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Why talk about connection at work?

You've probably heard that connection is important to humans—that we are social creatures. That for our ancestors, social isolation could be deadly.

So you may not be surprised that connection at work is important, too. It may not be a matter of life or death as it was for our ancestors, but feeling connected—to others and to the organization—has a huge effect on employees. Connection typically improves an employee’s experience at work and allows them to do better work.

More specifically, connection at work is critical to things like employee engagement, sense of belonging and well-being, individual performance, collaboration, and innovation:

• Gallup’s research has established a link between employee engagement and having a best friend at work.
• Research in organizational network analysis (ONA)—for example, by Rob Cross and Michael Arena—shows how employee connections affect their teams’ ability to openly share ideas, communicate, and innovate.
• RedThread’s research found that connection has become a critical component of performance management since the pandemic started.

In other words: connection is good for employees and for the organization.

But connection at work isn’t what it used to be.

We’re in a connection crisis

The last few years have upended how people connect at work. First there was a forced, mass move to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A settling-in to new routines. Then some stop-and-go progress toward hybrid work. All this in an environment of economic uncertainty as well as social and political tension in many places and on many topics.

During the pandemic, professional networks shrunk dramatically—by 16%, according to researchers King and Kovacs. As a result, many people feel less connected to their colleagues and organizations.

This connection crisis is an increasingly hot topic, particularly as research reveals the extent of the problem. We’re seeing an uptick in published articles and discussions about how employees and leaders can (re)build and strengthen connections in their organizations.

As organizations move from pandemic to post-pandemic, we think it’s worth considering how they can not only rebuild relationships that were lost during the pandemic, but establish ways of connecting that will set them up for the future. That’s why we’re launching new research focused on rethinking connection in organizations.

What we’ll research

As we launch this research, our overarching question is:

How can organizations most effectively foster the connections that matter to them?

In particular, we'll be looking at 2 areas:

• The types of connections that matter in organizations
• The ways organizations can enable connection

We think there are more types of connections and more ways to enable connection than are featured in the current conversation. A broader understanding of connection may help organizations more effectively address the connection crisis.

At RedThread, we believe in “doing research out loud” by opening our research process to practitioners across the community. It makes us smarter and helps everyone gather ideas from a wider pool of people. To participate in the roundtable and / or interviews for this and other RedThread research projects, please reach out!

 

 

 

 

Why We Care

Performance management (PM) is critical, even in the most ordinary of times. It’s one of the few talent practices that touches every single employee in the organization. It helps employees set goals, receive feedback, and adjust their daily work practices. Performance assessments impact compensation, promotion, and a host of other job-related opportunities. Whether it’s formal, informal, carefully designed, or ad-hoc, some form of PM is happening in every organization every day.

Given the foundational nature of PM, it’s unsurprising that it significantly impacts key organizational outcomes. For example, in our Fall 2019 study of Modern Performance Management, we identified “3 Cs” that drive performance—culture, capability of managers, and clarity. In that study, orgs that scored high on:

• Culture—were 32% more likely to experience high employee engagement and 97% more likely to experience high organizational performance
• Capability of managers—were 12% more likely to experience high individual performance
• Clarity—were 28% more likely to experience high employee engagement

But we live in a different world now from 2019. Lots of articles have been written about how PM needs to change to better fit a hybrid world. We even recently wrote one—leveraging our 3Cs model from the 2019 study¹ and applying insights from how best to manage hybrid workers (see Figure 1).

But you all know—we love our data. So, while we firmly stand behind the model in Figure 1, we want current data to help us understand what’s happening with PM today—and to contrast that with what we knew about PM right before the pandemic hit.

Our Hypotheses

We have a number of hypotheses for this research—some of the primary ones include:

• The 3 Cs model will remain intact. Culture, clarity, and capability of managers will remain critical to how we should be managing performance in a hybrid world of work.
• Capability of managers will be more important. Given that employees—working in hybrid environments—are likely to be less directly exposed to some of the visible aspects of culture (offices, broader team dynamics, etc.), we think capability of managers will be more important than ever in enabling effective performance. In particular, skills such as coaching and managing difficult conversations are likely to become far more critical skills for managers.
• The importance of clarity—and specifically data—will also increase. While it seems relatively obvious that employees and managers will need to talk more about goals, progress, and adjustment, we believe there’s more to it than that. Specifically, we think that providing data-based insights to employees and managers will be key to both groups asynchronously understanding their performance and making adjustments more quickly.
• Trust in PM is at risk. Given the ad-hoc nature of many orgs’ approaches during the pandemic, we may see an increase in people not believing that their org’s PM is objective. Fairness in an org’s PM process is crucial for orgs to gain and retain their employees’ trust—otherwise, lack of employee trust can trigger turnover.
• Underrepresented minorities will have a less favorable view of PM. In our previous study, we found that women had a significantly worse perception of PM. In this current study, we’re collecting more demographic data so we’ll be able to compare different groups’ experiences more effectively.

What We’ll Research

Through this research, we’re looking to answer the following questions:

• How has PM changed prior to the start of the pandemic, in terms of philosophies, practices, and systems?
• What should managers be doing differently to supervise workers in a hybrid world? How can orgs support them?
• What broader practices and systems should orgs adjust or implement to enable PM to work more effectively in a hybrid world?
• How should orgs adjust their practices to ensure equity for underrepresented minorities?
• What are some examples of how orgs have adjusted their PM approaches?

How to Participate

We’ll be conducting this research over the next 4 months and invite you to participate in the study in the following 3 ways:

1. 1. Join the conversation. We’re conducting a roundtable on this subject on September 22, 1 pm ET. You can click here to register and join the waitlist.

