0:00

Breaking down everyday workplace

0:00

issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness,

0:05

not just the obvious symptom.

0:05

Our hosts, James and Coby.

0:10

Did we lose a patient?

0:11

No, that's just my lunch.

0:15

Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's

0:15

James. And let's get started with the statement.

0:23

First, I want to let everybody know that this

0:23

coming September, we're going to be launching

0:30

a quarterly newsletter that kind of builds

0:30

on some of the ideas and information from the

0:35

podcast. So there'll be, you know, we'll

0:35

add, some infographics, some cool stats,

0:40

some information about upcoming episodes,

0:40

and hopefully a great chance for people

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to kind of engage with us more because we love

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engaging with, with our podcast listeners. So,

0:50

we're going to put a link into our show notes

0:50

for a short little signup forum. So please,

0:58

if this would be even remotely interesting to

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you, feel free to click on that and add your

1:04

name to it. And we're hoping to kind of be able to

1:04

build more sense of community amongst our podcast

1:09

listeners by kind of having more opportunities to

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engage with them. So we'll be probably mentioning

1:13

this over the next few episodes as kind of a

1:13

reminder and probably leave the link in our

1:17

show notes, kind of for the seeable future, but

1:17

make sure you check it out. With that being said,

1:23

now let's get started with the question, how can

1:23

we get a better handle on workforce planning?

1:31

Yeah, this is going to be a fun one,

1:31

because workforce planning can be this complex

1:38

maze of just analyzing, forecasting, planning,

1:38

workforce supply and demand, ah, assessing gaps,

1:48

determining what talent management initiatives

1:48

are needed, to make sure that you've got the right

1:53

people with right skills in the right places at

1:53

the right time, all in order for the organization

1:59

to fulfill its mandate. There's a lot that can go

1:59

into workforce planning. for the purposes of our

2:07

discussion, though, I think I really want to

2:07

focus on the second half of the description,

2:13

which is how do you determine what talent

2:13

management initiatives are needed to ensure

2:19

that the organization has the right people with

2:19

the right skills in the right place at the right

2:25

time that's going to allow for that organization

2:25

to actually accomplish what it's designed to

2:32

accomplish. and then to achieve this, I think

2:32

there's really two things that I think would be

2:37

helpful to discuss. from a, you know, what are

2:37

some workforce planning tools that can actually

2:43

be used to help ensure the organization has those,

2:43

you know, that laundry list of right skills, blah,

2:50

blah, blah. And what is a talent management

2:50

initiative that supports workforce planning?

2:58

Yeah, because I think workforce

2:58

planning is one of those things that

3:02

people tend to see kind of in, like, the.

3:02

The packages of, you know, HR strategy, or,

3:11

you know, or they are. HR professionals

3:11

learned about it during their education,

3:16

but haven't actually done a whole lot with it

3:16

in their work. Because the sad thing is, again,

3:22

a lot of the companies that we talk to, the vast

3:22

majority that we talk to that are kind of in,

3:28

like, you know, have, like, 500 employees

3:28

or less. This is something that gets,

3:34

briefly mentioned in, like, you know, high level

3:34

conversations. But. But it's very rarely a,

3:40

strategic priority. Kind of, you know, you know,

3:40

for year to year planning, it usually comes up.

3:46

Once they have a major

3:46

gap in their workforce needs,

3:52

and then they go, oh, yeah, we

3:52

need to do workforce planning.

3:55

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes it's a

3:55

reaction to kind of, again, like I say,

4:00

kind of a problem that comes up, and

4:00

I immediately, people will look for,

4:05

like, you know, like, software

4:05

solutions. Cause that's kind of,

4:07

when you look up workforce planning, it's usually

4:07

a lot of, like, the traditional everything.

4:12

Well, they can certainly help with

4:12

the analysis and, forecasting pieces. Cause,

4:17

and let's be clear, there are workforce, planning

4:17

professionals, who are far more talented and

4:23

skilled and knowledgeable on this subject than we

4:23

are. And, to you, we apologize to listen to us.

4:30

you can just jump to the, as Coby

4:30

said, just sign up for the newsletter,

4:36

and join us next time, or just continue

4:36

to listen to us ramble. It's all good.

4:42

Because I think, too, is that I think

4:42

the reason why there's not as much of, again,

4:49

in the 500, again, the 50 to 500 is kind of where

4:49

that kind of poor sweet spot tends to kind of

4:56

be. And I think the reason for it not being as

4:56

prominent there as it should be kind of has to

5:04

do with the almost like, the reactionary nature

5:04

of kind of growth and talent management in those

5:14

sections where everything is like, you know, oh,

5:14

we didn't, you know, we. We hit the. We hit a big

5:18

growth surge, and we weren't prepared for it.

5:18

So we have to react to it or, like, you know,

5:22

or we're having trouble with talent retention,

5:22

so we're constantly in a reactive phase. And,

5:27

I mean, I don't want to say, well, you want to

5:27

solve your reaction problem? Workforce planning

5:31

is the answer, but there is a lot of benefit

5:31

coming from workforce planning that can help

5:37

alleviate a lot of the symptoms that end up

5:37

resulting with a lot of retention issues.

5:44

Well, and part of it is also, I mean,

5:44

as you start getting into the larger structures,

5:51

you have more opportunity for or

5:51

very specialized departments and

5:56

skill sets and sub departments within your HR

5:56

responsibilities. Usually in this, you know,

6:02

500 or fewer employees, you probably have an HR

6:02

team, but you don't have deep specializations,

6:11

you don't have a total rewards team,

6:11

you don't have a workforce planning

6:16

team. Right. So everybody's kind of carrying a

6:16

lot of different hats, which can be extremely

6:23

chaotic. We, we see you, we hear you, we

6:23

feel for you. We can't change it for you.

6:31

Yeah. But you know, the, a lot of it with

6:31

kind of that piece is that the workforce planning?

6:39

I think why it often gets kind of shuffled

6:39

off to the side is because I think that again,

6:45

the common understanding, especially

6:45

outside the kind of the HR realm, is like,

6:49

well, it's planning for our workforce.

