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    03 Jun

    Work-from-Home Can’t Work Forever: Blackstone CEO

    By admin In Covid, Future of work, HR, Leadership, Private Equity, Talent Development, Work From Home /  3 No Comments

    The massive work-from-home experiment that businesses globally have adopted in response to coronavirus-related travel lockdowns has fueled a great debate on the future of offices: Will the practice become a permanent feature for employees? For Steve Schwarzman, CEO and chairman at Blackstone Group, the answer is not likely.

    “This working from home is on one hand very efficient,” he said last week during a Sanford C. Bernstein investor conference. “At one of our meetings, somebody said, ‘Well, why don’t we do this all the time?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know, one reason is you can’t train new people like this.'”

    Working from home appears to function well for existing employees, Schwarzman said. The crux is in the difficulty for new employees to absorb a company’s culture without personal interaction, he added.

    “To run a great organization, you have to keep hiring people,” he said. “Particularly if you as a business are growing, you need more people. And those people have to learn your culture.”

    Culture entails many aspects that require picking up cues from the more experienced, established members of a team on how the company does business, Schwarzman said.

    “They have to know not just the mechanics of how you do a piece of work, but how do we think about it?” he said. “How do we think about risk? What do we believe is the right and wrong approach to be doing things from an ethical perspective?”

    Communications over video can’t easily replicate those informal and formal discussions a team would have in an office setting, Schwarzman said.

    “That’s really hard to do on television,” he said. “You have to have people sitting around talking about situations. It’s much more iterative.”

    But some human capital experts say while new employee training is indeed a likely snag, it’s not impossible to maintain and build a corporate culture through remote technology.

    Onboarding is clearly one of the challenges, says Bob Ryan, executive advisor at Shields Meneley Partners, an executive coaching consultancy, and managing partner at the Sierra Institute, a coalition of chief human resource officers.

    “There are things that can’t be done as well virtually, and it’s very difficult to build a culture when people are not together,” he says. “Senior management helps to define the culture of an organization… and that’s hard to understand when you don’t see them day to day.”

    Onboarding new employees virtually would be a challenge, Ryan says.

    “Important training could be lost unless the new employee puts in a concerted effort to meeting all of their peers and stakeholders,” he says. “One of the most important groups that you need to learn from is your peers.”

    Onboarding in a virtual environment is indeed “suboptimal,” says Laura Queen, CEO at 29Bison, a human capital consultancy.

    “Video cannot replace face-to-face human contact,” she says.

    But there are many ways that companies can still build and maintain culture via remote technology, and even increase productivity using such tools, Queen says.

    “You don’t have to have face-to-face contact all of the time,” she adds.

    Corporate culture often entails values, beliefs, and assumptions about the work experience transmitted through language and storytelling, Queen says. It’s possible to find new mechanisms to do that via technology, especially through tools that support learning and assimilation, she says.

    One tool her team uses is Nuclino, an internal wiki platform where individuals can share intelligence on particular topics, a concept that also can work on communication systems such as Slack. Queen recently posted information about an arcane defined benefit pension question that sometimes comes up with the firm’s clients, so that other colleagues can tap it as a resource in the future, she says.

    Ryan says his team has built a customized, confidential customer relationship management platform to similarly share internal information, specifically in response to the recent work-from-home shift.

    Ongoing regular training and development can even be more effective in virtual settings, because many professionals have proven their willingness to participate and shown the ability to focus even better in video meetings, Ryan says. Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams are all effective for such gatherings.

    “What I am hearing over and over again is that virtual meetings are going to become a more consistent part of the future,” he says.

    A bigger question that companies face is whether their embrace of working from home capabilities will define their identity to the marketplace, Queen says.

    “If your viewpoint is that culture can’t be transmitted virtually, then it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she says. “Long term it may be that a firm attracts people who are more willing to work face-to-face and less willing to work in a virtual environment. And that says to people who want a work-from-home opportunity, that this firm is not a place for you.”

    That may become an important distinction, she adds, because working from home has gotten a big stage to showcase its utility.

    “I think the horse has left the barn for knowledge workers with regard to the work-from-home situation,” she says. “There is an expectation that if you’re going to be a credible competitive attractive employer you’re going to have to provide some level of remote work capabilities.”

    Link(s) to Article:
    https://www.fundfire.com/c/2771153/340603/work_from_home_work_forever_blackstone?referrer_module=issueHeadline

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    13 Apr

    COVID-19 Forces Work Culture Shifts for Private Equity Firms

    By admin In Covid, Future of work, Leadership, Private Equity, Talent Development, Work From Home /   No Comments

    COVID-19 Forces Work Culture Shifts for Private Equity Firms
    April 13, 2020

    The private equity industry, historically hesitant to accommodate flexible working arrangements, has had to embrace work culture shifts as the coronavirus pandemic forces employees to stay home.

