An essential part of IBM’s (IBM) campaign to conquer cloud computing is a new product called BlueMix. Launched in February of this year, the platform offers developers tools to create and run new apps for business. Unusually for a project of its size, it came together fast. A team of IBMers took only about 18 months to build BlueMix from initial concept, through technical underpinnings and design, to beta testing and marketing.

Phil Gilbert, Big Blue’s general manager of design, who led the BlueMix project, thinks it’s no coincidence that the dozens of engineers, developers, and designers who worked on it are scattered all over the world and have rarely, if ever, sat down with each other at the same time and place. “You get much more diversity of thought with virtual teams,” Gilbert says. “A well-run virtual team comes up with, not just more ideas, but better ones, and faster.”

It seems BlueMix was no fluke. Adam Kingl, executive director of learning solutions at London Business School, has studied teams and consulted with managers at more than 120 companies, across a range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to retailing to banking. “When it comes to innovation or solving complex problems, virtual teams often get better and faster results,” he says. “And that is true whether you’re looking at teams in different office locations around the world, or teams that simply have some members telecommuting from home.”

The key, Kingl says, is to brainstorm using the BlueMix approach, a technique some companies call an “idea jam.” Instead of a teleconference or conference call that brings everyone together (no matter what time zone they may be in), an idea jam poses a question or describes a problem and then gives the whole team a chance to weigh in online, typically over a 48-hour period, via a message board or chat room.

Letting people make comments and suggestions on their own schedule contributes to “a meritocracy of ideas” in a couple of ways, says Kingl. First, the group dynamics are different. Whether in person or online all at the same time, team members “often agree with a dominant person—either the most senior, or simply the loudest or most persuasive—to keep the peace,” Kingl observes.

By contrast, opening up a forum for discussion where people weigh in one by one “prompts the participants to evaluate ideas based on their merit, rather than deferring to one team member,” he says. Phil Gilbert agrees. People who might otherwise hesitate to disagree with a colleague directly—even if they have a better idea—are bolder in an asynchronous, idea-jam-type setting. “It’s not confrontational, more just contributing a different opinion,” he says.

That’s especially true for teams with members who are introverts, notes Kingl. “Introverted people often have valuable insights to contribute, but they often take time to formulate their thoughts,” he says. “In traditional meetings, they may not get that.” With a couple of days to speak up, instead of a couple of hours, introverts are more likely to be heard.

When team members are all together in one place or at one time, the result is sometimes “a tendency toward groupthink,” Gilbert adds. Since BlueMix is a global platform, he says, “we very deliberately put the team on every continent, in Canada, India, Brazil, England, and so on. So even when the whole group came together online, what had happened in between was very different because the locations and cultures were so different.” That approach breeds innovation, he says, by eliciting “not just diverse ideas, but independently developed ideas,” he says. “It can lead to great outcomes.”

Justifying talent to boards

Generally accepted accounting principles are not kind to the HR executive. Almost every investment request at board level is to add or improve an asset.

People, on the other hand, by virtue of being on the payroll, are listed on the balance sheet as a liability. Therefore, hiring and developing talent is more difficult to justify to boards which typically look at everything in terms of return on investment and internal rate of return.

What hope do you, as an HR director, have when asking for resources against the black and white calculations produced by the VPs of marketing, operations and finance?

Why invest in people?

As a result of this phenomenon, I see HR professionals in the Middle East (with some exceptions) struggle to gain buy-in for investing in people. Instead of creating a case around how new hires will impact the business, HR often spends too much time influencing the business sponsors to believe in their cause, unsubstantiated though the reasons for the support may be.

So your success is completely predicated on the quality of your internal relationships.

There is a case for at least meeting the ROI burden half way. I would argue that doing so would not only assist the HR function, but it would start to change the paradigm of HR as a secondary function, and ennoble those who have dedicated their professional lives to their talent.