6:49

And that requires like, you know, a.

6:52

Lot of, usually it's replacement

6:52

planning. If it's thought of in a half baked plan,

6:59

it's replacement planning of, well, we know

6:59

that we generally lose, you know, 18% of our

7:06

workforce year over year. So we need to make sure

7:06

that we are replacing 18% of our workforce year

7:12

over year. And that's where the workforce

7:12

planning strategy kind of starts and stops.

7:18

Yeah, yeah. And I think that with a,

7:18

the idea of trying to remove or try to move away

7:26

from the talent management and workforce kind of

7:26

like strategies in general, as being reactionary

7:34

towards being intentional is part of it, is kind

7:34

of moving into the idea of let's think ahead about

7:43

our growth. Let's take some strategic intent in

7:43

where we think we need to get to and trying to

7:51

keep in mind this is something that needs to

7:51

be done with some expertise involved and some

8:00

real well thought out, situations. It's

8:00

tough when you're in an organization,

8:06

especially when you're in HR department,

8:06

that is very reactionary. Going back to

8:10

our episode about what does HR stand for?

8:10

And the highly reactive HR departments have

8:14

a really hard time with these kind of

8:14

planning processes because they're just

8:19

trying to keep the fires kind of at a minimum

8:19

every day. So it does require a little bit of

8:26

a mental shift away from that. We're all about

8:26

reaction to, we're all about strategic intent.

8:31

But if it does require leadership, it

8:31

requires leadership to be on board with the,

8:37

you know, to move from a reactionary

8:37

standpoint to let's actually look at

8:43

this from a strategic standpoint. But it

8:43

also has a very clear connection to bottom,

8:49

line. If you're going through any type, let's

8:49

pray and hope that you're going through some

8:54

growth. Right. There's at least a growth

8:54

strategy in your organization for how are we

9:00

going to improve our market penetration, whatever

9:00

that m strategy may be, you're going to require,

9:09

skilled people in the right places, in the

9:09

right roles at the right time in order to

9:13

achieve that. And that can be the linkage

9:13

to why we actually need to start looking

9:19

at this from a more intentional strategic

9:19

standpoint rather than a replacement theory.

9:24

Yeah. And going back to, again, I'm going

9:24

to reference in a past episode, a recent episode

9:29

we did on the Technical Founder Paradox, about the

9:29

idea of, when everything rests on the shoulders of

9:37

the owner founders, and then they grow to a point

9:37

where they're not able, where their skill sets are

9:45

not scaling or not evolving with the expectations

9:45

and role and the roles that they have to carry to

9:53

move to the next level. This is when workforce

9:53

planning should be a major component of that,

9:58

because it's also about the idea of what does

9:58

the CEO need to be in three years from now? Not

10:05

just what are the foundational bottom line, or,

10:05

you know, like, you know, the frontline staff,

10:12

but what does all people need to be? Because it's

10:12

about, you know, do we evolve the skills existing,

10:18

the existing skills and the existing people? Are

10:18

we about, you know, trying to bring in kind of

10:23

newer ideas, newer talent? Are there new positions

10:23

we have to create that we get nobody, you know,

10:28

able to do it, that, we can upskill? These are

10:28

hard questions that we need to answer, but I, a

10:33

lot of it going back to, again, the technical

10:33

founder paradox, and making sure that you,

10:37

that your leadership team, and if you're listening

10:37

to this as an owner or founder, that your,

10:42

the evolution of your job is now holding back the

10:42

growth of the organization. So this might be a

10:47

very helpful conversation to anybody who might

10:47

be dealing with a technical founder paradox.

10:50

Well, and you're right in that

10:50

this is important at every level of the

10:57

organization and hierarchy, but a mismatch in

10:57

skills at the leadership level can derail your

11:06

momentum and growth. Ah, I mean, the example

11:06

that always kind of comes back to me is the,

11:15

why we've shared it before. the team of friends

11:15

who started a business right out of college,

11:22

and they were the senior leadership team, and

11:22

they grew the company together. None, of them

11:28

really having any experience in management or

11:28

leadership before all technical experts in how to

11:35

build their product. This was a big challenge for

11:35

them to overcome in identifying that just being

11:45

the founders of the company is not necessarily

11:45

enough to ensure that you have the skills to

11:51

grow the company and doing this type of workforce

11:51

planning of, what, ah, we're not singling out any

11:58

individual position or person. We're looking

11:58

at the organization to ensure, where are we

12:05

going? What is our, goal over the next three

12:05

to five years? How have we articulated that?

12:12

How are we going to get there from an external

12:12

scalability standpoint, but then linking that to,

12:18

do we actually have, what skills are required

12:18

to get us there? And do we have those skills in

12:24

house? Do we have them in our existing leadership

12:24

team? If we don't, how do we actually accommodate

12:29

that? And I think that's where I'd like to kind

12:29

of shift our conversation to. How do we identify

12:36

those pieces? What are some strategies that we

12:36

can use, in that, and where can we actually pull

12:43

some good ideas around? What initiatives can we

12:43

start building in our organizations to ensure

12:50

that we have a bit of a, if not cushion, then at

12:50

least a little bit of security, knowing that we

12:59

have the skills and people in the right places

12:59

to ensure that we can actually continue to grow?

13:07

Yeah, no, I think that's where we should

13:07

definitely be focusing on. Okay, so we said,

13:11

there's a problem. You might be spears in this

13:11

problem. So now we're going to say, okay, here's

13:15

how you can get out of it. Not to say, well,

13:15

you're screwed, so good luck. here's a problem.

13:19

Go deal with it.

