1. How CenturyLink Measures
Leader Effectiveness
PAW Workforce San Francisco
May 14-18 2017
Emily M. Pelosi, PhD

2. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.2
• Use Case: Overview of Talent Index
– Background
– Data and metrics behind the Index
– Developing the Index
▶ Outcomes
– Impact
– Lessons Learned
• Creating your own Talent Index
How CenturyLink Measures Leader
Effectiveness

3. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
Background
3

4. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.4
From UNC Executive Development http://execdev.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/blog/topic/change
Talent Management is broad in scope and can range from training and
development to hiring the best employees and managing turnover. What do
we measure in order to know how successful we are in these areas?
What is effective leadership?

5. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
• HR leadership needed an objective way to assess senior leaders on how well
they are managing their organizations
▶ Where is the talent in our organization?
▶ How aligned are behaviors with current guidance and principles?
▶ Needed additional data to assess performance of leaders more objectively
• Resources:
▶ CenturyLink HR produces metrics that measure organizations on key HR principles
– Turnover, new hires, lower performer report
– Quarterly and monthly basis
▶ Annual performance process
• Needed a solution that created meaning out of metrics and assessed leadership
beyond performance rating
Critical Business Need
5

6. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
What is the Talent Index?
6
• Assessment based on research and best practices that measures how well leaders manage their
talent.
• A comprehensive set of HR metrics was gathered to look at how each organization is performing
on factors related to talent management. The index is based core HR principles:
• Differentiating on performance
• Rewarding top talent
• Providing opportunity to promotable and high potential employees
• Engaging the workforce
How does it work? Why did we do it?
• Index scores calculated as an average of
scores on the 6 sub factors
• Subfactor scores calculated as a
percentage of points earned/total points
possible
• Points were assigned by meeting targets
or staying within range on target
distributions
• Needed to assess how well we are
managing talent using a data-driven
methodology
• Identify strengths, successes, and areas
of opportunity each organization can
focus on improving
• Make HR metrics meaningful
Introducing the Talent Index

7. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
Talent Index
The Talent Index is comprised of 6 factors:
7
Factor Talent Imperative Data
1. Talent and
Compensation
Differentiating between levels of
performance through ratings and
compensation
• Performance ratings
• Metrics on performance
distributions (percentages of lower
performers, meeting, exceeding)
• Average compa ratio
• Average salary
2. Engagement Creating an engaging
environment
• Engagement Scores
• Annual or aggregated pulse survey
3. Movement Providing employees with
opportunities for growth and
career advancement; managing
out performance below
expectations
• Turnover by performance
• Turnover by performance at
leadership levels
• Promotion rate
• Talent Import and export
4. Diversity Cultivating a diverse population • Diversity of overall population and
at leadership levels
5. Staffing Bringing talented individuals into
the organization
• Time to fill
• New hire satisfaction
• Quality of hire
6. Development Engaging managers in
performance management and
responsibly consuming training
• Performance conversations
• Training consumption

8. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.8
Talent Index
Overall Leader 1 Leader 2 Leader 3 Leader 4 Leader 5
Talent &
Compensation
69% 80% 88% 110% 101% 42%
Engagement 92% 108% 97% 93% 112% 100%
Movement 48% 61% 62% 24% 36% 57%
Diversity 73% 108% 72% 45% 80% 70%
Staffing 70% 77% 79% 70% 81% 68%
Development 98% 108% 87% 114% 44% 70%
INDEX SCORE 75% 90% 81% 76% 75% 68%
• Index score percent of total
points possible (100%)
• All 6 factors weighted equally
• Factors and scoring process
were developed using a SME
approach
• Cluster analysis supported
top performers had higher
index scores
• Subfactor scores correlated
with overall Index score
Overall Scores across Business Units

9. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.9
Leader
Development 98%
Engagement 92%
Diversity 73%
Staffing 70%
Talent & Compensation 69%
Movement 48%
INDEX SCORE 75%
• Highest score in Development (98%)
• Driven by a high percentage of performance
discussions completed (80%)
• Lowest score in Movement (48%)
• Due to low numbers of promotions in high
potentials and promotable employees
• Average tenure in role of high potentials (3.5)
exceeds recommendation (2.5 years)
• Some top performer turnover (2%)
• Increase Score Overall
• Index score could increase with more
promotions of high potential and promotable
employees
• Also by increasing diversity at the director and
above level
Highesttolowest
Talent Index
Sub scores – Primary Drivers and Opportunities

10. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
• Scores communicated with senior leaders throughout organization
▶ Index provided data to back up recommendations
– Insights contributed to goal planning for 2017
▶ Factor scores identified targeted areas for development
Impact
Lessons Learned
Future State
• The Talent Index cannot be created overnight
▶ Many iterations and meetings with key stakeholders
• Automate the Talent Index
▶ First phase of index generated support and buy-in necessary for success
• Engage end user earlier
▶ Get stakeholders onboard early in the process
• Connect Index scores to ROI
▶ Financial data, performance metrics outside of HR
▶ Use as IV or DV in predictive models
Outcome

11. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
Key Takeaways
Create your own Index
1. Identify business-critical question
What do you need to solve for?
2. Identify your champions
• Secure leadership support – does your organization need this?
– Who owns data and analytics?
– Key Stakeholders—Leaders that will communicate results with the business
– Leader with cross-functional visibility that can provide support at multiple levels
3. Select HR metrics that define key outcome
• What data do you currently have that measures this construct?
• Challenge your current mentality about your HR data and metrics
4. Implement – Make it useful
• This is an area we are still actively pursuing.
– Looking for ways to make it fully adopted in the organization
11

12. © 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved.
Questions?
12