At London Business School, when we started thinking about tackling this significant challenge of assessing talent development, or how we measure impact, we came up with this premise: begin with the end in mind.

Assess your talent

When we speak to our new clients about the impact of the future executive development work in the GCC, we start with the business versus the personal impact. What difference would we see in the business after so many months or years as a result of this programme? How would we assess that business improvement? This depends entirely on each organisation’s objectives, but it could include internal promotion rate, new initiatives created and implemented with the resulting commercial benefits, employee retention, and the impact of action learning projects.

We suggest that this approach can be tailored to each organisational context and culture, and gives the HR executive a fighting chance to prove their function’s impact in the boardroom.

More importantly, the Middle East region – through a more rigorous assessment process – can sharpen the business case beyond the obviously important macro-societal needs. This will develop citizens into more senior management roles. Building the business case for people development then becomes no less than building the business case for building the nation’s capacity for leadership.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an ambitious graduate in possession of a good brain must be in want of a new job.

That is the reality for employers and Generation Y employees (roughly those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s).  No sooner does the young, intrepid tyro grace the halls of industry than he or she expects to be promoted within hours, to work from home and to challenge their managers’ assumptions and values, despite their decades of experience.

While this may sound melodramatic, it is not that far off many conversations we have had with HR directors from industries around the world.

With the employer benefits package taking third place to work/life balance and organisational culture, baby boomers and the formerly misunderstood Generation X (roughly those born between the early 1960s and the early 1980s), fail utterly to offer benefits that appeal to the high-potential Y.  So what do they want?

In a few weeks’ time at London Business School’s annual Global Leadership Summit, we will reveal the results of a five-year survey of Gen Y participants on our Emerging Leaders Programme. Representing 33 countries, these high-potentials have already been identified by their companies as their most desirable young employees. We asked what they value in an employer, how long they wish to stay with one, and how they will lead when they eventually reach the C-suite.

The vast majority (90%) said that they did not plan to stay with any given employer for more than five years.  More than a third (37%) answered that they plan to stay no more than two years.  Almost 40% start a new role already planning their next career move in the immediate future.  How is the employer to retain talent?

One response is to completely revise the employer value proposition in favour of a quicker return to the employee. This might include assigning a senior mentor to offer executive perspective unusually early, assigning Gen Ys to quick win 12- to 18-month team projects and an acknowledgement that while we may not work together for many years in one go, we may reunite when the Gen Y is a seasoned manager, reaping the benefits of growth without all the costs of nurturing it.

Almost certainly it requires an understanding of the environment that these emerging leaders aspire to. Our study shows that only 12% of emerging leaders aspire to emulate CEOs who focus on how the business is trading.

Developing and promoting innovation is a top priority for emerging leaders, 34% of whom wish to emulate CEOs who take the entrepreneurial approach to company management: “How’s my baby doing today?” An even higher percentage (39%) say they most identify with CEOs whose aim is to make the company and the world, a better place.

Leaders with ultimate accountability though, have to endure relentless dissatisfaction from shareholders, employers or customers – and frequently all three. Always in the limelight, making and justifying often public and sometimes unpopular decisions, these leaders occupy a twilight zone of professional and personal trade-offs, leaving little time for the flexing of creative muscles and a more entrepreneurial approach.

With a later retirement age and longer working life, portfolio careers encompassing roles with ultimate accountability and roles demanding different leadership skills, those of the counsellor, coach or deputy, could be Gen Y’s best chance of securing the variety of experience and work/life balance that is so important to them.

Adam Kingl is director of Learning Solutions, London Business School. Richard Hytner is adjunct associate professor of marketing, London Business School and author of Consiglieri: Leading From The Shadows.

Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox

Dubai: You’re finally called for the job interview you’d been waiting for. You suited up, aced the questions and felt you really made a good impression. But it’s been weeks since you faced your recruiter and you haven’t heard back from them.

Getting the silent treatment is harsh, especially if you did your best to win that coveted job. Apparently, you’re not alone.