13:21

So you kind of mentioned that there's

13:21

two things that, would be beneficial to that,

13:26

but I think that within the two things that

13:26

you mentioned in your intro, I think there's

13:30

actually three considerations that fall within

13:30

those that probably would be helpful. The idea

13:34

around tools and some ideas around processes. so

13:34

I think the three considerations we'll get into,

13:41

I'll just introduce them quickly, and then we'll

13:41

jump into them one by one. these, can be helpful

13:46

things in order for, again, the organization

13:46

to, again, have that more strategic approach,

13:51

that more proactive planning ahead to putting

13:51

some things into place that you might not have

13:56

thought about, or that might, again, like you

13:56

say, kind of build that framework or the guide

14:00

rails to kind of so you know, you're not spinning

14:00

out of control. You've got some security in mind,

14:04

that there are some things that you can do,

14:04

things you can lean on to make sure that you

14:07

know that you're moving out of reactionary

14:07

into the kind of the strategic, intent. So

14:13

the first consideration we want to talk about

14:13

is what we call a strength based strategy. Now,

14:17

the one thing that we hear a lot and is kind

14:17

of the cornerstone of a lot of very traditional

14:24

kind of management, consulting and organizational

14:24

process stuff is the idea of right people in the

14:29

right seats. And that's, you know, and there's a

14:29

lot of value to that. But the idea of the strength

14:34

based strategy is kind of having a bit of a shift

14:34

towards not the right people in the right seats,

14:39

but the right strengths in the right seats. And

14:39

we'll tell you, we'll get into what that means

14:45

in a minute or two. But the second consideration

14:45

we want to talk about is temporary talent that

14:50

sometimes there are some interesting options

14:50

about that are probably more and more common,

14:54

kind of as the workforce has evolving

14:54

around things like fractional leadership,

14:59

acting executives, interim leadership, those

14:59

types of things can be really helpful to kind of,

15:03

especially when you're trying to, like, you know,

15:03

like, patch, fill some gaps in your organization.

15:08

Yeah.

15:09

And then the third consideration is a

15:09

big one, which is about succession plan and the

15:13

idea about, like, you know, like, upskilling,

15:13

creating the talent ladders, molding people to

15:18

fill important roles in a year or two down

15:18

the road. So those three things, I think,

15:23

will be three really helpful ideas that will be,

15:23

again, especially for, again, a 50 to 500 person,

15:29

business. These are going to be three great

15:29

things to really consider. So we'll just dig into

15:33

those one by one. so why don't we get started

15:33

off James with the strength based strategy?

15:39

Yeah. So we've talked about, strength

15:39

based teams, previously, and this is a big piece

15:47

for us. what we're really looking at here is

15:47

the difference between, do you want a team of

15:58

generalists, where everybody has a very similar

15:58

skillset, versus having a team of specialists,

16:06

where each person's kind of playing to a unique

16:06

strength, and you have complementary skill sets

16:13

and strengths amongst the rest of the team. So,

16:13

obviously, we are strong proponents of the idea

16:20

of taking that strengths based approach. We see

16:20

it, ah, time and time again in our work as we are,

16:28

coaching organizations and leaders and teams

16:28

to really move towards that strength based

16:34

approach. This is what has allowed so many to

16:34

become very high performing, productive teams,

16:42

and allowing people to actually kind of the

16:42

byproduct of this also ends up being, general,

16:51

better sense of fulfillment in what people are

16:51

doing because they're playing to their more

16:56

natural strengths. So this relates specifically

16:56

to workforce planning, because you have to have

17:02

the right skills in place. You need to have people

17:02

who are playing to their strengths and playing to

17:08

their strengths within a role that really requires

17:08

that having somebody play to their strength, if

17:15

they're, very, administrative, focused, and that

17:15

is an absolute core strength that they have, and

17:22

they can, produce, that type of work in very short

17:22

order with minimal time and effort and energy.

17:29

But the role that they're actually in, that's

17:29

not the, skill set that's actually needed in

17:36

that position, then you've got that misalignment.

17:36

So it's not. It's the strength and the skill,

17:43

within the role that they are performing

17:43

to ensure that they can actually reach the,

17:52

help the organization reach

17:52

their mandate and their goals.

17:55

Yeah, so we, in a previous

17:55

episode we did this season,

18:00

I think it was the episode about should we be

18:00

hiring for fit. We broke down the idea of, like,

18:06

a, team, a well rounded team versus

18:06

a team of well rounded individuals.

18:10

Right.

18:11

Because a lot of organizations are looking

18:11

at kind of almost like individual people. Kind

18:18

of like, you know, carrying kind of. Kind of

18:18

doing all aspects of. Of the job, kind of like,

18:23

you know, and then being able to kind of stand

18:23

alone. Stand alone by themselves and kind of like,

18:28

you know, getting things accomplished, which

18:28

is a pretty common thing in a lot of different

18:31

companies, a lot of different positions. But

18:31

there's value to that. But there's also the

18:36

idea of having a well rounded team where instead

18:36

of everyone having to. Having the same unique,

18:43

diverse spectrum of skill sets to accomplish all

18:43

the tasks of the job themselves, you have people

18:48

that have specialized skill sets, and, you know,

18:48

they do kind of like, you know, the majority of

18:54

their day are doing things that they're extremely

18:54

good at. And their skill sets that are really

18:59

good at complement another person's skillset.

18:59

So almost like they kind of pass the work on

19:04

where person a does, you know, something they're

19:04

very, very good at and accomplishes, you know,

19:09

a big chunk of the project or pieces of the pie,

19:09

and then, they pass it on to person b, who does

19:14

different stuff that they're extremely, extremely

19:14

good at. And that idea of a complimentary,

19:19

well rounded team can be a very, very high

19:19

performing, and it can be a very satisfying

19:24

role. When you're hired to do a job that, you

19:24

know, 80% of your job are things that you're

19:28

extremely skilled at, it can be. It can be very

19:28

satisfying, but it also allows you to, you know,

19:33

not having to find, you know, these perfectly,

19:33

these are unicorns that can do all aspects of

19:40

the job at an extremely high level, and they'd

19:40

have no weaknesses, and everything's a strength,

19:46

and, you know, those kind of things which are

19:46

really, you know, they're. They may be out there,

19:50

but we don't really see them. And if

19:50

they're out there, they're really hard to.

19:53

Well, and if they're out there and

19:53

you're trying to attract them, you're going to

19:56

be paying through the nose to bring them into your

19:56

organization because everybody's looking for them.

