IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGY FOR WORKFORCE PLANNING WITHIN A MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION

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IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGY FOR WORKFORCE PLANNING WITHIN A MULTINATIONAL

CORPORATION

A case study in a Swedish MNC

Céline Le Fouler

Essay/Thesis: 30 hp

Program and/or course: Master thesis in strategic HRM and Labour Relations

Level: First Cycle/Second Cycle

Semester/year: Spring 2017

Supervisor: Ulla Eriksson-Zetterqvist

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Examiner: Bertil Rolandsson Report no:

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Abstract

Essay/Thesis: 30 hp

Program and/or course: Master thesis in strategic HRM and Labour Relations

Level: First Cycle/Second Cycle

Semester/year: Spring 2017

Supervisor: Ulla Eriksson-Zetterqvist

Examiner: Bertil Rolandsson

Report No:

Keyword:

Strategy-as-practice; strategic workforce planning; talent management; multinational corporations; strategic implementation

Purpose: This thesis aims at improving our understanding of how Multinational Corporations deal in practice with workforce planning as an element of their talent management strategy. It attempts to provide empirical evidence about talent management and workforce planning strategy-making processes within a MNC, and the challenges a MNC faces while trying to implement them.

Theory: The theoretical framework used is Strategy as Practice (SaP). Based on the work of authors such as Whittington and Jarzabowski, this paper will consider strategy as a social practice that focuses on practitioners as the main actors and will investigate how they interact during the strategy-making process.

Method: The method that was used is a qualitative research design that combines passive observations and 14 semi-structured interviews. The data collected was coded and was analysed using a thematic analysis.

Result: The findings showed that in practice, the talent management and workforce planning strategy-making processes were happening on all levels within the MNC, involving many practitioners in both a top-down and bottom-up process. The main challenges highlighted were the need for the firm to stay competitive and to design a strategy accordingly. The implementation of the strategy appeared as another big challenge, with the difficulty to create a global corporate strategy while addressing the local specificities. Finally, digitalization has been identified as a tool that, while bringing new challenges to the firm, would also enhance and speed up its processes.

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1. Introduction

When it comes to business success, all companies are dependent on their environment, which is external to them and which they cannot control. Today, the economic landscape is evolving rapidly, sometimes dramatically, forcing organisations to change quickly in order to fit in.

Indeed, globalization has significantly intensified the competition on the market, while technology and digitalization have brought new challenges to firms, impacting both their processes and tools, as well as the competencies of their workforce. Other current phenomena such as demographic shifts and retirement in key management positions are important challenges firms must face. (Goodman et al., 2015).

In this changing competitive context and to ensure their survival, firms must design a business strategy that allows them to generate a sustained competitive advantage, meaning resources of firms should be valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991). Human resources respond to those criteria for survival, as they are not easily copied or imitated, which led to make talent and Talent Management critical concepts to ensure firms’ survival.

In the late 1990’s, a global talent shortage appeared which threatened firms’ survival and made

“talent acquisition, retention and management” a key expression for global business (Schuler et al., 2011). Since then, Talent Management has become more and more popular and is now advertised as being crucial for organisations. The planning of the workforce is often described as being the key for Talent Management to succeed, as it is a tool that allows HR practitioners to assist organisations with their future human capital needs. (Goodman et al., 2015). As today’s companies must be flexible and must adapt to the changes in their environment and their workforce, the use of strategic workforce planning is emphasized, so that companies would avoid being in a firefighting logic and could become more reactive, by using the appropriate resources at the appropriate time. (Mayo 2015) Therefore, during the past decades, the role of Human Resources (HR) has gone from fully administrative ‘personnel management’ to being more and more strategic and is now viewed by many scholars as enhancing organisational performance.

HR practitioners have become strategic partners and are considered essential for organisational success and survival.

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Even though it does not seem so easy to provide scientific evidence that robust workforce planning is a real success factor for companies, it is undeniable that companies are facing changes in their environment and their workforce on a regular basis. Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are especially affected by those challenges as while facing an increased competition brought by globalization, they must also deal with managing their workforce and cross-cultural differences among many countries with specific rules and specific needs. Therefore, MNCs must strive to find innovative ways to prevent those changes and be better prepared.

Two distinct approaches for the implementation of strategies can be found within the literature:

top-down and bottom-up. Matland (1995) describes the top-down implementation as being decided and carried out on the authoritative level (executive, governmental, etc.), whereas the bottom-up approach, that appeared later, seeks to analyse the actors on the local (operational) levels to develop a strategy that would be adapted to them (Matland, 1995; Sabatier, 1986).

While the top-down approach seems to be dominant within the strategic field, the bottom-up theory emerged as a way to alleviate its weaknesses (Sabatier, 1986). Matland (1995) explains that both approaches bear strengths and weaknesses, resulting in a difficulty for organisations to choose the one that would be more efficient to implement their strategies.

Today Talent Management (TM) and workforce planning both seem to be very current topics of interest. An extensive literature can be found on the subject but few studies show how they work in practice. Moreover, while many recent publications aimed at practitioners can be found, the academic research on the subject has grown at a slower pace. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to improve our understanding of how MNCs deal in practice with workforce planning as an element of their Talent Management (TM) strategy. Using the Strategy-as-Practice theory as a framework, it will strive to provide empirical evidence using an MNC as a case study to answer the following questions:

- How does a MNC implement strategic workforce planning?

- What challenges does a MNC face when trying to implement it?

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In the next section, this paper will analyse previous research on Talent Management and workforce planning. The theoretical framework for the subject will be presented in a third section and a fourth section will describe the method used to gather empirical data. Empirical results will be presented and discussed in the fifth and sixth section.

2. Previous research

2.1 Strategic Human Resource Management

During the past decades, the field of human resources has undergone several changes and has evolved from personnel management, to Human Resource Management (HRM) and more recently to Strategic HRM (SHRM). The concept of SHRM is relatively new and appeared to describe the way HRM goes beyond managing human resources and tries to align HR practices to the overall business strategy of the firm. Salaman et al. (2005) argue that it is not possible to define SHRM as it is not one concept but rather a scope of prescriptions, models, theories and critiques that evolves and changes over time. Overall, SHRM could be defined as a process that tries to design and align HR strategies vertically with the business of the organisation, but also horizontally with one another (Cania, 2014).

