HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM)

Talking HR 019: Involving employees in budget cuts

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:09:00 +0000

In this show, we discuss the current economic environment, particularly in Ireland and the UK. And we talk about what employers are doing to deal with the impacts of the recession, discussing in particular, British Airways’ recent wheeze to ask staff to work with no pay.

Jon also discusses passion and engagement, in connection with the MacLeaod review in the UK, and with employees of the French firm of New Fabris threatening to blow up their factory.

Resources:

Listen to the podcast: you can download the podcast to your hard drive or play it streaming from the web.

Photo credit: Sertion (the photo is supposed to be someone playing rock – paper – scissors with ‘scissors’ (ie cutting) – but you could probably interpret it as something else which might fit the BA discussion just as well!)

Technorati Tags: Recession,budget cuts,British Airways,Willie Walsh

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Recurring blog problems (Operation aborted)

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:14:00 +0000

In early June, I noted that I was experiencing problems accessing my blog. I later realised that this wasn’t just limited to my blog, but was something that many Google Blogger blogs are experiencing. So I made the changes that Google have been suggesting (for example, removing my Friend Connect widget) and thought this had resolved the problem.

However, I met someone earlier in the week who was still experiencing problems and I’m struggling to understand what else I might be able to do. (It should at least be a temporary problem as I’m sure Google will sort it soon!).

I’m hoping this is now a very limited problem, as no one else has been in touch to tell me about these problems, but I do want to do everything I can to resolve them and avoid you having them again.

So, I just want to repeat my earlier apologies if you have been experiencing problems. And to ask for your help in resolving them – if you do get an error message that says ‘operation aborted’ when trying to open my blog, please, please let me know:

- The page you were attempting to open

- The operating system and internet browser you’re using (IE, Firefox, Chrome etc)

- Whether this is something yo’ve experienced after reading this post or before.

You can either leave me a comment below (or if you can’t open this page to leave me a comment!), please email me at info [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com.

Many thanks!

Don’t forget, you can avoid any potential problems by subscribing to my blog feed in your reader at http://feeds.feedburner.com/JonIngham or via email at http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=JonIngham.

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The MacLeod Review

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:29:00 +0000

David MacLeod’s review of employee engagement has also been published today. 157 pages this time and more required reading for HR!

The report is introduced by Peter Mandelson who in typical fashion, oversells it by claiming that the report “sets out for the first time the evidence that underpins what we all know intuitively”. Despite this, there is a lot in here, including useful stats comparing engagement levels reported from different survey providers, and lots of short case studies too.

Noting that engagement levels across the UK economy are low, the review goes on to suggest that:

“If employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood, if good practice was more widely shared, if the potential that resides in the country’s workforce was more fully unleashed, we could see a step change in workplace performance and in employee well-being, for the considerable benefit of the UK.”

Many of the conclusions made in the report will be underwhelming to anyone who knows much about this area, but I did find some of these quite interesting, including:

On correlation and causation

“Some have questioned which is the chicken and which the egg – does engagement lead to performance or is it the other way around? Marcus Buckingham, who has studied this area for many years, concludes from various longitudinal studies that it is engagement that leads to performance, and this is a four times stronger relationship than performance leading to engagement. ISR, from different studies, have reached the same conclusion.”

On measurement and action

“We have also been struck by the number of people who told us of the equal importance of using instinct and judgment. It is also clear that simply doing a survey and publishing the results is not the same as an engagement strategy. Measuring engagement is simply a tool to allow you to find out how engaged your people are. Pfizer emphasised to us that engagement is a process not an event. Mark Mitcheson, Talent and Organisation Capability Lead at Pfizer, says: ‘We work hard to avoid falling into the trap that some other organisations make – assuming that doing a survey is doing engagement – it’s an important part of the process, but only part of it. There is a danger that you can spend too long looking at and analysing the figures, rather than engaging with staff on how to improve.’ As Andrew Templeman, of the Cabinet Office Capability Building Programme put it to us: ‘No one ever got a pig fat by weighing it’.”

On the personalisation of engagement

“There is an equally strong relationship between engagement and the drive in most organisations to ensure their workforce reflects the diversity of the UK’s people. Baroness Margaret Prosser, Vice-chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Chair of the Women at Work Commission, believes that ensuring fairness and equal opportunities at work for all employees lies at the heart of engagement. ‘It’s hard to imagine an engaged workforce where one group felt that their voice was being ignored. Ensuring equal opportunities and fair treatment is an essential strand of an engagement strategy.’

Her view was echoed by Donna Miller, European HR director of Enterprise rent-a-car. ‘Our view has long been that there shouldn’t be engagement differences among different sets of people[…]But we are changing this view now. We’re coming round to the idea that so much of engagement and management practice success is precisely how they deal with diversity, be it working with people of different ages, sex, ethnicity. As a business we must understand different types of people have different inclinations. It makes sense when you think about it. We’re about to pilot a management training project which specifically looks at how to build trust within teams that are made up of different people and ethnic backgrounds. Our focus is keeping the widest possible pool of talent available, and this now means looking at all types of employee.’ ”

On human AND social capital

Many people we spoke to also pointed to the limitations of an approach which regards the workforce en masse as ‘human resources’ leading to a monolithic and one-dimensional view of people. As Will Hutton, Executive Vice Chair of the Work Foundation told us: “We think of organisations as a network of transactions. They are of course also a social network.