20:00

Exactly. So the idea of trying to re

20:00

understand the roles and the role lineation

20:06

and the kind of how your teams cooperate can be

20:06

a very powerful way to, again, address workforce

20:14

planning, because the idea of a strength based

20:14

strategy, we want to create a well rounded team

20:19

and not just have to constantly chase unicorns

20:19

that are well rounded individuals. And the tool

20:24

that we talked about in that episode about should

20:24

we be hiring for fit was our spectrum program.

20:29

Yeah. And what's nice about this, and so

20:29

you, you touched on role delineation, and I think

20:36

that's important because strength based teams can.

20:36

There's going to be differing, varying degrees

20:44

to which you are going to be able to implement,

20:44

this strength based approach. You can always take

20:50

a strength based approach to virtually any team

20:50

that we've encountered. The how much you're able

20:56

to shift, roles will depend on, what the actual

20:56

nature of the jobs are themselves. but what's

21:06

important, I'm going to share the disclaimer that

21:06

I always have to share every time we, deliver this

21:13

program. This is not an excuse to dump the work

21:13

that you don't like onto somebody else. It's about

21:21

playing to your strengths and allowing others to

21:21

play to theirs and hope. And, when we do this, we

21:27

often naturally allow ourselves to work on roles,

21:27

on work that is more naturally attuned to what we

21:35

enjoy doing and allows others to do the work

21:35

that they are more naturally inclined towards.

21:42

And by a byproduct of that is we have less of

21:42

the work that just drains us. But please don't

21:48

take this as an excuse to say, well, I'm only

21:48

going to do this work from now on because this

21:53

is what makes me happy. And, you peons can take,

21:53

all the grunt work and, you know, sit in the mud.

22:01

That alleviates the strategy

22:01

part of the strength based strategy.

22:05

Yes. But I just. I have

22:05

to put it out there because,

22:10

although I don't think that is how most

22:10

people, approach this conversation,

22:18

I don't want there to be room for

22:18

misunderstanding with that, with our intent.

22:23

Yeah. Because whenever we

22:23

talk about our spectrum program,

22:28

that disclaimer is often very helpful. So just

22:28

kind of just gonna give a quick summary of the

22:33

spectrum program. So, spectrum can be used,

22:33

as a workforce planning tool to help identify

22:38

skills and attributes that we need to complement

22:38

existing team members and to be prepared to fill

22:44

gaps and intentionally put the right strengths

22:44

in the right place. So, in the program, there's

22:49

a psychometric that kind of helps you identify

22:49

what are the kind of roles in a team that you're

22:53

naturally more inclined to be good at and actually

22:53

more inclined to enjoy. And then it's the idea of

22:59

saying that if your skill set, let's say it's very

22:59

administrative focused, like I mentioned earlier,

23:05

you really like the kind of the task lists and

23:05

organization and those kind of pieces that if

23:11

the job requires a portion of that, but also

23:11

requires a lot of work, with, like, you know,

23:17

people and various and, a lot of social connection

23:17

and stuff like that, then partnering someone who's

23:23

good at the administrative pieces, as we call

23:23

in the program a minder, and partnering them

23:28

with, a people focused person, which we call

23:28

a binder, to kind of help realize, you know,

23:33

that this kind of cooperative approach to the

23:33

work could allow both people to perform higher,

23:39

higher, quality work that they're doing things

23:39

that they're good at and complement each other.

23:44

And this is something that. And this is something

23:44

that can be a really helpful framework for when

23:49

you're trying to think about, okay, strength

23:49

based. Sounds good, but how do I use this to

23:53

plan for my work, my m workforce planning? Well,

23:53

the program itself can be very, very great. Self

23:59

awareness, learning about people's skills and

23:59

learning about the things that you're nationally

24:03

inclined to do and helping identify kind of

24:03

inventory and kind of who you have around you.

24:08

Yeah.

24:09

And we did. So there's a great example

24:09

of us doing this with kind of, a nonprofit going

24:15

through a merger these years back, where these two

24:15

nonprofits that work really closely together for a

24:21

long time, they were emerging and had this kind of

24:21

larger, service area that they had to deliver on,

24:29

and they knew each other. The organization's

24:29

been working together for a long time,

24:33

and they're both kind of fairly large, but

24:33

a lot of the staff knew each other. The,

24:39

amalgamating of the people wasn't as much

24:39

of an issue because a lot of them knew each

24:43

other and a lot of them got along, but there

24:43

was really a lot of uncertainty about, okay,

24:47

how do we functionally task, bring people together

24:47

to actually deliver higher quality services?

24:53

Well, there was overlap in

24:53

the jobs. You had two organizations

24:58

delivering very similar levels of similar types

24:58

of supports with similar types of roles, bringing

25:07

that together into one, I mean, part of. I mean,

25:07

if anybody's gone through merger, ah, acquisition,

25:12

we lost people, in the process, right? So there

25:12

were roles that needed to be filled. There were

25:18

roles that were duplicated. There were, skill

25:18

sets that were very, very similar, you know,

25:25

and uncertainty from people of, well, am I

25:25

going to have my job or am I going to be moved

25:30

into a different job? So this type of planning

25:30

tool to, I mean, before you can plan, you need

25:36

to inventory. You need to know what you have at

25:36

your disposal to be able to plan with. And that's

25:42

one of the strengths of the spectrum program, is

25:42

providing you with an inventory of the skills and

25:49

preferences of your team members. And then being

25:49

able. What was so fitting with this particular,

25:58

client or set of clients was how, because they

25:58

were going through this merger upheaval process,

26:07

and there were vacant positions and there

26:07

were shuffling. There was the opportunity

26:11

to actually look at, okay, here are the skills

26:11

that we have. Here are the outcomes that we're

26:17

trying to achieve. Let's now take a slightly

26:17

different look at how do we arrange our work

26:25

in a way that capitalizes on the skills and the

26:25

strengths that we have at our disposal now that

26:32

we know how to use them. Been a really cool way

26:32

of kind of shifting that narrative of, well,

26:40

we don't need three people who all do the same

26:40

thing. What we need is this minute, whatever the

26:49

outcome is, we have this many people, and we're

26:49

allowing them to play to their strengths. We're

26:54

allowing people to, work on projects that they

26:54

find fulfilling. And yes, there's always still

27:03

part of your job that you're not going to enjoy.

