“If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy, giving you less and less of themselves and always asking for more.”
Michael Gerber, Author, E-Myth Revisited, and Entrepreneur

"Warmware" Refresh Revisited

Based on my recent projects with several large IT organizations, I am encountering strong IT and HR support as I work with companies to align and better leverage their "warmware," or human resources. My alignment efforts strive to make the most effective use of existing talent, with value-based compensation dollars, while helping them to remain competitive in talent attraction and retention. Here are a couple of quick lessons that are emerging from my work:

1. Continually re-align the talent and the work that needs to be done.

   Most businesses are scrambling for a competitive edge in a rapidly changing marketplace. At the same time, it’s common for me to discover work assignments that are no longer relevant to current organizational needs and lots of irrelevant job titling. Revisiting the “work” assignments and job descriptions, which define expectations (and compensation), is really the only way to keep IT staffing costs in line while most effectively meeting the business needs of the organization.
   
   With some of my repeat clients, it’s becoming clear that this organization “warmware" refresh is needing to be done at least every 18 – 24 months if the organization is to remain aligned with shifting business priorities, relevant to the talent marketplace, and most importantly, effective. It may need to be done more frequently for some types of businesses or some divisions of large organizations.
   
   When refreshing alignment between employees and work, these are the kinds of things I’ve run into:
   
   a. The notion that managers “own” their people. As much as managers want to hang on to the talent, it’s the IT organization which ultimately must manage them and have the flexibility to put them where their abilities are most beneficial to the organization.
   
   b. An employee’s title should clearly reflect the type of work (family) actually being done. It’s easy to assign a title to an employee and then forget about it when the assignment changes… and changes… and changes. If the organization is going to keep accurate tabs on its talent resources, make appropriate reassignments when necessary, and not be over or under paying salaries, titles must be an accurate reflection of employees' work.
   
   If the type of work changes (beyond a 6 month assignment), the title should change. This continual refresh will also help to drive a more effective approach to training and development needs and help keep compensation (and value to the business) in line.
   
   c. If you haven't refreshed your talent-to-work infrastructure in a long time, it can be a wrenching exercise for everyone. However, once alignment has been achieved, maintaining it becomes an ongoing process of small course corrections that are increasingly comfortable for everyone over time.

2. Think global.

   Build a consistent organizational talent management infrastructure, whether you’re talking across divisions, across the country, or across the world. A client with operations in Asia, Europe, North and South America faced the challenge of developing consistent job titles-for-work-being-done across the system. By getting as close as possible to organization-wide consistency in their job families, they could better identify their pool of existing talent, leverage staff development and manage expectations of productivity.
   
   Some things I've learned from this global endeavor include:
   
   a. Success in constructing a common global framework depends on the support of local stakeholders. This is best accomplished by having them involved in development of the framework. This approach avoids the response, ‘it was done TO me,’ and changes the perspective to, ‘we created this solid, relevant, and functional structure together.’
   
   b. An actual global talent management infrastructure needs to accommodate regional and cultural differences. During phase-in, it will need to accommodate the cultural readiness of a workgroup as well as organizational timelines.

More than ever, it's critical to keep the IT organization infrastructure consistent, relevant and pliable to reflect the work that needs doing today. Likewise, it’s becoming very clear that we can no longer just “set it and forget it” regarding the employee alignment to this IT framework. Making the most effective use of existing global talent will require IT and HR leaders to consciously and continually refresh the "warmware."

Coastwise Consulting. Approach: Understanding and Leveraging Your Organization’s Infrastructure and How It Enables Results. Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.coastwiseconsulting.com/approach.htm

Harris, Philip R., Stripp, William G. 1993. Developing the Global Organization. Gulf Professional Publishing. 318 pages.

Rothman, Johanna. July 7, 1999. Align Your Staff’s Capabilities with Upcoming Projects. Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.jrothman.com/Papers/Cutter/capabilitiesandprojects.html

United Nations Economic and Social Council. June 2006. Statistical excellence through capability development and planning. Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.unece.org/stats/documents/ece/ces/2006/22.e.pdf

• IT New Year's Resolution Progress, Summer/2006
• A Crisis in Management, Fall/2005