HC GLOBAL - Dispatches from the world of Human Capital Management and Org Performance

Social media and HR: over-hyped and over here?

2012-01-30T11:48:00.001Z

Having observed the HR industry for some time now, it doesn't take much to spot the latest faddish bandwagon with that of social media. Yes - I know there's google and google + (is there a minus?), facebook, linkedin, etc and of course twitter. As someone who has been blogging for 6 years and been on linkedin since whenever and readily uses reddit/disqus across various media channels - I suppose I've got some claim to comment. Social media has been around for some time.............

But let's get it in perspective. First there was personal conversation (still the best I find), then the telephone, then fax, then the internet, then e-mail, blogs, internet communities and now twitter. Twitter is special because it downgrades intelligent human conversation into simple monkey language (in terms of its limitations) but I guess it hits the spot for some.

I'm sure there will be a brochure out there proclaiming how recruitment has changed because of it all (yadda, yadda). Just remember one thing: in a workplace/industry environment it can be just an unproductive distraction.With all things human, the capacity to be pernicious and poisonous and create 'my gang' playground cultures can be just as divisive as uniting, particularly when communicating through text enivronments.

Let's not get carried away. Concentrate on the day job and information that is important. I'd like to think HR is into 'intelligent dialogue'. And with that perhaps Tweeting should carry a government health warning..............

Employee Engagement presentation plus annotation HR Directors Summit Jan 2012

2012-01-28T17:33:00.002Z

Employee engagement pres plus annotation Nicholas J Higgins VaLUENTiS HR Directors Summit Jan2012 dist

View more presentations from njhceo01

2012-01-26T15:51:00.001Z

Hi Back live after a small hiatus in blog entries (!). Have been far too busy of course.

The Employee Engagement: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth tour 2012 kicked off at the HR Directors Business Summit in Birmingham this week. It's also now confirmed that I'll also be presenting at Symposium's Employee Engagement Summit 2012 (6th March) as the next 'tour stop'. More news to follow on tour developments.

The slideshow will be available very shortly through various channels but if you can't wait then e-mail me.............

There's a lot else to catch up on - but as they say - that's for later.

Bye for now.

REFLECTIONS

2009-12-14T08:21:00.007Z

Hi All

You may have noticed that the blog has been quiet of late. Well I(we)'ve been very busy of late. This will undoubtedly be our best year since inception and we once again thank all of our clients for their continued business.

VaLUENTiS/Int School of HCM
Our expanding work in the health sector has required us to set up a new operating division (www.valuentisNHS.com), particularly helping NHS Trusts become world class (literally) because they (we) deserve it.

The School has just completed its second year of HCMI intakes amd we are gearing up for the third year starting next month. My thanks to a great class this year.

There is much research being undertaken by us but more of that in the New Year as are the various publications under wraps.

Conferences seem to come thick and fast and the HR Directors Summit will soon be upon us. And of course another presentation.

But the year is tinged full of sadness due to untimely deaths (are they ever timely?) all happening in a very short space of time. A much loved family shareholder, a best friend of 30 years 'R' committing suicide and two other close friends of the family. Some things just stop you in your tracks. My thoughts are with my own and others' families.

That this should happen at the same time as we found out that some of our initial work had been passed off by others (see the press statement we had to release) was particularly hard.

I guess I should take some satisfaction that so much of our work and much of my blog entries should be copied or used by others. Yes, but attribution is all I ask. If you're new to the blog then I'd ask that you read some of the archives.

Anway onto the next decade
It's all about organisation performance (and resilience). Our thrust, in Human Capital Managment terms, and in direct contrast to others, has always been on the impact on organisation performance (but not of the silly, non-sensical shareholder return correlation kind).

It's time we blew away some of the more flaky stuff that still passes for HR management thought. It's time that thought imitators were exposed. It's time we moved people management on. It's time for the industry and practitioners to get a little more honest (acknowledging those already there). It's time we stopped using HR as PR. It's time.

See you in 2010. Have a good festive period.............

NJH

A bridge too far? CIPD acquires Bridge Consultancy

2009-10-21T13:43:00.007Z

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!

2009-08-05T07:56:00.001Z

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'?

2009-07-27T08:57:00.004Z

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

2009-07-20T08:10:00.006Z

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.......?

2009-07-13T07:18:00.004Z

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'

2009-07-06T07:50:00.006Z

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

2009-06-22T07:52:00.004Z

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

2009-06-15T21:24:00.004Z

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...........

2009-06-08T07:27:00.007Z

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

2009-06-01T08:10:00.018Z

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...."

2009-05-27T10:09:00.004Z

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

2009-04-09T08:45:00.004Z

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

2007-06-08T07:30:00.000Z

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....

2007-06-07T07:39:00.000Z

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!

2007-06-06T09:52:00.000Z

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:

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)
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.
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'.
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.
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
Many Employee Survey suppliers are pretty much peddling rubbish even if it smells nice

RESULT:

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

2007-06-05T18:58:00.000Z

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?

2007-06-04T09:53:00.000Z

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........

2007-06-01T07:55:00.000Z

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................

2007-05-31T07:17:00.000Z

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..............

2007-05-30T06:31:00.000Z

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......

2007-05-29T08:44:00.000Z

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.

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.........
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?

2007-05-25T05:13:00.000Z

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.

2007-05-24T10:49:00.000Z

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?.......

2007-05-23T07:23:00.000Z

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........

2007-05-22T08:06:00.000Z

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?

2007-05-21T11:42:00.000Z

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)

2007-05-18T06:57:00.000Z

BOOM!

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

2007-05-17T11:02:00.000Z

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?

2007-05-16T07:07:00.000Z

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...........

2007-05-15T07:02:00.000Z

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...........

2007-05-14T06:54:00.000Z

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, THIS RESPONSIBILITY, THAT RESPONSIBILITY......NENENEH, NANANAH..........

Since CSR and sustainability are current flavours of the month/year (may even be for a decade?) and that a lot of HR is getting over-excited at the prospect of saving the world once again (I always thought that it was Flash Gordon's job - maybe The Intergalactic Union needs to arbitrate?!). Since I have been asked to present/debate at a couple of events because of my contrarian view I thought that I'd share a few..........

First, saving the planet..... er..by that we actually mean saving ourselves don't we, as I think planet earth is quite OK without our help and has been doing it for a lot longer (see Lovelock's Gaian hypothesis if you wish) - 'liberate nos de nobis' comes to mind - i.e. 'save us from ourselves' - at least its honest!

Carbon offsetting - very good - has all the makings of a giant 'Ponzi scheme' with lashings of the 'tulip craze' to me....don't say you haven't been warned...............

I remember a decade ago being involved in a scenario forecasting session and realising that the Western world's attempts to combat global warming would be completely made irrelevant if the Chinese and Indian economies developed to the extent that each family had a refridgerator and car each (and who could deny them their 'human rights'?). Mmmmmmmmm................? If we're really serious about CO2/methane emissions then shooting all the cows in the world will make a huge difference (but what about their animal rights?)

It is good that we have at least started to do something but the 'real' answer lies with cleaner biodegradeable technology not in offsetting our latest holiday jamboree flight by purchasing some energy efficient light bulbs for an African village..................

As for HR in this - please focus closer to home. Effective people management is not core social responsibility but core organisational responsibility. Get the organisation doing the right things all of the time rather than focus on the 'marketing' aspects of trendy CSR stuff and kidding ourselves that it makes a difference. Employer branding starts and ends with delivering the expectation of the job. I read last week that job seekers are increasingly asking about CSR to make their choice of employment - Really? Given the interviews I've conducted it hasn't come up once though salary, pension, benefits and occasionally opportunities does (and given their other offer is £'x'k higher will we match it type of conversation).

Business (including public sector) is all about trade-offs. Do the basics right and then maybe we can start focusing our attention on anything that the 'market' hasn't already picked up........Good business already does this well.

HR - focus on the here and now - I'm not sure I can reconcile recent events where certain companies lay off thousands of poeple and then announce a big investment in environmental concerns - what kind of screwed up thinking is that? (of course if its marketing, its marvellous - but I thought we were saving the planet.......?)

I'm waiting for the inevitable legal clash between human rights vs environmental concerns vs social responsibility and that's just in the family! (what chance the world?). Well at least the lawyers will carry on making the money and perhaps they can all save us given the amounts they make from the idiocy of our over-complicated and ill thought-out (though well meaning) principles. (Where art thou Aristotle, Socrates, Plato?)

Tomorrow back with Strategic human capital management (yes more Premises........).............

2007-05-11T12:50:00.000Z

JUST TO ROUND OFF THE WEEK (as a diversion from strategic HCM bit............)

This week has been all about the letter B. No this is not Sesame Street (forerunner to The Muppets for those who can't remember that far back!)...its just an interesting correlation.

The week started with the tutterings om the aftermath of the Lord Browne of BP affair. There was more on the Big Bank Battle between Barclays, RBS and their fight over ABN Amro. Warren Buffet revelaed his new bet in the currency markets which seemed to have sent them 'crazybusy' in anticipation of second-guessing...... Then it was all about Blair or was that Bliar that some seem to refer to him as, and the new Labour dream that has become a nightmare, whilst the announcement over-shadowed (or was that cover-up) a base rate hike from the Bank of England. Then it was Brown and was that new new labour or old new labour or just old labour?

Which then led us back to Lord Browne who has 'resigned' from Goldman Sachs due to the earlier revelations. Meanwhile Barclays are making redundancies of back-office staff. All of this coming on the back of the biggest grossing Boxing match in history....PHEW - its time to blog off!.....................

2007-05-11T08:45:00.000Z

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED)

Right then........continuing on the 'talent rivalry' subsets today for those who have stayed with it?!! On to the subset - Organisation performance (Premises [13] through [15]). I am purely looking at Premise [13] today because of its underlying feature on a couple of serious measures.

Premise [13] states......That the organisation performance attributed to human capital, as defined by HCIR and HCIR/HCC measures, can be positively influenced by good management practice and high employee engagement.

Yes, yes but what the hell is HCIR and HCIR/HCC? Well, reading the journal article (download from www.ishcm.com) will provide a summarised answer. However, HCIR stands for Human Capital Intensity Revenue which is basically an organisation's revenues or income adjusted to the ratio of its human capital costs against overall costs. Got it? Well, it is just a better measure than the oft touted (and totally flawed) revenue per FTE metric as it adjusts for the different operating models out there. Revenue per FTE assumes everybody's operating model is the same (yeh - right!) which is why it is a MEANINGLESS MEASURE.

So I am sorry to all out there who are using Revenue per FTE as a marker. Despite showing the complete invalidity of the revenue per FTE measure, I still get 'in-denial' reponses. Its basically flat earth thinking versus round-earth thinking. HCIR and HCIR/HCC (HC costs) look to provide a better fusion between finance and HR which produces more valid and useful top-line measures.

For those who wish to know more - see either our 'Cracking The Human Capital Code' report from last year and/or the HC Reporting Standards (GHCRS2006) (both available from http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Books/index.htm) . Or, of course, we can carry on using revenue per FTE because we've always done............If you haven't spotted what this Premise is all about - it is connecting effective human capital management and employee engagement with organisational performance......Now why isn't every HR person in the world interested? Come to that, where are the CEOs as, after all, the biggest annual cost is normally people?......yep time to get in my boat and fall off the edge................

2007-05-10T07:12:00.000Z

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: TODAY - EMPLOYER BRAND

Continuing the trawl through the Strategic HCM Premises - today I comment on the Employer Brand subset.

Just as a reminder the Five HCM forces are:

Talent rivalry and competitive intensity
Human Capital (HC)
Leveraged organisational architecture
Market/stakeholder recognition of HC value
HC replacement propensity

(Again - this relates to the main article in the Journal of Applied HCM downloadable at www.ISHCM.com or http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm)

'Talent rivalry and competitive intensity' is further split into six subsets:

Competitive rivalry

Human capital utilisation
Employee engagement
Employer brand
Organisation performance
Talent rivalry and retention

So I trust that you can remind yourself where we are in the process!So continuing with........

Premise [10] - To differentiate in the market-place (this is equally appropriate for public/NFP sectors), organisations need to develop employer brands with associated employee value propositions. This in fact provides the rationale as to why the concept of employer brand has appeared in the market-place. The text provides further explanation as to the whys and wherefores. One thing of note is my rationale that HC Reporting has been overlooked as a particular employer branding tool...............

Premise [11] - Organisations, however, need to execute on the employee value proposition (EVP) to match 'experience' with 'expectation'. It perhaps goes without saying that 'lowballing' on the promise will lead to retention issues (never mind reduced engagement and lost productivity along the way) if experience cannot be matched - a very costly exercise which can become a vicious circle. Too many organisations are still focusing on the front-end promotional piece rather than the reality of the 'living' end. There are too many 'cheap and nasty' branding schemes out there - one wonders how many survive any economic contraction? You reap what you sow.........Any takers on the first industrial tribunal brought regarding 'not meeting expectation as published' ? (Mmmmm..........)

Premise [12] - Failure to match experience will erode the employer brand. As a double whammy with Premise [11], organisations who fail to match experience with reality will suffer 'brand erosion' in the employee market (given sufficient incidents) just like any product that doesn't meet customer expectation. Sure it won't stop recruitment but it will certainly reduce the effectiveness. Branding is a double edged sword. To recruit the best and retain them, you've got to meet the expectation or suffer the consequences. For SMEs this can be quite a serious challenge. For large organisations, it inevitably manifests in the strength of the management (line/middle/senior) and of course ultimately in organisation performance...........

That's all for today folks!

2007-05-09T13:11:00.000Z

NOW TODAY'S......(THAT'S WEDNESDAY) - MORE STRATEGIC HCM zzzzz..........

I know it's a crap job but somebody's gotta do it!

Strategic HCM premises [7] - [9] employee engagement:

Premise [7] - Employee (and management) engagement is a core platform to differentiated organisational performance.

Yes - again obvious....with the proviso of knowing what we are talking about and not making extremely daft claims on a direct link to shareholder value. In this one is a definition and insight into the why, what and how and that it is core for HR functions in terms of technical expertise - won't get a better chance to be centre stage in organisational terms. But be wary, employee engagement is like the seventies (sorry to those don't remember), all dodgy hairdos and platforms, and songs! WATCH OUT DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE there's a lot of rubbish out there which does nobody any good....(Remember in the land of the blind, the one-eyed person can't judge dimensions either!)

Premise [8] - The degree to which the workforce is engaged (relating to both critical and support positions) within an organisation contributes to high performance
Common sense again (whatever that means - see psychology research for definitve explanation!). Yes the trick is understanding how varying degrees of engagement affect productivity and/or performance collectively as well as individually. And if its that much common sense why do so few understand the concept and, more to the point, apply it?
Also glossed over the critical and support roles - need to read the journal for that.....

Premise [9] - Organisations which suffer from lower employee engagement will conversely suffer a disadvantage from a productivity perspective to organisations with higher engaged workforces (other things being equal)
Yes, yes, obvious.....? Is it? really?mmmm..... see previous five premises and ask yourself how many organisations really get it? How many CEOs/senior management get it? How many HR Directors get it?mmmmmmmmmm...........not as obvious as we thought eh?

