John W. Boudreau (CEO) and Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) ask the question “Is the use and effectiveness of talent and HR reporting progressing from a focus on cost-efficiency and process-effectiveness, and toward a balanced combination that includes them, but extends to strategic measures than enhance talent and business decisions?”
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
Research Update: Pay for Skills, Knowledge, and Competencies
Gerald E. Ledford, Jr. and Charles Rivers write that research interest in pay for skills, knowledge, and competencies (SKC) has continued over the past three decades.
Using Motivation Theory to Improve Gamification
Gerald E. Ledford, Jr. (CEO) and Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) explore the topic of gamification. Today, the purposeful use of games in work settings is growing rapidly. Organizations are rapidly embracing the systematic use of “gamification,” which brings game-like elements to core managerial processes.
Engagement Intent: Connecting or Disconnecting Employees?
This research group for leaders focused on improving employee engagement is a follow up to the Incentive Research Foundation technical report titled: Engaged in what? Creating connections to performance with rewards, recognition and roles.
Influence and Persuasion Skills, 1/30/15
Jay Conger discussed the four primary fault lines in leadership. He presented opportunities to “shake-up” the current industry of leadership. Jay covered the cultural attributes and emerging needs in leadership as well as common derailers and transition demands.
Pay Strategy Fundamentals Course with Ed Lawler on Lynda.com
One of the world’s leading experts on pay, Ed Lawler explains the strategic role of pay in attracting and retaining employees and in organizational design and culture.
Does HR’s Grasp Match Its Reach? (video)
Editor David Shadovitz speaks with John Boudreau at the 2014 HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas about the challenges that stand in the way of HR playing a more strategic role.
Revised Employee Involvement: Research Foundations
George S. Benson (University of Texas) and Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) share that high-involvement management practices (defined as an integrated set of Human Resource and work design practices that are designed to give all employees the skills, information, power, and rewards to make decisions in the workplace) have generated enormous interest among researchers in many different disciplines and geographies.
What HR Executives Need to Know
Edward E. Lawler III (CEO) explains that talking about HR as a business partner certainly does not help the situation. Asking to be a business partner just does not get the “job done”. This is what HR should be, and in most cases, it should make a very strong argument to be positioned as a major strategic contributor.
Commentaries on “The Changing Landscape of Employee Rewards: Observations and Prescriptions”
This paper first summarizes key themes from a recent paper by Gerald Ledford that was published in Organizational Dynamics. That paper reviewed changes in employee reward systems during the past 35 years, looked at factors explaining the changes, and recommended a set of five changes in the future. Five distinguished corporate HR leaders then comment on the paper, exploring a number of important topics in contemporary employee rewards.
Strategic Role of HR
What is the relationship between the design and management of the HR function and HR’s role in organizational strategy? This is the key design question and one that can be answered by examining the research evidence from John W. Boudreau’s (CEO) and Edward E. Lawler’s III (CEO) international survey of hundreds of HR leaders that has been done every three years since 1995.
Top-down, bottom-up, outside-in, and from the middle out: Where traditional change processes fall short, 12/12/14, recording/slides
Eric Severson, Senior Vice President, Global Talent Solutions at Gap, Inc., talked about the integration of the many vectors of change that have been simultaneously unfolding as Gap Inc. has worked to achieve sustainable effectiveness as defined by business/financial and market success, meeting the needs of today’s global workforce, and pursuing world-leading corporate responsibility.