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Talking 'bout the next generation: Sue Young, Berkshire Consulting (June 2010)
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The new generation of high fliers has arrived, and organisations are being forced to adapt in
order to attract, retain and develop the best young talent around. The key question is: how can
employers best engage with this so-called ‘iGeneration’?
One key issue is that the graduates emerging these days have greater expectations than
those starting their careers 15-20 years ago. Previous generations of graduates were just as
ambitious, but they were also prepared to meld more readily into the culture of an
organisation.
The iGeneration have been brought up with instant access to a wealth of information and as a
result they are more worldly-wise. iGeneration graduates expect to be more informed and
engaged in their organisation’s decision-making processes: they also anticipate a wider range
of opportunities for career progression.
To address this, the traditional style of top-down management needs to change. The iGeneration will challenge any suspicion
of being fed a corporate line and they won’t hesitate to go elsewhere if they don’t believe the organisation will meet their needs.
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Right conversations for the right results: Malcolm Follos, Sensei UKE (Jan 2010)
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In discussions about leadership, much is made of how vital superb ‘execution’ is. In my view,
though, leadership is largely about how we relate to peers and stakeholders of all stripes. Such
relationships in turn live or die on the quality, authenticity and, at times, courage evident in the
conversations in which they are anchored.
To execute and get the right results, we must have the right conversations – consistently and
passionately.
Of course, talk is not in short supply in most organisations – but the ratio of ‘transmissions’ to
‘discussions’ is a real cause for concern. In fact, I have coined a new directive, called ‘the first
law of flip charts’. This states that if the word ‘Issues’ or ‘Challenges’ is written at the top of a
flipchart, the word ‘Communication’ automatically appears somewhere on the page!
We live in an age of communication but, as with many things in life, leaders seem to have
mistaken quantity for quality.
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HR: the anti-change agent?: Joseph Ajuwon (October 2009)
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More than a century ago, the role of HR was born out of necessity during the industrial
revolution. Until then, trade and commerce stemmed from a master-mentor relationship, with
skills and crafts being passed simply from one to the other. But this all began to change with
the invention of the Jacquard loom by Joseph-Marie Jacquard in the early 1800s.
His machine significantly altered the master-mentor dynamics because single operators could
now weave complex patterns. This in turn opened the way to employing more people to work
on this industrialised machinery, thereby increasing the production outputs of weaving
companies. Similarly, many other industries using mass assembly lines sprung up all over the
US and Europe.
Over time, companies realised that employee relations were crucial to an increasing bottom
line, and government regulation too progressed to protect these same employees from
exploitation – and the role of the HR department was born.
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Upside of the downturn: Rick Emslie, Emslie Analytics (July 2009)
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I was recently in discussion with an HR director who was in that state that most of us find
ourselves at one time or another – a mixture of anger and deep frustration.
She told me that her executive colleagues had just chosen her carefully crafted and longnurtured
leadership development programme as one of the casualties of a cost-cutting exercise
to fend off the worst ravages of the current downturn. She was frustrated because so much time
and emotional investment had gone into the programme, and angry because her colleagues just
didn’t ‘get it’.
Naturally, I wanted to be sympathetic, but unfortunately the well-intended route I took the
conversation down didn’t help to make things better! I expressed amazement that her
colleagues should torpedo her programme when she was obviously able to point out not only
the ROI (return on investment) of the programme, but also the opportunity costs of shelving the
project now.
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Righting the wrongs: Denis Barnard, HRmeansbusiness (May 2009)
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HR information system (HRIS) projects continue to suffer from problems, many of which relate
to the use and management of the technology.
This was highlighted by a recent study from Talent Q, reported in HR Magazine, which found
that 82% of HR staff do not measure the return on investment (ROI) on their practices. As a
result, HR professionals struggle to be seen to provide value to their organisations
(http://tinyurl.com/cynbk6).
Certainly, the most common assumption in ROI papers drawn up by organisations to justify their
HRIS spending is that having an absence module will automatically reduce absence. This
assumption is then compounded by sums calculating percentage savings in terms of
days/salaries.
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. You can have the most sophisticated absence
recording software available and still not make a dent in absence rates.
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HR, heal thyself: Andrew Spence, Glass Bead Consulting (April 2009)
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In a recession, businesses need to react quickly by changing their strategy; in some cases this
will mean implementing massive transformation programmes.
HR’s priority should be to support these organisational moves. It therefore needs to provide
leadership on the major related people challenges – such as workforce planning, talent
management, succession management, mergers, acquisitions and improving employee and
management performance.
This is good news for those HR professionals who joined specifically to make a difference to the
management and performance of people. The economic downturn is the perfect window of
opportunity to show the real value that HR can add.
The problem is that the day-to-day activities of managing a modern HR department have become more pressing, so that effort
is diverted away from HR strategy. In addition, HR professionals are often involved in large projects such as change initiatives,
redundancy programmes and major restructuring.