Tomorrow Employer brand (Premises [10] through [12])......

Do you feel going through these Premises is like being on a roller-coaster? Are you engaged? .......No? If not, lighten up a little (or light up as long as you're outside!), get out more and let me know what it looks like outside!

2007-05-09T12:38:00.000Z

WHOOPS - SORRY EVERYBODY!

Well -firstly to all my blog visitors from afar - I forgot to mention that Monday was a Bank Holiday here in the UK! And secondly Tuesday - well I was busy ok and broke the cardinal rule of not blogging first thing!

So here continuing from last week (for ll those who haven't already fallen asleep is the planned yesterday's bit on strategic HCM (Premises [4] - [6] on human capital utilisation). Here they are:

Premise [4] - That the organisation's utilisation of human capital is dependent upon the organisation's (or sub-unit's) operating model.

This one talks about leverage points, i.e. there is an apparent finite operating return and that organisations need to guard agianst potential over-investment as under-investment (analytics are required to provide intelligence) .

Premise [5] - Organisations deploy differing resourcing strategies either recruiting in before market and developing or purchasing required skill-sets but at market cost.

This one is a pereniial hot topic and cannot do it justice here. Essentially organisations need to ensure they know which resourcing strategies employed and what are the development versus purchase costs. This is a particular hub in the training debate (generic versus specific). Getting it wrong means higher costs or poor return. It also means due care attention on retention strategies.

Premise [6] - Human capital management is a key component to best utilising human capital.

Yes - no brainer I hear you cry. You're right of course. But ask yourself this - if its such a no-brainer why do organisations spend millions/hundreds of thousands on financial audits/reviews but can't afford to spend £6k - £20k on people management audits to provide an assessment of effectiveness. Yeh - obvious isn't it?

That's Tuesday's blog covered. Of course more info on above in the journal available at www.ishcm.com or http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm.................

Don't say I don't deliver.................

2007-05-03T20:33:00.000Z

DOING FRIDAY'S BLOG EARLY

I am unfortunately in transit for most of tomorrow and therefore mobile access will be its usual unreliable self - thus the blog entry is here now.....

And its really a question for you.......do you feel crushed under the weight of receiving or reading another survey on people flex benefits/wellbeing/reward/stress/places of fun........yaddah yaddah yaddah.....And what do they say? the same.........one dimensional self serving answer. Gosh why don't we just forget about career development, training, opportunity to take on more responsibility, objectives, work values that are followed that equate with quality and conscience... we can just join the company that provides the biggest salary and benefits for the smallest job (in a continuance commitment kind of way)...what a fantastic utopian world that we could all live in......

As I have said before you just get the feeling that the 'body HR' seems to know 'more and more' about 'less and less'.......

2007-05-03T07:07:00.000Z

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (SHCM) PREMISE [3]

Today, I will complete the Competitive rivalry subset with Premise [3]....

'Given the underlying industry profit/return signatures, organisations will gain competitive advantage through the most effective utilisation and management of human capital'.

The essential point about this 'logical' premise is the underlying 'thought experiment' that given two identical organisations which only have one difference - their human capital, the organisation with higher employee and organisational engagement, at both employee and management levels, will outperform every time through higher productivity and associated performance/output (this is just as true for public sector and NFP organisations). However, this 'HC leverage' is to some extent constrained by the operating signatures and the ensuing 'market curve' of which organisations can be on, below or above the line ('market' here representing a defined and closed set of organisations - see article for further detail and www.hccindex.com for more on operating curves).

Tomorrow I shall look at some of the entertaining human capital management stories of the week (that have a serious message!). Next week I will look to divulge a subset of 3 SHCM Premises a day (to speed it up), to those remaining under the 'Talent rivalry and competitive intensity' HC Force (see previous blog entries this week if this means absolutely nothing to you!!)

2007-05-02T09:37:00.000Z

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT [Premise 2]

Before stating Premise [2] today, I'd thought that I'd just explain a little more regarding the '5 HC Forces'. The talent rivalry & competitive intensity force is the main one, having the most Premises (18 in all). As such this force is split into six sections. They are (with associated number of Premises in brackets):

Competitive rivalry [3]
Human capital utilisation [3]
Employee engagement [3]
Employer brand [3]
Organisation performance [3]
Talent rivalry and retention [3]

Thus, Premise [2] (under 'Competitive rivalry' subset) states:

'The degree to which human capital is paramount to an organisation's operating model (i.e. its human capital intensity) will determine the intensity of talent rivalry'.<BR>

This Premise alerts us to the fact that certain organisations are more heavily dependent upon people than others in terms of their operating model which accentuates the focus on talent. This premise also goes on to explain about human capital segments being 'core', 'support' and 'contracted' which link to differing strategies around employer branding, talent management and reward etc. Segmentation is becoming increasingly important for organisations going forward, particularly with regard to employee value propositions (one size fits all is becomin a non-starter). This in turn has quite a marked impact on the HR function's value proposition and subsequent delivery.

Get it? If not, don't worry - refer to the journal for more insight (www.ISHCM.com). Reading the whole will also provide a more insightful context (that's the problem with 'bite-size' chunks when you're dealing with a complex subject)......

2007-05-01T08:05:00.000Z

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW WHAT STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPIATL MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT - READ ON....

Today, I start a series of information bulletins that refer to the recent papers in the Journal of Applied Human Capital Management (recently published - download from either www.ISHCM.com or http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm).

Competitive Advantage through Strategic Human Capital Management applies a detailed framework (which has its roots from M Porter's original industry analysis) as to why people management and the role of HR function is important. The core fundamental to the whole thrust of this paper is that most, if not all, tangible/intangible assets and capabilities can be replicated bar one - human capital (collectively). Thus sustainable competitive advantage boils down to the collective skills and efforts (and thus management thereof) of an organisation's people. Pretty simple thesis, pretty powerful message if you ask me - but then I wrote it............

No more having to justify why HR exists (well not in an inefficient state at least!)

Basically there are five forces:

'Talent' rivalry, organisation performance and competitive advantage
Human capital as a 'bargaining' power
Leveraged organisation architecture
Market/stakeholder recognition of Human Capital value
Human Capital replacement propensity

These five 'forces' set the strategic people agenda for any organisation whether private, public or NFP (or any other hybrid). But the framework doesn't stop with analysis, as part 2 describes the various HR 'component' strategies needed to deliver this competitive advantage. However, that will be explained in future.

Back to the 'Five HC forces'.

Under each 'force' is a premise relating to human capital - a total of 34 in all. Today is Premise no [1] (under 'talent rivalry' above):

'That the number and size of competing firms in an industry (or subset thereof) will impact the intensity of human capital rivalry and ultimately competitive advantage.'

Pretty common-sensical, you may say. Well, yes. That's the point. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. However, there is further subtext provided in the paper which is a little new, in that it incorporates emerging concepts whilst also explaining why things appear to happen the way they do.

The difference is combining the 34 premises into a structured whole which is greater than the sum of the parts, and together provide a clear definitive picture about why people management is so important. That is different. If we can realise our goal of getting senior management exposed to these collective premises, then HR's job will get 'a whole lot' easier and be focused on the right things (of course with challenges that that presents). If only..........

Tomorrow premise [2].............

2007-04-30T06:20:00.000Z

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CONFERENCE, ANOTHER PRESENTATION

The Total HR Summit, London to be precise and the topic - Raising the profile of HR

A while ago, I mentioned that this was a phrase gaining commonality in HR, though there have been few presentations on the matter. Well, that's changed today.......

What do I prattle on about? Well the usual - though also as usual, my presentations carry a health warning not to expect the usual!

No 'just add water and no thinking' here - actually quite the opposite with a case study taken live from a blog and used in 'think-groups' (as opposed to 'groupthink'!) where we can actually 'problem-solve' ( a la 'thinking practitioner' our way through to insight) - some people may be in for a shock!..........

What's the message? Essentially raising the profile is a little more than just sending out e-mail, newsletters, portal quizes and open 'la-la' days etc.........it's about a combination, about the function collectively, the practitioner individually and collectively as a profession, and also supplier professional service firms like ourselves............that its about value propositions, delivery, efficiency, effectiveness, capability, understanding the problem you're trying to solve (is it in fact about raising the HR profile or something much more?), impact, measurement, education (HR practitioner), more education (line), more measurement and reporting, (i.e. HC concept definition, understanding and application, I.E. THE USUAL...............)

And there's always a methodology........I mention a lot about 'Appreciative solutions' ('the solution wedge') rather than just the 'usual' ephemeral tactical, and ultimately futile, supposed 'quick-fixes' - I'm sure this will all sound a little alien - but nothing new there - if you want to know more then you should be here................

Tomorrow the start of the series looking at strategic human capital management and specifically around the themes (well the 34 premises and beyond!) contained within the Journal of AHCM's articles (What you don't know what I'm referring to? Shame on you - go to www.ISHCM.com)...................

2007-04-27T16:04:00.000Z

Mmmm...WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON'T GET IT QUITE RIGHT

Sorry - late posting today due to European travelling that doesn't always guarantee access on the move........

One news very worthy to report on today - that sadly of the NHS. Apparently NHS staffing has fallen for the first time (between 17,000 and 27,000 depending upon whether you allow for double-counting - YES I KNOW.............@***!!! it beggars belief!) in a decade which is remarkable given the gigantic sums of money that has been poured into expanding services. Exceptional I'd say.....I find no comfort at all in the excuses trotted out or rationale given. Of more interesting note is that it is the part-time staff who have been very badly hit........

Coming on top of the junior doctor debacle, and the serious shortage in certain key roles that have been reported upon recently, what does this say about the NHS' employee value proposition, and to a degree, from an HR professional's standpoint, the credibility of HR?

There's a lot of work to be done out there...........

Re the other serious point.......to all you flexible working advocates out there can I please advise caution. Flexible working is all very well, right up until the point that staffing has to be reduced........Though I appreciate the rationale for part-time working it carries additional risks that are not borne in the remuneration (and internal organisational costs, that perhaps some in HR/management have not fully appreciated) and it is no substitute for a full-time role. The only real flexibility afforded is for the employer. Part-time is just that. And with reference to the often told story of the £20 note on the pavement, if its that good why isn't everybody part-timing (not necessary one role only - which by the way was part of the issue for double counting in the NHS)?

Have a hot weekend..........

2007-04-26T07:28:00.000Z

AN APOLOGY

Today I want to apologise on behalf of VaLUENTiS and The International School of Human Capital Management. I want to apologise to the market because it is only right that everybody understands our value proposition.

I want to apologise for:

Trying to provide organisations with a more scientific basis for assessing human capital management in relating to performance improvement
Providing senior management with sophisticated intelligence tools that give them comprehensive knowledge on their human capital and human capital management
For providing the market with independent knowledge and insight so all can benefit
For using the terms human capital and human capital management rather than stick with the traditional and more limited terms 'personnel' and 'human resources'
For providing organisations and their HR functions with definitions around fuzzy people concepts to help with communication and understanding; and therefore practical application and measurement
For providing the HR 'profession' with knowledge and skills that upgrade their current competence and value-add in the belief that the profession itself will be enhanced
In trying to raise the profile of the HR function
For providing a framework behind the concepts of the 'thinking' and 'expert' practitioner that are meaningful rather than just a few academic paragraphs
For challenging current thinking on people matters
For continually confusing practioners with simple constructs that model complex reality
For applying due diligence in work so that nothing is taken for granted, nothing is assumed and therefore providing realism based on evidence
For asking questions
For being honest and value-based.....

I trust that everybody can forgive us for trying to make the world of work a better, more productive place without blagging or hoodwinking or hijacking. I am truly sorry - I trust that the market will forgive us................

2007-04-25T07:05:00.000Z

TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO QUESTION THE STATUS QUO IS MONSTROUS (APPARENTLY)

My sincere thanks to the anonymous message I received from one of my blog readers yesterday who pointed out an error in transcription (duly corrected). Unfortunately, the vagaries of blog mechanics means that I was unable to respond - I trust that whom ever it was out there are ok with belated thanks (my team are certainly grateful!). One of the team actually protested that the inaccuracy had been spotted and was being put right. Mmm...given the ‘stick’ and ‘stick’ approach to our accuracy values (carrots are saved for emergencies!), the benefit of the doubt went against him in this case. As a result and in line with yesterday’s theme, this team member has been tasked with counting out 500,000 paperclips to provide us with a visible scale for remunerative purposes........It has also reminded the team that I am apparently human after all, which is good, given some of the disparaging blog responses I occasionally receive questioning my origin from this planet!

Which brings me to a fascinating story in the papers, yesterday, that you may have read regarding a certain Mr James Light. This person looked to steal components ‘one piece at a time’ to build a £1m yacht. At the time of being caught, he had stolen around £55,000 worth. Poignancy is added due to the mimicking of the Johnny Cash song ‘One piece at a time’, the lyrics to which describe a worker stealing parts to build a Cadillac. Thus employee theft takes on a whole new meaning. Just think a bank clerk trying to steal £55,000 at £1 a go – it would take roughly about, well...some 220 years by my reckoning – so that should make the compliance teams stand easy!

From a human capital perspective, next time you speak to the HR Director and he/she mentions that they are moving ahead ‘one bit at a time’ you may just want to check for hidden body parts – you just never know nowadays!............meanwhile – back in the office there seem to be an awful lot of paperclips building up.......................

2007-04-24T07:08:00.000Z

LAST WEEK BLAGGING, THIS WEEK HOODWINKING

Reading through 'Personnel Today' yesterday, there was only one story in the news. Yes - the new Director-General of the CIPD is due to receive circa £500k with base salary £320k (well done PT for some 'investigative journalism'!). For Geoff Armstrong - Good luck to him in his retirement - please let me know Geoff if you're interested in The International School of Human Capital Management?

I suspect though that this sum would have sent a shudder down the spine of every CIPD paid member. The question perhaps is does a Director-General of an Institute warrant such remuneration? If so, then please count me in on the applications for the new one....Just as an aside is why have both the top two of the CIPD resigned without any noticeable succession plan in place. Coming on the back of Ruth Spellman's shock departure at IiP, any external observer would be forgiven for thinking that the 'state of HR' is indeed in turmoil, despite the gloss that has been applied.

Anyway back to the main story. There are some serious questions about CIPD of which this I feel will set off some explosive device. I have been fairly neutral on CIPD, noting certain issues, particularly the growing open hostility at conferences and also the questioning as to whether the modern CIPD is in fact a private company masquerading as a charitable Institute (its accounts show more revenues from events/publications than membership fees - see November 15, 2006 blog comments).

More questions include: 'How many hats is the CIPD wearing? (see January 9, 2007 blog comments); Just how much has the CIPD advanced the standing of the profession? And is the membership overpriced? The answers, in order, are too many, not enough and vastly. Taking the last point - surely being a membership, shouldn't the profits of CIPD Enterprises be redistributed across the membership to lower fees?

At ground level, I don't detect any advance in standing at all, in fact, I think its been going in reverse from a professional standpoint for several years and it has been left to the likes of ourselves and others to try and make a difference at the 'coal-face'. It is no coincidence that new qualifications are entering the industry at an unprecedented rate and that questions are being asked both in terms of standards (particularly CPD requirements), the 'closed shop' nature of CIPD and the level and type of institute support.