The change in the role of HR practitioners is directly linked to the increased competition on the market constraining firms to develop survival strategies. The resource based view of the firm is a branch of strategic management that is clearly dominant in the SHRM literature. Based on Barney’s (1991) approach to build a sustainable competitive advantage, a firm should develop its own resources while protecting itself from imitation and external threats to ensure its survival.

According to him, resources should be the central aspect of an organisation’s business strategy.

Therefore, the resource-based view highlights the importance of the human resource strategy, by giving a firm a ‘human resource advantage’ (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). Moreover, an extensive literature can be found linking SHRM to organisational performance, the majority of it establishing a positive relationship between them. Indeed, the concept of SHRM has its focus on organisational performance rather than individual performance and prioritize HRM systems rather than isolated HRM practices to solve business problems (Becker & Huselid, 2006).

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2.2. Talent Management

2.2.1. Talent Management as a blurry concept

Talent Management (TM) is a process that results from the strategic aspect of HRM. The notion of TM was first used in the late 1990’s by Steven Hankin in McKinsey and Company’s report The War for Talent (1997) which argued that “better talent is worth fighting for”. McKinsey and Company described TM as a strategic business challenge and a driver of corporate performance.

Nowadays, multiple definitions of TM can be found in the literature. Gallardo-Gallardo et al.

(2013) indeed describe TM as a concept that lacks a clear definition, scope and overall goals and argue that talent can mean whatever a leader wants it to mean. Trying to summarize different definitions of TM, it will be defined here as the process of recruiting, developing and retaining the most valuable employees for a company. Talent is therefore considered as a critical resource for organisations, that needs to be managed in the most effective way to increase their business value.

Different opinions about the concept of TM can be found in the literature. Indeed, some point out that TM is not so new and that it has been described as a “repackaging of old ideas with a fresh name” (Paul Iles et al., 2010). However, Beechler & Woodward (2009) think that the capacity of organisations to attract, develop, retain and motivate talent will stay a critical issue for the 21^st century and that it will even be a key factor for companies to overcome financial crisis. Sireesha

& Ganapavarapu (2014) agree with that idea and argue that companies that master Talent Management will have a long-term growth in workforce performance. Two different approaches can also be found in the literature when it comes to evaluate in what ways talent benefits to a company. Some scholars argue that an employee’s value and uniqueness is enough to help a firm reach its strategic objectives (Lepak & Snell, 1999), while Becker & Huselid (2006) emphasize the importance of the business processes and the way they are built to support the business performance.

Whether TM is a fad or a key factor for success, it remains a current topic that needs to be investigated in order to contribute to its definition and to provide a better understanding of its added value to the business.

2.2.2. Challenges for Talent Management in a global context

To stay competitive in today’s uncertain environment, multinational firms face what Schuler et al. (2011) name ‘global talent challenges’. They are strategic opportunities for companies and are

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shaped by multiple factors such as globalization, changing demographics, the need and supply for workers with motivation and specific competencies. Therefore, according to them, global Talent Management, through HR policies and practices, is the key for MNCs to successfully manage and provide support for the emergence of those challenges (Schuler et al., 2011). Collings (2014) also highlights the role of global mobility and its needs to change to be integrated to global Talent Management, resulting in a need to build a strong HR architecture.

However, according to Wennberg (2013), even though academic research papers have highlighted during the past decade that Talent Management should be at the top of the agenda of HR professionals within MNCs, corporate HR functions are still struggling to emerge as talent leaders within their organisation. Wennberg (2013) lists different variables preventing HR professionals to be talent leaders such as: lack of ambition, lack of buy-in, lack of ownership, lack of collaboration, lack of organisational adaptation, etc.

2.3. Strategic Workforce Planning

2.3.1. What is Strategic Workforce Planning?

Sullivan (2009) argues that there is no clear agreement between HR and Talent Management professionals on the definition of workforce planning, some of them seeing it as an administrative task (e.g. headcount planning), while others consider it as a more strategic process. Indeed, following the same issues as the concept of TM, Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) seems to have many definitions depending of the meaning it bears for scholars and practitioners.

This paper will provide empirical data while following Sullivan’s (2009) definition of SWP as a strategic process that tries to predict what will happen in the future of an organisation, both internally and externally. The aim of this process is to design action plans so a company could manage talent in a strategic and flexible way, meet the business needs and produce higher business impacts. Moreover, the use of workforce planning in a strategic way also strengthens the relationship between HR and the business and helps companies to develop a talent strategy that can be monitored (Chapman, 2009).

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2.3.2. Challenges for workforce planning

Bersin and Associates (2009) investigated workforce planning in 67 companies within the United States, Canada and Mexico. They used a survey to list the main challenges encountered by companies when trying to implement workforce planning. The three main issues highlighted were a lack of tools and technology to execute the process (36%), no defined methodology or business processes (36%) and the inability to correlate business strategy with workforce requirements (27%).

They argue that although 90% of companies report some level of workforce planning, only 21%

of them use it as a strategic and forward-looking process. Indeed, Strategic Workforce Planning is still a work in progress that Young (2006) identifies as being the part of an integrated Talent Management that is the least developed by organisations, as opposed to other processes such as for example recruitment, leadership or performance management.

Furthermore, Chapman (2009) argues that workforce planning is not very successful if HR owns it and presents it to the business. Indeed, she argues that HR must facilitate workforce planning but it is the business that needs to perform it. Bersin and Associates (2009) add that while strategic workforce planning is a good opportunity for HR to get “a seat at the table”, most of HR practitioners do not have the required skills to design and implement the process. Overall, the implementation process of workforce planning seems to be described by scholars as being of crucial importance for SWP to succeed.

2.3.3. The implementation of a strategic workforce planning

Bersin and Associates (2009) designed a workforce planning maturity model based on the findings from their survey and defined four levels of maturity for workforce planning within companies.

