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ATD Blog

Aligning Talent Development With Compensation, Performance Management, and Recruiting

Wednesday, March 18, 2015
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Few interactions between learning and development (L&D) organizations and their human resource counterparts are as important as compensation, performance management, and recruiting. All employees, for that matter, would probably say that compensation and how their performance is measured is a top priority. For new hires and hiring managers, the only other area of equal importance might be the quality and integrity of the recruitment and onboarding process. 

These areas either work seamlessly or haphazardly. The level of alignment between L&D and HR can be the deciding success factor. 

Some Examples 

Have you ever been part of a hiring process where the job requirements weren’t clear? Perhaps you joined an organization or brought in a new hire where the initial skill requirements were different than those they actually needed. Or worse, they were misleading? 

To be fair, this mismatch could have been your fault—as either the new hire or hiring manager. Maybe you didn’t conduct sufficient due diligence. More likely, there was a lack of alignment between L&D and HR. Whatever the reason, the job description, skill requirements, performance metrics, training offerings, and interview messaging were out of sync.   

Similarly, have you ever been asked to work on one task or project, but measured on another? Perhaps you were even given a paltry raise because of it? Maybe you were told that you needed to learn new skills and behaviors, but were measured on results that were inconsistent with those skills. 

Again, it could have been your fault for not clarifying measurement factors. More likely, though, training was out of sync with the objectives and measurements or the performance appraisal metrics and process where misaligned with the realities of the business. 

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The Cause 

There are many potential reasons for misalignment between L&D and HR. The obvious culprits include lack of communication, conflicting management directives, and differing reporting structures. 

When you dig deeper, however, you might uncover opposing philosophies. You find people who want to put checks in boxes rather than put in the effort to synchronize talent development initiatives with the business. You find people who lack a detailed understanding of the business putting theoretical rather than practical systems in place. Indeed, there are people who develop expertise in their own learning or HR specialist domain at the expense of understanding the bigger picture. 

Misalignment often masquerades as a system, process, incentive, or metrics problem. These areas—when not properly defined or consistently applied—can cause significant problems, but they are typically signs of a deeper root cause. 

People make the decisions that create the systems, processes, incentives, and metrics. People create the messaging. People decide how employees are hired, compensated, and managed. People decide to follow or not follow organizational processes. 

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Granted, the processes, systems, and metrics may need adjustments, but probably not before the people do.  

The Remedy 

When L&D and HR are not well-aligned with both each other and the needs of the overall organization, it’s important to realize the potential negative impact. In other words, misalignment will inhibit employee engagement, hiring effectiveness, retention, and overall business results.   

Here are 10 principles your organization can employ to create alignment between L&D and HR. Follow them to increase harmony and efficiency across your organization. 

  1. Establish regular (for example, quarterly) reviews between L&D and HR to share strategies, action plans, issues, and updates.
  2. Involve L&D and HR in key decisions. Solicit input before changing systems, processes, incentives, metrics, or important employee messaging.
  3. Measure L&D and HR staff on their level of alignment and collaboration with their cross-functional peers.
  4. Institute a method to capture feedback from line-of-business managers regarding the value and alignment they experience from L&D and HR.
  5. Coach L&D and HR staff on how to reach alignment. Shape their individual philosophies on collaboration and reaching alignment.
  6. Create a common competency model that consistently guides selection, hiring, onboarding, performance management, career planning, and ongoing development.
  7. Regularly review, update, and reinforce the competency model to keep it current and in alignment with the overall needs of the organization. 
  8. Design training curriculum and offer training programs that are aligned to the competency model and realities of the business rather than the latest whims that are based on ideal scenarios.
  9. Design compensation and performance management systems that are aligned to the competency model and realities of the business.
  10. Maintain common objectives, systems, approaches, and operating principles that sustain alignment between L&D and HR. 

Best of luck!   

About the Author

Mike Hawkins is award-winning author of Activating Your Ambition: A Guide to Coaching the Best Out of Yourself and Others, author of the SCOPE of Leadership six-book series on coaching leaders to lead as coaches, and president of Alpine Link Corporation. Mike coaches, consults, and trains organizations and individuals to higher levels of performance. He is a seasoned executive coach, management consultant, author, speaker, and college lecturer. He is considered an industry thought leader on leadership, consultative selling, self-improvement, and business management.  

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