People and change publications
Featured publications
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Change is happening: Is your workforce ready? Many power and utility companies are aware that the aging workforce is a significant risk to their operations, but they struggle with how to best address industry changes within their organizations, according to respondents to a utilities industry survey conducted by PwC Saratoga in May 2011. PwC’s survey looked into four areas in which successful, innovative and forward-thinking power and utility companies are effectively addressing change: developing and retaining leaders, effectively leveraging performance measurement and technology, realigning the organizational structure, and ensuring that the Human Resources (HR) team plays a significant role in overall business strategy. |
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Why people integration continues to dominate M&A challenges People issues are increasingly being recognized as strategic elements in M&A transactions, and HR professionals are being invited to the table more frequently and earlier in the deal process. These findings and more are discussed in this summary of a survey of senior management from a sampling of large capital and middle market US companies that had completed a merger or acquisition in the previous three years and the subsequent roundtable discussion. |
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The power of the Net Generation: How to engage milliennials using workplace technology The Net Generation will redefine the workplace of tomorrow: It will be social, collaborate, and fully digital. Learn how HR can lead workplace change, build awareness of this shift and develop strategy that uses technology to engage workers in ways that drive growth and innovation. |
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10Minutes on updating flexibility strategies Do your organization's flexibility policies acknowledge the diversity of today's employees, and the diversity they want? This edition of 10Minutes discusses why new approaches to flexibility that acknowledge the diversity of today's employees are needed to improve employee performance and foster loyalty and commitment. Offering just one or two flexibility options no longer suffices. New approaches being tried by innovative companies are thought-provoking and encouraging, but more works needs to be done. |
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Change is certain. Are you? How to alter your organization’s views on change and strategy Over the course of the past few tumultus years, one thing has not changed much. A majority - about 75% - of change initiatives fail. In these cases, change is more chronic than constant, as organizations let an important lifeline to future success and slip through their hands. A rigorous change process, in which challenging questions are addressed and no assumption goes unturned, can unveil crucial information about stakeholders’ perceptions of change-readiness and help breathe new life into an organization and its team. |
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Cloud Computing and the Role of the CHRO Today's HR leaders are expected to deftly make strategic or enterprise-wide hires, retain top talent, and create a superlative work environment. Many have adopted cloud computing to help meet these challenges. |
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Cure for the Common Culture: Building Effective Risk Cultures at Financial Institutions In its recently released final report, the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis concluded that the crisis of 2007-09 was caused partly by a failure of risk management, with ignored warnings, unasked questions, and mismanaged risk. In response to this failure, the Dodd-Frank Act and other legislative and regulatory initiatives imposed new risk management and oversight requirements. |
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Harnessing the power of crowdsourcing: Does your company stand out in a crowd? Crowdsourcing enables a company to broadcast an issue to a diverse audience — using a variety of social media and collaborative software solutions — and ask them to contribute ideas to solve the problem. Organizations that have tried this have experienced surprising solutions to internal problems and innovation needs. |
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Workforce inclusion: maximizing business performance --- Is your top talent flying under the radar or soaring to its full potential? The workforce taking shape today, while divergent in many ways, shares an undeniable and natural affinity for flexibility, fresh perspectives, individuality, mobility, and personal satisfaction. |
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Point of view : HR Business process outsourcing As the first wave of HR BPO contracts expire, HR leaders are being forced to decide whether to renegotiate- or retire- existing outsourcing agreements. Negotiating an outsourcing agreement, whether with an incumbent vendor or a new provider, represents a powerful opportunity to achieve new efficiencies in costs and processes. Yet it is fraught with potential missteps that can adversely impact the organization’s operations for years to come. The decision comes down to three options: Renew, revise or replace. |
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Growth reimagined: The talent race is back on As economic recovery takes hold, the developed world is set to grow at half the pace of emerging markets. Based on our 14th Annual Global CEO Survey, many CEOs fear they won't have the right talent to compete effectively, and recognize that their current strategies for managing talent no longer fit - 83% of CEOs plan to make a change. In this paper, we share our insights concerning innovative talent strategies for success in the next decade. |
10Mintues on engaging your pivotal talent
In these early days of economic recovery, companies around the world remain committed to getting the most out of smaller workforces. Though productivity rose steadily during the recession, companies may now be paying the price in engagement — employees' involvement in and commitment to work. After rounds of layoffs and salary freezes, many workers have become stretched and demoralized.