Blockages to engagement

The report goes on to ask why, if employee engagement can deliver so many benefits, is the capture of this private and public value so often blocked. It suggests:

“Firstly, there are still too many chief executives and senior managers who are unaware of employee engagement or are still to be convinced of its benefits. Some are put off by evidence that the benefits of investing in engagement approaches may take time to show through in performance. Others experience little external incentive: data from America shows that the stock market does not fully value intangibles such as employee engagement, even when they are made visible by a publicly available employee survey, even though higher employee satisfaction is associated with stronger company share price performance.

Accenture point out that under half of chief financial officers appear to understand the return on their investments in human capital.

And many people we spoke to pointed to the danger of engagement being written off as ‘soft and fluffy’ rather than as a bottom line issue; others listed reasons which enabled leaders to avoid dealing with the issue, particularly ‘it won’t work here’ and ‘I don’t have time’.”

The real problem

I don’t discount these reasons, but I’m not convinced that they are the main problems either. Much more significant for me is the fact that:

“There persists a managerial mindset that ‘demeans human beings as human resources and human capital’ in the words of Henry Mintzberg, as opposed to creative and productive human beings – as one of many factors of production rather than as the wellspring of success. Behind this mindset lies a fear of losing control of the reins. And as one chief executive asserted to us: ‘Balance sheets don’t answer back. The risk of listening is that you may hear things you don’t want to hear.’

Poor leadership inexorably leads to poor management practice, where line managers fail to engage their staff. Where there is no pressure for engagement, poor line management can quickly douse enthusiasm. Poor management skills in dealing with people lie behind many of the factors of disengagement. As more than one person reminded us: people join organisations – but they leave managers. Mike Emmott of the CIPD pointed to the “seriously defective default assumptions” which he believes are still around, that managers get people to perform by telling them what to do – the traditional command and control model of management – or that the only thing that motivates people at work is pay.”

My conclusions and the role of the HR department

I agree with Mintzberg’s and Emmott’s perspectives (and I am, by the way, always careful to talk about people as providers of human capital, not the human capital itself). So I’m not that impressed with the report’s main recommendations the government and that this should use its unique position to raise awareness of employee engagement benefits and techniques and to ensure its support is aligned and tailored to the needs of different organisations in different sectors of the economy seeking to enhance levels of employee engagement.

This is at least relatively simple to do of course. Encouraging companies to shift from command and control to a more listening focused style of leadership is much harder to do, but this is where the real prize lies. And this is also the main opportunity for HR.

The report itself notes that:

“The evidence indicates that for it to be successful, leaders have to champion and line managers have to lead engagement. But the HR profession and HR practitioners have a vital role to play. As Jackie Orme, the Chief Executive of CIPD emphasised to us, a key challenge for the profession was to ensure that employee engagement ‘gets put on the table’ in companies and organisations. ‘HR can’t manufacture engagement, but we have a key role in helping companies develop the kind of organisational culture where engagement can thrive, and ensuring that managers have the skills to make engagement a reality.’ ”

I’d go a shade further. HR functions should take accountability for engagement levels and for ensuring they’re improved. They may not be responsible for engaging individual employees, but they should ensure that leaders and motivated and capable of doing this for themselves.

There’s plenty in this report to enable HR teams to deliver these improvements. And they may also find the following of help:

Technorati Tags: David MacLeod,Nita Clarke,Engaging for success,Enhancing performance through employee engagement

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The Walker Review

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:57:00 +0000

The review of the UK’s financial sector corporate governance conducted by Sir David Walker on behalf of Gordon Brown and published today seems to be to include some sensible ideas to avoid further stupidity and recklessness in the country’s banks.

First up: strengthening the role and responsibilities of Non-Executive Directors – including better Board level performance evaluation (an area I spent some time working on around the time that the OFR and Business Review were being launched).

Secondly: encouraging more active shareholding (an issue I’ve followed as a long-time Fellow of the RSA, developing on from the Tomorrow’s Company project to its current work on Tomorrow’s Investor).

Thirdly: ensuring the way bankers are paid doesn’t further encourage stupid behaviours (something I’ve been blogging on quite a bit recently), for example by scrutinising and publishing the pay of anyone who earns more than the average board-level executive. The report also recommends that half these peoples’ pay should be provided through a long-term incentive plan, with half of the LTIP vesting after three and the rest after five years.

I’ve already posted on my perspective that financial services HR departments are partly if not largely to blame for the banks’ failures and therefore our current economic miseries. And here’s a great opportunity for them to put the situation right.

HR needs to step in and sure that NEDs have the right roles and the right training, and of course that their rewards systems and organisational cultures are effectively designed as well.

It’s 142 pages long, but the report should be required reading for everyone working in UK financial services and beyond.

Note though, I did think Robert Peston made a great point in his interview on the Today show this morning: RBS didn’t collapse after its take-over of ABN Amro because it wasn’t aware of the risks – it new what these were and thought they were worth taking:

“Even smart, well-qualified people can be gripped by irrational exuberance – we shouldn’t get gripped by the idea that governance offers a perfect protection against catastrophe.”

Perhaps guarding against irrational decision making is an even bigger opportunity for HR, and is one I’m going to posting again on shortly.

Technorati Tags: David Walker,A review of corporate governance in UK banks and other financial industry entities

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Getting naked in the office

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

I’m just catching up on my TV viewing on Sky + following a recent business trip. First up, The Naked Office.

