Thought Leadership

Disruptingtalentmanagement

Disruptor. Innovator. Game-changer. The leaders of tomorrow are notafraid to buck the status quo.

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They work to shape the future, turninguncertainty into opportunity. They empowerothers to make decisions and execute on theirvision. And they continually transform in orderto drive results in a shifting landscape.

Organizations will need these self-disruptiveleaders if they want to stay with—or evenahead of—the curve. Global megatrendscontinue to create ambiguity and disrupt thefuture of work, requiring people to be able toadapt, collaborate, and excel in volatile times.

Yet yesterday’s talent practices won’t hold upin tomorrow’s business environment.Traditionally, talent management has focusedon maximizing efficiency, optimizing work byshaping what people do. It’s an approach thatreinforces a “command and control”management system—one that meetsbusiness goals but doesn’t allow for fluidity.

That’s why, in order to develop future-readyleaders, organizations will need to developnew paradigms.

In the context of a talent crunch, companieswill have to go further to harness the potentialof people, investing in their development andenabling empowerment and self-determination. After all, organizations aretransforming, and a more fluid, more organicenvironment will help people exercise theirpower and deliver value.

In the end, when companies adopt a moreperson-centric approach to drive their talentand business strategies, they will drive betterresults. And by putting individual purpose atthe heart of the talent process, organizationswill gain the competitive advantage neededto succeed in the new economy.

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Methodology

Korn Ferry worked on a benchmarking studythat sought to understand how topcompanies are driving innovative anddisruptive practices in talent strategy, toidentify the key factors that will help attractand engage the world’s best talent, and toquantify the gap between current anddisruptive practices.

For this research, Korn Ferry identified a fewdozen companies known for cutting-edgetalent practices. We then tapped into a vastnetwork of consultants and former employeesto better understand what unique orexperimental approaches to talentmanagement these businesses are trying.We interviewed 11 Korn Ferry professionalswith extensive knowledge on several globalbrands, and surveyed partners familiar with abroader set of 18 companies about theirdisruptive talent practices. Finally, wereviewed and integrated multiple relevantresearch studies conducted by theKorn Ferry Institute.

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1. Alignment between business andtalent strategy is key.

Talent practices are not evolving as fast asbusiness practices. HR organizationsrecognize the need to align business andtalent strategies. Companies are working totransform capabilities and operating models,as well as shift definitions of success fromprocess efficiency to outcomes.

Business practices are, in general, more agileand equipped to plan for the future. HRfunctions recognize they need to better alignto the business and improve their agility andcapabilities in order to innovate. Of theparticipating companies, 84% rated businessand talent strategy alignment as an importantHR practice. Yet 100% of organizationssurveyed said they’re not as effective as theyneed to be in aligning business and talentstrategy.

When talent is viewed and managed as anasset—and technology and science isincorporated into talent practices—HR leadersare then empowered to proactively plan,predict, and deliver the outcomes thebusiness needs. At some companies, business

leaders are moving into HR and bringing newlanguages, tools, and expectations. Thinkingand acting like business leaders pursuing therigorous reinvention of talent strategy asbusiness strategy activates the possibility ofCHROs being CEO-ready candidates.

HR is also becoming the broker and facilitator,rather than the owner and gatekeeper. HR iscreating a way for networks to form, wherepeople can interact directly with each otherfor knowledge transfer, training, and so muchmore. They’re also helping to develop theplatforms for matching talent to need. Bygetting out of the middle, HR frees itself up toadd more value in more strategic ways—calculating the value of talent assets,workforce planning, and focusing on futuregrowth, to name a few.

Significant steps are now being taken toredefine the HR mission, capabilities, andoperating model in order to provide morestrategic and proactive value to the business.The respondent at one global media andentertainment company said, “We realizedthe talent strategy has to represent thebusiness strategies ... We needed to becustomer-focused, the way the rest of ourbusinesses were.”

Real-life disruptions.