1. Take the survey. We rely on responses from our community to help us provide insights to you.
2. Let us interview you. If you're working on PM at your company and are willing to talk to us about this topic for 30-45 minutes, reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll schedule a discussion at your convenience.
3. Share your thoughts. Read our research and tell us what you think! Shoot us a note at [email protected]. Your comments make us smarter and the research better.

More Resources

You might be thinking, “Love that you’re doing this study, but I need help NOW.” No problem, we’ve got you covered with a host of RedThread resources that can help you get started:

• Designing Performance Management to Work for Hybrid Work (Free Reworked article—August 2021)
• Managing Better: Piercing the Fog of Today’s Uncertainty (Member-only article on enabling managers during the pandemic—October 2020)
  • Managing Better Infographic (Free infographic summarizing article on enabling managers during the pandemic—October 2020)
• The Double-Double Shift (Member-only article on improving PM for women during the pandemic—June 2020)
  • The Double-Double Shift Infographic (Free infographic summarizing article on improving PM for women during the pandemic—June 2020)
• Leveling the Field: Making PM Work for Women (Member-only article on improving PM for women—June 2020)
• Frontline Workers: Creating a Performance-Driven Culture (Member-only article on specific practices orgs can use to help frontline workers perform better—November 2019)
  • Frontline Workers: 7 Practices to Keep Them Engaged and Growing (Free infographic summarizing article on PM and frontline workers—November 2019)
• The Makings of Modern Performance Management (Member-only article on the 3 levers of modern PM—October 2019)
  • How Effective are Your Performance Management Practices? (Free infographic summarizing article on the 3 levers of modern PM—October 2019)

Why we care

The Boards' and CEOs' agendas have never been so crowded with talent-related topics: workforce strategies and wellbeing; diversity, equity, and inclusion; culture; and, corporate purpose.¹ Forty-two percent of corporate board directors think talent management will be a top priority for them in 2021.² Additionally, 50% of CEOs globally cite recruitment and retention of top talent as a critical area of focus for them in 2021.³

We all know that what gets measured is what gets done.

Yet, there’s a significant under-investment by orgs in people analytics. Consider this:

• In 2020, just 56% of companies thought they’d made moderate or significant progress in people analytics in the past 10 years
• Only 27% of CHROs say they're investing in workplace analytics tools to analyze employees’ digital activities in 2021
• Only 38% of orgs were focused on understanding "employee voice" in 2020

There’s a yawning gap between what people analytics CAN do for orgs and what it IS doing for companies today. Why?

The existing gap

We believe this gap exists for a few reasons:

1. Lack of clarity around the role people analytics can play. C-suite execs haven’t necessarily understood the role of people data, analytics, and technology in helping them address some of the critical issues on their agendas.
2. No clear set of expectations. Because C-suite leaders often don’t understand the role people analytics functions can play, they haven’t known what to expect from their teams—and, thus, fail to define their expectations clearly.
3. Lack of confidence. Research has found that C-suites are worried about the impact of flawed data on their company’s business.⁴ This is driven by the fact that analytics functions in many orgs are relatively new and lack credibility. Additionally, being asked to make major decisions based on the output of an algorithm that they didn't create and don't always fully understand also adds to the lack of confidence among senior leaders.

People analytics leaders: Now is the time to show your value

HR played a crucial role in helping leaders navigate the pandemic, yet there’s no guarantee that they’ll continue to do so post-pandemic. In a recent survey, 87% of C-suite execs credit HR leaders with accelerating change throughout their orgs during COVID-19. However, just 52% believe this will continue to occur after the pandemic.⁵

People analytics functions are well-positioned to highlight the work they’ve done to date, and to show the insights and impact they can drive for the C-suite over the long term.

This is especially true when we consider that very few orgs have a plan for post-pandemic working. Sixty-eight percent of executives recently reported having no detailed plan in place when it comes to return-to-office planning.⁶ People analytics is the function best-suited to help leaders with:

• Understanding what people need
• Putting in place methods to measure those practices
• Providing insights that can lead to appropriate course-corrections

The question, of course, is how?

Our hypotheses

We have the following hypotheses for this research:

• C-suite leaders today don’t know what they should expect from people analytics—and so neither use them effectively nor have clear expectations of HR or people analytics leaders about them
• C-suite leaders who use people analytics are able to more effectively address their org’s challenges and priorities
• There are at least 3-5 common C-suite-level challenges that people analytics can help solve — and many more for each individual organization, depending on specific needs and situations
• There’s a standard set of insights and metrics that are necessary but not sufficient for the C-suite in helping them meet their needs
• Data quality and having a “single source of truth” are critical factors in determining the extent to which C-suite leaders feel comfortable using people analytics
• C-suite execs who are most effective at leveraging people analytics are operating in data-heavy organizational cultures; however, C-suite leaders in less data-focused cultures can still drive meaningful change via people analytics

What we’ll research

Through this research, we seek to answer the following questions:

• What types of challenges can people analytics help C-suite leaders solve?
• How can people analytics leaders best partner with C-suite leaders to solve those challenges?
• What’s the role of tech in enabling that partnership and delivering those insights?
• What’s the role of organizational culture in enabling or limiting the use of people analytics by C-suite leaders?
• What impact do C-suite execs experience by using people analytics to address their challenges?

