Handbook of Human Resources Management

Rapid economic changes, skill shortages, changing candidate expectations, new technologies, and the advent of better people analytics are key factors that impact how organizations recruit talent in today’s globalized society.However, most recruiting organizations are not prepared for this rapidly changing environment. According to a recent study, only 13 % of the 297 companies surveyed believe that their recruiting function is fully optimized (Erickson et al. (2014) High-impact talent acquisition – findings and maturity Model. Retrieved from http://marketing.bersin.com/talent-acquisition-systems-2014.html).This chapter will provide Human Resources and business leaders with a comprehensive overview of key aspects of high-performance recruiting as well as tactical tips and tricks on how to optimize the function.Readers will gain the following insights from this overview chapter:Learn about the history and definition of HR Marketing and RecruitingIdentify key pillars of a strategic recruiting functionConsider the perspectives of various stakeholder groups, especially those of the candidate and hiring managerCalculate the business case for investment in HR Marketing and RecruitingIdentify key metrics to measure the performance of recruitingLearn about different candidate sourcing channels and how to optimize the source mixUnderstand legal considerations and learn about key risks to recruiting such as selection bias and brand exposureLearn about organizational models for structuring of the recruiting functionIdentify ways to optimize the recruiting processUnderstand how technology can enable the recruiting processLearn about future trends that are impacting HR Marketing and Recruiting

This chapter seeks to outline, address, and evaluate the theory and practice of employer branding. The origins of employer branding are discussed and a working definition is given: employer branding refers to the tools and practices by which an organization manages its brand, or reputation, as an employer, among certain, specified audience groups.Influencers of employer branding, segmenting an audience for research, and the research methods used to determine and shape an organization’s employer brand are discussed using people (who you should listen to and how to segment them), economic (measuring the economic impact), risk (who are your influencers and researching the external audience), and operational perspectives (tools for understanding your audience).In order to communicate an organization’s employer brand, an EVP (employer value proposition) is developed to focus on the positive aspects of the employment offer, based on what an organization would like to and can credibly offer to employees and prospective employees. The development of EVP statements and pillars and how these are delivered creatively and integrated internally are discussed in a “Do” and “Don’t” fashion.As a closing part to the chapter, brief case studies are given on organizations in different industries on how developing an employer brand gives measurable returns, such as increases in non-agency hires, decreased attrition rate, and greater internal satisfaction.

This chapter will cover digital recruitment from its definition thru to its history in recruitment and trends. The subject itself could cover an entire book or an entire module at university, so this chapter will broadly touch upon the key elements and considerations. Under cultural perspective, the recruitment life cycle will be broken down into its individual parts, and digital solutions will be examined for each individual part of the process together with the impact this has on the knowledge and challenges for the manager and team. The economic perspective will assist in prioritizing initiatives and building a business case for the introduction of digital recruiting solutions. The risk perspective will raise awareness of the potential pitfalls and the operational perspective on the key considerations for a successful implementation. Finally, the key messages of this chapter are summarized in the Do’s and Don’ts.

Digital recruiting has become an important element of sourcing, attracting, and recruiting top talent at Sodexo, a world leader in Quality of Life Services with 125,000 employees in the USA. As an early adopter of social media and one of the first to launch a mobile app allowing candidates to apply for jobs directly from their mobile device, Sodexo has recognized the cultural shift in preferred communication methods by job candidates. Because of this, they have deployed a number of digital recruiting campaigns in recent years. In this case study, details are provided about the comprehensive digital campaign deployed to expand outreach and engagement with student members of the National Society for Minorities in Hospitality – a target audience for Sodexo’s hospitality pipeline sourcing.

Recruiting events are one way of attracting and finding talent and an integral part of a company’s overall sourcing channel strategy.This topical chapter explains the various types of recruiting events and the kind of talent that is mainly sourced through this channel. It highlights required investments (both human and monetary) and identifies potential risk areas.The chapter outlines key steps for successfully planning, executing, and following up on recruiting events. It concludes with an outlook on the future of recruiting events compared to other sourcing channels and in consideration of technology advancements.

This chapter covers an overview of the description, implementation, and management of an employee referral program. This is an important recruitment tool, and so it is crucial that any company looking to introduce one or to learn more about how they work initially researches the processes, benefits, and risks involved.The purpose of looking at an employee referral program is to outline the main areas to consider and dedicate further research before committing to an organization-wide launch.The report used current reported methodology and academic findings as well as the results of studies carried out into this field of staff recruitment, incentive, and retention.The chapter shows that this type of program can be extremely successful if managed correctly and that employees are fully aware of the processes of how it works and how to access the program and the benefits to them as participants. It also looks at the risks to consider and safeguards to have in place with reference to certain areas.The chapter demonstrates that with thorough planning and communication, an employee referral program is an incredibly efficient tool, although one which should be considered as whether it is a fit to a particular company and the way it operates.Undertaking this introductory and feasibility investigation into an employee referral program will help any recruitment expert or company owner in making a decision as to the positive outcome which can be achieved through the integration of such a tool into their human resources recruitment and retention suite of methodology.

As demographic realities become more apparent to business and HR leaders, the focus on early-career talent will continue to grow over the next decade. There is a significant investment to manage an internship program, but with good preparation, the investment can strengthen the employer brand and the pipeline of talent from the rising generation. The foundation of a successful program includes meaningful projects and close supervision from engaged managers. With this foundation, appropriate university relationships can be established along with a recruiting process, onboarding, and integration into the organization. Planning should also include a process for high-performing interns to convert to regular employment. An outstanding internship program will hire motivated and talented students who feel embraced by the organization and empowered by their managers to make a positive difference in their roles. And these successful interns will spread positive messages back to their peers and help to enhance the company’s brand.

Vocational training in China gets more and more attention in society. It is a long way to establish a well-working dual education system to prepare the youth for sustainable employment in a modern economic environment. Due to the fact that Chinese economy is growing constantly and foreign companies established their business in China, the requirements of skills changed in the past few years. China is not the playground for quick wins and low-cost production anymore, but business and products reach a serious level, which is close to Western standard.The following case study shows how it can work, which hurdles have to be cleared, what kind of circumstances have to be obtained, and where the mind-set has to be changed. Starting from the political decision to change a vocational training system to a more suitable one, meeting industry demands faces a lot of challenges, changes, and chances.The top-down approach has to bridge a big gap and only people involved can make the difference. In the past a lot of investigations were taken by different organizations regarding which country has the best education program in general. But there is no clear answer about that. No system is directly transferable as a blueprint to another country.It takes a lot of persuading, but at the end, the most important aspect is to have a rough idea, define responsibilities, and start with a small project. Regular communication and evaluation and monitoring the process are essential and lead to success.

The chapter provides a fundamental introduction into the executive search industry. Starting by the big picture, the industry with its origin, its economic dependencies, and youngest developments will be presented. Followed by a deep dive into the daily work, the direct search process with its most crucial phases is described. This process is one of the most important core success factors of professional executive search agencies. The depth level of each phase in this chapter varies based on its complexity and importance. For the case of hiring and working together with an executive search consultancy, the need of understanding some further connections and insights is crucial. Therefore, four different perspectives on the industry are provided, including the cultural, economic, risk, and operational point of view. The following section summarizes tips for the daily work with external executive search consultants in the form of do’s and don’ts. Finally, selected trends such as the war for talents, gender diversity, and big data allow a discussion about the impact of such external changes and in which direction it might change the industry over the years.

The case of recruiting a Senior Accountant for German company Brabender Technology in Beijing demonstrates typical challenges and adequate solutions during the process of recruiting executive or senior positions for Western companies in China.The foundation of the recruitment success was a very close and open way of communication between the responsible Brabender representative and the author. This became true right from the beginning when it was important to really understand what kind of candidate would best suit Brabender. Only after clearly defining the question, the precondition was set to be able to find the right answers. Important key questions were foreign language requirements, intercultural competencies, professional experiences, personality and working attitude, and likeliness to stay with the company.Another core reason for the successful outcome was the systematic recruitment approach starting with defining the role of the position carefully. Here it became clear that emphasizing too much on the professional experience would not lead to satisfying results. It was therefore important to also imagine what kind of overall contribution the desired candidate would be able to make concerning the support for supervisors, the team atmosphere, and outcome.Reading CVs, preselecting candidates, conducting telephone interviews, and meeting candidates in person were further important steps to identify Mr. or Ms. Right. To keep an ongoing observing attitude and not evaluating the candidates’ suitability too early was another crucial aspect. This also made it possible to gather extremely important additional information about the candidates’ suitability which is normally hidden, because it derives from unconscious behavior.