I’m sure this will have already been reviewed elsewhere (see for example, this interview in the Management blog), but I thought it was such provoking viewing that it was worth a quick review.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, which I presume will include most people outside the UK (although you’ll find quite a lot of it on You Tube – see for example, the clip inserted below), the programme dealt with a Newcastle based ad agency, ‘onebestway’, that calls in ‘top business psychologist’ David Taylor to advise them on their future. Taylor emphasis the need to ‘bring the truth in the room’ and suggests one way of doing this is to have a ‘naked Friday’ (not a particularly original idea as it was featured by a BBC3 series last year).

I’m not sure about the need to ask staff to strip, and the ethics are obviously dubious, but I think the central idea of showing how much a team can do together, by working together as one, is spot on. I often use exercises similar to Taylor’s one with a tent, to show the major impact a little bit more communication and leadership can have.

And it’s why I increasingly talk about social capital, rather than just human capital. It’s the relationships between people rather than just the people themselves that counts.

The other way of looking at it of course is that this was just a publicity stunt for David Taylor and his book, the Naked Leader; the ad agency and its vision to ‘make businesses stand out’; and Virgin 1, which clearly does need a bit of a relaunch. And I think given that this is almost certainly a significant part of the rationale, they could have done with a slightly more enticing blog.

Technorati Tags: David Taylor,Naked Leader,Naked Office,Virgin 1,onebestway

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HR web 2.0 applications / Resources

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:46:00 +0000

I’ve been asked by a contact of mine to suggest some resources for information on companies using web 2.0 applications within HR ie for recruitment, learning, engagement etc.

This is my short list. Any suggestions – what have I missed?

General:

Bertrand Duperrin’s Notepad

Michael Specht

Steve Boese’s HR Technology

Learning on the Leading Edge

Knowledge Infusion Centre of Excellence

Strategic HCM

Talking HR

Bill Kutik Radio Show

Recruitment:

Learning:

New Learning Playbook

Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies

Clive on Learning

Dare to Share

Engagement / Communications / Employer branding (I've not included things like FIR that relate to broader uses for communication):

Melcrum

Polly Pearson

As well as the above blogs and podcasts, there are a few print reports that I will also suggest may be useful, for example, the latest CIPD report. Again, any others?

Technorati Tags: HR,web 2.0,resources

Graphic: http://creatr.cc/creatr/

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Top talent management blog

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:20:00 +0000

If you think the MJ Memorial was the big event this week, you’re wrong!

Fistful of Talent has just published it’s fourth round of talent management blog power rankings and this blog is placed at number 13 out of 130 Talent, HR and Recruiting-related blogs.

Thanks to everyone at FOT, definitely one of my top reads.

Here are the other top scoring blogs for you to check out too:

The top 13 scores:

1. cheezhead™ (Power Index Rating - 96 | 1st Place Votes - 1 | v. 2.0 ranking - #1)

2. Your HR Guy (Power Index Rating - 72 | 1st Place Votes - 2 | v. 2.0 ranking #6)

3. HR Bartender (Power Index Rating - 68 | 1st Place Votes - 1 | v. 2.0 ranking - #17)

4. Compensation Force (Power Index Rating - 66 | 1st Place Votes - 1 | v. 2.0 ranking - #4)

5. Seth Godin (Power Index Rating - 57 | v. 2.0 ranking - #20)

6. Punk Rock HR (power index rating - 51 | 1st place votes - 1 | v. 2.0 ranking - tied #22)

7. Renegade HR (power index rating - 49 | v. 2.0 ranking - N/A)

8. TalentedApps (power index rating - 48 | v. 2.0 ranking - #24 + v. 4.0 winner!)

9. The Recruiter Guy (power index rating - 47 | 1st Place Votes - 1 | v. 2.0 ranking - #2)

10. All Things Workplace (power index rating - 45 | v. 2.0 ranking - #8)

11. The Business of Management (power index rating - 44 | v. 2.0 ranking - #21)

12. e-Recruitment/Social Workplace Blog (power index rating - 41 | v. 2.0 ranking - N/A)

13. Jon Ingham's Strategic HCM (power index rating - 37 | v. 2.0 ranking - N/A).

Technorati Tags: Fistful of Talent,HR Capitalist,top talent management blogs,Talent,HR and Recruiting-related blogs,rankings

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HR Carnival 8 July 2009

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:27:00 +0000

The latest carnival is being hosted by Aaron Queen at EffortlessHR, a provider of online HR software, forms and templates for small business owners (anywhere from 1 to 500 employees).

Rather tactlessly on my part, it includes my recent post on the low value of forms and templates! Sorry Aaron!

As usual, the carnival includes a whole heap of great posts from around the world (well, at least the US, UK and India), so do take a look.

Photo credit: Alon Laudon

Technorati Tags: HR Carnival,Effortless HR,HR templates

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Entrepreneurship is the way to go?

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:07:00 +0000

I’m out for my third week in Abu Dhabi and have been reading an interesting column by Jack Welch in Gulf News: Entrepreneurship is the way to go.

Apologies if you’ve seen this some time ago – it’s probably been out in the US etc for some weeks now.

However, I normally find Welch makes very sound observations, which is he got so much positive feedback from his session at SHRM last week, and I think this article is particularly important too.

