Tag: HR

Blogging and Learning at #CIPD11

Last week I was at the CIPD Conference in Manchester with an access all areas press pass, a presentation on social media monitoring to deliver and an open mind ready to absorb new ideas. Most of the conferences/unconferences that I attend these days are recruitment oriented ones, with the talking points centred on how the staffing sector can make the most of new technologies, so I was hoping for a new angle, a chance to see things differently.

This was my first visit to CIPD for many years – not since the print media were rewarding their recruitment/HR advertisers with copious amounts of alcohol anyway! (Yes younger readers, once upon a time they did! They even had casino themed parties!)

It was great to be part of the blogging team – kudos to everyone at CIPD who have embraced social media, and with it the many ways that an event, its spirit and learnings, can now be bought to those who can’t make it and those who do but can’t be everywhere at once!

I suppose I was wearing two blogging hats. Firstly the day job one – for my key takeaways and learning points on Trust and Future Work you should follow the Jobsite Insider blog – and the other hat was for here.

So what impressed me?

Firstly, the appetite for social media. Not just the fact that there were people there who were tweeting and blogging as the event unfolded, but the enthusiastic participation in the Twitterversity sessions, the attendance for sessions involving new technology platforms, and the interest shown in the presentation that I delivered. During my two days there (how I wish I could have stretched to the three) I had many approaches to chat about social media…how companies could use it, what guidelines to put in place and how to leverage the potential reach and opportunities for internal communications. Continue reading “Blogging and Learning at #CIPD11” →

HR and the New World of Work – ConnectingHR 3

A few weeks ago I followed a link on Twitter to an article entitled ‘Are Jobs Obsolete?’ which appeared on the CNN news site. You can read it here. It was an opinion piece, so open to interpretation and analysis, but it certainly resonated with me, articulating many of the things that had concerned me about the future of work.

I shared the article with my network and discussed it with those whom I was helping in the planning and organising of the forthcoming ConnectingHR Unconference. After a few beers at the Square Pig (where else?!) the core theme for #CHRU3 was born…

HR and the New World of Work

Particularly looking at:

  • Are existing organisation models sustainable in a new economic future?
  • What is the future model of ’employment’?

The original article poses some strong questions of its own, as in:

‘The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment?’

And Continue reading “HR and the New World of Work – ConnectingHR 3” →

Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?

Here’s a question…who sets the standards in the recruitment agency industry?

The recruitment industry isn’t a profession requiring a qualification or quality badge. It’s a B2B sales business, predominantly made up of a disparate myriad of small owner managed businesses all competing with each other and showing little appetite for collaboration or ethics.

Standards are set by company owners, and their prime motivator is often profit not quality of operation. In the ten years I was supplying recruiters to the industry no-one asked me about the standards to which individuals operated. Their main concerns were fees and transferable client relationships. I was never asked to find someone with a relevant qualification…usually just someone who could sell.

Being a thorough interviewer, or having a string of recommendations from clients and candidates, were irrelevant if there were not billing figures to back them up.

Recruiters who don’t hit their targets are labelled failures. It doesn’t matter if their clients and candidates rate their service highly, and would recommend them… they won’t get hired in the rough, tough recruitment world without those billings. A blank couple of months usually mean a warning or redundancy, no matter if you’re with a member of a trade body or attend some training courses.

So I remain fairy ambivalent towards representative bodies, particularly those who make claims to create standards and set benchmarks. I followed the brouhaha that surrounded the launch of the IOR which still seems to continue – read this insightful blog from SteveWard. Continue reading “Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?” →

The Quality of Thinking

When new bloggers ask for advice, I often say ‘it’s not the quality of writing, it’s the quality of thinking’ – I’m sure that people read blogs to be enlightened, to see something that inspires them and gets them to look at things in a different way.

Regular readers of this blog joined me on the journey to find a new job earlier in the year, and I often wrote of my frustrations with companies within the recruiting industry who weren’t looking beyond the traditional methods and ways of thinking. With the challenges that our industry faces to source, attract, retain and develop the right talent, and to service the demands of shifting organisational models, it always struck me as strange that so few owners, directors and managers embraced the possibility of doing things in a different way.

