向沃尔沃学习：通过招聘来重塑自己
来源：HRB，本文由HRTechChina编译，转载请注明出处。
很多传统公司都希望转型为敏捷型、人才第一型的公司。但是当一些CEO站在他们的位置去观察他们的员工时，他们发现了一个问题：很大一部分他们的团队没有必要的技能或改变并勇于面对新挑战的能力。
发展“人才并购战略”是克服以上现象的方法之一。沃尔沃在过去十年的转机中为我们提供了一个非常好的案例。这些年，沃尔沃的品牌处在一个艰难的境地。沃尔沃汽车不属于像奔驰、宝马、奥迪一类的奢侈品品牌，同时也缺乏相关能力与拥有大型市场的领导品牌例如丰田和通用汽车比拼。在新所有者（沃尔沃在2010年被福特汽车卖给了吉利）的管理下，这家瑞典汽车准备通过成为一家高端玩家来改变其生产线。CEO Stefan Jacoby和CHRO BjörnSällström严格审查了沃尔沃现有的员工队伍。结果很显然：有进入高端品牌层面，沃尔沃需要不同技能的各种人才。“技术层面上，现今的汽车与十年前的改变非常巨大”，我们在我们书《人才制胜》（Talent Win）中曾经采访过的Sällström说到，“曾经，你需要有机械工程师，而现在则对软件工程师有着更大的需求，因为汽车就相当于是一台大型电脑。”Sallstrom还有第二个在外部寻求人才的原因：他和Jacoby认为只有注入新鲜人才才能将沃尔沃的文化转变为创业型文化。
沃尔沃采用了三个紧要手段来确认他们引进人才的转变方式是否有用。首先是将Sällström置于倡议的核心位置，CHRO需要处在从外部获得人才的中心地位。对于纯粹的人才收购来说这是事实，例如在硅谷如此受欢迎的收购者。但对于更传统的并购行业来说也是如此，在这些并购领域，首席人力资源官往往是旁观者，而不是核心策略的驾驶者。今天的人才驱动型公司知道人才是推动价值增加的原因。这就是为什么他们将财务和人力资本部署在一起，将两者联系起来以获得最大的影响。在这些公司中，CHRO在任何形式的收购中都扮演着重要的角色。虽然沃尔沃并未通过收购公司来寻找外部人才，但CEO Jacoby及其继任者HåkanSamuelsson依靠Sällström来寻找公司以前从未开发过的产品所需的东西。
这使我们迈出了第二步：扩大公司的周边视野。为了获得所需的技能和变革力量，沃尔沃望向了汽车之外行业。Sällström绘制了外部行业图，寻找具有相关技能的人。他很有创造力，有时还会采取一些与寻常不同的行动。他聘请了谷歌的销售人员和营销人员，他们将沃尔沃在这些领域的技术和社交媒体应用进行了改造。聘请的习惯于用思考数字形式吸引消费者的诺基亚工程师，重新设计了无线电和导航系统。他和Samuelsson开始瞄准时装行业，聘请手工匠人，并通过雇佣那些曾设想并在大公司进行重大的战略转变的高管来撼动管理层。2011年至2015年期间，沃尔沃增加了3,000名工程和开发新人。、
第三，公司开发了一个强大的体系来整合新人才。他们认为沟通是至关重要的：Jacoby首先描述了沃尔沃300名关键员工的战略转变，而Samuelsson在他的前任领导下与员工定期进行实时聊天。培训也是必不可少的：Jacoby和Sällström实施了一系列举措，旨在将员工的思维模式转变的更具创业精神，并且每300名关键领导人都拥有一位私人教练。通过公司网络实施变革也有所帮助。雅各比创建了一个主要由年轻员工组成的三十人“催化小组”，并向组织中的其他人展示工作可以以不同方式完成。例如，他的成员问道为什么汽车每改变一次设计都需要十几个人签名，并且，他还设法将这个数字减半。 “转型中的小事情会发出一种信号。”Sällström说道。两年后，沃尔沃开始思考如何更具创业性，同时催化小组随之解散，这也进一步证明该公司开始取消不必要的开销。
现在说沃尔沃品牌肯定会恢复过来还为时过早。Sällström说：“即使有了这些外在的人才，想要改变组织的思维方式也是一段漫长的旅程，这仍然是一项需要持续进行的工作。”但沃尔沃的金融信息无疑正标志着他们走在正确的方向。 2017年沃尔沃净收入创历史新高，利润连续三年上涨。 去年该公司销售了57.1万辆汽车，比2010年的37.3万辆增加了许多。沃尔沃已经在引入自动驾驶汽车的竞赛中取得了一席之地，它的汽车好评如潮。据Edmunds称，是XC90 SUV这款车让沃尔沃回归到游戏竞赛中去。
沃尔沃的行为提供了一个教科书式的案例，告诉人们如何从公司外寻找新的人才来完成转型举措。CEO必须要为人才并购准备一个好的策略，那就是，他们如何积极的瞄准外部人才库从而领先新策略所带来的机会。这意味着需要扩大人才视野，尤其是当最大的威胁和机会在传统行业领域外来临时。同时这也意味着需要小心执行转型过程，从而避免外部人才的“排异反应”。通过外界进行企业转型有时是必要的，但是往往也是复杂的。沃尔沃在此为我们提供了一份行为导图。
How Volvo Reinvented Itself Through Hiring
Many legacy companies would like to transform themselves into agile, talent-first organizations. But when some CEOs in this position look at the people they employ, they discover a problem: a swath of their existing team doesn’t have the necessary skills or metabolism for change to meet the new challenges.