Who will be involved

We plan to include the following groups of people in the research:

• CEOs, C-suite leaders, and other non-HR business leaders
• CHROs and other HR leaders
• People analytics leaders

How to participate

We’ll be conducting this research over the next 4 months and invite you to participate in the study. There are 3 ways to participate:

1. 1. Let us interview you. If you're a people analytics leader or a C-suite exec willing to talk to us about this topic for 30-45 minutes, reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll schedule a discussion at your convenience.
   2. Join the conversation. We’re conducting a roundtable on this subject on June 16^th, 12pm ET. You can click here to register and join the waitlist.
   3. Share your thoughts. Read our research and tell us what you think! Shoot us a note at [email protected]. Your comments make us smarter and the research better.

Why We Care

Tell us if this sounds familiar to you:

Company ABC: “We’re committed to ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) at our organization and, to show that we mean it, we’ve recently implemented a new DEIB program. We also aim to increase our diversity numbers from X% to Y% in the next N years.”

News headlines a few months later: “A new report on Company ABC details new employee complaints about the conduct of executives and leaders. The report contains details of a “toxic and exclusionary culture” as described by many employees at the company and includes inappropriate remarks made by people at the company.”

We bet you’re able to name a company (if not 2 or 3) that would fit this scenario, especially given the social justice events of the last year.

Unfortunately, scenarios such as this are all too common. Even though a company might think it’s taking the right steps by implementing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) policies and processes, it could still foster an environment in which people feel left out, discriminated against, and marginalized. A study conducted in 2019 revealed that 40% of people feel physically and emotionally isolated or excluded in the workplace.^1,2

At a minimum, a culture that alienates certain sections or groups of employees can make employees uncomfortable with and disengaged from their work, resulting in orgs losing untold hours of productivity. A recent 2020 study into inclusive workplaces found that 45% of the survey respondents didn’t feel included in their workplaces and three-quarters of those felt disengaged from their organization.³

And, at its worst, a toxic and hostile work environment can result in people leaving their jobs or taking legal action, and / or in orgs missing out on critical talent. The same 2020 study found that 39% of the survey respondents reported having turned down or deciding not to pursue a job because of a perceived lack of inclusion at an org.⁴

Skills: The Muscle We Need?

As we’ve previously written on this topic,⁵ a holistic DEIB system is one in which every organizational process, action, policy, or decision is reviewed through a DEIB lens. We believe a systemic approach to DEIB is extremely critical to driving equitable change in orgs today. Yet, such a system is comprised of individuals and it’s often the interactions between people that can cause DEIB challenges.

Unfortunately, though, the effectiveness of many orgs in encouraging change in the behaviors of individuals is poor: It’s been well-documented that most diversity training doesn’t work.⁶ Further, unconscious bias training—which has been the rage for the last 5 years or so—also has relatively little evidence⁷ to show that it can drive changes in behavior.⁸

We’ve, therefore, been scratching our heads, trying to identify what org leaders should be doing instead. After a lot of thinking, we’re wondering if by focusing so much on changing behaviors, orgs have been missing something else that matters.

What if, instead of focusing on DEIB-related behaviors, we should be focusing on DEIB-related skills?

Stepping back: What’s the difference between behaviors & skills?

You may wonder what the difference is between a skill and a behavior. Many perspectives exist on the distinctions and, to keep it simple, lets focus on 2 key differences:⁹

1. Skills transcend context (or circumstances) while behaviors are context specific. If people have mastered a skill, then they can apply that skill in different contexts, whereas a behavior can only be exhibited in a specific context.
2. Skills are applied, meaning they’re “how” you do something. Behaviors, by contrast, are exhibited, meaning they’re “what” you do.

For example, someone might behave erratically (the what—behavior) in a situation, by applying illogical reasoning or lack of thoughtfulness (the how—skills).

So, how does that apply to DEIB?

The distinction between skills and behaviors matters because it highlights the problem with a lot of DEIB training: It focuses more on the “what”—the kind of behaviors people should exhibit—instead of on the “how”—the skills they need to develop that then result in desired behaviors.

Another problem with a lot of DEIB training is the focus on helping people understand what their behaviors should be in certain DEIB situations (e.g., a situation that involves sexual harassment or blatant discrimination), instead of focusing on the skills needed to effectively respond to such situations. This issue arises because the same behavior might not be applicable in a different DEIB situation—but, if an employee has the necessary skills, then they’ll be prepared to respond more effectively in any DEIB situation.

DEIB-related skills

Because skills transcend context, they can be applied to different DEIB situations. For example, in an interview we conducted years ago, an enlightened D&I leader told us:

“Managing conflict is critical for D&I. You have to be open to different perspectives, know how to manage the discussion around those, and be able to help the team get to a better resolution. If you can do that, you can be both diverse and inclusive.”

Conflict management is one such critical skill that can be applied in various DEIB situations.

Recently, a number of articles have shown how skills, such as empathy, are increasingly seen as being crucial to fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging. For example, research shows that a combination of awareness around bias and high levels of empathy / perspective-taking can increase feelings of inclusion by up to 33%.¹⁰

Listening is another skill that can have a critical impact on feelings of inclusion. Growing evidence shows that leaders who listen to their employees are able to foster productivity, emotional connections, and reduce conflict or misunderstandings.¹¹

“When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become wiser, more inclusive, and better as an organization.”¹²

—Pat Wadors, ex-CHRO, LinkedIn

In fact, listening became one of the most needed skills by orgs as a result of the changes in work environments brought about by the disruptive events of 2020. According to learning provider Udemy, listening was the most sought-after communication course topic offered by the platform in 2020, with a course consumption percentage growth of 1,650% from 2019 to 2020.