It was the ability to look at the new and unchartered that so excited me about the opportunity with Jobsite UK. I sensed during my talks with them that there was a real passion and desire to bring fresh and innovative thinking to the recruiting industry, whether that was through written or live content, and to be not just the conduit of this but to be at the very heart of the conversation. Continue reading “The Quality of Thinking” →

Heading down the Atlanta Highway…looking for the HRevolution Love Shack!

I’m headin’ down the Atlanta highway,      
Love Shack, that’s where it’s at!
Huggin’ and a kissin’, dancin’ and a lovin’, 

How come we had no Love Shack themes going at HRevolution 2011? How did we miss the HR Love Shack!

The love was certainly there…

Love for the organisers

Love for the sponsors

Love for the track leaders

Love for the attendees…each and every one of us

Even love for the HRBritpack!

All of it fully deserved!

On my long and rambling journey back to London I’ve been thinking about how to explain HRevolution to someone who’s never been. To call it an (un)conference doesn’t seem to fully do this event justice. There’s way too much energy, adrenalin, friendship, respect…and partying!

It’s so much more. Continue reading “Heading down the Atlanta Highway…looking for the HRevolution Love Shack!” →

Social media isn’t going away any time soon!

Are we living in a social media bubble? So asked this blog on Econsultancy yesterday, with some strong references to asset bubbles and tipping points.

It’s a question that often crosses my mind. I wrote about it in my post Boy in the Bubble and debated it over a couple of beers with Kevin Ball, leading to his blog Social Media and Mars Bars

I came at it more from the angle of social media users being in a minority, yet by connecting and engaging with  other  social media users all the time we are in a cocoon where everyone we know seems to be social. The Econsultancy article looked at a slightly wider view – is this a bandwagon, doomed to overheat like asset bubbles, housing bubbles and the dotcom bubble.

For me, we aren’t in that kind of a bubble, but the overload of consultants, experts and strategists fighting a turf war over business insecurities on whether they should embrace social are themselves creating a bubble that can’t help but go pop. And as with the other bubbles mentioned earlier, some of the talking heads will do quite well and others will not, ending up kicking around looking for the next bandwagon.

But social media as a communication tool isn’t about to burst anytime soon…any more than there were ever bursting telephone bubbles or e-mail bubbles. Sure they way we use it, and the expectations we have of it, will change and refine over time, but most individuals and businesses will come to use it in a way that suits them.

Over the next 7 days I’ll be attending 2 unconferences – HRevolution in the USA and ConnectingHR in the UK – at which HR and recruiting professionals will talk about their work, and how social media is impacting. How we can harness the opportunities that it offers to create better businesses and relationships. These events are almost exclusively organised and promoted through social media channels, and I will already know (both offline and online) the 250 or so attendees. The reach of each one of us means that what we say and think, how we take back certain learnings and implement them, will have a reach running well over a million.

Then in a few weeks’ time, the company I work for – Jobsite UK – will be bringing two thought leaders to the UK to talk about Engagement and The Social Revolution to a number of our clients, contacts and partners. The social ripples spreading further.

There can be little doubt that the connectivity of these communities provides tremendous opportunities for collaboration and progress. One of the ConnectingHR community (Alison Chisnell) commented the other night – after disclosing that she had sourced, through the community, two excellent candidates for roles in her company – ‘another reason why HR needs to go social’. Seeing as how her usual recruitment agency partners had failed to deliver the calibre of candidate that she was looking for, it was a case of Traditional Methods 0 Social Business 1

Maybe these anecdotes are a little too isolated for some. Maybe the tipping point seems a long way off. Maybe the bursting point seems nearer. So I’ll give you another example.

This morning I watched my 16 year old son arranging a trip to the cinema this evening with friends.

Through Facebook.

They shared a YouTube link to the trailer.

They will be entering the workforce in 5/6 years’ time.

They aren’t living in a bubble…it’s their world…for communication, it’s pretty much all they will know.

Social Media isn’t going away any time soon.

HRevolution 2011 – The British Invasion

February 9th 1964 – The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show and start the ‘British Invasion’

April 29th 2011 – The HRBritPack appear at HRevolution for another ‘British Invasion’

Yes, it’s HRevolution week!

Last year’s event in Chicago was certainly one of my highlights of 2010 with so many intriguing conversations and thought provoking sessions. Whilst there seems little difference between the issues facing HR and Recruitment professionals from the US and UK it was certainly refreshing to hear a different perspective.

So I can’t wait to touch down in Atlanta and see old friends and new faces! And this time there will be some more Brits coming along for the experience!

A veritable HRBritPack no doubt ready to amuse and debate in equal measures! And with the second ConnectingHR unconference happening 5 days later, it will provide a great opportunity to get an insight into new thinking around people strategies in a social world.

So who is in the HRBritPack?

Neil Morrison – Group HRD of a major publishing company, an experienced HR practitioner and writer of the blog Change-Effect.

Gareth Jones – Career spanning HR, Recruitment, Marketing and Technology and writer of the blog ‘Inside My Head’. Co-founder of ConnectingHR.

Jon Ingham – The other co-founder of ConnectingHR, Jon is a writer, speaker and consultant in human capital management. Read Strategic HCM

And me!

We’ll be checking in on Friday afternoon…come and say hello!

The Carnival of HR – Digging the New Breed and Learning from Old Friends

It’s time for the Carnival of HR and I’m really honoured to have my first go at hosting!

The Carnival doesn’t often pitch its big top on this side of the pond, so I’ve taken to opportunity to introduce you to a whole host of UK HR Bloggers who may or may not be known to you. There’s some really great talent developing here  a real New Breed.

But I’m not biased! My buddies and old friends from the US and Australia have also come up trumps with some really strong and varied posts too. So read on…

Digging the New Breed….

Leading off  is Michael Carty (XpertHR) not least because he is also known as the politest man on Twitter so it would be rude not to! His economic commentaries are a must read for many of us and this March 2011 Edition is no exception

Emma P aka @onatrainagain has only been blogging a short while and has already built a big following with her very personal and honest style. This post is called What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Alison Chisnell is our very own HR Juggler! How she also finds time to blog is beyond me, but she does! Always interesting, here she talks about New Experiences, Pyjama Parties and Comfort Zones

Katie Davis is the HR Hopeful and writes a newer blog called They’re Only Humans. ..here she’s musing on the Pull of Community

Doug Shaw is the Johnny Cash of the #ConnectingHR community, with a guitar and a song at every tweetup and unconference! And he writes a blog called Stop Doing Dumb Things To Customers – how cool is that? In this post he even gives us a poem! Phantom HR

What can I tell you about Flip Chart Fairy Tales? Well, its written by an affable and knowledgeable beer expert called Rick and he writes an informative, well researched and extremely readable blog about politics and business. This post is about Confident Leadership in an Uncertain World

Ailsa Suttie is an HR Director who I’m sure only embraced Twitter and blogging to stop me nagging her to do so! She is about to move in to a CEO role in a new business venture, which may be why she’s called her blog HR Metamorphosis. She raises an interesting point in A Monopoly Does Not an Expert Make…

Some of you may already know Felix Wetzel. He’s charming, intelligent, insightful…OK, he hired me recently…what else am I going to say?! He does write a really interesting and thoughtful blog about people, brands, creativity and growth. In this post he writes about The Future of Work

Janet Parkinson has a background in social media, recruitment and personal branding. She brings a really fresh approach to her technology oriented blog Technotropolis, as you can read here in her post on Digital Nomads – The Rise of the Independent Worker Continue reading “The Carnival of HR – Digging the New Breed and Learning from Old Friends” →

From Network to Family

Sometimes a simple ‘Thank You’ isn’t enough. Sometimes you feel the need to say more, make a grander gesture. Shout it out loud.

Sometimes ‘network’ isn’t a strong enough word. Sometimes you feel part of something bigger, stronger. From network to friendships to family, with all the interdependency that word entails.

Last week was a really great week. I started a new job. Not any job, but exactly THE job that I hoped to find. I wrote about it on my blog and was overwhelmed by the response, the good wishes, the congratulations and the confidence that people had shown in me. It meant a lot.

I wasn’t the only one who had a special week. Read these blogs from Gary Franklin and Gareth Jones to find out about others in our network who had cause to celebrate, be joyous or just shed a tear.

I feel really lucky to be part of an online network, community…FAMILY…that offers support, guidance…dare I say love.

So as it’s Valentine’s Day…and I’m pretty sure that my Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn followers and friends don’t want to read endless individual messages of thanks…I want to send one BIG HUG to everyone who has offered support, advice and congratulations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as a kind of pay it forward, why not read about some other people in the network who could also use a little support, advice, insight and input…

HR Hopeful – A Letter To My Boss

TinyBean HR – When HR Messes Up…Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Emma aka Onatrainagain – Baby Blues

As I wrote in a recent blog…We’re One Big Happy HR Family!

It Pays To Be In The Conversation

I recently attended a seminar for in-house recruiters entitled Recruitment Mix Effectiveness. It was hosted by Talent Puzzle, an enterprising and forward thinking young business at the forefront of the recruitment tendering marketplace. I was glad to be invited as it provided some useful insight for me into what inhouse recruiters are thinking and talking about.

These conversations are happening more and more now, and I find it fascinating that, by and large, third party recruiters do not seem to be part of the conversations.

Maybe they are excluded, maybe they are too busy chasing and filling vacancies…whatever the reason I do know that future recruitment models and methodologies are being discussed, and they are none the wiser. It has become apparent to me, whilst interviewing with consultancies, that most seem quite oblivious to what is being talked about…they just aren’t part of the conversation.

RPOs, social media, direct sourcing teams are all irritants and barriers, yet another roadblock on the way to business as it used to be, and it has really shocked me that hardly anyone questions, or even acknowledges, the bigger picture…

The way that companies are going about acquiring talent is changing – the methodologies, expectations and processes are developing on an almost weekly basis – yet most recruitment consultants still try to transact business as if nothing has changed.

From a seminar full of insights and lightbulb moments, I will select 2.

1) It’s behaviours not past experience

There was a very powerful presentation from Roger Philby of Chemistry Group about measurement of quality of hire. From the opening stat that 75% of hires are wrong, to the closing summary of measures (in order of importance/relevance):

Intellect

Values

Motivation

Behaviour

Experience

this was an impressive case for measurement of quality not cost. I have written on previous blogs about my frustrations with using past performance as the measure for future delivery and here was a thought provoking series of case studies that pretty much underlined my point.

Point to recruiters : Stop hiring based on previous billings and start hiring for the values, insights and emotional intelligence that will enable someone to be successful in your unique culture.

2) There’s nothing that a recruitment supplier can do that an internal recruiter can’t do for themselves

This was something that Simon Ward, Head of UK Recruitment for Legal & General said and it certainly caused some consternation. He did qualify it by saying that the key was in what the internal recruiter CHOSE to do themselves, and also pointing out that third party suppliers were friend, not foe. However his most telling soundbite, in my opinion, was

‘Third party recruiters can’t articulate what value they add, so we beat them up over fees’

Point to recruiters : know what value you add and what you can do for a client that they can’t do for themselves. If you can’t do either, then move on…there are no long term, productive relationships to be formed.

I could go on. Another seminar, another transferral of ideas between inhouse recruiters, HR Directors, alternative recruitment model providers, futurologists and social recruiters…and good old transactional recruitment companies are nowhere to be seen.

Oblivious? Yes.

Irrelevant? Maybe.

Part of the conversation? No.

Maybe they’re just too busy trying to make money to find out what their clients want from them in future.

Mind you, if they don’t know what their clients will be buying in future then maybe those income streams will be drying up a little quicker than they anticipate.