pay policies (it shouldn't if  you have been doing it right before this, but you never know?)
• Benefits- How will a workforce composed of a large group of single people impact your benefit structure? Of course, many of these single people have "partners" (both hetero- and homosexual). Does this mean you will have to alter plans to cover more domestic partner situations?

Those are just three areas that quickly come to mind. What else might be included? That will depend on your company's circumstances. But you need to be thinking about it now, proactively, and producing a contingency plan that will allow you to say to upper management "Here is a trend, here is how it will impact us near-term and long-term, and here is what we need to do about it." Talk about earning your stripes.

Of course this may have been unnecessary for me to say. You already recoginize this stuff and do this strategic environmental scanning all the time? RIGHT!

Seven Steps to Being Proactive: Lessons from Great Explorers

HR folks often complain about how they have to spend all their time being "reactive" and have little opportunity to be "proactive." Ever heard that? Ever said that? Yeah, right me neither (said with tongue-in-cheek.) SHRM has addressed that in the SPHR educational section of the learning system. They talk about the importance of being forward thinking and aware by being an "environmental scanner".

I  have always had a big interest in both the past and future. I read alot of history and biographies and I also read alot about the future. I was a big fan of John Naisbitt's  Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, Megatrends 2000 and Peter Capezio's Powerful Planning Skills: Envisioning the Future and Making it Happen. I am currently reading a book called Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish. In his first chapter I was able to find a lesson that I thought was very applicable to strategic HR. He talked about the seven lessons we can learn from the great explorers of the past. These lessons include:

1. Prepare for what you will face in the future. There was never a successful explorer who did not sit down and make a list of what needed to be taken and prepared. Any explorer who did not do this preparation was not famous. They were dead. You cannot have a "we will cross that bridge when we get to it" attitude in HR.
2. Anticipate future needs. This is implied by lesson 1. You cannot predict the future, but you can anticipate it. You can review scenarios and determine what is likely to occur. So if you are going to drastically change a process, or benefit program, or staffing think about what all the possible reactions may be and prepare for them.
3. Use poor information when necessary. There may not be a good or perfect "road map" for where you are headed to, but someone has probably tried it already. They may have failed, but at least you have some information on which to base your decisions. Perhaps under a different set of circumstances you had tried to do something in the past and failed. You will not want to recreate that but at least there is the beginning of a "map" you can work with.
4. Expect the Unexpected. Realize that "the best laid plans of men oft go awry". Have a contingency for dealing with something occurring that you had not planned for. What do you do if the company outing you had been planning for six months is to occur the same day a tornado occurs?
5. Think long term as well as short term. Often projects, programs, and changes may get delayed, tabled or even cancelled in the short term. What can you do to foster your long term plans until a more favorable set of circumstances occurs?
6. Dream productively. This is your vision. But is not just fantasizing. Great explorers are doers. As Cornish says "For the great explorers, dreaming was not idle reverie but research- a mental exploration of what lay ahead. By fantasizing about future events, they could explore alternative goals and strategies and thus develop and select worthwhile and achievable goals, as well as imaginative but realistic strategies for reaching the goals they selected."
7. Learn from your predecessors. Read what you can that has been published by others who have attempted what you want to attempt. It is doubtful that you will be the first that has ever attempted what you want to do. (Most of us are not that brave.) But even if you are there may still be someone who may have done something similar that your can learn from. Remember the saying "those who ignore history are bound to repeat it."

There you go. Seven Steps to being proactive. Lessons we have learned from the great explorers. Follow their lead and you may lead your company to great things.

Be sure to document along the way so others may follow your foot steps as some point.

The HREvolution: An Interview with Trisha McFarlane- Part I

On May 7th and 8th a group of Human Resources and Recruiting "thought leaders" will meet in Chicago to discuss the future of the profession of Human Resources. This will not be an academic conference with names like Ulrich in attendance. This meeting is billed at an "Un-conference" and includes names like McFarlane, Eubanks and Ruettimann. The second meeting of HREvolution will be made up mostly of HR bloggers, tweeters and practioners who are interested in discussing how HR can fundamentally progress from the current state of the field.

I had the opportunity to interview "Thought Meister" Trish McFarlane who was the creator of the idea of HREvolution and I asked her some questions about the why and wherefor of HREvolution. This is Part I and Part II will appear tomorrow.

MH: You are the creator of HRevolution, so when people ask you what is HRevolution, what do you tell them?

TM: You know, we have this great description online that sounds all “official”. Here’s what HRevolution means to me personally. HRevolution is for ME, it’s for YOU. It’s an event that brings together not just like-minded HR and recruiting professionals, it also brings us closer to those people who do not think like us. It’s true purpose is networking and collaborating with some of the thought leaders in our industry. And the real beauty of it for me is that no one is excluded. Everyone pays their own way from the planning committee to speakers to participants. We’re all the same. That is how I know that people really come for the right reason. It’s not about collecting swag from a booth. It’s about making connections and friendships with people you respect. And, the participants are the most generous you’ll find. We have so many people paying for others who are out of work just so they can come and network too. It’s about being part of the HR/ Recruiting family.