“In a year where we’re all searching for ways to relate to each other and feel connected during uncertainty, it’s completely understandable why listening would be one of the most sought-after skills.”¹³

—Shelley Osborne, Vice President of Learning, Udemy

Now that we’ve discussed the importance of skills for DEIB, let’s look at the status quo.

Skills & DEIB: Ready to be Understood

Focusing on developing DEIB-friendly skills as a way to increase DEIB in orgs seems like a very obvious solution. However, we haven’t seen much research on this topic.

Most of the articles we’ve seen so far seem to focus on a single skill—such as vulnerability¹⁴ or empathy¹⁵ or openness¹⁶—and how each can impact DEIB. Relatively little has been written on groups of skills that can impact DEIB. Of the articles we’ve seen, there seems to be a lot of anecdotes and opinions, and too little structured research, either quantitative or qualitative. (But if you’ve seen good articles, send them our way!)

Further, we haven’t seen research on how to holistically approach the identification and development of these skills, nor have we seen any focus on the role technology can play in supporting the development of these skills.

We believe this lack of data and insights results in orgs not focusing on improving DEIB-friendly skills. In some instances, orgs are providing one-off efforts—such as offering single-skill training sponsored by an employee resource group (ERG) or the learning team—but those are hardly comprehensive approaches to improving the DEIB skills of the entire org.

Our hunch is this: If organizations approached DEIB skills holistically, then we might see some meaningful movement on critical DEIB outcomes—plus a lot of others that we care about.

Our Hypotheses

We have the following hypotheses for this research:

• A subset of skills are critical to fostering an environment of DEIB
• Orgs in which such skills sets are present, along with a clear DEIB strategy,¹⁷ will have stronger DEIB, talent, and business outcomes than those that don’t
• Employees / managers and HR / DEIB leaders will have different opinions on what those skills sets are
• Orgs can build into their talent practices a focus on these skills, effectively weaving DEIB and talent efforts together
• Tech plays a role in scaling the development of these skills

What We’ll Research

Through this research, we seek to answer the following questions:

• What are the skills that contribute to DEIB, specifically fostering diversity, enabling people to feel included, and building a culture of belonging in the workplace?
• What can orgs do to develop these skills, including specific approaches, modalities, etc.?
• How can orgs leverage those skills to drive DEIB?
• What is the role of tech in enabling this to happen?

We plan to include the following groups of people in the research:

• DEIB leaders
• HR / learning leaders
• Operational business leaders
• Managers
• Employees (especially ERG leaders)
• HR tech vendors (focused on this topic)

How to Participate

We’ll be conducting this research over the next 3-5 months and invite you to participate in the study. Currently, we offer you 4 ways to participate:

1. Answer this short questionnaire. Help us understand which skills you think are most critical to fostering DEIB and what specific questions you think we should address in our study.
2. Let us interview you. We’re looking to interview 4 groups—if you're in one of them and are up for a 30-45 minute interview, reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll schedule you at your convenience:
   • DEIB leaders
   • HR / learning leaders
   • ERG / BRG leaders / other business leaders involved in DEIB efforts
   • HR tech vendors (focused on this topic)
3. Join the conversation. We’ll be conducting roundtables on this subject starting in April. Keep your eyes open for information on the specific dates—or reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll send you an invitation.
4. Share your thoughts. Read our research and tell us what you think! Shoot us a note at [email protected]. Your comments make us smarter and the research better.

Why We Care

Last year, in the aftermath of the social justice protests, many organizations made significant pledges to alter hiring and promotion practices to create greater equity and opportunity for people from diverse backgrounds. For example:

• Adidas said it would fill at least 30% of all open positions at Adidas and Reebok with Black or Latinx candidates
• Estee Lauder promised to reach U.S. population parity for Black employees for all levels in the next 5 years
• Facebook pledged to double the number of Black and Latinx employees by 2023

In the last few months, we’ve also seen an increasing number of diversity and inclusion reports published from firms, such as Deloitte, PWC and others, promising increased transparency and focus on this topic. There have also been announcements by companies such as Nike, Chipotle, McDonald’s, Google, and others, tying executive compensation to hitting diversity goals, underscoring the importance these firms are putting on DEIB.

This Might All Sound Familiar

As you might recall, in the mid-2010s we heard similar pledges (and saw the publishing of diversity reports) from Google, Facebook, and Apple, after women such as Tracy Chao and investor Ellen Pao brought attention to Silicon Valley’s diversity problems. And, to their credit, most of those companies (Apple being the exception) are continuing to publish those reports.

Those reports have revealed—surprise, surprise (or not)—that making progress on diversity representation is a slow and uneven business. For example, Facebook, which has one of the better public diversity reports, has improved its percentage of women from 31% to 37%—and from 15% to 24% for technical roles—from 2014 through 2020. However, they have only improved the percentage of Black employees from 2% to 4%—and from 1% to 1.7% in technical roles—across that same period.

This slow pace has not gone unnoticed, as commentators from all stripes (but most notably the mainstream press) have regularly flogged those companies for not making as much progress as we all want. As one commentator mentioned,

“These companies are data-driven, but if people are not hitting their diversity metrics, where’s the downside? You have metrics, but no consequences.” —Bari Williams, head of legal, at start-up Human Interest

It would be easy for leaders to conclude that they’re “damned if they do” track / publish data and “damned if they don’t” (because they don’t have data to understand what’s happening). When you combine this situation with the potential legal consequences of diversity (and inclusion) data, you end up with a whole lot of inaction—which is what we’ve generally seen to date.

