A bridge too far? CIPD acquires Bridge Consultancy

Welcome back readers.

My apologies for not blogging sooner than intended - but a lot going on at the moment business-wise.

But first the headline - CIPD does indeed acquire Bridge Consultancy - for £3 million of institute money.......

So what's a charitable institution buying a private consultancy you ask?

Well before we get into the potential conflict of interest regarding a monopoly position. The question is have the members voted on this?

Quoting directly from People Management:

Bridge Partnership, a consultancy specialising in leadership development and strategic transformation, is being acquired by the CIPD to boost the institute’s ability to engage with business leaders, including the most senior HR directors.
This is the CIPD’s first acquisition of another business, and will cost the institute a net £3m. Further payments will be due if Bridge – which will continue to trade under its own name – hits rigorous performance objectives and earnings targets. The deal is in its final stages.
“Bridge’s small, high-calibre team has strong credibility with business leaders,” said CIPD chief executive Jackie Orme. “They have been working closely with us on our ‘Next Generation HR’ research, and will strengthen our capability to lead thinking and support HR professionals in driving sustainable performance in their organisations.”

I believe this raises a number of serious questions. I don't believe this would happen in the accounting profession due to a massive conflict of interest. There is a fine line for a professional standards body to be offering mainline consultancy services.

We have been suspicious of CIPD's motives for some time in trying to build a consultancy business organically. This acquisition suggests that route 1 failed.

This will have some major repercussions. I have already alluded to the conflict of interest on previous blogs regarding its trade convention business and the supposed charity status of the CIPD. I've also been critical of CIPD's failure to sort out the professional status with regard to its qualification and to its 'special' contractual relationships with organisations such as KPMG.

This announcement suggests that member interests and industry professionalism are now playing second fiddle to an increasingly focused lobbying and consultancy firm dressed up as a charity.

It's perhaps easy to forget that there is a considerable number of CIPD members who are either self-employed or employed at other consultancies in similar work. I would suggest that this provides some conflict in itself, never mind the wider debate.

I'd be interested in CIPD members comments.

Ultimately, the CIPD should separate its trade convention business and now its consultancy business from its professional body charity. If nothing else there is also a more ethical question to be asked in that CIPD's charity status means it avoids corporate taxation if subsidiaries are set up to pay a dividend (as is the case with their event company and now it seems Bridge Consultancy).

There's a debate coming.....I suspect that tongues are already wagging.........

It's summer recess time!

Just to let you know that the blog is taking a summer recess which actually means I'll be catching up with all the things I've not been able to do this year so far!

Will be back on 7th Septemebr 2009.....

HR Profession: Are you an 'Idealist', 'Committed professional' or 'Rent seeker'?

Around 18 months ago I came across a very fascinating paper by Ashish Nanda, Associate Professor at Harvard on the subject of professional associations/professions 'Evolution of public reputation of a profession'. I blogged about it at the time. It also generated a number of offline e-mails regarding it.

The reason it's fascinating is how Nanda describes the evolution and reputation of a profession.

In it he proposes that practitioners are one of three types: 'Idealists' - who are true belivers attracted by the profession's calling (the internal 'good' that the practice offers) and will stay faithful to the profession no matter the reputation.

The 'Committed professionals'. They are attracted by the status and satisfaction offered by the profession. Social mobility, personal career growth through membership is a big driver.
Committed professionals practice in accordance with the profession's norms and value its reputation. Idealists and Committed professionals increase the profession's goodwill.

Then there's the 'Rent seekers' who seek primarily personal gain even at the expense of destroying public goodwill of the profession........Nanda uses the term 'infected' when it comes to rent seekers and the pillaging over time of professional goodwill........As you may have guessed Rent-seekers are more 'fly by night' in nature.

Of course. It's not that simple as Nanda says that each professional practitioner is effectively a mix of all three but there will be a dominant type.

What's even more fascinating is the model he puts forward is also underpinned with some higher order maths that model the dynamics of a profession over time.

Applying the conceptual model to the HR profession is an interesting exercise (cursory only here).

First of all, his description of a profession's attributes immediately points to the fact that against this model the HR 'profession' is quasi-professional at best (a point I have made earlier but without the model). So collectively we need to understand the differences.

Nanda's work draws heavily on medicine and law. From an HR profession, one needs to make a few adjustments. For instance, there are several classes of 'Idealists' depending on the individuals driver (see the recent diversity/equality body argument for example).

Thus we have several different 'Idealists' types. Committed professional class is ok (notwithstanding the different driver focus as just explained). And I can't argue with the Rent-seeking.

In fact it was when reading the 'Rent-seeking' definition that a rather large light-bulb lit up. I have been struggling for some time to understand the conflicts and behaviours of the HR 'profession' and HR function. Now it becomes clear.

The profession/function isn't so much infected but plagued by 'Rent-seekers'. Once you see it you see it everywhere and it's quite disturbing. It sure explains an awful lot. It's why there's such a volume of PR going on (both individual and organisational reasons).

The problem is I'm not sure if Rent-seekers see themselves as 'Rent-seekers', particularly at senior level?

There are some other interesting observations but which are not suitable for entry on this blog. You may find an interesting correlation with my earlier blog comments 'Why case study mania is ruining the HR profession?'

Next time you interact with a HR practitioner whether in situ or external advisor ask yourself what type of practitioner attributes is displayed by he or she? It can be very enlightening.
As for me, I've realised I've got far more professional 'Idealist' tendencies than I thought alongside my 'Committed practitioner' behaviour.

But more importantly, ask yourself what's your mix? 'Idealist', 'Committed professional' or 'Rent-seeker'?

As a 'profession', the old adage 'Heal thyself' seems to have increasing connectivity......

This has greater relevance with some breaking news that I will be able to tell you about shortly....

[Original entry posted April 24th 2008 at http://www.personneltoday.com/blogs/hcglobal-human-capital-management/2008/04/hr-profession-are-you-an-ideal.html]

The Macleod Review on Employee Engagement

Summary: Filed under 'Recycled Rubbish'.

I'm not sure how many carbon credits were used up in its manufacture.

Having just read the 157 page report, I seem to find the same old people spouting the same old questionable rubbish and what can be described as a hodge-podge of undefined criteria of research and case studies, which unfortunately is not unusual. It's also full of the usual suspects.

We decided against contributing to this report fearing that it would be yet another 'Kingsmill' - which is a term now used in HR denoting a report that uses up vast energy and resources but goes nowhere in its findings.

In fact on reading the report its difficult to actually get to grips with what it was trying to achieve save for some PR (particularly for some struggling-for -business practitioners).

As usual, in the time taken, we're utilising all of our resources in helping clients with our expertise in developing and implementing a measured strategy on the practicalities of employee/staff engagement.

We're currently compiling our own report which will be due for publication shortly but will be free of meaningless statistical claims, dodgy research and woolly academic thinking. It will also ask some hard questions regarding some common references used.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with a similar opinion.....see Personnel Today 'MacLeod Review struggles to engage senior HR professionals' for example and a good comment by Mike Berry also.

I wouldn't get over-excited by the MacLeod Review purely given its politically motivated raison d'etre.

For those organisations who are already on the 'employee engagement case' - keep going. If you want to learn how to take it to the next level or indeed how to unlearn some questionable common practice give us a call..........