MH: What was the genesis of HRevolution?
TM: The idea came out of the frustration of working (at the time) for a company that would not pay for conferences. Most conferences cost thousands of dollars to get in, then you have hotel, food, and travel costs on top of that. I wanted to attend one so badly, but didn’t have the money. So, I tweeted out:

“Think we should plan a #HR blogger conference. 1 day. Blog specific learning/sharing. @beneubanks @theredrecruiter @stelzner @lruettimann”

From there, Ben Eubanks came up with the name of HRevolution and we were on our way. We quickly added Steve Boese, Mike Owcarz, and Crystal Peterson to the planning committee. Mike eventually had to step out when he and his wife welcomed a new baby, but he was there in spirit. It was great to see what strangers could come together to create based solely on the trusting relationships we developed on Twitter and through blogging.

MH: What is the nature of the discussions at HRE? Does it look like a SHRM conference?
TM: That’s a great question. Many of us, including me, are SHRM members, but it is not like a SHRM conference. You’ll find the venues we choose are meant to be really comfortable, almost like you’re coming over to a friend’s house for a dinner party. BUT, the discussions are the key. You will find some serious discussions on every possible topic that affects HR and recruiting. Some sessions become quite heated, there may be debating, there may be a lot of agreement. We just never know. What I can promise is that you will not sit through even one PowerPoint presentation. You WILL be part of the conversation on the topics you choose. I left the last HRevolution feeling like I learned more in one day than I had in years.

MH: Who did you try to get attend HRE?
TM: Well, we may be a grassroots effort with no marketing budget, BUT we exploit social media to do our initial outreach. We use blogs, Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn to spread the word initially. Then, our past participants jumped in and started to tell their networks. This time we also strongly encouraged the people in the online HR and recruiting community to reach out to friends and colleagues in the industry who are not using social media. At this HRevolution, you will begin to see more of a mix in our participant base. Ideally, that will continue.

MH: I believe HRE is filled up, for those of that didn't attend will any material be available from HRE?
TM: For those who cannot attend this time, we are going to be as creative as we can. We have plans to film portions of various sessions and eventually share those on the HRevolution site (http://hrevolution2010.com). Also, you will see many blog posts coming out after the event. We may even have a white paper or case study develop from the event. It really depends on what direction the participants take it. It’s very exciting.

Tomorrow: Part II

Strategy Alert: Too Few Workers and Union Activity

Here are some strategic tidbits to start your week off. First, I am sure you heard that Craig Becker was given a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board. If you are not sure why this is important read my post NLRB Nominees: Loading the Dice in Favor of Labor Unions. If you consider yourself strategic you would have already been planning for this, but in case you haven't been paying attention here is what you might plan for. With Becker and Pearce both getting appointed you can now expect a much more union friendly environment. There have already been indications that this Democrat (read Union) controlled board will overturn many previous decisions of the board under the Bush administration. One possible ruling may be having the Weingarten Rule reinstated for non-union workers. Weingarten established the right of representation for workers who feel they will be disciplined. Employers who refuse to allow this representation may be charged with an unfair labor practice, even if no union is present, and may be required by the NLRB to reinstate the workers and pay back pay. Having this right may encourage workers to review the other "benefits" of having union representation. (If you would like a history on this back and forth decision see this 2004 article from Law at Work.) 

The second strategic point is farther off in the distance, but you need to plan for it now. The Dukakis Center at Northeastern University just released a report projecting a significant labor shortage by 2018. A couple of highlights from the report include:

• By 2018, with an expected return to healthy economic growth but no change in current labor force participation rates or immigration rates, there will likely be more jobs than people to fill them.
• If the baby boom generation retires from the labor force at the same rate and age as current older workers, the baby bust generation that follows will likely be too small to fill many of the projected new jobs.
• There could be at least 5 million potential job vacancies in the United States, nearly half of them (2.4 million) in social sector jobs in education, health care, government and nonprofit organizations.
• The loss in total output could limit the growth of needed services and cost the economy as much as $3 trillion over the five-year period beginning in 2018.

The report, called After the Recovery: Help Needed, reports that some of this shortage may be offset by enticing Baby Boomers to stay in what they call "encore" jobs. These are mostly medical, social service and education positions that not only provide income but also provide personal fulfillment to the baby boomers. This frees up younger workers to fill other positions.

Obviously if you are in healthcare right now you need to pay heed to these numbers. 2018 is not that far away. But everyone needs to pay attention to this. Issues include:

1. What jobs do we have that we may be unable to find workers for?
2. How will changing technology alter the job picture for us?
3. What is the composition of our current workforce? What is the expected loss to us?
4. What possible training will we need to do and what will be the expense?
5. How will we do this training?
6. Who or where do we need to team with to insure a future supply of workers?
7. What effect will this have on our recruitment structure and compensation structure?

These are just some of the issues. So ask yourself am I being strategic?

Qualities of an MBA in HR? Why Not??

The Tuesday, September 30th issue of the Wall Street Journal had a section ranking Executive MBA programs. One of the articles was entitled Are They Worth It? An inset listed the most important skills that an EMBA program should have, according to those surveyed. The list read:

1. Strategic thinking/planning


2. Ability to work across multiple functional areas


3. Ability to drive results


4. General leadership


5. Core financial understanding.

My first thought in reading this was this is how the job description of the VP of HR should read.

Basically this is thinking ahead, understanding your business, measuring your work, providing leadership and talking the language of business. How many times have we heard that?

So if you want to make an impact in your organization THINK, WORK AND ACT like an MBA. Even better, convince your company to send you to an EMBA program. Of course before they will do that you already have to be thinking like an MBA. But being sent to that EMBA program would be the ultimate acknowledgment of your value in HR.