Keys to finding and integrating top leadership talent in an international setting cover areas that fall into the responsibility of both HR and the business leadership. In order to understand what is required to set up a functional structure as well as a progressive culture for hiring in international settings, this chapter focuses on potential success factors. It is equally important to understand what mind-set can be found in the candidate marketplace when it comes to leadership talent and how to best locate and engage the top players that could be suitable for the respective open positions. Once located and engaged in initial discussions, every part of the organization involved is tasked to fulfill their part to attract talent and then to ultimately make the right people decision. Process and structure are one aspect to secure talent, but so is defining the right set of criteria that can predict the highest chances of guaranteeing success. Once onboard, integration of new talent is vital in order to help the individual and the organization to gain immediate traction. Finding, hiring, and integrating talent is a tedious and costly process that is worth its investment many times over. A successful global leadership network has a multiplier effect and is essential for leveraging true global synergies. However, when things go wrong it will cost not only countless hours, fees, expenses, and lost revenue, but it will also negatively impact an organization in various ways.

It’s the decade of the three big “i-factors”: “Internet, internationality, and intercultural awareness.” Thus, it is exactly these three factors that have been making a huge impact on training and qualification in organizations in recent years. New skills are being asked for, new competencies are being required, and new ways of learning are feasible.

Nobody was born as a leader; however, life gives plenty of opportunities to practice leadership. Starting with early childhood, human beings are in a constant process of becoming leaders. Admittedly, some are more talented than others. But each and every person can develop solid leadership skills. In fact, most people working in organizations operate in an international network and a world driven by project management. Therefore, professionals from various disciplines and industries have to be able to manage people, projects, tasks, target groups, time lines, and budgets successfully (compare

Chap. 17, “Training and Qualification: Essentials of Leadership Development”

).

Obviously, no one can fulfill all these requirements alone by oneself. In fact, people have to collaborate with the members of their organization, need to interact with their suppliers, and have to communicate with their clients. In times of the big “i-factors,” bridge-building teams of external experts and vital networks of different companies are more crucial than ever before. Consequently, it is important to clear the way for innovation taking place beyond organizational boundaries. And most importantly, change and learning become essential parts of our workplace.

How do staff members and organizational leaders learn most effectively?

Why are there high-performer teams, while other groups within the same organization hardly ever collaborate in order to increase their output?

Is the way leading

companies are taking care of their trainings and their continuing education offers different to the methods average-performing companies use?

All these questions are key for human resource management. Therefore, HR executives and managers are asked to undertake a thorough analysis of these topics in this chapter.

This chapter mainly focuses on the questions: What is skill management? Why do we need skill management? and what is the benefit to both individuals and the organization? Also addressed is how to lead and implement a skill management program in the organization in a structured waySkill managementdefinition of.

Average sales managers might become excellent by developing specific forms of sales leader equity (SLE), namely, the additional value a sales manager brings to his or her function and role that benefits him or her and the organization. The sales manager competency model (SLE Competency Model) proposed in this study specifies SLE components, as well as how value can be added to a sales manager’s function and role. Leveraging knowledge accumulated from diverse disciplines and data collected from companies in various nations, spanning different levels of engagement, the SLE Competency Model asserts that sales managers’ management and leadership competency rely on their specific traits (personality traits, motives), character (self-concept, attitudes, values), skills (cognitive, social), and knowledge (business, functional, organizational) which engender sales managers’ beneficial expertise and enduring likability. These detailed SLE components provide guidance for assessing and developing sales managers’ competencies, which can have organizational and individual outcomes. By acknowledging the complexity of sales managers’ responsibilities and different levels of their critical competencies, the SLE Competency Model can enhance organizations’ sales performance through better management of sales managers’ functions, roles, and talents.

This chapter is written from the perspective of firsthand approaches to managing training organizations and training teams. There are references to published research and approaches; however, most suggestions in this chapter are a result of years of trial, error, and lessons learned. Hopefully you can take away suggestions that will help you lead your training organization. Remember, the intent is to always be a business partner with internal customers, the training requestors. If the two groups work together toward the common goal of ensuring associates have the tools and training effectively and efficiently do their jobs, everyone will stay focused on that end goal.The approaches in this chapter are designed to provide practical approaches to developing a solid working relationship with your team and customers. By ensuring that critical steps in the training development and delivery process are followed consistently and with some flexibility to meet customer needs, as a training manager you will become a key strategic partner to the leaders in your organization.

What do companies do with employee training when their financial chips are down? The knee-jerk reaction is usually to cut the training budget, as training is often seen as an expense rather than an investment in the company’s future. This chapter focuses on the case of a leading casino company in Macau and how its ongoing employee training efforts have not lost their momentum despite the recent downturn in gaming revenue. The sustainability of its training agenda rests on its unwavering focus on the service culture that is branded “World Class, Asian Heart.”The Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) attempts to differentiate itself in the intensely competitive gaming environment through strengthening this WCAH identity. It has tweaked its training programs, consolidating hundreds of disparate packages for different employees to a more systematic and comprehensive training of all employees in the critical corporate culture while separating skills training for different groups organized by function. In the tougher financial climate, the company will face further challenges to achieve its training objectives in the most cost-effective manner.

Can leadership be learned? That is the question. Looking at the number of leadership training courses and development programs, the answer probably is “yes.” However, not every person wants to be or can be a leader. Furthermore, there are more and less talented potential leaders. The less talented have to put in more effort to obtain the same result.The market for leadership development is enormous, because (the lack of real) leadership is a hot topic.For companies and organizations, it is of tremendous importance to fill their leadership pipeline. On the basis of thorough analysis of the present and future leadership needs, a development program should to be designed, conducted, and evaluated.The development of leadership takes time. It cannot be done in a week or so. Or as Filipino Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago wrote: “Leaders are not born; it takes practice to develop the qualities of a leader” (Santiago 2014 ).Involvement of the C-level management is a must. People want their leaders to point out the direction in which to go, to create a safe and secure environment to work and live in, to listen, to care, and if necessary to sacrifice themselves.Investing in a descent leadership development program is cost efficient and effective and diminishes the risk of mismatches and noncompliance.

From August 1995 until the end of 1999, John worked as general and HR manager of a professional soccer club in the Netherlands. One day the trainer/coach of the club told him that he experienced different reactions from players when he was training and coaching them and that he did not quite understand where those came from. At the time, the club had players of eight different nationalities in its first team. Could John help the coach? The question initiated his first steps on the path of intercultural management.

In an environment where the only constant is change, learning has become absolutely essential to every organization’s competitiveness. The rise of learning has precipitated a dramatic change in exactly what learning means in an organizational context.Digital media play a pivotal role in this transformation. They enable necessary changes – not only to how people learn within organizations but also to how organizations themselves can become much-heralded “learning organizations.”Demand is growing fast for new learning approaches that support performance and can be initiated and accessed on the fly from the workplace. Supply, on the other hand, has not kept up. This is largely because learners, and the professionals who initiate learning, lack sufficient experience in integrating modern media, particularly Web 2.0 tools, into learning processes.Against this backdrop, it has become essential to fundamentally redesign training programs with respect to media integration. This chapter focuses on Blended Learning 2.0 programs. In section “Introduction: New Learning: A Key Strategic Field for HR Managers”, it identifies the main forces shaping the development of learning and debunks common myths surrounding the use of (Web 2.0) media in organizational learning. Next, section “What is New Learning?” highlights the changes at seven concrete levels – from the shift to more informal learning right up to new target groups for business learning – and provides an overview of important formats and tools.Section “How New Learning Programs Come About” presents a key piece for the rest of its argumentation: a framework for developing Blended Learning 2.0 programs that fit in with the new learning philosophy. The development process is then explored – from the requirements analysis to blueprints and miniatures to the detailed plan for a new training program. The section concludes by going “outside the box” of formal education programs and looking at high schools and universities.Section “Leveraging the Opportunities of New Learning: Four Management Perspectives” analyzes the context from four perspectives that play an important role in the innovation/change process – from analyzing culture and emotions to evaluating risks and obstacles. Section “Final Comments and Outlook” presents concluding remarks, looks ahead to the future, and encourages further thought and discussion.