I believe that this is the high water mark for the CIPD. That members will now start asking questions. A few days ago I stated that I foresaw HR professionals dividing into groups just like accounting has done, i.e. HC Professionals, Coaching professionals, Learning/T&D professionals and HR administrators with the HC professionals being the highest in status. I just think we saw a rather large step down this road happen yesterday as CIPD members wake up to the fact that something is definitely not right. Oh and by the way, for those CIPD-types who mock the commercialism of VaLUENTiS and The International School of HCM, just remember it takes us to deliver 500 VB-HR Ratings to match the earnings of the Director-General of the CIPD. Ask yourself one thing - which is doing more for raising the profile of HR? We are more a social enterprise than the CIPD will ever be..................

2007-04-23T08:55:00.000Z

OUTSOURCING - MORE EVIDENCE THAT KEEPING IN-HOUSE CAN SAVE MONEY

Two more studies confirm what a number of us have been saying for a while - that outsourcing only saves money in few cases. The FT reported two studies:

(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c314d2dc-f136-11db-838b-000b5df10621.html)

which analysed IT outsourcing contracts saw very little in saving over the term of the contract (due to ramping of prices in later years). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if you outsource pieces of work you are at a disadvantage since you won't have the skills in-house and therefore, to a degree reliant upon (or hostage to) increasing service prices. However, this has led to a number of high profile companies returning support functions in-house.

Those of you reading my blog and who may have come across a recent article of mine in Personnel Today

(http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2007/03/20/39741/hr-effectiveness-are-we-putting-the-cart-before-the.html)

drew caution to the use of HR outsourcing in the same vein. Whilst there are further issues in HR, the base premise stays the same, supposed year 1 cost savings seem to evaporate by year 3. This is just at the time that many HR functions are looking to outsourcing to 'raising their profile' - WRONG! Ah well - unlike HR to clamber onto a sinking boat......For HR, particular pieces of process may be outsourced if better access to technology is the key. For small to medium sized firms this may prove advantageous, but for large firms it does beg the question.

As I keep on repeating HR needs to be clear regarding its value proposition and do appropriate due diligence for the outsourcing business case. If not - it is certainly not big nor clever. And if the main business case cites 'reduced costs' as the main reason it is definitely not clever.........

2007-04-20T07:25:00.000Z

GLOBAL NEWS CATCHING MY EYE THIS WEEK

CHINA - When success isn't enough

The chinese economy keeps racing ahead with double digit growth wherever you look (I trust that its workers are getting a fair slice of the pie?). However fears of inflationary pressures have spooked the markets (the Shanghai index dropping 5%). I do hope that China succeeds where many have failed - i.e. controlling rampant growth without serious side-effects. Its global contribution increasingly affects us all.............

INDIA - the value of human capital

Mumbai university looking to float was certainly an eye-catcher this week. The university, first of its kind, is looking to raise capital via the markets to fund its growth. However there are a number of hurdles though I think this will be the next 'big market'. It is already a global industry and this to me is the definition of a social enterprise. Hopes of finding a human capital value? No - its irrelevant, I would expect valuations to be more based on student numbers, research and spin-off potential to weigh heavily in analyst forecasts (and rightly) though it will be interesting. Universities around the world - watch out - its about to change - this idea has got lots of mileage.

FRANCE - Facing 'Le Crunch'?

France has been recognised as having the most people-friendly policies in the world (if you ignore unemployment that is). However, there's been a heavy price. In a little over twenty years, its national debt has gone from nearly zero to 1.2 trillion euros (yes trillion, i,e 1,200,000,000,000) - wow. Somebody's got to pay for it. The ensuing presidential election will provide a clue as to whether France will wish to embrace globalisation or reject it since there is very little middle ground. Interestingly, a recent commissioned government report outlined four future scenarios. Only one provided a positive outcome which required significant change. I'll leave you to guess whether it identified with 'embracing' or 'rejecting'. Whatever the outcome 'les angoisses' is certainly a term which will have more resonance.

US - Worrying news about exiting people

Fascinating story in Business Week, this week,(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_17/b4031001.htm?chan=search) regarding a discrimination trial over GE firing a worker.

The worker concerned won damages of some $11.1 million. The reason why this caught the eye was that the discrimination case was thrown out but punitive damages were awarded because 'the plaintiff was fired apparently in retaliation for complaining about bias'. Needless to say after suffering fits of apoplexy, GE are moving to appeal. The rest of the article gives a real interesting view on why a 'fear of firing' is becoming prevalent - I would urge you to have a read.

UK - Apart from blagging (see yesterday and 18th's entries)!

Union membership continuing to fall in terms of the long-term trend (its now down 28.4%). Thus it is no surprise to see UK unions forming mergers both domestically and internationally. What is interesting is that only 16.6% of private workers are union members versus 58.8% of public sector employees. Given the unrest in the public sector over pay and pensions and given the increasing demands placed on the private sector to pay for it (by many who can't afford pensions themselves), this statistic provides a fairly chilling scenario for the future - hard not to see trouble on the horizon..........

Talking of unions and their (now) arch-enemy 'private equity'. News this week that the much 'owner-travelled' company Debenhams issued its third profit warning since December. This has/will further fuel the debate over public/private equity ownership, particularly given the impending news, as I write, that Boots looks certain to go the same way. Expect layoffs soon..........

Have a good weekend........

2007-04-19T07:35:00.000Z

MORE ON BLAGGING ONLY CLOSER TO HOME

Thanks to those who e-mailed yesterday to provide some insights on organisational blagging - unfortunately I'm unable to print specifics which are not in the public domain as per our policy. Very interesting nonetheless. Perhaps its more prevalent than I thought? On the subject of blagging, as the HR profession continues to mature and incorporates recent concepts, the industry itself is still rife with blagging, i.e. mis-selling/overselling features, performance exaggeration and overpromising on delivery. Some time ago I stated that one of the purposes of the blog was to educate the 'market' where possible on relevant issues. Today, I'm going to turn my attention to the case of the irritating wasp. Normally with wasps your first instinct is to the let them fly about in the hope that they'll move on. However, some don't. They remain, cause rising irritation, eventually provoking action. So onto blagging.

In HR there are a number of areas that appear to suffer from above average blagging - recruitment, headhunting, outsourcing and specifics like employee engagement, for example. Today, its time to take on a 'blagging' wasp.

This particular organisation purports to be a specialist in employee engagement with 'the most accurate and valid survey instrument in the UK for measuring employee attitudes to their work and their organisation' (NOTE: no use of the term engagement!). It advertises its 'celebrity' - in this case a national newspaper. Its slick marketing is clever. It appeals to all sizes of companies and claims a superlative and catchy (but misleading) term and ultimately its index is meaningless. The actual product that companies get is some form of employer branding, not engagement, and with emphasis on the term 'some', i.e. meaning very limited. But these aren't the giveaways to the blag.

Oh no... the real giveaway is in the 'methodology document'. Its 69 pages includes 50+ pages on the usual background process stuff on survey design that you can find in any textbook. This is known in the industry as 'padding' (a classic blagging technique). There is no definition of employee engagement. There are many references to other people's work but little to their own. Their construct claim is that there are 70 items - however, further reading shows actually there are 16 core questions across eight so-called factors...mmm..... that's a bit thin for insight. Of these 16, twelve are in fact what we term 'leading' questions. Now this is very interesting since their own text points to the dangers of leading questions!!! Mmmmmmmmm...........Not only that but the question set is extremely skewed from an engagement perspective....... MmmmmmmmmmmMMMM!

To the employee engagement layperson, this document looks good. To the professional this has so many holes in it, even woodworm would get confused. No other white papers, no other supporting presentations, no real sense of what engagement is, just pretty pure blag. To small companies this type of thing may appeal if they are trying to differentiate themselves out there for recruiting purposes. But large/medium organisations are unfortunately showing either (a) naivety or (b) misguided attempt on people management...........Further I have spoken to a number who have been involved in this process who have admitted that it is a 'joke' - proof enough some would say..........But the other big question is - 'if this company did not have the celebrity newspaper backing would organisations be using this product?'

This 'blagging' company is of course Best Companies UK.........

For ourselves, who tirelessly try to educate the market and provide organisations with decent assessment and reporting tools (created from serious money being spent on R&D) it is an affront. I'm getting tired of irritating wasps in our industry. For those who remember, last year we exposed the 'blagging' going on with a certain National Standard (and I am happy to report that we are since 'involved' with this organisation). Yes, at least we sell and deliver what it says on the tin........

For a serious take on employee engagement see our journal at www.ishcm.com or presentation slides from recent conference at http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Books/index.htm........

2007-04-18T07:14:00.000Z

THE ART OF BLAGGING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

They say that for sporting nations, their main sports teams are a reflection of the particular society traits/culture of the time. For England, one of the oldest sporting nations, it is the first time in living memory that none of its three main teams (football, rugby, cricket) is now ranked in the top tier. What is more is the manner of this decline – the delusional aspects that have crept in – the talking of a good game – performance never matching so-called capability. Blagging has become the order of the day.

Looking to the wider picture, we have a government in place that has seemingly being doing ‘spin’ over ‘substance’ for awhile now – delusion being the key word. Other quick examples include the economy (unaffordable/unsustainable), house prices (tulip craze), the Olympic bid (will end up so costly will we be the first to cancel it?), health, transport, education, foreign policy (execution) and lately the military. The problem is once you spot it you keep spotting more and more.....even the concept of Britain one would argue is becoming delusional. Thus, one suggests that there is a wider cultural infestation of blagging. Delusion and complacency of course go hand in hand.

OK, so what does it mean for human capital management? Well for those who have been reading my previous blog comments, you may have picked up on similar themes being mentioned with respect to organisation performance and people management, and indeed aspects of the HR profession - the fact that we can be often accused of talking a good game (as indeed many CEOs have to practice). I must stress that this is particularly UK/English-centric topic this morning though it is resonant for all those visiting the blog.

The way to combat this delusion/talk a good game/style-over-substance is a return to remembering that much successful performance is down to continually getting the basics right and not being caught off guard. Constantly assessing, monitoring and taking action, never allowing complacency to rear its very ugly head are core fundamentals. This has never been truer for organisations whether private or public sector. Paradoxically, the more knowledge-intensive our economy becomes, the less we seem to want to learn. What happened to enlightenment and due diligence? Some of the conversations I overhear my teams having with ‘Directors’ and ‘knowledge professionals’ make you shudder violently to the point of requiring counselling. That is not an overstatement!

We can never stop delusion or complacency we can only try to protect against it with our value proposition to the market. Thus, we acknowledge those who look to ‘perform’ and do everything to enable it. No ephemeral, celebrity ‘awards’ for them. Just good ‘ol fashioned hard work and attitude. The more we can find these organisations, the more successful we are. As for the rest, well eventually it catches up with you and no amount of ‘talking a good game’ will stop reality checking-in. My only hope is that increasing numbers hold up that mirror and be honest as in the business world, there is nearly always time to put it right..........Ask am I/my team/function/organisation guilty of blagging? If so what is the point?

Blagging is akin to illness. To treat it one must first admit it.....Have an enlightened day.................

2007-04-17T07:54:00.000Z

HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT- WHAT PRICE?

Before I provide comment today - the answer to yesterday's question was TRUE (just in case), which kinda' puts human capital management centre stage.

For those who have chomped your way through the 34 premises contained in 'Competitive Advantage through Strategic Human Capital Management' (go to www.ISHCM.com to download Journal or http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm for the individual article), I would like to present an interesting example.

Yesterday, Citigroup announced a $1.4bn charge to cover the 17,000 job cuts it announced last week. Wow! - the 'HC replacement propensity' force [with specific reference to premise 34] is certainly alive and kicking. $1.4bn, that's $1,400,000,000, i.e. $82,400 per job plus an additional chunk of various roles being relocated (more cost).

A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that Citigroup annually recruits around 50-60,000 people. Just think wouldn't it have been good if in the last two years, the global HR function could have used the strategic HCM framework to assess this redundancy of roles and reported the various scenarios if expenses continued to outstrip earnings to Chuck Prince (and therefore preempting some of this cost). May be they did. What do you think?!

And how does this effect their employer brand and more importantly employee engagement? Do you think Citigroup have modelled any potential impact? Maybe I'll put a call into HR but perhaps its a bit too late now as they'll all be busy with termination due diligence........I'd also like to think that litigation risk has also been factored in?

My point is not to knock Citigroup, merely to highlight the potential proactive roles that HR could be doing and where value contribution can be obtained.........This is a truly massive upheaval even allowing for the fact that Citigroup employs around 300,000 people. Of course, what we don't know is how much of that one-off financial charge will be reinstated in future trading statements?

Even more interestingly - what could you do with $1.4bn of resources? Would you miss it tomorrow? Answers on an e-postcard please....... I'll think you'll find that Citigroup is just the first of a series of [premise 34 realignments] as predicted some while ago. Watch this space......

2007-04-16T07:44:00.000Z

STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Hello out there - been missing the blog? (yeh -right!?)

In view of our new publication - The Journal of Applied Human Capital Management

downloadable from http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm or http://www.ishcm.com/),

the blog will contain comment and debate on the the thought leadership raised. Before we commence on the meaty 34 premises of strategic human capital management (not in one day!) I thought that I'd start with a quote from the lead article:

"...For example, these include such concepts as employee engagement, talent, employer brand, human capital management architecture, workforce intelligence and human capital itself; all becoming everyday items in the lexicon of people management. Added to this, has been the increasing focus on human capital measurement & reporting, and the search for an intangible model of how human capital relates to organisation value or organisational service delivery (in place of value). Suddenly the world of people management has got ‘complex’. Actually, that’s not true. Managing people and optimising their performance in an organisational context has always been complex, it’s just that we have preferred to treat it too simply, too often..."

extracted from...'Competitive Advantage through Strategic Human Capital Management'

Journal of Applied Human Capital Management Volume 1 Number 1

TRUE OR FALSE?

2007-04-05T10:33:00.000Z

HAVE A GOOD HOLIDAY

Its UK holiday time here so I will be back on Monday 16th April 2007 with more from the frontline...........

2007-04-03T08:11:00.000Z

TUESDAY - COMMENT ON TOP STORIES

My thanks to Personnel Today for two mentions yesterday - one in their main feature and the other re mention of this blog. In response, Tuesday will normally be related to comments on the top stories. Hopefully my blog is a more 'serious' commentary complementing PT's hilarious guru (www.personneltoday.com/gurublog), of course not forgetting my own unique 'tongue-in-cheek' comments. So apart from our new journal what else was news? Several things caught my eye yesterday:

Health service HR slammed........ (www.personneltoday.com/39886.article) whereupon HR professionals accused of not having - 'wait for it' - workforce planning skills - are we having a laugh? I nearly cried! Quote: 'most HR staff do not have these skills' - you see its not just me who's noticed. This really is appalling. Can you imagine 'accountants can't add up' ? No neither can I.....

