Ireland's Executive Talent Management Commentary 2012 - Back to the Future

hrm – the inside leadership series 2012

Employee Value Proposition -Competing for Talent- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Navigating a Changed RewardLandscape- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

High Performance Leadership -Is the Leader Performing?- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shattering the Glass Ceiling

ireland’s executive talent market commentary 2012

Back to the Future –

The link between talent, performance and future organisational success

Before the global economic crisis we

lived in a world of optimism and

ambition.We expected a future of

personal and economic growth, of

security balanced with risk, of enterprise

and development. Since the financial

crisis in 2008, every generation in every

developed country in the world has been

impacted by the most difficult economic

period since the Great Depression. For

many if not most, the journey to

recovery is far from over.

Organisations will either adapt or cease to exist. Having been through

periods of cost cutting, hiring freezes and budget constraints, the

transformation challenge that businesses everywhere now face is getting

back to having a future. A transition that means building confidence and

developing the capacity to take on the challenges of new growth. Central

to this is the issue of talent.

Despite the continued rise in unemployment in many countries,

organisation leaders and their HR teams know that a lack of the right skills

and personal competencies is the biggest obstacle to organisational

growth. With workforces generally aging fast and with little current

appetite for graduate recruitment, the competition for talent is rising in its

intensity. Talent management therefore, will be a core strategy for years to

come for any competitive organisation.

contents:

01 introduction

04 article oneEmployee Value Proposition - Competing for Talent

07 article twoNavigating a Changed Reward Landscape

11 article threeHigh Performance Leadership - Is the Leader Performing?

14 article fourShattering the Glass Ceiling

17 final note

i n t r o d u c t i o n


02 introduction

Our 2012 commentary Back to the Future, proposes that

organisations of all shapes and sizes who wish to grow

must get back to planning for a positive future. The

themes we reflect on here, relate to aspects of Talent

Management and in each case we have invited subject

experts to share their perspective.

We begin with Graham Morris, HRM’s Managing Director

on the subject of Employee Value Proposition (EVP). This

coincides with the release by HRM of the largest survey

ever conducted in Ireland on EVP. The research across ten

professional categories and twenty industry segments

looks at the challenges of managing other people’s

perception of your organisation as an employer and its

impact on their decision whether or not to engage with

you as a candidate or as an employee.

Reward is naturally a key element of any talent

management strategy and rarely far from the minds of

leaders and HR specialists in these economically

constrained times. We invited leading compensation

consultant Pat Gurren of Gurren Compensation to share

how global organisations are currently re-designing their

compensation systems to achieve a more effective reward

structure and the steps your company needs to take to

maximise its value from this investment.

While attracting, retaining and developing talent all

require their own talent strategies, the overall goal is high

performance. We are delighted that one of the most

interesting strategy consultants we have met on this

subject, agreed to share his thoughts. Brian MacNeice is a

partner at Kotinos, who draw their intellectual property


ireland’s executive talent market commentary 2012

Back to the Future –

The link between talent, performance and future organisational success

on how to create a high performing organisation, directly

from the source. Their research interviews span some of

the most exciting organisations in the world, from the All

Blacks to NASA and draws on the type of performance

insights few of us ever get to see first hand.

In looking to the potential for untapped talent within

organisations, we asked former journalist and broadcaster

Orlaith Carmody to pen some thoughts on the barriers

that women all too often seem to face in their

organisations. A communications expert, TV producer,

media trainer and Non Executive Director at RTE, Orlaith

works with female executives on how to overcome glass

ceiling obstacles and identifies a key step women can take

to help realise their potential and drive the development

of their own careers.

HRM’s core differentiator is the outstanding judgment we

bring to our clients, borne from our commitment to high

quality research. Our Research Team provides clients with

a range of services including executive research and talent

mapping. In addition, they support our own research

agenda leading to the release of highly valued market

reports throughout the year. “Showing a Lot of Promise –

What matters in your Employee Value Proposition”,

released in February 2012 and available at www.hrm.ie is

an essential guide to the steps organisations can take in

order to achieve better quality talent pipelines and higher

levels of employee engagement. We hope you enjoy and

find value in the content of our 2012 commentary. If you

would like to know more about any of the contributing

authors, get in touch through the address below.