In 2009 a multinational automotive company implemented cost-saving rules to face the worldwide crisis. These rules included a severe reduction of travel expenditures. Until then, leadership training used to bring internationally mixed groups of leaders together for a traditional, 3–5 day leadership seminar. In order to be able to further offer learning and development, the traditional seminars were transformed into pure virtual seminars that would take place in phone conferences. A 3-day face-to-face seminar would transform into a 12-week development process. The experiment using simple, accessible, and cheap technology turned to be such a success that even though these cost restrictions are over, virtual and blended leadership trainings have become an integral part of the company’s training portfolio.

Increasingly complex competitive situations are forcing companies to implement lasting adaptations and innovations. Technological progress accelerates not only our life and our work but also our learning. At the same time, knowledge is no longer permanent, becoming obsolete relatively quickly. For that reason, it is far from sufficient today to simply acquire a set of skills. Rather, the ability to face new challenges creatively, quickly, and above all professionally moves to the forefront. The focus of all efforts with regard to human resources development must therefore be the attainment of competency objectives derived from the business objectives.Because of this, companies need professional internal competency management that can create flexible and decentralized conditions and enable individual learning at the workplace, both together with colleagues and also with external experts.In the future, those responsible for vocational training will have to face these new challenges. But watch out: the future is already here! It is high time to grapple with the learning system of the future, in which collaborative learning and cooperative working merge, and to distill from that the new in-house learning concept.In the future, organizations that are already working to build up an integrated learning system will surely have an uncatchable lead over companies that hesitate.

This chapter deals with ways to develop teams to be more effective. Economically systematic development of teams plays a large role, as it has a direct impact on productivity of an organization. Different kinds of teams need different interventions; that is why the chapter starts out with looking at different types of team constellations and their specific requirements. It plays a big role if a team is located in one place and belonging to one organization or if it is distributed in several sites, maybe homed in different organizations and on top of that interculturally diverse. In the following models for describing team dynamics and constellations are used as a basis to derive measures for developing teams. A clear process and each step is described for developing teams systematically and sustainably. Tools and interventions to successfully implement team development are elaborated on. Especially the different phases of team socialization are looked at and differentiated measures are offered. The author gives an evaluation on the effectiveness of tools and interventions also related to the phase that the team is in. In several practical examples, the application of these interventions is illustrated.

How to get ideas from your employee and how the employee shares those with his/ her employer are questions that always come up in many businesses around the world. Getting ideas from your employees is one of the strongest power and differentiation factors for a company/plant/factory. The employees are dealing day by day with your production machines, processes, and procedures, as well as they have a frequent contact toward the customers. They know after some time what the problems are. How to gain the benefit is depending on how the idea management is structured and organised.The case study will compare two different ways of idea management; one way as a standalone idea management concept and another way as an integrated approach, which is included in the day to day work. It will be shown how to get from a bureaucratic, highly administrative way of idea evaluation and implementation to a teamwork approach with better employee engagement and transparent evaluation process of an idea.

Development of virtual teams is challenging and ambitious because the typical setup hinders the possibilities of personal encounter. In order to increase the team's performance and collaboration capabilities virtual team leaders continuously need to invest in virtual team development. In the presented approach, team leaders are recommended to understand team development as a continuous learning journey considering containing different steps in preparing and defining training loops together with the team. Which team skills have to be developed and what could be effective formats are decisive factors for the training setup. Thus, in addition to their leadership role, team leaders are the head coaches for the virtual team development.

Today’s markets constantly challenge companies and organizations, while multiple factors determine the competitive advantage of a company: financial capital, innovations, and technologies.But there is only one sustained and not easily replicated factor: talent and how it is managed.Activities in talent and performance management have the goal of always having the right people in the right positions: today, tomorrow, and in the long term.Business is increasingly global, volatile, and influenced by a lot of worldwide challenges – securing growth and future success will depend significantly on how talent is managed while aligning all initiatives in these areas to an overall business strategy.A lot of variations exist in how the term “talent” is defined in a business context. Nowadays, it is generally accepted that talents are those individuals that do not only contribute to organizational performance but make a valuable difference to it. Their potential and way of contribution is essential to achieve the defined business goals and future strategic position of an organization. These interpretations underline the importance of recognizing that it is not sufficient simply to attract individuals with high potential. Developing, managing, and retaining talent as an organizationally embedded culture target the whole workforce.The talent and performance management framework constitutes an integrated approach to many areas, such as recruiting, development planning and learning, succession planning, mentoring, coaching, and compensation. All these components are essential to reach sustainable and desired results and provide a context for employees to perform at their best.The topical chapters provide insight to these components and their challenges in today’s business environment from various perspectives.This overview chapter provides aspects of the people, economic, risk, and operational perspectives of contemporary organizations’ approach to talent and performance management, exploring needs and expectations of both the organizations and the individuals working for them.

This chapter provides an overview of the design and the organization of performance and potential management with a focus on the aspects of human resources development. Related topics such as performance-based remuneration are mentioned as a component of performance and potential management. A more detailed description of the design of such remuneration systems is described in this chapter.This chapter illustrates the relevance of structuring performance and potential management for the employees and supervisors involved, as well as viewing their expectations (people perspective). The section regarding the economic perspective describes the company’s outlook on performance and potential management, its added value, the necessary investment, the importance for company culture, and, last but not least, the success of the company. The section regarding the risk perspective provides an overview of the risks which accompany these opportunities. The section on the operational perspective offers advice regarding the processes and required infrastructure for successful performance and potential management.

Employee performance assessment is generically referred to as a process that combines a system of tools and methods aimed at evaluating an individual employee’s job performance and productivity in relation to certain preestablished criteria and organizational objectives. Performance assessment methods vary, while the assessment cycles depend on the company’s corporate management decisions. The potential benefits of performance assessment are commonly considered to be: employee performance improvement by means of setting goals and improving collaboration; facilitation of communication between the management and the personnel; determining employee career development and training needs to achieve strategic initiatives; increasing employee motivation and trust; providing feedback to employees; and counseling and developing them. In other words performance appraisal is a process that involves determining and communicating to an employee how he or she is performing the job and, ideally, establishing a plan of improvement.

To stay competitive in the rapidly changing world, development becomes essential. To make sure development is effective and beneficial, this requires a structural process.Development discussion is the first part of the process. It is intended to be a purposeful and open conversation between the immediate supervisor and the employee. The content of the discussion can range from identifying development needs, improving weaknesses from current performance to preparing for the future career advancement. The immediate supervisor will either coach or counsel the employee with the objective to assist him to gain ownership to the development and commit to invest time to make change. In addition, the immediate supervisor should give positive and constructive feedback so that the employee gets the clear and specific inputs to focus on areas that he can develop. At the end, this should assist the employee to be equipped with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities he needs to develop himself and become more effective.With the clear feedback obtained from the development discussion, the employee can proceed to translate this into the development plan. Time and resources is limited. It is necessary to stay focused on the critical areas. Very often, weaknesses are the key concerns but should not overlook to continue to build on the strength. A development plan with a balanced focus is important. Furthermore, the plan can consist of various kinds of actions which will help the employee to move from current state to future state when he is becoming more effective. The development actions can range from training, coaching to undertaking a challenging or overseas assignment. All these should provide the employee with meaningful learning experience so that he will become better in the performance.

In the last century, natural resources were the most valuable assets in a company; leading companies grew successful and prosperous by acquiring these resources worldwide. Although much labor was needed, it was for blue-collar and routine jobs. This began to change in the 1960s with the need for more creative work that required independent judgment and decision-making. Harvard research shows that in the 1960s, creative jobs accounted for only 16 % of all jobs. By 2013, more than half of the top 50 companies were talent based, including three of the four biggest, i.e., Apple, Microsoft, and Google. The working world has shifted from exploiting natural resources to making the best use of human capital (Harvard Business Review (Martin R, The rise (and likely fall) of the Talent Economy. p 3–4, 2014).In these talent competitive times, companies are looking for the best performers, not only externally, but more importantly within their doors. Having identified these employees, it is then fundamental to have them enrolled in specific and targeted programs, as high potentials, to design tailor-made development actions in order to obtain higher performance from each of them. Obviously, they can develop important skills on their own, but what is more important is to understand how they can leverage better performance from each of them working in groups and teams.High-quality training is extremely expensive, and in this cost-consciousness era, businesses are unwilling to outlay the amounts necessary; companies must therefore develop their own programs which include a mix of on-the-job training, stretch assignments, job rotation, and other development initiatives. Companies should also promote powerful tools like coaching and mentoring, business case readings, and, of course, online and in-house training programs, preferably their own platforms. Only a small percentage of the time should be dedicated to classical development and training, and these should be of high quality in prestigious business schools and institutions.What motivates high-potential employees today is not only money but opportunities to grow, challenging assignments, fast track career development, status, recognition and reward (not just monetary), and lifestyle, among other things. That’s why, even with fancy development plans, it is crucial to have challenges for these specific groups both during and, more importantly, after their training; if not, they will seek their own challenges and move on from the business. How, then, can companies ensure that their investment in these employees will be successful and that they will be able to retain their services today and into the future? This is one of the most challenging jobs for human resources directors today.

