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It’s the Sunshine Summer Solstice #HRCarnival!

It’s midsummer. Whether you’re celebrating, ignoring or just happy that we’ve got as much daylight as we’re going to get in a day this year, the HR Carnival has rolled into Town and it’s my pleasure to be your host.

For us in the UK this part of the calendar usually means RRRAAAWWWKKK at Glastonbury or strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, whilst across the pond a fair few readers will be jetting off to the Sunshine State and SHRM National in Orlando.

For those heading that way make sure you check out the first carnival post from Dwane Lay on The Big Lebowski tribute that will be helping to raise money for the very worthy No Kid Hungry campaign. Hope to see many of you taking part.

No doubt a lot there (and here for that matter) will be thinking about the HR profession and why they go into it. In which case this post from Will Thomson, writing on the Blogging4Jobs site, is a must read.

If you want to chat this over with a few others then you’d better make sure you learn your ‘Mench‘! Don’t know what I mean? Then let Dorothy Dalton’s blog enlighten you on the pitfalls of over-communication.

And talking of communication, will you be using your mobile? Anita Lettink’s post makes some observations about HR delivery and the emerging workforce.

There are many times when we need to be thankful for what we’ve got. In this very personal blog Jeff Harmon reflects on something that happened to him last year, and what he’s learned from it in 2014 so far.

Well that kind of rounds up the Carnival entries – not a lot to share this time round – so I thought I would add in 3 posts that have really got me thinking over the last couple of days. Hope they resonate with you.

Firstly Perry Timms writes it as he thinks it in a look at the ‘Soundbite City’ we inhabit. Who needs Pharrell when you’ve got some early Joe Tex.

Then top blogger FlipChart Rick looks at big vs small and concludes that small may not be that powerful after all, unless…well, I’ll let you read it.

And finally my old boss Felix Wetzel asks if the folks in Silicon Valley are spreading socialism and anarchy around the world in ‘Anarchy in the USA’.

Hope you enjoy the Carnival, and remember that sun protection cream if you decide to read it on your deckchair 🙂

(image via English Heritage)

 

From HRD to Head of Integrity at #HRVision14

One feature I’ve enjoyed at HRVision has been the spicing up of keynote sessions with challenging talks of a more TEDx nature, questioning some of the ethics and priorities of business. On the first morning we had Tim Macartney challenging legacy and on the second morning it was the turn of Unilever’s Geoff Macdonald to throw down the gauntlet on purpose and integrity.

It was a powerful, passionately delivered session in which he set out some thoughts for a kind of Capitalism 2.0. Some of the things he said:

  • Let profit follow purpose
  • There are too many strategies and not enough culture
  • Don’t talk about consumers, talk about human beings
  • Stop marketing to consumers and start mattering to people
  • Put purpose at the heart of everything you do

There were two specific things he said that seemed to have a big impact on delegates. The first was about the Unilever Corporate Social Responsibility team, and how they had effectively closed it as a separate function to enable them to live CSR through their people and their brand, and everything they do – ‘It can’t be a department but must live through our products‘

The second was a call to HR professionals to stop obsessing on being business focused and to assume the role of Chief Integrity Officer for the business – ensuring they pursue purpose ahead of profit and don’t carry on doing business in the same way. “Create the culture that shifts behaviours” he said and channelled Drucker with “in a battle between culture and strategy there’s only one winner every time“.

Before Geoff we had the energetic and engaging Hollie Delaney from Zappos introducing the conference to their core values and culture. The three most popular takeaways were:

  • Culture is everyone’s job
  • If you trust your people to do the right thing then they will
  • Organise the work not the people

Having culture as the cornerstone to recruitment, performance and hence hiring and firing may seem harsh, and might also raise questions over diversity, but it seemed to resonate well around the room.