Talking about the people side of M&A
At a recent roundtable, corporate development, human resource and communications leaders discussed how to better integrate and engage human capital on the heels of a deal. This report highlights the themes that emerged from that discussion --- summarizing the leaders' comments and strategies, as well as some of our own.
From brain drain to brain trust --- Retaining the knowledge critical to building a sustainable enterprise
When an employee leaves a position for a new company or retirement, an organization can lose up to 80% of that individual's professional knowledge. This paper discusses how effective knowledge retention programs can head off destructive knowledge gaps by working to preserve knowledge and know-how before it walks out the door with the departing employee.
Managing people in a changing world Key trends in human capital, a global perspective — 2010
Managing people in a changing world considers the impacts people are having on organizations. We explore employers' response to the global downturn, the progress of globalization, how organizations are leading, developing and engaging their people and we discuss the influence the public is having on the people agenda. We also make some suggestions to help proactive organizations stay ahead..
Point of view: Team-based learning
High performance, driven by top talent, will distinguish the players that will dominate in tomorrow's market. With a dramatically different kind of labor pool and a talent shortage on their doorsteps, organizations will need to identify thoughtful, creative ways to train and retain talent to fuel long-term success. The best answers will not be found in the training room—they rarely are—but instead by engaging teams of employees in ways that may be new to the business world, but are nonetheless proven, trusted, and budget-savvy.
Point of view: Keeping your top talent
Employees are more likely than ever to view themselves as free agents who can easily switch teams. As the economy recovers, that's what many people may do. Discover more on how to keep your top talent.
10Minutes on transforming HR
Success for HR lies in the ability to not only measure its impact on business results, but to enable the business to predict talent needs in the right place at the right time. The key to that success resides in reconnecting the HR model to the business at four key inflection points: brand, corporate vision, financial performance, and employee performance.
Who gets the top job? Changes in the attributes of top HR leaders and implications for the future
The change in direction of the US economy associated with the Great Recession offers an opportunity to rethink where many aspects of business are headed. Perhaps no functional area has gone through more turmoil than human resources.
Execution-focused leadership: Balancing short-term survival with long-term sustainability
The recent economic downturn has challenged executives with the dual imperatives of short-term survival and long-term sustainability. When pressed by demands to cut costs and increase efficiency, many leaders scrambled to revise strategies, reduce headcount, categorically cut budgets, or simply changed their stated priorities and hoped for better results. Many overlooked the power of talent inside their organizations.
Trendsetter Barometer: Hiring in the recovery
Private business owners are taking full advantage of anticipated growth by repositioning themselves for the future through capital investments and increased hiring. As private companies expect to increase hiring and workforce expenses, a clear understanding of talent management ROI is critical.
Assess your HR organization's transformation potential
The HR function is under tremendous pressure to prove its value by creating a more productive, results-oriented workforce, while simultaneously reducing operating expenses. To achieve this business demand, HR must function effectively as a strategic business partner in driving the organization's values and business objectives. This paper explores how companies can really transform their HR organizations.
Managing tomorrow's people: What is the future work?
From the growing talent shortage to the after-effects of the global economic crisis, how will business be redefined by global forces? Will this transformation shape the way in which companies manage their people? This series outlines possible futures of work in response to the "new and improved" business model.
10Minutes on managing diversity
In order for diversity efforts to be successful, they must entail more than just initiatives or stand-alone programs that can be toppled by budget cuts or become victims of lethargy. Companies that cultivate cultural dexterity within their organizations now will be best equipped to weather today’s many challenges and to emerge with a competitive advantage when the economy recovers.
10Minutes on Rethinking Pivotal talent
The global financial crisis has created a fast-emerging set of challenges and opportunities in the talent market. Before reflexively introducing traditional strategies like across-the-board headcount reductions, companies should first re-evaluate their approach to "pivotal talent"— those game-changing employees whose performance can make or break the bottom line.
Meeting tomorrow's workforce needs: Flexible work arrangements
This paper explores how companies can build flexibility in the workplace today for a competitive edge down the road.