Talent is the key ingredient for entrepreneurial success. The upsurge in global economic interaction and the looming future lack of skilled manpower render the international development of talent a paramount concern of human resources management. Many companies are currently faced with the challenge of putting in place talent development programs or to improve the structural and financial efficiency of existing programs. This demands new strategies and approaches, as dealt with in this contribution in depth.The concrete measures, recommendations for action, and practical examples discussed in this publication may serve as a guideline to the national and international development of talents. This also includes comprehensive information on the definition of international talent development, its inclusion in the overall talent management process, and how to successfully implement these challenges in practice. The scope includes fundamental aspects of corporate culture, staff communication, and personnel management up to concrete measures in support of talent and qualification for leadership positions. The significance of corporate strategy receives particular attention. International talent development is important to the success of companies large or small. Lufthansa Technik AG and DB Mobility Logistics AG are included as examples of how international talent development may be implemented.Apart from the promotion of the most promising, talent management also strives to create a culture of work which will motivate every employee to deliver his absolute best and optimally bring his abilities to bear. What is important is that directed personnel development should support the talents and strengths of every colleague. Targeted talent development will prove beneficial in several ways, not only increasing staff performance but also positively impacting on work satisfaction, staff motivation, and loyalty.

The following chapter provides an overview of coaching as a key way of managing employees, thinking about their well-being, and increasing their business success by having empowered them. For managers, coaching unleashes their full potential. On an organizational level, coaching ensures a company’s long-term sustainability – a talent management approach toward developing and retaining talent and contributing to greater employee satisfaction. In the following chapter, coaching is discussed in such a way as to hold meaning and significance for business. It is viewed not only from an array of diverse perspectives but also as a summary that reflects the experience of the authors. This is part of an effort to provide an all-round view when it comes to taking a decision whether to introduce coaching into an organization as a service, as a leadership style, or as a part of a shift in corporate culture. When organizations embark on a process of fundamental change, coaching is an excellent way of accompanying individuals, employees, and organizations as they traverse the route of this transformational process toward the creation of a new business culture.

New technologies have opened new possibilities for tailored and flexible human resources development. Although available for many years, synchronous virtual communication platforms have only found a real place in business in the last 5 years. In many companies, face-to-face learning is still preferred to virtual synchronous learning. In the field of management coaching, coaching from a distance – coach and coachee are separated by space and time – is still the exception. However, looking at managers’ diaries, human resources development should explore more approaches that allow for time- and space-independent ways of communication and cooperation between coach and coachee.Immersive Coaching® is a coaching approach that combines the advantages of face-to-face and virtual interaction. A characteristic feature of this intensified way of coaching is that it not only aims at creating the best possible coaching process in time for the coachee (and the coach) but also puts large emphasis on creating a coaching space (or spaces) that provides further added value for both partners: stimulating a relaxed and trustful coaching atmosphere and allowing for new learning insights by possibly being embedded in a tailored learning scenario.Thus the word “immersive” stands for two dimensions of further intensification of the coaching process: In difference to classical coaching processes that rely on a set of f2f events, Immersive Coaching® tries to aim at a continuum of coaching interactions and if possible it tries to embed the coachee into a learning environment that provides exactly those learning situations that are needed in order to achieve the development goals of the coachee.Immersive Coaching ranges from “face-to-face only” to “virtual only.”With this approach, coachee and coach can “design” a flexible coaching process so thatThis process is well integrated in the coachee’s daily working life.Interaction can take place in a web-based format wherever the coachee is.All coaching information is available for both partners on the net.A feeling of closeness is still there, even at a distance (sometimes even stronger than face-to-face).The coachee can stay anonymous, if wanted.In total, the coaching process is experienced as even more intensive than a pure face-to-face coaching.

Organizations and their global leaders need support to navigate changes and keep up to the tasks and challenges that are required today and tomorrow.The importance of carefully defining coaching is often overlooked. This step is crucial, however, because the definition can either limit or allow to really enhance the corporation to a new level of performance. If coaching is merely about listening, questioning, and encouraging, its capacity to transform the organization might not be apparent.Coaching should be defined as the art of facilitating the unleashing of people’s potential to reach meaningful, important objectives.

In today’s nimble business environment, business needs to continually nurture and to maximize the talent of the workforce. The answer is to create a culture where there is shared responsibility for workforce development.Mentoring program: Investing in the future includes some steps to help create a formal company mentoring program that will not only help individuals grow the skills they personally need for the future, but it will also help the company to develop the talent pool that will drive their future success.Mentoring models employees, helping employees to be their best. This type of culture can provide a strong, sustainable foundation for continued learning and growth.A mentoring program needs to have goals, firm process, procedures, roles, and accountability, including measures. The objectives of the program can be tailored to the needs of the company as well as the needs of the individual.

The following chapter provides an overview of succession planning as a key tool to ensure a company’s long-term success – a risk management approach to address the potential risk of losing key talent, whether it be in a planned (e.g., retirement) or unplanned (e.g., voluntary turnover/attrition) fashion. In the following paragraphs, succession planning is described as a process and its meaning for the business. It is looked at from different perspectives in an effort to provide an all-around view with the intent on providing hints and thoughts of real-life challenges one could reasonably expect when embarking on the mission to introduce succession planning to an organization. However, when pointing out realistic challenges with the design and implementation of succession planning, the message should not be understood in any negative or discouraging way. On the contrary, despite all those challenges, succession planning is viewed here as a necessary component of business long-term sustainability. And, it is not looked at as a “necessary evil,” but as an interesting and very rewarding challenge when mastered. This tool goes directly to the heart of any organization: to its people. Without the people the organization is after all an empty shell. Succession planning provides guidance in regard to the development of the people – something that will help with retention of talent. The desire for growth and development is part of the human being and companies failing to understand that will ultimately fail in their effort to attract and retain the best talent.

Companies should develop an in-depth understanding of their employees’ needs, for example, by conducting employee surveys, in order to develop measures matching these needs. Research on burnout and engagement found that the core dimensions of burnout (exhaustion and cynicism) and engagement (vigor and dedication) are opposites of each other (Gonzalez-Roma et al.; J Vocat Behav 68:165–174, 2006). Maslach et al. (Ann Rev Psychol 52:397–422, 2001) argue that job engagement is associated with a sustainable workload, feelings of choice and control, appropriate recognition and rewards, a supportive work community, fairness and justice, and meaningful and valued work. The topics introduced in “Engagement and Retention” will link to these dimensions and discuss them more closely.

This section understands the powerful tool “employee surveys” as a holistic approach where the employee, as a valuable performance driver, is the underlying force of all considerations. Therewith, the section raises awareness for ethical concerns and suggests the construction of a tailor-made questionnaire that considers a company’s unique characteristics. In that regard it is indispensable to clarify what information shall be queried in the survey. Thus, the process of finding the research objective is introduced by utilizing the advantages qualitative research entails. In addition, general rules for questionnaire construction are outlined including the formulation of survey questions, scaling, and the decision on a reasonable number of survey questions in relation to the expected responses. Besides discussing the possible survey forms (online or paper-pencil), the importance of creating acceptance among employees with an effective communication strategy is highlighted. Following, a low-scale and a comprehensive survey evaluation are described, whereby the comprehensive evaluation approach is extensively explained with the help of a highly sophisticated method – factor analysis. A step-by-step instruction manual guides the researcher through the procedures. Last but not least, it motivates management to design an action plan and integrate it into the company’s strategic alignment process.