Michael O’Leary | Chief Executive

HRM Recruitment Group

[email protected]


introduction 03

04 article one

It seems paradoxical that talent

management should be such a critical

strategic issue for companies in Ireland

at a time when unemployment is

running at its current level. Yet the

competition to attract and retain

professional talent is as high today as

experienced just before the peak of the

boom. This may well be because,

despite the high numbers of

unemployed in Ireland, the Central

Statistics Office indicates that the

professional / technical / managerial

group represents just 10% of the overall

Live Register. While this is no comfort to

anyone out of work, it explains why

supply in professional labour categories

is not as fluid as some might believe. To

this add current emigration levels, at or

around 60,000 to 70,000 people

annually, of which the peak age range is

between 25 to 44, an increasing

majority of whom are Irish nationals

and the challenge becomes more

apparent.

Ireland’s employment landscape is

changing more rapidly and more

permanently than at any previous time

and with it the skills and experience

demanded. As global markets become

more competitive and more challenging

- acquiring, developing and retaining

the skills necessary to achieve

organisation goals become central to

organisational strategy.

In the first of our articles Competing for

Talent, Graham Morris, Managing

Director at HRM Recruitment Group

talks about how Employee Value

Proposition can boost your Talent

Management Strategy. The article

discusses how to make your

organisation more attractive to passive,

discerning talent in the external labour

market and increase commitment from

current employees.


c o m m e n t a r y

mployee Value Proposition (EVP) in many ways,

shapes your organisation’s overall Employer

Brand. Whether you apply strategic perspective or

simply ignore the subject altogether, by design or

default your company has its own Employer Brand. EVP

therefore, is how the external labour market characterises

your organisation, it feeds the decision making process for

a candidate considering whether to apply or work for you.

For your current employees, EVP represents the value or

deal an employee receives as a consequence of being

employed by you. This “value proposition” is not limited to

compensation elements of their relationship with your

company, but also includes many other factors, such as

the quality of your managers, the stability and success of

your organisation, the kudos that may be attached for an

employee by working for your company, the career

opportunities you provide and the work/life balance you

create.

Competitive organisations who develop clear and

implementable EVP strategies, report substantial tangible

returns from their EVP activity and investment. These

include; greater access to passive talent, better alignment

of talent pools with organisation goals and values. For

existing employees retention levels are generally much

higher, while performance and effort also improve. Many

well known studies point to a clear correlation between

levels of employee engagement and cost of sales. The

Employee-Customer-Profit Chain developed by the US

department store chain and online retailer, Sears Roebuck

in the late 90’s, links Employee Value to Customer Value to

Shareholder Value. Engaged employees grow service

experience and profit.

We know employment relationships have both physical

and emotional elements. While the former includes

“hard” aspects such as reward and working environment,

emotional elements include the often more powerful

“softer” characteristics of a workplace. For example, the

relationship with colleagues and the esteem in which a

person may be held by them, the satisfaction of a job well

done and knowing that the effort and contribution an

employee makes, actually matters, along with the belief in

being part of a bigger worthwhile mission. We spend as

much if not more waking time with work colleagues as we

do with family and friends, so it is not hard to see how the

article one 05

E

Employee Value Proposition -Competing for Talent


06 article one

psychological impact of our work can contribute to our

overall sense of well being.

In the largest ever external survey on EVP to be conducted

in Ireland, HRM undertook to evaluate what matters to

Irish professionals to the extent that it would attract

them to, or keep them at any particular organisation. Over

10,000 people participated in the survey, the full results of

which published in February 2012, outline the key

determinants that make up a strong EVP for any company.