Talent Management Part IV - Be careful of trying to square the circle.......?

Today is the fourth and final instalment of the Talent Management focus.

Fundamentally we know that 'talent management' is really looking at a 'slice' of existing HRM processes in a more integrated fashion and with a strategic perspective, with the provision that this can only happen if structured evaluation and measurement is undertaken (as with most things strategic).

Thus talent management (TM) is essentially a sub-set of human capital management (HCM) as it does not look at the total of people management practice (as defined by the VB-HR Profiler). I would reiterate the stance that both HCM and TM are as much organisation philosophies to follow.

I would hate to think that HR professionals are unable to see the similarities between talent management, people management and human capital management............

I have refrained from referring some of our publications until today. I would suggest that if you want to see an overview of strategic human capital management and the link with talent and where evaluation and measurement fit in then I would recommend two articles:

'Competitive Advantage through Strategic Human Capital Management', JoAHCM Volume 1 Number 1 2007, and 'Organisation Engagement: Evaluating your human capital management signature', JoAHCM Volume 1 Number 2 2007

For a specific article on Talent Management see 'Managing The Talent Equation: The seven fundamentals of Talent Management', JoAHCM Volume 2 Number 1 2008.

As a general comment, I think the reality is that most organisations are doing some form of talent management to varying degrees of success and to varying degrees of their staffing population.

As yet the effectiveness or competitive advantage derived is mainly unclear, simply because focus has been on process and data collation rather than evaluation, measurement and organisation intelligence.

My concern is that we spend too long trying to get perfect data or adding layers of process rather than focus on the output/impact/difference it makes......
From an organisational standpoint there are three questions around talent management and its impact that I would pose:

1. When referring to talent is the organisation referring to everybody, or just particular roles/levels of the organisation? For example, The War for Talent mentioned yesterday had a specific focus on certain management levels. More recent interpretations have been broader to incorporate all levels/roles. So does talent have a specialised focus? If its is more broad how does that play out in reality?

2. How are organisations utilising their talent and to what degree? How do we know that people’s ‘talent’ is being collectively put to good use given some of the natural operating constraints, for example? How do we keep track? And what difference does it make?

3. How are organisations optimising the talent they have? How is development aligned with business need? Do we have any idea? What are the implications from a workforce planning perspective? What is our definition of optimise and how different is it from utilise? And are we optimising the 'specialised few' or the general organisation populous? What are the cost implications? What are the cost implications of not doing it?

The vast majority of writing so far on the subject of talent management has been focused on the process. The three questions above should start to move that focus into the value-based space....

[Original entry: November 23 2007]

Talent Management Part III - 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest'

Continuing on the talent management theme, I shall take a quick look at a couple of influential publications ........

'The War for Talent' the book by the three 'McKinseyites' Michaels, Handfield-Jones and Axelrod is worth a re-look. Published in 2001 at the height of the dot-com boom (some would say at the end) this is the book that many refer to when talking about the start of the 'talent' movement.

Actually, there had been a number of books written on talent before this, stretching back to 1963!!

'The War for talent' appeared to ignite on a theme that resonated, citing 'research' that provided a business case for organisations to follow.

The book brings together research ‘insight’ and a strong mix of anecdotal material gleaned from senior management interviews. The well-thought chapter titles include ‘Embrace a talent mindset’, ‘Crafting a winning employee value proposition’, ‘Rebuilding your recruiting strategy’, ‘Weave development into your organisation’, ‘Differentiate and affirm your people’ and give you a flavour of the focus of the book. It is well worth reading if you haven’t already. However, there are some questions.

Much is made of the research results, but very little is actually presented to provide ‘scientific insight’ and this is disappointing. The book was also one of several published when linking people concepts to shareholder return was in vogue. If you have read any of our material you will know our view of the extreme dangers of trying to directly link people concepts to shareholder value. Also, the company research sample carried out in 2000 was actually quite small and limited (i.e. no public sector organisations for example).

Unfortunately, one of their much vaunted case studies was Enron. The book does not provide any overarching framework though the authors do provide a good definition of talent. Talent management is referred to in various conceptual observations rather than defined.

On to the second publication and one recently out by the CIPD, entitled, ‘Talent: Strategy, Management. Measurement’.

The publication provides a good insight into the concept of talent management, providing definitions and frameworks. Chapters include ‘Understanding talent and talent management’, ‘Talent strategy, policy and governance’, ‘Talent management, succession planning and talent pools’, ‘Attracting talent’, ‘Developing talent’, ‘Managing talent’, ‘Who makes talent management happen?’, ‘Tracking and evaluating talent management’ provides a good structure and insight.

The report nicely finishes with ten key messages. An eclectic mix of organisations from private/public/non-profit sectors act as case studies provide interesting insight from different perspectives. But experienced practitioners will perhaps feel that there is nothing significantly new here.

However, two worrying points to mention. Despite measurement being in the title there is very little of note, in evidence in the report and this is still the weak area in talent management generally.

The other really concerning note, given that this is produced by a business school, is the research references. About half are CIPD related or with those associated with the CIPD. There are some serious research-based articles out there which appear to have been ignored or not used.

I have previously commented on my concerns on the research due diligence with regard to CIPD publications and also the ‘parochial’ nature in which these seem to be focused. This is again prevalent here.

Next week some final comments and the way forward………I’ll leave you to work out the theme connection with ‘One flew over the cuckoo's nest’…………..

Talent Management Part II

Starting with today's background context for Talent Management -

If Personnel was mainly to do with administrative excellence

And

Human Resource Management (HRM) mainly focused on integrated process excellence

Then

Human Capital Management (HCM) provides the added dimension of business intelligence (BI) excellence, since it takes the integrated process excellence of HRM as read.

As I have mentioned previously this is BI 2.0, not just data collation, i.e. evaluation and measurement leading to the potential of predictive analytics. Incidentally, workforce intelligence, a phrase that we were one of the first to use, is normally referred to as the ‘HR’ component of BI. (But today is not about BI!).

Thus, having defined human capital management we, as a professional services firm and associated School, already look at talent management with a measurement, evaluation and BI focus above and beyond the HRM process..... ok so far?

Before talent management comes talent, so what is talent?

A quick and dirty definition of Talent (at an individual level) is 'the collective knowledge, skills and personal attributes of an individual. This includes any innate ability and also the ability to ‘grow’ or develop.'

Onto Talent Management (TM) and our current working definition:

‘Talent management is a collective term used to describe an organisation’s approach to managing and utilising its human capital capability and performance. As such it can be viewed as much as a philosophy with strategic intent designed to provide the organisation with competitive advantage.’

From an HRM process perspective there is very little new in terms of what talent management brings. However, talent management appears to be interpreted as more focused on the optimised integration of existing HRM processes relating to TM (even though technically this should be covered under strategic HRM).

This has been skewed from a software supplier perspective. Our definition of integrated is much more than just data importing and exporting. I would also point out the observation that TM is viewed as an underlying philosophy much as Human Capital Management is which is important.

This is why our view and definitions under the HCM banner (and Global HR Profiler) accept that all of the Talent Management processes already exist or are embedded in current organisational HRM practice.

Many organisations have the basics in place to a sufficient degree. These can include specific areas such as performance/competency management, succession planning, workforce planning, recruitment, employer brand, reward, development/learning, diversity, elements of OD etc.