As competition and skill shortages increase, companies are continuing their efforts to find and keep the best people. CEOs and managers are drawing upon a range of existing human resource practices and tools that have either a direct or indirect impact on decreasing turnover and encouraging greater retention within organizations. Practices such as employee satisfaction surveys, flexible work practices, team-building activities, and employer branding can all influence employee retention and are briefly introduced in this chapter. So too are other, more people-based factors which influence employees such as management style, type of work, organizational image, team atmosphere, and company culture. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of employer branding in this context and the need for employers to differentiate themselves as an attractive place to work.The alignment of the values of an organization with the desired brand image and human resource practices is critical for ensuring the delivery of its brand promise to employees. It is recommended that managers take a holistic approach to managing their human resources and to the development of retention strategies for their organization. Key steps in this approach include: (1) finding out the views of employees (via satisfaction surveys and other tools), (2) designing employee benefits and human resource programs in such a way that they can be tailored to suit the needs of the workforce and the individuals within it, (3) engaging employees from all levels in the development and implementation of specific human resource initiatives and activities, and (4) strongly linking human resource activities to company marketing and branding. Potential benefits include greater employee motivation and engagement, higher productivity, increased innovation, improved customer satisfaction, stronger branding, and lower employee turnover rates in the long term.

This section addresses the topic of cultural and social activities in the context of employee engagement in the workplace. Cultural and social activities are company-organized events designed to improve bonding and communication among team members in a way that will lead to higher levels of employee satisfaction and retention and improved organizational performance.This chapter looks at the drivers of work satisfaction and provides guidance on finding the right approach for the development of successful cultural and social activities. Recommendations include a bottom-up approach with strong employee involvement, tailoring activities to workforce characteristics, adapting to cultural circumstances, linking events to brand values, maintaining the voluntary nature of events, ensuring management acceptance and support, and maintaining authenticity. A specific example is presented in the form of the retention tool “employee relations,” and the section concludes with practical “dos and don’ts” for managers considering the implementation of cultural and social activities in their own organizations.

Employee care is omnipresent in human resource management. This chapter not only seeks to emphasize trivial behavior etiquettes which are a precondition human resource managers should possess anyway. First, the chapter indicates the strong influence that leadership style and welfare of top management have on the overall perception of employee care in a company. Furthermore, it gives insights on why the best employee is not always the right employee. In addition, the chapter stresses the importance of traditional methods that should be used as supportive tools in order to put a restriction on too much communication (hard to believe, but 100 % transparency is not always the best way to reach high efficiency) or the accumulation of alpha personalities that could possibly pose a threat to reaching the company’s targets. When considering all these ideas, it should be absolutely clear that the associated measures are not supposed to be obligatory. They are voluntary measures. Employee care should never create force or obligations. Finally, the section “Employee Care: Retention Tools” introduces three retention tools that show important but small-scale approaches that can be incorporated into the strategic alignment and action planning of a company.

This chapter aims to give first-hand information and valuable insights for establishing an idea management process and for accelerating the development of a truly innovative spirit in a company. To stay in business, it is indispensable for companies to come up with customer-relevant innovations. However, many innovation projects fail, not because of a shortage of ideas but because of the inferior quality of the ideas generated. In order to avoid this particular mistake, it is crucial to establish a structured idea management process from the beginning.The authors explain the seven steps of the high-value idea management process that should be taken into account in order to avoid the mistakes companies tend to make. This also helps to establish the idea management process as an integral part of a company. Important high-value idea management techniques are explained in detail. This gives managers a good overview of how to develop a regular idea into a high-value idea taking into account that idea management is not limited to research and development departments, but uses the potential of all employees.Companies where innovations are valued and encouraged are inspiring places to work. Employees are much more engaged in their daily tasks because they are able to bring in more of their strengths and abilities. This is a greater motivation than financial incentives and has a lot to do with the culture, the organizational structure, and the type of leadership in an organization.

Well-designed recognition programs respond and deliver on the key motivational drivers of human beings; they support a lively feedback culture and employee engagement. While the financial value of recognition programs is rather limited, the key value driver of recognition programs is delivered on the motivational and cultural side.Particular for global or multinational operating companies, a company-wide recognition program can provide all employees with a kind of “cultural glue” and allows anyone to reach out and express recognition to any other employee or team around the globe. These programs will support a culture of feedback and collaboration beyond regional and/or organizational boundaries.This chapter covers the various perspectives on recognition to be considered from an organizational and corporate HR point of view and provides recent statistics and market insides.

Over the decades, human resources professionals are expected to also be expert as labor relations professionals and must know and understand the union environment in the country they operate on. This chapter provides insights on what are the relevant components that promote industrial peace and smooth working relationship between management and its employees. The focus is to qualify what an effective relations program should be and how it can prevent and resolve problems involving individuals which arise out of or affect work situations from a human resources standpoint. This would mean understanding first the components in the organization that may promote or hinder employee and labor relations. The main goal of employee and labor relations is to maintain employer–employee relationships that contribute to satisfactory productivity, motivation, and morale.

US and global organizations face both union and nonunion employee issues with engagement and retention. This chapter presents the challenges faced in both US and global unionized environments as well as those issues faced in their nonunion environments.Suggestions are provided on how to combine both good Employee Relations and Labor Relations management techniques to create an environment of trust which leads to engaged employees who want to be a part of the organization.

Over the last few years, the call center sector in Germany has developed into a booming industry on the one hand, yet on the other, employment conditions in the industry – above all the remuneration for the staff involved – have come under increasing critical scrutiny. The media is full of reports featuring employees from the call center industry describing their – albeit subjective – impressions of their employment conditions. Investigative journalists like the German Günter Wallraff, websites such as KUNUNU, and also daily newspapers and business journals focus on this issue at regular intervals.Call centers exist in virtually all industries; they can be operated “in-house” (with internal staff and/or with temporary agency staff) or through external providers (near- or offshoring). Often, a combination of different models is used by enterprises to operate their customer service.The following practical case describes how a telecommunications company, when faced with a series of restructuring programs which were considered necessary by the executive management, succeeded in implementing tough measures (from the point of view of the staff involved) while at the same time attempting to retain employee loyalty.Indeed, the project, which ran for more than 3 years and focused on genuine (not simply ostensible), regular employee involvement in issues relevant to them, management training, and the founding of a new call center organization with twice the number of employees by insourcing around 600 temps, led not only to increased employee satisfaction but also to increased satisfaction on the part of the company’s senior management. Winners on both sides!

The following introduction provides for an overview about the different purposes of various compensation components as well as the link to strategy and setup of companies to design a compensation and benefits structure that suits their individual needs. It will also provide some thoughts about different target groups within the organization that may require different solutions even within one single organization.

Combining reward and jobs and differentiating reward based on job complexity have been practiced by human beings for more than 4000 years. Since the time in Lagash, Iraq, when the oldest documents regarding reward and jobs were found, the way human beings and organizations have conducted the differentiation of jobs has changed significantly. The general principles of job evaluation were defined at a conference in the early 1950s in Geneva.Nowadays, the analysis of organizations and jobs and the evaluation of jobs using a proven global methodology are well established in global organizations and have added real value to the further development of the organizations, especially when results and methodology are not only used for reward purposes but also in talent management or for the improvement of the organization.For senior management positions, both job analysis and job evaluation are processes where organizational principles and facts are translated into the ranking and grading of senior management positions in a reproducible manner.For all other jobs in an organization below senior management, more and more companies prefer the development and implementation of a global job catalog/job family structure to generate global transparency and to differentiate in a consistent manner, but every time a job evaluation methodology will be behind.Yes, the results of the analysis, evaluation, and grading of jobs can be used to benchmark reward packages regarding internal consistency and external competitiveness, but there are other HR topics where deep knowledge generated through the overall processes can add real value.

Benchmarking is an important tool and worthwhile investment for HR in order to support the organization by attracting and retaining the talents needed while managing salaries and costs of the organization in the right manner. From a people perspective it is important to ensure fair salaries in terms of internal and external benchmarking. This is to ensure that salary decisions are made on a solid data set which will consequently make the communication to employees and managers easier. From an economic point of view, employee costs are typically one of the major cost items within the organization. Thus, HR is in charge of one of the key cost drivers. Benchmarking helps to make the right decisions in terms of salary management and accordingly influences significantly the cost management of the organization. These two aspects have a significant impact on risk management when considering losing key talent as well as incurring escalating costs. Last but not least one should not forget the operational aspect of benchmarking. While benchmarking might seem complicated at first, some basic guidelines help to conduct a benchmarking project in a thorough approach that will lead to valuable results. It is necessary to compare “apples with apples” which holds true for the jobs that are to be benchmarked as well as to ensure that compensation elements are actually comparable with each other – both internally and externally. One should also not underestimate the definition of a relevant reference market, and when using benchmark data, it should be understood how the data has been collected, calculated, and manipulated.