A comprehensive analysis of the responses is detailed in

the report including how ten different occupation types

responded, how needs change up the career ladder and a

gender based breakdown. On that last point and linked to

an article later in this report by Orlaith Carmody, of the

five career levels (Director - Functional Head - Senior

Manager - Middle Manager - Specialist/Stand alone

professional) that respondents to the survey were given to

describe their current position, males outnumbered

females in percentage terms at the top three levels of

seniority by two to one. The ratio at the highest level

“Company Director” between male and female

respondents was almost four to one. Women only

outnumbered male respondents at Middle Manager or

below.

Developing an EVP strategy can be challenging as in effect

you are dealing with the management of perception,

particularly in terms of the external labour market. Ask

yourself how much today is known about your company?

What is being said about your organisation on the

internet and not just as a place of work? What do your

current employees say about your business when they get

home to their families at night, or meet friends for

dinner? From our EVP survey report, we can tell you that

the top five organisation characteristics or behaviours

that professional candidates identify as influential on the

perception of your organisation as an employer are:

1. How your organisation shows respect for employees.

2. Your organisation’s approach to ethics.

3. Your organisation’s approach to quality standards.

4. Your organisation’s reputation with customers.

5. The level of employee empowerment that is

encouraged.

With these in mind, go back and ask yourself again the

questions contained in the previous paragraph.Graham Morris is Managing Director of HRM Recruitment

Group. For more information, visit www.hrm.ie

[email protected]

The HRM EVP Report “Showing A Lot of Promise – What

matters in your Employee Value Proposition” covers all

aspects of employee proposition including ”Career

Development”. The top influencers in this category are the

perception of your “Organisation’s Stability” and the

quality of your organisation’s provision of “Performance

Feedback”. Female respondents to the survey in particular

regard this latter aspect as “Highly Important”.

As recruiters, one of the most frequent mistakes we see

organisations make is mishandling the recruitment

process, often without even realising it. The top four

“Hiring Process” related factors that would significantly

impact a professional candidate’s decision, whether or not

to accept a position with your organisation are:

1. The level of rapport between them and their likely new

manager during the interview process.

2. The level of interest shown at interview by the

interviewers.

3. Timely communication throughout the recruitment

process.

4. Being met by a relevant senior manager at the first

meeting.

As your organisation works to get back into the habit of

planning for a successful future - particularly if you are in

the aftermath of headcount, compensation or operational

cut backs - developing a sustainable EVP is essential. An

effective EVP simply reduces costs, improves talent

pipelines and grows performance. As you seek to commit

your employees to using their “discretionary” effort and

align them to your high performance goals, creating an

overall “deal” that touches on all the elements of the

employment relationship makes total sense. In an article

later in this report, compensation consultant, Pat Gurren,

talks about steps you can take to create more value from

the pay aspects of your total rewards programme. The

contention made here is, that as your organisation seeks

to emerge from the global economic crisis, the ability to

attract and retain the right talent will be essential. This

means understanding the total experience an employee

or prospective employee has with your organisation and

the value they place on each and every element of that

experience.

e m p l o y e e v a l u e p r o p o s i t i o n - c o m p e t i n g f o r t a l e n t


Graham Morris’ article on EVP makes it

clear that performance and engagement is

about so much more than just

compensation. Yet, Reward remains a

central component around which many HR

strategies are based. These are challenging

times for Reward professionals. Attitudes to

money changes dramatically in a recession.

Those who risked capital to grow value in

good times, are deemed to have received

their “just desserts” if all comes tumbling

down around them. With less disposable

income available, employees often

question much more than just their rate of

pay. Society influences much of this shift.

Consider that the word “Bonus”, previously

the key link word between performance

and pay, now more associated with greed

and avarice.

article two 07


It is in this climate, that organisations must

find methods to attract, grow and retain

high performing talent. In reviewing their

Reward systems, many companies have

learned that far from being at the heart of

driving their businesses, their “incentive”

pay barely related to individual output or

organisation goals. Having been through

rounds of salary reductions, withdrawals of

benefits etc., companies now face the most

important change in their reward structure;

making it count.