    Before Covid-19, flexible working in private markets was not indulged very often, according to a survey conducted by eVestment Private Markets and MJ Hudson of 311 employees from across the global private markets industry, including GPs, LPs, and outsourced practitioners of core functions. The survey found that prior to COVID-19, just 7% of private markets respondents regularly worked from home. Of the individuals who regularly worked from home 80% were executives or senior staff while not a single junior staff member reported regularly working from home.

    “Hierarchy is important in private equity,” says Dale Rose, president of 3D Group, a consulting firm that works with private equity firms. “It’s harder to hold a hierarchy when working remotely.”

    Working from home will be particularly difficult for junior members of the workforce, since they may have a less-established personal network, which is hard to expand and develop via digital channels as opposed to the “trust-factor and comfort” that accompanies in-person interaction, Rose adds.

    On the other hand, this may be an opportunity many people have long been hoping for. “I think there is a lot of desire from people in the industry for flexible working,” says Graeme Faulds, director of private market solutions at eVestment.

    Prior to COVID-19, working hours for employees of private equity and credit managers were already long. According to eVestment’s survey, 53% of respondents work more than 48 hours at the office per week on a regular basis, the upper limit of the European Working Hours Directive.
    Nine percent of respondents say they regularly work more than 58 hours per week, and five individuals report regularly clocking more than 68 hours in the office each week.

    While many workers may welcome the shift to flexible working, it’s not without potential negative side effects. In an industry where long hours are already the norm, and where many struggle to put work away, remote work could lead to an increase in overall work hours. That could  boost productivity in the short-term, but it also increases the risk of burnout, Rose says.

    “It could be detrimental to the psychological health of these individuals who now can work harder and more,” says Rose. “They may be working in their sweatpants and their suit tops but they’re working 20% more time.”

    In addition to working long hours, the survey found that many people in private markets already had a hard time putting down their work prior to COVID-19.

    The natural pauses that were built into the workday, such as commuting, meals and weekends have eroded under lockdown, says Robert Ryan, executive advisor at Shields Meneley Partners, a consulting firm working with private equity firms.

    “You can work all day, you can work every minute of the day. You can stay busy for 60 hours a week,” says Ryan.

    https://www.fundfire.com/c/2707203/331553/covid_forces_work_culture_shifts_private_equity_firms?referrer_module=emailMorningNews&module_order=15&code=YldGeVkwQmpZWEprYVc1aGJHTnZiVzExYm1sallYUnBiMjV6YzNSeVlYUmxaMmxsY3k1amIyMHNJREV5T1RBd056QXpMQ0F4TURJME16TTVNamsy

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    23 Jan

    Can Comp and Conferences Help Board Recruiting?

    By admin In Boards, Career, Leadership, Networking /   No Comments

    As boards compete to recruit highly sought-after diverse directors with a particular set of skills – such as technology and cyber-security expertise, for example – consultants are prompting boards to revisit some aspects of their compensation plans and to consider educational opportunities that could help their boards stand out to desirable candidates.

    Generally, board compensation and attendance at global conferences aren’t the primary drivers that compel executives with data analytics or cyber-security experience to join boards, consultants say. However, on the margins, boards can optimize their recruiting efforts by making sure comp plans take into account the interests of younger, active executives and that onboarding and educational opportunities allow curious and intelligent but less seasoned board members to get a feel for an entirely different business or industry than the one they’re in.

    “There is an element of board shopping that goes on,” says Hugh Shields, an executive coach who also works with board members at consulting firm Shields Meneley Partners.

    Active executives, particularly those whose skill sets are highly coveted by boards, know they have “one shot” at an outside board seat, Shields says, so they try to find the best position they can. Executives will announce to colleagues and advisors that they’re interested in joining boards, visit the board practices divisions of search firms to get to know recruiters, and conduct their own networking to let board members know they’re looking for a seat, he says.

    “There’s much more competition,” says Shields.

    And while many aspiring directors are working hard to make themselves known to boards, it appears that many companies are creating similar wish lists for new board members, putting a premium on certain skill sets.

    Among the 462 new directors who joined Fortune 500 boards in the past year, 55% were active executives and 42% had digital and social media or cyber-security expertise, according to a Heidrick & Struggles report.

    A survey of 113 nominating and governance committee members conducted by Spencer Stuart found that the most high-priority recruiting profiles currently include women board candidates with technology experience. In three years, the profiles will also include minority candidates with digital and social media expertise, the survey found. Those skills will surpass financial and operational expertise, according to the results.

    Therefore, many boards may be attempting to lure a lot of the same executives in the coming years, and the quest for board talent will grow increasingly heated. For some boards that have had recruiting challenges, directors may want to consider modifying their approaches.

