In the interest of creating a level playing field for job applicants talent managers have been caught in a tight squeeze to meet the changing demands of the workplace. Agile resource allocation is essential for success, yet at the same time there must be transparency and fairness in how people are deployed. Value networks can help meet that challenge by providing a role-based structure for managing the flexible workforce.
Most HR and ERP systems (and even performance review systems) are designed to support one worker holding only one job. Yet, today’s knowledge worker plays multiple roles in an organization. They may spend the morning processing work orders, but in the afternoon they may move to a cross-boundary process improvement project, play a mentoring role for a new hire, or be a member of a strategic council. Typically these other roles are unacknowledged in formal talent management systems. At the Future of Talent gathering at Pacific Grove, California, in October 2009, talent managers and HR VPs from a number of organizations were grappling with this dilemma. The discussion was triggered by the ValueNet Map™ role-play exercise led by Verna Allee. Dart Lindsley of Cisco pointed out that Cisco actually has a role-based organization that works in complement to the formal organization because they have Councils that cut across the entire organization. The diagram below is a variation of a simple map he drew to describe this structure, showing where “jobs” and “roles” are best defined.
As Dart and others pointed out, without a systematic way of defining and managing roles, the coordinating costs – and risks – are considerable. What are the real costs of trying to resource the many roles that are required in a company and how can fairness and transparency be assured?
Companies that are implementing value networks are using Value Network Analysis (VNA) to define the role-based networks, projects, councils, teams, and learning communities that cut across the organization. These roles can then be planned for and allocated as part of the talent management system, instead of lurking in the vague area outside it. As long as they are in that area there is a very real risk that roles will not be filled by the right people, that the contributions will not be acknowledged, they will not receive adequate resources, and that potentially unfair practices will become embedded.
Mapping these cross-boundary projects and networks as value creating networks provides a systematic and transparent way for HR to develop a role-based taxonomy that can help deploy talent more effectively, whether they are job-based workers or contingent workforce.
Data required to monitor roles would be typically obtained from a) direct role mapping of key business activities in the organization, b) current employment information as found in internal HR and ERP systems, and c) from standard business process role taxonomies data. This information can be aggregated based on the ValueNetworks.com™ data model and then provided to talent managers for more effective approaches to resource deployment, performance management, and employee development.
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