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Committed to engagement: Bettina Pickering & Amy Finn, PA Consulting (Jan 2009)
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Research over the past 10 years has shown a clear link between employee ‘engagement’ and
employee performance. Some notable examples include: in 2001, Gallup carried out thousands of interviews to demonstrate the link between
employee engagement and performance. As a result, it developed the Q12 survey based on 12
key expectations, that when addressed appropriately, improve employee performance
(www.gallup.com); in 2003, Professor John Purcell and his team from Bath University created the Bath
People and Performance model, developed by studying 12 high-performing organisations
over three years. The model clearly shows the link between ‘people levers’ (a significant
number of which are employee engagement-related) and discretionary effort
(www.cipd.co.uk); and in 2004, Professor James Oakley on behalf of the Forum for People Performance
Management and Measurement conducted a study of 100 companies in the US to highlight the
direct links between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and profitability
(www.performanceforum.org).
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Getting a hold on head office: Claire Arnold, Maxxim Consulting (October 2008)
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Head office is the one place that businesses love to deride. In a typical large company, a ‘them
and us’ mentality is almost always prevalent – with the ‘troops’ of the individual business units
firmly convinced that without the constant interference of HQ they would be free to run their own
affairs, get on with framing their own destiny and succeed untrammelled by bureaucracy.
Similarly, HR is the function that most people can find fault with. Horror stories of HR-related
cock-ups form part of the corporate myths at most of the companies we’ve worked with. HR is
blamed for everything from allocating the wrong number of holiday days to botching a crucial
senior appointment.
So, is this role of the villain all they have in common? In reality, the interaction between HR and
the corporate centre is a little more complex. The corporate centre is not just ‘head office’ – any
more than HR is just ‘recruitment’.
The corporate centre forms a company’s face to the outside world and the corporate ‘brain’ of the business, setting goals for
the business and the rules by which commercial activity is undertaken.
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To train or not to train?: Shelley Fishel, The Training Surgery (June 2008)
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Organisations large and small are looking for ways to reduce their operating costs in the
current financial climate; the number of staff is being pared down and budgets are being
slashed. Training – and IT training in particular – often falls into this category of an overhead to
cut. The thinking is, ‘We can’t afford to spend X on training, we need to use that money for
infrastructure’ or ‘If we spend the money on training we may have to lose a member of the
team’.
But this may be short-sighted, particularly if organisations fail to consider the newer forms of
training that are available to help them reduce costs while maintaining or improving skill levels.
As an example, consider the skill area of management report writing. In this day and age, more
senior people are being asked to create their own documents. Gone are the days where a
middle manager had their personal secretary by right. Nowadays with the advanced software
capabilities we all have, there is no need for a secretary.
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Getting engaged: Peter Flade, Gallup (April 2008)
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‘People are our most important asset’ is one of the oldest aphorisms in business. But if
you were to ask any CEO what distinguishes their workforce from the competition, they’d
probably say that they’re just better. And if you were to ask about how worker
psychology creates economic value, you’d probably get generic statements about
loyalty, empowerment and motivation.
What’s more, while many companies say their employees are their greatest asset, very
few measure success through employee engagement. Most use metrics such as sales,
profit or margins. But while sales figures are undoubtedly important, they are actually
trailing indicators of success because they show what’s happened in the past and not
what’s around the corner.
A better measure of performance are leading indicators – in this instance, levels of employee engagement, which can
give a quantifiable indication of future performance.
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Building flexi-working: Mike Robinson, Dimension Data (December 2007)
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Today’s digital communication technologies, such as mobile phones, email or the internet, are
making a real difference in many different ways to everyday lives. One of the most significant of
these changes is the engendering of new working patterns. The workplace can now be
anywhere, and workers can interact with colleagues and clients wherever they are.
Research by Dimension Data suggests that 73% of UK organisations offer this kind of flexiworking.
The survey, which involved IT managers and IT users in 13 countries, also shows that,
globally, organisations’ motivation for offering flexi-working centre on increasing employee
productivity (41%), employee retention (13%), and compliance with existing or future work/home
initiatives (12%).
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Tackling the leadership crisis: Fiona Czerniawska, MCA (October 2007)
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Demographic shifts, globalisation and the rise of India and China all mean that organisations will need to operate differently if
they are to survive and thrive in the future – with huge implications for the way they manage talent. What types of skills will be
important in the future? How do you manage talent effectively in a large, complex organisation? And how do you ensure you’re
developing the best of all your people?
In this context, it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent Management Consultancies Association (MCA) survey confirms that
talent management is a high priority for the most senior people in today’s organisations: 63% of respondents say that talent management is a high priority for their chief executive; 70% recognise they need to do things differently if they are to compete effectively for the people they need in the future; and 61% of the organisations believe that talent management will be integral to their survival.
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Who's responsible for innovation?: Tom Barry, BlessingWhite (June 2007)
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In the 1950s Peter Drucker made a controversial observation: “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the
business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce
results; all the rest are costs.”