This Time Is (Likely) Different

But this inaction is untenable for at least a few reasons:

1. Consumers want companies to take action—and will reward them if they do. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 80% of Americans want brands to help solve society’s problems and 64% want companies to set an example of diversity within their organizations. Further, corporations that take a stand on racism are shown as being 4.5 times more likely to earn / keep consumers’ trust and those doing well with addressing racial issues are 3 times more trusted. Brands’ responses to racism also influence purchase intent. 

To capture the potential goodwill of consumers, though, companies must show that they’ve acted or made progress on DEIB¹ —and the way to do that is through DEIB metrics and analytics.

2. Diverse employees left the workforce during the pandemic—and companies have to figure out how to get them back. Diverse people have borne the brunt of the pandemic:
   1. Women left the workplace at the steepest, most sustained level since World War II
   2. Black and Latinx workers suffered from higher levels of job losses, as reflected by their unemployment rates for February 2021 which were at 9.9% and 8.5%, respectively—as compared with 5.6% for White employees
   3. More than a million people with disabilities lost their jobs during the pandemic

As we all look to a post-pandemic world, there’s a good chance we will see at least two things: significant movement of talent (who may have stayed due to economic uncertainties, but now see a chance to jump) and a strong economy. To effectively take advantage of both of these changes, organizations will need to foster DEIB to both attract newly available talent (and retain existing talent) and to leverage the benefits DEIB brings, such as innovation, as they look to grow.

Beyond the potential business benefits, though, businesses have an opportunity to make a broader societal impact by redesigning work so that all employees can participate more equitably and inclusively.

Bringing back people who left the workforce will take intentionality, clear policies and practices, and data—lots of data—to understand what’s happening, what’s working, and what could be done differently.

3. New SEC human capital reporting guidelines are likely to result in more DEIB data disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revised its 10-K reporting requirements, effective 9 November 2020, requiring companies not just to report the number of employees, but also to provide:

“A description of the registrant’s human capital resources, including the number of persons employed by the registrant, and any human capital measures or objectives that the registrant focuses on in managing the business (such as, depending on the nature of the registrant’s business and workforce measures or objectives that address the development, attraction, and retention of personnel).”

While there’ve been a range of approaches to these new reporting requirements, it’s hard to imagine that DEIB metrics don’t count as “… measures or objectives that the registrant focuses on in managing the business,” especially when you consider the new ties for many companies between diversity metrics and executive compensation.

Further, given all the research that shows the connection between DEIB and business results, you would think that DEIB metrics would be an essential piece of information investors would want to know.

Or, viewed through a more cynical lens, investors might feel they are entitled to information that could result in potential future legal action, such as systemic (intentional or not) discrimination against a certain group, that would be revealed by DEIB representation numbers. If the company has at least disclosed this on its 10-K, then the company may be less likely to be open to legal recourse from investors. (At the same time, maybe it makes clear that potential discrimination exists? I dunno, there’s a reason I didn’t go to law school.)

In short, DEIB data is going to be more important than ever to investors, and companies must figure out how to provide it efficiently, consistently, and in an appropriate manner.

Recalibrating the System

Given all this, we think it’s safe to conclude that DEIB metrics and analytics are more important than ever. But, to our earlier point, it’s not as though DEIB metrics weren’t important before—it’s just that many orgs haven’t been terribly good at developing or using them. Why?

In short, we think it’s because organizational realities have resulted in a system that’s made identifying, tracking, and using DEIB metrics hard. Specifically:

1. A gulf exists between most DEIB leaders and analytics leaders
2. It’s unclear what data to use and how they should be used
3. New DEIB tech vendors offer solutions, but it’s unclear how these solutions fit in

A Gulf to Bridge

Unfortunately, in most orgs, the gulf couldn’t be larger between the groups leading the DEIB efforts and analytics. It’s true that DEIB and people analytics often report to different leaders—DEIB to the CEO or an operations leader at least half the time, and people analytics to the CHRO, talent acquisition or talent management leader, or a centralized analytics team.

But there’s more to it than that—and those differences include the following:

• Background:
  • The leaders of DEIB teams are often folks who hail from a social justice or diversity-focused background
  • Whereas people analytics leaders often have a data, computer science, machine learning, or math background
• Focus:
  • Many (certainly not all!!) DEIB leaders focus heavily on activities that have comparatively little to do with data (at least on the surface), such as setting up employee resource groups, managing DEIB events, collaborating with the local community, etc.
  • Many analytics leaders (again, certainly not all!!) are only involved in DEIB efforts from the perspective of participating in them—but have had little knowledge of any of the theories and approaches underlying those initiatives

• It’s the ultimate situation with “quants and poets” needing to work together—and in most orgs they haven’t yet.

  This situation has resulted in questions, such as:

  • How should DEIB and people analytics leaders partner on DEIB data and analytics?
  • When should people analytics be brought into DEIB discussions?
  • What is people analytics’ role in determining a DEIB strategy, especially as it relates to public proclamations of changes to representation numbers (i.e., doubling the representation of a certain group in 3 years)?

  Data Uncertainties

  Beyond these organizational and dispositional differences, there’s the question of the data itself. Diversity data have historically been treated with kid gloves, with a super select group of leaders being able to see them. Further, much of that data analysis has focused on satisfying Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requirements, without much additional analysis, for fear that the analysis could potentially end with the company in hot water from a legal perspective.

  In recent years, we’ve begun to see a seismic shift (we don’t say that lightly) around the thinking about DEIB data. Leaders are realizing that the potential reputational risk of NOT doing something about DEIB could be larger than the potential legal risk of uncovering something no one wants to see. As a result, they’re moving ahead with analyses.