Creating an agile workforce: Leading practices in transforming talent management
This point of view discusses how companies can successfully align their talent management strategy with technology to effectively manage their talent needs in order to be marketplace leaders of the future.
What's your workforce reduction IQ?
It is not a new concept that people represent a company's biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet, the current market conditions have made workforce reduction an unavoidable element of cost reduction efforts for many companies. So how can companies make reductions in force without losing their pivotal talent to drive the business forward? Read our new talent management publication, What's your workforce reduction IQ? Talent strategies for tough times, to find out how
How leadership must change to meet the future
Successful business leaders must shape their organizations to be more nimble and flexible, less hierarchical, and more networked—in short, better organized to deliver value. The focus should be on four key emerging business revolutions: agility, authenticity, talent, and sustainability. In this paper we address what leaders need to know about each of these revolutions and how they can be translated into success quotients to define a distinctive leadership framework—one that provides direction on what it will take to lead and shape organizations in the future.
Harvesting value while reducing costs: A rapid approach to organizational restructuring
Financial services executives view access to key talent as a crucial source of competitive advantage. As CFOs carry out cost-cutting initiatives, they cannot afford to risk cutting the wrong people. Using a staged approach to cost reduction enables companies to build on quick wins and gradually create a culture of cost management. Value-based organizational restructuring, which quickly generates cost reductions without sacrificing valuable talent, can help fund subsequent reduction efforts, including sourcing, process reengineering, and technology automation, while optimizing the long-term value of the organization and its talent.
How to ensure strong leadership for the future
This PwC point of view examines how companies can define a transparent road map for continuous development and ensure that senior leaders play a key role—not just in the formal development, but also in the mentorship of high-potential talent.
Insights and trends: Current program and project management practices
This document summarizes the results from a survey on the current state of project management maturity in organizations across the world. The survey's main objective was to identify current trends in project management and pinpoint the characteristics of project management that are applied on higher-performing projects.
Key trends in human capital: A global perspective
Saratoga presents an analysis of key human resource trends facing global businesses. The analysis encompasses data from over 15,000 organisations across a range of industries including banking, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, chemicals, Information Technology utilities and retail and a cross section of public service institutions. It reveals the important human capital issues facing global business, and measures the total value of human capital and return on investment.
Managing the way we live and work: Now and in the future
The staggering talent gap faced by the US and other industrial countries is a far more fundamental demographic shift than most companies yet realize. When it comes to knowledge workers, no amount of salary and benefits, distance-learning programs or international office openings will change the fact that companies are preparing to battle for employees who simply won't exist.
Managing tomorrow's people: The future of work to 2020
This publication outlines a series of possible scenarios depicting how businesses would operate in tomorrow's world. We specifically focus on the people impact of new business models, and the ramifications for people management and the HR function. We identify three scenarios defined as blue, green and orange worlds which we believe will co-exist in 2020.
The people agenda: Optimizing performance at the front line
The people agenda identifies three major dimensions of managing people that are likely to determine how successful a CEO can be in realising their strategic objectives: Attracting and retaining the right talent; increasing the effectiveness of people in the business; and managing people through change. It offers some brief perspectives on each of these issues to help build a picture of the people management challenges facing organisations and how they might begin to address them.
Talent and risk: The strategic risks of neglecting talent
This flyer, examines talent management within the financial services industry. It looks at 7 key risks associated with talent (Failure to sustain growth: Failure to secure succession: Failure to attract emerging talent: Failure to retain top performers: Failure to provide board-level direction: Failure to provide effective support; and Failure to weed out poor performers) and suggests way of tackling them.
Technology executive connections: Successful strategies for talent management
PwC examines the ongoing challenge of talent management, so critical to growing a successful technology company in today's competitive market. The quantitative findings presented in this report are based on a survey conducted by the economist intelligence unit (EIU) in June 2006. The survey garnered 153 responses from senior executives based in five principal regions: 30% Asia, 41% Europe, 23% North America, 5% the Middle East and Africa and 1% Latin America.
US human capital effectiveness report 2008/2009
This executive summary provides analysis on trends PwC Saratoga has uncovered through it's annual human capital survey and is organized around the following key themes: Managing workforce productivity in a volatile economy, turnover trends, the talent acquisition crisis, and the role of HR in developing talent initiatives.
