The war for talent the percon model

The

Model
2|P ag e www.percontsi.com
PERCON THE STRATEGIC INTERVENTIONISTS
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CHITTARANJAN PARK, ND-110019

Compiled by Dhruva Trivedy
Chief Interventionist & Promoter

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Contents
Page
Serial No. Theme
No.
1. The War for Talent – The PERCON Model (Diagrammatic Representation) 5
2. The Background 6
3. The Theoretical Understanding 7
4. The General Scenario 8
5. The Internal Churning 10
6. Vision, Value System 11
7. Mission 13
8. Commitment 17
9. The Protectors 19
10. Hiring 20
11 Onboarding 22
12 Role Clarity 24
13 Mentoring 25
14 Defining Performance 27
15 Employee Wellbeing 28
16. Talent Engagement 29
17. Employer of choice 32
18. Employment Brand 33
19. Sustainable Competitive Advantage 35

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The Background

T he title, 'The War for Talent' is an idea that has
been borrowed from McKinsey & Company, who
published an article on the subject way back in
2001. The idea kept ringing in our minds and we kept
observing at every step of our interface with our
clients as to what really mattered and subscribed to
ending the war. We were in the business of
handholding and transforming organisations. The
ultimate objective was to provide our client
organisations a competitive advantage, which was only
possible by establishing the most compatible and
contemporary methods of work with the right
approaches of the people positioned in the
organisation that was in question.
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The Theoretical Understanding
Competitive Advantage was a term coined by Michael
Porter who deposed that superior performance
reached through competitive advantage will ensure
market leadership. Primarily a marketing concept that
was later captured by Dave Ulrich to display the
miracles that unique competencies helped to achieve
this (Competitive Advantage) in an organisation. Ulrich
went on to add to it the concept of value proposition -
the HR agenda for the next decade. The entire stage
was set to reduce attrition and retain quality people
through these concepts.

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The General Scenario
The question that remained to be answered in client
organisations in this part of the world was how to
implement them. And this was, despite globalisation.
The concepts were believed to be too 'west oriented'
and the argument was, that they would not be
universally implementable - the usual cultural
resistance to any change initiative. They believed that
these were marvellous and brilliant concepts in
themselves, but far from deployable. Promoters were
averse to accepting any of these jargons and would not
let you 'touch' them. They knew nothing else but
profitability, as the required yield from a business
organisation. No amount of convincing even through
Kaplan & Norton's Balanced Scorecard could persuade
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them, that there were other measures too, for
assessing the success of any organisation. And to make
matters worse, there was a special lot, who would
agree with everything that you suggested, but when it
came to putting things into practice, there was a luke
warm response which in turn affected the approach.
The task that lay ahead of us was therefore
gargantuan. There were three kinds of challenges that
emerged when we did our Force Field Analysis: (1)
The workforce (including managers) who accepted the
modern scientific management theories, but
challenged their adaptability, (2) the second lot who
would refuse to think beyond financial gains and (3)
the third who preferred to be where they were
because they lacked the risk taking ability or the ability
to say 'yes' or 'no' and act proactively.
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The Internal Churning
This prompted Team PERCON to embark on every
assignment in transformation, with greater caution,
particularly while interacting with the promoters, the
influencers and the starters/triggers. In all possibilities
the priority was to understand and empathise with the
woes of all or at least the three groups mentioned here.
One had to oscillate between addressing a variety of
concerns from work methods to attitudinal issues.
Everything converged on cultural aspects. We
therefore decided to examine all the cultural issues
right from the scratch and concluded on a process
shown in the figure above. We decided to seize the first
opportunity to make things simpler and start at the
beginning.
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Crystallising the vision was our first task. The
translucent character of a vision is its peculiarity and
most of the times, the promoters perhaps never had
the blink to think about it, or they perhaps only dreamt
of taking their organisation somewhere, which they
could not define later and the thoughts were lost in
oblivion. This is where we spent days together, to put
these thoughts in words and help them to characterise
their ultimate horizon for the organisation. Every
action that the organisation followed thereafter was
within this frame.
The next area of our challenge, and perhaps the biggest
one, was the identification of the value system that the
organisation adhered to and what it needed to be
embedded with. An example here may explain things
better. An organisation in order to transform would
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need a core competence of resilience, which emerges
out of innovativeness and an 'out of the box' approach.
But if the organisation has been adhering to the value
of obedience and in traditional terms strictly abiding
by the instructions of the top leadership, this approach
would never find space to creep in by any means. This
gives rise to a situation of conflict between two sets of
values - the values associated with obedience on one
side and the ones associated with openness, curiosity
and debate on the other. Dismantling the culture or
value of obedience was not what we encouraged, but
we kept showing the advantages of debates and
querying over a period of time - best done in cross
functional teams, for instance. Likewise all conflicting
values were being addressed and tackled to develop an
innovative culture. The biggest battles are fought here
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and smallest of victories leave a moment of rejoice and
success towards change. Guidelines for introducing a
fresh value system were always obtained from
Rushworth Kidder's Eight Universal Ethical Values
A business organisation is largely understood as, "an
organisation set up by an individual or a group of
people who collaborate to achieve certain commercial
goals and is formed to earn income for its investors."
The underlying theme here is indicated by the terms
'commercial', 'income' and 'investors'. Most
organisations have their mission statements revolving
around this theme. The appeal is for higher
profitability and turnover. The evolution of terms, such
as ‘return on investments (ROIs)’ also emerges from
this mental construct. With constant interventions,
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persistent recall of the success factors of an
organisation delineated by Kaplan & Norton stated
above and the transition to a contemporary value
system this perception begins to erode. Most of the
times, the mission statement is susceptible to
redefining or tweaking. Bringing in its acceptability
amongst all, amounts to braving it out amidst defiance
from various quarters - persistence is a competency
one has to exclusively depend on.
The impelling factor that keeps playing as an
undercurrent or even explicitly, is the motivational
factor - whether self motivated or extrinsically
inspired. The mission is deciphered into organisational
goals and they in turn are converted to domain or
functional goals. This is shown in the following
example from TVS:
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TVS Motor Company – Mission