Welch notes that people have been really shocked by the current recession, and when the economy finally improves, we’re going to be facing “a whole different hiring game: changed, and harder”:

“Many people don’t want to work for ‘the man’ anymore. They want to work for themselves or someone they know and trust…

A tidal wave of emotion is sweeping from coast to cost – see the hundreds of messages sent to us via our website and Twitter. To be someone else’s employee, people are saying, is to be subject to someone else’s whim.

The ultimate impact of this phenomenon could be profound. When the economy recovers, many companies might, for the first time ever, have to deal with a candidate pool that’s not particularly excited about working for them.”

While I’d point out that this change has been going on for some time (and is partly or evenly mainly why lots of people like me have already been working independently), and although I found the comments strangely parochial (I assume the coats Welch is talking about are not the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman!), I do believe these contain some important points. And it affects much more than just recruitment of course.

It’s also about making some big, cultural changes. As Welch says, companies have to:

“Stop acting as big companies – bureaucratic and impersonal – and start creating an atmosphere that’s fast-moving and vibrant…

People throughout the organisation will need to feel that what they say really matters, regardless of rank and title.”

Easy to say, harder to do of course. But if you want some help in creating an entrepreneurial culture in your company, give me a ring. I’ll be happy to help out, although I’m looking forward to some recuperation time back in the UK, resting after what’s been a rather long business trip, first.

Technorati Tags: Jack Welch,Entrepreneurship,Gulf,Abu Dhabi

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Another year / Your feedback

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:47:00 +0000

OK, so it’s now two years since I’ve been posting on this blog. And I’m looking forward to a third.

But I’m also keen to make this blog as valuable as I can for you. So that you’ll keep reading. Because that makes the writing feel much more worthwhile.

So, I’d really value your input, as I reflect on what I’m going to do with this blog this year.

What do you like?, what don’t you like?, what would you like to see more of / less of?

Please let me know, in the comments below, or send me an email, and I’ll do my best to provide it for you.

Many thanks, Jon.

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HCM strategy: Building Human Resources from the Inside Out

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:25:00 +0000

After commenting on the need to have a clear process as well as templates in developing people management strategy, I thought I should share my HCM strategy development process with you. Although I’ve been blogging about HCM for a couple of years (yes really – it’s this blog’s 2nd anniversary this month), and of course, although I have written a (/ the definitive) book on HCM, I don’t think I’ve ever actually shared this process before. (Although I have posted on one for developing HR 2.0 strategy which I guess is basically the same.)

The key point for me is that HCM strategy starts with organisational capability / human capital, not the business strategy. If this strategy is going to create as well as add value to the business, then the business strategy needs to be informed by, as well as supported by the HCM strategy. So the first question is something about what are we trying to do; what type of organisation are we, or do we want to become; or more specifically, what is it about our people, or our people management strategy, that can help us achieve competitive advantage through our people?

The HCM strategy then come from a diagnosis against this desired future state and it leads onto the development of an HCM scorecard, identifying the measures that will support the implementation of the strategy. Note that in my view, the measures come here, not earlier on. Strategy development should be a creative, artful process in which visions and stories are likely to have more impact than metrics and measurements. I know I disagree with lots of people on this point.

Also disagreeing with Dave Ulrich in his new book, I also think the focus is inside-out not outside-in. It comes from looking at what make people different within a particular organisation and what this might mean in terms of the capability, engagement etc that might be leveraged better in order to produce significantly more developed capabilities than the organisation’s competitors (or in the public and voluntary sectors, will enable significant transformation in the level of services that are provided). Outside-in perspectives lead to added not created value strategies, and therefore less impact on the business.

Finally, the strategy needs to be implemented through a combined focus on people, the organisation, and HR and management processes. And these often / usually need to be supported by further development of the HR and leadership / management teams.

I’m going to be posting quite a few blogs about this during July, so watch this space, or subscribe to my RSS feed in your reader at http://feeds.feedburner.com/JonIngham or via email at http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=JonIngham.

Technorati Tags: HR strategy,HCM strategy,HR Transformation,Building Human Resources from the Outside In,Dave Ulrich,Wayne Brockbank,Jon Younger,Mark Nyman,Justin Allen,inside out

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Does blogging support or hinder conference attendance?

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:10:00 +0000

I’ve been tracking commentary (via blogs and twitter etc) on three different conferences recently – the Social Recruiting summit at the Googleplex, Enterprise 2.0 in and SHRM annual conference in New Orleans. All have been easy and interesting to follow, although this is still a long way from being anything like the experience you can get from physical attendance.

I can also image that this much social communication must add value to the attendees who are using these tools. I have to imagine as I’ve not yet attended one where the tools are being used extensively – I usually end up being the sole person tweeting or blogging, which I still find helpful to me, and I hope others do too, but it is obviously a much more solitary experience.

In fact, if I were to want to attend any of these conferences next year, I would probably do so in order to meet and network with these other bloggers and tweeters, rather than for anything on the formal agenda of these events.

But am I (and probably you, as a reader of this blog) in a minority here?

What about the non-social media user attending theses events? (This probably applies more to the SHRM conference than the other two where most attendees are going to the conference because of their interests in social media.)

The good news is that heavy social media reporting is going to encourage these people to start using the tools. (It’s encouraging that the SHRM conference post on the ‘HR Bloggers’ session, Who Are These People and Why Should I Care?, is one of the most popular, but then again this is based upon a population of people who are already reading a blog).

