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Companies today are facing a big talent-management challenge. They simply do not have the capabilities they need in-house to transform their offerings, processes, and infrastructures-and they're increasingly unable to persuade highly skilled professionals to come on board full-time, despite making attractive offers. In many fields-particularly technology, data sciences, and machine learning-the people with the most sought-after skills are freelancers. Integrating and managing a new "blended workforce" will be one of the main managerial challenges in the years ahead. Force-fitting the model used for temporary staff onto highly skilled freelancers won't work, however. Firms must fully integrate these professionals into a highly cohesive internal team. This article looks at successful efforts to manage the blended workforce at companies such as Microsoft, M&C Saatchi, and Mars and lays out some of the most helpful lessons they have learned.

Though the human resources function was once a strong advocate for employees, in the 1980s things changed. As labor markets became slack, HR shifted its focus to relentless cost cutting. Because it was hard for employees to quit, pay and every kind of benefit got squeezed. But now the pendulum has swung the other way. The U.S. unemployment rate has been below 4% for five years (except during the Covid shutdown), and the job market is likely to remain tight. So today the priorities are keeping positions filled and preventing employees from burning out. Toward that end HR needs to focus again on taking care of workers and persuade management to change outdated policies on compensation, training and development, layoffs, vacancies, outsourcing, and restructuring. One way to do that is to show leaders what the true costs of current practices are, creating dashboards with metrics on turnover, absenteeism, reasons for quitting, illness rates, and engagement. It's also critical to prevent employee stress, especially by addressing fears about AI and restructuring. And when firms do restructure, they should take a less-painful, decentralized approach. To increase organizational flexibility and employees' opportunities, HR can establish internal labor markets, and to promote a sense of belonging and win employees' loyalty, it should ramp up DEI efforts.

The recently appointed placement officer at a prestigious business school in Bangalore, India, faced an unexpected challenge in the placement process involving a diligent second-year master of business administration student. The student's encounter with a leading restaurant aggregator during the final interview had taken an unexpected turn, leaving her feeling harassed. Disturbed by the student's experience, the placement officer began questioning the existing recruitment procedures, contemplating their alignment with evolving societal values. The student's experience underscored the intricate dynamics of modern recruitment, urging a reconsideration of established practices.

The recently appointed placement officer at a prestigious business school in Bangalore, India, faced an unexpected challenge in the placement process involving a diligent second-year master of business administration student. The student's encounter with a leading restaurant aggregator during the final interview had taken an unexpected turn, leaving her feeling harassed. Disturbed by the student's experience, the placement officer began questioning the existing recruitment procedures, contemplating their alignment with evolving societal values. The student's experience underscored the intricate dynamics of modern recruitment, urging a reconsideration of established practices.

New research on talent-hoarding manager behaviors that prevent subordinates from pursuing jobs elsewhere within a company shows that it's bad for organizations, employees, and managers themselves. While managers may have real incentives to hold on to high performers, their reputations as talent blockers will cost them in the long run. They authors share data-backed evidence that letting their best employees go is often in managers own best interests.

In February 2022, Sudhir Kumar Singh, head of human resources (HR) at Tata Steel Limited (Tata Steel)—one of India’s oldest and largest steel producers—was meeting with the vice president of HR to discuss how a unique pilot project to employ transgender people at the mine could be rolled out across the entire company. The long-term objective of the initiative was to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and contribute toward achieving a 25 percent diverse workforce by 2025. Although the pilot project had been successful, how could the HR team now scale up the transgender initiative across Tata Steel? Singh understood that to overcome these challenges he needed to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach, plan holistically, and integrate all the learnings from the pilot project to create a clear, consistent, and comprehensive plan that could be discussed with the vice president of HR.

This case describes the origins, design, and operations of a social enterprise that was working on the challenge of making high-skill employment opportunities available to non-speaking people with autism. Key to the organization’s efforts was a unique community model that provided the supports needed to activate the talents of a group of people who had historically been excluded from the labour market. These activities were an important part of the overall evolution of work that was happening in the early twenty-first century due to shifting social, technological, and competitive factors.

This case encapsulates the challenges faced by Jegan Damodaraswamy in extending the core competency of quality and customer service for the renowned Hotel Annapoorna, in Coimbatore, India. In addition, he had to figure out how to overcome the hurdles after his grandfather's death and retain the organization's legacy. Damodaraswamy was a third-generation entrepreneur who took over the business as chief executive officer in 2023. Since taking over, he has introduced many changes and instilled business ethics in the organization. The organization bloomed under his leadership. However, COVID-19 caused a slump in the organization. They were unable to employ a full staff, and sales plunged drastically. How would Annapoorna rebuild its brand and reposition itself? Would Damodaraswamy re-envision his grandfather's aspirations and strengthen the brand value? Should he drive toward transforming the organization and redefining its vision? The case illustrates change management in an organization and the trade-off between expanding a sustainably profitable core competency and growth to its other verticals.

Atijeevan Foundation was founded in 2013 with a mission to rehabilitate and empower victims of acid attacks. The founder, who was a survivor of an acid attack herself, wanted to ensure that the past traumatic experiences of survivors did not impede their opportunity to make a place in society and lead a meaningful and dignified life. She learned about the challenges through interactions with the survivors she trained and helped find employment. Many of them reported incidents of harassment, bullying, discrimination, and insensitive behaviour from co-workers. The founder was contemplating how to help. Should she support and encourage survivors to independently manage their own workplace challenges at work, which would align with her philosophy of self-advocacy and resilience? Or should she ask the human resources department in each organization to support survivors? She was also contemplating how each organization's equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives could be expanded to integrate the unique challenges and needs of survivors of acid attacks to foster their empowerment in the workplace.

Employer branding doesn't get the same attention as consumer branding, but its a critical way to attract talent to your organization. By following five steps identifying the talent you need, tuning in to talent perceptions and preferences, defining your employer proposition, communicating your brand, and keeping your promises you can enhance your employer brand and meet the challenge of talent acquisition.

Industry and Background Notes for case CB0297

This case delves into the journey of Bosch (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Bosch China") as it looked to establish a coaching culture across three distinct phases: "initiation, development, and one step further". It presents the background, challenges, reflections, and strategies entailed in this pursuit while exploring the way forward for its coaching culture as Bosch China approached the fifth anniversary of its Coach Club. In mid-2016, Bosch China introduced the "Coaching Practice of Leadership" course to facilitate its transition from traditional manufacturer to IoT-oriented tech firm while nurturing the required talents. However, the initiative met skepticism from executives right from inception. Through partnerships with external coaches, engagement of internal business executives, and operations of the coach club, Bosch China managed to get more and more employees to embrace the concept of "coaching". As the company continued its journey, industry changes and pandemic disruptions posed substantial challenges, prompting Bosch Group to scale back China investments. Faced with slashed training budgets, Bosch China internalized coaching courses. It introduced team coaching to extend the reach of coaching leadership to a broader group of mid-level managers and business divisions. While the coaching culture took shape, the company made several trade-offs, exemplified in sections like "local identity vs. global alignment", "independence vs. ICF accreditation", and "taking proactive action vs. responding to needs". After five years of exploration, Bosch China's efforts to foster a coaching culture yielded tangible outcomes. Internally, this practice garnered recognition from executives like Han Dongli, Vice President of Bosch Intelligent Manufacturing Solutions China, and contributed to business growth in the divisions concerned. Externally, it earned accolades like the Ram Charan Management Practice Award and the ICF Germany Prism Award.

This simulation presents the challenge of integrating regional health system payments in a context where parties each operate independently and the social determinents of health are incompletly addressed. Set in New Hampshire, respoinding to a fedearal initiative, the simulation features five roles, each essential to the integraiton challenge. Ths case provides students with an experiential view on the challenge of breaking down silos in social impact service delivery.

This simulation puts studens in front-line health care roles navigating typical issues faced in a team-based work system. The facilitator role illustrates the imporance of facilitation (even with a student new to the role). Confidential role information for the five roles brings students to the meeting with both common and competing interests. This is an excellent case for illustrating the front-line dynamics in a high performance worksystem, as well as the value of employee voice.

Implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is an ongoing process that poses benefits and potential risks. One of the major challenges organizations face in implementing DEI initiatives is backfire, which occurs when well-intended initiatives result in unintended negative outcomes (e.g., discrimination against and decreased performance of members of underrepresented groups). Many leaders need an understanding of how and why DEI practices may backfire. As such, we provide five evidence-based recommendations to help organizations successfully implement DEI practices while preventing and minimizing backfire. We recommend they (1) broaden engagement in targeted recruitment, (2) adopt a context-conscious perspective on diversity training, (3) create DEI accountability structures, (4) align DEI with communication and culture, and (5) use a multilevel approach to monitor and evaluate DEI practices.

In October 2021, the founder and chief executive officer of Microsign Products Ltd. in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, was planning to expand the company, but wanted to ensure consistency for employees with disabilities. The company was planning to increase its list of products and expand its market by partnering with foreign companies. Despite his expansion plans, the founder wanted to continue his company's mission to "Able the disabled." He had been committed to social responsibility since launching the company in 1987 by hiring individuals with disabilities. He was now wondering if he needed new employee policies to support his vision of hiring people with disabilities into mainstream workplace positions and promote career growth for his employees. How would his expansion plans affect the company's work culture? How could he be sure to retain the "family" workplace model he had always promoted?

Our names are important parts of our identities, and in the workplace, their mispronunciation can damage our sense of belonging and feelings of psychological safety. But saying someone name correctly is an accessible practice that can promote inclusion and belonging in at work. The authors offer advice on how to handle such situations gracefully, whether you are the one who unsure of how to pronounce someone name or someone whose name is often mispronounced.

Spreadsheet supplement for case W36889.

In March 2020, the leadership team at Toronto General Hospital (TGH) needs to plan resources to accommodate the new influx of COVID-19 ICU patients. Key resources for ICU capacity include beds, physicians, nurses, and PPE. The current demand coming from two streams of patients (elective surgeries & emergencies) is expected to overwhelm the ICU capacity, but by slowing down elective surgeries, TGH can mitigate the situation. The optimal proportion of COVID to total ICU patients must be analyzed considering the impact on physicians, nurses, patients awaiting elective surgeries, and PPE. The case allows students to take the role of a hospital leader deciding on allocating capacity across resource pools and recommend an ICU action plan.

Based on their extensive consulting and advisory experience in large-scale consulting transformations for various large enterprises, Ramesh Srinivas and his colleagues at Worxogo Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (Worxogo) in Bengaluru, India, had launched an artificial intelligence (AI)–based nudge platform called Nudge Coach in 2017 to change employees’ behaviour positively and voluntarily so as to bolster team performance. The platform’s self-learning AI engine had been designed based on insights from behavioural sciences and popular motivation theories. It featured deep-learning algorithms that understood individual motivations and provided personalized coaching tips, appropriate challenges, and rewards. The platform was presented as a coach that could help employees manage their performance.<br><br>By 2023, Worxogo had garnered numerous clients and accolades for its platform’s novelty and efficacy in improving employee performance and organizational outcomes. However, Worxogo had implemented its platform predominantly for a limited set of functions, such as sales and data-centre operations, characterized by well-defined lead and lag performance metrics. Clients, buoyed by the platform’s success, began encouraging the Worxogo team to extend the nudge-based performance-improvement system to other functions and domains.<br><br>Thus, Srinivas, Worxogo’s chief executive officer, faced a dilemma in August 2023of whether to continue to focus on Nudge Coach’s limited existing functions or to explore appropriate nudge-based outcomes for tasks without clear lead and lag performance indicators. His other challenge was to determine how organizations and individuals could measure the effectiveness of nudges in improving performance without clear short-term outcomes. Which approach would Srinivas take to respond to these challenges?