The morning had opened with Gary Kildare, Global VP/CHRO from IBM. He told us that

  • Engagement isn’t just about people inside your organisation but everyone you do business with
  • There’s no ‘war’ between generations
  • Hierarchy is dead

…and that senior leaders need to be open to change, good listeners, accept that there are other ways of doing things and to create opportunities for everyone in the organisation to achieve and develop their potential.

To some following from afar his observations may not come as news, but at events such as this it is usually the delivery, the energy and chemistry amongst attendees in the room, and the conversations and interactions that follow, that strengthens the message. To have the global CEO of a major business open the first day and a global VP the second, also strengthened the impact.

Overall the talk of integrity, purpose and belief in a better way of doing business, the strength of culture over strategy, and of building trust was an intoxicating brew for many. Taken together with yesterday’s session on legacy and sustainability, and linking it all with the power of social networks, we’ve been offered an interesting challenge and vision to take back to our businesses.

 

What We’ve Been Talking About at #HRVision14

During the afternoon sessions on Day 1 at HRVision I mainly went to presentations on talent management and engagement. There were some case studies and one or two supplier tracks. I don’t mind those as long as they share some insight rather than pitch – the ones I attended thankfully did the former.

Here are some of the things I heard:

 

‘If you think someone’s worth talking to then they must be worth listening to‘

This came from Emmajane Varley of HSBC during a presentation on their employee comms, the team that she runs.. It was an interesting session as she co-presented with her sister Jenny who runs the video channel HSBC Now TV (here’s a review from Rachel Miller a few months ago). She opened with “our leaders had done 148 years and we had had enough. There were too many people with their fingers on the talk button of the walkie talkie“. We had examples of employee involvement and talk of how leaders had embraced the shift from talking to openness and listening. Employee feedback showed an increase in being valued and many felt they had a say in management decisions – probably more the ear of leadership than a seat at the table.

 

‘Leaders need to be enablers’

During Ralf Larsson’s run through of the Electrolux employee engagement overhaul we heard of how managers had embraced blogging as a way of communication through the social intranet and also how having a mobile interface had driven more use. He talked of the positive impact of moving leadership away from being directive to being inclusive and from taking the role of enablers:

  • explains what employees need to do to support each other
  • encourage exchange of ideas and knowledge among employees
  • explain reasonoing behind decisions
  • trust employees to make decisions

 

 

‘You can also find out where to get a coffee’

One of the most impressive tech applications was from Accenture and their Candidate Interview Preparation App. There’s also one for the interviewer to help make sure that they are prepared too. Watch this video explaining more about the candidate app…they even let you know where the nearest coffee shops are…

 

‘Don’t just focus on your perm workers, understand your contingent workforce too, their passion and value for the organisation’

One of the supplier presentations was from Sally Hunter of Kelly OCG. She looked at various aspects of strategic workforce planning and also talked of the candidate experience, raising the difference between the way we treat consumers and job applicants even though the latter may also be the former. It’s a message we often discuss, but with different audiences at each event it’s one that needs to be repeated.

The main part for me though was about the expectations and needs of contingent workers. In my event preview I raised the point about engaging people who work for you, and represent you, but may not be employed by you. Many presentations around talent and recruitment feature examples from businesses that outsourcer some of their workforce – maybe we need to hear more about the worker/collaborator experience as well as the employee experience.

 

‘Diversity means nothing without inclusion’

The topic of diversity has been raised a few times. The point being strongly made is that without Inclusion it means nothing.

During the HSBC session we saw videos from employes talking about issues that they behave had with weight and mental health and support that they received. They also shared this video from Antonio Simoes, Head of HSBC UK, on diversity and inclusion…

 

 

Leadership and Legacy Under The Spotlight at #HRVision14

Three hours in to HRVison14 and we’ve been hearing a lot about leadership. In amongst the presentations on culture change and learning, and during the almost complete silence as people listened, spellbound to Tim Macartney, the underlying theme is leadership.

Tim said:

Leadership is a choice.
An invitation to become truly courageous.
Explore what would make a beautiful life.