Against this backdrop, with growing competition for the

best talent and a need to justify every cent, HR, Line and

Reward managers must address this challenge. In

Navigating a Changed Reward Landscape, Pat Gurren and

Brid Cudmore, Reward Consultants at Gurren

Compensation, outline how to ensure the lessons of

previous years are learned and steps to take to ensure

your Reward system drives future organisational success.

c o m m e n t a r y

Contingency & Retained Search, Contract &

Interim Selection through 3 Practice Areas:

professional services groupscience & technology groupcommercial & support group

HRM Recruitment Group | p: (+353 1) 632 1800 | e: [email protected] | www.hrm.ie

perfection

he economic environment over the last three

years has confronted organisations and HR

professionals with reward challenges and

opportunities not experienced in over a

generation. Organisations have dealt with these

challenges or opportunities with varying degrees of

success. Some have surprised themselves with what has

been possible to accomplish either because of, or in spite

of, the economic environment. Here we seek to set out

some signposts for organisations or HR professionals on

how best to navigate the changed reward landscape.

These steps are drawn from our experience in the design

of compensation systems for many different

organisations in Ireland and overseas, facing a wide

variety of compensation challenges and opportunities.

Signposts for successful navigation

1. Stick with the knitting. The Total Rewards Model (see

Figure 1) still holds. We start with this premise as the

model that has both stood the test of time and

continues to have the virtue of common sense

underpinning it. We know that come what may in the

future, organisations will continue to need the ability

to attract, motivate, retain and most importantly

engage their employees. The emphasis and application

of particular elements of the reward strategy may

change over time due to environmental factors but

fundamentally the model continues to apply.

08 article two

T


navigating a changedreward landscape

2. First things first. An organisation’s total reward

strategy can only be effective if it is integrated with

and driven by the organisation’s business strategy,

organisational culture and overall HR strategy. One

“blessing”of the economic turbulence over the last

three years is that a lot of the “fluff” in terms of

communicating and creating linkage between an

organisation’s business strategy, organisational culture

and HR strategy was eliminated as organisations

focused on survival. As the economic environment

stabilises and begins to improve, organisations should

resist the temptation to fall back into their old ways.

Organisations that retain the ability to crisply

communicate and articulate both business strategy

and organisation culture, will retain a competitive

advantage as the foundation for both their HR and

Total Reward Strategy will be robust. For example, they

will have the ability to effectively link performance

related pay programmes to business strategy.

3. It’s all about synergy. The individual elements of the

Total Rewards Strategy (See Figure 1) are relatively

straightforward to design and implement within

organisations. The real challenge for an organisation

lies in creating the synergy between all the elements

(compensation, benefits, performance etc.) so that

they work in harmony with one another. Creating this

synergy is easier said than done. Sustaining this

synergy over the medium to long term in an ever

changing environment (internal and external) is even

more difficult. Organisations who are the most

successful in sustaining the synergy required tend to

do the following;

a. Focus on designing a finite number of reward

programmes very well rather than designing an

infinite number of less relevant programmes. Reward

professionals must continuously challenge and decline

requests for new reward programmes that are either

unnecessary or incompatible with the overall total

rewards strategy or business strategy.

b. Demonstrate clear linkage between every reward

programme implemented and how it fits with the

organisation’s business strategy, organisational

culture, HR strategy and overall reward philosophy.

Typically, successful organisations are merciless in

eliminating or not implementing in the first place,

programmes that do not fit overall business strategy.

c. Focus on reward strategy in a holistic manner

over the medium to long term. Reward professionals

must have a clear vision of the desired end state for

the organisation’s total reward proposition. They

should manage consistently in a strategic manner to

achieve this end state. In the absence of this clear

vision, it is easy to lose direction over time.

d. Understand what employees value when it

comes to reward. Organisations who have

mechanisms (for example employee engagement or

organisation climate surveys) to establish how

employees perceive various reward programmes are

best positioned to design an integrated reward

strategy. It is particularly important that when

employees are surveyed on how they value reward

programmes that they are forced to prioritise

their responses via forced ranking of preferences.