In a survey among nearly 4,000 workers, CareerBuilder found that three quarters (75 per cent) of job applicants in the US did not get a feedback from employers — not a call, email or anything.

Employers, recruiters or hiring managers cite a lot of reasons for the lack of follow through and one of them is that they are deluged with hundreds of applications for one job posting.

“Unfortunately, in the UAE, there are some organisations who don’t operate with an ethical and ‘better practice’ mindset,” notes Gaj Ravichandra, a psychologist who is the managing partner and co-founder of Kompass Consultancy.

“The usual excuses provided in the UAE by hiring managers or recruiters are lack of time, lack of resources or ineffective systems to close the loop on the application,” he says.

Jenifer Pinto-Suares, an expatriate in Dubai who is currently employed recalls her bad experience as a job applicant: Only 10 per cent of her unsuccessful job applications yielded feedback from the employer.

“Silence can definitely dispirit you,” she says.

“Sometimes, you send out your CV to the portals who advertise a particular job and there is no acknowledgement even to say that they have received it, although the others actually take the time to pick up the phone and go through the process.”

She says applicants deserve to be notified if they have not met the expectations of the employer “so they don’t keep wondering about the role they applied for.”

Melwyn Abraham, another expatriate, shares the same experience when he was looking for a job in the UAE. “In most cases, the recruiters never get back to you, unless you follow up with them and many a time, they never give you reasons. There are cases where they even avoid calls especially if you have submitted assignments to them.”

Adam Kingl, director of learning solutions for executive education at London Business School, says candidates deserve feedback in exchange for the time and energy they have invested into the application process. If companies provide the reasons for turning down an application, they might help candidates become better as professionals.

“A job interview should be a social contract in an ideal world. The candidates will put forward their case to be employed, and in return for that reflective and intense process of interviewing, the candidates’ self-awareness should be enhanced, which in and of itself develops them as professionals,” he says.

Recruiters are aware of the disappointments unsuccessful applicants go through. In most cases, given the volume of applications they get for each advertised role, they don’t have the time to reply to each of them.

Sources in the industry say that while recruiting is a time-consuming process, job applicants have the tendency to indiscriminately apply to every job posting and the hiring manager is left with hundreds of applications to sort through.

Some candidates send multiple applications for one vacancy and insist on applying even if they fail the basic requirements, such as Arabic speaking skills. “I get 500 letters for one job opening,” says one human resources (HR) expert.

Other recruiters, however, claim they send an automated thank-you note to all applicants, informing them that applications are deemed unsuccessful if they don’t get a call or email after a specified period.

Kingl, who will be speaking at the London Business School’s Global Leadership Summit in June, says whatever reasons employers have for rejecting an application, candidates deserve a feedback even if it’s negative.

“A candidate cannot improve their own interviewing skills, and enhance knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, how they come across to others, unless they receive feedback. Not to ask for feedback may perpetuate some easily correctable weaknesses,” he says.

“The job applicant should always ask for feedback as this will educate them on what they may need to change in their approach for future roles,” adds Ravichandra.

However, Kingl says in some cases, employers choose not to notify the unsuccessful applicants to avoid being sued. “An employer may feel there is a degree of legal risk if they were to give a reason why a candidate is unsuccessful that can be interpreted or misinterpreted as prejudice or bias,” he says.

But he says this can be easily overcome with “a modicum of sensible thought before giving the feedback.” “Sometimes, a candidate is not offered a job for vague reasons (eg. ‘I didn’t have a good feeling about them, though I can’t put my finger on it’). It is therefore difficult to deliver that feedback, but this forces the HR department to raise its game, be more thoughtful and specific in its interviewing and reasoning.”

“It may also improve their ability to interview over time, as they will be forced to follow up on questions in their mind, rather than leave doubts or concerns unexplored. This may also assist the employer, as better interviewing will yield the right candidate being successful,” adds Kingl.