  However, decades of inaction have resulted in orgs having a noticeable weakness when it comes to identifying, tracking, and using these data. Many leaders want to know things like:

  • What types of data can we use, who can see the data, and what precautions must be taken from a legal standpoint?
  • What are the basic metrics and analyses we should focus on initially? How does that change over time?
  • How should we “productize” DEIB analytics and metrics? To whom should that information be made available?

  Unclear Role for Vendors

  Finally, as we’ve written about for years, the DEIB tech market has grown substantially—and the biggest growth in that market has been around DEIB analytics. That said, in our interviews, we’ve heard things like:

  “I don’t know how DEIB tech vendors should fit into my overall DEIB strategy. When do I use their analytics versus our analytics and how do I integrate all this information?” —Chief Diversity Officer

   

  “If I had a dollar for every time another people analytics leader told me that the Chief D&I Officer brought in a new tech solution without understanding what people analytics could do to help them—I’d be a very rich man. It is so frustrating! We can do so much of this work, but they don’t ask!” —VP of People Analytics

  This lack of clarity on how to work together is causing friction in the adoption of new technologies and the effective use of internal people analytics teams. Some of the important questions here include:

  • Are there particular types of work that vendors are best-suited for—versus people analytics or DEIB practitioners building the tech themselves?
  • When should vendors be brought in?
  • Who should manage the DEIB vendor relationship?
  • Where does the budget typically lie for DEIB tech?

  What We’ll Research

  We’ve laid out our thinking above on the specific questions we think are critical to answer in this research. To summarize, though, the top questions we plan to address are:

  • How should DEIB and people analytics leaders partner to drive DEIB efforts?
  • What are the different types of data and analysis approaches organizations are using / can use to understand DEIB in their orgs?
  • What’s the role of vendors? When should they be engaged by DEIB and analytics leaders?

  That said, we know we’re just at the tip of the iceberg on this topic and realize there is plenty we don't know about. To that end, we’d be deeply grateful if you could take 2-3 minutes to tell us in the questionnaire below what you most want to know about this topic:

  How To Participate

  This study spans the next 3-6 months, so there are lots of opportunities for you to participate. At the moment, we invite you to be part of this research in 4 ways:

  How should DEIB and people analytics leaders partner on DEIB data and analytics?

  1. Answer the above questionnaire. Help us understand which of the 3 areas we’ve identified that you care to learn about the most and what other questions you hope we’ll address.
  2. Let us interview you. We’re looking to interview 3 groups — if you're in one of them and up for a 30-45 minute interview, reach out to [email protected] and we’ll schedule you at your convenience:
     • DEIB leaders
     • People analytics leaders
     • DEIB analytics tech vendors
  3. Join the conversation. We’ll be conducting roundtables on this subject, starting in April. Keep your eyes open for information on the specific dates—or reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll get an invitation to you.
  4. Share your thoughts. Read our research and tell us what you think! Shoot us a note at [email protected]. Your comments make us smarter and the research better.

Why We Care

We’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the employee learning experience—its many parts and layers—for a long time. With past research, we’ve emphasized how critical it is for L&D to empower the entire employee learning journey: plan, discover, consume, experiment, connect, and perform.¹

Content’s always been a major part of this learning journey—and the time has come to gain a better understanding of how current content trends are affecting learners and orgs alike:

With so much content available in so many places—and many more learners now attempting to access content remotely—L&D must get a handle on how to enable employees to have the right learning experiences.

By “right learning experiences,” we mean enabling learners to access the right content, at the right time, in the right format for their needs and situation. One big challenge: the “right learning experience” changes from employee to employee and from situation to situation.

A Flood of Learning Content

We’ve been witnessing rapid growth in the amount, types, and sources of content available to learners.

Until recently, almost all learning content was proprietary—created by a central authority (or authorities) in an org for employees of that org. First, we saw a boom in nonproprietary, third-party off-the-shelf content: Designed primarily for leadership development, it burst into areas like frontline training, sales, customer service, and much more.

Until recently, almost all learning content was proprietary. That's changed rapidly. Now there's a sea of content—proprietary and nonproprietary—that learners sometimes struggle to navigate.

Then user-generated content (a subset of proprietary content, but unique in that it's much harder to regulate) became a viable way to scale content creation and support collaborative learning for many orgs.

In response, we saw an increase in market demand for and vendor supply of user-generated content solutions. Figure 1 illustrates content types as we see them today.

Most recently, we’ve seen how L&D functions are struggling to account for (and tie to business goals) all the free, publicly available, uncontrolled content floating out there on the internet—that their learners are accessing and using.

As employees accessed more content in more ways, many L&D teams assumed (incorrectly) that more is better. They focused on giving learners access to all the content they could—proprietary and nonproprietary—including the proverbial kitchen sink. This strategy, they reasoned, would guarantee learners access to the content they needed!

Everything & the Kitchen Sink Just Doesn’t Work

In recent years, and especially with more employees working from home since COVID-19’s onset, the provide-everything content approach has shown its weaknesses—not the least of which is flooding learners with just too much.

• Cause: Employees are overwhelmed by the amount of content at their fingertips and struggle to navigate to what they really need.
• Effect: This situation discourages many employees from taking advantage of learning opportunities, ultimately hindering their performance and the org’s.

Providing tons of content also makes it difficult to ensure employees access the best (most relevant, highest quality) content or the content that most closely supports organizational priorities.