In one company, business leaders wanted to innovate how people wereassessed and selected, but the HR department was reluctant to changeand experiment. In the end, executives persisted by calling it a pilot andfound a way to innovate without HR as a leader, and barely as a partner.At another organization, the specialization of recruiters for one businessunit enhanced the quality of new hires in part because the recruiters knewexactly what to look for, but also because they were very experienced atselling the EVP to that particular population of candidates.Companies also use web scraping and artifical intelligence (AI) as tools tofind and screen large pools of passive candidates who match some fitcriteria for key roles critical for the execution of the business strategy.

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2. Elevate diversity and inclusion tothe top of the business agenda.

Some companies view diversity as a businessimperative—not a compliance issue—andhave made the move from “why” to “how.”They’re building inclusion in everydayevents, culture, symbols, and initiatives,which is driving innovation, increasingengagement and retention, and movingmore underrepresented populations intoleadership roles.

Organizations operate in a more transparent,diverse, and empowered ecosystem.Stakeholders, other than shareholders andregulators, have their say, which organizationscan’t ignore (think clients, talents, customers,public opinion). Organizations, like societies,are also becoming more diverse, whiledeveloping a greater awareness of the realbusiness value realized through an inclusiveworkforce.

Consider this: More than 65% of high-growthtransformational companies actively speakout on diversity and inclusion—and put theirmoney where their mouth is. They take stepsto make sure they’re allies, they have entiredepartments focused on these efforts, andthey’re publicly recognized for the workthey’re doing. More than 85% of these

organizations also promote diversityand inclusion.

And it’s no wonder: research shows thatdiverse teams make better decisions. Still,there continues to be a gap in companies’understanding, beliefs and intentions, andtheir effectiveness in selecting, retaining, andpromoting diverse, underrepresented talent inan inclusive culture. Unexamined assumptionscontinue to perpetuate the status quo, butthe impact can be mitigated through honest,transparent dialogue. Having those difficultbut necessary conversations about challengesand desires can illuminate bias and exclusionin the workplace.

Leaders then can start to identify andimplement the changes needed to make theirorganizations a “great place to work.” Thiscould mean evaluating and closing any joband pay gaps, celebrating differences byshowing there’s no one way to be successful,or diversifying the hiring pool so more rolesare open to underrepresented populations.

More so, organizations need to better managediversity and inclusion in order to understandtheir client base and harness their talent.They have to allow for real inclusion in theirday-to-day business decisions, as the lackof inclusion can hinder any progress madeon diversity.

Real-life disruptions.

One company is looking to use virtual reality (VR) at career fairs in order tooffer a realistic job and workplace preview that helps prospectivecandidates imagine themselves working there.Another company uses VR as sensitivity training to build empathy.One company is working to diversify the tech industry through codingprograms for young people, mentorships for young women and girls,science and engineering fellowships for people of color, and other strategicinvestments.Some companies use Internet of Things-enabled devices more and more tomonitor meetings to ensure everyone has an equal voice and equal chanceto speak.

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3. Accelerate change by redefiningmanagement and leadership.

Some organizations nurture inspirational,agile, and collaborative leaders. But theystruggle to consistently retool managers andredefine their roles to have more of anenterprise focus. More and more, companiesare using career and succession planning,as well as team development, to acceleratechange.

Companies are becoming flatter and less topheavy. Increased empowerment of middle-level managers to make enterprise decisionspushes power down the organizations andlessens the need for more senior executives.Still, as organizations try to lead their talentthrough change, many face friction andinconsistent adoption with middlemanagement.

Managers seem to face the most difficultevolution because they navigate betweenleading and operating. HR teams invest insenior leadership with a hope of change inbeliefs and behaviors consistently cascadingdown, but this isn’t happening effectively.More and more, managers operate, leadteams, coach frontline employees, innovate,and deliver results. Organizations arebecoming more sophisticated at developinghigh-performing managerial teams that drivealignment and performance. Managersencourage their reports to make more

business-unit-level decisions. In other words,they do what senior leaders used to do, eventhough they might not be rewarded for it.