But there's more......Lack of skills hinders HR's attempts at business partner status....Mercer study confirming what most of us have already alluded to - HR professionals are short on skills required........weep - I nearly laughed - 'line managers' approach to people management a concern...' - was this a survey or have they just been reading my blog of late? Best bit - HR still has a significant challenge in working with managers to ensure they execute the organisation's policies effectively.' - Cry - I nearly wet myself - after all this time, after all the rhetoric, after all the 'professionalisation', after all the upgrading to Chartered status and we still can't achieve the basics.......which leads me onto the main punch-up.......

Measuring up by Ross Bentley who I thought did an excellent coverage job. What do you take from this article? Well, having been quoted in the article, we represent the side that says there are new skills to learn for HR, that people management is quite a tricky and sometimes complex subject, and that we in HR can aspire to a higher strategic and more impactful level. However, Chris Bones' (Henley Management College's) argument seems to be don't make it complicated, it's alright as it is, we've been doing good measurement..........well ok Chris but the evidence before me seems to be telling a different story. I guess if you want to make your mind up look at our new HCMI qualification (www.ishcm.com/hcmiqualification.htm) and compare to Henley's MSc in Advanced HR (www.henleymc.ac.uk/henleymc03.nsf/pages/msc). Tell me who understands human capital management more..............in fact the only disappointment with Ross' article is that he didn't mention our own HCMI qualification but hey you can't have everything!......be seein ya!

2007-04-02T08:22:00.000Z

JOURNAL OF APPLIED HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Out today. Can be downloaded from either: http://www.valuentis.com/Publications/Journal/index.htm or www.ISHCM.com.

The blog will increasingly feature comments and conversations relating to the Journal as a focus. So I trust that you find the first edition (of what is a quarterly journal) truly outstanding?

Look forward to receiving comments from those who are interested in advancing human capital management.

Topics include:

Competitive advantage through strategic human capital management
The strategic HCM toolkit
Employee Engagement: The secret of organisational success
Brave New HR World
Human Capital Measurement
VB-HR Rating HCM100 study
People management in Local Government
plus other features.......

Enjoy the educative process.........!

2007-03-30T07:17:00.000Z

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Hot topic? Well if the number of downloads from our website is a guide then no question this is definitely (and finally) getting 'tread'. My recent EE presentation slides have been downloaded over 1000 times in the last twenty days - that's a record for us.............so somebody is interested out there. Big piece on employee engagement in our forthcoming journal (Journal of Applied Human Capital Management) - available in e-format - out Monday!!!!! It's been a big ride to get the whole first issue ready but we're proud of the content - trust readers find it invaluable? it can be downloaded at www.valuentis.com or www.ishcm.com.

On a slightly related topic - where is the HR profession going?

Well - first thing to clarify is - it isn't quite a profession yet in the full meaning of the word.....but its getting there........prediction - certainly in the UK, I'll think you see some big changes over the next few years - expect fragmentation between Human Capital (HC) Professionals and HR (which splits between personnel and learning/training/coaching!). There's a clear distinction. All can exist. People can choose which one. But with that choice comes acceptance and accountability. Those in search of the big-hitting impact jobs will gravitate towards HC Professional status (and of course the CHCO role). Here in the UK/Europe the CIPD qualification is going to come under increasing pressure and scrutiny. 'Things they are a-changing'...........you heard it here first!

2007-03-24T21:25:00.000Z

AWAY IN BRUSSELS UNTIL THURSDAY - BLOGGING BACK 29.03.06

2007-03-24T21:15:00.000Z

THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

The new journal makes its debut next week. A new era in the new era of human capital management. The first edition will be free by download from either www.valuentis.com or www.ishcm.com.

Articles include:

Strategic HCM and competitive advantage
The strategic HCM toolkit
Human Capital Measurement
Brave new HR world
Employee Engagement
Conference highlights
People management in local government
VB-HR Rating research report
View from the frontline

and more.......

Setting a new standard - get yourself a copy!

2007-03-22T14:16:00.000Z

BLAST FROM THE PAST

"All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions"

Adlai Stevenson 22 March 1954, Princeton University

If you liked that one, you'll like this one:-

"You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal."

Adlai Stevenson 9 June 1958, Michigan State University

And many others......... Truly a great perceptionist.

I've got a lot of time for Adlai, pity he's not around today.................

2007-03-21T08:07:00.000Z

SUDDENLY ITS OPEN SEASON (in the UK)

Once there was a HR qualification, E-I-E-I-O

But now in the profession, it is open season, E-I-E-I-O,

With an MA here, and an MA there, here an MA, there an MSc,

So many offerings of 'me-too' learning, E-I-E-I-O.......

Except one.....the HCMI qualification...........

I think it's great that various universities have spotted (like ourselves) an ozone hole in the HR professionals' knowledge toolkit. My concern is that too many of these focus on the wrong stuff - more personal development, vague 'action learning' and the thought that HR professionals can do an MA or MSc in an academic-filled syllabus, suddenly to become transformed into instant senior commercial management. An MA or MSc in HR (given the definitional limitations of HR) should not be focused on personal learning at the expense of meaty technical expertise. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people (because it won't transform them either).

One has to understand the drivers of universities getting into this market (is it 'cause they're looking for revenue?) They may be a bona fide university but what are the credentials in human capital management? Even the CIPD itself, having recognised this issue belatedly, has shotgunned itself into offering an MA (though again it is being delivered externally).

Which brings me to the HCMI qualification. It is also underwritten by The International School of Human Capital Management, the only globally dedicated school to the discipline (actually multiple disciplines) and the HCMI Standard. Its practitioner focused, case study based (utilising the best in the business), it has commercial perspective, is customised towards both public and private sectors to provide more context and doesn't cost a fortune (and also has its own faculty). It also utilises various problem solving techniques and personal develoment but we don't make a song and dance over it - as it is secondary to the main stuff. But of course we're up against the incumbent snobbery that besets the industry because we're a bit new........!!

What the 'profession' needs is a further professional application to raise the current knowledge/skill set of the currently CIPD qualified fraternity. Having done two Masters degrees (one general MBA and one specialised MSc in Finance), I certainly wouldn't choose to do an MA/MSc in HR only, because it won't be enough. From a very concerned professional viewpoint, I worry about the 'future currency' of these HR qualifications.

If you think that I may be biased in favour of our own HCMI qualification, well - yes I am. But not for personal reasons. I would ask for any candidate to download our programme prospectus/guide (from www.ISHCM.com) and compare it. Ask yourself one question, Which has the more rigour? The HCMI qualification has the same technical level of an MBA but it is written for practitioners. It also doesn't get bogged down in some of the 'academic institutional requirements' which add no value. Also ask yourself, what is the particular Institution's credibility in underwriting this subject? As a final question, ask yourself which qualification combines the 'thinking' and 'expert' practitioner concepts? (you don't need any clues for that one........)

Have a great (reflective day)!

2007-03-20T08:00:00.000Z

'THE McJOB'

News just in that McDonalds are trying to get the word 'McJob' redefined in light of their upgrading of the employee value proposition (EVP), which they feel the pejorative term no longer represents. Which on the one hand is sad since I kinda like the term whose current definition is 'an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector'. Of course this definition can be applied to many jobs acrossa range of even the most blue chip of blue chips. It unfortunate that McDonalds were the ones who got labelled (though I do wonder how many make the connection nowadays).

I can fully sympathise with David Fairhurst, Chief People Officer, Northern Europe, if indeed the EVP has been transformed, as McDonalds have won several people awards in recent times. However, it is difficult to undo the past - best celebrate and use as a means of communicating to the world that things have changed - something that McDonalds ought to be aware of since this action has already gained media attention. (Of course, some cynics would say that this is all a marketing ruse in the first place).

But I think there is a larger point that goes way beyond the McDonalds story. I am concerned that given the advances in Western society and the increasing sophistication of business that there are still far too many low-level jobs with very straitjacketed roles, little decision rights and little opportunity. Job design is still really in the dark ages - and its an area that organisations and their HR functions do very little in with respect to all other initiatives. The only exception seems to be job evaluation exercises for equal pay claims, but that does not really involve re-evaluation of actual roles. Heavily unionised environments of course normally mean job role reclassifications are left on the shelf.

Which is a shame..... Given that job design is a component of employee engagement, I find it odd that HR practitioners will spend more time thinking of 'frilly and faddy' items on 'engagement' but will not look at some fundamentals - it is another area that HR falls short on - Why? probably because its proactive process that doesn't get the 'sexy' vote.........And if HR is not doing it then who is??

2007-03-19T07:54:00.000Z

THE CONCEPT OF CRAZYBUSY!

A new term to find its way into the everyday lexicon. My thanks to Lucy Kellaway at the FT

http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/lucykellaway - 'Too crazybusy for sex? Then bring your blackberry to bed' - for this morning's piece. Her column on another interesting (and daft) topic with a serious message. The phenomenon of 'crazybusyness' - that people are doing too much and its all doom...blah..blah....Couldn't agree more with her conclusions - basically that its hogwash.

Well - I'm sure that from an HR perspective, a passionate work-life balance researcher (aka 'work-life balancer') will get - well - 'crazybusy' on this topic and provide another piece of spurious research on how 'crazybusyness' affects x% of the working population and how this harms organisations as well as personal lives, as well affecting his/her own research work-life balance in the process - but he/she will smilingly say that it was worth it!!

I've no doubt that new terms such as 'super-crazybusyness' and 'extreme crazybusyness' will become common, used on the one-hand by those who envy people being busy as 'the end of life' whilst all the alpha-males and females, in organisations, displaying signs of 'crazybusyness' will be wearing the label as the latest badge of honour..........Of course the research will never truly define 'crazybusiness' to the degree it needs for serious application and it will normally be presented in a selectively biased way to ensure that it will be seen as another incidence of 'harming the planet' in some way shape or form.

But it won't stop certain HR people picking it up as the latest fad to do nothing with..........

You see - because its all relative - if you like to busy like me - the real goal is to be busy doing something you want to, not having to, and where possible useful (note vagueness of terms). If organisations were really crazybusy - then we would perhaps see decision-making and innovation happening at a greater pace than well - watching a snail watching paint dry...................Just think HR get 'crazybusy' on adding value rather than being well just 'crazybusy' (don't forget those back-to-back meetings!!!!!).

If I wasn't 'crazybusy' - well - hey I would probably become a philosopher and truly navel gaze (as opposed to 'crazybusy' reflective practitioner!).

But then I would probably be writing a blog, contemplating my message to the world......which I've just realised I'm doing at the moment............so does that make me 'crazybusy'? Not 'crazybusy'? 'Super-crazybusy'? 'Extremely crazybusy'? 'Crazy'? Or actually just going about my job? What do you think???

Have a 'crazybusy' and fun day!

2007-03-16T08:03:00.000Z

A TRIBUTE TO W L MACKENZIE KING

Who is W L Mackenzie King you ask? Well most Canadians will tell you....he was prime minister for a period of twenty-two years in the first-half of the 20th Century, including the second world war years.

I came across a quote of his some years back which galvanised my interest in the fusing of finance, economics and human capital. It was contained within a speech he gave in 1919 to the Empire Club of Canada, Toronto (date 13 March - hence my tribute this week). As reported:

"Capital can do nothing without Labor. Labor can do nothing without Capital. Neither Labor nor Capital can co-operate effectively in industry save under the guiding genius of Management, and Management, however great its genius, can do nothing apart from the opportunities and privileges the Community affords."

Yes - Quite..............it is just as relevant today as its ever been...........

2007-03-14T08:21:00.000Z

WHISTLEBLOWING - A MOVE FORWARD

In amongst the plethora of reported HR related gumpf was an interesting develoment through the UK court of appeal

(http://elexica.com/briefdoc.aspx?id=5951).

It appears that whistleblowers need only to have 'reasonable belief' of organisation malpractice to support a claim of unfair dismissal where forced to resign. First off this is great news as it will encourage those to come forward on what I consider a key ethical point.

What I find bizarre is that a whistleblower should be forced to resign (unless implicated in the whistleblowing itself) and have always found treatment of individuals who 'suffer' from a moral compass to be extremely poor (what does that say for societal ethics?).

What is also interesting is when someone first asked me what corporate social responsibility was about, I immediately (and naively!) answered that whistleblowing and internal organisation ethics. Mmm....I haven't seen too many examples of CSR linking in with whistleblowing but there are some around and my 'respect' to organisations who have articulated a policy through their CSR. When I find presentations on whether whistleblowing is part of CSR or not then I believe that my questions regarding the 'CSR not just being a corprate marketing document' come to mind.

Similarly, through all the diversity, equal opportunities, work-life stuff that HR has pushed with such verve I am disappointed to se that whistleblowing and the organisational ethical debate seem to be sadly missing too often. And the question is why?

Is it 'cause its a difficult subject to get around?

Is it 'cause it has a 'negative' aura (rather than 'happy-clappy')?

Or is it 'cause its too close to the bone?

Where was the HR department at Enron for example? Complicit or non-existent? It's an uncomfortable question.......but hey you always learn from asking uncomfortable questions not comfortable questions - they're for tv chat-show hosts................

If HR wants a truly worthy cause then ethics and whistleblowing are a good place to start as the other HR 'crusades' naturally form a queue behind it..........I'm sure some of you may have your own view on this - so feel free to comment.....

2007-03-13T08:11:00.000Z

THE LATEST ON RECRUITMENT

Interesting article in PT yesterday (www.personneltoday.com) regarding organisations wasting money on recruitment. A survey by Cranfield/PT highlighted the lack of application around evaluating the success of recruitment initiatives. But despite that organisations were still planning to maintain or increase expenditure...............tell me what we don't know.............

Einstein once said the definition of madness was 'doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result'.

Yes - quite.......

Given that recruitment is on HR's watch one has to ask - Is HR the new definition of madness? Certainly from our experience it seems to come pretty close far too often........!

As for organisations - well there is dumb and well....dumber!

Common measures reportedly used include:

'time to fill' - verdict: pants!!@**@@! useful only if you're recruiting for the same job over and over again
'no of shortlisted applicants' - verdict: why not try tall-listed applicants? It's just as informative
'total no of applicants received' - verdict: you gotta start somewhere! but just think of all the usefuless information as you receive thousands and thousands of the wrong type over the internet or through your RPO supplier!
'cost per hire' - verdict: ok but what's the definition and on its own its pretty meaningless
'overall cost of recruitment' - fair enough but it needs to be defined i.e. time period? what hidden costs are included? by role? by department? and as opposed to what? for what reason?

You see the problem with all of these is that they are variations of HR operational process but nothing really around BUSINESS EFFECTIVENESS, for example:

What are our recruitment drivers over the past 12 months? replacement? new? cover? on contract? does this 'fit' with our workforce plan in our HR strategy (the why?)?
If replacement is a large part - perhaps focusing on retention may be a better policy over time? (or of course your recruitment process may be well and truly broken!)
Brand index (i.e. % of offers taken and employee has started)
Percentage of applicants received that are within 90% of role profile?
How effective has our recruitment been over the past two years? i.e. have we hired alpha/beta or gamma performers?
What are the internal opportunity costs of hiring? as opposed to our direct external costs?
Whose budget do cost allocations go to?
How much HR resource time has been allocated and recharged for replacement purposes?
And so on

However, its obviously all too complicated answering these really insightful questions - much easier to go back to the washing machine and press spin - 'time to fill', 'no of applicants', 'applications received' ....urrh...urrh...urrh...urrh (imagine washing machine sound) - oops forget to put my straitjacket in................