The danger is I guess that even though these people are only going to see or know about a small fraction of the conversation going on on-line (blogs, tweets, SHRM Connect etc), this may be enough to make them feel part of the ‘out-crowd’, making them feel less welcome.

Is the heavy focus on media one reason why attendance at the SHRM conference has dropped 4000 people from 2008?

And how do we balance our need to connect and build relationships with people using these tools, while not excluding those who don’t?

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: SHRM09 conference,#SHRM09,HR Bloggers

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HR Carnival 24 June 2009

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:31:00 +0000

The latest HR carnival is being hosted by Mark Stelzner at Inflexion Point. I hope you enjoy it.

Technorati Tags: HR Carnival,Mark Stelzner,Inflexion Point

Photo credit: Roberta Vicario

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Developing an HR Business Plan / Strategy

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:06:00 +0000

“Errol, can you please send me the template as well...”

I’ve been keeping myself entertained over the last week by keeping an eye on the developing list of people asking for a copy of an ‘HR business plan template’ on HR Toolbox (over 60 requests in 2 threads so far).

I just really don’t understand what these people think they’re going to get, or how they think they’re going to benefit from having it.

The key to developing a ‘HR business plan’, by which I presume they mean a people management strategy, or possibly, the HR function plan that supports this, is understanding the process involved in creating this document effectively, including involving the right people in developing it, planning for the change management requirements etc, etc.

Simply looking at a list of headings and sub-headings tells you very little. If anything. Unless they are clear about the strategy development process first.

I’ve had the same issue a couple of times in my wider consulting when clients have asked for an example or template of a report or something I’ve developed before. Well, yes, I have, and if that’s what my client wants, that’s what I’ll give them, but I don’t honestly think it’s going to be of any use. And I don’t use templates myself as I think they limit rather than support my thinking. I’d much rather just develop something bespoke for the particular project that I’m working on.

I think it’s something about wanting to short-cut their thinking – and hoping that having a template will save them from having to do any further work. I don’t think it will.

If people / organisations want to develop sound, valuable people management strategies there are no short-cuts, and if they don’t know how to do it, I’d recommend, that when the opportunity is provided, they take the opportunity to work with other practitioners / consultant who’ve done this sort of thing before, and in the meantime, attend courses*, and read books and blogs such as this one, focusing on strategic HR.

I think they’ll find these much more valuable inputs.

* A good example is the Human Capital Institute (HCI)’s Human Capital Strategist (HCS) programme, which I deliver for them in the UK and Europe. In the Master HCS programme, we do give people a copy of a template – but it’s only useful because they’ve attended three days of training, looking at how a human capital plan is developed, first.

Technorati Tags: HR Toolbox,Human Capital Institute,Human Capital Strategist,HR strategy,HR plan,people management strategy,human capital plan

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Social Recruiting

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:23:00 +0000

I enjoyed participating virtually in the Social Recruiting summit at Google HQ earlier this week. There were some really good presentations, especially from Laurie Ruettimann of the Punk Rock HR blog, who I met face-to-face at Kennedy’s Recruitment conference last year.

Some other presentations missed the point a little though I thought. For example, although it was hard for Linkedin’s founder to say anything anything other than what he did say of course, I think social recruiting needs to be defined much more broadly than just using Linkedin like a glorified job board – to me, there isn’t actually much that is that social about doing this.

So – I thoughts there could have been some more useful presentations. I also thought it unfortunate that one of my favourite bloggers, Kris Dunn of the HR Capitalist / Fistful of Talent couldn’t attend, as I think he would have been able to raise the quality of the insights that were offered.

Oh – and it would have been really nice to get a virtual tour of the Googleplex as well, but I understand why this wasn’t possible.

But my main criticism was that there didn’t seem to be that much in what was presented that referred to what I would suggest are truly social approaches – for example, about setting up company owned communities to really establish deep and meaningful relationships with highly talented individuals as potential recruits (despite there having previously been a very good post about managing social communities for recruitment on the summit blog – although this may just have been something to do with the sessions which were broadcast).

And I thought there was a rather unnecessary focus on technology too. For me, social recruiting isn’t just about the use of social media. It’s about an approach that uses peoples’ social relationships between each other and with people in a firm as the basis for their recruitment activities. And this can be done in the real world as well as the virtual one, ie by ‘analogue’ as well as digital means.

I’ve made the same point about HR 2.0 recently.

I think this other, analogue, side has been described well in the HBR article I wrote about in my last post, in connection with the need to ‘develop the pool’:

“The most effective strategy for sourcing is to think not only about candidates themselves but also about people who may know the best ones. Rather than waste your time calling too many irrelevant prospects, talk to individuals who are likely to suggest several high-quality candidates right off the bat. The best leads will come from suppliers, customers, board members, professional service providers, and the like.

Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer puts out an ‘all points bulletin’ whenever he’s looking for senior talent – reaching out to recruiting firms, consultants he has used, industry associates, and board members. This strategy helps him identify great candidates and also find further contacts who can connect him with new prospects. As effective as this approach is, we’ve found few CEOs and senior executives who get as systematically and personally involved as Sharer does in the generation of candidates.”

I think it is this type of behaviour, whether done personally, or via technology, that is the real basis for a more social approach to recruiting the people we still need.