Empowering managers to lead allows leadersto shift into the inspirational, forward-lookingrole—someone who leads with purpose andvision, anticipates future market demands orglobal trends, and can proactively seizeopportunities. They approach their roles withan enterprise mindset that facilitates sharedpurpose, inclusive practices, and acollaborative network, capitalizing on thecollective intelligence of the organization. Andinspiring, purpose-driven leaders often framebusiness problems in a context that not onlyreflects personal values, but also motives in away that engages high-potential talent in ahigh-performance environment.

But finding self-disruptive leaders with theright profile can be a challenge because, asone contributor put it, although someone hasbeen “a high-performing individualcontributor, that doesn’t necessarily translateinto really strong leadership capabilities.”Companies are looking more closely at what ittakes to lead, and they’re shifting prioritiesand practices. Among high-growthcompanies with a proven track record oftransformation, 70% have a strong focus onleadership development programs.

Just as development is one option for fillingleadership positions, organizations can alsoacquire external talent. Even though weighing

Real-life disruptions.

At one company, managers have concentrated on directing work anddriving results, but are now much more involved in development. They’refocusing on empowering the people on their teams to be successful.Some companies have focused on retaining talent that may drop out atcritical career stages—think women in middle management. Others arefast-tracking their reentry into the workforce, so their contribution andtrajectory are dramatically accelerated after a job gap.CEOs at several benchmark organizations circulate across their companyunits and geographies to play an “evangelist” role.

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the pros and cons of buy versus build can bea fun pastime, many companies have investedheavily in building robust internal pipelines tofill most critical and top roles. Theseorganizations invest relentlessly in highpotentials, strategic movement of individuals,and disciplined preparation throughleadership development, action-learningexperiences, and deliberate careerprogression to produce home-grown businessleaders and CEOs. One company is so seriousabout its internal pipeline for seniorleadership positions and critical roles that ithas supplied dozens of other companies withqualified CEOs.

4. Empower self-determinedpeople to increase productivity.

Market demand for agility, analytics, newtechnologies, and a more aware and diverseworkforce is challenging traditional talentprocesses and systems. Organizations areresponding by prioritizing culture andproductivity, and empowering more peopleto make bigger, more consequentialdecisions.

Leaders cannot make all the decisions in anever-changing world. Decisions must be madefaster, and closer to the customers and to

where value is created. That’s why there’sa growing empowerment of managersand frontline employees for more agilityand innovation.

But empowerment isn’t laissez-faire.Organizations are looking for the rightbalance between top-down guidance andbottom-up autonomy. There’s an opportunityfor defining “empowerment” and how totranslate it into effective day-to-day practices.Key elements of this definition, though, mustinclude decision-making power, degree offreedom to act, and level of secrecy andtransparency.

Employees are emboldened by the renewedfocus on results over face time andcontributions over busywork. In the past, roleswere designed for the formal 9-to-5operational practice, and face time hadsignificant value. Today, companies allow formore flexibility in scope and accountabilitiesto help employees shape the way they get tooutcomes. This shift has enabled businessesto tap into a diverse and underrepresentedworkforce. Roles are now defined primarily bycapabilities required to perform and theoutcomes expected.

Beyond work and decision-making,employees—in particular millennials and

Real-life disruptions.

One company that had lost its way has a renewed focus on innovation.Previously, employees would experiment with new ideas only to be shutdown when they proposed them. The rigid and closed nature of thebusiness has turned around with more decentralized, empowered decision-making. The company is providing time, space, and freedom for itsemployees to create with a commitment to support innovation. This hasresulted in a dramatic turnaround in employee experience and an easierpath to recruiting top talent.While most organizations track spending limits and audits, one majorcompany has no expense policy in place. Instead, their employees are toldto “act in the best interest” of the business. Employees are empowered touse their best judgment, and are more productive if they’re not held back.