27:03

You don't get to dump it on somebody else, blah,

27:07

blah, blah. Disclaimer, disclaimer. But

27:07

it's been. It's. It was really satisfying,

27:15

from my perspective, to watch the shift happen

27:15

as people went from uncertainty of what is my

27:24

job going to be to starting to identify their

27:24

strengths and recognizing that, oh, holy crap,

27:32

I'm actually going to be able to do more of

27:32

the stuff that I enjoy with this new approach.

27:37

Well, and what's cool is, like, sometimes

27:37

this happens a lot in nonprofits that are kind of,

27:42

funded, annually to deliver a lot of core.

27:42

A lot of core activities is that sometimes

27:48

you get people that were hired for one job,

27:48

that job got closed, but another job was core

27:53

fund and opened up, and they jumped into it. They

27:53

may not have the interest or skills to do it, but,

27:58

but to avoid the layoff they took the job. So you

27:58

see, so it's not an uncommon thing for people to

28:04

kind of be doing a job that they find, you know,

28:04

that takes a lot, that they can do. I mean,

28:09

let's be clear. They can do the job, but it

28:09

takes a lot more effort and energy to achieve

28:12

the outcomes than it would in a different

28:12

job that they were more inclined and had more

28:16

natural skill sets to. So looking at this, this

28:16

full inventory, what was cool about it was that

28:21

the leadership of both organizations kind of got

28:21

a fresh perspective of, okay, well, even though

28:27

this person's been doing this job for three years,

28:27

they're actually, you know, their skill sets are

28:32

actually much more in line to do a different job.

28:32

So kind of being able to kind of have a fresh take

28:38

on everybody. And again, and this wasn't saying,

28:38

you know, well, because you scored this, this is

28:42

your job from now on. It was. It was a strategic

28:42

approach to opening up dialogue and looking at,

28:48

can we do this whole thing? We're changing anyway,

28:48

can we do the whole thing better? And then can we

28:53

plan for the vacancies around what skill sets we

28:53

need? Right. If we have a lot of really people

29:00

focused binders like I mentioned before, then do

29:00

we need to hire more of the administrative focused

29:05

minders to kind of come in to help flesh out that

29:05

skill set of those teams or some of the other

29:10

programs around, like, you know, people that find

29:10

opportunities, the finders around, like, you know,

29:16

grants and stuff like that, or the people that

29:16

are more of the grinders that are really about

29:20

kind of like the filling out, the documents and

29:20

applications and a lot of these things about,

29:26

no, having a more. Again, the idea of that

29:26

well rounded team, instead of putting each

29:30

person on their own island and expecting them

29:30

just to be a perfectly well rounded individual.

29:35

Yeah. So, again, from a workforce

29:35

planning perspective, this type of strategy,

29:41

it's not going to identify what you need in your

29:41

organization to achieve your outcomes. but it is

29:49

going to, once you know what you're trying

29:49

to achieve and what you need to get there,

29:53

it's going to help you inventory your staff,

29:53

your team members, your employees, to recognize,

30:01

okay, we know what we are trying to accomplish.

30:01

Let's see what we have. And how can we, again,

30:06

put the right people in the right seats with

30:06

the right skills at the right time in order to

30:13

help the organization achieve its mandate? That's

30:13

what we are trying to do with workforce planning.

30:19

Yeah, that's great. All right,

30:21

so let's move on to the second

30:21

consideration around temporary talent.

30:25

Okay.

30:26

So this is something that, is

30:26

something that's not a new thing by any

30:32

church's imagination, but not something that

30:32

comes up as much in workforce planning as it

30:36

probably should. So the three kind of different

30:36

types of temporary talent that I think we

30:41

should talk about are fractional leadership,

30:41

acting executives, and interim interventions.

30:46

Yeah. And these are

30:46

all, I mean, you can tell, right,

30:50

just from the titles of them. These are really

30:50

geared towards what do you do when you have

30:58

gaps in your leadership or management teams?

30:58

How do you fill those key positions quickly,

31:08

effectively, in a way that's going to

31:08

actually help move the organization forward?

31:14

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, because

31:14

a lot of times we're talking about the

31:19

companies that are in the middle of kind of a

31:19

big growth stage. Again, when you kind of hit,

31:23

you kind of hit a bit of a, you kind of hit a bit

31:23

of a, ah, benchmark, wherever. Again, the people

31:32

that have been carrying like a whole department

31:32

portfolio by themselves now have to be to again,

31:41

jump to the next level. To level up. You really

31:41

need to have a much more fleshed out skillset. You

31:47

could have somebody that's in charge of finances,

31:47

that's really their job while you're small,

31:54

is around billing and invoicing and those kinds of

31:54

things. But then we start moving into, you know,

32:02

bigger investments and bigger collections. You

32:02

might need to move into some, into more of a CFO

32:06

role rather than someone who's just managing

32:06

your finances. Right. Or your marketing goes

32:11

from just like from being a social media and

32:11

kind of like, you know, advertising kind of

32:16

role. almost like an account manager, just to like

32:16

it, to like a CMO. Right. Like there's, there's.

32:22

Which is more strategic, more, you know,

32:22

rather than looking at the individual activities

32:30

that are going to accomplish the outcomes,

32:30

it's looking at the strategic intent and

32:35

the processes that we need to build and put in

32:35

place in order to get there. Those are, I mean,

32:40

it's not saying that a person who does one can't

32:40

do the other, but it's recognizing that they don't

32:49

always go hand in hand. And honestly, where we

32:49

see this the most is with the president and CEO.

32:56

Yeah.

32:58

because as a founder, nine times

32:58

out of ten, the founder is somebody with

33:07

a deep technical understanding of

33:07

the, of what makes business tick,

33:11

of the product that they've built, the service

33:11

that they provide. And they know that intimately.

33:19

As the company grows, your job

33:19

as the CEO is not to be doing the work.