He captivated the 200+ delegates with a passionate plea to create a greater purpose, to challenge the notions of wealth accumulation, competition and streamlining by having business purpose & values centred around being proud of what have achieved in this lifetime.

He channeled the native American Indians “no product or service, no manner in the way we do business, should be allowed to impact the children for seven generations to come“. In their eyes he believed that today’s core leadership focuses of competition, market share and being top in their field may ultimately seem like hollow victories.

Before Tim we had heard from Frans van Houten, Global CEO of Phillips, on their global culture transformation. Bringing about change within a traditional, established global business, with embedded organisational structures and inevitable silo mentalities, takes time and a fresh approach – “it’s easy for established businesses to work in silos that create a survivor mentality, inevitably leading to people ducking decision rather than taking risk”

A few of his messages that I noted were:

  • Focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, bringing value to customers that makes them smile and makes them happy
  • Always act with integrity
  • It’s not about working harder but about working differently
  • Equip people with new tools, it will help them solve different problems
  • You need to make sure that change doesn’t just happen on the surface
  • Courageous conversations break the cycle of victim mentality and complaining mindset
  • Make the purpose your ‘north star’, the guiding principle that everyone wants to follow

Clearly all this requires a huge shift of mindset from leadership, particularly those used to meeting challenges by shuffling the org structures. Frans was particularly scathing of those who change structures expecting an uplift in performance; his preference was for agile teams created around a problem or project operating across functions.

The session after Phillips was from GE who spoke of strong leaders having a confident humility and learning agility. Their philosophy – Together, we all rise.

Starwood Hotels later spoke of leaders needing to embrace individualism, identity and inclusion within their teams (diversity is nothing without inclusion) whilst at the same time supporting them in making emotional intelligence, continuous feedback and management by objectives core leadership skills to meet developing workforce expectations.

Leaders usually take the plaudits when business performance is strong, when share price and profits are unceasing, so it’s probably right that they are under the spotlight when things need to change.

The words vision, value and opportunity have been heard quite a lot this morning but it was the concepts of legacy and sustainability – most notably from Tim Macartney’s session – that have probably really got most of the HR professionals here talking and thinking.

 

Cultural Influences and Youth Employment

I’ll start this post with a few observations…

When a TV programme or news outlet wants to discuss climate change do they call on a scientist or meteorologist? Someone who has done extensive research?

No. They usually call on a journalist who has an opinion but little evidence to support it save for a few coincidences.

And when a TV programme or news outlet tries to discuss HS2 or a similar large scale engineering project do they call on an engineer or project manager who can bring such a topic to life?

No. They usually call on someone representing a countryside preservation or NIMBY pressure group.

Barely a day passes without warnings of a lack of STEM skills or concerns over how to get school leavers and graduates interested in studying STEM subjects.

Yet there is interest in automotive engineering – hardly surprising given how glamorous, sexy, iconic and financially rewarding Formula 1 appears from our print, broadcast and online media.

What is the first adult TV drama to which children are usually exposed?

Soap operas. Almost everyone in Wetherfield or Albert Square is either self employed or works in a micro business. They are very adaptable too – comfortably switching from market trader to estate agent or managing a kebab shop, seamstress to secretary or hairdresser. Anyone having full time employment with a large employer will almost certainly be public sector – teacher, fireman, doctor, council official, market inspector.

I have recently taken part in a range of conversations and events that relate to either self employment, youth enterprise or the shortage of skills. At each one we hear statistics of how our 18-24 year olds want to start their own businesses, or how they favour career advancement over pay and benefits, or even how they would rather be actors than engineers.

Thing is, its almost always been that way. My peers, many years ago now, all wanted to start their own businesses rather than work for large corporates. Even at a large private school (yes, I’ll admit to going to one of those) most of us wanted to work for ourselves not someone else. No-one surveyed us though.