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Generation Z—value being in charge of theircareers, the projects they work on, and theenvironment in which they operate. Byempowering people to be self-determined,they will unleash their full potential, whichexplains why a number of organizations aremaking the work environment look like home.

Integrating technology into the mix alsoimproves productivity by reducing the burdenof repetitive, low-level tasks on managers—think using AI for recruitment automation.When you delegate low-level operationaltasks to technology, you allow individuals,managers, and leaders alike to elevate theirroles and look to progressively distanthorizons in the future. Roles are beingredesigned to enable empowerment, andempowerment is increasingly becoming keyto the employee-value proposition.

5. Enable growth and innovationthrough culture.

Culture is increasingly seen as a competitiveasset not only because it’s a sustainableadvantage, but it’s also difficult to copy.

Companies recognize that culture drivesperformance. Culture cannot be taken forgranted—it needs to evolve as the businessmatures and experiences massive growth.

Companies are actively managing theirculture by better understanding which corevalues they want to preserve and maintain.These elements are nonnegotiable in the faceof growth.

Culture is a deeper anchor of behavior. It’s thecombination of purpose and beliefs,relationships, and drivers that guide thepeople, actions, and decisions that orient andinspire talent to perform in an organization.

It’s also at the heart of the empowermentmovement. Once treated as a tool to fix andadjust certain behaviors, culture is now beingemployed to guide transformation and deliverorganizational outcomes. Businesses arebuilding a culture of empowerment and clientcentricity—and making this culture core totheir business strategy.

To that end, performance managementbecomes an extension of this culture—amanifestation about people, their potential,

Real-life disruptions.

One company shows its desire to promote an inclusive and innovativeculture by interacting with the general population by setting up storefrontsfor the express purpose of networking, listening, and plucking out fresh,innovative ideas. This same company equates personal growth andtransformation with the company’s ability to disrupt, and they invest agood amount of money in experiential development.An outside-in view of one company’s management process providesinsight on an organic management model that combines businessobjectives with action learning and deeper purpose and meaning (e.g.,vision and values at individual and collective levels).One firm shifted from a traditional industry to cast itself more as atechnology company. While some lines of business still run in a hierarchicalmanner in a regulated industry, the culture includes perks and anenvironment reminiscent of Silicon Valley that serve the purpose for bothattracting talent and rewarding hard-working employees (e.g., bicycles forriding across campus, tree forts, games, collaborative spaces).

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and their intent. By design, performancemanagement has been the process thatensures employees are aligned, managed, andrewarded for their work that led to valuecreation. But it’s a backward-looking, albeitimportant, practice. An emerging perspectiveis to look at future value creation, based onthe potential of talent and their alignmentwith the business needs.

New attitudes toward performancemanagement allow learning, work, and life tocome together in new, positive, and symbioticways. This means treating performancemanagement systems as a way to guidepeople even as they are empowered to directtheir own work. But the deep understandingof culture and its organic relationship withtransformation and performance is still elusivefor most organizations. Culture is a living,organic construct and influences individuals’ability to see themselves as a part of thecompany. One company’s planning andperformance process makes explicit andreinforces the relationship between cultureand value.

Put another way: People will become moreengaged when companies connect culture toindividual purpose. And increasedengagement means better performance,among individuals and across theorganization.

The link between culture and performancealso plays out for teams. Some companiesstrive to put into practice research from theInternational Society for PerformanceImprovement and the Incentive ResearchFoundation that found “incentivized teamsincreased their performance by 45%.” A focuson team performance increases the need forcollaboration, thereby facilitating the rapidflow of knowledge and innovation.

6. Make differentiated investmentsin critical talent and roles.

More and more companies are looking tosegment their workforce to add more valueto employees and reduce costs for thebusiness. Segmentation unlockscustomizable solutions and helps HR focuson scaling development programs andclosing talent gaps. And there are multipleways to segment talent: longer-termleadership potential, near-term readiness,critical capabilities, archetypes.