Technorati Tags: Social Recruiting,summit,Google,Definitive Guide to Recruiting,Claudio Fernandez Araoz,Boris Groysberg,Nitin Nohria

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Developing a Recruitment Strategy

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:16:00 +0000

At the CIPD’s Recruitment conference this week, it was announced that 40% of employers are reducing the number of new recruits they are hiring this year, and most organisations are focusing on retention rather than recruiting talent (no surprise there!). However, 73% of organisations are still facing recruitment challenges in certain areas where specialist skills are necessary (see my previous post on the cold war for talent).

So it’s a worry that only 58% of employers report having a formal resourcing strategy. Those that don’t could do worse than consulting Nitin Nohria’s article in last month’s Harvard Business Review. Supporting the CIPD’s findings, Nohria et al note:

“Most companies react to hiring situations as emergencies; that might explain why so many do it so poorly. When we surveyed 50 CEOs of global companies, along with a pool of executive search consultants who rated about 500 firms, we found hiring practices to be disturbingly vague: Respondents relied heavily on subjective personal preferences or on largely unquestioned organizational traditions, often based on false assumptions.

The executives we surveyed held widely differing views regarding the desirable attributes of new hires. They emphatically disagreed on whether it was best to hire insiders or outsiders, on who should be involved in the recruiting process, on what assessment tools were most suitable, and on what the keys were to successful hiring and retention.”

The authors suggest a seven step process for more effective recruitment:

Anticipate the need. They don’t use the phrase, but this is about conducting sound workforce planning.
Specify the job. Yeah, OK, most of the time – but I think there’s also an opportunity to find great people and build jobs around the people – see my previous post on job sculpting.
Develop the pool. I’m going to write more about this in my next post.
Assess the candidates. I think the authors make a good point here – that “it’s more important to choose the right assessors than to focus on the assessment technique”.
Close the deal. More good points: “Many executives in our survey think financial compensation is the linchpin in recruiting. But closing the deal is not just about money, it’s also about demonstrating to candidates that the organisation is committed to their success.” See my recent post on executive pay.
Integrate the newcomer.
Audit and review.

Not a bad process, but I think we can do better. I’m going to follow up on my recent post about a HR 2.0 strategy by posting my suggested approach for developing an HCM strategy too. And I think this can be used for recruitment needs as well.

Technorati Tags: CIPD,Recruitment Conference,Recruitment Retention and Turnover Survey 2009,Definitive Guide to Recruiting,Claudio Fernandez Araoz,Boris Groysberg,Nitin Nohria

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Talking HR 018: Employer Branding, with book review: Authentic Conversations

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:02:00 +0000

In this show, we discuss the ideas behind and purpose of employer branding, particularly in a recession. And we talk about the role of authenticity, and social media in supporting employer branding. We’re also joined for the discussion by Steve Boise, HR technology professor at RIT.

Krishna also talks about the new social recruitment site, TribeHQ. And Jon discusses SuccessFactors’ Employee Central application.

And we review a new book, ‘Authentic Conversations’.

Resources:

TribeHQ.com

Success Factors Employee Central:

Press release: http://www.successfactors.com/press-releases/detail/?id=1297043
Demo: http://www.successfactors.com/video/display/?width=720&height=480&file=/media/flv/EmployeeCentral-Demo.flv
Success Factors blog: http://www.successfactors.com/blogs/workforce-performance/
Success Factors podcast: http://www.successfactors.com/podcast/
Knowledge Infusion COE post: http://www.knowledgeinfusion.com/coe/message/2707#2707

Steve Boese contacts:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sbjet
Blog: http://www.successfactors.com/blogs/workforce-performance/
Podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Steve-Boese

Some Employer Branding blogs:

Polly Pearson's blog (EMC): Building and Branding Careers, Culture and Cool: http://www.pollypearson.com/main/
Libby Sartain's blog: Brand for Talent: http://www.brandfortalent.com/blog/.

Listen to the podcast: you can download the podcast to your hard drive or play it streaming from the web.

Technorati Tags: TribeHQ,Employer brand,authentic conversations,Jamie Showkeir,Maren Showkeir,Steve Boise

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How to fix Executive Pay

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0000

It must be such an interesting time to be a reward practitioner at at the moment. I don’t tend to get involved in this area myself, apart from at a very high albeit extremely valuable) level. My blog reflects this – I did very little posting about reward during the first year or so or my blog, but it has recently become one of my main topics of conversation. It’s also receiving a lot of attention elsewhere, including in a very interesting debate on CEO pay on Harvard Business Review’s website.

The context for this is the general perception that executive pay played a major role in creating the financial crisis and leading to the current recession by encouraging excessive risk-taking. And more specifically, there’s the US administration’s plan to rein in compensation at publicly traded companies by increasing shareholder and decreasing management influence on pay decisions (a bit like the system we have in the UK in fact - not that this seems to have done us much good!).

The case for leaving executive compensation to Boards and Rem Coms is made by Ira Kay from Watson Wyatt:

“Legislating and regulating executive compensation has the capacity to do real damage.”

Kay’s case is built on two pieces of WW research:

“Our research has shown that the traditional executive pay model using cash and stock incentives continues to work for the vast majority of companies. It motivates leaders to steer their companies toward high performance.”

In general, I agree with this point. Variable pay has an important role to play in any reward strategy. However, Kay should choose his words carefully. We know that pay is a hygiene factor, not a motivator (Herzberg). And it’s interesting to note the recent comments from Shell’s CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, stating that his reward has made no difference to his leadership performance:

“You have to realise if I had been paid 50 per cent more, I would not have done it better. If I had been paid 50 per cent less, then I would not have done it worse.”