Some of this comes from our influences during adolescence, the crucial socio-economic, cultural and family influences between 13 and 18 that help to shape values and aspirations. Certainly today’s 18-24 year olds have had 6 years of global recession, banking crash, bonus scandals, shareholder revolts, Fred the Shred, MPs expenses and the like, not to mention watching the parental generation lose their jobs, work harder for less for fear of redundancy, possibly embrace self employment, or suffer a humiliating job hunt. Little wonder that they seem to turn their back on big business.

They have also had a few years of being told that there aren’t enough graduate jobs available, that they may have to be baristas or stack shelves to prove that they can get up in the morning, that the job for life is now a life of jobs – little surprise that being your own boss may sound attractive. More a case of self sufficiency than entrepreneurial zeal.

And as I mentioned earlier, the first role models that most have of working arrangements (aside from parents) will be from the TV and popular culture, and those tend to be self employed, adaptable and resilient. It starts early too…I’m sure Bob the Builder’s flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness beats Postman Pat’s comfortable, though repetitive, job.

Most youngsters are motivated by positive role models, their cultural influences often pointing the way to how they see their opportunities. For many this will be determined by what they observe and experience, and the influences they see the rest of society embrace, hence my point about the way we present the areas that we want them to be inspired by. The lack of interest in studying certain subjects, and the interest in doing things for yourself, is a much wider, cultural issue – not one just for schools but for all of us.

Having said that, we don’t just want engineers, scientists and carers who are there for lack of anything else…we really need engineers, scientists and carers who want to do that. Who are passionate about it. Who see the value of it and the importance to society as a whole. Who feel inspired to do it.

There is no perfect fungibility of labour, hence a raft of people going to university to study engineering or medicine when they have no passion or real interest in the topic, but see it as a way to get a job, is unlikely to be the complete answer either.

As the current TV ad for #toyotahybrid urges…don’t start a career you feel no love for

Can we change that…

Looking for Inspiration and Learning at #HRVision14

In my last post I looked at employee engagement and what the future may hold. This will be one of the core topics at HRVision14, a 2 day conference in Amsterdam next week involving European HRDs and global leads for talent, branding and and engagement.

Sessions and cases studies are being delivered by a combination of TED speakers and senior practitioners from companies as diverse as Starbucks, IBM, Microsoft, L’Oreal, Phillips, Unilever, Zappos, HSBC and Siemens. There will also be a mix of workshops and ‘doctors surgeries’ with specialists in a variety of fields offering their advice and insight on a range of issues that keep the HR population awake at night.

The core specialist themes are:

  • Talent Management
  • Employee Engagement
  • Leadership Development
  • Branding and Recruitment

And there are some bold event promises too. I’ll be looking to see how they deliver on:

  • Learning how to foster an environment which allows for innovation, collaboration and empowerment, where people can openly discuss central issues.
  • Closing the development gaps in leader capabilities.
  • Exploring how to integrate social technologies into recruitment and engagement practices with forward thinking HR professionals making the connection between having a solid social media strategy and finding top talent.
  • Assessing critical future workforce gaps ensure attraction, identification, assessment and development of talent in order to ensure these gaps are closed.

Keynotes include Phillips on their global, cultural transformation, also leadership ideas outside the box (delivered by Tim Macartney), brand ambassador networks from Zappos and performance excellence with Dr Melissa Luke.

Away from the keynotes there are several sessions that interest me including rethinking internal comms with eBay, 21st Century guerrilla recruitment by Accenture, interconnected leadership and the previously referenced schmooze or lose approach to engagement.

I will be there on blogging and tweeting duties and hope to bring you some of the big themes and conversations through this blog and my Twitter feed. Follow the event hashtag – #HRVision14 – and also the twitter feed from OsneyHR, the event organisers.

There’s a promise of some fun time too with the Big Fat HR Quiz!

If you fancy some spring sunshine and HR debating in Amsterdam then there’s still time to book – hope to see a few of you there…

 

The Future of Employee Engagement

As an HR blogger I know the perils of dropping the ‘E’ bomb. Few words occupy more gigabytes of space, are more debated and argued over, than ‘engagement’ – particularly when prefixed by the word ’employee’.

I’ve taken part in many discussions, read many blogs and watched many presentations, all concerned with trying to nail down what employee engagement actually is, what does it mean and how to do it right. And does it even matter. For many years it was considered that a pay cheque, with the correct amount arriving in your bank account on time, was all that was really needed for engagement.

The thinking has moved on though. As an HR recruiter I used to interview many aspiring managers. When I got them talking about achievements many would give priority to the engagement initiatives that they had worked on, offering both anecdotal and data evidence of their success. For some it could be simply organising awaydays or parties, fresh fruit for every department, a proper coffee machine or a new style of internal communication. For others it was down to benefits and perks, finding ways of recognising people who went the extra mile for colleagues. And for many there was also the nitty gritty, some would say real core part of engagement, of understanding and communicating vision and values, defining guiding principles.

For my part there are certain recurring messages that crop up at most events:

  • People don’t wake up in the morning thinking ‘am I engaged?‘
  • Engaged workers are more productive
  • Engagement is an outcome of doing the right things, not about the process itself
  • It starts with a CEO committed to the people agenda
  • People need to be treated with respect and dignity, shown that they are valued
  • It needs to be assessed in the ‘now’ and not with historical surveys
  • Social media is the new water cooler and you can pick up how your employees feel about you by being in the conversation

There are many more – and you’re welcome to add some in the comments – but the main drift is always that it starts with a mindset, of having a vision and culture that values employes and the contributions they make.

As Meg Peppin says in her latest blog on the subject:

“The solution is simple, create time and space for people to talk with each other to make meaning. Time, patience, space, respect. Simple and yet so difficult.”

Most people tend to see this as easier to achieve in a smaller business where employees are closer to, and likely to be more aligned with, the core vision and values, whilst leadership also tends to be more visible and approachable.

However it’s clearly on the agenda of most major businesses also. This report on the future of employee engagement suggests that over 80% see it as a priority, with pretty much everyone (97.4%…to me that’s everyone) saying that they will be investing in improving engagement levels over the next 12-18 months. All companies involved said their CEO was involved – although only 20% classified the CEO as instrumental – whilst recent Chartered Management Institute research suggested that the number one priority for business leaders this year is a reshaping of workplace culture, with employee engagement and better leadership at the core.

The report was produced by Osney HR ahead of next month’s HR Vision Conference in Amsterdam. They pulled together a panel of 9 specialists in employee engagement and comms from a range of business sectors – IBM, Starbucks, Electrolux, Zurich Insurance, Starwood Hotels to name some – and put 7 questions to each. They ranged from ‘who will be the drivers of employee engagement?‘ (line managers not surprisingly featured heavily) and ‘will engagement be replaced with empowerment or enablement?‘ (seen as drivers not replacements) to the thorny subjects of measurement and ROI (crowdsourcing and assessing impacts feature).

One contributor said

“Times will be challenging. Building engagement does not happen via tricks or treats, it’s about shared vision, challenging goals and being given the appropriate tools to achieve.”

You can download the e-book here – it’s an interesting read.

I’ll be heading over to the HR Vision conference and will catch another of the panel – Ralf Larsson (Director of Employee Engagement, Electrolux) – presenting a session on engagement at the event. He’s called it ‘Schmooze or Lose‘, which I guess could become a new catchphrase for the whole employee engagement debate. I noticed some of his suggestions:

  • Breaking down the silos through social technology
  • Development of internal social communities
  • Getting buy in from leaders to connect with employees via social networks
  • Power of a collaborative workforce through crowd sourcing and idea generation

Much about our workforce is evolving and changing – from technology to working arrangements, email to enterprise social software – and hence engagement needs to evolve too. Ensuring people have the right technology to get the job done may seem obvious but nothing disengages more than not feeling that you have the right tools to perform.