For example, let’s say the best content for a given employee and situation is a proprietary document created by a central L&D professional. But the easiest-to-access content is a public, nonproprietary video on YouTube. Which content is the employee more likely to consume? Probably the YouTube video—which isn’t ideal for the employee’s development or the org’s goals. This type of situation presents a challenge for L&D.

Learning depends not only on what the content is, but also on how it’s accessed.

There’s a growing recognition that learning depends not only on what the content is, but also on how it’s accessed. Successful learning means employees get the right content, yes—but they also get that content at the right time and in the right format / modality (in-person, virtual, mobile, coaching, on-the-job practice, etc.).

What We’ll Research

The challenge facing L&D has become:

How can orgs continually enable learners to access the right content, at the right time, in the right format—in short, to have the right (best) learning experience?

We want to understand this question in detail, with a focus on how the answers change based on content type—proprietary or nonproprietary. We sense that content type strongly influences what the "right content" is and how it should be delivered. In particular, we hope to understand:

• How orgs identify / select content that meets both critical org priorities and individual employee needs
• How orgs manage content to be delivered whenever / however it’s needed
• How orgs prioritize content so as not to overwhelm learners (i.e., identify the best content for a particular situation)
• How orgs tie all of these varied ways of learning to improvements in key business outcomes
• How these answers change based on content type (proprietary / nonproprietary)

How You Can Participate

Be an active part of our learning content research—here’s 3 ways:

• Join us for the roundtable. We’ll be hosting a roundtable on this topic—we’re looking for forward-thinking leaders to participate. The roundtable will be held on Tuesday, April 13 from 11am ET to 12:20pm ET. Apply to participate here.
• Let us interview you! Tell us what your org’s doing and how you're approaching content challenges. Reach out to us at [email protected].
• Join the conversation. Read our research and tell us what you think! Leave a note below or send us an email. Your comments make us smarter and the research better.

It goes without saying that the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests have laid bare the significant race-based differences prevalent in American society. Unfortunately, despite many leaders’ best efforts, those differences don't stop when people pass through the doors of corporate America.

We all know that diversity and inclusion (D&I) is important to business outcomes. But, even more, it's critical to our humanity. Seeing and respecting others for everything they bring – and ensuring that everyone feels safe, valued, respected, and like they belong – is a critical part of a human environment, not just a work environment.

Why we care

Given everything that's happening, there's an even greater need to bring all of our resources to bear on understanding and improving diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging in companies today.

Responses from corporations with statements supporting the protests against racism have been swift and numerous. However, only a small fraction of those have been turned into actions by taking tangible steps. Companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Lego, and Cisco¹², donated millions to charities to help fight racism and inequality, but there's still much that remains to be done to improve levels of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging within organizations.

Aware of this heightened call to action, we're undertaking our 2020 update to our D&I technology research. While we recognize technology is only one part of how leaders can address the underlying challenges within their organizations, it's still an important part.

In particular, technology can help identify patterns that may not have been previously known to exist, determine areas that need to be worked on, heighten awareness at critical decision points, and provide predictive data that can guide better insights for the future.

How you can participate

We invite you to participate in our research if you are one of these 3 groups:

• Customers of D&I tech vendors. If your company uses D&I technology in any form, we’d love to hear about your experience in our short 5-7 minute poll at danditech.com. Below is a list of companies previously included in our research (any of which might be one of your vendors) that you can give us feedback on. If your vendor isn’t on there, tell us which they are and give us your feedback – we'll track them down to get the other information we need from them.
• D&I tech vendors who participated in our 2019 research. Your company should have already received an email informing you of the detail of our process and inviting you to take our survey. If you haven’t received this email, send us a note at [email protected].
• D&I tech vendors who have not yet participated in our research. If you think you should be included, send us an email at [email protected], explaining your solution and why you think you should be part of the study. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

When we launched our first D&I tech study, it was in the midst of the #MeToo movement. We are at the beginning of another movement that also requires our utmost commitment. Our fervent hope is that our work – when combined with the good work of so many of you – will help move the dial on the inequities we see all around us. Thank you in advance for taking yet another step on this long journey to drive necessary, critical change.

Why we care

In 1776, Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations:¹

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-interest.”

In essence, Smith was saying that businesses exist to make money for themselves, not necessarily so they can feel better about feeding their community, providing high-quality jobs, or producing their goods using environmentally-sensitive methods. This line of thinking – that businesses exist to increase the wealth of their owners (shareholders) – has been a foundational principle for many business leaders.

But not for all business leaders. Since the 1800s, leaders such as Robert Owen, James Cash Penney, and William Lever (among many others) have focused on more than the bottom line, by caring about employees, the environment, and their stakeholders.² These leaders represent a sense that businesses have a large obligation to their employees and communities.

The tension between these two perspectives has tipped one way and then the other for years. Last fall, though, the balance tipped firmly to the side of businesses having a broader responsibility. In August, the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs from large and significant companies, stated that, in addition to generating long-term value for shareholders and delivering value to their customers, they commit to:

• “Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect.
• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.
• Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.”³

Assuming you take the group at their word, this represents a significant shift from a laser-focus on shareholders to a broader one on stakeholders.

Hypotheses

Our hypotheses for this study include the following:

1. The underlying factors contributing to CEOs, senior leaders, and boards of directors embracing stakeholders, in addition to shareholders, are meaningful and different from previous times business leaders have attempted this shift.
2. Organizations with a purpose that focus on a broader set of stakeholders organize, manage, enable, grow, and amplify their people differently than those primarily focused on just generating shareholder value.
3. These practices can be codified and scaled such that they are not limited just to a single organization.
4. These organizations are developing novel – yet potentially standardized – approaches to measuring the impact of their purpose.
5. These practices can positively impact an organization’s ability to generate shareholder value.