We are committed to being a highly profitable, socially responsible, and
leading manufacturer of high value for money, environmentally friendly,
lifetime personal transportation products under the TVS brand, for customers
predominantly in Asian markets and to provide fulfilment and prosperity for
employees, dealers and suppliers.
In this statement, what are clearly observable are the
organisational goals:
 highly profitable
 socially responsible
 high value for money
 environmentally friendly
 lifetime personal transportation products
 in Asian markets
 to provide fulfilment and prosperity for
o employees
o dealers and
o suppliers

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In case the above emerge as the organisational goals,
then the domain goals are also distinctly visible. Each
of the above goals could be split to suit the goals of
each domain. For instance, to make the company
profitable, the marketing domain has to work out its
plans for South Asia, prioritise on positioning and
selling and therefore read its goals in that perspective.
Similarly the HR domain has to work out alignment
plans for rejuvenating the task force and the
Operations domain has to pull up its socks to increase
the efficacy of their processes and so on. From here on
the job goals become clearer and the KRAs more easily
spelt out.
This done, it is time that we slip back to from where we
started, i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which in
turn help consistent efforts to attain these goals which
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in common parlance we call commitment. Here just
involvement of people is not enough. Yes we are
talking about engagement. Readers are requested to
see the subtle distinction. Involvement can be donned
(most of the times is) on someone, while engagement
is aroused from within. Engaged employees and teams
would work towards these goals and achieve them.
The higher the commitment, the higher is the pace at
which they can be achieved and the higher is the
quality that would make them discernible.
Our description of the internal churning actually ends
here but it isn't the end of the 'War for Talent' yet.
What we need now are the processes, which should
sustain the yields of this churning, and fetch the poise
of an equipped organisation! The blocks and the
arrows in the periphery denote that. These protect the
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internal processes that have been depicted by the
quadrants of the circle, which we have already
discussed in the 'internal churning' section.

