Attending CDR 2023- Accelerating HR: Time to Think Differently

The SRI team had the pleasure of attending the Career Development Roundtable (CDR) hosted at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and, as usual, expertly run by Michael Emery and his team at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The event, held in Washington DC, brought together professionals from around the world around the topic: “Accelerating HR: Time to Think Differently”. Through plenary sessions, smaller clinics, and side conversations, the event pulsed with energy and enthusiasm for how to align and support our sector's most important asset, our people. While discussions ranged from the philosophical to the practical and everywhere in between, a few themes stood out to our team:

• How complex it is to find and nurture the right balance of technical and behavioural skills and competencies
• The prevalence of burnout and change
• The importance of organisational culture

Accelerating HR & Skills Development

Attendees of the event spanned the global development sector from multilateral organisations, like many of our hosts, third-sector institutions, other consulting firms, and even large private sector actors. However, despite the varied types of organisation, all were grappling with how to find and cultivate talent. In the face of shifting global trends and requirements, many speakers and clinics focused on how organisations can understand, develop, and enhance the skills of their staff, including their HR staff and particularly their leaders. Good leaders were described as having the right balance between technical expertise and behavioural competencies. We reflected on how there was much more focus on the latter across the session. One explanation that resonated for why this was the case came from David Bearfield from UNDP in a clinic on “Navigating Leadership Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World”. He posited that the reason for the emphasis on behaviour is because technical delivery by leaders is implied and there is more of a gap in the interpersonal.

To address this tension, participants in that session and others talked about how important it was to acknowledge the current situation, even when that includes imperfection, and to look for opportunities for change – nothing must be that way forever!

These themes resonated in the presentation with our consultants Dan Perez and Andrea Nava, who shared in their clinic “Unlocking Talent through Storytelling: Compelling Narratives to Attract Top Talent”. They talked about how organisations can increase their access to better talent and improve their recruiting by developing key stories and narratives that differentiate their mission from others. By developing better stories around specific roles they can speak to the evolving operating landscape we are all facing and illustrate the journey candidates will go on both during recruitment and when they join.

The Vicious Cycle of Change and Burnout

As organisations navigate change, discussion inevitably turns to burnout. Organisations’ focus can sometimes feel distracted, and it is difficult to maintain commitment as they try to react to shifting priorities, funding, and even staff turnover. Staff themselves can feel personally exhausted and are looking for ways to stay grounded through these shifting tides.

One of the keynote speeches by Pandit Dasa focused on how mindfulness can enhance connection to one’s work and help reduce personal burnout. SRI Executive’s consulting team looked at ways to address burnout on an organisational level to make sure that change initiatives are focused on root causes to lower the volume of change for staff and invest in effective, long-term change. We bring a proven diagnostic tool that helps us parse out symptoms from root causes and work with our clients to develop targeted and prioritised action plans.

The Importance of Organisational Culture

The event clinics, small-group presentations, led to active audience participation and vibrant discussions. In both the sessions focused on culture explicitly and those focused on other topics, culture came up as the consistent and underlying drumbeat. While there was clear alignment to organisational vision and mission, culture is more difficult to define and address. Some of the resonant components of culture included the way people felt in their organisation, the cumulation of behaviors and actions by all staff members, and the way values manifested in skills and actions.

CDR was not the first time SRI Executive has considered these questions. In our Consulting Practice, we work a lot with our partners about how to address culture when recommending organisational change, including through our diagnostic process. We believe that organisational culture is the result of formal structure, tools, systems, and processes complemented by informal norms, behaviours, and values. We work with our clients to think about both sides of culture and ways they can enact change as individuals, teams, and organisations.

Acceleration Requires Integration

With so much changing in the space, professionals are being asked to understand the multiple and often compounding challenges of finding and unlocking the highest potential of their staff. We need to integrate across disciplines, skills, and challenges for the best results. Keynote speaker Anne-Birgitte (AB) Albrechtesen spoke to this integration, sharing a holistic model for an attractive workplace that spanned from the reputation of the organisation to its culture, leadership, and psychological environment to the experience of staff members through recruitment, development, and compensation. Across both our Executive Search and Consulting teams, we continue to explore all of these interconnected pieces and how to best bring them together for the benefit of our clients and their staff members.

Our team left the event with wheels turning about how we can continue to stay connected, share learnings, and better serve our clients. We look forward to participating in the next CDR but, in the meantime, if you would like to continue the conversation on these or any other topics about “Accelerating HR” please get in touch!