33:28

Your job is to be the visionary,

33:28

the trailblazer. The person who

33:31

is setting the path and leading the

33:31

organization forward. And we see it,

33:37

far too common that the CEO, whether it's from a

33:37

lack, of comfort with their new responsibility,

33:47

tend to get into the weeds and micromanage and

33:47

cause problems because they are trying to hang

33:55

on to what they're comfortable with rather

33:55

than what they actually need to be doing now.

33:59

Yeah, I mean, going back to the technical

33:59

founder paradox, which you mentioned earlier.

34:03

Absolutely.

34:04

Because like one of the first.

34:04

So talking about fractional leadership,

34:08

the idea of bringing in a fully equipped,

34:08

like, executive level, skill set on a part

34:15

time basis to kind of help build and build up

34:15

and flesh out and lead a more strategic role.

34:20

Let's be a little more

34:20

intentional with our language,

34:24

because not part time employee, more of

34:24

a contract basis. Typically, these are

34:30

professionals with years of experience

34:30

who are doing this for multiple clients,

34:36

and providing your organization with x

34:36

number of hours per month of their expertise.

34:42

Right. Hired, hired by retainer.

34:43

It is part time in terms of it, not.

34:43

Yeah, but I just wanted to provide that clarity.

34:49

Absolutely. Because, like, a really good

34:49

first. so again, in the situation you talked

34:55

about, where, you know, the founder needs to, or

34:55

the owner needs to start working on the business,

35:00

not in the business. A really good option to

35:00

consider for workforce planning is a fractional,

35:06

chief operating officer, someone that

35:06

could take over the inward focus look

35:11

and kind of help structure things,

35:11

while the CEO could start looking

35:15

externally and start looking about growing

35:15

the business and that sort of thing to it.

35:19

Yeah, you're right. That would be a

35:19

great first, fractional support to bring in.

35:24

Absolutely. Because, again, and

35:24

these are things that are really helpful,

35:29

because, again, a new growing company

35:29

might not be able to afford a full,

35:33

high level executive full time. But a fractional

35:33

one could be someone that could help, again,

35:38

build capacity, start or reorganize things so that

35:38

the company could stabilize enough to hire someone

35:45

full time to replace the fractional executive.

35:45

So it really is a good, again, the idea of the

35:49

temporary talent. Now, if you move from the

35:49

c suite, kind of down to middle management,

35:54

another great thing to consider is the idea of

35:54

the acting executive. And this is about having

36:00

we have a manager, often one of the challenge,

36:00

or we have a middlemander. Sometimes they have

36:04

a hard time moving up because there often is a lot

36:04

of expectation, on them that, that if you replace

36:12

those people, then it creates too much of a void

36:12

to kind of make, to make the kind of frontline

36:17

operations work. So kind of people often get

36:17

stuck in that middle level piece but acting exec,

36:22

acting executive roles, can be about if, James,

36:22

you're the manager and I work beneath you, and I'm

36:30

kind of a senior person that works beneath you,

36:30

giving someone, like, giving me the opportunity to

36:34

become an acting executive to be your placement.

36:34

So if you take vacation, then it's just written

36:40

into policy. I step into your role with limited,

36:40

authority, temporary limited authority to be your

36:48

designate. be able to kind of make sure that the

36:48

ball doesn't get dropped in your absence. And to,

36:54

fill that gap in during a leadership absence

36:54

can be a great way to kind of make sure that

36:59

people are not so irreplaceable that they

36:59

can't take time off or they can't, you know,

37:04

or try out other positions or whatever like that.

37:04

But having those kinds of acting executive kind

37:08

of pieces in there, team leads that can step

37:08

in temporarily, can be a powerful tool around

37:15

trying to kind of plan and groom towards who's

37:15

going to be your future kind of core leaders.

37:20

Yeah. And I like this approach for many

37:20

reasons, not the least of which is I was very

37:25

fortunate early in my career to be given these

37:25

opportunities. Mm you know, I was fortunate to

37:32

have managers who identified something in me

37:32

in terms of, you know, this person has some

37:38

leadership capability or something that we want

37:38

to invest in. And I was given opportunities to,

37:42

you know, managers on vacation. Okay, James,

37:42

you're in charge for two weeks. Great. It exposes

37:50

you to, new levels of responsibilities within a

37:50

fairly safe environment. It really ties in really

38:01

nicely with what we're going to be talking

38:01

about, next, which is succession planning,

38:05

which is a fundamental, core value that I think

38:05

every business needs to engage in. But we'll

38:12

get there. but, yeah. The idea of the acting,

38:12

role or really just having the foresight to

38:22

recognize that stuff happens. People need to

38:22

take breaks, people need to take vacations.

38:30

How do we account for the work still being done

38:30

when a person leaves? And that type of strategy

38:40

can be really, really powerful, not only for

38:40

the business, but for your employees, too.

38:45

Yeah. And it's important to mention,

38:45

too, that we're talking about this being an

38:50

intentional, like, planned, like an upskilling of

38:50

the people. Not to say, all right, the manager's

38:55

little buddy is now in charge with no support

38:55

or anything behind. Kind of unofficially,

39:00

we're saying that it's almost like written

39:00

in your standard operating procedure. When

39:04

this person is out, this person who has received

39:04

probably some leadership training, most coaching,

39:09

has been prepared for the responsibility

39:09

and authority to be granted to them. Is the,

39:14

is the designate when that person's absent.

39:14

Like, we've seen this with municipalities.

39:17

Like the CAO is away often. Like, the

39:17

director of finance is the acting CEO in

39:23

their absence. But it's written right into

39:23

the bylaws. So that's something that we're

39:27

talking about. A very intentional,

39:27

clear process, not just a casual,

39:32

I'm just going to name that guy in charge while

39:32

I'm gone. You're in charge, buddy. Good luck. No.

39:37

And what made it work in my situation

39:37

was that my manager actually took the time to sit

39:43

down with me and to bring me into conversations

39:43

that I wouldn't have otherwise been a part of,

39:51

in order to expose me to some of the challenges

39:51

that I would have faced when they were away.