It would seem many leaders agree with him, at least about innovation. Just last year – in BlessingWhite’s survey on ‘Leading
Technical Professionals’ – 69% of leaders surveyed agreed that encouraging risk-taking and innovation within their team was
important – although, rather worryingly, only 42% rated themselves as effective at doing just that.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that this leaves 31% of leaders who apparently don’t think encouraging innovation
is important. At a time when innovation has been seen as critical to competitiveness, this finding is surprising.
Perhaps the leaders surveyed think innovation is someone else’s job? Or perhaps they interpret it as a responsibility for
creating the ‘next big idea’ – not something that can be applied to their team’s daily activities?
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HR's new wave: Leopold Loop, Logica (April 2007)
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The role of HR directors is evolving quickly as a result of increasingly volatile and
competitive markets, the move to a knowledge economy, and the effects of globalisation.
Often reporting directly to CEOs, modern HR directors must be equipped to shape
people strategies which realise wider business goals at the very highest levels of an
enterprise.
They are often integrally involved in organisational design, change management and
leadership development. Yet administrative tasks can distract them from this high-value
strategic work – and increasingly HR directors are considering new methods of
managing global workforces in a cost-effective, standardised and automated fashion.
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Getting the measure of human capital: Bernd Irmer, Infohrm (December 2006)
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The increased importance of human capital has created a strategic imperative in many organisations for improved workforce
measurement. However, while HR executives understand the business decisions that human capital metrics should support,
they are less confident in their organisation’s ability to effectively achieve this.
Advances in technology have greatly increased organisations’ capacity to accurately and efficiently record and report human
capital data, but this improved access has not translated into greater insight and strategic impact. The predominant application
of HR information systems remains administrative, with limited analytic applications.
Over the last three years, the Infohrm Group has undertaken a research programme with over 50 organisations to understand
how to realise the full strategic value of human capital measurement. Overall, we have found that – regardless of size, location,
or industry – organisations share the same goals and face similar challenges in their human capital measurement efforts.
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Making a market in talent: L Bryan/C Joyce/L Weiss, McKinsey (October 2006)
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Savvy companies understand the competitive value of talented people and spend considerable time identifying and recruiting
high-calibre individuals wherever they can be found. The trouble is that too many companies pay too little attention to allocating
their internal talent resources effectively.
Few companies use talented people in a competitively advantageous way – by maximising their visibility and mobility, and
creating work experiences that help them feed and develop their expertise. Many a frustrated manager has searched in vain
for the right person for a particular job, knowing that they work somewhere in the company. And many talented people have
had the experience of getting stuck in a dead-end corner of a company, never finding the right experiences and challenges to
grow, and, finally, bailing out.
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HR's hottest seat: Richard Reeves and John Knell, Penna (July 2006)
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Public services are bathed in the political and media spotlight, as the Prime Minister attempts to bludgeon them into creating
his legacy, the Chancellor (and next PM) prepares to turn off the funding tap, and customers – their expectations raised by
political rhetoric – clamour for better, faster, nicer, more convenient services. The next election looks set to be fought on the
basis of whether voters are willing to pay for the new ‘enabling state’ (Brown) or reluctant to pour good money after bad down
the throat of unreformed public services (Cameron).
Public services are, in management jargon, ‘people businesses’. Payroll is the biggest cost. The skills, performance and
engagement of staff – nurses, librarians, police, civil servants, New Deal advisers, teachers – are the lifeblood of the public
sector. This is the sector where taxpayers’ money is directly targeted to meeting social need and creating social opportunity.
This means that the ‘people people’ – especially those charged with responsibility for human resources in public sector
organisations – are in the hottest of hot seats.
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Should it stay or should it go?: Mike Gibbs, EquaTerra (May 2006)
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This article looks at what companies should be evaluating when assessing whether to
outsource their HR functions. It examines the likely benefits of outsourcing, and how to
assess outcomes against best internal practice.
While companies make the decision to outsource for a variety of reasons, cost reduction
tends to be the primary driver. However, companies miss out when cost reduction is the
sole driver. Instead, HR executives should consider the entire range of benefits - from
maximising resources and making service improvements to greater capacity and scale,
new capabilities and ultimately business transformation as organisations free-up
resource to focus on core business.
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Sum mistake: Denis Barnard, HRmeansbusiness Ltd (March 2006)
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Over the recent years I have specialised in working more in the field of HR (and payroll)
systems - with clients who want to buy their first HR system, replace an existing one, or
see if they can get more out of what they already have. It is striking how often that,
somewhere along the way, these organisations have chosen (or are proposing) to
burden themselves with software that would require an army to actually keep it running
at full capacity, and costs an inordinately large sum of money to purchase.
The mere fact that there is provision in a system for recording O and A Level
attainments does not mean that these fields have to be populated! There are a plethora
of fields that are just not used and have no relevance to the needs of the organisation -
but then providers are not usually forthcoming at ‘switching off’ unwanted features.
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