Thus, if you like, it is looking at a cross section of HRM practice through a lens. That’s it –though one can argue that there is a more strategic focus associated with TM. The real question should be how effective is the organisation’s overall talent management/strategy and what difference is it making?

This is why efforts around talent management should really be around evaluation, measurement and business intelligence (which is why we are already doing this) rather than the process or data collation. It is the same for both public and private sectors even though background context or individual organisational drivers may be a little different.

To provide context on talent management, from our view you may recall that our evaluation of strategic HCM best practice looks at 16 core HR strategies (and their associated operational effectiveness), of which one is talent management. These are:

• Diversity


• Employee centricity


• Employee engagement


• Employer brand


• Leadership (at all levels)


• Organisation climate


• Organisation communications


• Organisation design


• Performance orientation


• Resourcing


• Retention


• Reward


• Talent Management


• Training & Development


• HR Governance


• HR operational excellence

They are not mutually exclusive and are linked in the integrative fashion already alluded to.
There is nothing stopping anybody looking at Talent Management from a strategic perspective as long as they are clear as to what that entails (though also by definition, anything strategic should really involve measurement/evaluation).

Reading through a plethora of TM stuff, one is struck by the regurgitated and repackaged HRM processes that are trotted out. Thus if somebody is talking ‘Talent Management’ to you and there’s a piece of process/data collation software mentioned or maybe repackaged parts of recruitment process or employer branding etc as the main thrust of the discussion you know you’re being suckered.

This also goes for any business school out there who is jumping on the TM bandwagon in the hope of generating revenue without doing some serious due diligence.

So to all relevant suppliers in the HR industry, given the working definition of Talent Management mentioned and the observation that from a HR process perspective there is nothing really new – do you agree?

Because if you don’t, what were organisations trying to do before the term Talent Management came into vogue with the HRM processes they had in place?

Look forward to the reasoned arguments.............of course HR practitioners are welcome to comment........

[Talent Management Part II was originally published November 21 2007]

Talent Management Part I of 4

Over the summer months starting today I shall be republishing some blog entries from the past. As a starter, I am republishing the 4-parter on Talent Management, updating where appropriate.

Here it is........

Whatever your thoughts on Wikipedias, one word that has become associated with it is the term 'disambiguation'. Essentially it is the process of defining the sense of a word in order that when searching for meaning, people are guided to the appropriate place.

It would seem that the HR profession could do with a little 'phrase disambiguation' to help in information dissemination and education. It could save a lot of time and money. Having spent quite some time in defining terms in HR, I am getting alarmed at the way in which talent management's meaning seems to have 'stretched' from recruitment through to strategic measurement.

In fact some definitions suggest that it's meaning is as comprehensive as human capital management which is very troubling..........

So, in the market, if talent management = human capital management then I'll have to accept that in the striving to provide clear and concise technical appreciation...for now. For what it's worth talent management is a sub-set of Human Capital Management if you follow our technical appreciation of the profession.

Our definition of Human Capital Management is 'the term which is used to describe an organisation's multi-disciplined approach to optimising the capabilities and performance of its management and employees.'

Some definitions of talent management would suggest similar. It may be of use in terms of thinking what 'talent management' is not or does not include. For at its heart, the term talent management is a 'cluster term', i.e. it is a collective descriptive term which is where the trouble starts - because it can mean what you want it to mean - if there is no technical underpinning.
And as the great Yogi Berra once said 'it's deja-vu all over again.'

Because we've just been through the same process with employee engagement (and still are).
The danger,if we are not careful, is that confusion will reign and time and money will be potentially mis-spent. Many will be potentially disappointed.
Next time I will look at a working definition of talent management. Today I am just going to jot down what it isn't......

Talent management isn't a piece of software.

TM isn't rebadged HR (though it is looking very similar).

TM isn't a new recruitment solution.

TM isn't a fad.

I do hope that TM isn't becoming another- fuzzy word- a nice word to use instead of human capital management- a means of staying vague but 'hip'- another marketing buzz-word.....until part II next week...

[Originally published November 20 2007]

We interrupt this programme...........

So the people have spoken both locally and on a European basis - and they don't like what they see currently with the incumbent. Those who have read my previous blog entries know that I've been critical of government economic policy and its leadership on several occasions. It would appear that this is now a majority sport.

However, rather than spout on about the political machinations I'm more interested in the aspects of leadership/management that are on show.

For the current show is very similar to an organisation which has hit hard times and has to change, but whatever it does, just adds to the turbulence.

So what are the parallels? Here are six for starters

1. The cabinet reshuffle was a classic case of an organisational restructuring after uncontrolled management turnover and haemorrhaging support from ground troops. Lots of moving names on a board but ultimately a senior management group with a weaker set of talent.



2. In organisational restructuring, manipulative politics and defence posturing plays its part. Last week's powerplays were a classic sign of 'defending one's turf', corridor conversations that were then denied, individualised rather than group plotting against the 'CEO' along with some clever positioning by the now 'second in command' with a weakened leader.



3. A weak management team that won't truly confront the issue but are 'satisficing' believing this to be the best way forward for themselves first, organisation second, customer (citizen) third.



4. The communications that were supposed to be delivered with the reorganisation - 'singing from the same hymnsheet' but lasted less than 24 hours before the real message started to seep out across the ranks. This is classic symptom of a dysfunctional organisation in a crisis.



5. The underlying and fundamental problem of a 'successor' chosen to replace a previous 'charismatic' CEO without proper due diligence of assessing talent and capability to do the job. The successor has been found to be flawed in a number of ways.



6. The inevitable CEO Presentations that convinve only the 'organisation loyalists' who, in the main, display symptoms of being 'in denial'. The CEO himself convincing 'himself' (again 'in denial' that he is the man for the job by clever phraseology that actually disengages more troops. I'm sure psychologists will be having a field day.

As witness to all of these events in various organisations in industry over the past 20 years, the outcome always ends the same, more restructuring leading to eventual takeover/administration or a downsizing of such magnitude that renders the organisation a 'has been' in market terms. And it doesn't seem to matter who is chosen to lead.

However, when this organisation is in fact a government, this has huge ramifications for all citizens.

Thus the collective human capital of the country has spoken over the past 5 days - its time for the management to the decent thing. Put themselves up for re-election to secure a mandate...or let somebody else do it.........

[Note: The Adaptive HR Function will appear next week]

Postscript 08.06.09

And they all cheered and clapped as the captain appeared and told them "this ship's not for turning", and the music played on as the boat continued to sink with all hands on board save a few who jumped.

When the senior crew were asked, they replied: "there are no icebergs here, we're convinced that there are just voices inside our heads complaining about the penguins. We've convinced that the captain is the best we have, that there's actually nothing wrong with the ship, it's not holed below the line, we have enough lifeboats, the water's not freezing and with a few buckets we can get rid of the flooding water. There are enough deckchairs to go round. We don't understand the fuss'

And with that they sailed on in the belief that the fog would clear.......................and into oblivion......

HCM versus HR

Ahead of my blog for next week on 'the adaptive HR function' I thought that I would re-publish an entry from last year that attracted quite a bit of attention.

[Clicking on the title link will provide you with the previously published entry. You can also click on the table if your current view is fuzzy.]