4. Get the basics right. Reward professionals tend

to be relatively conservative in nature. There is good

reason for this which many organisations have learned

the hard way during the economic downturn. Many of

the elements of the Total Rewards Strategy are

structural in nature i.e. they have cost and/or legal

entitlement elements which once implemented are

extremely difficult to dismantle or remove from the

total reward proposition. Furthermore as organisations

have also learned during the economic downturn, the

cost of providing reward programmes is not as

responsive to economic cycles as they may wish. Going

forward organisations should take the following

lessons into consideration when seeking to best

manage the structural elements of their reward

programmes;

article two 09


Figure 1: Adapted from WorldatWork’s Total Rewards Model

10 article two

Pat Gurren is Principal Consultant and Brid Cudmore is a

Senior Reward Consultant at Gurren Compensation, an

independent HR consultancy specialising in compensation

and benefits. See www.gurren.ie for more information.

a. Know the numbers. Reward costs tend to represent

a significant percentage of an organisation’s total

operating costs. Organisations and reward

professionals must be on top of these numbers.

Companies need key metrics in place to monitor

performance in this area; Total Reward Costs as a

percentage of Total Operating Cost, Total Reward Cost

per employee, Year on Year Changes in reward costs,

Variable Reward Cost as a percentage of Total Reward

Cost etc.

b. Clarify the fixed versus variable percentage of its

reward costs that best meets the business model of

the organisation. The variable element should flex up

and down with the performance of the organisation.

While variable pay programmes like bonus/long term

incentive plans have been in place for decades, it is

surprising that in most organisations today the

variable pay element represents a very low percentage

of the organisation’s total reward cost. In most cases

this percentage can be measured in single digit

figures. There is a real opportunity for organisations

who wish to have more pay contingent on the

organisation’s performance to design this into the mix

so that future pay costs will flex more with economic

conditions.

c. Manage the structural elements effectively -

salary ranges, merit matrices, job sizing/pricing

processes. Some organisations found to their cost

during the economic downturn that their salary ranges

were no longer fit for purpose, range mid points were

not properly aligned to target market position and

employees had been allowed drift up within the salary

ranges. The management of these “basics” is essential

to the structural integrity of total reward cost

management over the medium to longer term.

5. Communication. One of the more interesting

developments to emerge during the downturn is that

in some organisations, employee engagement scores

have increased considerably. At a first glance this may

appear counterintuitive but on reflection it makes

logical sense. In most cases this increase in employee

engagement levels can be linked back to an increased

level and improved effectiveness of communication

within organisations as they grappled with surviving

the challenges they faced. In the economic downturn

many managers needed to put more emphasis on

ensuring employees understood what was going on in

their organisations and what performance levels were

required of the employee. As we emerge from this

economic downturn organisations should ensure that

they communicate their reward strategy effectively. In

particular as organisations make changes or decisions

in relation to pay programmes, how these changes

will be applied and the impact upon employees must

be thought through and communicated thoroughly.

Communication is central to capitalising on the

contribution that reward can play in enabling

organisations to drive high levels of employee

engagement. For high levels of employee engagement,

employees must perceive that their reward

programmes are fair both internally (relative to

internal peers) and externally (equitable with the

external market rates). How effectively the

organisation communicates its reward strategy is at

least as important as the quantum of the rewards

provided.

As with life, times of great challenge and adversity test

and teach us much more than times when all is going

well. As we emerge from the economic downturn it will be

tempting to put it behind us as soon as possible and get

back to undertaking what we perceive as more “positive”

initiatives. However, the challenge that reward

professionals face going forward is how to ensure that

these hard learned lessons are applied and maintained to

optimise the success of their organisations in the future.

n a v i g a t i n g a c h a n g e d r e w a r d l a n d s c a p e


f a c i n g c h a n g e s ?Interim & Contract Professionals from HRM

In a 2011 article global consulting firm McKinsey ask “Do you have

the right leaders for your growth strategies?”They investigate

whether there is a confirmed link between growth and specific

leadership traits by comparing their own data on organisation

growth performance, with a database of performance appraisals

belonging to international search firm Egon Zehnder. Ultimately, they

arrive at the conclusion that “leadership quality is critical to growth,

that most companies don’t have enough high-quality executives, and

that certain competencies are more important to some growth

strategies than to others.” It is for this reason that proportionately

speaking, the current volume of change at executive level in most

international recruitment markets is several times that of middle

management or lower.