2007-03-12T09:03:00.000Z

HR - THE SERIOUS QUESTION

My blog entry on Friday has raised some interesting questions. It is serious, in that to define the HR profession and thus its over-arching value proposition, we need to look at the evidence, even though this may seem challenging. If it is true that much of the output of HR work is wrapped up in marketing for recruitment purposes (as in the proliferation of spurious awards), i.e. that HR is being used rather than using marketing then it would suggest that the recent great strides we talk about in HR, in people management are really nothing more than ephemeral. More so that the the goal of fundamentally shifting the way businesses/organisations view the value of good human capital management practice and its contribution to organisational performance is still as big as ever, despite the efforts. Are we merely being 'cardboard cut-outs'?

And if we believe that HR can do best by latching onto the latest CSR whiz, or the latest spurious people award, then OK....... but we cannot label HR as a profession. Which means that the 'profession' is probably for heading for some kind of fall-out, dividing into, on the one hand, a small cadre of HCM professionals, and on the other, a larger group of HR officers. To be fair to some private organisations, we have seen evidence of those that 'get it' and recognise the professional and expert practitioner types.

But there are too many who don't/can't/won't. I cannot dispute the 'hijacking HR' principle because the real world tells me it is here and very much alive. It is interesting to see that the more we look to professionalise HR through our own organisation value products, education and thought analysis, the greater we see this 'hijacking'. We see evidence everyday- the HR person who will plump for a marketing-based product with no real science over a soundly based framework with far more power, purely because the marketing one looks nice and is easy to remember. That is what we are talking about.

This whole argument crystallises when we work with clients on the value proposition of people management to the organisation. Strategic human capital management is of vital importance, but as a profession, we still seem to be more pre-occupied in defending against using the term human capital rather than using it in its most powerful and advocative form. That is a shame. But even recognising the terminology isn't enough. We must feel we need to do it - that organisations, though challenged will benefit or else compliance and 'people gimmicks' will become a staple diet for the next generation of HR (if there is one?).

Tomorrow, I shall revisit the people challenges that organisations currently face, in terms of strategic HCM.

2007-03-09T14:53:00.000Z

A DOUBLE-HEADER ENTRY FOR THE WEEKEND - WHAT IF THE REALITY WAS THAT THE PRIVATE SECTOR USES HR FOR COMPLIANCE AND MARKETING ONLY?

Just a thought experiment as physicists do it a lot to help explain their understanding of the universe.

With regard to private sector companies - what if everything you did in HR around people was either compliance driven or marketing driven? What would it look like?

Well - let's see.......we know that HR would be engaged in desperately trying to avoid any public outpouring of poor people management, but more often after the event, though the company concerned would display some form of trade-off between cost and risk........sound familiar?

Empirical evidence would suggest that this is the case...............see innumerable references on google.

Secondly, what if people management is really done for marketing purposes only? That for all the huffing and puffing of people in HR, the reality woud be that really it was just for good marketing?.....................What would we see?

Well - HR would be 'pushed' into reporting under some other marketing ploy like CSR for example - Really - does that happen? WELL UNFORTUNATELY YES.....mmmmm......

Also, HR people would attend events where other HR people talk about what they do, not to any significantly auditable degree, but to market their company and themselves. Does that happen? TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR AVERAGE HR CONFERENCE AND TELL ME IT DOESN'T.................

Do companies engage in spouting about the latest HR 'this and that fad' on their websites to attract potential employees....OH YES - IN SPADES........

Are companies' only interest in the HR function really to reduce costs? YOU BET! if you're not sure ask what HR shared services and HR outsourcing are really about!

Do companies use IiP or awards like 'Best companies' (which of course is totally unscientific) for badging purposes for recruitment purposes......YOU BET THEY DO............

Do companies use real evaluative tools to tell them how they are actually doing from an organisational or managemet perspective? VERY RARELY.........

Do companies actually report what they're trying to put right on people management issues linked to organisational performance with a few home truths - YOU BET THEY DON'T.........

Have private companies engaged in working parties on human capital reporting for good marketing purposes but actually have not been that bothered that said parties haven't come up with the goods?......overwhelmingly........ YES!

At what point are companies going to state that they want to eradicate poor management practice and have targets as such?.........YOU'D PROBABLY GET SOME MIGHTY LONG ODDS AGAINST.........

Do HR 'professionals' realise that they are being taken, in most part, for a ride? GOOD QUESTION......

Do HR 'professionals' care? VERY GOOD QUESTION......

Are HR 'professionals' up for upgrading their commercial acumen and knowledge to improve human capital management? Unfortunately our empirical evidence shows that there is only a small minority who are............

A sad realisation for HR...........

Does anybody give a 'monkies' about people management and its impact on organisational performance or indeed the HR function's true value to organisation's? Well - we do........Anybody else out there?.................the universe is a big place................and if we want to we can do something about it! Actually there is a certain cadre of people in the public sector who do - thankfully........

If you're reading this - take a reality-check over the weekend.....Face the mirror and ask yourself are you an HR professional or are you just a HR cardboard cut-out? Is your organisation just playing or is it serious? ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT?.....................IS EVERYTHING SO BANKRUPT? something rotten in the state of HR............I've got no problem if HR admits that its value proposition is a subset of marketing - we can all deal with that - just don't dress up something that it isn't..................

2007-03-09T08:32:00.000Z

STRATEGY AND DIVERSITY

Its not often that I equate these two terms in the same sentence but I think there's probably a case to put them together given the breaking issue around public service contracts being awarded on the basis of firms showing appropriate diversity. Mmmmm......this is dangerous. Not that I believe that encouraging diversity is a bad thing, on the contrary it is good. But this - well, where does it end?

As much as I can appreciate the arguments put forward for the case 'for', this really does smack of bureaucracy gone mad. Why? Well public sector organisations are funded by tax-payers for the purposes of delivering a quality service and in so doing they should be procuring services based on value for money.FULL STOP. Bringing in quasi-qualitative stringencies based on a concept that cannot be sufficiently defined in a commercial environment is tantamount to be interpreted as commercial bullying behaviour - particularly for smaller companies who supply this sector and who by sheer lack of employee numbers will be hard-pressed to meet any 'quota-driven rubbish'.

Even more bizarre is how do firms from outside the UK who wish to bid for supply services, deal with this? Exactly how is it going to be defined? There may be one or two cases where particular service roles may require certain 'cultural' aspects to be required, but in a democracy, any selection based on this criteria can itself be accused of being non-diverse. And this is the real paradoxical challenge to diversity - when does diversity become non-diverse? When does non-diversity become diverse? One has to be extremely careful of positive discrimination (aka affirmative action), because positive discrimination itself could be logically accused of being non-diverse.

It is a dangerous development and one that requires serious academic debate and investigation before being made anywhere near policy. The real danger is that this type of policy-play could well be counter-challenged in court and I have a feeling in any ensuing legal battle, the enforced diversity policy will end up being thrown out, much to the detriment of the various 'diversity movements', i.e. counter-productive. It is one thing to encourage social engineering - it is quite another to enforce it - didn't George Orwell write a very famous book on the dangers of this type of governmental enforcement? Yes - we should be a little bit more wary - this is far bigger than any mere HR diversity 'thingy' - this goes to the core fundamentals of a democratic society. I am greatly concerned at the increasing insidiousness of some of these initiatives here in the UK. It seems to me that it satisfies the few at the expense of the many...................

2007-03-08T08:29:00.000Z

TALENT - MONETARY REWARD ISN'T ENOUGH

Today I take my metaphorical hat off to Rupert Merson, a partner with BDO Stoy Hayward who has written a good piece in the FT regarding talent ('Love of money is no way to nurture talent'). I'll come onto the talent issue in a moment. No why I'm taking my hat off is that this piece was written in the Accountancy column! yes that's right the accountancy column. Not only that but it is one of the more insightful comments on talent which is devoid of the misty-eyed rah-rah spouting that you find in HR columns on the same subject..........so truly the message is getting through to the finance guys - pay is not enough when it comes to reward - hallelujah! I'll say it once again - hallelujah............

Of course, most in HR will say 'of course'. But the reality is pick-up any book or article on talent and you get hit with everything other than the economic business case, its all about process - the over-use of the word nurture (even Rupert does it!). If you attend HR conferences on the subject you'll get to hear about 'managing knowledge', 'recruiting', 'learning', 'communication', 'assessment', 'ownership', 'nurturing' (of course), blah-de-blah - in other words swop the word 'talent' for any other HR related noun(!?) and you can't tell the difference. Not forgetting of course the presentations on how we all swapped talent stories around the camp-fire............................and roping change in there somewhere!!!%@****@@?!! (see blog - HR muppets 02.03.07)

Nothing there about competitive advantage, the economic business case, organisational differentiation, actual business performance, cost-benefit analyses, managing the fallout of talent mismanagement, the management challenge of talent programmes, how to cope with exiting talent...de-dah, de-dah!

You see I (we here) seem to live in a parallel universe, but one that collapses to the real world (Am I a 'Schrodinger's cat'? if you're not sure what I'm going on about try

http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/ardlouis/dissipative/Schrcat.html - (clear???????)............it's a very famous thought experiment re quantum mechanics (you see I can get anything to relate to human capital on this blog!)

Anyhow - back to talent...........zzzzzzzzzzzz

Actually, the thing about competitive advantage, differentiation, the economic business case, business performance, I could expand but then that would spoil the fun of the new journal (see yesterday's blog) and its main thought-leadership article on Strategic HCM and 'talent rivalry' - oh yes folks coming soon - don't want to let the proverbial (non-quantum!) cat out of the bag........................ you definitely heard it here first.....................!

2007-03-07T10:01:00.000Z

EXCITING NEWS - THE NEW JOURNAL

Finally, just a note as we enter our final phase of editing for the forthcoming journal. The Journal of APPLIED HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT is coming very soon. Volume I Number I will be out before the end of March. Why am I telling you this? Well the first edition is in soft copy format and non-chargeable thus we are happy for people to get hold of a copy.

Also looking at the content - one gets a little excited. The thought leadership article is on STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT and its link to competitive advantage. The referred-to framework provides organisations and their HR functions an actual template and context for deriving HR strategy in an applied business context.

'Definitive' is the word being used around the offices as well as the word 'EXCITING'. We can't wait to get it out. Also, leading-edge applied stuff in EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, HUMAN CAPITAL MEASUREMENT and HR OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE. A review of the original VB-HR RATING study and case study material of the local government consortium which has been using the Rating. There's also a report on the recent Employee Engagement conference held in London.

We've also a view from the management frontline and a couple of other features. We trust that readers find it illuminating, insightful and educative. Future editions will see expanded sections and a full quota of guest contributors on a range of topics. The Journal is very much aimed at the HR professional space.....we await with interest.......

2007-03-06T08:12:00.000Z

TALENT - IS IT OR ISN'T IT A WAR OUT THERE?

A good piece in the FT this morning by Stefan Stern pulling the 'proverbial wool' from people's eyes. The upshot is rather than keep trying to search in the market-place (expensively) for it, a better way would be to grow it from within. Couldn't agree more......

I have often commented on the 'daftness' of human capital management policy that such heavy emphasis has been put on acquisition rather than retention. Originally the term 'talent' in the HR space was interpreted as C-class executive material.

I prefer the much broader interpretation that all employees possess talent and should be managed accordingly whether its focus is on enhancing capability or realising individual performance.

The school's definition of human capital management stresses that it is an '......approach to optimising the capabilities and performance of its management and employees'. Thus if you're trying to decipher what strategic human capital management is about then the definition provides a good starting-place. The definition thus clearly positions talent (in its broader sense) as pretty important in the scheme of things.

As for the 'talent war' - well it's not quite as dramatic as the hyperbole would have us believe - but much more the constant grind of everyday challenges of optimising individual performance and capability (thus engagement is pretty central as well) given the organisation context of competing ambitions, politics, resource allocation and performance.

The reality is that a few senior appointments here and there are not where the war is won. No, in corporate terms, its won 'on the ground' over time as an organisation gets the 'right person in the right place at the right time' at each level consistently. Period........

For sure, talent wars can only be won over time for competitive advantage to emerge. Again, organisations (and particularly HR) need to get this. I'm not sure how many do..............

2007-03-05T10:42:00.000Z

BLOG TOPICS

There will probably be a few upgrades to the blog over the coming weeks and I thought that I'd take the chance to review the topics that will be covered in future. These are:

Strategic human capital management
Organisational engagement
Employee engagement
Talent management
Human capital measurement, analytics and reporting
Commentary on aspects of human capital management
Organisation strategy
Organisation performance (& measurement)
HR operational excellence (including outsourcing and shared services)
The HR (HCM) profession

I will continue to reference our solutions such as the VB-HR Rating, Org & Employee engagement, HC Reporting (GHCRS2006), HCCI (www.hccindex.com), The School (www.ishcm.com), The HCMI (www.hcmiglobal.org), the HCMI qualification and the various publications and reports as they are released.

That should keep us busy.............

2007-03-02T08:01:00.000Z

MORE ON HR MUPPETS

Ahead of a serious look at strategic HR/HCM next week I thought I'd just take another irreverent look into the HR world. An interesting look at the term muppet when applied to corporate functions, their frequency and correlation with bullshit. Searching google, in top place (i.e. lowest entries) was FINANCE muppet - only yields 5 entries, so finance once again showing how boring but how ultimately professional they are.

In second place, were IT with about 10 entries (unfortunately google can't differentiate between 'it' the preposition and IT so have had to estimate - need to do something about that Sergey!!).

In third place with 25 entries was HR, so not bad but 5 times the bullshit of finance.

In last place was Marketing with a whopping 76 entries proving beyond doubt the ability of marketing (however, HR uses lots of silly marketing stuff as core material - so where does that really put HR?????).

I've no doubt that given the new funding of UK universities that some PhD muppet will carry out a study confirming this correlation.

Back to muppets - technical use of the term muppet applied to HR conferences:

HR muppet mania: this refers to the mass inane scribbling of useless notes by conference goers

HR muppet manouevres: attendees to a one-day event who disappear at lunch-time or just after lunch time

HR muppet collective: this term applies to the group who, having just learned of the latest developments in HR, at the coffee break are overheard talking about anything other than work related topics

HR master muppet: approaches and asks a question regarding human capital management only then to precede to tell me about how much he/she dislikes the term

HR clever muppet: At question time will ask a question that contains the term 'holy grail' in it

HR monster muppet: Have little interest in the subject theme of the event and are just glad to be away from the office (seemingly oblivious to company money being wasted)

HR muppet mince: the collective doe-eyed, aagh-inducing presentation that has the word 'change' on every slide whilst the presenter prattles on about their individual experience against the odds which has absolutely no relevance to the theme of the conference...but it feels good

HR rabbit-muppet: the glazed fear-like look when a slide containing the words human capital management is displayed

And then there are the HR professionals..........

Please send in any other entries you may have.....have a good day and weekend!! Be seein ya.......