Who we are and what we can do are alsoimpacted by the role and work context.Taking the individual, team, and organizationinto account can provide a framework formaking the right investments in the rightpeople at the right time—providing anotherway to align talent strategy and businessstrategy. Proactive, science-basedmethodology for identifying and defining

Real-life disruptions.

Several organizations are combining their talent succession planning withtalent identification and assessment in order to cast the net wider andensure that the diversity slate is not replicated with the same names ofwomen or underrepresented populations from other departments.One company’s emotional wellness program is an innovative, peer-led,compassionate, voluntary bottom-up approach for tackling mental healthin the workplace.Many companies had dual career paths for technical expertise or generalmanagement focus.

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talent segments can unveil promising talentmuch earlier in order to provide the rightdevelopmental experiences as a runway fortop positions.

But traditional, backward-looking talentsegmentation factors, such as background,education, tenure, hierarchical level, and pastperformance, are not geared toward valuecreation. Businesses want to invest in thetalent that matters most to future growth.They also expect higher turnover from lessloyal employees and want to identify earlyfuture talent needs in each segment.Disruptive companies are becoming moresophisticated and nuanced with talentsegmentation, viewing talent as fluid andimpermanent, and tying benchmark criteria tofuture business needs and priorities. Contextis everything, with an increasing focus onmeasuring fit and potential over pastperformance.

Typically, talent segmentation decisions areinformed by psychometric assessments thatmeasure traits, competencies, and drivers, aswell as other constructs, including learningagility or grit. By segmenting talent,organizations unlock customizable talentmanagement solutions so talent is managedboth at the individual and collective segmentlevel. Segmentation also allows for a higherinvestment in bench strength for top rolesand roles critical to strategy. As oneconsultant shared about a benchmarkcompany: “They have a very close eye on theirtop 300 executives and are strategic about

their top 35 roles in each business. They tendto focus on roles that have a disproportionatevalue on driving performance.”

Society and younger generations areestablishing the “have it my way” expectation.As a result, companies are optimizing benefitsand compensation by aligning perceivedvalue with the cost of benefits through choiceand customization. Employers tailordevelopment investment, rewards, andemployee value proposition for lower costand higher engagement and retention. Largeorganizations model, analyze, and align totalrewards (think pay levels and structures,benefits, non-financial incentives) to talentsegments’ demands—and ultimately toindividuals’ expectations. Among high-growthcompanies, 87% offer employee wellnessprograms to support mental health andemotional intelligence through mindfulness,compassion, self-awareness, and resiliencetraining. Other companies are beginningto follow.

7. Unleash creative ways to sourcehard-to-find talent.

Companies are redefining jobs, assessingand selecting talent based on integrated“success profiles” that specify the hard andsoft qualities that make a difference inperformance. Several large organizationslook for the “gold standard” to integratepeople and jobs into a single, scalable, andactionable construct.

Real-life disruptions.

One company focused on creative sourcing among non-obviouspopulations with transferable skills (e.g. finding cake decorators or tailorswith an eye for detail, precision, aesthetic, and fine motor skills who canlearn new technical skills).One company is partnering with local K-12 institutions and colleges toinfluence academic choices and shape academic programs that will supplya pipeline of talent with the skills the business needs in the future.

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Emerging research suggests that talentmobility, including talent turnover, can begood for innovation and business results. Butmany companies don’t want to gamble withtheir top-tier talent. Attracting high-potentialcandidates by showing the career trajectoryand growth potential becomes a compellingaspect of the EVP. What’s more, top jobs areincreasingly complex and difficult to fill withexternal candidates.

There’s acknowledgment that segmentation isnot binary—that people are not either highpotential or not. Likewise, the idea isemerging that potential is contextual,depending on role, culture, business context,and whether the situation is personal orprofessional. With a new fluidity in who haspotential for what, it requires companies torefresh and revise lists regularly. It alsorequires casting the net wide and measuringpotential with precise and sensitive means.