We understand in general what traits a good leader must

have, depending on the challenges they face. But defining

what great leaders actually do to create a high

performance organisation is not always so easy. What are

the elements and activities that a leader brings, that drive

an organisation to greatness?

In High Performance Leadership – Is the Leader

Performing? Brian MacNeice of Kotinos Partners talks

about the results of his organisation’s research in to some

truly remarkable organisations. MacNeice’s own career as

a top management consultant with leading global firms,

along with his experience in sport as a Heineken Cup

Referee and an Irish Cricket Selector gives him first hand

experience of the essential dynamics that enable great

organisational success.

article three 11


c o m m e n t a r y

ver the last seven years we have been

researching the world’s greatest performance

environments to help us develop a deep

insight into what drives better performance

from any group of people. The research has taken us all

over the world from sport (New Zealand All Blacks), the

arts (Julliard School of Music, New York), military (US Navy

Seals), science and technology (MIT and Harvard),

business (Google) and many other examples of genuine

high performance. Each year our research continues and

our understanding deepens. We apply that thinking to our

work with CEO’s, Leadership Teams and Executives to

deliver great outcomes for our clients.

There is, however, a constant underlying premise that lies

at the core of our research and is of profound importance

to any executive with responsibility for managing

performance of people.

The premise comes in three parts:

1. People change when their circumstances change – as

Darwin proved we are adaptive beings, shaped by our

environment and will react or adapt accordingly.

2. Certain changes in circumstances will stimulate

improved performance in the population of people

impacted by those circumstances – this is a logical

conclusion from above. In other words if we are

shaped by the environment around us and adapt

accordingly surely there is a specific set of

circumstances that can be created that will lead to a

reaction called improved performance.

3. Our role as leaders is to implement the specific

circumstances that stimulate improved performance

in our population of people – if 1 and 2 are right then

the natural progression of this theory is that any

leader (CEO, Senior Executive, Manager, Team Leader,

etc.) has a duty to ensure that they create the right

conditions in their environment that will lead to

improved performance from the people within.

12 article three

O


High Performance Leadership –Is the Leader Performing?

If you are in a leadership role - executive, functional, or

line – then a key part of your role is creating and

managing a high performance environment for the

people under your responsibility. What our research has

helped us understand is that as a leader if you are not

creating the right conditions for delivering better

performance from your people, then bottom line, you are

not doing your job!

But how do you go about setting the right environment

for performance in any group of people? This continues to

be the unique focus of our research. We have found that

great organisations are made, not born. They are made on

the back of a set of organisational capabilities that, over

time, are built into the DNA of the organisation and that

lie at the heart of its performance environment. We have

also found that these organisational capabilities can be

developed by the leaders within the business to ensure

that better performance is delivered and sustained over

time.

Our research has shown that the same organisational

capabilities are common across virtually all of the high

performing institutions we have studied and more

particularly they have been cultivated over time in a

deliberate way by the leaders of these institutions. We do

not explore each capability in depth here – that is the

focus of a series of articles that tackle each one

individually. However, the following is a summary of what

we have found.

Setting Unreasonable Ambition – the best institutions are

constantly setting and aiming for great challenges.

Being Strategic – they have a clear understanding of the

two or three things that matter more than anything else

in determining success.

Maintaining High Standards & Expectations – they set

ridiculously high standards in the areas that matter most

and are explicit about what represents acceptable and

more particularly unacceptable performance.

Being Decisive, Promoting Decisions – they build a culture

that allows, encourages and expects people to make

informed decisions and take responsibility at all levels

within the organisation.

Brian MacNeice is a founder and Managing Director of

Kotinos Partners Limited, a niche advisory firm working

to help CEOs and their teams achieve sustained high

performance. For more information, visit

www.kotinospartners.com.

