SPECIAL from HR Tech Las Vegas
Among the interesting offerings at HR Tech, held recently in Las Vegas, was an informative panel discussion that offered real-world problems and solutions from three respected HR leaders.
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Panelists were Marc Houze, VP global HR for Deere & Company, Andy Kaslow, CHRO of Cerberus, and Keith Sanders, EVP, director of HR, Huntington Bank. The panel was moderated by Kim Seals, senior partner, Mercer.
What are the biggest HR challenges you face?
Houze:
- Local talent development. Facilities are spread out around the world, and it is difficult to work with local talent.
- Concern about resilience. The last years have been the best in Deere’s history. Fifty percent of their white-collar workers haven’t seen any down times.
Sanders:
- Managing customer-facing employees at 800 branches.
- Increasing diversity in middle-level talent.
- Fostering managerial accountability for succession and turnover management.
Kaslow:
Given that we own companies large and small, with over 26 billion in capital under management, we see it all. We often deal with stressed companies of all kinds that we are trying to turn around. For example, right now, we are working with, among others, a school bus company in the U.S. and a bank in Austria.
With companies that are stressed, it’s hard to get people to join, and it’s hard to keep the good employees you have.
On the other hand, with successful turnaround comes a different set of challenges. For example, one supermarket organization grew rapidly through acquisitions, but the same management team had to run it.
We’ve also experienced a centralized vs. decentralized situation. The people in an acquired company were used to central control. Suddenly they were part of a decentralized environment. Those people are used to looking up for direction; they really just don’t know what to do without detailed top-down guidance.
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What about some other challenges?
Kaslow:
We had 120,000 employees under a forced ranking system. It was very unpopular, but it made managers very disciplined about aligning with corporate goals. Under typical performance appraisal systems, people tend to aggregate in the middle. That’s no good—you have to segregate because you want 80 percent of your incentive pay to go to the top 15 percent of performers. No peanut butter. (Don’t spread the money around evenly.)
Houze:
We had a mobility problem. Many of our facilities are in the Midwest away from large metro areas. Recruiting is hard. We started to develop relationships with students early in their college careers. When we find an inventive engineer who wants a traditional company, we engage with that student. This two-way interaction before we meet means a richer relationship and better luck with hiring.
Kaslow:
We do intensive engagement surveys and cut up the data by factory, region, etc. One thing we found was that engagement tends to dip fairly predictably a few years after hire. We also realized that we had hired a lot of people at the same time, and that meant we needed to prepare for the inevitable dips in engagement that would all occur at the same time.
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Do you have a dedicated HR analytic function?
Kaslow:
Yes, Cerberus has an analytic function with a guru of human capital metrics.
Howze:
Yes, we hired quant PhDs. We have 15 people in analytics and workforce planning.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, more from the HR Tech panel, including how to get HR programs accepted, plus an introduction to the new guide, HR Playbook: HR’s Game Plan for the Future.