Building Diversity Into the Talent Pipeline for Senior Operating Roles: Results of the 2020 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

Organizations seek to build diverse pipelines of talent comprised of individuals who can rise to attain senior operating roles (i.e., positions running large businesses within the corporation.) The 2020 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers sought to assess the level of diversity in terms of women and racial minorities in these pipelines, identify the obstacles to increasing the number of diverse candidates and strategies for successfully building diversity in these pipelines. Our results show a lack of diversity in these pipelines with 60% white males, 22% white females and no more than 5% in any other sex/race categories. CHROs primarily pointed to supply problems as the biggest obstacles to increasing the number of women and racial minorities, but they also noted significant internal obstacles such as insufficient attention to developing these talent pools and bias in hiring and promotion decisions. They proposed focusing more on intentionally developing candidates internally and exerting meaningful effort to hire externally as the most effective strategies to increasing the numbers of diverse candidates in these pools. Based on all of the responses, we focus recommendations on six areas: Setting the tone from the top to manage and measure the pipeline, building the pipeline through broader recruiting sources, using development to refine/expand the pipeline, managing promotion processes to ensure flow through the pipeline, leveraging external recruitment to fill the pipeline, and using retention strategies to prevent leakage in the pipeline

The CHRO and Culture: Results of the 2019 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

Given the rash of scandals (Wells Fargo, Uber, etc.) that cast negative light on culture and the recent positive emphasis (e.g., Larry Fink’s letters to BlackRock shareholders), part of the 2019 HR@Moore Survey of examined CHRO perceptions of how the board of directors (BOD) and CEO view culture. This report presents these results. Quantitative results from the CHRO survey indicate that knowledge of culture and its impact on organizational outcomes is highest for CHROs, followed by CEOs and board members. All three groups recognize that culture has a strong impact on engaging and retaining employees, driving performance, branding the organization, aligning organizational members, implementing strategic initiatives, and avoiding enterprise risks. The major difference among these three groups is that CHROs perceive that board members believe leveraging culture to avoid enterprise risks is its second most important effect, whereas CHROs and CEOs were perceived to rate this benefit least important. Qualitative results indicate that CHROs help the Board of Directors with understanding the organization’s culture largely by sharing data and metrics through presentations. In contrast, CHROs tend to help CEOs understand the organization’s culture more in one-on-one settings, and discussions and brainstorming sessions regarding how to best manage the culture. CHROs reported that many BODs and CEOs have been consistently focused on culture, but a large number also noted that both groups are increasingly focused on it, usually due to their increasing recognition of culture’s impact on firm outcomes such as performance, engagement, diversity & inclusion (D&I), and merger and acquisition (M&A) success. Finally, CHROs described their role in culture in ways that are helpful, specific, and to some extent, confusing. They describe some very clear ways that they help manage culture, but these descriptions vary greatly, indicating that little consensus seems to exist regarding the best or most important roles that CHROs play in building, transforming, and maintaining culture

Building the High-Performing Executive Leadership Team: Results of the 2020 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resources Officers

Over the past two years researchers in the Center for Executive Succession have conducted interviews with CEOs, former CEOs, board members, and CHROs regarding how they build their executive leadership teams (ELT) and accelerate those teams to become high-performing. In addition, the 2020 HR@Moore Survey of CHROs assessed a number of relevant characteristics of the CEO and the ELT. This report provides a summary of this multi-method research stream. First, the interviews reveal that CEOs must first build a team whose skill sets match the needs of the strategy and whose motivations prioritize the outcomes of the organization and the team over their own. Once in place, CEOs can accelerate the team’s performance by articulating a broader purpose than just financial returns and working to create a culture and values that engage the team and the organization. They also must articulate a clear strategy and the values that will guide decision-making by team members, drive alignment to the strategy and values among the team members, and ensure that incentives promote behaviors that foster alignment and drive support for the strategy. The CEO must also constantly evolve the team as the strategy changes, and listen to the advice and counsel provided by board members. Second, the 2020 survey assessed a relatively new characteristic known as CEO Generativity, a characteristic described as a focus on developing and enhancing the vitality of the next generation and a desire to leave one’s own contributions in capable hands. We found that high Generativity CEOs had more diverse, cohesive and inclusive ELTs. They also were more engaged in the CEO succession process and had driven more diverse talent pipelines for senior operating roles

The Chief Diversity Equity and Inclusion Office: Results of the 2021 HR@Moore Survey of CHROs

In response to the racial unrest and increased focus on social justice, organizations increased their emphasis on diversity issues in 2020. To understand one way in which organizations responded to this focus, we explored how the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer (CDO) role changed and the background characteristics of those in the role. The results indicate that the role increased in both internal and external visibility during this time, and that a large percentage of companies elevated the talent in the role. A majority of respondents indicated that the CDO role has become more influential and visible. In addition, about one-third of respondents indicated that they had upgraded the talent in the role, divided almost equally between internal promotions and external hires. Almost 3/4s of CDOs report to the CHRO. The vast majority of those in the role have at least 3 years experience in diversity related roles, and a majority have at least 3 years experience in HR. Given what appeared to be significant changes in the role of the Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer (or Chief Diversity Officer; CDO) and the characteristics of the people who occupy the position, the 2021 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) sought to explore these changes. We surveyed approximately 375 CHROs and 151 of them completed the survey for a 40% response rate

The Chief HR Officer Role: Results of the 2020 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resources Officers