And with labour market shifts embracing new arrangements such as zero hour, managed workforce, and freelancing, businesses will need to find ways to engage people who are working for them and representing them, but may not actually be employed by them.

The future for employee engagement may involve a lot more schmoozing…

Innovation, Diversity and Uncertainty at #euhrevent

 

Permission to Experiment

 

I’ve just returned from 2 days in Berlin at the European HR Directors Summit. We had a strong mix of delegates (drawn from across Western Europe) some helpful and informative sponsors (who didn’t push too much and had some interesting analysis to share) and a friendly, energetic team from WTG who kept the event running smoothly.

I was there in tweeting/blogging capacity, aided by Mark and Perry, when they weren’t engaged on their well received chairing duties.

The overall event was really enjoyable. There was a good energy about it, with inquisitive delegates. Those I spoke during the networking breaks all felt that they had learned and discovered some new ideas to take back with them.

The tone was set each day by the opening keynotes. Both Dr Nicola Millard (changing nature of work) and Liggy Webb (resilience) spoke with a passion and energy that was infectious, using humour and imagery to help make their points. The audience felt involved and identified with many of the issues that they raised. I think that the impact of the opening keynote, and the way that it sets the mood for what follows, can often be overlooked when agendas are put together. The most impressive CV or academic research may be important to establish credibility, but do not necessarily create awesome from the stage. It is the ability to captivate an audience, to entertain as well as educate, illustrate as well as inform, that often makes it a success or a disappointment, and adds weight to the points raised.

There were recurring themes across the 2 days – change, uncertainty, diversity, learning, innovation, leadership and empowerment – and here are some of my takeaways:

The Age of Uncertainty

Many presentations dealt with the rapid change we are experiencing. Whilst there may have been other similar periods in the past the current combination of technological, economic, demographic and cultural shifts are impacting heavily on our work. One session from the EU Commission looked at the increase in productivity and job creation that Europe would need by 2030 – quite frightening. The four generation workforce was also referenced many times.

The recent Deloitte report on Global HR trends had highlighted the ‘overwhelmed employee’ as a major issue facing business and the conference opener from Dr Nicola Millard looked at the factors driving changes to work – disappearance of a ‘9 to 5’ working mindset, technology enabling remote working and collaboration, the end of the tradition office space – and how the ‘always connected, always on’ mindset creates distractions (or time vampires as she called them) that could affect productivity, sleep patterns and general wellbeing. “Where in your job description does it say that you need to spend up to half the day dealing with email?” she asked.

Another session talked of the need to hire people who enjoy uncertainty as the need for change grows and of striking the balance between pragmatism and perfection – “for change to succeed, perfection needs to take a back seat to pragmatism“.

Embrace Diversity

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a European conference, diversity was an issue that also ran through a number of sessions. There was little mention of the dreaded generational classifications – “mind the generation gap but ignore the millennial hype” said Nicola Millard – with adaptability and technological competence being seen as key differentiators, irrespective of age.

Whilst in the UK we often talk of diversity in terms of age, gender and ethnicity, here the main areas discussed were around culture and personality. The need to have a culture that caters for both introverts and extroverts, and to lead in a way that brings both together, maximising their skills irrespective of their different approaches, was referenced. Not everyone is the same, we all react and contribute differently to a range of situations. To build and inspire a team of diverse characters requires leadership skills that we may not always fully assess. Praise and encouragement were seen as crucial people builders – “How hard can it be to make other people feel important?“.

We also had a powerful session on leading multicultural workforces, across countries and businesses. Production and consumption, markets and commercial relationships, are now international, whilst IT systems are global. In bringing this together the key is to not erase diversity but use it to foster different viewpoints for creativity, innovation and competencies, whilst leveraging it for insights to different markets and buying habits. Leaders need to acknowledge local cultures, accept their differences and integrate (not attempt to change) the values and perspectives they bring.

Keep the Talent

Internals First was the name of a session from Credit Suisse about their ‘Grow Your Own’ programme – a sourcing strategy that supports internal mobility and direct approaches to the internal labour market. The external focus is shifted to entry level positions and then an internal market is created, with the main benefits being:

  • Development strategy
  • Maintaining culture
  • Less performance risk
  • Qualified candidates becoming harder to find
  • Helps retention

Framing is important, hence there is no talk of internal headhunting, but the campaign does bring all internal opportunities to everyone’s attention. Employees are encouraged to keep their skills up to date and visible, whilst managers are able to get the attention of internal passives. There are challenges – employees need career coaching and their expectations managed, whilst managers can sometimes also expect too much from the internal market.

One interesting stat was that around 40% of internal employes moving roles had already been contacted by external headhunters regarding external roles. It shows the importance of making opportunities visible to keep employees happy, demonstrating the variety of an internal career, or else risk losing them.

Fostering Innovation

Keeping talent is one thing, encouraging and empowering it to help the innovation process is the next stage. “Don’t just source ideas from researchers but from all employees. Innovation is the responsibility of every employee” said Olivier Leclerc from Alcatel Lucent when introducing us to their entrepreneurial bootcamps, which produce between 30 and 40 ideas every 6 to 9 months. They foster a buccaneering spirit (from ego-centre to eco-centre was one delegate comment) and involve external parties to give a VC feel and ensure that innovative ideas are viewed on their merit and not with a company bias. Some key benefits had been:

  • Diversification of the product portfolio
  • Revenue from bootcamp projects
  • Refreshed company image
  • Culture change and greater engagement

In an earlier session, Simon Watt from Mattel had also talked of inspiring an innovation culture amongst employees. I particularly liked their ‘Permission to Experiment’ ticket – encouraging employees to to experiment fast, often and without permission – and an example from their Mumbai office. This wasn’t about product but more cultural. Most new starters had their interviews during the working day, and had taken only 20 minutes or so to travel to the site. On their first day, rush hour traffic meant that this journey could take a couple of hours or more, often leading to surprise and disappointment. The existing teams noticed this and decided that they would pick every new starter up from home, each day in their first week, and drive them to and from the office, both showing them the fastest routes and short cuts, and helping integration by spending quality time with them in the car.

Bouncebackability

What is resilience? This was the opening question from best selling author Liggy Webb as she took us through the key behaviours that can help build resilient, agile and innovative workforces. Amongst the delegate definitions we got bouncebackability, tolerance, positivity, calm. She introduced us to the Doomerangs (like boomerangs but instead of bouncing back they continually re-live negativity) and the Doom Goblins (those in the workforce whose negativity and moaning drains the lifeblood front the team) whilst conjuring up more imagery with “negative attitude spreads like germs, don’t sneeze your whining on others”

She suggested we ‘hug a problem and learn from it‘ and also urged “Change for the better. If you don’t like change, you don’t like life – don’t mourn the past, seize the opportunity“.

It proved an energetic start to the second day, and there were serious messages here. With the overall themes of change, uncertainty, innovation and corporate realignment there is a need for strong and inspiring leaders, and workforces who are resilient, adaptable and creative.

Perhaps it was one Dr Nicola Millard’s comments from the opening that stuck with me most through the two days – “No is a really dangerous answer. So lets say yes“. There is much going on in our working lives, from what we do and how we do it to the way in which we are contracted to do it. We have become distractible and overwhelmed, often in need of guidance and the type of strong leadership that lets us know someone has a plan and a vision.

Finally, one session looked at HR strategies and competencies, the importance of a CEO committed to the people agenda, and how to lead the way for greater transparency and clarity. It defined HR competencies for the new work environment as:

  • Leadership
  • Innovation
  • Leverage networks
  • Data judgement
  • Business acumen
  • Organisational acumen
  • Talent management acumen

We need to foster the right practices and and mindsets, and this often starts with recruitment and the ability to find the people who will best fit the business vision and culture.

