Apply sports to Human Resources

Do you like sports? If so, what kind of sports do you like? I love watching football games. For avoidance of doubt, I refer to football in the global context rather than North American context. Football is a game played by two teams of 11 players.

I am interested in football for 2 reasons. First, I am purely a football fan. I love watching beautiful goals. Secondly, I recognise lots in common between football management and business management. A football team plays differently with the same squad but with a different manager on top. It is exciting to imagine how the football manager engages and inspires the players so that they play as a team and achieve better results.

One thing I have learnt recently is that football managers tend to give exercise to players so that they are used to specific fundamental movements. The football managers repeat these exercises until the players can replicate a desired pattern of collective actions with ease.

Then, here comes a question: can we apply this to the business?

Suppose you have a new HR Business Partner onboard. There are a lot for your HR Business Partner to learn so that they can be operational. They have got to be familiar with the HR system, the shared drive and the folders in there, the organisation and its key members, etc. Usually, we take it for granted that as time goes by the new staff member will master all of this. But is this a reasonable expectation? Is this achievable independently from the new staff member’s ability?

What I mentione above is a basic foundation. It is so basic that it seems that you do not need to pay attention to it. But, I believe that there is a lovely opportunity to bring improvement. The learning can be easily accelerated. Suppose you ask the new staff member to find you specific files in the shared drive. You exercise this drill for 30 minutes every day. I am convinced that at the end of five business days, your new staff member will master the file structure of the shared drive and will never lose time in trying to figure out where to find a specific file or information. 

These days we call learning function L&D or Learning & Development as opposed to training. I have no objection about this and I am supportive of the way this is called Learning & Development because this shows a right focus on people’s ability  and opportunities to learn , and people’s needs to develop themselves and organisation’s needs to develop their specific capabilities.

Having said that, there is still an element where training is the most appropriate intervention. Mastering the shared drive, learning to be operational in a specific system or technology platform, and remembering the key stakeholders in the context of the organisation is a typical area that can be resolved quickly by training. Yet, I think that we are missing opportunities.

Let’s start to identify the fundamental systems and the fundamental behaviours which lay out the foundation of success.

Attractive incentive award for Japanese companies

If I were asked to design a reward system for a Japanese manufacturer wishing to promote and reward revolutionary innovation, I would implement an incentive bonus system. When an employee's innovation generates a large profit, a bonus of JPY100 million will be awarded.

From a Japanese company perspective, the amount of bonus award may look gorgeous because many of the board members are not entitled to an annual total compensation of JPY100 million. Hence, the amount should serve as a visible recognition and eventually serve as a retention.

However, I will also pay attention to how to design the distribution. A large amount of bonus in a year will cause a large amount of resident taxes in the following year. If JPY100 million is awarded in a single year, the incumbent will need to pay JPY10 million of resident taxes. Besides, this will put the incumbent to the highest tax bracket. More importantly, once the payment has been made, there will be no further way to retain the incumbent.

One of the ways to distribute this incentive is to defer the payments in several times and in a few forms. Here is an example: 8% each will be paid as bonus allowance through monthly payroll for 5 years thus the total payment representing 40% of the award; 20% will be added to the retirement allowance as a special contribution, fully payable in 10 years from the award; 40% will be paid as bonus, deferred over five years from the second year. Suppose an engineer is entitled to a base salary of 10 million yen, their annual income could reach JPY 26 million without seasonal bonuses for four years and JPY 18 million for another two years.

This will allow the company to retain the talent for probably 5 - 10 years. This will prevent their competitors from stealing the talent and creating competitive advantage from the stolen talent for 10 years.