    Don Delves, managing director in executive compensation and practice leader for North America at Willis Towers Watson, points out that he sees a generational shift taking place as boards are recruiting more diverse directors. New board members, whom he calls “the human capital generation,” are more interested in workforces and question how people are valued by companies and the way organizations create shareholder and societal value. They also want to clearly understand what might be fascinating about a company and could interest them, he adds.

    “They don’t hesitate to ask about the whole employee population and the whole pipeline of people moving through the company,” says Delves. Directors are asking, “Do you have the right people in the right places doing the right job?” he says. “That’s clearly a change that’s happening.”

    Another Look at Equity

    Directors aren’t primarily motivated by their compensation, and boards would be ill-advised to recruit a new member who was interested in a board seat simply for the money, says Dan Laddin, a founding partner at Compensation Advisory Partners (CAP). Most new directors are motivated to join a board if they believe they have the ability to contribute to the company they would be overseeing, and whether the work would be interesting to them.

    Beyond those two screens, however, potential director candidates do want to understand how they will be compensated for their time, Laddin says. He notes that some of the active executives will be at different life stages than more traditional board members, with younger family situations, mortgages, school loans or children in college. Given that boards are attracting directors from a much broader pool of talent these days, board compensation becomes more meaningful than if the board were recruiting a former CEO, says Laddin. As boards diversify, they’re looking for a diversity of backgrounds in terms of career, which might also mean differences in wealth.

    “The market for talent is highly competitive and companies can choose to compete or fall behind,” says Matt Vnuk, a principal at CAP. “One way to effectively compete for talent is through differentiation in compensation.”

    A new director compensation report from CAP suggests that boards may want to revisit provisions allowing for initial equity awards to new directors. Initial equity awards have trended downward in recent years, but they could appeal to directors who are considering multiple invitations to join boards.

    Among the 100 largest companies, 13 currently provide initial equity awards with a median value of $175,000, according to data from CAP. Vesting varies by company, CAP finds, with immediate or one-year vesting the most common schedule. An equity award upon election or appointment to the board can differentiate a director pay program in a way that ramps up new directors’ alignment with shareholders, Vnuk says.

    “An initial award can make a lot of sense in attracting a candidate to your company versus another company,” Laddin says.

    In addition, stock ownership guidelines, which have tended to grow more stringent as boards have adopted hold-until-retirement or hold-until-after-retirement requirements, could also be revisited, CAP suggests in its report. Directors could be required to hold stock until their holdings are equivalent to a five-times multiple of the annual cash retainer, for instance, rather than holding stock until they leave the board.

    If a director joins a board and is paid half in cash and half in equity and is required to hold the equity until they leave the board, that means they’re only earning roughly 25% of their total compensation because they’ll be required to pay taxes on the cash compensation, points out Laddin. Having access to the other portion of their board compensation could be valuable to an actively employed board member who is at an earlier stage of their life and career, he says.

    “If you can use compensation in a way to differentiate yourself in the recruiting process in away that remains very responsible, that’s certainly a plus,” says Vnuk.

    Director Education

    In addition, other issues to consider include onboarding and director education opportunities, says Delves. Once pay is competitive, it may not make a difference to some executives, he notes.

    However, if a board can emphasize the importance of the job and provide opportunities to take in-depth corporate governance courses at top universities, a membership with the National Association of Corporate Directors or a subscription to board-director-focused publications, for example, an active executive could be interested in the opportunity to dive headfirst into learning about corporate governance.

    In addition, Delves says that director orientation programs should be organized to allow executives the chance to visit company headquarters and offsite plants and locations and talk with executives and learn everything they can to immerse themselves in the company they’ll be overseeing.

    In addition, boards benefit when directors bring broader perspectives into the boardroom, he says. Attending conferences or traveling to the Aspen Institute or the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, helps board members stay on the cutting edge while also bringing ideas back to the boardroom. Depending on the amount of time a director has and the board budget for education, one conference or event per new director could provide an interesting education component to board membership.

    “Some of them are already making a lot of money,” says Delves. “What can you do to make it interesting and a whole fascinating adventure for them to take on that’s different from their daily lives?”

    Originally Posted: https://www.agendaweek.com/c/2535213/302043/comp_conferences_help_board_recruiting?referrer_module=issueHeadline

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    hugh shields
    20 Dec

    Private Equity Paves Road to Succession

    By admin In Career Transition, Leadership, Private Equity /   No Comments

    Well established private-equity firms are taking steps to put in place the next generation of leaders

    Succession planning in private equity continues to be an important topic for the well-established firms in the asset class. For a global perspective, Dow Jones’ private equity editor Laura Kreutzer interviewed Hugh Shields, co-founder and principal from Shields Meneley Partners. Hugh provided Laura with key insights into what is typically a secretive process of how large private equity firms choose new leadership and what firms today need to do to ensure a smooth transition.

    Hugh’s interview was included in a terrific article in Dow Jones’ publication Financial News and can be found here.

    For PDF click here: PE News – Private Equity Paves Road to Succession

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