How to connect your people strategy with your business goals
A people team should never exist in a silo, and this week, we share some insights (and fancy graphs) on the importance of getting to know your people beyond the water cooler chat.
How to be an effective talent leader (and make accountancy sexy)
For this week’s Scaling Stories podcast we were delighted to speak with Alex Seiler, the Chief People Officer at GHJ, the California-based business advisory and accounting firm.
Alex is a savvy people and talent leader who has developed countless approaches that connect organisations’ business strategy with their people strategy.
Alex has cut his teeth at what he calls “declining industries”, namely publishing, and learnt a great deal about scaling up (and down) from working in a resource-challenged environment.
A long-term strategic thinker, Alex describes accounting as “not the sexiest profession out there”, but invites his team on retreats where they can discuss how they can “defy convention” and change how people perceive the industry. “How do we attract more early career professionals to actually want to have a career in public accounting?”
A recent Wall Street Journal article, ‘Why are so many accountants quitting?’, touched on some of the industry’s challenges. As the author stated: “The field still suffers from a stigma that it is unappealing, with tedious work and daunting hours… The huge gap between companies that need accountants and trained professionals has led to salary bumps and more temporary workers joining the sector.”
Part of the solution, Alex suggests, is to be “purely focused on our staff and getting brilliant at the basics”, or in other words, “how do we refine and do things even better for them”.
This includes everything from pay transparency to resisting the temptation to force everyone back to the office.?
“All the data that’s out there says that people at the end of the day want a hybrid working structure,” Alex says.
Alex’s experiences have taught him the value of picking your battles and understanding the intricacies of each sector. Time-starved accountants and auditors, for example, don’t have time to absorb information about new strategies and concepts when they’ve got a hard accounting deadline coming up.
“That’s what I talk about when I say not taking a cookie cutter approach,” says Alex. “If you don’t understand the business you’re in and you try to roll things, you’re gonna get pushback if it’s got an adverse impact on the employee.”
Moreover, at a time of layoffs and market uncertainty, Alex says it’s crucial to ask, “how are you continuing to upskill your people?”
For example, GHJ have introduced “high performance teams training that can scale across the organisation”, plus a “durable skills curriculum”, where staff can upskill on things like leadership or critical thinking as an alternative to “traditional manager training”.
Finally, Alex is a skilled operator who knows how to keep the C-suite sweet. He dismisses the idea that “all roads lead to the CEO”, adding that recruiters should develop “one-on-one relationships with each member of the C-Suite. And even before you’ve presented a strategy, start socialising your ideas”.
It goes to show that talent and people teams are more than just nice-to-haves, but rather, a strategic partner at the heart of a successful business. Similarly, when we spoke to Mafalda Garcês, the Country Leader and Senior People Director at Dashlane, she remarked how HR should be viewed as “a central piece of solving business problems”.
It was great chatting with Alex, and if you’d like to check out more of our Scaling Stories podcasts, you know what to do.
‘What women leaders really want at work’
“There’s a huge disconnect between what companies think women want at work versus what they actually need”, reports Chief, who’ve undertaken a ‘Make Work Work’ survey of their 847 VP+ members.
Judging by the survey results, retaining the top female talent is going to take more than just improved flexible working and paid family leave.
The survey found that “companies are under-delivering on policies that ensure fair financial compensation”. And while care-based policies – from wellness benefits to fertility-related healthcare – are of course welcome, they’re perhaps not the difference-maker that some employers think they are.
And just in case you’re wondering, here’s how the biggest tech companies compare in the gender diversity stakes.
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‘How to close the Black tech talent gap’
Just as HR leaders face challenges in finding and retaining female talent, this fascinating McKinsey & Company analysis sheds some light on what companies can do to support Black tech workers.
As the article notes, “Black people make up 12 percent of the US workforce but only 8 percent of employees in tech jobs”, while “just 3 percent of technology executives in the C-suite are Black”.
McKinsey present lots of interesting insights, and the below illustrates some of the discrepancies in how employees from different backgrounds feel about their workplace.
Additionally, the article suggests five key steps that businesses, nonprofits and public sector agencies can take to deliver “coordinated action” and improve Black representation in tech:
Lies, damn lies and statistics
Even if you think you’ve created the Best Place to Work ?, it doesn’t mean much if a company’s performance and profitability have gone down the pan. And while some ‘best place’ accolades are legit, sometimes they’re about as real as a Wrestlemania brawl.
The amusing take below from LeadEdge Capital demonstrates how talent leaders can do more to promote employee experience as integral to business operations.
The One Where Intrro Made A Video
The Oscars are nearly upon us, and we hope you’ll be impressed by our filmmaking efforts. Watch. This. Now.
Things you might have missed?
Recruiting fail
If you’re going to offer a salary range, it’s probably best if the upper limit isn’t four times the size of the minimum.
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