Reward management in emerging markets is difficult. Economical adversities are multiplied by volatile labor market, salary hikes, pay link to hard currencies, and grey schemes of compensation. Strict corporate governance adds into it. To be competitive, companies need to choose competitive pay level among right comparator group; properly sell its benefits, integrity, and transparency; continuously gauge the market; and be ready for surprises and abrupt changes.

The following chapter is a comprehensive overview of the topics and best practices relating to base salary. Base salary is a fixed amount of money paid to an employee by an employer in return for work performed. In this chapter, base salary is further defined and its purpose explained. The chapter helps readers understand why developing a company philosophy on base salary structure is important and discusses how managers can work with different approaches for their company. The two usual approaches for base salary structure creation are identified (pay for the job and pay for the person) and explained. Readers are then introduced to the concepts of broadband and salary ranges. The chapter shows how broadband and salary ranges function and why they are vital in the creation of a base salary structure. Readers are also taught the practical issues surrounding base pay structure from the four perspectives: people, economic, risk, and operational. The lessons learned from this chapter are summarized in the “Dos and Don’ts” section that will give managers basic tips on how to develop a base salary structure. Upon reading the chapter, readers will have a full understanding of base salary’s definition and its importance and how managers can create a successful base salary structure.

“Bonus plans” or “variable pay schemes” come in many different shapes. In this chapter, a special focus is set on annual variable pay schemes based on the achievement of predefined performance targets or objectives, while other types of variable pay schemes, e.g., sales compensation are explained and treated more briefly. Bonus plans can have a huge impact on people, depending on how they are designed and how well they are communicated. Well designed, they will motivate people and enhance the success of the company as a whole. But bonus plans have also a significant impact on the payroll and thus on the bottom line. So it only makes sense to have bonus plans if the costs of these plans are lower than their economic benefits. Any good variable pay system should be self-funding in that it generates more money than it costs. It is demonstrated how this can be achieved. Bonus plans contain many risks if they are badly designed, e.g., cost explosion or administrative overkill, to mention just two. It is shown how these and other risks can be avoided. Finally, some key guiding principles for design and implementation of bonus plans are elaborated, e.g., Design your plan well! Spend at least as much time, cost, and effort on communication and implementation than on design! Qualify your managers! Make sure that your systems support plan administration! A list of Do’s and Don’ts concludes this chapter.

A long-term incentive plan (LTIP) is a plan under which a reward can be earned over a multiyear period, typically if certain conditions are met. The reward is normally financial and in the form of shares, options, cash, or a combination of these payment vehicles.LTIPs are used for a variety of reasons, including employee retention, performance improvement, wealth creation, and corporate glue. The way the LTIP is designed and communicated is critical for its success. There are various challenges that can hinder its effectiveness. Issues arise because companies sometimes try to achieve all objectives with a single plan. Other challenges are related to human behavior, perceived value, or responses from competitors in the labor market. Therefore, this chapter asks the question: “How to ensure effectiveness of a Long-Term Incentive Plan?”Based on four perspectives, i.e., people, economic, risk, and operational perspective, the question is analyzed, and one or multiple answers are provided for each of the chosen perspectives. All answers are provided in light of promoting effectiveness.In terms of the outlook for the future, it is expected that long-term incentive plans will continue to be important in the tool kit of the compensation professional. LTIPs will further evolve to be able to better measure company success in financial and nonfinancial sense and, in general, to contribute to business needs as well as individual preferences. Multiple plans may be needed to cater to different objectives, with the challenge to keep things as simple as possible.

Benefits are an important part of the overall rewards package and often require a long-term financial commitment by the organization offering them. Employers need to keep in mind that while benefit offerings and design are mostly local in nature, they still need to fit into the overall global rewards strategy, and the company must ensure appropriate governance and tax and legal compliance. Tax-efficient benefits, while beneficial to the company and employees alike, are often complex to administer for the company and not easy to understand for the employee. Companies can maximize the return on their benefit investment by engaging employees and making it easy for them to participate in the program.

In an effort to continuously enhance the employee value proposition, McDonald’s decided to introduce a new pension plan, McBenefit, in Germany.In a thorough end-to-end project, all aspects of the new program were addressed, including target groups identification, financial impact, stakeholder management, operating model, and tax and legal compliance. McBenefit was launched with an innovative communication campaign, making the program a great success, contributing to the positive McDonald’s employer image and building the basis for a new approach to communicating rewards at the company moving forward.

Internationalization became an essential strategic dimension for companies to ensure profitable growth. International assignments play an important role to implement this strategy. As a consequence the number of international assignees is growing year by year; they work as interface manager between headquarters and branch office, as cultural ambassador, or as technical specialist to transfer knowledge. For ambitious and open candidates, a position in a foreign country and in a different culture can be an interesting step to further develop their professional career. International assignment management first of all needs a policy framework, defining the compensation and benefit package, especially the typical assignment allowances depending on distance to the home country and hardship of the host country. The administration of international assignments secondly requires standardized processes for all phases of an assignment, from selection to reintegration and with clear allocation of roles and responsibilities between all human resources partners involved. Organizations exchanging bigger numbers of specialists and executives between several countries work with centralized assignment management teams, who cooperate with local HR in the host countries and often use external partners for relocation, social security, payroll, and taxation to manage this complex task.

The following introduction to administration and payroll provides the learner with an overview of the business practices associated with this section. The introduction to this section is meant to provide an overview and understanding of the topics covered herein. Human resource administration and payroll covers HR shared services and HR business process management, in addition to payroll.

This chapter defines administration and payroll as a fundamental and necessary piece of basic human resources and HR process design. This section is designed to help both the learner and practitioner understand how each step of a process or procedure comes together into a larger systematic process with multiple connections, interactions, and typically many stakeholders. The stakeholders in the process can either be upstream or downstream. This section helps to highlight for the reader how even the simplest process has many steps and the potential for many unintended consequences if not planned correctly.Involving the key stakeholders in the development and implementation of the process helps to ensure that all relevant information is shared appropriately with each key stakeholder who may need it. This chapter also shares the perspectives of many stakeholders and helps the learner to understand and see the impact an effective human resource organization can have on the business. This chapter is divided into multiple sections. The sections of this topical chapter include “Repeatability and Sustainability”; this section discusses the importance of building repeatable and sustainable work practices and processes. Every business process designed and developed should be repeatable and able to be sustained over time. This point is particularly true when an individual involved in the process leaves the organization or takes on a different responsibility. If a single person is removed from the process, the expected output from that process should not stop as well. The step or responsibility should be taken over by a new person or automated, thus ensuring the process can be sustained. The next section is “Process Mapping” followed by a guide for building a successful work instruction.

In this chapter business process outsourcing is defined not as a one-dimensional cost-cutting approach but rather as a complex change process that simultaneously targets efficiency potentials and ensures high service quality. The chapter shows that efficiency potentials will only be realized if – prior to implementing the outsourcing approach – all relevant parameters are correctly captured in a business case calculation. This case should not only include implementation and monthly running costs but should also at least partially foresee the cost for necessary future process and system enhancements. The chapter further illustrates cornerstones for a sustainable business process outsourcing, namely, a diligent process and requirement documentation, stringent performance measurements, and an established continuous improvement process. All of these factors ensure a successful collaboration model between the client in the respective HR department and the business process outsourcing provider. If the four areas of potential risk – system capability, system automation, skill set, and documentation – are also continuously monitored, outsourcing initiatives can lead to a better process handling and higher service quality than in an in-house environment.

In the past 20 years, the working world has become increasingly more flexible. Increasing globalization has sped up economic processes and requires that companies make even faster decisions in even less time. Many companies have had to undergo restructuring or reorganization for cost reasons. The whole departments have been closed, complete functions such as payroll accounting have been outsourced, and shared service centers have been set up in Eastern Europe. Structural adjustments and headcount reductions are now part of everyday working life and have to be made by management under great time pressure. However, the number of employees remaining in the company is often no longer adequate. A lack of resources and a lack of know-how have to be quickly compensated for with new solutions.

In global organizations today the question that must be addressed is what technology will aid the HRIS in meeting its legal and business obligations and provide the computing power that will provide a competitive strategic advantage.This paper examines the need for a payroll system that is cloud based and provides the benefits that such a system needs for today and the future.