Certain hiring for uncertain times…

Looking Forward to #euhrevent

Today I’m heading to Berlin for WTGs European HR Directors Summit. I’ll be there in a blogging capacity, whilst fellow Brits Mark Ellis and Perry Timms will be sharing chairing duties.

I really enjoyed their UK event in February – you can read some of my thoughts here – and am looking forward to this one.

Checking the agenda certain themes caught my eye:

  • Resilience and agility
  • Reverse mentoring
  • Leadership skills in a globalised, virtual workforce
  • Cultural change
  • Empowering intrapreneurs
  • Cultivating an internal labour market

It’s my first European HR event. I’ve been to some in the US and always find that the conversations, issues and challenges are very similar to those we discuss at UK conferences, so I will be looking to see if this changes with a European audience. Particularly perspectives on skill shortages, workforce planning and cultural change.

It is also my first visit to Berlin so I’m hoping to get some sightseeing in too!

The hashtag for the event is #euhrevent and I will be sharing the key messages I hear on Twitter and on this blog too.

Look forward to sharing my thoughts with you over the next few days…

Graduates, Award Winning Apprenticeship Schemes and Social Mobility

I recently watched a webinar involving Capp, Sonru and Nestle about the benefits of strengths based video interviewing for graduates. You can read a summary on Capp’s blog here.

Many things stood out for me about the benefits of both video and strengths based assessment – and there was post hiring process research to show that the methodology was popular with candidates too – but two main outcomes that struck home were:

  • Improvement in social mobility
  • Increase in female recruits for technical disciplines from 22% to 67%

And part of the reasons for these outcomes were:

  • Unlike traditional competency approaches, this methodology doesn’t rely on past experience
  • As assessors don’t see an application form they have no pre-conceived ideas on the candidate they are assessing

I don’t think anyone will deny that there is much under utilised potential amongst our young emerging workforce and the challenge is to bring opportunity to people from all backgrounds and skill sets. That there is potential for unconscious bias when it comes selection, even at this level, maybe a taboo subject but with recent research indicating that hiring on gut instinct, or intuition, is on the rise, it is something that we need to be aware of. Any process which reduces the chance of interviewers and assessors entering the selection process with pre-conceived ideas must be good.

But this isn’t all just about graduates. The increasing importance of apprenticeships, and the need to harness the potential of school leavers, is being recognised across industry with the concept of apprentices being the new graduates being discussed at the recent Association of Graduate Recruiters conference.

At this point I’ll raise my hand and say that there’s a reason that I’ve referenced the work of Capp – I’ve been spending some time with them recently, finding out more about what they do and helping on social marketing outreach. I’ve always been interested in the benefits of strengths based interviewing versus more traditional competency methods and how this could lead to more diverse, harmonious and creative workplaces.

Last night, together with client Nestle, they won the Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2014 in the category of ‘Best Apprentice/.School Leaver Strategy‘. It was given for work on Nestle’s ‘Fast Start’ programme, a 3 year ‘learn while you earn’ scheme providing school leavers the chance to work in a salaried role while studying for a degree in Professional Business Practice. Capp had worked with Nestle defining indicators of success and designed an assessment strategy to identify potential without relying on limited previous work experience.

A main aim of the scheme was to increase social mobility – to reach out to candidates from a more diverse social background and ensure they were not disadvantaged from progressing – and it turned out that 78% of candidates successfully reaching the assessment centre were from a state school, with 60% of candidates having neither parent completing a university degree.

As part of an ongoing project to better understand social mobility they have recently launched a survey – ‘Understanding Social Mobility’ – which explores social mobility from the level of the individual, rather than group or social class. Hopefully this will help shape an approach that empowers the individual.

You can complete the survey here – I’d really appreciate it if readers of my blog could contribute to the research too, both in a personal capacity and by sharing with people they know.

I’m sure that social mobility will dominate the conversations around the world of work over many years. The need to recognise talent, potential and capability irrespective of background and previous experience will become key to future business success.