Promoting Development Through Effective Feedback – they

create and foster a feedback rich culture.

MeasuringWhat Matters Effectively – they isolate and

identify the measures that give an accurate picture of

current performance in the areas that really matter and

they ensure these measures are effective.

Creating Performance Pressure – they create mechanisms

to ensure that the performance pressure is strong within

the environment and there is no room for complacency.

Injecting Meaning – they develop a strong sense of

purpose or meaning that drives people and this is

reinforced through action not just words.

The core of every leadership role in any organisation is

about creating and maintaining the right conditions for

people to deliver better performance. This is a

fundamental and is non-negotiable. The performance

pressure on every business today is greater than ever. As

we have found, great organisations are made not born.

What are you doing to make your organisation great?

After all it is your job ...

article three 13


c h a n g i n g f a c e s ?Interim & Contract Professionals from HRM

The environment in which organisations have found

themselves over the last few years, has resulted in a

continuous need to drive to improve employee and

organisation performance. Necessity is the Mother of

real talent analysis and petty biases are begining to be

put aside. Yet while the level of female presence in

boardrooms and senior management teams is slowly

rising, statistics show females still lag behind their

male counterparts in achieving higher office.

14 article four

In any organisation today, how much talent sits untapped,

simply due to gender? How often does the very leadership

potential companies seek to secure their future, remain

overlooked within, purely because it is female? Why do so

many Irish companies today have no females on their

board or in their CEO positions?

While the basis for this has historically been regarded as

being down to institutional bias, many commentators

now suggest that it is in fact women who need to adapt

in order to thrive. The challenges are to understand, how

frequently superior female people skills, can be developed

to achieve more productive relationships between

executives and help to work mutually through periods of

organisation conflict. That female executives, rather than

adopt the perceived stereotypical behaviours of their male

counterparts and risking the “ball breaker” tag, need to

balance their personal strengths more effectively with

organisation dynamics.

In Shattering the Glass Ceiling, former journalist and

broadcaster Orlaith Carmody discusses some of the subtle

communication elements that women need to adopt to

propel their own careers. As a Non-executive Director and

leading media/communications consultant, Orlaith

Carmody argues, that organisational elements women

often dismiss as irrelevant, such as internal politics are key

for them to embrace. And that there are many

opportunities available today for women to break through

to the highest levels, if they are prepared to invest

thought and time in developing a strategy.


c o m m e n t a r y

was once told that you should publicise your plan but

keep your strategy secret, and it was good advice. A

plan is a stated commitment to growing sales,

increasing turnover, expanding the customer base or

making it to management level. Proudly stated, a plan

shows drive, ambition and the existence of goals, all of

which imply career focus and direction and generally

impress the management team.

A strategy is a different thing entirely. It is more about the

moves you will make today, quietly and often unnoticed,

in order that the plan will fall into place tomorrow. It is

about having a clear picture of the end of the road, and an

understanding of the twists and the turns that have to be

negotiated in order to get there.

The problem is that women often mistakenly think that

spending time on this sort of thing is playing politics, and

something that they don’t have the patience to dwell on.

Typically, women focus on doing a job really well, and

believe that this should speak for itself.

But when Mary, who is running her department like

clockwork, is passed over for promotion and John, running

the department next door – she would suggest not half as

efficiently – gets the management job, Mary is left

wondering what on earth happened. Perhaps the answer

is that no one knew how well her department was

running! While she had her head down attending to the

micro, John was putting less time into the day to day, and

his extra available time into the macro – his strategy of

networking and making sure that everyone important

knew about all his achievements.

Taking the John and Mary analogy further, in the tall

building with the slow lift John lurks in the foyer in the

morning until he sees the CEO about to get in, and hops in

beside him for the ride up and the golden opportunity to

tell him how well that project turned out. Mary is about

to get into the lift beside the CEO one morning,

completely by accident, but she pauses instead, checks

something on her mobile phone, and catches the next lift

up instead. Why? Because she thinks she would have

nothing to talk to him about - she doesn’t play golf, and

he hardly wants to hear how her kids are doing.