Already before the crisis of the financial and economic markets, topics such as “good corporate governance,” “corporate social responsibility,” or “compliance” have been on their way up. The crisis accelerated the necessity for companies to deal with these issues. More than ever, companies are measured by the legal and political system, the media, and many other social stakeholders as responsible subjects that are expected not only to act compliant but also to act ethically legitimated.In this context senior business leaders start to realize: people are the most important asset of each organization. Performance or underperformance, motivation or demotivation, orientation or disorientation can decide on the success or failure of an enterprise. Furthermore, personnel costs are in many industries often the single largest cost effort for an employer.For all reasons mentioned above, organizations should have an effective control instrument in place to steer on the one hand their most precious resource (the people) and on the other hand to control major expenses.To have a working HR governance structure in place helps to align human resources management with an organization’s overall strategy and its vision, mission, and values; to treat employees fairly, consistently, and in compliance with the law; to identify best practices; and finally also to control expenses and risks.Having effective HR governance structure in place means also to create orientation by providing rules, regulations, norms, and standard operating procedures related to people management. In the consequence a proper HR governance structure can even impact the way an organization does business and makes decisions at the highest levels – right up to and including its top management.HR governance and compliance

Business ethics has come a long way from a good to have initiative, captured in glossy reports with photographs of smiling children and pristine nature, to being an integral part of the business strategy of any global corporation. The proliferation and acceptance of global standards of good corporate governance set similar standards of behavior of a global corporation be it in Jakarta or Bogota. The leaps in communication technology ensure that the information on activities of a corporation in one part of the globe will percolate to other parts in a matter of hours and not years, and corporations cannot behave in disregard of these standards without compromising its credibility with the customer base across the world. This rise in expectations of corporate behavior applies to potential and present employees as well. Ethical business practices thus play an increasing role in both attracting high-potential employees who look for more than just a fat pay check and keeping the motivation of current employees high by identifying themselves with the employer’s demonstrated values. This chapter analyzes the emergence of business ethics into the management discourse and how it impacts human resource management, the opportunities presented by it in attracting and retaining high potentials, and the pitfalls to watch out for in integrating business ethics into the corporate strategy.

This case study examines the changes in sexual harassment policy and its enforcement that occurred at the IMF in the wake of the international scandal involving its Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The glare of unwanted publicity forced the IMF to remove Strauss-Kahn and to appoint Christine Lagarde, who not only had to meet stricter standards of accountability for her personal conduct but also worked closely with the IMF’s Ethics Advisor, Virginia Canter, to develop and enforce more rigorous policies on sexual harassment that eventually were binding on all IMF employees, including its executive leadership. The case study seeks to analyze systematically the challenges faced by Lagarde and Canter and to draw from their experience certain lessons that may be useful to all organizations, and not just businesses, seeking to maintain their credibility in today’s global arena. It also attempts to evaluate the IMF’s experience in light of the moral standards now emerging as a general consensus in international business ethics. The breadth of that consensus is confirmed, we believe, by a review of guidelines on sexual harassment policy now mandated in the venues where we do business, namely, China (PRC) and Hong Kong.

This chapter covers how to professionally manage HR policies and guidelines within a company to ensure regulation of crucial HR processes, how to create transparency toward management and employees, and how to ideally also foster company culture by means of involvement and responsibility of all parties. Policy management should be seen as an integral and continuous process within every company rather than an archiving system that is not accessible or understandable to the employees. Policies are not static; they are always based on local legislation and to some extent cultural specifics but will also change with time. For example, 30 years ago it was not uncommon to drink at the workplace; thus no regulations were needed regarding consumption of alcohol. Today it is standard to regulate/prohibit any kind of alcohol and drugs during worktime and make this clear and transparent to all employees to comply accordingly.

The following chapter provides an overview of HR audit and investigation processes, conducted by internal auditors (also referred to as internal audit or corporate audit department) as a key tool to ensure a company’s long term success – a risk management approach to remediate proactively the risk of ineffective, inefficient processes and undetected weaknesses, as well as incompliance with applicable regulations, unethical behavior, and misconduct.A comprehensive presentation of all aspects of an audit is beyond the scope and objective of this chapter. The aspects of an investigation will be discussed only where explicitly a substantial difference to the processes of a business process audit are perceived by the auditee. This is dealt with in separate sections called “Specific Characteristics of Investigations.” In general a business process audit is a systematic screening whether laws, policies, and guidelines are followed in practical application and whether the business processes are effective and efficient. An investigation is targeted usually at one specific incident in which violation against company rules and regulations is suspected whereby investigators use forensic methods, among others. Investigations often are conducted based on a whistle-blower or a hint coming up during another audit and often are individual related due to personal wrongdoings.The following sections focus on the aspects of the audit processes that are perceived by the members of the human resources department as the audited area. Therefore, it is mainly looked at from the perspectives of the HR management in order to provide tips and ideas for HR professionals on how to cope with challenges of internal audits and how to use the potential benefit that an audit has for the respective HR organization.

Corporate compliance made it to the agenda of many board meetings. The full integration of compliance in the human resources function is still on the agenda of many organizations. On one hand, the increasing number of HR-related compliance obligations and, on the other hand, the tight resources in the human resources function/department are generating a challenge for every person responsible for human resources in the organization.The outline below looks into HR compliance from four different perspectives and targets to give some guidance:People: How to bring the message across and integrate compliance into the daily work in human resources?Economic: How to deal with cost to implement compliance in human resources, the potential damage of noncompliance, and the overall benefit of being a compliant company/function/department?Risk: How to manage the compliance assessment and remediate findings?Operational: How to integrate controls into the HR operations to ensure a sustainable, reliable handling of compliance topics?In December 2014, the International Standard Organization (ISO) has introduced a new standard for compliance (corporate compliance). This standard needs to be integrated into human resources. Organizations will have to revisit the current situation related to the compliance in human resources, perform a comprehensive assessment, and integrate the findings while implementing the new ISO standard. The outline below will provide some advice how to manage this task.

Similar to any other area of a company, Human Resources executives and leaders are faced with a growing list of compliance issues and tasks. Where compliance issues sit on a leader’s list of priorities is often dictated by the organizational structure of the company. HR leaders who report to the Chief Financial Officer are often tasked with getting the job done without spending too much money. HR leaders who report to the General Counsel or other legal professional are tasked with making sure the job gets done without getting the company in trouble. The most desirable reporting relationship for an HR leader is directly to the CEO where compliance is balanced with the overall needs of the business. This practical case focuses on how one HR team balanced its compliance demands with the company’s strategic priorities to earn a reporting relationship to the CEO. During the banking crisis, a small, regional bank in the United States determined that HR was no longer a strategic organization and terminated the HR Director. Ultimately, the HR staff was relegated to reporting to the CEO’s administrative assistant. During the ensuing 6 years, the department plodded along making payroll, hiring, firing, and generally keeping things in order. In late 2013, the bank hired a new HR Director to work through issues that had been identified in an audit report. Subsequent to completing the various audit issues, the reporting relationship for HR was changed directly to the CEO.

An HR strategy is essential to steer the qualitative and quantitative development of the workforce.The HR strategy describes the overall plan on how a company creates for itself a competitive advantage in the area of people and their skills and behaviors, which more and more become the main differentiator in the global markets.An HR strategy should be comprehensive and long-term oriented and have a clear connection to business success (“strategically aligned”).The globalization of competition demands both highly efficient, cost-optimized HR procedures and higher quality of the workforce. HR has to balance both aspects by delivering base processes at the lowest possible cost and to align the development of people with business strategy.A pure cost-optimizing HR strategy might be appropriate in economically difficult situation; as a long-term strategy, it will, however, lead to quality problems with the products and services. With an increasing focus of customers rather on quality than on quantity, this will eventually create a problem for the company.Outsourcing of base processes should be considered as an option in order to focus on strategically important aspects of HR management.HR departments have to sharpen their role and ensure that their focus is really in line with business needs and the needs of different groups (e.g., generations) among the workforce. HR has to build a bridge between both and not simply play the advocate of one side “against” the other.While in companies with rather repetitive work the focus of HR strategy was rather efficiency (i.e., getting a defined result with ever-decreasing cost of labor), there is a global shift toward higher-level work due to a higher sophistication of products and services. This development drives a rather effectiveness-oriented approach (i.e., getting optimal results with a defined cost of labor). In an effectiveness-oriented HR strategy, the qualitative development of the workforce is key.HR strategy has two aspects: One that refers to the HR department and its further development and the other to the workforce of the company as a whole.As a major success factor for implementation, both the company-specific HR value drivers and HR Key Performance Indicator have to be selected and defined according to the needs and strategic direction of the company. Ideally this becomes part of an overall strategy map (e.g., “balanced scorecard”) of the company.