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According to them, only 10% of the organisations investigated had managed to implement strategic workforce planning on a companywide level (level four), while 57% were still on level one. Indeed, according to Bersin and Associates (2009) to reach its highest level of maturity, workforce planning needs to be slowly rolled out through the organisation and consistently through the business units, using a step-by-step approach, which is usually not the case.

Moreover, being able to identify talent gaps within the organisation is imperative to the success of a workforce planning process. Finally, the use of technology in the implementation of workforce planning is very important for workforce planning to reach maturity, especially to monitor progress and to be consistent (Chapman, 2009; Bersin and Associates, 2009).

Overall, even though they attract a lot of attention, the topics of talent management and workforce planning remain underdeveloped in previous research and both seem to suffer from a lack of clear definition. Moreover, these concepts have mostly been investigated linked to organisational performance and sustainability, but in-depth analysis of their implementation process and how it can enhance performance encounters an apparent lack of research.

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3. Theoretical framework

3.1. Strategy as Practice (SaP), a rather new trend in strategy research

Strategy and strategic thinking have been studied for decades, with major contributors such as Chandler (1962), Porter (1985) and Mintzberg (1987) (Ghobadian and O’Regan, 2008). Strategy as Practice is the most recent approach in strategy research, it focuses on practice and has grown rapidly during the last decade. It started with Richard Whittington in 1996 who first proposed this perspective to study business strategy. Whittington’s (1996) approach sees strategy as a social practice that focuses on practitioners as the main actors, and investigates how they interact during the strategy-making process. The SaP approach results from the changes happening in the market.

Indeed, in a rapidly growing environment with a high level of competition and in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage (Barney, 1991), firms must prioritize their micro-assets (Johnson et al., 2003). Since Porter’s (1985) approach of strategy based on micro-economic beliefs, strategy research seemed to have lost its consideration for human being actions and the identity of the actors of strategy (Jarzabowski et al., 2007). SaP brings back the focus on the actor and follows a more sociological perspective (Whittington, 2006).

SaP is a theory that does not look at what strategy a company possesses, but what a company does (Jarzabozwski, 2004). By focusing on practitioners, SaP has its focus on the micro-level, using it to understand how it contributes to the overall organisational strategy. Besides being a different approach allowing to question how, rather than focusing on the impact of strategy on organisational performance, SaP is as interesting for scholars as it is for practitioners. As opposed to the other perspectives on strategy, SaP does not look at strategy as only a top-down process but rather considers it as happening on all levels of the company. It includes therefore the middle management as well as lower level employees and also external consultants as strategists (Jarzabkowski et al, 2007).

As the SaP approach is relatively new, this thesis will extend the knowledge about the use of such a theory by trying to use it to analyse how a MNC implements a workforce planning strategy.

The SaP theory will also allow the researcher to integrate both top-down and bottom-up strategic implementation perspectives to get a more holistic understanding of the dynamics involved in the implementation process.

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3.2. Practitioners, Praxis and Practices

Practitioners, praxis and practices are the three core themes of the SaP framework. According to Jarzabkwoski et al. (2007), the doing of the strategy, that they call “strategizing”, happens at the interconnection of those three areas as shown on the figure below.

Whittington (2006) defined those three concepts, so they could be used in a consistent way. He described “practitioners” as being the actors of the strategy, the ones who make the strategy, shape it and execute it. Therefore, the practitioners are not only the senior executives but also the middle management and the consultants who he sees as strategic advisers from the outside.

Practitioners can also be external to the organisation, such as policy-makers, medias or business schools, as they also shape the praxis and practices. Furthermore, practitioners can be either individuals or aggregate, as a group of actors. (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009).

The “praxis” term is used to describe what the practitioners do. Whittington (2006) defines it as being all the activities that happen during the formulation and the implementation of a strategy.

According to him, “praxis” is a wide term that involves all the formal and informal activities

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included in the strategy work. It can include board meetings, team briefings, presentations, projects and even informal talk.

Finally, “practice” is described by Whittington (2006) as being multilevel and being what practitioners draw on their praxis. According to him, practices can be specific to an organisation, its routines, its procedures and its culture, and shape the local modes of strategizing accordingly.

On the other hand, practices can also be extra-organisational and can be a result of the influence of the environment (e.g. social environment) on the organisation.

3.3. Critique of Strategy as Practice

As all fields of research, the field of SaP has faced some criticism. One aspect highlighted by several authors is that SaP, while focusing on the micro phenomena, fails to include the wider context of strategy-making and its influence on micro trends (Carter et al., 2008). Therefore, Jarzabkowski & Spee (2009) emphasized the need for SaP to connect the analysis of those micro phenomena to the macro phenomena. Indeed, according to them, praxis can occur and be analysed on several levels: micro (decisions, workshops), meso (change program, strategy program) and macro (patterns of action within a specific industry).

The second criticism faced by SaP is that it is a descriptive approach that does not deliver real outcomes. Splitter and Seidl (2011) argue that SaP is conceptual rather than instrumental and fails to recognize the gap between strategy research and praxis. Following a Bourdeusian perspective, they argue that strategy research and praxis are two different concepts that need different analysis and logics, and that by failing to acknowledge it, research based on practice does not produce practically relevant knowledge. In a literature review, Jarzabowkski & Spee (2009) also addressed that issue, arguing that SaP’s rich understanding of phenomena has already produced five categories of outcomes: individual, group, strategizing process, organisational and institutional outcomes, provided that the researcher focuses on “what does this study explain?”.

They point out that those outcomes should be significant for practitioners and how they perform their strategy. They also provide directions for further research using SaP, to improve the delivered outcomes, using a more detailed view about how practitioners deliver outcomes and more comparatives methods to understand how different types of praxis could lead to different

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outcomes. Finally, they explain that considering the recent appearance of this framework and the time it takes to collect empirical data, it would not be reasonable to expect SaP to have collected more empirical data at this point in time.

4. Method

4.1. The case study

To answer the research question, and given the choice of theoretical framework, a qualitative research design using a case study appeared to be the most appropriate. Indeed, the case study method is particularly relevant to investigate contemporary and complex social phenomena in real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not manifest (Yin, 2003). Therefore, the case study method will be used to explore, describe and analyse the process of implementation of strategic workforce planning within a MNC, which is a contemporary phenomenon. Moreover, as the Strategy as Practice theory looks at what a company does (Jarzabozwski, 2004), the case study approach seems relevant to investigate the interactions between practitioners. Indeed, case studies are used in explanatory research projects and are an effective way to investigate “how” or “why” (Yin, 2003).

The case study in this project, which will be named Company X, is a Swedish MNC which has 30 000+ employees and is established in 30+ countries. This Swedish MNC has been chosen as a case study as it wants to implement strategic workforce planning to help its business. Steps have already been taken in that direction, as the company is implementing job role mapping during 2017. The job role mapping project aims at giving a better definition of job roles, and the competencies linked to it, to manage talent more efficiently. This implementation process will be of great interest for our study as it is one advised step to implement a robust strategic workforce planning (Bersin and Associates, 2009).

The main argument against the use of a case study is that the empirical data cannot be generalised to the wider population. However, as a case study has a narrow focus, it allows the researcher to get a deeper knowledge and understanding of the data, especially for complex inter-relationships (Yin, 2003). Choosing a case study as a research design will therefore allow this paper to

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elaborate on the relationships between the different practitioners involved in the implementation of TM and SWP strategies.

4.2. Data collection

To answer the research question, both primary and secondary data were collected. Secondary data was collected through the analysis of internal documents, mostly PowerPoint presentations, and publications aimed at the employees on the firm’s intranet. Primary data was collected using a combination of two qualitative methods: passive observations and in depth-interviews. The choice of this combined method aims at providing a better comprehension of the strategy-making process by getting the participants’ point of view while observing the context.

4.2.1. The observations

Primary data was gathered using passive observation of the People Management Processes team’s strategy-making process. Indeed, observation methods are useful to collect information about the context of a phenomenon (Dewalt & Dewalt, 2002), which seems relevant here to understand how and in which context a strategy is built and implemented.

For four months, the researcher followed and observed the HR People Management Processes (PMP) team within the headquarters in some of its strategic meetings linked to talent management and workforce planning. The researcher would sit quietly at the table and take notes.

The participants in the meetings were aware of the thesis work and the reason why the researcher was included in the meetings. While observing and taking notes, the researcher focused on the strategy-making process for talent management and workforce planning and how the participants were discussing their implementation. Indeed, to connect the observations to the Strategy as Practice (SaP) theoretical framework, the researcher strived to observe how the practitioners were strategizing. The issues and obstacles to the implementation discussed in the meetings were also considered as being crucial to understand the strategy-making process.

Some limitations could result from using a passive observation method. Indeed, the participants to the meetings could adapt their behaviour as they knew they were being observed. Therefore, the researcher tried to build a trustful and collaborative relationship with the PMP team. Indeed, a way to conduct observations effectively is to see informants as collaborators (Whyte, 1979). The

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researcher participated in every weekly PMP team meeting and seemed to be considered as a member of the team. This could be observed during the team meetings as the PMP team would try to define for the researcher the terms or processes that would seem difficult to grasp, so the researcher could understand the discussions better. In exchange, the researcher provided the organisation with an oral presentation summarizing the findings of the research and tried to find recommendations that would help the organisation. Time constraints were also a factor limiting the data collection and consequently the results of the study, as the strategy-making process of a MNC is complex and would require a much longer time to be fully understood. Therefore, and to prevent bias as well, two 30 minutes follow-up interviews with the manager of the PMP team took place. The purpose of the interviews was to clarify some of the aspects that the researcher thought could be unclear or could be subject to interpretation.

4.2.2. The interviews

Primary data was also collected using 14 semi-structured (cf. Interview guide appendix 1) in- depth interviews of varied professionals. The interviews lasted between 30 minutes and 1 hour, with an average of 45 minutes, and were conducted both face-to-face for the headquarters in Sweden, and on the phone for the interviewees located in other countries. The interviews were all recorded and transcribed.

The sample for the interviews was chosen using a purposive sampling strategy, meaning it was not random. Purposive sampling strategies are based on the assumption that some participants have a specific perspective on a phenomenon and should therefore be included in the sample (Mason, 2002). Thus, the participants were selected with the help of the People Management Processes (PMP) team. The team helped the researcher to identify which employees were involved in the talent management strategy-making processes. As the research uses Strategy as Practice as a framework and focuses on the practitioners and how they implement a strategy within a MNC, it seemed relevant to include in the sample several levels of the hierarchy.

Therefore, the researcher interviewed individuals on different levels in the hierarchy: five HR directors (top level), five HR experts (middle level), four middle managers and one HR business partner (top level). The only Strategic HR business partner interviewed will be named HR

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Director, but more local. Due to time constraints and to the multiple levels within a MNC, the researcher could not conduct interviews within the lower levels of the hierarchy. The researcher strived to create a heterogenous sample so it would be as representative as possible. The average age of the participants in the sample was 50 years old, which can be explained by the level of seniority needed in the top and middle level positions. The youngest participant was 45 years old and the older one was 57 years old. The researcher also tried to get a balanced gender representativeness and interviewed eight men and six women. The last aspect considered for the sample was the location of the interviewees. The researcher tried to interview respondents from the eight countries, called the “big countries”, were the firm had the most business activity, as those countries were crucial and were in the spotlight for all business strategies. Only one of the

“big countries”, India, is unfortunately not represented in the sample as no participant accepted to be interviewed. Overall, the participants were located in the headquarters in Sweden and in Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, France, the USA, China, Singapore for the local subsidiaries. All interviewees were contacted via their company e-mail and asked whether they wanted or not to participate to the research project.

One limitation to the interviews was the phone interviews as it was not possible to read the body language of the participants. Moreover, the recording of the phone interviews was sometimes not optimal and led to some inaudible words or sections. Finally, establishing a trustful atmosphere with the interviewees could in some cases be easier when meeting face-to-face.

4.3. Data analysis

Both the observation notes and the transcripts of the interviews were then reviewed and coded.

Indeed. the use of a coding system allows the researcher to create a framework that would be used to organise and to reflect upon the data (Demunck & Sobo, 1998). Based on the research questions, themes (patterns) and sub-themes were identified and were used to categorise the data.

First, sub-categories were identified and labelled and then they were reorganised to make bigger categories emerge that would answer the research questions. The theoretical framework (Strategy-as-Practice) was also kept in mind while analysing the data.

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Thematic analysis is a flexible method to analyse the data that can therefore be used in many different types of research. However, the researcher must strive to focus on one aspect of the data and to integrate the theoretical framework when interpreting the results in order for this method to succeed (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

4.4. Ethical considerations

A confidentiality agreement has been signed with the company used as a case study regarding sensitive information. Therefore, the use and the sharing of the information had to be authorised beforehand by the person in charge of the research project at the company.

The participants interviewed for the case study have all been informed about the project. It was explained to them clearly how the information was gathered and how it was going to be used before the interview started. People interviewed had the right to withdraw their participation at any time and interviews were anonymised. No participant has been pressured to participate in this research project. The participants had the liberty to skip any question or withdraw from the study.

During the interviews, the researcher strived to stay neutral and to respect other people beliefs and opinions. The questions asked during the interviews followed those principles as well. As the study was issued by the employer, one limitation to the study could be that participants adapt or limit their answers. Therefore, emphasis has been put on the anonymity of the interviews and the researcher tried to establish a trustful atmosphere.

The researcher also sought not to overburden specific areas with the interviews, especially the team designing the processes linked to workforce planning and talent management. The workload has been spread throughout different units and over time as much as possible.

5. Empirical findings

Before presenting the empirical findings, it is of interest to describe the context in which the data was collected. Two years ago, the company had undergone a drastic reorganisation that the participants described as being chaotic and a time of survival, leading the whole HR function to focus on laying off employees and moving some to new positions. Consequently, Talent Management (TM) was not a priority and the ongoing projects around it were dropped, including workforce planning projects. At the time this study got conducted, the company was in a better

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shape and had started to allocate resources again for Talent Management. SWP and TM strategies are here looked upon together, as SWP is a part of the overall TM strategy and both are closely linked.

5.1. Designing a global strategy

5.1.1. Identifying the needs to stay competitive

Overall, the interviews gave a general understanding about how survival, and by extension competition, were at the heart of the Talent Management (TM) strategy of the firm. Now that the reorganisation and the crisis mode were over, many participants highlighted the need to put as soon as possible more focus on TM processes as it was a critical process for the company.

Indeed, the talent pipelines were dry as many employees had been laid off or repositioned.

We need to work full speed on TM, it is the core value that leads to the creation of the best products and drives value for the customers. (HR Director)

At the end of 2015 it was, I saw that people started to ask then after the reorganisation had…accommodated, people were starting to understand that the pipelines for succession planning, especially for leadership positions, they were very empty. Because the people took them, the positions in the reorganisation. (HR Expert)

The majority of participants thought that it was time for the firm to change its approach to stay competitive. They highlighted the need to go from a headcount, cost-saving, day-to-day HR approach, to a more long-term and sustainable one.

Now I am trying to start to put more effort and time and priority on…those talent management and succession planning parts. What is my feeling and I have discussed it a couple of times with my managers it’s…actually we are letting this dimension…we need to have a better balance because I really believe…you know high performing companies in a sustainable way they manage both parts [talent management and cost issues]. And we need to rebalance a little bit. And I understand since there was a high need in the situation we are in, we still are in terms of competitiveness and what’s happening in the market place, but now we need to rebalance a little bit, put our…attention to both dimensions. (HR Director)

Strategic workforce planning was described as being the key to a sustainable TM approach that would secure the future of the firm.

When it comes to strategic workforce planning I think we’re looking at the future. And this is very fundamental because…it talks about sustainability and because we have more than enough people who are looking at today, we

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definitely need people looking at the future. […] . So I think you know. if we don’t think about it today, we will be naked when this trend truly turns out in two to three years. (HR Director)

Indeed, strategic workforce planning was seen as a critical process to face the upcoming challenges the firm would face in the next five coming years. The biggest challenge highlighted was the digitalization that would drastically change the way of working and the firm’s processes.

It would also make the business more global.

The other one is…which everyone is talking about today that’s digitalization.

How do we…how do we connect our total supply chain end to end. We are today working in silos every…every operation I mentioned before, every warehouse, every transport move, every factory all that is…every purchasing, all that is working as a..in isolation, as a silo taking care of his or her…her task. We really want to digitalize and to optimize the total flow end to end from supplier, to our customer. It requires a total different way of working, it requires different…systems, it requires a different access to data, sharing of data. And of course knowledge. How do we benefit from this? To have, to have a…complete view. (Middle Manager)

Therefore, a need for new competencies in manufacturing, technical and engineering skills would soon be needed and the participants thought that it was time to prepare for it. The interviewees had different views about how well they were preparing for it, some saying they were completely unprepared, while others said they had started to work actively on it. It appeared that Asia, because of its incredibly dynamic and competitive market, was the most proactive on the subject.

In terms of workforce planning, strategic workforce planning, we have…clear needs where we have a big big gap in the area of industry 4.0, digitalization, whatever we call it. Basically, we start from scratch more or less. Other people may, might have different views but from my perspective I think we don’t understand what this…what it means to us at the end of the day. (HR Director) [Talking about China] Yeah! We are definitely preparing… Because if we don’t prepare now as I shared with you, we will be just standing there naked.

And if we look at the competition, actually [Competitor name] is already building manufacturing in China. So even if we’re doing something now we’re already late! (HR Director)

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Additionally, the need to be an attractive employer was pointed out by the interviewees as a way to cope with the environment, as in some countries Company X was facing competition, especially to recruit and retain critical roles.

Then they don’t know sometimes what we are and we have faced in the past many times. After discussing two people had a positive surprise what Company X can offer to them. And the other…dimension is of course in Germany we are competing against big automotive companies and then automotive suppliers [names of competitors] suppliers, so it’s a quite tough market to get engineering resources. (HR Director)

I think that we need to be even more ahead in what kind of people we need and also the image around Company X needs to be much improved to get the talents we want! (HR Expert)

The participants were almost unanimous on the fact that the compensation and benefits were a way to attract the candidates they needed, but that the most important part to retain them was to provide them with development possibilities and recognition.

We try to…make an interesting workplace, we try to develop them, we try to retain them and it’s not so easy […] I give you an example we try to attract young people to do application engineering […] Usually they’re about to get out after 3 to 5 years because they see that in sales for example you can have a car which they don’t have. In sales they think that you can have a better career management, or they go to another part of the organisation but they want to get out of that area because they don’t see it as something where you can spend the rest of your time. So we tried for a long time to have everything what we call jewel career path…competence development for application engineers, levelling tools to say okay so can you be an expert and the expert should be as important as the manager. And there also the organisation says yes it would be good to do because this is a critical area, at the same time making them a manager because then they are…rewarded in a better way. (HR Director)

However, the headcount and short-term focus of the company was seen as an obstacle for talent management as it made it very difficult for all units to hire and develop newcomers.

And the only way to be able to recruit fresh blood is if some people will leave and what you of course hope is that the good ones stay and the less good ones will leave. (HR Director)

There is no space today to…to let people, take in people just to develop them. I think that’s worrying on the…long term because we…best people you get when they…have an opportunity, then we should have I think, space to say that is almost…a little bit like what we said before. There is always…a place for a

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good person. Today, I cannot really say that. Then someone else need to go and then you put the person into the vacancy. (Middle manager)

Some participants also explained that struggling to give negative feedback was one cause of a lack of rotation. Indeed, some participants were seeing Company X as a too nice company that was struggling to give negative feedback. Consequently, the units could be stuck with low performance employees and could not hire new employees.

We have not a so good feedback culture in Company X, we are very nice and very…don’t dare to touch difficult conversations, so at the end of the day what you have is that people are not doing so well, they’re sitting, being reasonably well rewarded and…having a good enough time for them to stay! And I think we should challenge more the people or…their performance. And the managers we should challenge them on the feedback, so then they…some people would say so maybe I should have a look whether the grass is greener on the other side of the road. And then they go out and then we are able to recruit new people, that hopefully are good and we will have the rotation we are looking for. (HR Director)

The last important challenge highlighted by all the HR professionals was the lack of coherence within the company, described as “working in silos” or in “boxes”, and the boundaries between countries and between business units. Consequently, the talent could not be looked upon on a company level and little to no talent exchange could take place between the different business units. Moreover, the impossibility to have real time information about the talents available within the company was resulting in capabilities not being used.

Because if one business area has a good knowledge and drives strategic planning from a competency and resource point of view, then…I mean there is no direct link between those business areas when it comes to planning. So if we could have a common strategic planning from a corporate point of view then it would be, I think it would benefit the business areas as well. (HR Expert) Because there are many cases where we don’t know what others have so that’s the reason why we are trying to build the resources ourselves but if only we knew… […] It’s like from silo to flow. How do we take out the barriers and treat all resources as Company X’s resources of its own? Of course this is a journey but…I think we can do better than that one. Yeah do better than…what we currently have. I think currently there are multiple barriers, where employees or colleagues think more: ”This is my resources. This is my team, that’s yours. Yeah I agree with the firm but don’t take people out of my team.”

I think we can do better now. (HR Director)

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5.1.2. Building the tools to support the strategy

The team in charge of Talent Management was called “People Management Processes (PMP)”. It belonged to Group HR and was located in the headquarters of the company in Sweden. The team was rather small and was composed of two HR experts and their manager. The team was designing and governing the company’s people management processes on a global scale. It presented its purpose on a PowerPoint as being to: “ensure Company X has best in class people management framework, making Company X an attractive employer and a competitive player in the market.”. The PMP team was in charge of varied activities such as talent and succession management, workforce planning, competency and performance management. The PMP team sought to evaluate and adapt processes to the global needs of the company and the trends in the market, while supporting and advising the local experts and the Strategic HR Business Partners.

The team was working closely with IT experts as it also aimed at making sure the IT platform supported the HR processes of the firms, while striving to make it user-friendly for all employees.

At the time of the fieldwork, one HR expert from the PMP team was in charge of upgrading the general Talent Management process and was responsible for implementing IT tools to support it.

In order to improve Talent Management (TM) within the company, the HR expert conducted several interviews with different HR directors. She wanted to understand the view of HR directors on TM in different areas in the company, the challenges they were facing and the needs they had, to improve and strengthen the TM processes within the company. The HR expert conducted interviews over the phone using a PowerPoint visual support with the five questions that would be asked on it. The document was displayed to the interviewee via a web meeting tool (Webex) allowing to share screens. The five questions for the interview had been sent to the interviewees so they could prepare their answers. The interviews were planned to last 30 minutes.

For the HR director in India, the communication was slightly problematic due to a bad connection through the phone which made the answers not always understandable. For some interviews, the HR expert lost some time connecting to the phone device in the meeting room.

As a way of improving the TM process, the HR expert was also in charge of creating and updating the career wishes tool in the system for all employees. In collaboration with the System and Tools HR team, a template for implementing career wishes in the system had been created so

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that employees could upload their CV and write their career aspirations. This module had not been implemented yet at the time of the study but it was going to be launched in the coming weeks. The aim of this module was to support the will of the company to have employees driving themselves and to empower them, by encouraging them to formulate their own wishes and aspirations.

The second HR expert from the PMP team had been appointed to take one first step in workforce planning: redesigning the whole job role catalogue of the company and changing the competencies linked to each job role. Indeed, before that the existing job role catalogue was not used in any way.

When I first started with the competence management part, I actually questioned the existing job role catalogue because that was not useful for the purpose of competencies. And I was actually questioning if it was useful at all, because it wasn’t used. So why do we have it if we don’t use it? So then there was the discussion or project starting… [thinks] 2015 something, where we said that okay we will redo the catalogue. So we defined new job roles and new job families and…and of course that is much more applicable now for driving competencies…even driving learning I would say. And talent management and strategic workforce planning. (HR Expert 1)

The HR expert was seeing this job role catalogue as the foundation to improve Strategic Workforce Planning, as well as talent and performance, as it would allow the company to use the system to have a global view of its human resources.

I think there is a possibility when everything is in place in terms of job role and people connected to job roles, at least then we can have a view on where do we have our resources globally. So we know that we have 500 application engineers in Asia, compared to a hundred in North America. And that could start the thinking with the managers that okay, so if the business is peaking up in North America and we have all the people in Asia, how do we handle that?

And then you probably have different options. You can move people or you can start developing people in the right place. Or recruit, or…? (HR expert 1)

The HR expert emphasized that the focus should be on capabilities and resources (e.g. the expertise level or the number of employees) rather than just competencies. He also highlighted the need for the business to cooperate with HR to define the competencies and to decide what level of detail was needed for the job role not to be too detailed but not too generic either. The

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HR expert also decided to update the job role catalogue twice a year, in order for it to be a dynamic tool that would be used.

During the PMP team meetings some specific topics were coming back on a regular basis. The tools and the systems were at the centre of every discussion. The manager of the PMP team said that she thought there was a need to rethink the way the company was working, especially the tools and processes. She thought the tools needed to evolve to create empowerment for the employees.

5.1.3. Defining the collaboration between the different roles and levels within the firm

The last step identified in designing a global strategy for Talent Management and Strategic Workforce Planning was to define the different responsibilities and the different ownerships of the processes linked to it. This matter was often discussed in the PMP team meetings as some responsibilities were overlapping or were being pushed around between different teams. The PMP team was collaborating and communicating daily with the local HR experts in all the countries. However, the team was feeling that sometimes the local HR community was expecting them to act on things that were not their responsibility but rather the local experts one. During a team meeting, the PMP team manager asked whether they were themselves fostering that behaviour and thought that the roles and responsibilities of the local HR experts should be better defined.

The second aspect emphasized by the interviewees was to figure out who should take the governance and drive the Talent Management (TM) process. All HR directors were convinced that the managers needed to take the ownership for TM, drive it and be responsible for the talents in their teams. Therefore, managers should be trained to manage talent better, especially to understand what talent means. Indeed, according to them, some managers were confusing talent with performance.

But also as I hear it’s the ownership of talents, who is really taking the ownership of that? And what kind of track do we want to put them in? And who

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do we discuss that with? And what is the view on this and how should we do it in practice? (HR Expert)

We all are kind of HR managers, and this is happening more and more in my opinion. […]I am not a politician, I feel this…what could be missing or what could be improved is in the…let me say the…skill we need to have for being a good manager. It means that we should be much more monitorized in order to make sure that we have the skills needed for. (Middle Manager)

One HR expert suggested that maybe talent had also to be driven from a central way to have a common way of working.

But I think that you know the lack of common way of working is really due to that, that we don’t have someone driving it [Talent Management] with a team and I think that maybe it could be a recommendation going forward as well from our side, when I do after these kind of interview to make…and maybe that is not necessary for the…coming 10 years, maybe it’s necessary for the coming 2 years, just to get it in place…to follow up with things and see that that it implemented, the way of working what we defined…in this project. (HR Expert)

Finally, many participants thought that global HR was not connected enough to the business and that it was limiting their collaboration.

We almost only communicate via the business areas, HR business areas, and also the experts in the different…the eight big countries. So they have their managers that they communi…cascade the communication to. So it’s really…

You know so we are quite far from the business from that perspectives and I think that that is a risk also. So sometimes we are having a dialogue around okay, should we really make some forums to invite managers and so we see the business needs that they’re actually talking about. And I think that what would be a good way forward for us to understand more on what kind of challenges they have. (HR Expert)

How can you say that you have a HR support if the HR doesn’t understand the business, doesn’t understand the organisation, doesn’t know the people?

(Middle manager)

5.2. Implementing Strategic Workforce Planning on a global level

5.3.1. Rolling out a strategy within a MNC takes time and leads to discussions

As the implementation of a strategic talent management and workforce planning was coming right after a big reorganisation within the firm, with a current cost-oriented view upon HR that could be labelled as a headcount approach, the first challenge for the global HR was to change

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Planning as urgent processes and some participants highlighted that HR had not been convincing enough about the importance of those processes and that it needed to change.

And then we haven’t managed…right now this job role taxonomy and competence model, do it in a structured way, is as from management thing as HR thing. We have basically to push them to do it, which is quite tough.

Means…we as HR haven’t…managers that see the need for it. So we maybe didn’t do a good selling job I don’t know how to put it but… And it’s not about blaming the managers, somehow we didn’t…manage well that they understood why we are needing this for their support. (HR Director)

It is difficult to have a strategy at the moment because a lot of things are happening at the same time and… my…I wouldn’t call it strategy, but my first aim is to convince my managers that they need to start thinking like this.

Because they’re very much still focused on we need to have the products right and yes we will have to think about the future but they’re not really yet acting so much. (HR Director)

The second aspect highlighted by several interviewees, was that a lot discussions were happening around the gaps in competencies, and the need to act on those gaps, but no actions were resulting from it. Thus, several participants highlighted the need for HR to go from a discussing, identifying approach to a more executing approach with a follow-up of the actions decided.

One thing that we hear, that is recurring now with these interviews about talent management…and this goes with the workforce planning and preparing…can be for the leadership or maybe for our technical positions that…we identify the individuals, we have conversation around the gaps, the competency gaps, but when it comes to put in place the things that we…erm…identify the possible actions to minimize the gap, we don’t, we are not as good as to keep track that we are doing that. And then you know we deviate our attention is that…I don’t know maybe, lost in the daily operations and that thing that’s more strategic is maybe not screaming today…your desk you know it’s not really high priority today. But then when it comes the opportunity or the time that we need to find someone for certain positions then those people that we identified they come as not ready yet. And they were not ready two…erm…yet two years ago. But what have we done in these two years to make them ready now then for this position?

I think this is what we hear, that we’re not as good, and we need to…have a better grip. (HR Expert)

And then we are sometimes, we are too easy moving away from original target and plans when it comes to a timeline. I think this is mainly mainly an issue within HR to be honest, I think we as HR such globally speaking, we are not good in execution. Yeah. That’s where I see a challenge. (HR Director)

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Additionally, the bureaucracy within the firm was not helping at all and the lack of speed of the processes was something that was frustrating for several interviewees, as they felt things were going too slowly due to a lot of double-checking and a lot of processes.

When I mentioned some areas I think we have too much double checking and governance model and structure, and not clear governance. And I think sometimes in our project setups we…I…I don’t see sometimes in our steering committees…I am part of some…that the steering committee is really making decisions. And the rules are not clarified. And if we have a steering committee, we tend to go back to double check too often with other people. And that makes me sometimes a little bit upset to be honest. Instead of being a little bit more aggressive and more hesitating, double check again and now we need to ask this again, we need to do this survey, we need to do this interview, we need to do this this, this this. (HR Director)

As a consequence of the slow processes, when trying to change processes, the PMP team was facing the reluctance of other parts of the company. Indeed, as the new processes were taking a long time to be implemented on a companywide level, the different units just had the time to adapt to the new process or tool and then it was changed again.

Sometimes you know when we do a change, it takes time before it’s out in the business, and when they have this, we are already on something new. So that’s a…consequence really. And then they think that okay now you change again and we just implemented the part that you came with the first time. So that is absolutely something…we got that feedback actually. (HR Expert)

5.3.2. Communicating and getting feedback as central aspects to roll out a global strategy

The way of communicating and rolling out the strategies they designed within the headquarters was regularly discussed during the PMP team meetings. They had two different types of communication options. The first one was using the technology (online, web meetings, e-mails, web trainings) and the second one was face-to-face meetings and workshops. All team members would prioritise face-to-face meetings as they would get more feedback and they thought the message they wanted to send would come across easier. However, as it was costly for the company to travel across the world, restrictions applied, especially as the organisation had restructured two years ago and was cutting down on costs. The manager of the PMP team also mentioned that a web meeting was broader and could include more participants. Thus, the PMP team was trying to find a balance between those two approaches and to reflect upon the needs and

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Once a year, a web meeting was happening with the whole HR community, using an IT tool called Webex, in order to update them on the changes that happened and what the PMP team was working on. Two identical sessions on two different days were proposed to the HR community who could pick the one that was more convenient for them depending on time zones. The whole PMP team was contributing to those meetings. An IT expert, named a “superuser”, collaborating with them to design the tools, had his own separated Webex meeting to cover the technical aspects linked to the use of the system. Training sessions animated by the PMP team members would happen to train both managers and employees to the new tools they designed. The PMP team members were also writing articles on the Intranet in order to help all employees understand better their role and their missions (e.g. “what is talent?). For the rolling out of the career aspirations, it was decided that the HR managers would be trained to use the tool via web meetings, because face-to-face trainings were too costly. The white collars of the company would receive an email explaining how to use this new tool to voice their career aspirations.

However, for the job role catalogue, as an extensive communication would be needed to roll it out in the countries, the PMP team decided to regroup the HR country managers in different places to meet them face-to-face. Indeed, their intention was to create a discussion rather than a one-way training so they would support the implementation process better. The PMP team believed it was a first big step, important enough to invest money to fly in different areas of the world and to be facilitators in what they called “job role workshops”.

The challenge of cascading a global strategy was expressed by the three global HR experts within the PMP team. Indeed, when trying to roll out their strategy, one important issue was the one-way communication that was happening in the web meetings, that would prevent the PMP team from knowing if their message came across.

We feel that in the Webex [online meeting] people don’t really pose their questions, they are very shy, and then we see that the things don’t happen the way we communicated…expected to happen. But (laughing) mainly because they didn’t understand and they didn’t ask… That’s the (laughing) the noise in the communication. And with the face-to-face you can also read the body language that yeah…maybe they are not really understanding. The Webex is just silent.

You don’t know what they’re doing and if they’ve understood or not. And when

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you are in a Webex then you have more people, it’s difficult to also open for a conversation when you…don’t see who is raising their hand or…That’s tricky!

(HR Expert)

This one-way communication could lead to misunderstandings and the need for them to re- explain things several times, which was time-consuming. Sometimes they were also realizing that communication had failed when things were not happening.

And I think that a fear in us human beings is also to ask questions when you don’t understand, because you sometimes feel stupid. And that is a problem…

with, in the…the communication. I think that…and we need to be more careful in, when we convey the message to really have the handshake so everybody understands what the ambition is, what the goal is, how it should be done, what we aim for…all those aspects is really difficult to get when you cascade a message. (HR Expert)

However, some participants thought that the collaboration and communication were very good within the company and that the firm was good at networking despite the different countries and cultural differences.

We are lucky that Company X is good in…the people that are there are good in networking. We are a networking company. We find a way to…of course when possible to meet, but also to meet on Webex and phone and…create a network of…peers…that finds its…common thing to share. That’s that passion for in this case [products Company X sells], and go from there…using the cultural differences as the challenge to…work together in a worldwide environment. (HR Director)

Finally, many participants highlighted the need for a common IT tool, supporting the Talent Management (TM) function, that would facilitate the development and transfer of the employees from one level to another. However, they did not see this system as a miracle tool and the support of both HR and managers was pointed out as necessary in order to make TM work.

It’s a combination of changing the mind-set and the processes. (HR Director) I think that dialogue is very important, so a system can do something but the dialogue is really what is required to make it happen. (HR Expert)

5.3.3. Designing a corporate strategy while addressing the local specificities

The interviews and observations showed that working in a global environment induces an increased difficulty for rolling out corporate strategies. Therefore, the global HR experts had to find the right way to communicate the strategies and the global processes to an extended

IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGY FOR WORKFORCE PLANNING WITHIN A MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION