Effective Workforce Management - Gaining Competitive Advantage

The Opportunity

We’ve all heard that any company is only as good as its people. The past year has some of the same companies run the gamut of workforce management techniques- One month they’re aggressively recruiting and offering unprecedented signing bonuses and perks. The next month the same company finds itself laying off large numbers of people in response to market pressures. Then they find themselves shorthanded and unable to leverage new opportunities- so they go on a recruiting spree or hire back their old employees as consultants at greatly inflated rates. These companies are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage- one cannot successfully compete in business without a dedicated workforce of committed people that are effectively engaged toward the company’s objectives.

Acquiring, supporting and effectively managing a workforce can be a balancing act. I have accomplished this more successfully within each successive company I have worked with over the years. It definitely provides a competitive advantage if Human Resources (HR) refrains from focusing on financial compensation and benefits to the exclusion of other means of workforce management.

The Solution

IA competitive advantage can result from effective employee acquisition, support and management if the following areas are properly addressed at the appropriate levels within the organization:

• Employment Security
• Selective Recruiting
• Motivators
• Participation
• Empowerment and Self Managed Teams
• Training and Skill Development
• Measurement.

Employment Security

This implies a commitment by the organization to its workforce. An employer that indicates through communications and actions that its employees are expendable will probably not attract nor acquire employees that have company loyalty, a sense of commitment, nor a willingness to spend extra time or effort for the organization’s benefit.

The particular theme that is espoused is repeated and reinforced in everyday managerial practices. However, the general direction or vision comes from the highest sources in the organization, for it is repeated at subsequent levels down the organization. Whatever the message from Senior Management, it will be reiterated throughout the organization.

A positive workforce commitment by the organization at a minimum provides “one less thing” for employees to worry about. They can spend that extra amount of energy doing essential and positive things for the organization. If the commitment is displayed in more ways that words, the result can be quite amazing.

Experiences – Workforce Commitment vs No Workforce Commitment

I have worked for organizations that had different directives or visions with respect to people. Some had the attitude and vision that the company can operate without any particular person; that each and every person is dispensable. I did not perform enough research on this company before I hired on. I did not know this until shortly after starting. I thought that I could make a difference, possibly change attitudes through a grass roots movement. That was naïve. I was the fourteenth person in our department to leave during the twelve-month period before I acquired another job. The company could not acquire others to replace those that had left. I worked there long enough to find another job. Predictably, morale was low. It was difficult to get assistance with any project or effort. People were not trusted, nor were they valued for their knowledge or experience. Collaboration was almost nonexistent. People were afraid they would lose their jobs if they shared information. Nothing was provided to employees outside of a workspace and paycheck.

This firm is still in business today, but they haven’t grown significantly since. That indicates to me that they haven’t changed their policies or apparent philosophy with respect to people.

The antithesis of that organization is another that I have worked with. They always “manage for improvement.” They are also a financial institution, but they not only espouse a commitment to the employees, but the live it!

Their financial compensation is better than any other in the area, however, it is not the best in the country. They have an interesting approach to job security. If my job was eliminated for any reason, I am automatically inserted into a “work pool” for a period of 1 year. I have that amount of time to interview within the company for any other job I may be interested in and qualified for. If I need education to become qualified for a job, the company will pay for that education. My pay stays the same during this time, with no increases. If the new job has a higher pay rate, my salary is increased appropriately. If the job has a pay rate that is less, but within my salary band, I keep my present salary. If it is less and I still desire to take the job, then an appropriate decrease will be negotiated.

This company provides a full range of sports, health and intellectual activities for its’ employees. And because they have flextime, they can enjoy these activities on their own schedule. The company has several restaurants throughout their offices and they use only the latest technology in their offices throughout the world.

Selective Recruiting

If a firm is committed to maintaining, supporting and effectively managing its’ workforce, it must also be very selective in the employee acquisition process. These people will be the client interface in some fashion or another. They must have the “right” attitude, personality, knowledge, technical and “people” skills – all of which are subjective and difficult to determine and measure through any acquisition process. But this is where it starts – probably the single most important detail to provide competitive advantage through the acquisition and management of balanced careerists.

A firm must find those people who can work best in the existing environment, can learn and develop with little supervision. The selection and acquisition process must be balanced and should be executed at a quick pace.

There are two schools of thought with respect to selection processes. There are those that extend the theory that applying a rigorous selection process invokes the feeling in the applicant that they are joining an elite organization. My experience indicates that the interview process is an extension of the nature of the company. If it takes a long time for the processes and decisions to be made and the process is confusing, one should not be surprised if many other processes and decisions are delayed and ambiguous.

Motivators

Financial compensation in all of its various forms is important. Some of these forms include high pay, incentive pay, bonuses, and various other options of which there are very many. (Including most of the factors listed in this paper – many employees these days expect participation, empowerment, training and skill development, and employment security, and selective recruiting as factors to a good or even “acceptable” working environment.

I am trading my most valuable asset – time, for financial compensation. I therefore expect to make the best deal that I can, and obtain the most compensation possible in return for my time. That said, financial compensation is not the only form of remuneration for time.

People are motivated by more than money, however, there are those that want to minimize the motivation capability of financial compensation. Financial motivation is a powerful factor that cannot be neglected, at least until we achieve some method of providing all things to every one.

Others as indicated above include health and intellectual activities, flextime, and many others limited only by the imagination. The downside is that these things require a company to be progressive. Thus far, I have encountered very few progressive corporations!

Participation, Empowerment and Self Managed Teams

Participation and empowerment are preconditions necessary for the implementation of a collaborative work environment that is necessary for self managed teams to evolve, survive and flourish. The preconditions necessary for participation and empowerment are several. Senior Management must provide the vision, support and resources for this venture to work. People have been ingrained with hierarchy in business. It takes a lot of understanding, patience, and most expensive of all, time; to begin to convert a hierarchical organization to one that is characterized by accountable, self managed teams.

Participation in decision-making processes increases satisfaction and employee productivity. Those organizations that provide participation and real empowerment as a mechanism to organizational development and allow employees to control their own work processes, is a very heady thing to invoke and watch.

Experience – Self Managed Team

I spent three years with an organization that started from hierarchical and progressed toward the self-managed team environment. While in this organization, I was asked to lead a project to replace a mainframe computer that had failed. This type project typically requires approximately four to six months to complete if everything works “right.”

Using the self managed team concept and appropriate project management tools, our team completed this project in ninety-six hours from the first meeting until a new computer in a new computer room was functioning in full production mode. Our team was a high performance team. To this day, we all would like to be involved in another project such as that one. The esprit d corps, or closeness generated from having a common goal along with the authorization to proceed as a self-managed team was absolutely amazing and beyond belief. There was absolutely nothing that would have prevented our team from making or beating the fast approaching deadline.

Note: No one worked more than a twelve-hour day during the project, except the project lead (me.) I insisted on it. It was sometimes real work to get people to leave and get rest for the next day!

There is, however, real fear from the middle aged and senior workers that this effort, particularly a badly administrated bonus pay out that came afterward, was just another ploy by management. To what end, I am not sure. But the distrust and in some cases, fear, is real. Hierarchical managers in many organizations have used or abused workers through inconsistent messages and sometimes downright untruthful communications in order to complete their own agendas.

In a true team oriented organization, team members tend to help each other during the pressure periods of team projects. Thus, when peer pressure is at its greatest, other folks on the team are willing to provide suggestions, or in some cases assist or coach a team member that is not able to perform up to expectations. The expectations that the team member is trying to live up to are typically of his own making. This is what I experienced.

Training and Skill Development

Many of the organizations that I have worked with – either as an employee or a consultant – have too little or the wrong emphasis on training and subsequent skill development. Organizational leaders must understand that given the premise that people are their greatest asset, then they must keep this asset polished, current and ready for production. This in its rawest form is done through training. But, the organization must follow through.

An excellent professional education system or program does not necessarily produce positive results. The follow through is providing a means for the freshly trained employees to use their new skills in some capacity that provides valid feedback and validation to the employee. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Career development – moving an employee from stage 2 to stage 3 as described by Brett Savage, Novations. In some cases, simply restructuring in a hierarchical environment, or a more progressive approach may be to move toward a collaborative or team environment as next step to self-managed teams.

And, let’s not stop here. Something I experienced early in a “stage 2” portion of my career, cross-training. This has some interesting ramifications. One obvious implication is that doing more things makes the day more interesting and thus more challenging. One less obvious effect is keeping the work processes as simple as possible.

Experience – Cross Training and Skill Development

In 1975, I was promoted into a department that required managing twelve people in a fairly large organization. Half of these people were military, while the others were civilians. There was substantial discord, sniping, low productivity and obviously, low moral. My mission was to increase productivity. I could not offer promotions nor salary increases.

After several one on one meetings with each of the staff, we had an “all hands” meeting. The outcome was that each of the civilians would learn one of the military members’ jobs. And, each of the military members would learn one of the civilians’ jobs. Just before the close of the meeting, I provide some incentive. As soon as each member and I were satisfied that everyone knew each others’ jobs, I would authorize in rotation a paid week off for each member of the staff, that would not count against their normal vacation. The caveat was that the member on “vacation” would be available by phone during normal work hours for the week. What that meant was that every person could look forward to a week off every sixth week.

Within the first two to four weeks, when people realized that this might actually work, our productivity started skyrocketing along with the morale. I thought that was great, but it was nothing compared to what happened after folks started actually having time off! Unknown to us, our test was forthcoming in the veil of a no notice operational readiness inspection. We passed the inspection with the highest marks of any team up to that point.

Measurement

Measurement is vital to management processes.

It serves several functions. It provides the necessary feedback as to how well the organization is implementing change. Factors that are measured are likely to be noticed and acted upon, regardless of any consequence or judgement based on those measures. It seems that many people will try to succeed on measures even if there are no direct or immediate consequences. This was certainly true in the experiences that I have related.

Conclusion

Companies that are committed to achieving competitive advantage through people must make measurement a critical part of the process. If for no other reason, than things that are not measured, are not talked about and things that are measured are talked about. Whatever is talked about is considered critical and that forces first class attention to detail. Whatever is not measured, can and usually does become second rate if only in the minds of those involved, and this leads to poor quality.

Acquiring, supporting and effectively managing a workforce is a balancing act. It definitely provides a competitive advantage if Human Resources (HR) focuses on other effective means of workforce management such as Employment Security; Selective Recruiting; Motivators; Participation, Empowerment and Self Managed Teams; Training and Skill Development, and Measurement.