39:57

Right. Like, it is an intentional strategy for

39:57

bringing, for, you know, investing in someone,

40:04

to bring them along and develop

40:04

their skills and their abilities.

40:08

Yeah, yeah. And then the third one I

40:08

want to just kind of touch on briefly before

40:12

we move on to succession planning is the idea

40:12

of interim interventions. So sometimes we

40:17

use that, we use the word like acting, like acting

40:17

manager and interim manager interchangeably,

40:22

but they're actually not. An acting person

40:22

is someone that's temporarily been given

40:27

limited authority, whereas an interim person

40:27

has been giving a limited time and scope,

40:33

but they have complete authority to

40:33

deliver on a manual role. Yeah. So,

40:37

like, I've worked a number of interim jobs where

40:37

I was hired from outside to kind of come in,

40:42

usually during a transition where I've been given

40:42

full, authority, but I've been given a clear,

40:49

limited, like, limited time and limited mandate

40:49

to achieve. And often part of my expectation was

40:56

to find my replacement of the permanent position

40:56

to replace. And there's a lot of power in that,

41:01

too, because again, it's the idea of bringing

41:01

in somebody who, especially during a transition,

41:05

has the skillset to manage that core piece, but,

41:05

and then to hire somebody who doesn't need to have

41:11

that transitional experience, but can hand, but

41:11

can sustain the job once transitions happen long

41:17

term, there's a lot of power in that, too. So this

41:17

is why I think the idea around temporary talent,

41:23

the fractional leadership, the acting

41:23

executive, and the interim interventions

41:26

can be great towards your workforce planning,

41:26

knowing about growth stages, knowing towards,

41:31

you know, in the next year or two, we might

41:31

need an interim person, then we can hire a full

41:35

time person or this or that. This gives you more

41:35

options to consider instead of being feeling like

41:40

you're stuck, which is, I have to hire someone

41:40

full time and whether we can afford it or not,

41:45

and hopefully it'll work out. There's a lot more

41:45

options you have available to you. You just have

41:49

to kind of take a step back and rethink about what

41:49

your future workforce planning would look like.

41:54

You have to get

41:54

this plan for your workforce.

41:59

Fair enough.

42:01

I know.

42:02

Let's move on to, consideration

42:02

number three, succession planning. And

42:06

this really is about making sure that

42:06

there's kind of a career path for people.

42:12

And honestly, the succession planning

42:12

to me, is such a important aspect of proper

42:23

management that I see so often overlooked. It

42:23

really, one of the things that really bothers

42:32

me is how infrequently we, we as businesses,

42:32

we as business owners, the collective we are,

42:43

we really do not invest in our people the way that

42:43

we should. This is for a whole bunch of reasons,

42:54

you know, perspectives of, well, if what happens,

42:54

I'm just going to train them and they're going to

43:00

leave and go somewhere else. Hear that type of

43:00

mentality, quote it all of the time. And yeah,

43:09

that can happen. The other worst thing that

43:09

can happen is that you don't train them and

43:15

they stay. I mean, there's famous quotes

43:15

attributed with all of these things and I

43:20

can't remember them all right now. So I'm gonna..

43:20

[COBY]: I think it's Richard Branson, but, yeah,

43:25

but the idea though is that it becomes a self

43:25

fulfilling prophecy when you don't say, well,

43:30

I'm not going to bother training them because

43:30

they're not going to stick around. Well,

43:34

then they leave because they feel like

43:34

there's no future at the organization,

43:37

so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

43:39

And one of the things that I really

43:39

like as a comparative tool is talking about

43:47

the similarities between the consumer market

43:47

and the labor market. And I use this analogy

43:53

very frequently, talking about a whole bunch of

43:53

different things, whether we're talking about

43:59

branding or value propositions in both. The

43:59

other thing that is so in the consumer market,

44:05

it is a well established and proven fact that

44:05

it is cheaper and easier to get an existing,

44:13

customer to make a second purchase than it is to

44:13

have somebody make that first purchase. I firmly,

44:23

I don't, there isn't the same level of research

44:23

involved here, but I do firmly believe that

44:30

it is easier to invest in somebody and bring

44:30

them along to fill a identified need in your

44:38

organization than it will be to go out to the

44:38

marketplace to find that exact skill set that

44:45

you're looking for and pay to bring it in. If

44:45

you invest in people, early on and, you know,

44:53

if you've done your workforce planning and you

44:53

know, what skills and positions you are going

44:58

to need, then you can start looking inward and

44:58

saying, okay, well, I think these, this cohort

45:06

of people are potentials who we can bring along

45:06

this chain in this journey. You'll have greater

45:14

employee retention and loyalty. You'll have

45:14

greater success in terms of bringing people,

45:21

especially as people start to move through the

45:21

organization, into higher level positions who have

45:27

a clear understanding of every stage and aspect

45:27

of the business. It will make for a much stronger

45:37

organizational culture and organization as a whole

45:37

because of the way that you invest in your people.

45:44

Yeah. And one of the things that, we often

45:44

ask people when we talk about, like, you know,

45:48

do you have succession planning, career ladders?

45:48

You know, can people build a career with you?

45:52

A lot of people say, well, no one wants to work

45:52

here for more than three or four years. I'm like,

45:56

regardless of what they want, do you

45:56

actually have a bit of a plan? Like,

46:01

could someone go from the mail room to

46:01

the boardroom? Is their infrastructure,

46:07

is there ideas? Is there, is there. Exactly.

46:07

Can that happen? And if they're like, well, no,

46:14

then we're like, well, then you don't sound

46:14

like you're a, more than three to four year

46:19

employer for a lot of people. Right. So the idea

46:19

of, like, you know, yes, it's definitely a more

46:25

transitional piece. We talked about the idea about

46:25

job security kind of, you know, needs to be. Maybe

46:30

we need to think about it a little bit differently

46:30

about job security for almost like wage security

46:34

rather than 30 year career security. But

46:34

the idea is that if, you know, you only,

46:41

if you don't think employees are worth holding on

46:41

to, you won't hold on to them. But if you can try

46:46

to figure out that there is support, there is

46:46

encouragement, there is a bit of a plan about

46:52

moving from the mail room to the boardroom on a

46:52

long plan. Obviously, then there's something there

46:58

that you can work with that people will recognize

46:58

that you will see a bit of a shift in loyalty

47:03

if you're showing it back to them. Loyalty is a

47:03

two way street, right? So the idea of succession

47:08

planning has to be about the idea of, if there's

47:08

a plan behind it, we value the growth of it, and

47:15

we value investing in our employees so that they

47:15

can reinvest their talents back into our business.