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The Protectors
These are the rectangles at the periphery of the ‘circle’
divided into four quadrants discussed in ‘internal
churning’ above. It becomes necessary to mention as to
why we have decided to call them ‘protectors’. They
are the processes, which consistently govern and
safeguard the sustainability of what has been achieved
through ‘internal churning’, and if not pursued would
lead to retracting all efforts. Subroto Bagchi, Executive
Chairman, MindTree Inc., in his book High
Performance Entrepreneurs' suggests that if you have
a vision to build a skyscraper, you cannot afford to
keep plumbing provisions for a two or three storied
house. Therefore the protection has to start at the
stage of plumbing and what metaphor could be better,
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when we say that we have to start assimilation right
from the grass-root point.
Let's examine the rectangular block at the bottom
right. It speaks about Hiring, which is the entry point
for anyone in the organisation. One has to be conscious
about the method - where the requirement details such
as the Job Description, Competency Chart and Job
Specification have to be comprehended well and then
only the sourcing activity should commence. The
accountabilities and the role clarity should be
significantly analysed and identified with, before any
sourcing process starts. The approach has to ensure
visibility about the cultural dimensions of the company
to the candidate and the attitudes need to be well
assessed, besides the knowledge and skill elements.
What are being referred to here, is known to everyone
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and are laid down stipulates, but what is necessary
here are the aspects of empathy and involvement with
the organisation and also the awareness of the
ultimate goals of the organisation. The people
implementing these processes need to possess the
intensity in each of these characteristics, else they
should not undertake these tasks. Therefore it is
recommended that the recruiting team should
brainstorm and plan out to the minutest detail of the
recruiting strategy. It is for sure that one insufficiently
assessed candidate increases the recruiting cost in
diverse dimensions, including the brand.
Let's go over to the next rectangle the one coloured
pink and mauve and what you find here is the most
significant contribution that the organisation has to
make towards the fundamental settling down process
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of the newly hired person - onboarding. "You hired
that person to do a job. Giving him the tools he needs
to do that job and perform at a high level should be
your top priority.....", says Michelle, the onboarding
expert. We at PERCON would look at it as the process
that entails a systematic and comprehensive approach
to familiarise a new employee to help him or her to get
"on board." It was important for new employees to
quickly acclimatise to their new work environment
and get to know that he or she was welcome aboard
and also diminish the time for his or her learning.
Chipping in with information such as performance
expectations straightaway, would get to minimise
misunderstandings, which often arise at this stage and
lead to frustration, so much so that they could even
result in a premature departure of a new hire.
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Research shows that the first ninety days are exremely
critical and if one is able to clear that hurdle
successfully, the journey for the new hire enables him
or her to 'cross the bridge' successfully. As someone
put it, onboarding was the bridge between the résumé
screening, interviewing, and selection of a job
candidate and the annual review measuring how that
employee was doing in the job. This should not be
confused with orientation, which on the other hand, is
the event that usually takes place on the first day or
even in the first week of the tenure of a fresh entrant
and provides for a download of information about the
organisation and a bulk load of formalities to complete.
Major efforts in onboarding are the responsibilities of
the seniors to persistently open windows to usher in
more role clarity. This calls for having done the home
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work well and having the job description and job
specification in place with enough flexibility and space
for tweaking the responsibilities to bring in more
transparency in communicating them. The clarity has
to be in the following areas:
 Work Methods
 Time frames
 Work responsibilities
 Customer-Supplier interface
 Work priorities
 Performance expectations
 Resources

Role Clarity and its diverse implications need to be
understood in depth by each supervising manager.
There has to be clarity in the understanding of each
manager as to what was meant by role clarity how it
should become a priority. This leaves most of us in a
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lurch as to how does each manager feel responsible to
do this and this is where it becomes imperative for
each manager to subscribe to the other role.

The other role is non else than mentoring. The
organisation has to assign a mentor for each new
entrant. Ann Rolfe, the famous mentoring expert
defines mentoring as, "Interaction with another that
facilitates the process of metacognition". Now what is
metacognition? Taylor (1999) defines metacognition
as “an appreciation of what one already knows,
together with a correct apprehension of the learning
task and what knowledge and skills it requires,
combined with the agility to make correct inferences
about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge to a
particular situation, and to do so efficiently and
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reliably.” The mentor helps the mentee in doing that.
The mentoring dialogue opens up when the mentee
mirrors on his or her personal exposure to a
circumstance, concern or dilemma and then the
mentor guides the mentee in collecting data from a
diversity of sources, arrange and analyse the
preferences and helps to choose from the alternatives
the course of action, which would include planning and
executing it. The process of re-evaluating the outcomes
would continue in order to move up the learning and
performance curve. Therefore there are no time-limits
prescribed for this process and has to be an ongoing
activity.
You have now ensured only fifty per cent of the
protection that you need to offer to sustain what you
have achieved through 'internal churning'.
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Therefore we move to the next protector rectangle, on
the top left corner. We have seen how we have been
able to facilitate the employee to mount on the 'track
Expected level of performance
for progression' after his embarking the organisation
and help him balance his journey within. In order to
Measure Gap in performance