For the purposes of today I am just going to republish the HCM versus HR table (see above). Of course there are more differentiators - this was just a brief summary.

One of the findings in the current School HCMI course is that when HR executives are looking to differentiate HCM and HR in practice, the one that resonates is:

"HR functions’ high level remit is primarily to assist the organisation in optimising people performance. We know that people are simultaneously assets, resources and liabilities. It therefore follows that HR as a corporate function has to ensure that all human capital management practices are integrated and in themselves performing, i.e. delivering what is required and mutually reinforcing." (taken from HR Governance - HR Operational Excellence module, HCMI 2009)

As I have said before I believe the term human resources is actually too narrow (and potentially demeaning). Human Capital Management deals with all three dimensions not just the one.

I believe that another very important distinction will be made in time.

To practice HCM requires a degree of operational excellence as a baseline for being 'fit for purpose'.

One of the core fundamentals of delivering opertional excellence in HCM(HR) function terms is the people capability of the function. It is very revealing that when asking this question in class, HR executives admit they are carrying people, or they are putting up with poor capability, whatever that reason maybe. This is replicated at conferences. No exceptions.

Thus it was very interesting to find the result of an online survey conducted last week at Personnel Today who asked the question:

'Is the HR profession plagued by too many 'bad' HR people?

Currently from a total of 254 votes cast, 76% agree, which is astonishing. Now, notwithstanding the definition/interpretation of 'bad' (i.e. it's not Michael Jackson's) and also the expectation of doing the judging, this raises some big questions.

Of the many things I learnt many moons ago as a line manager was that accepting poor capability in your teams(s) was the worst outcome no matter what delivery or work was set on your collective plate.

One thing that the HR function has to do even to be seen as an aspirational and professional HCM function is to exit poor performers (of course if you're monitoring it?) or poor capability or both. PERIOD..........

Of course the problem has been noted before and we shouldn't discount the fact that as a professional community there are still too many amateurs in our ranks. But we do have a choice.

Next week...'The Adaptive HR Function'...... you heard it here first.....

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...."

Yes - back live, new webpage, new format, new focus but I've no doubt the same old messages.....

If you haven't been following my weekly missives over the past two years at Personnel Today then you can read them all! (again!) at http://www.personneltoday.com/blogs/hcglobal-human-capital-management/archives.html.

Eventually they will appear on this site but the joys of technology mean that the transfer will take some time......

As VaLUENTiS and ISHCM continue to grow and have a bigger influence in the industry it was perhaps best to be seen as independent from a blog perspective.

I aim to bring more analysis/observation/research on frontline issues and less comment on banality which unfortunately still seems to take up too much bandwidth in the HR community (and interest).

In people/people management industry terms, we're collectively moving into a new era - one where we face some serious challenges and inevitably opportunities and ultimately progression.

An interesting recent story being Google's much touted 'algorithm' for predicting potential retention issues. This has been given plenty of publicity and already attracted negative comment.

Two things on this:

1. More sophisticated predictive/evaluative analytics of this nature have been around for awhile - we should know as we've been doing this for some time...

2. New 'innovations' such as this, whatever its merit, always seem to initially attract the same old negative comments without sufficient understanding. So boring, so banal. Nothing new there then in the HR space.....

CIPD/PM Magazine/Best Companies: Guilty as charged

I was rather hoping I wouldn't have to write this blog this morning. The CIPD as an Institute and its PM magazine are in the dock. And Best Conmpanies yet again are trying to block its publication through 'bullying' legal letters (not to me directly though).

Charge: Unethical behaviour bringing the profession into disrepute.
Several weeks ago I sent a letter in to PM magazine. Since then nothing. Here is the letter:

'Editor

With regard to your recent 'Employer branding still makes its mark' article , I am getting increasingly concerned at the 'blanket' coverage and the apparent authenticity associated with the 'Best Companies' rankings.

Two years ago we published a report 'Best Companies : A serious branding exercise or spectacular nonsense' which raised some serious questions regarding (i) Best Companies published 'methodology' in terms of employee engagement - which they subsequently tried to suppress, and (ii) the issue of the 'bogus' nature of lists (compiled of those who enter) and which is published in the Sunday Times - effectively a PR competition, a fact that Best Companies actually state.

When companies pay to enter a list based on some 'criteria' (notwithstanding the definition of 'Best Companies') then this arrangement has similar properties to a 'Ponzi scheme' as it relies on a number of entrants to maintain it.

The fact that the CIPD, as a professional institute, is currently sponsoring Best Companies and thus providing it with an aura of authenticity, brings the whole Institute into disrepute and potential ridicule on a number of levels. It effectively means that all members of the Institute are collectively endorsing the 'Best companies' approach and its associated 'products'.

Personally, I'm waiting for the first personal lawsuit from a disgruntled employee who claims the Best Companies list as a means of employer selection.

The CIPD and People Management magazine have a professional duty to the industry which they would seem to be either brazenly ignoring or worse just being extraordinarily naive. There are better ways to support effective people management. This is not one of them. Unfortunately I fear there will be repercussions.'

Maybe they've passed the letter on internally? I don't care. I do care if this is not in the public domain.....
Some of you may recall that Mike Berry on Personnel Today's Editors blog had followed up on the CIPD/Best Companies sponsorship subject recently referring to an earlier blog of mine. My thanks to Mike for bringing it to public attention as an editor comment.

Seeing yet another advert in The Sunday Times this weekend reminded me that the CIPD/Best Companies sponsorship was still going strong.
Somewhat ironically is that in the current PM letters section is the CIPD CEO take on ethics in the construction sector!

So this is an open invitation for comment. I expect to hear from CIPD members whatever their argument (as long as it's a good one). The seriousness of this charge suggests that members cannot sit on the fence. Hey you can even write into PM magazine if you want - you never know you might get published depending on the censorship.

Of course I've assumed that enough CIPD members actually care about the ethics/principles of their institute. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're getting the Institute they deserve......?Because this isn't the only matter of ethics and principles.

I have also previously written about the seemingly unethical way in which the Institute as a charity of members has a subsidiary - CIPD enterprises that makes large profits from the profession - but this money does not get redistributed to its members.

If I was a member I would be seriously checking its memorandum. Do the math:

CIPD enterprises annual profit c. 4m+ divided by 100,000 members = £40 per year reimbursement per member.

Any takers on this one? Or is the MCIPD/FCIPD etc qualifications not worth the paper they're written on from a principled standpoint?

Postscript ONE (06.04.09)
News announced just two days after this blog entry that CIPD announced redundancies added poignancy to my earlier comments re sponsorship above.
But this annnouncement also raised further questions. How has CIPD got into such a place where 41 people are surplus to requirements? Particularly given its steady-state stream of subscriptions and profits from CIPD Enterprises (it's about as good as a monopoly as you can get? And what do just over (now) 300 staff do there? For more updates on this also see - HR Space....
Further when J Orme has stated on record that the CIPD qualifications need to become more business relevant then just how business-relevant are they? And if that's the case why was IPD granted Chartered status? We're not talking very long here.... Could you imagine if the accountancy profession announced it was making its qualifications more business-relevant?