Organizational development and change management are these so-called soft topics which are often not adequately covered by HR departments but with increasing dynamics in markets become increasingly important.

Building competence in a changing environment is a journey. It is a journey where it is essential to have communicated and envisaged a picture of the destination. The details of this envisaged picture will look different probably upon “arrival” at the end of the journey. However, communicating the destination is essential. It helps employees to understand what the direction is. It helps employees and managers to use existing competencies along the way. Moving ahead very often demonstrates unexpected strengths in colleagues one has not been aware of. Moving ahead with a plan can also show the team their current level of competence and the desired state of competence. Explaining and talking about these differences may often prove not to be that easy and clear for many involved.A changing environment shows also weaknesses of current practices, processes, and services. It requires strong managerial skills to keep discussions having a focus on the future and preventing these discussions to turn into complaint sessions of past events. Human Resources practices and processes are executed in a triangle of employees, managers, and Human Resources. Therefore, building competence requires strong and dedicated involvement from these three groups of participants. Competence building is most effective when learning happens during day-to-day work events and the collective and individual learning has a meaning: something “tangible” will be achieved and recognized.

This contribution discusses the many perspectives on the so-called HR business partner, the partner to the client system. The author argues that the HR BP is a strategic consultant to clients, who can add value using deep insights into the activities of the organization, the environment, and the trends that will impact future performance. Knowledge of the client organization is important, as well as understanding of the economics of the operating and earning model, the potential risks for the organization and how to mitigate these risks, the way the components within HR operate to solve for issues, and last but not least the people component of the system: knowing the talents and developing a trusted advisor relationship with the key clients. The contribution closes by mentioning typical career pathing toward the strategic HR BP role and a number of the trends that will impact the organization and thus the nature of this (leading) support function in the next decade.

In recent years, the design of the organization has increasingly become a crucial factor in an enterprise’s performance. As a result, the skill of assessing one’s own organization and of developing it further in a professional manner has become a new challenge for HR management.In this chapter, the organizational design is conceptualized against a system-theoretical backdrop. In this theoretical understanding, which is based on Niklas Luhmann, organizations consist not of their members and not of buildings, production facilities, or similar elements, but of specific communicative events that we refer to as decisions. The basic elements of organizations, then, are decisions rather than people. If we take this system-theoretical approach, we understand organizational design as a set of premises that determine the day-to-day decisions and communication channels in an enterprise. The interplay of these premises is illustrated and explained in an integrated depiction of the organizational design. For us, these elements of the organizational design are strategy, formal organization structure, horizontal connections and communication structure, leadership structure and systems, requirements for human resources, business processes, and infrastructure and leadership practice.This chapter also outlines the assessment and further development of an organizational design. The most important steps in such a sophisticated and demanding development process are communitizing the strategic requirements, reviewing the organization, developing options, taking a design decision, detailing the new design, developing an implementation architecture, and anchoring the design.

This chapter focuses on the importance of leadership development as the cornerstone of success in the Department of Energy in South Africa. The first part focuses more on the diagnostic process which was followed to establish the root cause of misalignment between the leadership of the department and the rest of employees with special focus to the clean and renewable energy branch.After this diagnostic process, the focus of the intervention was extended to the whole department with the basis of using the culture survey results and recommendation. The understanding was that if the leadership of the department understands their role and the impact, it will have an impact on the whole organization. After the training of two groups of leadership (executive leaders and senior managers), all participants were requested to come up with the change architecture which focused on their specific areas of operation. At the end of the program for the two groups, a joint workshop was arranged where both groups drafted a departmental change architecture which was to be implemented by the whole department.Due to the success of this program, it was also decided that the program will be rolled out to all senior managers in the Department of Energy in South Africa. The program was a very good combination between practical and theoretical input, using intense role-playing and individual’s actual work experiences in order to propose or come up with the possible solutions to address the identified gaps.

HR transformation is a concept initiated in the late 1980s with the goal to change HR from an administrative to a strategic organization with a new HR service delivery model. This model is supposed to lead to a more efficient, effective, and transparent delivery of HR services. It is often associated with the “three-legged stool model” inspired by Dave Ulrich with key components: business partner, shared services, and centers of expertise.HR transformation is considered a holistic change of the HR function encompassing a full alignment of HR with the business strategy. The purpose and role of HR are reviewed and changed to fully support business, client, and shareholder needs. The change of HR strategy often requires a new HR operating model that is aligned with the corporate operating model as well as a change to the HR organization, creating clarity on accountabilities, structural effectiveness, and process efficiency. This often encompasses an optimized integration across the different existing HR entities. Critical capabilities needed for the new organizational setup and business alignment are determined, followed by a check of the role fit of the current HR staff and the definition of required development measures to ensure a proper implementation. Finally, to achieve a proper steering of the HR transformation process and later HR operations, transparency on HR success is created with appropriate HR KPIs. Partially also the use of technology (IT) to improve HR process efficiency and outsourcing of HR processes are considered as a key building block of HR transformation.

The following chapter provides some key insights and different perspectives on labor cost and how HR could proactively influence this substantial component and therewith-important factor of a company’s result, and also what to do if there is no other option than reducing labor cost and at the final end causing layoffs of employees.When many organizations are faced with the need to cut labor costs, the approaches taken are generally very reactive and not really creative or underlying with real proven figures to provide a proper business case. Based on this the decision-making process is also very driven by the one and only synonym: labor cost reduction = layoff of active staff.Also there is no global catchall solution that can solve the issue of cost cutting, especially when it comes to labor cost but some general perspectives that could be taken into account.

The reality of organizations becomes more and more complex, especially for organizations that operate in different businesses and parts of the world. Combined with a rapidly changing environment and the rising importance of the human capital, a good understanding of the required and available human resources now and in future years is essential. Workforce planning and controlling is the core process of human resource management that determines in a systematic way the needed workforce today and tomorrow regarding different dimensions, identifies the gaps to the available workforce, and defines measures how to close the gap.The relevant workforce dimensions are the headcount number, job types, competencies, location, demographics, and people costs. Workforce planning and controlling is driven by the business strategy and aligns strategic planning, human capital planning, and budgeting to meet the organization’s strategic and operational goals. It takes place at different levels of aggregation and time horizons, from executional, near-term manpower planning to long-term strategic workforce planning. The process of workforce planning and controlling encompasses the following steps:Strategy decode: Determine requirements of the business strategy for the workforce.Workforce modeling: Prepare a job family framework and workforce model.Workforce data gathering: Provide the workforce supply and demand data including workforce driver quantification.Workforce analysis and simulation: Analyze current and forecast future workforce demand and supply. Identify the gaps between workforce demand and supply.Develop workforce plans: Develop and implement plans to close the identified workforce gaps.Workforce controlling: Monitor, report, and assess the workforce plans’ effectiveness and efficiency and adjust, if needed.

Acquisitions, mergers, and joint ventures are key, strategic options that organizational leaders may consider in the pursuit of growth or survival. The challenge is that these options have a high rate of failure. HR can increase the likelihood of success by deepening the focus on the people aspect as these options are considered and executed.These strategic avenues have five phases in common: discovery, due diligence, agreement and announcement, integration, and sustainable performance. During each phase, HR has an opportunity to help organizational leaders understand the risks associated with the people factor and make informed decisions.This chapter will provide you with an understanding of your role during these phases as well as a summary of dos and don’ts to enable success. We will share a case study with questions to help you think about what you would do as the HR professional.

This chapter presents three real German–Chinese M & A cases. It is based on personal experiences of the authors, and publicly available data. The authors make four general recommendations which have not or only partly been followed in the presented M & As:1.Define and follow a structured road map for a post-acquisition integration.2.Use HR as a strategic partner for the integration process.3.Use internal or external culture consultants to manage the process.4.Ensure the commitment of the top management.M & As are difficult to implement even within the same culture. In German–Chinese M & As, the post-merger integration is compounded by cross-cultural differences. Cases 2 and 3 show that managers without the necessary cross-cultural skills and competencies will have false perceptions and take wrong decisions.Case 1 proves the importance of a clear business and PMI strategy which should be prepared before the signing of the merger contract. Special attention should be given to the cultural and management fit of the two companies. Mutual trust and patience are required, as legal procedures may take more time than expected. Cases 2 and 3 deal with the key role of M & A sponsors and discuss the required qualities of the persons in charge of the PMI process. Case 2 points out specific issues of Chinese acquisitions.