Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi knew Luke Skywalker was the rebellion’s best new hope, and he took his mentorship of the young Jedi very seriously. Executive leaders must do the same—take an active role in cultivating high-level talent to help them master the (work)force.

Synchrony Bank, for one, is focused on developing leadership diversity through its Advancing Diverse Talent (ADT) Leadership Institute, an initiative designed to retain, develop, and promote top talent at all levels, including leadership.

One of the institute’s most successful programs, the ADT fellows initiative, nurtures the next generation of SVPs by connecting execs with up-and-comers from diverse backgrounds.

“We had an executive leadership team, all direct reports to the CEO, that signed up and were willing to take on a sponsee individual and really carry that on,” said Synchrony’s Michael Matthews, chief diversity, inclusion, and corporate responsibility officer.

Sponsorship was an important distinction for Matthews and his people-team colleagues when it came to developing the program in 2020. The fellows, he found, needed more than just mentorship.

“The piece that was missing was getting access to the opportunity to compete—getting seen, getting their foot in the door,” he said.

While mentorship is still core to the bank’s leadership development, sponsorship ensures executive sponsors don’t just advise, but advocate for sponsees.

Sponsorship: Mentorship, and then some. The institute’s program connects fellows—those with executive-level capacity and promotability—with a sponsor who helps them develop the skills required to become a senior VP. Sponsors make sure executives hiring for senior roles know about the fellows: their stories, qualifications, and unique experiences.

Synchrony’s SVP for product optimization, Enrique Przeticky, has worked at the company for more than two decades, leading several teams during his tenure. But he said that the fellows program and his sponsor helped him actually “break the ceiling” into an SVP role. Keep reading here.—AD

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Josh Bersin has spent the past 25 years meeting with hundreds of companies and analyzing their HR practices—often sharing his observations with his over 850,000 LinkedIn followers. Along the way, he realized he was creating, what he called, a “manifesto on how to manage organizations.” After almost a decade of working on the book, he’s finally ready to share it.

Bersin’s new book, Irresistible: The Seven Secrets of the World’s Most Enduring, Employee-Focused Organizations, shares seven steps to creating lasting organizational success, including people management concepts ranging from how to structure teams to why it’s vital to put people over profits.

It’s strikingly pragmatic: Each chapter includes guidance on “how to get started” and “how to get it right.” He recommended to HR Brew that readers scan his book, then tackle the one principle they deem most pressing—HR can’t do everything at once.

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

Why did you decide on this subject for your book?

[Irresistible] is an idea of building a company that people really want to be a part of and is always reinventing itself to be better and better and better.

If you look at the top 10% or 15% [of companies], they’re all recognizable brands…what we call “enduring companies.” They’ve been through a lot of reinventions, they’ve been through a lot of business cycles, and they’ve come back, and they’ve learned in the process that they have to focus on their people; they have no choice.

There’s a quote in your book that I really liked—“your company grows into your people, people don’t grow into the company.” How is that related to the enduring companies concept? Keep reading here.

What book should HR pros read next? Click here to let us know.

Shrink your office space, shrink your operating costs—simple, right? Not quite. As CFO Brew’s Kristen Talman recently reported, employers that retained or reduced their real estate footprints are still shelling out cash to reimagine them for the future of work.

“We may be taking less square footage, we will be taking less overall floor space, but we’re now redesigning or rethinking what the workspace should look like, making it more collaborative,” [Scott Dussault, CFO of human-capital management software firm Workhuman], said.

According to the McKinsey Talks Talent podcast, while retailers have metrics such as foot traffic and customer engagement to evaluate their office space, there isn’t a similar metric for workplaces, so selling employees on the value of returning to an office isn't easy. Dussault likened the shift in office budget to now being a capital expenditure versus an operational one.

Interestingly enough, the hybrid workplace discussion has led to more CFO and CHRO collaboration, Dussault told CFO Brew, as company leadership attempts to develop a financially viable plan for facilities which also considers the employee experience. “It’s more than just…having ice cream in the break room or free lunches on Friday,” Dussault said.

Keep reading on CFO Brew.—KT

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 83% of employees worldwide say their well-being is just as important as their salary. (Gympass)

Quote: “I got this wrong and I take responsibility for that.”—Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on why Facebook’s parent company is laying off 11,000 employees (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: As tech employees face massive layoffs, their colleagues in other sectors are bracing for what may be to come. Experts say these steps can help them prepare. (the Washington Post)

Block burnout: Liberate combines mental wellness and team building to increase meaningful engagement at work. Connect as a team with live interactive classes, on-demand content, and a seamless Slack integration when you book your demo.*

IT can be easy: We teamed up with Electric to survey 500+ tech decision-makers about the challenges and solutions to scaling in today’s environment, and how they’re leveraging the right tools to alleviate common pitfalls for good. Read their insight here.*

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