47:21

And it plays into so many other crucial

47:21

areas like, appreciation and recognition. Feels

47:31

incredibly good as an employee to have your

47:31

manager, your boss, your CEO come to you and say,

47:39

I think you have the ability to go far in

47:39

our organization and we want to invest in

47:46

you it creates, you were talking about loyalty.

47:46

There's no better way to create loyalty than to

47:54

show it in that manner. To that. You know what I,

47:54

Coby, I see you. I value what you've done so far,

48:02

and I think you can do better, and we're going

48:02

to help you achieve that. It's a really powerful

48:07

tool to drive engagement, to drive a, sense of

48:07

belonging, to drive this idea of loyalty, of,

48:17

like it's, it can be such a powerful

48:17

tool that is so underutilized.

48:22

Well, so here's the thing. For a manager

48:22

listening to this. Somebody in supervisory role,

48:30

if you don't have a plan in place for, you know,

48:30

your absence. Then go back to what we talked

48:36

about with the acting executive piece. Try that

48:36

out. Maybe it's not an official, policy thing,

48:42

but maybe you decide that you want to make

48:42

it a standard operating procedure for your

48:47

team. Just try that out. There's no cost to it.

48:47

You might have to have some mentoring and some,

48:53

and some, maybe some, informing people of the

48:53

higher ups. This is going to be the new SoP or

48:59

whatever it is. But that's something that

48:59

you could do today if you want to see how

49:04

succession planning and temporary talent can

49:04

actually improve the organization and start

49:09

to build a bit of that little pieces towards a

49:09

workforce plan, that's something that a lot of

49:13

people who are listening could probably do, you

49:13

know, in short order and would actually be able

49:17

to see a difference in a lot of these things

49:17

just by, within their own authority level.

49:22

Yeah.

49:22

Yeah. So I think so. I think. I think

49:22

this has been a good conversation. I don't want

49:26

to go too long. So do you have any other

49:26

thoughts before I do a bit of a wrap up?

49:29

These are going to require time and

49:29

energy. They're not necessarily going to require

49:35

a ton of cost. Like, these are things that can

49:35

be done on pretty limited budgets, which means

49:43

that they can be done by most businesses. If you

49:43

are willing to take the time to step back, align

49:54

your workforce goals with what the organization

49:54

is trying to achieve, and then just start making

50:02

a plan, you don't need to do everything all

50:02

at once. Pick where. Once you've done a bit

50:09

of an assessment, you know, where the biggest

50:09

gaps are. Start there, start small, just start.

50:15

Yeah. All right. So the question

50:15

was, how can we get a better handle on,

50:20

workforce planning? Well, largely we want

50:20

to kind of help identify that you need,

50:26

that you need to move from everything being

50:26

reactionary, involving your workforce,

50:31

your talent management, everything that to having

50:31

a bit more of a strategic plan, strategic intent

50:36

around the work that you do while you're trying

50:36

to shift to that more strategic intent. There

50:41

are three considerations that we recommend. The

50:41

first is a strength based strategy where you try

50:45

and look at, instead of everybody being amazing at

50:45

everything and carrying a whole job on themselves,

50:51

could you move towards a strength based team

50:51

and talk about having the right skills in the

50:57

right place and idea of complementing skill sets

50:57

and a bit of a plan and framework to allow you

51:03

to actually to know what's going to give people m

51:03

more satisfaction by letting them more, do more of

51:07

what they're already good at, and building teams

51:07

where people are actually playing their strengths

51:11

rather than expected to kind of carry all aspects

51:11

of the job all at once. Number two is, like,

51:16

in consideration was temporary talent, looking

51:16

at things like fractional leadership, acting

51:21

executives, or interim interventions as tools that

51:21

you could pull on to kind of have some temporary

51:28

resources, in place to help during growth stages

51:28

or to help kind of planning for hiring people

51:34

down the road, but having that stopgap to kind of

51:34

fill those roles and fill those expertise until

51:39

you need them. And then the third is succession

51:39

planning. Are you actually trying to move people

51:44

up the chain? Are there infrastructures in

51:44

place where people are being identified and

51:48

kind of given a bit of a journey to help them

51:48

find a reason to stay with you in the long term?

51:54

Asking yourself the question, could someone go

51:54

from the mail room to the boardroom? Is there

51:59

processes in place or support or even a desire

51:59

to make that happen? These are, That's a great

52:04

question to ask yourself when you're trying to

52:04

think about succession planning, because largely,

52:08

when it comes to workforce planning, a big part of

52:08

it is, do we want workforce planning, our future

52:13

to be about growth, innovation, and developing

52:13

human capital? Or do we have this kind of limited

52:19

idea of workforce planning really being about

52:19

something that we have to do as a box to check for

52:24

our strategic pieces. And it's not about strategic

52:24

growth, it's about traditional structures,

52:28

or it's about putting, again, pen to paper and

52:28

checking boxes that we have a bit of a plan,

52:34

because it's really important to realize that the

52:34

people that you rely on for your organization to

52:39

grow are the people that are going to be, ideally,

52:39

your future. So you want to make sure that you're

52:44

planning for them, investing in them. Good.

52:44

All right, so that does it for us. For a full

52:50

archive of the podcast and access to the video

52:50

version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit

52:57

www.roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

52:58

For more information on

52:58

topics like these, don't forget to

53:02

visit us at www.roman3.ca. Side effects of

53:02

this podcast may include improved retention,

53:08

high productivity, increased market share,

53:08

employees breaking out in spontaneous dance,

53:12

dry mouth, a version of the sound of James’

53:12

voice, desire to find a better podcast….