The 2020 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) was conducted during the COVID crisis, an unusual time for businesses. Because of this, fewer CHROs responded than usual (100), but still provided useful data for exploring the changing nature of the CHRO role. We explored the demographic composition of CHROs based on the past three years of survey data as well as our own gathering of data on S&P 500 companies. Regardless of the data set, women comprised the majority (approximately 60%) of these roles and these roles also were predominantly white (over 80%). Interestingly, black females had greater representation (5–9%) than black males (1–6%). Regarding the various demands of the CHRO role, CHROs reported spending the most time in leading the HR function followed by strategic advisor. The latter was not surprising given the centrality of the CHRO in the development of work-fromhome and employee safety strategies. They also spent significant time being the architect of the firm’s talent. The results were similar when using the newer Gartner Group model of the “World Class CHRO” although the latter includes a “Driver of Culture” component that CHROs reported as comprising a significant portion of their time. Finally, CHROs continue to predominantly enter the role through direct outside hires and this percentage was higher than ever before (64%). On the other hand, CFOs predominantly enter the role through promotions from within (49%) although that has decreased from its peak at 56%

Building the Executive Leadership Team: Results of the 2019 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

The 2019 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers examined a number of aspects of executive leadership teams (ELTs), including team composition, the frequency with which CEOs meet with the whole team and individual members, team cohesion, and how the CHRO assesses problems that might exist within these teams. In terms of composition, our results showed that the average ELT size was 10.6 members, with 75% of ELT members being male, and only 16% of members from underrepresented groups. Just under half of CEOs tend to meet with the entire ELT on a weekly basis, with 25% meeting every two weeks and 24% meeting every month. CEOs formally meet with CFOs, COOs, and CHROs the most frequently, with over half meeting daily or weekly. CEOs meet informally with CFOs (75%), COOs (63%), and CHROs (60%) far more frequently than the formal meetings. In terms of ELT cohesion, our results indicate that most teams seem to get along professionally, but that they generally do not seem to form more personal bonds. Specific conclusions about how teams are building cohesion are inconclusive. Finally, CHROs tend to work with the CEO to assess the ELT’s effectiveness as well as to diagnose the potential causes of a lack of high performance. The causes tend to be a lack of alignment, poor communication, or a lack of trust among ELT members. Solving these problems tends to be accomplished through more clearly communicating goals and agreeing on basic principles for how the ELT should operate

Building the Board: Result of the 2019 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resource Officers

The 2019 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers examined a number of aspects of the Board of Directors (BOD). This report describes the results of this survey. We find that 64% of the companies surveyed have an independent Chair of the board with the other 36% having the CEO also hold the Chair title. CHROs do not evaluate boards as being particularly effective regarding the major tasks entailed in CEO succession. We found that responsibility for CEO succession is most often housed with the board chair/ lead director (rather than a committee), both as an ongoing process and as the decision becomes more imminent. Respondents were relatively equally likely to suggest that CEO succession responsibility lies with the Compensation committee and the Nominating and Governance committees for the ongoing CEO succession process, but as it becomes imminent, Compensation committees seemingly transfer responsibility to board chairs/lead directors. We found that women comprise approximately 28% of board members, with a maximum representation of 50%. Most CHROs reported that women directors do not face unique challenges, but when they do, they do not have equal influence or “voice” within the board relative to their male counterparts. Similarly, a large number of CHROs reported that their companies do not have unique obstacles to attracting women directors, but an almost equal number noted the lack of supply and consequent competition for qualified women directors. CHROs reported the cohesion and diversity/ inclusion climate of boards using the same items as used in past reports on the Executive Leadership Team (ELT). The results show that boards tend to score higher regarding diversity/inclusion climate and lower on cohesion, suggesting that the independent nature of board members requires them to appreciate and incorporate the diverse perspectives of other members, but not necessarily to work well as a team. Finally, we found that almost all boards conduct assessments every two years, and these usually consist of surveys asking them to assess themselves and the board’s functioning overall

Contracting outsourced services with collaborative key performance indicators

While service outsourcing may benefit from the application of performance‐based contracts (PBCs), the implementation of such contracts is usually challenging. Service performance is often not only dependent on supplier effort but also on the behavior of the buying firm. Existing research on performance‐based contracting provides very limited understanding on how this challenge may be overcome. This article describes a design science research project that develops a novel approach to buyer–supplier contracting, using collaborative key performance indicators (KPIs). Collaborative KPIs evaluate and reward not only the supplier contribution to customer performance but also the customer's behavior to enable this. In this way, performance‐based contracting can also be applied to settings where supplier and customer activities are interdependent, while traditional contracting theories suggest that output controls are not effective under such conditions. In the collaborative KPI contracting process, indicators measure both supplier and customer (buying firm) performance and promote collaboration by being defined through a collaborative process and by focusing on end‐of‐process indicators. The article discusses the original case setting of a telecommunication service provider experiencing critical problems in outsourcing IT services. The initial intervention implementing this contracting approach produced substantial improvements, both in performance and in the relationship between buyer and supplier. Subsequently, the approach was tested and evaluated in two other settings, resulting in a set of actionable propositions on the efficacy of collaborative KPI contracting. Our study demonstrates how defining, monitoring, and incentivizing the performance of specific processes at the buying firm can help alleviate the limitations of traditional performance‐based contracting when the supplier's liability for service performance is difficult to verify

Challenges during the transition from child and adolescent mental health services to adult mental health services

The transition from child and adolescent to adult mental health services for young people with mental health problems is of international concern. Despite the high prevalence of mental disorders during adolescence and their tendency to continue during adulthood, the majority of young people do not experience continuity of care. The aim of this review paper is to unravel the complexity of transitional mental healthcare to clinicians, policy makers and mental health service managers, and to address challenges to a smooth transition process at all levels