As alluded to above, this isn't the first time business leaders have focused on broader social good. However, we believe there may be some systemic changes, such as global climate change, that are different from previous iterations of this attempt. In this research, we plan to identify those factors and better understand if it really is different this time.

There are numerous examples of organizations who are already attempting to be more purpose-driven. We believe that there are similarities in these organizations’ people management practices.

We plan to better understand:

• What does “purpose” mean in these organizations and how is it measured?
• What does “purpose-driven” mean in terms of how organizations attract, engage, develop, and retain their people?
• How, overall, is the employee experience different at purpose-driven organizations?
• What do leaders do differently at purpose-driven organizations?
• What are the implications for HR?
• How do purpose-driven organizations track their quantifiable impact on stakeholders (e.g., revenue, profitability, engagement)?

This Project

We examine the following concepts in this research project:

Why we care

Organizational support for gender diversity – or at least the talk around it at executive levels – is at an all-time high. Yet, women still remain woefully under-represented at nearly every level in organizations.

While organizations have taken steps – particularly in performance management (PM) – to address this disparity, the difference grows steadily at each level as more men are promoted than women. The result: men end up holding more than 60% of managerial positions, while women hold less than 40%.¹

Clearly, something happens – something fundamentally different – that changes the upward career trajectory of women, even when they enter their careers on equal footing to men. While there are many potential factors, including work / life integration, employee benefits, leadership development, etc., we know that one of the biggest factors is performance management, as it influences both compensation and promotion decisions. Given this, we wanted to investigate what might be happening differently for the different genders² within PM.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis for this study:

Given the impact of performance management practices on promotion, it's likely that men and women are having different experiences within PM that are negatively influencing women’s advancement in organizations.

The myth of gender differences

Oftentimes, we assume that, because a practice is fair on the surface, it must result in similarly fair outcomes for men and women. Thus, when we see differences, it can be easy to assume that the individuals are different in some fundamental manner. This is the case with men and women in the workforce, where different outcomes have been explained away by apparent “fixed” gender differences, such as women desiring to leave work more frequently to care for family or women not having the same expertise or competence – especially in critical fields.

Yet, when we dig into these arguments, we find they don’t hold water.

For example, suggesting that women are not as competent as their male counterparts ignores the fact that women continue to earn more college³ and graduate degrees⁴ than men. In addition, while women earn roughly half of the science and engineering (S&E) undergraduate degrees, they're less likely than their male collegiate peers to actually end up participating in S&E occupations.⁵

Further, arguing that women want something fundamentally different from their careers and they're leaving the workforce in droves to have babies and take care of family is not a true representation of turnover rates. Especially when we see that women and men have similar turnover intentions and only 2% of women leaving the workforce do so to focus on family.⁶

The truth is, the different outcomes that we see aren't due to innate gender differences – but instead are a result of the different ways in which men and women experience work. From fundamentally different interactions with managers and peers to policies that inadvertently hinder women’s progress, women experience the workplace differently.

Good intentions: We've paved a PM system full of them

Fairness has been a foundational concept in PM since we started measuring performance. In fact, we began measuring production to help organizations make administrative decisions and determine how much to pay people (an idea still foundational in pay-for-performance approaches). However, as work has changed – so too has PM.

In the last 7-10 years, organizations have taken many steps – often times dramatic ones – to modernize their approach to performance management. While the primary aim of PM redesign was to provide a more growth-oriented approach to drive performance, many of the changes also touched upon ideas of fairness.

Modern PM extends the concept of fairness beyond a paycheck, including:

• Capturing a more accurate picture of performance by rethinking ratings and expanding performance evaluation criteria
• Gaining a more holistic perspective of the individual through more frequent conversations between the manager and employee
• Decreasing bias by increasing the frequency and the sources of feedback (e.g., crowdsourced feedback)
• Ensuring that individuals are evaluated against relevant objectives by setting and updating goals in a continuous and agile manner
• Leveraging PM to develop employees in more meaningful ways (e.g., starting out with career or development goals before determining performance goals, assessing managers on the extent to which they develop employees)

All of these changes – and many others – have been made with good intentions. Organizations want to create PM systems that provide a more accurate picture of performance and foster an environment that is inclusive, fair and equitable to support growth and development. Yet, good intentions and superficial fairness does not mean these practices are experienced by men and women similarly in their day-to-day interactions within organizations.

Creating a level playing field

Given these different organizational realities, organizations need to better understand how their practices play out in reality for women and men. This will likely require organizations to rethink (at a minimum):

• The relationship between managers and employees and how managers are held accountable to developing talent
• The access that all employees have to relevant, value-added information, feedback and critical people / influential networks needed for development and performance
• The underlying theory that employee development is the primary responsibility of employees, when men and women – as a result of their relationships – have access to different types of development and may have different levels of confidence in pursuing development of their own accord⁷
• The way organizations define, identify, and measure disparities between men and women
• The lack of confidence and faith that women – across levels – have in their organizations to actively address gender diversity in real, meaningful ways

These changes could have profound impact on how women experience PM and, ultimately, move the needle on the advancement of women in organizations.

This project

With this study, we want to gain an understanding of the ways in which men and women experience performance management differently. More importantly, we want to uncover ways organizations can move beyond superficial fairness, and ensure that men and women are experiencing the same organizational reality. In our initial discussions, several themes have emerged that serve as the basis for the research: