Rainer Strack, Jean-Michel Caye, Thomas Gaissmaier, Christian Orglmeister, Eddy Tamboto, Carsten von der Linden, Sebastian Ullrich, Pieter Haen, Horacio Quirós, and Jorge Jauregui/Mar 9, 2015
Three case studies illustrate how leading HR departments can take on a greater strategic role within organizations and help them compete more effectively.Business leaders today are faced with an extremely dynamic business environment, characterized by technological innovation, blurring boundaries among industries, shifts in customer behavior, scarcity of talent, and huge variations in growth across regions. HR functions need to help companies meet these challenges as true strategic partners. To fulfill this mandate, however, HR leaders need a clear view of their current capabilities, their priorities over the next three to five years, and the best way to tailor efforts to improve.
This report, the eighth in The Boston Consulting Group’s Creating People Advantage series, explores key trends in people management by considering ten broad HR topics and 27 subtopics. We looked at each subtopic’s future importance, companies’ current capabilities with regard to the subtopics, the levels of effort invested in them, and how urgently each subtopic needed action. We also explored the link between people management capabilities and economic performance.
In this year’s survey, 3,507 respondents from 101 countries participated, representing industries including industrial goods, consumer goods, and the public sector. In addition, we interviewed 64 HR and non-HR executives at leading companies around the world. The following are among the most compelling findings:
- HR capabilities correlate with economic performance. Companies that have strong capabilities in HR topics—such as talent and leadership; engagement, behavior, and culture management; and HR strategy, planning, and analytics—show significantly better financial performance than companies that are weaker in those areas.
- Analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) give HR a seat at the table. There is a strong correlation between the use of KPIs and the strategic role of HR. HR leaders who want a role in strategic discussions with the business must be able to quantify workforce performance. This goes beyond “input” metrics, such as cost and head count, toward more sophisticated “output” indicators, such as productivity.
- KPIs should link to strategic actions. Even high-performing organizations, which are generally more data driven, do not use their KPIs systematically to formulate strategic actions. A clear prioritization and selection of KPIs and tools is needed to achieve best-in-class results.
- Globally, the leadership and talent management topics are the ones in the most urgent need of action. Across industries and regions, most respondents identified leadership, talent management, behavior and culture, HR and people strategy, employee engagement, and strategic workforce planning as the topics that are most urgently in need of action by their organization.
- HR departments need to be more consistent in their investment decisions. Many organizations need to invest their efforts in HR topics more strategically to build capabilities. Among the three HR topics rated as most important (out of a total of ten), companies showed merely average capabilities, and they were not specifically targeting their investments to improve those areas.
- HR needs to listen more to internal clients. Non-HR respondents reported a strong need for action with regard to approximately 40 percent of HR topics, particularly in core HR capabilities, such as staff capabilities and communication.
- They connect by partnering with stakeholders inside and outside of the company to improve operational and financial performance.
- They prioritize by using data-driven insights to identify and focus on the most urgent HR priorities.
- They create an impact by using KPIs and steering tools to support the organization and its strategic goals.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has published an annual Creating People Advantage report—partnering, in alternating years, with the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA) and the European Association for People Management (EAPM)—since 2007. In this year’s report, BCG and the WFPMA conducted a survey of human resources professionals and other business leaders around the world. The report summarizes the survey’s findings, provides a comprehensive snapshot of people management priorities and capabilities, and explores their link to companies’ operational and financial performance.
This report serves as an overview, with highlights of key findings. Follow-up reports will provide more detailed findings and in-depth analyses on specific topics.
Survey MethodologyMore than 3,500 respondents from 101 countries participated in our online survey in 2014. (See Exhibit 1.) We also conducted 64 in-depth interviews with HR and non-HR executives at leading companies in a variety of regions. (For more about the survey methodology, see Appendix I; for a list of executive interviewees, see Appendix II.)
In addition, we combined future importance and current capabilities into a single metric—defined as urgency for action—and ranked all 27 subtopics by this dimension. The subtopics most urgently in need of action across all industries were leadership, talent management, behavior and culture, HR and people strategy, employee engagement, and strategic workforce planning. (See Exhibit 3). (For more on leadership, see “PepsiCo Offers Its Executives a Master Class in Strategy.”)
(For more on talent management, see “Decoding 200,000 Global Talent Profiles.”) Also, HR respondents attributed a higher importance to all subtopics—almost 10 percent on average—than did non-HR respondents, and they rated their capabilities as consistently higher.
DECODING 200,000 GLOBAL TALENT PROFILESOver the past several years, talent management has been consistently rated as one of the HR subtopics in the greatest need of action. Companies are scrambling to develop strategies, programs, and measures to recruit, develop, and retain their top talent and keep them motivated at the same time—not an easy task.
In Decoding Global Talent: 200,000 Survey Responses on Global Mobility and Employment Preferences (BCG report, October 2014), we explored this issue in depth. We partnered with The Network—an association of more than 50 job boards worldwide, with more than 200 million visitors per month on all its websites—to conduct an online survey. The survey included 33 questions about talent mobility and job preferences, 13 of which looked at demographic factors, such as age, work experience, gender, education, industry, salary, and occupation. The result is a unique database that offers strategic insights for developing people strategies.
For example, the report shows worldwide trends in talent mobility across countries, age groups, and positions, among other factors. Global mobility is widespread, with 64 percent of job seekers willing to work abroad. The U.S. is the favorite work destination, followed by the UK and Canada. Germany is the fourth most popular country to work in and the top non-English-speaking market in the group.
One of the survey’s more striking findings has to do with what people say makes them happy on the job: increasingly, workers are starting to put more emphasis on cultural aspects and less on financial compensation. Out of 26 job elements, the single most important one for all people globally is appreciation for their work. (See the exhibit below for the top ten elements.) Good relationships at the office—whether with colleagues or superiors—are critically important and come in second and fourth, respectively. A good work-life balance is the third most important job factor. The implications for companies, economies, and individuals are significant and varied; addressing them will be key for future success.
A central finding of our survey is the correlation between HR capabilities and financial performance. We segregated the top 100 and bottom 100 companies according to financial performance, as measured by average operating margins and average revenue changes during the previous two years (2012 and 2013), and we included only companies with at least 50 employees. (See Exhibit 6.)
In contrast, companies with the worst financial performance show a greater need for action across virtually all 27 HR subtopics, with seven clearly in the red zone and three more at the border.
This has been a consistent finding in previous Creating People Advantage reports and in publicly available research. Looking at the publicly listed companies that madeFortune magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” ranking in 2014, and their share prices over the decade from 2004 to 2013, it is clear that the most successful people companies consistently outperformed the market, by nearly 100 percent.
In our survey data, there was a troubling difference in capabilities between companies that are high performers and those that are low performers. (See Exhibit 7.)
High- and low-performing companies also have different priorities in terms of future importance. HR internationalization, HR and workforce analytics, recruiting strategy, HR and people strategy, and career models and competencies are significantly more important in high performers than in low performers.
One possible explanation for the superior HR achievement of high performers is their strategic allocation of investment. (See Exhibit 8.)
We found that low performers, by contrast, have a more arbitrary relationship between efforts invested and the importance of areas targeted for improvement. Investments tend to be misaligned; the most important issues don’t necessarily win the greatest investment.
This suggests that low performers don’t have a rigorous process in place for improving their people-management practices. Many companies lack a way to clearly identify the subtopics that are most important to their organization. They struggle to implement governance that effectively targets their resources, and they lack the discipline to enforce alignment with need over time—a necessity for the kind of sustainable improvements that can ultimately impact the bottom line.
The alignment issue also arises when looking at the urgency of specific HR subtopics. Again, top performers are more strategic in the way they invest their efforts, focusing on the subtopics that they deem to be most urgently in need of action.
For example, consider Pirelli, a leading tire manufacturer, which systematically prioritizes its HR processes to allocate investment according to urgency. As Christian Vasino, the company’s chief human resources officer, explains, “We conduct an annual internal survey to map the perceived sense of priority and satisfaction among 12 HR processes. The outcome of the survey was discussed within HR’s top management as a starting point for developing the people strategy.” Through this assessment, the company is now able to focus on its most urgent areas, which they define as strategic workforce planning, recruiting and on-boarding, training and development, and employee engagement.
Another key finding is that HR leaders will have a seat at the table for strategic discussions only if they can demonstrate the business impact of HR. That is, they need to be able to quantitatively establish the areas in which HR supports the organization’s strategic decisions. Our experience has found that data-driven, analytical HR departments are more likely to play a strategic role in their organizations, and the survey data supports this. (See Exhibit 9.)
Yet our survey data also shows that using a data-driven approach is far from universal. Nearly half of the respondents (44 percent) said that if they use KPIs and steering tools, they do so only occasionally to track workforce productivity. An even larger proportion (55 percent) said that, at best, they use them only occasionally for tracking personnel costs—a relatively basic output metric.
An HR organization that does not use metrics and analytical techniques simply cannot play a strategic role in its organization. Without a clear, data-driven understanding of how the organization is leveraging its human capital, HR leaders have little to contribute to big-picture strategic discussions.
Such results reinforce a common stereotype of HR: that the function is better at working with “softer” aspects of human capital, such as training and development, and is less skilled at applying the economic logic required for higher-level areas, such as workforce productivity, planning, and forecasting.
The use of HR KPIs and steering tools is yet another point of differentiation between high performers and low performers. (See Exhibit 10.)
Key performance indicators are crucial in assessing HR impact, yet many companies struggle to ensure that they’re measuring the aspects of performance that truly matter. For example, many companies look primarily at the “input” elements of HR, such as head count or costs, rather than the “output” elements, such as productivity. They neglect to track the effectiveness of their HR spending to ensure that it supports the company’s strategic orientation. (For more on KPIs, see “How Lufthansa Consolidated Its KPIs to Measure the Things That Really Matter.”)
To highlight the biggest priorities for companies in various regions and industries, we looked at all 27 HR subtopics, using our urgency metric to determine those with the greatest need for action.
Regional: Leadership & Talent Management Show UrgencyAcross most countries, the leadership subtopic was ranked by far as the one most urgently in need of action, and talent management was ranked the second most urgent. Beyond those clear-cut results, however, we found considerable differences in the rankings of subtopics across countries. (See Exhibit 11.)
In other markets of the Americas, such as Brazil, the focus is still primarily on talent management, given the shortage of candidates for many positions. “The challenge that we see is a huge lack of qualified professionals in Brazil, which is restraining Brazil’s growth and, consequently, the growth of Brazilian companies,” says Simone Cristina T. Salsa Nunes, a corporate strategic people development manager at Queiroz Galvão, a Brazilian conglomerate with investments in infrastructure, energy, food, steel, and shipbuilding industries.
Notably, rewards and recognition were ranked as more urgent in Brazil than in most other markets. This is primarily due to the country’s current economic situation, with relatively low productivity growth and increasing salaries. As Brazilian companies lose competitive ground, they must work harder to motivate their existing employees.
The talent management challenge also exists for Asian countries. According to Joseph Bataona, a human resources director at Indofood Sukses Makmur, “Indonesia has a talent crisis at the national level—in almost every sector, including government. The shortage of talent is not being addressed in higher education, whereby graduates are not really ready for the professional world. There is also a shortage of vocational training. Companies really have to invest more in developing people, even at the entry level.”
In many European countries, by contrast, demographic challenges, such as those posed by an aging labor pool, are compelling companies to adopt strategic workforce planning, which was ranked as far more urgent in Germany, among others, than the global average. (See “The Global Workforce Crisis.”)
THE GLOBAL WORKFORCE CRISISIn The Global Workforce Crisis: $10 Trillion at Risk (BCG report, June 2014), BCG examined long-term labor issues in 25 of the world’s major economies, looking at imbalances in supply and demand over the next 10 to 20 years. As shown in the exhibit below, which summarizes the findings for 15 countries, some countries are likely to experience tremendous labor shortfalls. The workforce in Germany, for example, will likely fall 4 percent short of the country’s needs by 2020 and 23 percent short by 2030. Brazil is expected to experience a shortfall of 7 percent of its workforce needs by 2020 and 33 percent by 2030. In some of these countries—notably Germany—companies are already feeling the pinch, struggling to find qualified people to meet workforce demand.
Countries in southern Europe are facing a different set of challenges, namely sluggish growth and high unemployment. In general, the closer a country is to economic crisis, the more companies in that country will need to differentiate among their employees, to ensure that they can keep the most promising workers in the event of staff reductions.
Industry: Energy and Financial Institutions Stand OutAn industry breakdown shows similar differences among the relative levels of urgency of specific subtopics. While leadership, talent management, and behavior and culture were ranked as the three most urgent across most industries, we uncovered several key insights. (See Exhibit 12.)
Among financial institutions, several differences stand out. These companies are slowly resuming growth after the financial crisis. Accordingly, rewards and recognition were ranked as more urgent priorities than in other industries. By contrast, behavior and culture were seen as less urgent than in other industries. Given the fact that many financial-services companies promised to change the way they work after the crisis, this subtopic should be a bigger priority in the sector.
Based on BCG’s experience, and supported by the survey data, we see that great HR functions are critical differentiators that separate high-performing companies from the rest. Collectively, the three ideas below describe best-in-class HR functions.
- Connect. An HR department needs to connect with internal clients to ensure that its HR and people strategies are clearly linked to the overall business strategy. A fundamental component of this is getting the basics right. That is, if HR is to have credibility as a true strategic partner with the business, it must first establish strong processes and develop core capabilities, particularly in the areas of recruiting and communication.
- Prioritize. HR also needs to identify the most important and most urgent priorities for its organization and then target investments accordingly. As the survey findings show, talent management, leadership, and employee engagement are the topics that virtually all HR departments will need to focus on. Strong HR departments have precise and trackable leadership-development initiatives in place, along with enterprisewide training measures and firm control over internal mobility. These departments shape engagement and leadership behaviors to foster a more vibrant and productive corporate culture.
- Impact. Robust HR departments generate and report people-based KPIs, which provide the data for formulating strategic actions and ultimately impact the business. This is particularly true for strategic workforce planning, which is increasingly important for most companies. People analytics—defined as the increased use of data to generate insights on people management processes—is now taking off in terms of use and importance. Just as other functions of a company increasingly rely on sophisticated algorithms in areas such as pricing and supply-chain management, HR analytics are becoming an indispensable tool to help HR functions impact the business.
After the first Creating People Advantage report in 2007, we have occasionally removed or added topics and subtopics for analysis depending on the trends and shifting priorities in HR and people management. In this year’s version, we looked at 10 broad topic areas, broken out into 27 subtopics. (See the exhibit below.)
A total of 3,507 respondents from 101 countries replied to the survey. The bulk of the respondents (83 percent) were from HR functions, including HR generalists, HR business partners, members of a center of excellence (such as recruiting, talent, or diversity), and members of a shared-services center (such as payroll or IT). The remaining respondents were from non-HR functions.
The biggest industries represented in the survey were professional business services (18 percent of respondents), industrial goods (17 percent), the public sector (16 percent), consumer goods (15 percent), and technology, media, and telecommunications (12 percent). The remaining industries represented were health care (7 percent), financial institutions (6 percent), energy (5 percent), and insurance (4 percent).
We identified high and low performers through self-reports of financial performance overall, using operating margins over the prior two years (2012 and 2013) as the primary criterion. For companies that had similar operating margins, we used revenue change over the same time period as a secondary criterion. Also, we excluded from these analyses any companies that had fewer than 50 employees.
Appendix II: Executive IntervieweesWe thank the following executives for their valuable contributions in discussing the findings of this report. (This list includes only those who have agreed to make their names public.)
Belgium
Cécile Tandeau de Marsac
Group General Manager Human Resources
Solvay
Laurent Yvon
Senior Vice President Human Resources
Lhoist
Brazil
Roberto Dumani
Executive Vice President for Organizational Development
Cielo
Paulo Miri
Vice President for HR, Procurement, Business Excellence and Communications
Whirlpool Latin America
Flávio Morelli
HR Director
TIM Brasil
Simone Cristina T. Salsa Nunes
Corporate Strategic People Development Manager
Queiroz Galvão
Finland
Jackie Cuthbert
Chief Human Resources Officer
Sanoma
France
Ivana Bonnet
Human Resources Director
Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank
Isabelle Gouyet
Director Human Resources
Crédit Immobilier de France
Daniel Lacabane
Vice President Executive & Talent Development
Renault–Nissan Alliance
Jérôme Nanty
Secretary General
Transdev
Philippe Rouxel
HR Director Western Europe
DBApparel
Marie-Christine Théron
Executive Director Human Resources and General Affairs
SFR
Hans Vanbets
Head of HR Strategy, People Management Policies & Diversity
BNP Paribas
Germany
Milagros Caiña-Andree
Member of the Board of Management of BMW, Human Resources and Labour Relations
BMW
Immanuel Hermreck
Executive Vice President Human Resources
Bertelsmann
Michael König
Member of the Board of Management of Bayer, Labor Director, Human Resources, Technology and Sustainability
Bayer
Kathrin Menges
Executive Vice President Human Resources and Infrastructure Services
Henkel
Margret Suckale
Member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF, Industrial Relations Director
BASF
Uwe Tigges
Chief Human Resources Officer and Member of the Management Board
RWE
Thomas Wessel
Member of the Management Board, Chief Human Resources Officer
Evonik Industries
Greece
Athina Dessypri
General Manager, Human Resources
Eurobank
Vassilis Gavroglou
Head of Human Resources Strategy
National Bank of Greece
John Kollas
Group HR Executive Director
Titan Cement
Tina Moutzouri
Human Resources Manager
Thenamaris
Christine Roth
Chief Strategy Officer
Thenamaris
Indonesia
Joseph Bataona
Human Resources Director
Indofood Sukses Makmur
Aloysius Budi Santoso
Chief of Corporate Human Capital Development
Astra International
Italy
Luciano Carbone
Chief Corporate Officer
SEA
Andrea Faragalli
Director of Strategies and Resources
Intesa Sanpaolo – Corporate and Investment Banking Division
Salvatore Poloni
Head of Human Resources and Organisation
Intesa Sanpaolo
Monica Possa
Group HR Director
Generali
Christian Vasino
Chief Human Resource Officer
Pirelli
Norway
Mike Turner
HR manager
FMC Technologies, Subsea Eastern Region
Qatar
Mohanna Nasser Al Nuaimi
Group Chief Human Resource Officer
Ooredoo
Russia
Natalya Albrekht
Vice President HR & OD
VimpelCom Russia
Vladimir Averin
HR Director Russia & CIS
Janssen, Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson
Sofia Kadykova
HR Director Russia, Ukraine, Belarus
Pfizer
David Souperbiet
Human Resources Vice President Russia & CIS
PepsiCo
Andrey Zhvakin
Member of the Management Board and Managing Director, Organizational Development
Sibur
Saudi Arabia
Patrice Couvègnes
Managing Director
Banque Saudi Fransi
South Africa
Ntoti Mosetlhe
Group Human Resources Manager
Debswana
Nonkululeko Sishi
Group Executive Human Resources
Transnet
Abram Thebyane
Group Executive of Human Resources
Nedbank Group
Spain
Victorino Anguera Gual
HR Leadership, Training, and Development
Gas Natural Fenosa
Lope De Hoces Iñiguez
HR Organization & Development Director
Grupo Cementos Portland Valderrivas
Switzerland
Christian Machate
Managing Director, Global Head of Compensation & Benefits
Credit Suisse
Mark De Smedt
Chief Human Resources Officer
Adecco Group
Turkey
Bade Sipahioğlu
Chief Human Resources Officer
Oger Telecom
Idil Türkmenoğlu
Vice President Human Resources and Sustainability
Boyner
United Arab Emirates
Abdulrahman A. Al-Awar
Director General
Federal Authority for Government Human Resources
Abdul Aziz Ahmed Saleh Al Sawaleh
Chief Human Resources Officer
Etisalat Group
United States
Paulette Alviti
Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
Foot Locker
Michael O’Hare
Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources
Estée Lauder
Jeffrey Hurd
Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Communications, and Administration
American International Group
Roxanne Lagano
Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
Zeotis
Debra Palermino
Executive Vice President, Human Resources
MassMutual
Hilda Harris Piell
Senior Managing Director and Chief Human Resources Officer
CME Group
Kim Ryan
Vice President Human Resources
Pepperidge Farm
Appendix III: Supporting OrganizationsThis report would not have been possible without the support of the following member organizations and partners of WFPMA, as well as other HR organizations marked with an asterisk (*), which helped with the preparation, distribution, and collection of the online survey.
Asociación De Recursos Humanos de la Argentina (ADRHA), Argentina
Armenia HR Association, Armenia *
Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), Australia
Österreichisches Produktivitäts- und Wirtschaftlichkeits-Zentrum (ÖPWZ), Austria
Bangladesh Society for Human Resource Management (BSHRM), Bangladesh
Personnel Managers Club (PM Club), Belgium
Asociación Boliviana de Gestión Humana (ASOBOGH), Bolivia
Institute of Human Resource Management (iHRM), Botswana
Associação Brasileira de Recursos Humanos (ABRH-Nacional), Brazil
Bulgarian Human Resources and Development Association (BHRMDA), Bulgaria
Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA), Canada
Círculo Ejecutivo de Recursos Humanos CERH CHILE, Chile
Federación Colombiana de Gestión Humana (ACRIP), Colombia
Asociación Costarricense de Gestores de Recursos Humanos (ACGRH), Costa Rica
Cyprus Human Resource Management Association (CyHRMA), Cyprus
The Association of Human Resource Managers in Denmark (PID), Denmark
Asociación Dominicana de Administradores de Gestión Humana (ADOARH), Dominican Republic
Asociación de Directores de Personal del Ecuador (ADPE), Ecuador
Estonian Association for Personnel Management (PARE), Estonia
Finnish Association for Human Resource Management (HENRY), Finland
Association Nationale des Directeurs des Ressources Humaines (ANDRH), France
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Personalführung e.V. (DGFP), Germany
Greek Personnel Management Association (SSDP), Greece
Asociación de Gerentes de Recursos Humanos de Guatemala (AGRH), Guatemala
Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management (HKIHRM), Hong Kong
Hungarian Association for Human Resources Management (OHE), Hungary
National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM), India
Perhimpunan Manajemen Sumberdaya Manusia (PMSM), Indonesia
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Ireland
Israeli Society for Human Resources Management (ISHRM), Israel *
Associazione Italiana Per La Direzione Del Personale (AIDP), Italy
Japan Society for Human Resource Management (JSHRM), Japan
Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM), Kenya
Latvian Association for Personnel Management (LAPM), Latvia
Macedonian Human Resources Association (MHRA), Macedonia
Institute of People Management Malawi (IPMM), Malawi
Malaysian Institute of Human Resource Management (MIHRM), Malaysia
Foundation for Human Resources Development (FHRD), Malta
Asociación Mexicana en Dirección de Recursos Humanos (AMEDIRH), Mexico
Mongolia HR Association, Mongolia *
Namibia Institute for People Management (IPM), Namibia
Nederlandse Vereniging voor Personeelsmanagement & Organisatieontwikkeling (NVP), Netherlands
Human Resources Institute of New Zealand (HRINZ), New Zealand
Asociación de Ejecutivos de Recursos Humanos de Nicaragua (AERHNIC), Nicaragua
Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPMN), Nigeria
HR Norge, Norway
Asociación Nacional de Profesionales de Recursos Humanos de Panamá (ANREH), Panama
Papua New Guinea Human Resources Institute (PNGHRI), Papua New Guinea
Asociación Paraguaya de Recursos Humanos (APARH), Paraguay
Asociación Peruana de Recursos Humanos (APERHU), Peru
People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP), Philippines
Polish Human Resources Management Association (PHRMA), Poland
Associação Portuguesa dos Gestores e Técnicos dos Recursos Humanos (AGP), Portugal
HR Management Club, Romania
National Personnel Managers’ Union (ARMC), Russia
Arabian Society for Human Resource Management (ASHRM), Saudi Arabia
L’Association Nationale des Directeurs et Cadres de la fonction Personnel du Sénégal (ANDCPS), Senegal
Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI), Singapore
Slovak Association for Human Resources Management and Development (ZRRLZ), Slovakia
Slovenian Association for Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations (ZDKDS), Slovenia
Institute of People Management (IPM), South Africa
Asociación Española de Dirección y Desarrollo de Personas (AEDIPE), Spain
Institute of Personnel Management Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka
Institute of Personnel Management—Swaziland, Swaziland
Centrum för Personal and Utveckling, Sweden
HR Swiss - Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Human Resources Management, Switzerland
Chinese Taipei—Chinese Human Resource Management Association (CHRMA), Taiwan
Personnel Management Association of Thailand (PMAT), Thailand
İnsan Yönetimi Derneği (PERYÖN), Turkey
Human Resource Managers’ Association of Uganda (HRMAU), Uganda
HRForum, Ukraine *
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), United Kingdom
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), U.S. and its affiliates: SHRM China (China), SHRM India (India), and SHRM MENA (UAE)
Asociación Venezolana de Gestión Humana (AVGH), Venezuela
Human Resources Association (HRA), Vietnam
Zambia Institute of Human Resources Management (ZIHRM), Zambia
Institute of Personnel Management of Zimbabwe (IPMZ), Zimbabwe
To Contact the Authors
Americas
- Thomas Gaissmaier, [email protected]
- Partner & Managing Director
- New York
- Christian Orglmeister, [email protected]
- Partner & Managing Director
- São Paulo
- Eddy Tamboto, [email protected]
- Senior Partner & Managing Director
- Jakarta
- Rainer Strack, [email protected]
- Senior Partner & Managing Director
- Düsseldorf
- Jean-Michel Caye, [email protected]
- Senior Partner & Managing Director
- Paris
- Carsten von der Linden, [email protected]
- Principal
- Munich
- Sebastian Ullrich, [email protected]
- Project Leader
- Düsseldorf
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the many executives who shared their thoughts during interviews, as well as the respondents who completed the online survey. The insights and expertise of these individuals have greatly enriched this report. A list of interviewees who were willing to be named is provided in Appendix II. We thank Jacqueline Betz, Nico Geisel, Katrin Jaskiewicz, Julie Keveny, Charlotte Pallua, Cleo Race, Samuel Schlunk, Susanne Schrader, Carlos Tielesch, and other BCG colleagues for their research and analysis, as well as Jeff Garigliano for his help in writing this report.
The authors also thank the members of the BCG and WFPMA steering committees for their help with this project. From BCG: Jens Baier, Vikram Bhalla, Grant Freeland, Pappudu Sriram, Peter Tollman, Dean Tong, and Roselinde Torres. From WFPMA: Max Becker, Izy Behar, Patrick Belpaire, Stephanie Bird, Even Bolstad, Catherine Carradot, Joe Gerada, Ute Graf, Soli Johansson, Roberto Luna, Leena Malin, Kim Staack Nielsen, Vanda Pecjak, and Svetla Stoeva.
Moreover, we are grateful for the support we received from various BCG colleagues in coordinating and conducting interviews and for their expert advice: Alfonso Abella, Alexandre Amoukteh, Vassilis Antoniades, Monique Baars, Jens Baier, Julio Bezerra, Massimo Busetti, Davide Corradi, Emanuele Costa, Guido Crespi, Christopher Daniel, Filiep Deforche, Camille Egloff, Maxim Fedotov, Alessandra Ferraro, Gabriele Ferri, José Antonio Gil, Alberto Guerrini, Tatu Heikkila, Jörg Hildebrandt, Adrian Hofer, Jens Irion, Chryssos Kavounides, Meg Kedrowski, Klaus Kessler, Ivan Kotov, Daniel López, Manuel Luiz, Jussi Mattsson, Stéphanie Mingardon, Riccardo Monti, Matthias Naumann, Mikko Nieminen, Gözde Yalazi Özbek, Christina Paraskevopoulou, Knut Olav Rød, Michael Seeberg, Alexander Schudey, Achim Schwetlick, Michael Shanahan, Art Uprety, and Jan Dirk Waiboer.
Finally, we thank the members of the editorial and production team who worked on this report: Katherine Andrews, Gary Callahan, Lilith Fondulas, Kim Friedman, Abby Garland, Sara Strassenreiter, and Ellen Treml.