entail the seriousness attached to his association with
the organisation, the meaning of his performance
expectations (outcomes), need not only to be
reinforced but also measured and such parameters
need to be transparently communicated. This is
referred to as defining performance (this also includes
Actual level of performance
redefining if required). Defining performance would
tantamount to chasing a mirage, if the employee is not
looked after well. What we should be searching as his
best performance would be possible for him to
achieve, not only with the quality of assignments with
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added value but also what we are ensuring for his
wellbeing, so that he puts in his best. Work related
employee wellbeing is defined as follows, “that part of
an employee’s overall well-being that he or she
perceives to be determined primarily by work and can
be influenced by workplace interventions.” The length
and breadth of employee wellbeing would be that
which includes development of organisational,
managerial, social and physical workplace
considerations as well as elements such as people’s
physical and psychological health. This also includes
employee wellness initiatives. Let's be very clear that
we should not confuse this concept with that of the
traditional employee welfare, where the underlying
philosophy was to give away to the employees, so that
the employees were happy and felt more involved with
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the organisation. Here the effort is entirely to build a
'bonding' with the workplace. A typical example would
be that of Google! Organisations are to perceive this
aspect with an openness that perhaps is more required
than desired. It's not an expense; on the contrary it's
an investment that has far reaching and protracted
effects on the thrust needed for a paradigm shift. This
is no more the prerogative of the 'knowledge worker'
oriented industry alone and it is a pride to mention
that even conventional organisations are following suit
now. See how Unilever has worked on it too! The
bonding that we are talking about here is employee
engagement or talent engagement. The subtlety that
we would like to focus on, is why we chose to use the
word 'talent' and not employee. According to Marcus
Buckingham the author of 'First Break All The Rules',
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managers have to recognise talents in every team mate
- the power within!! Competencies are only
subsidiaries to talents, which emerge from various
factors but essentially the core of each talent is made
up of passion.
And the best definition of passion we have come across
is by Ken Blanchard: Employee Passion is the positive
emotional state of mind resulting from perceptions of
worthwhile work, autonomy, collaboration, growth,
fairness, recognition, connectedness to colleagues, and
connectedness to leader, all of which lead to standards
of behaviour that include discretionary effort, long-term
commitment to the organization, peak performance, low
turnover, and increased tenure with the organisation.
Engagement of talent would be possible when the
person possessing that talent is engaged with the
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organisation. The only way to acquire precision data
about employee engagement in an organisation is to
administer a qualitative and a quantitative assessment.
The technique needs to be customised according to the
values, the business strategies and the communication
style acceptable to the organisation. But essentially
when the survey is being designed, make it a point to
cleverly partner the key employees performing the
tasks for which engagement levels are being measured.
This measurement has to be an ongoing activity, as
organisations are continually evolving. While keeping
in mind that engagement refers to the workplace
bonding and not just keeping the employees happy, it's
worth mentioning that even accountability contributes
to engagement!

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This brings us to the last of the four ‘protectors’ and
that is where talent engagement takes us to – making
the employer, the employer of choice. The employer of
choice is an organisation where you find a clamour
amongst the potential human resources to ‘bag’ a job
with it. How would that happen? Today’s job-seekers
are extremely discerning and conscious about what
they are looking for and therefore would not opt for
any and every job opportunity that comes their way.
They weigh various aspects: besides other things
importantly, the compensation package, the job
content, the work environment, the career growth
prospects, and of course the learning. The employer
has to ask himself: Is he ready for this? Is he at the
bottom of the ladder debating whether to climb, has he
started climbing or has he probably realised that he
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was climbing into an undefined space (reminds me of
Jack climbing the beanstalk, achieving success every
time and finally settling down for some bagful of
golden coins, the harp that played the music and the
goose which laid the golden eggs, but Jack didn’t have
competition and nor was he aware about
obsolescence!) having to whip up an idea that was
fresh and rewarding in terms of engagement. Two
qualities that the organisation evidently has to
promote besides whatever we have been discussing so
far – innovation and experimentation and they have to
be embedded in a set of values, ridden with trust and
transparency.
When you become an employer of choice you have
attained the employment brand. It is worthwhile to
think and analyse at this stage, whether such a brand
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was possible to attain without a product brand or a
corporate brand. Well yes and no!
Yes, because if you have a great employment brand,
your product brand would improve as your brand
managers are an engaged lot and would do anything
and go to any extent to create that brand. The same
would apply to your PR too and therefore you would
have a great corporate brand.
No, in the early or nascent stages of an organisation
because of the following two reasons: a. you need to be
known in the market for whatever business you are
catering to and b. you need to have humongous
energies and resources in terms of persistence and
patience to await the product recognition, on which
rely the revenues of the organisation. Although we
second the understanding that businesses survive
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because of people, the latter are dependent on the
financial viability of the organisation, a fact, which we
cannot ignore.
Having accomplished the employment brand, our
agenda is two dimensional. We have achieved the
Competitive Advantage mentioned at the beginning of
this write-up, but we needUSto ABLE
S TAIN
sustain that. The war is
over but a new war begins?ITIMayTAGE not a war, because
COMPET VE ADVAN
be
you have already built the culture of promptness
and perceptiveness, but a continuous combat and
confrontation has to be faced in order to set new
benchmarks and mark up with them. That is how one
would have a sustainable competitive advantage and
get over with the War for Talent!

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The war for talent the percon model

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