The change in mindset obviously needed here is that

office politics is not an optional add-on to the job, it is the

job. Skills and accomplishments are only part of what gets

us jobs in the first place. The other part, and a very

significant part, is our ability to relate, negotiate and

manage relationships. If we want to demonstrate that we

can manage people down the line, we must be able to

manage them up the line too.

Politics is not a dirty word – it is simply opening lines of

communication with decision makers within the

organisation. It is about building networks and finding

ways to get your ideas aired in the right place, and to take

credit for things you have achieved. It is about

understanding where power comes from and how it can

be harnessed and used well.

Some people describe it as a bit like running for office, at

the office. That is, presenting your case in the best

possible light to the best possible audience all of the time,

not just when a job or promotion is coming up.

And it is also about confidence, the confidence to know

that we can employ skills we use in all kinds of real life

situations every day, and apply them to the workplace. We

expertly manage homes, parent-teacher relationships,

community projects, elderly parents and a whole range of

other commitments and we can easily do the same on the

job.

Unfortunately, despite all the advances made towards

gender balance in the workplace, studies are still showing

that women have less career confidence than their male

counterparts. In a survey on the subject last year, only 50%

of women state that they have high career confidence

compared with 70% of men. And very interestingly, while

over 20% of men will ‘chance’ going for a job or promotion

above their skillsets, only 14% of women will have a go.

There is no magic wand that will create confidence

overnight, or erase the ‘imposter syndrome’ that many

women report – a feeling that they got the current job or

promotion by accident and they are bound to be found

out soon. But by starting to campaign for your career, and

gathering ‘votes’ from people that matter, you will begin

to feel a small surge of confidence that can be the

platform for further development.

By gathering ‘votes’ I mean working out the hidden lines

of communication within an organisation, as opposed to

the formal lines of communication, and finding a way in;

developing a personal ‘brand’within the organisation;

building relationships with people who may mentor you,

or eventually even actively campaign for your

IShattering the Glass Ceiling

article four 15


16 article four

advancement; and creating visibility by taking on high

profile projects.

There are still only thirteen women CEOs at the head of

Fortune 500 companies in the US, but there has never

been a better time for women to make their mark.

Worldwide research is showing that companies with more

women in leadership roles are actually giving higher

returns. It seems that the more consensus building and

collaborative approach of women is coming into its own in

the current age, and the bottom line will always be a great

driver.

At home, a range of state board appointments advertised

since 2009 have had a gender quota which made it very

attractive for women to apply, and in the UK the Davies

review recommended that by 2015, 25% of the directors

of publicly quoted companies should be women.

This is a time of great opportunity for women: women

who believe they have a right to a place at the table –

management, boardroom or political. You have the

education, the skills and the experience. All you need now

is the mindset.

Orlaith Carmody is a Director of Mediatraining.ie and sits

on the Board of RTÉ. She runs a workshop for executive

women, Shattering the Glass Ceiling. Details at

www.mediatraining.ie

s h a t t e r i n g t h e g l a s s c e i l i n g


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Great Minds(think apart)

Since our inception over twenty years ago, clients

have trusted HRM to deliver the very best talent

into critical Senior Executive and Middle

Management, Specialist and Senior Support

appointments.

We are a single-source for a wide range of talent

acquisition services including Contingency and

Retained Search, Contract and Interim Solutions,

Talent Mapping and Recruitment Outsourcing.

Today our client base ranges across industries,

from start-ups to global giants and is split

between Ireland, Western Europe and UK. Our

talent reach however is global. Our internal

research team and external research providers

build on our unique understanding of client

needs to deliver outstanding selection results.

HRM’s investment in technology, in training and

in selection tools means we can assess

candidates, not just for the immediate need, but

also for their likely future behaviour and stretch

potential. We seamlessly integrate process steps,

market research and outstanding judgement to

generate unique insights and solutions for our

clients.

HRM, an Irish Business with a European

Customer Base and a Global Talent Reach.

f i n a l n o t e


final note 17

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