Developing what we call an “M&A strategy for talent” is one way to overcome this. Volvo’s turnaround over the last decade offers a great example. For years, Volvo was a brand stuck between a rock and a hard place. Its cars didn’t match up well with those of top luxury brands like Mercedes, BMW, and Audi, yet the company lacked the capacity to compete with mass-market leaders like Toyota and GM. Under new ownership (Volvo was sold to China’s Geely by Ford in 2010), the Swedish automaker decided to transform its product line by becoming a premium player. CEO Stefan Jacoby and CHRO Björn Sällström rigorously examined Volvo’s existing workforce. The result was clear: to move into the premium-brand tier, Volvo needed new people with different skills. “Technically, cars today are very different from ten years ago,” says Sällström, whom we interviewed for our book, Talent Wins. “Once, you needed mechanical engineers. Today, there’s a greater need for software engineers because cars are computers more than anything else.” Sallstrom had a second reason for looking outside the company: He and Jacoby believed that only an infusion of fresh talent could transform Volvo’s culture into an entrepreneurial one.
Volvo took three critical steps to ensure that its outside-in transformation would work. The first was to put Sällström at the heart of the initiative. The CHRO needs to be at the center of any acquisition of talent from the outside. This is true for pure acquisitions of talent, like the acquihires that are so popular in Silicon Valley. But it’s also true for more traditional M&A, where CHROs are too often sidelined, rather than being central to driving strategy. Today’s talent-driven companies know that talent is what drives outsized value. That’s why they deploy financial and human capital together, aligning the two for maximum impact. At these companies, the CHRO plays a central role in any kind of acquisition. While Volvo didn’t acquire companies as it went looking for outside talent, CEO Jacoby, and his successor, Håkan Samuelsson, counted on Sällström to find what the company needed in places it had never explored before.
That brings us to the second step: expanding the company’s peripheral vision. To get the skills and change agents it needed, Volvo looked outside the automotive industry. Sällström mapped outside industries, looking for people with pertinent skills. He was creative and, in some cases, counterintuitive. He hired salespeople and marketers from Google, who transformed Volvo’s use of technology and social media in those disciplines. He hired Nokia engineers, who were accustomed to thinking about what digital forms appeal to consumers, to redesign radio and navigation systems. He and Samuelsson looked to the fashion industry, hired craftsmen, and shook up the managerial ranks by hiring executives who had conceived and executed significant strategic shifts at bigger companies. Between 2011 and 2015, the company added 3,000 new people in engineering and development.
Third, the company developed a strong system for integrating that new talent. Communication was vital: Jacoby first described the strategy shift to Volvo’s key 300 employees, while Samuelsson, following his predecessor’s lead, holds regular live chats with employees. Training was also essential: Jacoby and Sällström implemented a range of initiatives designed to shift the staff into a more entrepreneurial mindset, and each of the 300 key leaders was given a personal coach. Implementing change through the company’s networks also helped. Jacoby created a thirty-person “catalyst group,” mostly of younger employees, and charged it with showing others in the organization that work could be done differently. For example, its members asked why every design change in a car required a dozen signatures and managed to cut that number in half. “The small things in a transformation,” says Sällström, “can send a signal.” After two years of getting the company to think more entrepreneurially, the catalyst group disbanded—further proof of the company’s new aversion to unnecessary overhead.
It’s still too early to say that Volvo has definitely turned itself around. Says Sällström: “Even with all this outside DNA, it’s a long journey to change the mindset of an organization. It’s still a work in progress.” Financial signs are certainly pointed in the right direction. Net revenue hit an all-time high in 2017, and profits rose for the third consecutive year. The company sold 571,000 cars last year, up from 373,000 in 2010. Volvo has carved out a spot in the competition to introduce autonomous cars. And its cars are winning rave reviews: According to Edmunds, the XC90 SUV “puts Volvo right back in the game.”
Volvo’s actions offer a textbook case in how to go outside the company to retool your workforce for a transformational initiative. CEOs must have a strategy for “talent M&A”—that is, how they will aggressively target pools of external talent to keep ahead of new strategic opportunities. This means expanding their talent horizon, especially when the biggest threats and opportunities may come from out their traditional industry. And it means implementing the transition with care to avoid “organ rejection” of externally sourced talent. Reaching outside to transform your company is sometimes necessary, but it’s always complicated. Volvo offers a road map of how to pull it off.
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