Businesses are evolving faster than people’sability to study and get new degrees. Theanticipation of what skills will be required mayhelp businesses build a long-range pipeline.But companies are also realizing that the corecapabilities they need to select for and trainon involve people who are adaptable, agile,and resilient in the face of change. These arelearnable skills that can ready workers totransform themselves in order to transformthe business. In order to meet the demand fortalent, disruptive companies are pursuingvarious strategies to fill critical roles.

The final word.

No company has truly figured out how tocompletely modernize talent strategy. Thereare bright spots, innovative ideas, and isolatedareas of illumination, but true disruptivepractices are outliers—and no single companyis disrupting in all areas. The purpose of theresearch was to benchmark well-regardedcompanies, see what’s working, and build anamalgam of what’s possible in the talentspace.

HR will benefit from the maturity andsophistication that comes with applyingrigorous tools from other areas like finance,technology, and analytics. These tools willhelp HR leaders become business leaderswho view talent as an asset that could eitherfuel growth or constrain their companies. Theextent to which an HR organization cananticipate the future, channel and align withbusiness needs, get creative about sourcinggreat talent, and keep people engaged andlearning will determine how it evolves fromservice provider to partner to strategicbusiness leader.

A key next step is to find your company’sspace for potential—where are theopportunities that haven’t been seized byothers that you could be the best at? Thesepractices will be your competitivedifferentiators in the pursuit of attracting andretaining the best talent to execute yourbusiness strategy.

Real-life disruptions.

One company in need of professional skills on a scale that does not exist inits markets has created an apprenticeship program (piloted with 300people who are now employed there) that links up people who haveaspirations but not the means with managers and mentors who have theneed and can train them.One company has established a return-to-work program for employeeswho chose to leave the workplace for 10 to 15 years to focus on family.Without the concerted effort to reach out and retrain, these workers wouldhave had a harder time re-entering, and would have had a longer ramp-uptime to the level of contribution of which they're capable.

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11 © Korn Ferry 2018. All Rights Reserved.

About Korn Ferry

Korn Ferry is a global organizationalconsulting firm. We help clientssynchronize strategy and talent to drivesuperior performance. We work withorganizations to design their structures,roles, and responsibilities. We help themhire the right people to bring theirstrategy to life. And we advise them onhow to reward, develop, and motivatetheir people.

References

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Dai, G., Feldman, J., Hezlett, S., Lash, R., Nunes, D.,& Orr, J. E. (2017). Top teams survey technical brief.Minneapolis, MN: Korn Ferry.

Gochman, I., & Orr, J. E. (2014) Talent strategy thatdrives business strategy. Los Angeles, CA: KornFerry Institute.

Korn Ferry. (2018). Enterprise talent andresourcing referencing project: Executive summaryreport. Los Angeles, CA: Korn Ferry.

Korn Ferry Institute (2017). Women CEOs speak:Strategies for the next generation of femaleexecutives and how companies can pave the road.Minneapolis, MN.

Orr, J. E. (Ed.) (2013). Talent management bestpractice series: Strategic alignment. Los Angeles,CA: Korn Ferry Institute.

Orr, J. E., Sevy, B., & Swisher, V. (2014). Sevensignposts: The unmistakable markers that identifyhigh-potential leaders. Minneapolis, MN: KornFerry Institute.

Uren, L., Mooyaart, R., Bruck, C., & Clark, M. (2018).Reimagining talent management. London, UK:Korn Ferry.

Contributors

Jean-Marc Laouchez

President, Korn Ferry Institute

Paul Dinan

Senior Client Partner, Korn Ferry

J. Evelyn Orr

VP, COO, Korn Ferry Institute

Steven Nydick

Senior Manager, Korn Ferry Institute

Amber Benusa

Manager, Korn Ferry Institute