"The idea that the incentive needs to be huge to elicit the right kind of behaviour is wrong. Institutional investors have got to get more used to saying 'no'."

Reward is just one element of an employment value proposition, even for a CEO, and we should be careful not to make too much of a meal of it. The danger of doing so is that we create the sort of money motivation in executives that we actually want to avoid (Lynda Gratton wrote an excellent article on this a few years back that I am still attempting to find).

“Our research shows that in general, high-performing companies' CEOs get paid a lot, and low-performing companies' CEOs get paid much, much less.”

Oh really? There is, of course, also quite a bit of research that indicates the reverse (see, for example, here).

Given these challenges, I disagree with Kay’s perspective and think that there is a need for a wholesale rethinking of the traditional executive-pay model. I don’t even think it’s an issue about framing, ie about whether we see his debate in practical, economic or moral terms.

There is a very practical problem in the fact that CEOs’ rewards have been increasing at a much faster rate than that of the employees they lead. This sort of differential detracts from organisations’ ability to create inclusive teams, working to a shared agenda.

There is a very practical problem in the fact that money motivated CEOs create a money, rather than a mission, orientation throughout the rest of the organisation too. This makes it harder to gain commitment rather than ensure compliance, from all employees.

There is a very practical problem in that organisations which pay CEOs very large rewards without increasing their motivation (eg Jeroen van der Veer) or influencing their organisation’s performance, are throwing money down the drain.

I’ve got nothing against Boards trying to find the best CEOs they can, and in paying them what their contribution is worth, but perhaps they need to balance the benefits of a less money-motivated, more team oriented leader against a potentially more talented (and therefore more costly) individually-oriented star?

Technorati Tags: Harvard Business Review,The HBR Debate,How to fix Executive Pay,Ira Kay,Watson Wyatt

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HR Carnival 10 June 2009

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:19:00 +0000

The new carnival is up at Rowan Manahan’s Fortify Your Oasis. Do take a look!

Technorati Tags: HR Carnival,Fortify Your Oasis,Rowan Manahan

Photo credit: Wanblee

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Tony Buzan mind mapping at the Learning & Skills Group conference

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:45:00 +0000

I attended a Learning & Skills group conference yesterday. My highlight was a presentation from Tony Buzan (listen to my Audioboo):

Listen!

And I’ve also had a go using the iMindMap software that was described in the presentation to develop a mind map of the conference:

I used to use mind mapping quite extensively and have included mind mapping on a number of development programmes I’ve run, but have got out of the habit. And I’ve also used a couple of different software systems in the past but none that works quite as easily as this. We’ll have to see whether it encourages me to rediscover the habit.

Technorati Tags: Tony Buzan,mind mapping,Learning & Skills Group,#LSGUK09

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The one church and the fat smoker

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:19:00 +0000

One of the best things I’ve read around inclusiveness (some time ago) is a chapter in David Maister’s book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, asking ‘are we in this together’? I’m referring to it now as it came back to my mind after reading the recent IES report on fairness and rewards.

Maister stresses (mainly for professional services firms) that the need for people to want to achieve something together is a prerequisite for effective strategy. But the situation is actually fairly scarce and leaders shouldn’t assume that people are ready and willing to work together to get things done.

Maister uses two dimensions of personality / belief: team, and time orientation, to show that most organisations have high levels of ‘biodiversity’. I’d suggest this diversity of preferences is even greater if you look at other traits and attributes as well. This is an important issue for organisations and Maister states: “Whereas there may be some logic and merit in like minded people being together, an organisation made up of an unmanageable mix of types is unlikely to function well.”

Two main approaches (other than spltting up or covering it up) are suggested to deal with this problems:

Try to accommodate differences: this is OK across but harder to do within individual groups
Work to change peoples’ orientation by crafting a sufficiently compelling vision – but this still isn’t going to be possible if there is a sizeable fixed component in peoples’ different attitudes.

(This presents an interesting challenges for banks trying to change their compensation systems to focus on long-term success. As Maister notes, “It is really possible to get short-term individuals to do the right thing for companies’ long-term best interests through persuasion or systems? – to set individual goals that will further corporate goals?”)

Maister points out that none of these approaches are very effective, so actually organisations need to look at how they create an organisation of people that have fairly homogeneous attitudes (at least to the things that enable them to work together to support the organisation as a whole) which he also calls the one-firm firm.

I think Maister makes some good points, although I’d also emphasise that organisations need a fair degree of biodiversity for effective innovation and decision making. But I do agree that some degree of commonality around critical factors (eg around whatever is the relevant organisational capability) is required if organisations are going to operate as ‘one church’ in the way that Duncan Brown at the IES describes. So becoming more inclusive needs a bigger focus than just reward strategy (doesn’t everything).

Technorati Tags: David Maister,Strategy and the Fat Smoker,Are we in this together,inclusiveness,banking

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Fairness and differentiation

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:53:00 +0000

The IES report, ‘Fairness: the ultimate reward goal’, is one of the first I’ve seen to address what I think is an increasingly important challenge within HR at the moment – and one that I’ve only addressed myself very superficially – the need to increasingly differentiate upon performance, but to help make organisations more inclusive too (as well as the potential conflict between these two requirements).