2007-03-01T08:20:00.000Z

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT - FOCUS ON ORGANISATION MANAGEMENT

Yesterday, I threw the gauntlet down to the HR profession to drive the core focus on employee engagement in their organisations because of its fundamental purpose. Today, I throw the challenge down to management and for good reason.

Thought experiment:

Given the evidence provided by a number of organisations that their employee engagement scores show a classic normal distribution from low to high and that there is a direct correlation between high and low performing operational units - then why do we countenance poor management? Why aren't these associated managers removed?

Well, firstly we must be clear on what is poorly performing with a precise definition in an organisational context. So given that this exists, why do we still not see this approach..........?

A number of reasons:

HR doesn't quite believe enough in the construct the organisation is using to measure employee engagement for it to put its money where its mouth should be......
Management doesn't believe the employee engagement construct at all as a robust design to link to performance (allowing for other operational variables)
There is no current policy or process in place to utilise engagement outcomes on individual management appraisals, anyhow
Managers don't have their own appraisals
Management always ranks operational expediency above people management
Management views HR/HCM as a faddish driven load of nonsense and just needs to ensure that it observes (on most occasions) that 'pesky' compliance bit
see 5 above
see 6 above
repeat monotonously
start at 1 again

Mmm.......so how do we meet this challenge in HR.

Well, normally our response would be to do those nice cuddly things like mentoring and coaching to ensure ego-stroking of the highest order. Failing that - sending them on some (very) expensive business school management course where they can network with the same none-people oriented people like themselves (by the way this isn't just male managers I'm talking about - just ensuring diversity is being followed!).

No - we've got something much better, much quicker, less costly and actually more fun - we're talking about...............the (ISHCM) Management Rehabilitation Clinic (MRC) and/or the Management Correction Centre(MCC)...............

Oh - YES! 7 -28 days (dependent upon the therapy) where those expedient managers can be weaned off their blackberrys, where they can be detoxified from e-mail mania/self importance, where budget spreadsheets are fitted with electrocution circuits to provide increasing voltage the more times they play around with them, where keeping knowledge to themselves rather than sharing is an immediate stay in the 'cooler'.......

Where, their course contains mindbending exercises, such as reading Maslow and McGregor twice daily, and only being fed when able to recite important passages from the likes of McClelland, Organ, Argyris, Schein, Kotter, Lewin, Jensen, Simons etc..

Exercises that get them to think in a pavlovian way of people management every time there is an 'expedient' decision to be made - oh the joys............

And finally, should the 'correction' require even more therapy then we have the basement full of interesting looking instruments (and these aren't surveys) no.......there's a.........baseball bat (with 'Hard HR' emblazoned on it) and lots of 'clamps', 'surgical appliances' and 'things' for those who require a more serious corrective approach.

We are currently looking for 'wardens' who have an exemplary background in succesful people management - please apply to the School in writing, naming your speciality in corrective procedures......................

2007-02-28T11:06:00.000Z

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT - HACKING AT THE TRUTH THAT LIES BENEATH

A well done to Symposium events for organising and executing an excellent day on employee engagement in London. The presentations and activities contained a diversity often missing at these type of themed events. For my part representing the School, the presentation focused on the why? what? and how? of measuring engagement and an edited copy of the presentation can be found later today on both www.valuentis.com and www.ishcm.com websites.

The message is really about definition and the way in which applying measuring principles assists in defining the properties of employee engagement before moving to the various applications.

Two core presentations were Greig's (Aitken) of RBS and Debbie's (Whitaker) of Standard Chartered, both of whom showed deep insight as to how EE can be appied meaningfully within their organisations - both seeing employee engagement as core management focus (and also having defined their own EE context). We consider them to be the two leading client organisations in this field.

The event was well attended but I am still left with an uneasy feeling regarding HR practitioners. We believe employee engagement is a core focus for business, and that HR needs to be the driving force to ensure that their organisations see it as well. Thus EE requires sufficient due diligence from definition to measurement, from measurement to application, and from application to embedded practice.

However, given my well-documented comments on previous blog entries re this area and HR's role, I am still at a loss to explain that HR's representation on this is a fuzzy, wishy-washy interpretation that is not defined, that it is viewed from a very narrow lens and that it is still being hijacked by those in HR who just can't seem to say a sentence about an organisation without the word 'change' appearing in it.

It really has to stop..........this is a fantastic opportunity for HR to really put people management in focus with measurement playing its part. Its time that those in HR who wish to hide behind change and culture as a means of explaining every activity in people management to get off the bus. Stop using process as a means of compensating for content. We need both in balance. Also, please, please, start asking the why? question.................

To illustrate the point - one of the questions to the panel (for which I answered) was 'How do you get managers' 'buy-in' to employee engagement if they still see the staff survey as an HR tool?

It is the wrong question because the question should be 'Why are managers still seeing the staff survey as an HR tool?'

You cannot answer the first question with any conviction unless you have asked the second question and come up with a means to solving it.

Though there were many acknowledging heads in the audience, one gets the feeling that the 'why' question would be viewed as a nice to have because it involves more time and effort whereas the 'what' question can be neatly boxed by maybe some internal comms route and 1-to-1 meetings (which would still be part of the solution to the why? question incidentally). And please don't use the 'expedient' crap-excuse for denying the why? Again, if its too difficult, get out of HR.............

The difference to the 'what' and 'why' approach explains the paucity of problem-solving competence in HR. Too ready for the 'What/How', too little time for the 'Why'. HR practitioners need to get this one if the industry is ever going to emerge from its administrative hamster-wheel...........Getting the 'truth' re employee engagement requires a heavy dose of due diligence which requires an equal measure of 'whys', 'whats' and 'hows'..........

2007-02-26T13:54:00.000Z

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE TOXIC HR FUNCTION

Ahead of the Employee Engagement Symposium in London tomorrow, I'm just firing a quick note today.

It's about the Toxic HR function - coming soon - a fictional account (though based on a composite of real-life experiences/events) of an HR function that is not providing a value-driven approach such that is it is actually causing organisational harm (to itself). It serves to remind of the constant people challenges to professional competence and how HR can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong toolkit (sadly, almost jokingly) and how this impacts on organisation performance in a direct and indirect manner.

It is designed to be a light-hearted send-up but the problem may be that it is too close for comfort for too many HR functions and their organisations. It will be interesting to see................

2007-02-23T08:39:00.000Z

MORE ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Ahead of the conference next week in london

(see www.symposium-events.co.uk/pages/attending/HR027/images/brochure.pdf)

...I thought I'd comment a little more on this 'much-talked about' subject. Incidentally my slides on the subject will be posted on the VaLUENTiS and ISHCM websites next week for those keen to see what we have to say on the subject.

It is interesting to see differing perspectives. Looking at our symposium which is HR oriented - the presentations are about why and what it is and how it is applied/used from a measurement perspective linking with performance in a 'technical way'.

Interestingly, I recently received a mailshot regarding another employee engagement conference but which had an internal communications perspective. Looking through this conference's glossy presentational buff provides an illuminating insight. Its driven by an internal marketing focus (no bad thing) but it is extremely one-eyed giving the impression that communications is the only key driver in terms of employee engagement. The fact that it is sponsored by a major marketing journal gives it away.

Unfortunately, people attending this conference will go away with a distorted view of employee engagement. Internal comms is one of a number of inputs to employee engagement. Not one of the presentations makes any reference to what employee engagement actually is. It is all focused on how-to's and thus begs the question of transportability in terms of providing answers to each attending delegate (and thus their organisation). There may be some practical tips but attendees will still be none the wiser regarding employee engagement itself.

Given that, as I have mentioned before in previous blog entries, a number of employee engagement survey suppliers are marketing organisations, its a little scary isn't it that we, in HR, allow 'technically deficient' solutions in an area that as practitioners we are (should be) more aware..............

On a wider note, I've never quite understood the raison d'etre of an internal communications as a function as to me it would suggest the organisation is failing in some way. Communication is part of management and yes it plays a part in employee engagement. That would suggest it is embedded within human capital management (much like reward or development). So yes I could see it existing within HR (even as an extension of employee relations for those who still use the term). But it is a very different animal to external comms/PR ....

Maybe somebody could shed some light............

2007-02-22T08:16:00.000Z

LEGEND OF THE SQUONK AND THE HR FUNCTION

The squonk (made famous by a Genesis song for those who can remember - see 'Trick of The tail' or 'Seconds out [live]') is a legendary very ugly creature, whose skin is ill-fitting and covered with warts. Unfortunately, the creature knows this. As a result it spends most of its time hiding whilst crying because of its ugliness. The legend goes on to say that people tracking down the squonk and who eventually capture it are in for a surprise as they find that it evades capture by dissolving into 'a pool of bubbles and tears'. As the song goes 'Alive at both ends but a little dead in the middle'....'But if you don't stand up, you don't stand a chance'..........

Sound familiar, the advent of HR outsourcing/offshoring completes the story as the song continues 'all that I had, was a pool of bubbles and tears'.........

[Final verse]

'All in all you are a very dying race

Placing trust upon a cruel world.

You never had the things you thought you should have had

And you'll not get them now,

And all the while in perfect time

Your tears are falling on the ground.'

2007-02-21T08:57:00.000Z

RAISING THE PROFILE OF HR or (RAtPooHR)

The latest buzzword doing the rounds - so much so that I am doing a presentation on it in April this year!!

So what does this mean? Well first question to ask is - does HR need to raise its profile? and if so, what profile are we talking about? And how do we go about raising it? It seems that the 'market' has already decided judging from a 'google' search.

Sure there is evidence that HR functions continue to be 'beaten' consistently with a 'sh**y stick' and/or focused on nothing more than downsizing the internal function, but the reasons are more complex and multi-factoral.

So what is this profile 'thingy'. As ever it can be interpreted in different ways, from, for example, positioning of the function itself within an organisation to providing 'value' metrics to establish its contribution in more 'hard' terms. Actually, these two reasons are connected. Profile can be seen in terms of capability, efficiency, effectiveness, professional status, 'value' (with its many connotations). Actually they're all connected. Something we call a combination of value based HR and HR operational excellence.

The term 'raising the profile of' is quite trendy which is normally enough for it to become mainstream in HR.

So what about the why what and how questions?. Well funny enough VaLUENTiS solutions and The School's (ISHCM) offerings are all about raising the profile of HR and HR professionals therein. Thus I shall now be calling VaLUENTiS - VaLUENTiS RAtPooHR and The International School of Human Capital Management as The School of RAtPooHR Academy. You see it makes all the difference.

By the way you may have spotted that the pronunciation of RAtPooHR sounds like a type of rodent's faeces...................

2007-02-20T08:03:00.000Z

EMPLOYMENT, LAW AND EMPLOYMENT LAW

Bizarre stuff (well to me anyway) in the press yesterday. A reported story with comment from a law firm (who shall remain nameless) warning of the dangers of ageism in the UK and the potential claims that could be made if they are 'found out' by individuals who make multiple CV applications in the hope of exposing potential bias.

Now apart from scaremongering, my real 'beef' with this nonsense is the implied tacit approval by the law firm that multiple CV applications is ok - i.e. that it is somehow not deemed fraudulent to dismiss any potential case. Surely the underlying issue here is unethical acts by individuals that needs to be sorted, not a business that may or may not harbour any bias. After all most firms try to make an honest buck and the reason for non-hire is various and difficult to pin on any one factor.

If law is an 'extension of ethics and philosophy', what does that say about our individual ethic? Would you want to hire anybody who made multiple CV applications to the same employer. No, I didn't think so....

This kind of 'legal advice' crosses the line and I think doesn't do any favours for the law profession. A moral compass would be useful here. In fact what 'honest buck' is this law firm trying to earn?

I've got a better idea - why not 'invent' a few case scenarios and invite a number of law firms in to see how low certain firms will go to earn 'a buck'. Very revealing I would have thought.

As much as I appreciate that ageism (however defined) is out there, I am far more concerned with the unethical behaviour that seems to be condoned in the pursuit of a good marketing ploy.............

TAKE 2

More bizarre news this morning on diversity. Apparently the value of diversity to most UK SMEs is disputed. Now I'm not getting into a debate on diversity this morning but the facile surveys/comments made in the name of diversity.

Over three-quarters of the referred to study had workforces with less than 10% from ethnic minorities and 35% had none at all @@*!!*!!!??

Well - where's the surprise here? Most SMEs have less than 5 people working for them (in fact many have only one employee). The UK has about 9% ethnic minority of working population which is heavily regionalised (for example London has around 30%). Thus the results are consistent and statistically 35% with zero is (which means 65% have more than zero) , given the numbers, probably nothing more than a natural distribution. [Work it out - if you've got one ethnic minority in a workforce of four that's 25% for starters!].

Given the human geographic distribution in the UK, one would expect to find quite 'a diverse' picture emerging which would render a survey of national SMEs quite meaningless....yes quite....

I need to go and lie down for a while..............back tomorrow (by the way did you take the test yesterday?)

2007-02-19T14:18:00.000Z

HR PROFESSIONAL OR HR MUPPET? DO YOU KNOW?

Today - you can take (or invite anybody in HR to take) the HR Professional versus HR muppet test.

This is a test to define which side of the great divide you sit (and/or jump to with help).

Answer the following questions, choosing one answer per question only:

With regard to HR strategy, do you:
A regularly worry about what it is and where to find it
B remember doing something on this last year but have become too operationally focused since
C posses an integrated set of people management objectives and activities linking with business requirements that is executed upon and regularly evaluated to ensure progress

To me, the term employee engagement means:
A two of my team who are looking forward to life together
B a means of sending an e-mail that markets the company to all employees
C a technical term that defines what employee engagement actually is and ways and means of measuring to assist with organisational performance

The importance of outsourcing or shared servicing the three people in my HR administration team is:
A the most important thing in the universe, ranking above climate change, world hunger and global conflict
B taking up all of my time because I've not really worked out why we have problems doing HR delivery
C relatively minor event that I have delegated to an office junior to come up with a plan to be just more efficient

Using terms such as retention, talent, engagement, employer of choice, restructuring as a means to :
A sound good to my friends (if I have any)
B sound good at HR conferences
C define my and others' critical thinking, helping to implement strategies that the organisation can adopt to improve performance

When asked to vote on the most influential person in HR:
A I pick a name from this week's TV guide
B I pick a name that I'm vaguely familiar with somebody who did something some time ago
C I nominate a person who I believe has contributed to the profession in number of ways constantly that stimulates my thinking whether I agree or not with their view

When purchasing HR services:
A Don't understand the question
B Always pick from the name I know has been around for a long time even though I know their product is nothing special
C Always evaluate the pros and cons of solutions provided on merit having worked out exactly what is needed from an organisational perspective

From a career develoment perspective, I view my job in HR as:
A a means of getting paid
B a nice cosy place where I can always be called upon to 'support', 'assist', 'facilitate', 'discuss with', 'check-in with', 'defer judgement', 'hold-off on', 'revisit' etc..........zzzzzzzzzzz
C a means of being influential in the organisation and provide a platform for me to reach a senior position

Keeping upto date with developments in the HR field:
A Does it have a gate on it?
B I ignore most incoming e-mails that are not operationally oriented and don't read any of the trade journals due to the amount of paperwork I constantly generate
C I regularly tune into top HR related websites and blogs, read trade and business journals, and attend events that offer something new and take my CPD seriously

In the debate regarding HR versus human capital management, my view is:
A What happened to personnel?
B I've never understood why we have to label HR with human capital despite the fact that human capital as a term has been around for 50 years
C I think it is an interesting one and can understand why human captal management adds another dimension to HR from an organisational perspective

Finally, if you were asked what job your HR role most resembles, which one would you select:
A a janitor in having to be constantly called upon to sweep up
B a quartermaster in that I have to ensure compliance to the nth degree because there are rules and there are rules and more rules which must be obeyed
C a cross between an engineer, a doctor and a lawyer because of the conflicting demands of the job in terms of proactive design, reactive diagnosis and intervention, and the focus on due diligence from differing perspectives.

RESULT
Mostly As: Well done you are a fully fledged professional (if you've told the truth!)
Mostly Bs: Mmm......nice job, nice salary but are you in the right job?
Mostly Cs: Undeniably a grade-A HR muppet. Please do us all a favour and leave the 'profession' immediately

2007-02-16T09:38:00.000Z

MORE ON YESTERDAY'S THEME OF HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT - IS IT IMPORTANT?

The point about my comments yesterday regarding the seemingly one-sided focus when organisations carry out audits (i.e. financial in nature) is this: that given the increasing attention and legislation around people and the supposed focus on organisations providing good effective management practice, it stands to reason that people management should be following the kind of structured review processes one sees in finance. It's just that neither management nor (particularly) HR sees it like that yet.

HR should really be approaching human capital management in the same manner as finance does with finance, i.e. regular auditing/reviewing of certain processes and practices from both management control and risk perspectives. Why do most organisations do one-off HR reviews/audits, for example, on pay, equal opportunities, talent, succession management etc? Surely, these should be regular and ongoing. Why does so much money get spent on one-off management development interventions without any attempt to embed and constantly evaluate? Why are the majority of organisations treating employee surveys as a need to do when something is going wrong rather than continually embedded practice (i.e. whether annual or quarterly pulse etc.) to improve/expect changes.

The HR profession itself should be seeing this as a proactive way of managing an organisation's workforce. When this is happening, I will believe that organisations are taking pople management seriously and that they gain advantage by doing so. This whole aspect of proactive HR is one of the themes to my forthcoming publication 'The Human Capital Management Manifesto'. It is the very ethos to which VaLUENTiS and the International School of HCM exist........

I understand that this may seem alien to a number of HR 'professionals' - but that's ok - its a step forward for the HR profession into becoming a true profession. It also starts to get rid of the many 'cowboy consultants' and plethora of hangers-on who plague the whole industry. That can only be good. I like to see organisational funds being spent wisely on people - it can and will do HR a lot of good....Have a nice day!

2007-02-15T09:55:00.001Z

IS HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT THAT IMPORTANT?

Consider this: How important are finance and people to an organisation?

Answer: Well - they're pretty much both equally important, even though finance may just get the nod.

Consider this: FTSE350 firms latest spend on financial audits is around £750 million. FTSE350 spend on people management (practice) audits is about.....well......a couple of quid.

Its similar in the US and everywhere else in the World.

Am I missing something here? I can't deny that a teeny-weeny little spend of the financial audit is people related..........but mainly to do with payroll!!!!!As an HR professional aren't you ecstatic? How serious this people management thing is taken...................

Wow - all of those speeches about how important people are - so much so that organisations spend diddly squat on what matters (its the same for public sector organisations). Of course don't forget the 'dime' spent on nice CSR things for marketing purposes....

As they say - 'we got a problem Houston........'

2007-02-14T08:44:00.000Z

MORE ON EMPLOYEE AND ORGANISATION ENGAGEMENT - SERIOUS OR JUST PLAY-ACTING?

Following on from yesterday's comments. I just wanted to expand upon one of the hidden yet important 'trade-offs' that the concept of employee engagement brings. As I have previously said, HR has traditionally looked at the benefits of employee engagement initiatives, whether it is from a diversity, branding, flexible working/benefits or any other means. However, there is a cost-side to the equation as I related to the other day which does not seem to have been taken into account - the commerciality aspect, if you like - which is a big hole in the thinking - a lack of a robust business case.

In other words, only hitting employee engagement from the benefit side of productivity without taking into account the potential associated cost or loss of productivity (or management and HR resource/time) from incorporating these wide-ranging initiatives, means that organisations are forced into a kind of 'play-acting' approach, i.e. do enough to placate rather than see it as an enhancing act in itself.

It is this issue which I believe fundamentally undermines the whole process of engagement type initiatives and one that means that the lowest common denominator normally wins out - i.e. done for more marketing purposes...

Which leads us back to the hijacking of HR. The HR profession needs to take a stand on this professionally. Either it is into serious human capital management and a driving force or it is basically an 'organisation marketing puppy' which can be kicked when necessary. I think HR functions basically fall into a spectrum with these categories forming opposing ends.

It is that stark. Where are the 'best this and that' awards going to be (particularly being used for recruitment) if the economy begins to contract? Yes - precisely..........what next best company for redundancies? the award for most employment tribunals?

There is a fine line in expediency that enhances a profession and one that risks turning it into an organisational 'court jester' (if not already?). We are doing our utmost for the former. I'd like to hear from out there whether people want to be the former or the latter....................

2007-02-13T08:06:00.000Z

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT - STUNNING IN THE LACK OF DUE DILIGENCE

Working on one of our forthcoming publications 'Employee Engagement: A treatise for organisational application' and a forthcoming conference presentation (http://www.symposium-events.co.uk/pages/attending/HR027/overview.htm) I am struck by the sheer lack of due diligence displayed on this concept by the HR profession. Once again, we are providing a definition that has a commercial undertone (unlike many of the existing definitions) but it is the lack of application on the subject which is just simply stunning (and the reason for our publication).

A number of clients have been using the VaLUENTiS Employee Engagement Standard (again the only one)for over 3 years and it is good to see the different types of organisation application ranging from culture change and 'Employer of Choice' initiatives through to evaluation of management development programmes/leadership etc.

The market-place is infested with pseudo-marketing types who are promulgating, what you may term, particularly questionable employee engagement contructs whilst chasing revenue. One can't deny that the analytical rigour around survey constructs exists in marketing but since when did they have knowledge of people management? For organisations to blindly adopt some of these constructs (and there are some famous ones) puts HR in the dock. For at some point there is going to be some red faces. Our duty is only to add to the professionalism in HR - we cannot be responsible for each HR function's lack of due diligence. The music will eventually stop and we know that a few with entrenched positions will try and 'diss' the messenger. It won't be the first time.

But I'm getting a little exasperated at the constant lack of application and 'pavlovian dog' syndrome widely inherent in HR. It does not befit a 'profession'. If your organisation (management) shows a lack of understanding on employee engagement then it is up to the HR function to provide the due diligence, just as you would in finance, IT and/or marketing for related areas. Could you imagine CFOs adopting a dodgy construct to count revenue (maybe a few bent ones!)? Could you imagine the CMO using an incoherent product-pricing model? Would the CTO choose to use software whose basic programming was faulty? Very, very, very unlikely......So why is HR the odd one out?

Yes........it shouldn't be; but too often it is.........I'd like to think that a growing list of clients will use our construct because it does what it needs to and is robust, not because we've been around for 30 years and people know our name....................Onward and upward - have a good day.......

2007-02-12T10:26:00.000Z

FLEXIBLE WORK AND THE PROBLEM WITHIN

News that the UK Government is looking to extend flexible working rights to all has caused consternation in some quarters (and quite rightly - just ask any small business).

There are a number of related things here that need to be taken into account. HR normally bats for the ability to cater to workforce segments through work-lfe balance/flexible working and other such benefits. Though in principle I have nothing against these initiatives, I am concerned that focus has been too much on one side of the equation. There is a price to pay for these type of arrangements. Productivity is normally the loser as greater efforts of coordination, communication and management are required. Also, flexible working times or working from home naturally pull against a close 'esprit de corps' which makes team working harder to optimise. Anybody managing shift-type patterns will know how difficult it is, for example, to hold communication meetings (which cannot be delivered by e-mail alone).

Recent press has focused on the dangers of losing out in the promotion stakes if people opt for flexitime or part-time. Well, yes - unfortunately there is something about the fabric of teamworking and organisation performance that requires people to be near, the gossip, the tacit knowledge, the awareness of events or intelligence, most of the time, all aspects of things required for leadership. The more knowledge-intensive a firm is the more this comes into being. And unfortunately that's the rub.

Take it to its simplest level. Part-time or flexitime requires more support function and line management activity (thus increasing costs - just think of the extra resource time in administration, tax, recruitment, appraisals etc). That's why small businesses feel it the most because they already have constrained resources. There is no doubt that things such as flexitime/work from home can provide benefits to the organisation in terms of resourcing or certain commitment but there is a price to pay that has unfortunately been hidden for far too long.

It is interesting to note that in economic contracting times, part-time and temporary jobs tend to reduce. And from my earlier work experience, when a firm is not performing as well as it might, flexitime or working from home tend to become, shall we say 'reduced'. There must be a reason for this. It's simple - its costlier and harder to manage from a productivity perspective. Organisations always have to look ahead and are always wary of the 'great abyss around the corner' which is why only certain firms will be able to offer this type of deal continually.

The other big problem is that granting flexitime may become a back-door way for 'selfish employees' to do more than one job which raises the issue of how much commitment they are actually showing (and actually reducing engagement not increasing it). This is an unfortunate side-effect that organisations will have to deal with (in one way its a good market mechanism but spare a thought for the committed full-timers - I have seen this scenario and it is the fastest was to lose your most talented).

Expect the debate to continue and for some type of watered-down exclusion granting policy if it sees the light of day.

2007-02-09T11:26:00.000Z

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

I have already made reference to private equity in my blog entries this week. News yesterday that the world's biggest buy-out funded by private equity (Blackstone's purchase of Equity Office Properties) was finalised, has once again brought private equity into sharp focus. As a 'market mechanism' PE, at its best, can provide benefits by removing poor management when shareholders fail to do so. I have no argument against this concept. However, the current crop of PE deals over the past two years or so are of a different nature.

We have unfortunately seen this before - in the eighties, where more and more money was poured into PE for higher alpha returns only for it all to end in tears, as with any asset market, you end up over-paying as hubris inevitably creeps into bidding (particularly hostile scenarios). PE at this level is basically financial reengineering, swapping equity with more debt (why - because debt interest acts as a tax shield where as equity dividends don't - actually they normally get taxed twice - yes I know - ask your local Government for the idiotic reason........).

Blackstone's deal yesterday is very much in the latter category - leveraged not only with debt but with a play on real estate it is purchasing. (It is also the similar interest behind the recent Sainsbury buy-out rumours incidentally).

Why am I talking about this on this blog?........well the 'wicked bit' is that PE is looking for returns over a fixed period before selling it on. Debt leveraging cuts options open to management for investment, particularly where human capital is involved (because PE isn't really that forward-looking - its pure hard, cold, in fact icy number play). It is why unions are flexing their muscles - they know. And though inefficiency can be driven out for the right reasons, it doesn't stop there. We have evidence that HC investment under PE owned firms doesn't fare as well as non-PE owned companies. Our HCC Index also highlighted the HC effect of PE firms (its an ongoing study for publication this year). Let's just say that PE leveraged firms don't naturally sit at the top of the HCC Index.

The big chiller is that any economic contraction of any size normally exposes these highly leveraged deals (can't service the laden debt interest). The net result is unfortunately downsizing or administration, with administration leading to more downsizing. Not very people based is it? And for what? There is evidence emerging that the only higher return generated from these deals is the debt interest tax shield. In other words, its purely financial arbitrage for a few at the expense of many. This is where capitalism unfortunately puts itself in the dock....What happened to running a business for growth and profit which benefits many not the few..........?

Oh and do you want to know why companies are happy with pension fund deficits - because they are a 'poison-pill' defence against PE raiding.........What a f****ed up world of business we sometimes inherit!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-08T17:14:00.000Z

THE HIJACKING OF HR

Consider the question: Are organisations serious about people management? If so, how would you know? What would convince you that it wasn't a game (of grudging 'tit for tat')? What evidence is there? How would you know that rhetoric re people was really true?

Now before answering, let us remember that organisations are people. So when we refer to 'organisation' we mean a group of people (even if that thins down to a senior management team).

So, come on where is the evidence?

What standard do organisations aspire to that is not mere badging for one sordid marketing reason or another? Where's the story regarding the senior management team who split their share options amongst the staff? Where is the organisation that practices equality and fairness and doesn't shout about it from the rooftops? Where's the company that doesn't treat its employee pension pot like some slush fund or worse a 'deficit pool'? Where is the company whose line managers all have management qualifications and are annually assessed (and demoted/fired if they fail)? Where is the company that doesn't put operational expediency above good people management? Where is the company that sees people as human capital core to the business, even above shareholders?

Isn't almost everything you read re HR at the moment just a little too newsy, spinsy, gimmicky, markety............shallow!! I've got no problem talking positive re people/HR, I just don't want it to transform into bullshit.......Is it true? Has HR just become a hijacked vehicle for individual agendas and corporate spin rather than good ol' fashioned effective human capital management?? I need to see evidence - not talk, not hearsay, not perceived wisdom, but hard evidence, fact, truth.............

Where is the HR function that benchmarks itself against the highest standard? Where are the highly performing HR Directors? Where are the HR Directors proudly proclaiming that they are the new breed of Chief Human Capital Officers driving human capital performance as centric to business performance? Is the HR profession defining itself or defiling itself?

Where is the serious intellectual capital development going on around human capital management which is applied in organisations?

I can answer the last question. VaLUENTiS International School of HCM..........

2007-02-07T10:00:00.000Z

PERFORMANCE, MARKET VALUE, PRIVATE EQUITY AND HUMAN CAPITAL

On Mondays' blog regarding CEO turnover, I mentioned the rationale for private equity - it being a market instrument to correct 'market underperformance'. So the current potential P-E bid for J Sainsbury, the food retailer in the UK makes an interesting case. Much comment has already been stirred up. A bit of history shows that the food retailer, having struggled in the 90s, has undergone a renaissance under the leadership of Justin King, the CEO, and by all accounts he is judged in the positive. So what is going on here?

Mmmm, another case for Sherlock HR-olmes. What seems to have invited interest is the property portfolio. Most UK retailers have sizeable property portfolios. J Sainsbury's recent surge in share price puts a current market value at around £8.7bn. The property portfolio is estimated at a value of £7.5bn meaning that Sainsbury's actual operating business value is only put at £1.2bn. The ratio of market value to property value is considerably lower than a number of its peers. Now this is interesting............When we completed our HCC Index (www.hccindex.com) in 2006, J Sainsbury ranked 265 out of the FTSE350. (For reference Tesco = 225, M&S =193, Morrison = 305). Our Index has been quite good at revealing underperformance as a number of lower ranked companies have been subject to bids, restructures, mergers or well-documented struggles.