Postsript TWO (06.04.09)
Very late on Friday I belatedly received an e-mail from the interim editor of People Management magazine some 5 days after my second request for confirmation of whether they would be printing my letter of above (and over 3 weeks from the original being sent)...
It stated:

'Dear Mr Higgins

Your choice to present this letter in a loaded way on the PT website alas pre-empted my decision whether to publish it in the 9 April edition of PM, as I would certainly never publish a letter that has already appeared elsewhere.'

How very convenient and a classic example of how to politically ignore the issue (and in a loaded way'? I printed the contents of the letter which had not been published) which was pretty much my response. Note how PM magazine read the PT blog...............

My take on this whole matter/farce is that both the CIPD and People Management magazine are increasing looking like they are past their 'SELL BY DATE'. 'Something is certainly rotting in the state of Denmark'. You heard it here first.........

Post script THREE (06.04.09)
And oh - as for Best Companies defence document - please remember that they legally tried to block our publication ('it didn't pass go') whereupon we informed them that it was perhaps better to publish some form of defence document which is what they eventually did.
It's a pity they didn't follow this due diligence when they originally published their retrospective and flawed methodology document in the first place. We would have had nothing to write about............

Post script FOUR (08.04.09)
Best Companies are again showing what a nice bunch of people they are by trying to suppress my blog entry..........'Guys' understand and focus on your (broken) business model........

2007 HR TOP100 MOST INFLUENTIAL

Last night I attended HR magazine's Top100 awards at Claridges and jolly nice it was too! An interesting evening with the top100 revealed.First place went to Clare Chapman, now at the Department of Health, formerly of Tescos.

Second place went to Lynda Gratton of London Business School and third place to Charles Handy, who may have been slightly bewildered to find himself in the ranking given his virtual retirement nowadays - but as they say, 'quality never fades'. (It was good to shake his hand and acknowledge his contribution to my earlier days on understanding management). The rest of the top ten included...........

4 David Fairhurst, McDonalds
5 Neil Roden, RBS
6 Chris Bones, Henley
7 Duncan Brown, now at PwC
8 Lord Leitch
9 Will Hutton, The Work Foundation
10 Richard Donkin, author and journalist

The rest of the places were taken up by an interesting mix of 'influencers'. The reason I was there - well, if you look down the list you'll find one 'Nicholas J Higgins' - a new entry at 67! So I guess I've influenced some out there.....Coming on the back of my inclusion in the HRO100 2007 Superstars (http://www.hrotoday.com/Magazine.asp?artID=1552), I might be accused of being a guru myself................(steady Tiger!)

The top ten overseas had a familiar ring to it...........

1 Dave Ulrich
2 Robert Kaplan
3 Jim Collins
4 Henry Mintzberg
5 Fons Trompenaars
6 Michael Porter
7 Chris Argyris
8 Peter Senge
9 Gurnek Bains
10 Rosabeth Moss Kanter............

I of course look forward to seeing the Personnel Today Top40 next week............

WAR ZONE OF POLITICS HAS HIGH COST....

The article in today's Telegraph focused on two studies regarding office politics and conflict in the workplace.....Surprised? I thought not.........How to solve it? Just add water and bit of communication here and a little bit of coaching support there....blah...blah....blah....blah. The obligatory lawyers warning that it could lead to bullying, harassment, stress (self-interest here?) world war and alien abduction (the last two I made up!).

If we could just rub a little vicks on the 'organisational chest' then we could all sleep better at night. Ah! how nice....I almost feel warm and cuddly.............WAKE UP!....

Oops sorry I was drifting away there 'The Wizard of Oz' and there's Judy................

Now office politics can be crap but it exists. Period. It exists because if anybody has studied anthropology any organisation/group involving people has politics because it's needed. From an organisational standpoint, the question should be 'Is organisational politics helping or disabling? Is it a factor in assisting employee engagement or is it demotivating?

Of course we haven't a clue because we don't ask the right questions. Apparently career transition (i.e. promotion) is extremely challenging which would suggest to me that you need to look at your promotion policy and calibre of people rather than blame office politics..................
Why, oh, why is conflict always seen as bad in workplaces? If it malevolent then yes it needs to be assessed and dealt with accordingly. But conflict is also good. I suggest that if many are complaining about it then they need to go on handling a conflict course. Then they can understand it first before being asked on it and also to deal with it..........There are far too many people (managers) who have difficulty handling an argument.

The term 'troublemaker' is a classic misnomer when studying conflict. Is somebody a 'troublemaker' for having a different point of view, for example? (which is quite often when the term is used)......... The trouble is that both of these studies imply a (biased) assumption that office politics and conflict are bad. My advice - first of all know your onions, i.e. define what they mean before wading in with size tens and coming out with general statements that ultimately mean nothing or worse misleading...........Organisations need both politics and conflict to operate effectively - the trick is to know when it is a positive factor and when it is negative factor - for that you need to call in the experts...........

EMPLOYEE SURVEYS - WHY PICK'N'MIX AIN'T THE WAY!

The more we add new clients under our engagement model and the more we interact with the market the more we find out about issues within. We are currently authoring another article on the subject of the dangers with employee surveys.


We come across a lot of surveys that are of the pick'n'mix variety which when technically assessed do not meet the standards of measuring engagement or for that a balanced view of the organisation. Why is that? Well the pick'n'mix is seductive - a client picks a set of questions from various categories and also a smaller core set as some baseline index.....

The problems are FIVE-fold:

1. There is no fundamental model of what is being measured other than the selection itself and is therefore open to imbalance if trying to measure engagement (see our VaLUENTIS 5-Domain engagement model if you want to know more)
2. If selected by the client it means that employee survey results can be 'massaged'. This can lead to a false, or at best an incomplete picture.
3. Benchmarking is not really benchmarking because of the single question item approach. Each survey is unique in time and it is as much as the relation between the questions and the derived data as to a single question by itself for insight and analysis. Thus single item comparison is at best a 'further proxy'.
4. Indices are all customised with a few set items. With a complicated construct like Engagement you need far more items (questions) to ensure that the index is a reliable marker; a minimum of 20-30 questions.
5. Surveys should be designed to some standard design which includes a core platform of questions for truer benchmarking but also have the ability to add customised questions to provide the best of both worlds
6. Many Employee Survey suppliers are pretty much peddling rubbish even if it smells nice
   
   
   

RESULT:

1. A lot of money being wasted
2. Organisations still don't get the required insight
3. Much benchmarking provides no real added value
4. HR (if its the purchaser) doesn't get the appropriate kudos - in fact could be negative!

A LATE ENTRY FOR TODAY....

Sometimes I just get very very busy (as opposed to very busy!) - which is why my blog entry is late today (better late than never).....

So what's news today......

">http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/06/05/40932/new-alliance-brings-employers-and-colleges-together-to-deliver-education-relevant-to-the-workplace.html

News in the UK that employers and colleges are joining up to deliver more economically valuable skills pretty much beggars belief. You mean after all this time colleges haven't. Excuse me but what the **** has been going on? Are we serious? Whilst some of us actually contribute to the economy under free enterprise we appear to have a lot of people who are doing the exact opposite!

Why not just shut them down and let the market decide......It may be a particularly UK 'thing' but wherever you look there seems to be publicly-funded or part-publicly funded organisations who are doing nothing but destroying citizen wealth (including mine). Bring back hanging some say it just might sort it out!!