The report builds on the arguments made by Polly Toynbee in her recent book, Unjust Reward (which explains for example that FTSE 100 CEOs’ pay has increased from 17 to 75 that of average employees since 1990), but with a more specific focus on HR / reward management.

Firstly, Brown notes that rewarding high performance and ensuring market competitiveness have been increasing in importance compared to internal equity for some time. This goes back well before the need to differentiate high from low performers started to increase at the beginning of the recession.

Another aspect is the pay gap between men and women doing similar work. I’ve argued previously that despite the poor timing, the new Equality Bill will hopefully have a positive impact on this. But until it does, all of this has a big negative impact on employee engagement.

So what’s to be done? Brown argues that HR / reward professionals need to follow four main strategies:

Get strategic. Yep. And I also agree that “your reward strategy also needs to define what fairness means for your organisation”. Ie how you and your organisation are going to resolve the conflict between differentiation and inclusiveness.
Play fair. Conduct an equal pay review. Yep. Many UK organisations are going to have to do this now anyway. And the rest still should. Yes, it costs, but it’s worth doing to ensure that your organisation doesn’t discriminate in the way most do (and yours probably does as well). This isn’t just about fairness for fairness’ sake. It’s about engagement, productivity and business performance too.
Speak and sow, listen and reap. Yep. Communication, management development etc. All good things.
Be of one church.

This is the interesting one!

Brown argues, quite persuasively I think, that organisations need to treat their people in more similar, inclusive ways:

“In my view, companies should be going further and reversing the trend towards wholly distinctive reward arrangements for executives. It has become fashionable for example, to take senior executives outside of the job evaluation and pay structures applying to other staff. Why should there be different methods of evaluation, particularly when so much of the apparently necessary pay flexibility required for executives comes in the form of variable and not basic pay anyway? How does this help to reassure staff that all employees are being treated fairly and judged equally?…

While bonus opportunities may well differ according to scope for impact on the company results and with shareholder‐related measures emphasised at the top, why shouldn’t all employees have the opportunity to share in the financial success of their employer?

Tesco, our most successful retailer of the last decade, has reported an excellent take‐up of its latest all‐employee share scheme offer, despite the current depressed stock market. Over 165,000 employees own equity in the company and they benefited to the tune of around £181 million in 2007.”

This of course, the absolute opposite to what the Economist is recommending for reward strategies in banks – that they should continue to pay superstars in very similar ways to those they always have, but clamp down on the rewards (including the range of entitlements) enjoyed by the ‘extras’ (eg including HR).

I’m not sure that I’ve got a good answer to this dilemma. Partly because I think that each organisation needs to find their own answer to it themselves. But I think it’s a really important question at the moment, and one that deserves more airtime than it currently seems to get (so well done, IES).

Technorati Tags: Fairness,the ultimate reward goal,eqity,differentiation,dilemma,Duncan Brown,Insititute Employment Studies,IES

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HCM and Talent Management in Africa

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:02:00 +0000

I'm in Kampala, Uganda next month, presenting on talent management along with ministers, professors and HR / L&D / other Directors from governments, universities and companies in Africa.

Let me know if you're going to be in Kampala on the 8-10th July and would like to meet.

Technorati Tags: Talent management,HCM,HR,Afirca,Uganda

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HR’s spineless response

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:53:00 +0000

I still feel a little uncomfortable about my last post – suggesting that some of my readers and potential clients may be overpaid probably isn’t the smartest business move I’ve ever made.

Still, we can at least take comfort from Human Resources’ report that HR salaries see double digit rises (even if this needs to balanced against People Management’s opposite findings that a quarter of HR and recruitment specialists have had their pay cut).

Also, I believe there is a growing need for all people in business, and particularly in HR, to be more authentic, and I’m trying to role model this approach myself.

After all, the dangers of inauthenticity are increasingly clear. One is the sort of collusion between politicians, regulators, mortgage lenders, estate agents etc that has led to the financial crisis. But HR has also been culpable for much of this muck. As a really interesting report from Duncan Brown, now at the IES, notes:

“Commentators seem to all agree with the
Financial Services Authority chief executive Hector Sants
who wrote in an inquisitorial letter to his banking peers
last October, that ‘there is widespread concern that
inappropriate remuneration schemes have contributed to
the current market crisis’. One recent survey of the HR
executives involved in designing and administering
some of those schemes presents a somewhat spineless
response, along the lines of, ‘we knew there were
problems with the designs, but were afraid to act first in
case we lost our best people to competitors’.”

Spineless indeed. But then I’ve been participating in this collusion too. An example is my concerns about remarks made at a CIPD conference in 2007. Although I thought the approach one of the presenters was describing was a disgrace, as I was sitting in a room of potential clients, I didn’t challenge the speaker at the time – or even in my blog till much later on.

I regret now that I didn’t challenge this more – and I can only hope that readers value my recommitment to authenticity and robustness (you may even want to try doing it yourself? – in your business – and in your comments on this post – authentic and robust comments are always welcome here!).

Photo credit: FIR0002

Technorati Tags: Authenticity,collusion,HR,reward,banking

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HR Blog Search Engine

info@strategic-hcm.com (Jon Ingham) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:49:00 +0000

Halogen Software have created an HR Blog search widget on Halogen’s website.

HR professionals can use the tool to search the top HR blogs (including this one) along with Google, Bing and whatever else you use.

http://www.halogensoftware.com/resources/hr-blog-search/

Technorati Tags: HR,blog,search,Halogen Software

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