With regard to J Sainsbury, it is also intersting to note 'big warnings' by the unions who represent about a third of the 155,000 employees regarding job losses. Now I am no big fan of unions or private equity but I do acknowledge their contribution.

But the central question comes back to: If Sainsbury is doing so well why does private equity want to get involved over its property portfolio as Sainsbury's can quite adequately do it itself?

May be after all (after all the good vibes) it is that J Sainsbury is still underperforming (hence the union stirring). Whatever the ins and outs, the truths and half-truths, the spin, the chutzpah, there is one bold truth and that is the HCC Index doesn't lie. If I was a CEO this morning I'd be visiting the HCC Index (that's www.hccindex.com for all you CEOs). We know not all listed companies are there yet but our service can quickly find out - should you be worried, will you be another CEO turnover statistic? Find out, just a day's salary is normally enough to cover the expense.................

2007-02-06T17:15:00.000Z

MORE ON THE COVETED POSITION OF THE CEO

Interesting stuff in the press recently regarding the common promotion of the CFO into the CEO hotseat. The CFO's natural understanding of the business stands him or her in good stead apparently (notwithstanding CEO turnover - see yesterday's blog). However, increasingly the ability to understand people management is having an impact on selection - yes well - eventually somebody noticed...........!

This also stands for any up and coming COO, CMO or CTO who also has CEO aspirations. After all this is the most important job and you would think that we could get this one right many more times than wrong.........Also having a number of internal candidates available for selection with differing perspectives goes a long way to securing continuity of businesss succession, doesn't it? Or am I missing something here?

Of course, there is one natural senior management executive with impeccable people management credentials........yes - you've guessed it the CHCO (i.e. Chief Human Capital Officer - if you're not a regular to the blog). But somehow, the CHCO hasn't featured in the conversations. It is a great pity that conventional wisdom still does not place the HR C-executive in the same space. And when I mean HR C-executive, I mean a fully qualifed HR person, not another general manager flown in to do it (though I have nothing against general managers in HR as they tend to get it). It is one that I will continue to bang on about and that VaLUENTiS and the School will continue to assist in promoting the potential for HR.

I just wish we could see a little more evidence of ambition floating around in HR or is it that the 'market' knows more than we do? For if it is, then it is truly a sad day in the HR profession's history if we cannot step up to the opportunity that may be afforded? Better to stay in the hole, eh? Sometimes I am reminded of the pig who is happy in sh*t. Taking the pig out of the sh*t makes it unhappy...........mmmmmm............Maybe the way forward is that CHCOs are not HR professionals per se but where does that leave the profession? Could you imagine this heretical thought in finance????No - you can't - so why is it ok in HR? Sound off out there if you're an HR professional/executive..............

2007-02-05T10:18:00.000Z

CEO TURNOVER - WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Lots of recent press regarding the increasing turnover of CEOs and particularly in Europe recently, where it is approaching 20%. Ooooh......20%, given the performance, I'm surprised the number isn't more like 50%. Of course the recent reports by headhunters are self-serving, i.e. meaning gosh look we can help with better selection. Yes - well, given their clandestine involvement in a number of these high profile cases, I would suggest that they are more part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

Taking in a couple of other factors, the picture looks far from ideal, from a governance perspective. Specifically, I refer to the increasing use of private equity and executive compensation. As most would agree private equity is really a market mechanism to correct 'poor governance' in terms of performance. For, if senior management was operating correctly there would be no need for private equity. Executive compensation must be one of the biggest farces in history and serves to 'do no good' in the eyes of everybody outside of the boardroom. Poor indicators of comparative measurement, easy to manipulate (don't start me on options), promulgated by remuneration consultants provides us with a fascinating insight of a broken model. This of course doesn't include the poor performing CEO promoted to Chairman (despite moves against this type of activity).

We hear talent management a lot - about how we need to grow and retain talent..yadda...yadda. However, I am always amazed at the CEO merry-go round of A was CEO at......and now been picked for B............Whatever happened to new blood- is it that risky???

Mmm.....CEOs should view CEO-ship (of a listed company) as a privilege - one offered to few, though many more could do it. The continuing spate of shenanigans (see Torex UK last week, recent VW and Siemens, well documented US ones) tells us something is broken .......and badly.

I find it sad that the 'market' cannot find enough decent, law abiding, performance oriented, equity (as in fairness) rewarded individuals to run companies. It's not that difficult is it??....From a selection perspective, it doesn't say much from a human capital perspective.............may be the headhunters could provide a report on that?

We are looking to do our bit with things like the HCC Index (www.HCCIndex.com) and the VB-HR Rating plus current research on predictive analytics around CEO tenure - we know that one is going to get some attention - Oh yes! Coming soon..............

2007-01-29T21:49:00.000Z

BLOG ENTRIES TO RESUME MONDAY 5TH FEBRUARY 2007

Due to a couple of new additions to the family, I will resume the blog Monday 5th February 2007. My apologies for the short notice!

2007-01-26T09:53:00.000Z

A LOOK AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK'S TOPICS (2nd blog entry of today - see below)

CEO turnover (mmm!), pensions (ahhh!), HR functions (oh!), talent management (zzzzzzz!), and something wicked this way comes!

Be seein ya!

2007-01-26T09:08:00.000Z

VB-HR RATING - AN INSIGHT INTO THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE

Today, I round up my virtual tour of the VB-HR Rating system with an insight into experience gained through client engagements and also to conclude by pulling together the various strands.

Just to recap, the VB-HR Rating was designed to achieve a number of objectives (see Monday, January 22nd). As such it was designed to assess and evaluate human capital management across an organisation. In this sense, its output at this level could be interpreted as strategic. However, the assessment and evaluation could drill down to operational level and beyond, focusing on one or several areas of client choice. The mix of 'qual' and 'quant' data and the underpinning model meant that people management/HR function evaluation moved to a new level, or a second generation if you like.

What have we found?

Across the 30-odd public and private sectors in our database, well even the acknowledged 'best' organisations struggled to score highly across all areas reflecting just how challenging people mangement is. Workforce intelligence (see Wednesday, January 24th entry below) scored the lowest of the HCM drivers - confirming an industry wide HR 'ozone hole' which severely hampers organisation effectiveness; that employee engagement needs improving; that the consistency of management competence and performance (in terms of people management) is patchy; that HR strategy is very, very mixed; that despite attempts by HR to become more proactive and OD-facing, the reality is that resources are still very much focused on compliance; that the positioning of the HR function in many cases is poor.......Oh and despite HR being critical of themselves (good!) there is still a gap between how HR sees itself and its contribution and how the organisation sees it...........Most alarming of all is the degree to which a number of HR 'professionals' don't get it - which is why we set the school (www.ISHCM.com) up to help with what was a very clear gap in knowledge (and thus why we have worked on a new HCMI qualification and Standard).

The routemap of recommendations typically identifies between 30 and 40 actions of which around 10 or so are deemed 'red status' i.e. the particular recommendation is both HIGH on potential impact and HIGH on ease of implementation (derived from our matrix).

WHAT HAVE CLIENTS USED THE VB-HR RATING FOR?

The list is long...........it includes:

Developing or revising an HR strategy or strategies
Employee engagement measurement and change programme
HR delivery effectiveness
Business case for interventions such as management develpment, training, employer of choice programmes, employer branding, talent management etc
HR scorecards and HC reporting
Business case for HR transformation
Retrospective business case for HR transformation (yes - I know!)
HR team development
Benchmarking (yes - I know as well!)
Organisational HR spend and activity analysis

Yes - its a long and varied list and we are pleased to that extent as that was its intent. Just a pity it takes so long to be recognised in the wider industry.

On a final note - it may be helpful to imagine a diagram which neatly encapsulates the whole piece. Think of three concentric circles. The inner circle denotes the core employee engagement construct (our 5-domain model for example), the middle circle denotes what we term 'organisational engagement' which include the operational indicators (see yesterday's blog entry) and the outer circle which contains the eight HCM drivers (as already noted). [One can also envisage a fourth 'outer rim' which contains other organisation tangible and intangible elements]. The problem for the HR industry is that in employee engagement terms it has 'jumped' to parts of the middle circle without necessarily defining the inner core. That's about to change........now you know why....Have a good end to the week (and to those where it's already ended!)

2007-01-25T08:59:00.000Z

VB-HR RATING: OPERATIONAL INDICATORS AND BEYOND

Continuing on my VB-HR Rating theme week, today I'll add a few comments on the recent release of the 'operational' indicators which complement the existing Rating output. Just to rewind, the VB-HR Rating plays a number of roles, but its core construct is that of assessment and measurement (with recommendations for acting upon). Yesterday's blog provided a little more background on the HCM driver rationale and output (short brief!).

The Rating assessment provides a rich vein of cross-sectional data that can be used for many purposes. Our first few client Ratings actually provided us with embedded potential that we hadn't thought of, as organisations (business units/Directorates) very often wanted to 'drill down' into a particular component of human capital management. For example, assessing the strength of an employer brand, creating an index to help with establishing a framework for 'employer of choice', talent index, performance management, reward and so on.

Thus over the last 12 months, we have had a dedicated team looking at standardising some of these outputs to provide an operational portfolio or toolkit using data embedded within the VB-HR Rating assessment (both 'qual' and 'quant') together with further available metrics (2nd generation - 3rd generation is already underway). Some of these metrics of course link to the HC Reporting Standard released last year (GHCRS2006) as well everyday HR operational metrics. Thus we now have a suite of operational indices (produced as a radar graphic which is basically the operational VB-HR scorecard) with 4 grades of performance colour-coding (see VB-HR Rating quick reference guide @ www.vbhr.com). These operational indicators are:

DIVERSITY
EMPLOYEE CENTRICITY
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT (is part of the standard VB-HR Rating output)
EMPLOYER BRAND
HR GOVERNANCE
HR OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
LEADERSHIP
ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE
ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN
PERFORMANCE ORIENTATION
RESOURCING
RETENTION
REWARD
TALENT MANAGEMENT
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

Basically, the index provides an ongoing measure of the degree of relative effectiveness and can be benchmarked against sector, peer, BU etc. Thus an HR function can report all or none of these internally. Each index can be viewed as a drilling hole with the potential to drill further into any one of these to the extent of providing modelling analytics where necessary (allowing for the fact of lateral linkage between them). Of course, there is also the opportunity to cluster the indices ('concatenate') to provide new indices - 'employer of choice' being a particular example. Of course there is always the option of a completely customised index satisfying organisational specifics.

Phew! that's enough for today. As a final comment on the VB-HR Rating tomorrow, I'll share a few insights as to what we have found when used in client scenarios, some useful by-products of the whole process and the data we already have...........Until tomorrow, have another good day!

2007-01-24T09:30:00.000Z

VB-HR RATING - ORGANISATION PERFORMANCE THROUGH A HUMAN CAPITAL LENS

Following on from yesterday's whirlwind biography of the design phase, to provide further context I am today giving a little more background to the eight key organisational HCM drivers. In order to provide a focus for the VB-HR Rating report and routemap, our extensive due diligence based on published research and project intellectual capital provided us with some key conclusions:

There was empirical evidence that well-designed and integrated HR processes and systems were a strong contributor to people performance and also in minimising operational risk (the usual HR processes/systems/activities). This was termed HCM architecture to denote its proper classification.
That any organisational performance related to human capital/HCM required competence in data/intelligence and measurement. Without it, it is difficult to provide any meaningful assessment of value/contribution/progress etc. (The de facto point is that any assessment of organisational performance is meaningless without some form of measurement whether in data format or more sophisticated metrics). This aspect was termed Workforce Intelligence.
That organisational performance is a function of productive, engaged and competent people. However, that an organisation's human capital needed to be classified (at strategic level) into two groups: employees and people/line management, as employee productivity and performance is also a factor of management performance. Also, that organisational performance is a factor of management in terms of its leadership.
That a well articulated and executed HR strategy contributed to organisational performance and capability, particularly in terms of contributing towards future-proofing competitive advantage. HR stategy in this instance is not just a collection of activities over the next twelve months - that is a sub-component. HR strategy here is more like corporate strategy and plan in combining both strategic and operational objectives. The focus being on execution.
There was evidence that a strong competent HR function with a clear remit and proposition added value (relating to above) to an organisation and can be very influential in developing key HCM aspects that contribute to organisational performance. Thus, any best practice model needed to contain HR function elements to be meaningful, attributed to the expertise within the function and the line (HR capability), the degree to which the function was proactive rather than reactive (HR Customer-Agency, i.e. HR resource effectiveness) and the effectiveness with which the HR function procured services (HR Procurement) either internally or externally (spend efficacy).

Thus was born the eight strategic HCM drivers. What spooked many was that one key driver the HCM Architecture contained about 95% of what HR functions had, up until this point, concentrated on (i.e. processes and activities). Suddenly, human capital management appeared like a hidden cave full of unfolding 'treasure' or in this case 'intelligence and insight'. This is no exaggeration as clients who have used the VB-HR Rating use the words 'exciting' and 'challenging' (see client reaction at www.vbhr.com), words that seemed to have disappeared from HR's lexicon.

Tomorrow - the operational indicators......................

2007-01-23T10:57:00.000Z

THE CHALLENGE OF THE VB-HR RATING CONSTRUCT

Yesterday, I recounted the objectives that the VB-HR Rating was initially designed to achieve. Having built a model of the 'best practice' human capital management, the real challenge was to build an instrument that uniquely combined qualitative and quantitative data to populate the model and thus provide an evaluation/scoring mechanism that provided organisations with deep accurate insight and a routemap of recommendations where required. The original model design was built on a three dimensional basis (given the nature of people management) and focused on eight key HCM driver performance outputs across three measures: Effectiveness, Maintenance and Risk. The eight drivers were HR strategy, workforce intelligence, HCM architecture, Management, Employees, HR Procurement, HR capability and HR customer-Agency (more on these tomorrow).

As I indicated yesterday, the actual model contains the potential to populate 22.5 million data points. However, there is a core set of around 8000 key variables. Thus the collation construct needed to provide data on all areas of human capital management and from different perspectives. The initial collation instrument (which is a combination of qualitative question sets and hard data such as absenteeism, turnover etc.). The first prototype (after some 6 months of survey design) contained over 1200 questions and 120 hard data/metrics!!!!! Clearly, unmanageable for anybody other than those who like to sit 3-hour plus exams!!

Thus, a (very) painstaking process began to reduce this number down to a manageable level to complete but with the objective of keeping the data integrity to populate the model. This process was lengthy for three reasons: (i) it involved an assessment of each question/metric against each other question/metric in terms of importance and weighting in the model; (ii) a balance needed to be kept in terms of inputs across the key HCM drivers and their measurement perspectives; (iii) Given that there were further sub-sets of performance provided by 3D algorithms these also had to be maintained for model integrity purposes.

Finally, after many dark nights and rooms, the team reduced the overall number to a manageable set of around 230 questions (i.e. takes about 25 minutes to complete) and a data set of 40 metrics/data which proved to be the ideal trade-off (which is its present format today). It is without doubt the most sophisticated instrument on the market - the great thing is client organisations require very little time resource to complete. That's enough for today, tomorrow I'll explain a little more about the eight key drivers and their significance...........Bye for now.......(For those who want to know more go to www.vbhr.com )