Seriously, the mind boggles at the collective waste. It would be interesting to find out, from a national perspective, when all distributed tax/funds is stripped from recipients (both individual/organisations), who is actually positively creating wealth for the country and contributing to tax revenues - please ignore all real estate asset value (as they are giant Ponzi schemes). Knowing distribution curves one suspects that we have a classic 80/20 split.

Actually given the distortions I see, my estimate is that its actually 1o/90 or worse still. Which is a very scary thought - (by the way private firms need to strip out any revenues provided by public sector organisations/agencies to be really accurate) - it gets worse............what did Hayek say?

THREE THINGS CAUGHT MY EYE TODAY.........


a bit on management, a bit on coaching evaluation and a bit on HR professionals...........As reported in Personnel Today (http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/06/04/40901/chartered-institute-of-personnel-and-development-survey-shows-line-managers-only-want-people-respons.html ) on-line an interesting CIPD attack on managers who only seem to be interested in developing staff to further their own careers. Shock! Horror! again. Well what do we expect? In the absence of any firm mandate in most firms to acknowledge the performance aspects of good people management, behaviour will default to WIIFM and so we end up with a classic mutually benefiting (game theory) outcome. It seems as though what I have been putting forward for the last five years has been falling on deaf ears. Without a shift in focus, people management is still being seen as a nice to have..............(see Human Captal Management Manifesto - coming soon!)...


Secondly, (http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/06/01/40891/exclusive-research-by-personnel-today-and-chiumento-finds-two-in-three-companies-do-not-measure-retu.html ) two thirds of firms don't evaluate coaching (44% say its impossible, just 13% say they do and 45% say they have no idea - average outlay was £85k pa). What a shambles.....its not new this insight but what are HR functions doing? Where does coaching fit in? What's the business case? Which other components of the mix are connected? Obviously too problematic by half.......and then we wonder why this gets cut back (even where it does help)........de-dah, de-dah! (never mind the issue of accredited providers....


Thirdly, HR legal staff being paid big bucks!(http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/06/04/40907/top-companies-willing-to-pay-huge-salaries-for-hr-specialists-in-employee-relations-and-employment-l.html ) Coming on the back of my comments last week re the HR profession (To Be or Not To Be http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/05/22/40674/the-hr-profession-to-be-or-not-to-be.html ) this is interesting though this is is seen as law rather than HR and not the other way round - which kinda says it all........

ARE ORGANISATIONS REALLY GETTING IT?

What is the difference between employee surveys amd employee engagement?

Actually nothing if you deal with us (like a select few others). Employee surveys are just the means in which you can measure, assess/analyse and act upon employee engagement. Employee engagement should define why you're doing employee surveys, not because its a compliance thing or because its a while since 'we last did one', but because it looks to inform re overall employee/manager engagement and overall organisation performance. Not only that, but you can then do it annually (plus intermittent pulse surveys), track trends and progress, and, with our unique value proposition you can also measure/track trend/progress the fifteen organisation engagement indicators (to remind readers these are:)

the effectiveness of:

• Diversity
• Employee centricity
• Employer brand
• Leadership
• Organisation climate
• Organisation communications
• Organisation design
• Performance orientation
• Resourcing
• Retention
• Reward
• Talent management
• Training & Development
• HR Governance
• HR operational excellence

What is interesting is those organisations which 'get it' (the lead echelon) we have been talking to and signing up. Great for them as they get an innovative solution that is also faster, better, cheaper. According to theory, this kind of product shouldn't exist. However in a sleepy market, full of potential purchasers - many of whom have yet to fully incorporate employee engagement as a concept, and with existing suppliers who have been doing the same old-same old and creaming it for a long time - then that's why. In other words the market is highly inefficient. We are trying to put it right..........

I would like to think that the proverbial 'penny/euro/dollar/rupee/renminbi' is dropping for many - it's so obvious once you see it................

ORGANISATION PERFORMANCE THROUGH A HUMAN CAPITAL LENS: IS HR TOO MUCH CAUSE DRIVEN RATHER THAN BUSINESS CASE DRIVEN?

Yesterday, I made the comment that much media coverage of HR seems to be driven by a narrow (and thus distorting) focus. If you add to that the themes that many HR conferences portray one could argue that too much of HR is driven by 'cause' rather than business case around organisation performance/capability. More worryingly is the projection of 'victim' or 'done to' mentality that pervades many of these items.

If we look at Finance, Marketing, IT, Facilities (and Legal in some cases) as other corporate functions there does not appear to be the same 'cause' or 'victim-space' focus. Thus the question is why and what does it mean? To illustrate further the latest incarnation 'CSR' is a case in point. If you attend any HR conferences or read any literature on this subject, it is hard to argue against the observation that it appears to be rather 'cause' driven. (CSR is unfortunately a fairly meaningless umbrella term when academically dissected).

So you might say so what? It seems to be doing some good/profile raising? Well yes and no. The danger in all of this, is that the business case stuff gets left behind. Now though organisations may be 'scared into' doing something, my real fear is that it turns out to be RATHER EPHEMERAL (particular with any slight economic contraction). My biggest rejection of this is that it is difficult to be a professional practioner in a discipline that is run by 'causes'. Those of you have read my previous blog entries may realise that this is another reason why the HR profession doesn't pass the 'profession' test and is probably unintendendly getting in the way .... (and is something like CSR really the means to which HR raises its profile?- see below).

Organisation performance through a human capital lens (OPtaHCL) has the central tenet of PEOPLE BEING CENTRIC TO THE ORGANISATION and therefore any management thereof is driven by BUSINESS CASE (and thus economic trade-offs) which are a core fundamental to the business no matter the external environment. This of course does not preclude any potential (and unfortunate) people downsizing through a business case rationale if it happens. It particularly avoids contradictions which is something that can't be said for the likes of CSR or the current narrow take on diversity, etc.

This argument may leave some in HR with a bitter taste but as Jules Joubert once said 'It is better to debate a question without settling it rather than to settle a question without debating it' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joubert). I think there has been too little debate regarding this whole issue....

I have a model of HR that borrows from Maslow in terms of a value proposition fulfilment hierarchy (my apologies for the mouthful!). It starts at the bottom with ensuring certain mandatory items are done operationally well (i.e. payroll) and topped with 'causes' (i.e. having got everything else right and working effectively from an 'OPtaHCL' focus). Think of the 'cause' as being 'transcendental' from a Maslow perspective. I think it is very difficult to find any HR function, gloablly, that can display is value proposition fulfilment to that level. So the question is what is going on?

Love to hear your comments on this one..............

ORGANISATION PERFORMANCE THROUGH A HUMAN CAPITAL LENS

Its nice to see that since coining this phrase some three years ago, it is becoming 'a little mainstream' (well here and there, anyway!). A number of people have asked me 'what does it mean?' to which my response has been 'organisation performance through a human capital lens'.....Not wishing to become facetious to an inquiry - my simple answer is that it means we look at the performance of organisation from a people perspective. Since all organisations require people to own, execute strategies and run operations, it seems a fairly logical assumption to follow. I have repeatedly said (see Journal of HCM Vol 1 No 1/Strategic HCM - go to www.ISHCM.com) that in today's markets, the only really non-replicable competitive advantage is a result of an organisation's collective people output.

Thus for me the logic seems pretty straightforward and that focus on people should be seen through this 'lens' (both income generation/service delivery/effort and costs side). Thus, it is somewhat disappointing to see that the only 'people news' that makes the main newspapers seems to be along the diversity/training for the unskilled/unhappy worker/equal pay/more women in the boardroom axis. I don't know about you but its getting rather boring tiresome, irksome, one-dimensional and plainly distorting so much of what is also important. Don't get me wrong these are all pieces of the overall mix but do we have to constantly bang on the same limited focus all of the time?

A report released last week highlighted failings and a lack of competence with business journalism at the BBC (it took a report! they could have e-mailed me.........) saying that there was a very limited view and thus business news items suffered distortion accordingly. Similarly I find that newspaper journalism on human capital matters equally limited and ignorant which is, I presume, why we get dollops of the same monotonous stuff coming at regular intervals (like buses). Can somebody change the CD? What I did notice was a recent letter to the editor of a well known paper whose response (female) took a heavy knife to a well-known business school professor's (female) argument (if you can call it that) who has been, should I say spouting, such stuff for quite some time now. So perhaps its not just me who's noticed!!!

Tomorrow I'll talk more on the 'OPtaHCL'...........Be seein ya......

BACK LIVE AFTER THE BANK HOLIDAY.....

Since yesterday was another bank holiday here in the UK (yes 2 in May and mighty wet it was!) there was no blog. Thus returning today I have a couple of observations.

1. You have to admire the political wiles of the French. News of the much vaunted €500million 'Globalisation safety fund' set up for EU workers who lose their jobs through global competition seems to have attracted few takers. This Euro fund set-up with much backing from the French authorities has received application from just one country - yes, you guessed it France (reported aid of €4m). Word on the street is that actually far fewer jobs have been lost than argued (or maybe people just don't know about it - maybe being in the news will boost applications!?). One thing is clear though in Euroland France are in a different class when it comes to funds and subsidies - clever by half. It will be interesting to see how this might change given the political changes currently being instigated.........
   
   
2. I wrote some time ago on the 'McJob' debate - that is McDonalds trying to erase the term from the Oxford English Dictionary. It seems as though McDonalds are as tenacious at this as some of their more famously publicised forays. What is disconcerting is the multitude of 'big' business names supporting this (see last week's FT columns and letters). Most bizarre....Quite why we've ended up here is well - remarkable! Being a global firm obviously isn't enough. What was initially thought of as a bit of a 'novelty' thing is turning into something far more insidious and attracting criticism (see FT letters). McDonalds I suspect may again end up attracting negative publicity through this no matter their 'just cause'. You can't rewrite history unless you're in a totalitarian state....Quite worrying really.....Celebrate the term for what it is (was) and move on..........the market decides anyhow....haven't 'big business' names got something better to do with their time?

HR PROFESSION: TO BE OR NOT TO BE - HUMOUR!

Given the ‘serious’ message contained within the HR profession: To be or not to be PT article (see link yesterday) I thought that today’s (as opposed to yesterday’s ‘broken tag’ debacle!) blog could be dedicated to a series of spoof replies I trust that they provide a laugh!

Response board:

Mr Higgins’ assertion that HR needs to show how it adds value is wide of the mark. I have been in personnel for thirty years and never been asked to show how I add value. I am looking forward to my early retirement next year!
Mr N Snodgrass Personnel

Mr Higgins’ seems to be again making the case for a Chief Human Capital Officer. Why? What could possibly be the reason? We already have a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), a Chief Operating Officer (COO), a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a Chief Information Officer (CIO). We know people are important but a CHCO?
Ms T H Point HR Executive

I don’t understand why Mr Higgins thinks that HR needs to ‘do measurement’. The other day I received some great feedback from one of our senior managers in the corridor. In fact I remember recently receiving similar feedback from several managers right after our third HR restructuring (downsizing) in 4 years.
Ms S Gullible Personnel

Mr Higgins seems to delight in asking questions and challenging the status quo. The other day I told my daughter that asking a question was a child’s prerogative and that as children grow older they soon get out of the habit. I am currently teaching her NLP and ‘if it ain’t broke why fix it?’
Mrs A Forthright Learning

Mr Higgins seems to imply that measurement is core to HR’s role. Let me assure that it isn’t. I asked the Finance Dept about measurement and they said no they do accounting. So if Finance don’t do measurement why should we?
Mr T Bone HR Shared Services

Mr Higgins point about the CIPD qualification not being a ‘Get out of jail free card’ just showed up his warped view of HR. I take it that he has obviously played Monopoly and its overt sense of commercialism and competition – these are not the reasons I joined HR.
Ms F Nightingale Counsellor

I was disappointed to see that there was no acknowledgement of a diversity officer in Mr Higgins’ ‘new world’ of HR professionals. This is even more galling as this month I’ve taken extra responsibility for the ‘five-a-day fruit’ policy.
Miss J Brodie Diversity Officer

I find Mr Higgins’ comments regarding HR’s lack of strategic contribution concerning. For example, as an HR Director I have been involved recently in a salary award, recruiting a senior manager and sorting out a payroll issue for our CEO. How strategic can you get?
Mr O Perational HR Director

Let me tell you Mr Higgins view of the world is actually passé. We have recently introduced a new variation of the ‘Ulrich model’. I now have 100 part-time HR Business Partners who work one day a week each as employee champions. We are particularly proud as in our recent employee satisfaction survey HR was the top function for responses on work-life balance.
Ms S Cadet

I don’t see why as a HR professional with a CIPD qualification I should look to undertake a further one such as the HCMI qualification when having done the same job for the last ten years and a small fee I can upgrade my current qualification.
Mrs B Bonnet MCIPD

It’s a very interesting assumption that Mr Higgins makes regarding measurement in HR leading to definition, clarity, debate, learning etc thus assisting it in its mission. I think that this is particularly flawed as being in HR myself, I would have to ask why on earth would I not like to keep things fuzzy? Making things more transparent will only make it worse.
Mr B Smart HR Manager


All names and roles appearing above are fictitious and in no way are meant to represent any living person.

HR PROFESSION: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

Unfortunately due to a technical problem at blogger end today's entry has disappeared (an hours worth of work - thanks!). Thus the spoof responses to this week's article appearing in Personnel Today (http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/05/22/40674/the-hr-profession-to-be-or-not-to-be.html) will have to be tomorrow. Let me apologise on behalf of google who of course have grand designs on being able to control your every thought in future. So come on Google what I am I going to do next?.......

ON THE MOVE AGAIN.......

Once more I am on the road - thus today's entry a more brief affair (some may rejoice!). Just a note re yesterday - as of June the blog will have a new expanded platform connected to Personnel Today. This should provide a little more structure around themes for those who wish to read. As a preliminary piece I will select some of the more memorable entries over the past year and republish.

Today the topic is actually about forthcoming entries to celebrate the new appearance and interactivity of the blog. There will be a series of 'Director monologues' and 'HR monologues' - a slightly humurous send-up (I hope) of some of the absurdities of management and organisations, alongside the more traditional commentary and debating themes, plus some new stuff which, of course, I won't tell you now - you'll just have to wait and see!

On a final note for the day can I just say a big thanks to the truly global audience - I think there has been somebody from every single country on the planet - truly extraordinary which shows the true newtork power of these things....keep tuning in........

DID YOU REALLY THINK I'D STOP BLOGGING.......

Yesterday's announcement was a bit of a tease - of course I'm not stopping........there's far too much going on as you can see from my entry.........not only that but its getting an upgrade. More on that tomorrow.......

Back to the present (or is that the future?)...........anyway you may have caught my little ditty in Personnel Today yesterday (HR Profession - to be or not to be?) which kind of summarised some of my comments on this blog. As ever its the questions I ask and the point of view that looks to uphold/upgrade the status of the 'HR profession'.......

No surprise I guess at the lack of take-up from employers on the Leitch Review recommendations - Why? Well there's no business case for a start and employers are once again being asked to 'backfill' for state education's failings............I think organisations have a right to ask what is their tax being paid for? If education is a core plank of any government (and for this one I do seem to remember the slogan, education..education....zzzzzzzzzz) then what on earth is going on? It seems as though its ok to accept 'remedial' as normal.....well it ain't...........

Finally, a 'well done' comment to Bernard Buckley, C&W UK Head of HR, (reported in Personnel Today yesterday) who's had the b***s to say you can get rid of poor performing staff and particularly those in HR. No hiding behind the candy floss there........expect more of the same...........................and are we at last seeing a change in the 'market' - one that is focused on people's (and organisation's)competence/performance. I remarked to my other half at the weekend about the number of times in a day I interact with somebody who can't do the basics of their job. There seems to be a say-do gap of quite big proportions. Where's HR when you need them?

IF YOU'RE NOT SURE WHAT FRIDAY WAS ABOUT........

Then the website reference was regarding a published document that exposes yet another problem in the HR industry...........

But the scenario here is if you're a company that receives government funds, then produces a product with an underlying methodology whereupon you choose to ignore your own advice which is critical to the product (making it flawed). What would you expect? Well in any other function or discipline it wouldn't fly. But in HR, no it gets revered with Government backing!.........you make your own mind up...............



Today marks a pause in my blogging for a couple of months whilst I concentrate on finishing the five publications on the go which are all due shortly. They are:

• The Human Capital Management Manifesto
• Employee Engagement: An Organisational Treatise
• Organisation Performance through A Human Capital Lens
• The Chief Human Capital Officer
• The GHCRS2006 official Reporting Standards

I am also having to ensure that the new HCMI qualification course is all ready to go for September launch.....plus there is still a growing list of clients out there to service and the business and school to run!!!! and the Journal..................Back live 01.09.07 (Don't stop commenting on back issues oif the blog - in fact keep them coming - I'll still be online for that...........)

Adieu (........for now)

BOOM!



http://www.ishcm.com/publications.htm

HR/PEOPLE MANAGEMENT - WHAT'S CHANGED?

I thought that I'd just ask a question today relating to HR and people management - and this one's pretty much global.

I hear a lot about change, particularly from people in HR, so I thought that I'd ask the question - what's changed in people management and the HR function over the last decade?

I have to admit I'm struggling to come up with anything of any real value. Can you help out? Can you provide me with something so that when we look back in 20 years we can say - ah yes from 1997 - 2007 this happened that changed the way we do things. Please anybody responding that mentions HR shared services/outsourcing - please go back to your bushel.............Com'on - tell me what can I say that shows progress?

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED)........

Today I'm going to go through Premises [16-18] which completes the whole Talent Rivalry and Competitive Intensity fundamental HCM force (one of five if you recall).

Premise [16] states 'That organisations will devise retention strategies to protect their core human 'assets' against being targeted by competing organisations'. Premise [17] states 'That given an organisational choice (in equilibrium), talent retention strategies will always be pursued before acquisition strategies'. Premise [18] states 'That organisations are likely to retain average or even poor performers if mechanisms are absent in the market-place which guarantee that adequate replacements can be found'.

You may find none of this new - then again you may acknowledge that these premises describe certain market behaviour and also question common practice - for example why focus on acquisition strategies seem to be so much more concentrated than on retention (allowing for some recent developments)? But reading the detail provides you with some interesting insights linking engagement with core roles, performance management, management itself, analytics, incurred transaction costs and the role of the HR function itself.

I am now taking a pause on this framework to report on current matters for the next few weeks (and to allow any readers digestion of the Strategic HCM article!) whereupon I'll pick up the remaining 16 Premises, that are distributed under the other four HCM forces, in June.

As a final comment for today and following on from yesterday's, I am reminded of BBC's much acclaimed drama (tragicomedy actually!) 'Boys from the Blackstuff' (for a precis go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_from_the_Blackstuff). Set in Liverpool it tells the hilarious but tragic story of unemployment from a group of ex-tarmac layers (hence the 'blackstuff') in the Eighties. There are truly some memorable hilarious moments that is hard to beat. However the central iconic character is one 'Yosser Hughes' whose defining phrase 'I can do that' became a national one. In his desperation to find work he would tragically try his hand at anything with normally disastrous results. Why am I reminded of this?

Well, it seems that HR functions and and suppliers of HR-type services are infested with the 'Yosser Hughes' types the 'I can do that' without any serious technical learning (note this includes a large tranche of CIPD qualified people). In fact that it is so bad that we are already writing our own scripts based on the hilarious but ultimately tragic conversations we encounter, as an educational piece of course!

Oh how we laughed - If only it wasn't so true!.....................Seriously there's a war brewing out there in HR land between the professionals and the amateurs and its about to get bloody.....................watch this space...........

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPTAL MANAGEMENT (Continued)

Today I look at Premises [14] and [15] relating to organisation performance.

Premise [14] - states that competitive advantage is, to differing degrees, derived through employing and maintaining superior human capital performance across the organisation. This premise sets the stall for linking talent, diversity and engagement and references the complex challenges organisations face in optimising these three aspects of human capital management.

Premise [15] states that a well defined human capital strategy which is executed accordingly contributes to overall organisational success. This expands on the role of a well planned and executed HR strategy and the importance of having good supporting HR capability, again using the hypothesis of two identical organisations save HR strategy and its impact citing a number of studies that have shown differentaition. Integration and cohesion are key words here.

Again, for more read the actual article/journal downloaded from either www.ishcm.com or http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm.

So we're pretty much half way through now. For those who have been keeping tabs on the Premises, I'm hoping that you are beginning to see the message that is emerging. Basically, if HR ever needs to know why it exists or for senior managers to get why human capital management is so important, reading these premises just once should provide the necessary rationale.

For me, I'm getting increasingly tired of the same well-worn pontificated rubbish that continues to be trotted out by the same old same old in this field. At some point hopefully that big penny will drop (its a big penny! more like Halleys comet). When it does I know our time trying to educate and serve the market will have been well-spent. It is also increasingly obvious as I have alluded to on previous blog entries that there is an awful lot to do.

From a people management perspective, there are so many opportunities, so many challenges, so many fascinating areas to explore, so much to learn, debate and apply practically with far greater impact. Unfortunately, experience shows almost the opposite. Most of HR still shows little appetite for learning, always has a reason not to do or try something, is more interested in talk rather than action (which contradicts the use of the term organisational practitioner); and if given the choice between 'cheap & crap' and 'slightly more expensive & good' will always go for 'cheap and crap'. I really hope in an era where 'HR has never had it so good', that the boat is not missed and one can only retrospectively mourn "s**t what on earth were we (not) doing!". However, the clock is ticking. My thanks to those who show willing, it is unfortunate that the rest let you down...........