Home » All posts

CIPD: Harnessing Social Media for Organisational Effectiveness

Thursday, June 28, 2012 by Franklin Bros

 

   I’m included in a new report from the CIPD on HR’s use of social media, which is currently being used as an incentive for people to renew their memberships.  This means that I can’t point you at the research, but you should be able to read the comments on the report from a couple of the authors:

 

I refer to my interest in social media, and social outcomes, at the beginning of this article:

“In my piece in the CIPD report ‘Harnessing Social Media for Organisational Effectiveness’ I focus on social capital and the opportunities social media provides to create this type of people-related outcome. I thought it might be useful to post here about why I think this is an important focus.

In particular, some people who know me, or read my blog etc, may be surprised by my suggestion in the report that social capital is probably a more important focus than human capital. After all, I am mainly known for my strategic thinking on human capital management (Strategic HCM).”

 

I was also talking about this yesterday in a session on learning and development earlier this where I suggested that social learning is important partly because it’s a more efficient and effective way to learn (activity), but also because it’s the only possible way – vs individual learning – to develop a learning team, community or organisation (social outcome).

 

(ie social learning is the only form of learning which directly produces social capital.)

 

I’m really pleased this perspective on HR’s use of social media is starting to become better understood – does it work for you too?

 

  • Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
  • Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
  • Contact me to create more value for your business
  • jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

.

READ MORE - CIPD: Harnessing Social Media for Organisational Effectiveness

Posted in: , , | 0 comments | |

Internal recruitment: right or wrong?

Monday, June 25, 2012 by Franklin Bros

 

    One of my readings today has been an article in HR Magazine: ‘Internal Recruitment: Right or Wrong?’.  I found it an irritating article (eg I for one have never heard anyone in business use the words ‘people are critical to the business’) but it does make one strong challenge:

“The main disadvantage of internal recruitment is that the pool in which you are fishing for talent is limited, leading to a toleration of candidates who are good enough but not great - and that's not good enough!”

 

It’s a good suggestion with an element of truth and has also got me thinking because I’m shortly going to be inputting on a panel from the other side of the fence (not sure if that’s a mixed metaphor or not!).

This is a session on 19th July being organised by Monster, with Keith Robinson of HR Buzz, which will be the first of a series of sessions called Monster Buzz.  This one will also feature Isabella Hung at TMS, Lee Moody from Rank, Matthew Jeffery from Autodesk, Marilyn Davidson from APSCo and Steve McNally from The Equality Law Group.

 

The first thing to note is that this is obviously a rather theoretical question – in practice you need to do both  - the HR Magazine article calls this a balanced approach.  And actually the use of the word ‘balance’ is appropriate.  To buy or to build, including through internal recruitment, isn’t a choice – it’s a matter of balance: slightly loading the scales to give a little more focus to buy or build depending upon organisational needs (the main need being either to maintain current performance if things are going well – by tipping the balance towards internal moves - or to provide new insights and perspectives if not everything is so rosy – by tipping the scales the other way).

Doing both is also central to the concept of integrated talent management which I’ve been blogging about here.  You can also think about there being a similar need to integrate recruiting within HR as there is for integrating learning into HR, which I presented on at Learning Technologies earlier this year.

 

However, if this is all I said it’d be a rather boring panel.  So I’m going to be coming down on the side of talent development.  And I actually find this a rather easy argument to make – talent development is simply a more strategic activity than talent acquisition is.

Talent acquisition provides our undeveloped people – our raw materials if you like (OK, neither do I, but stick with me for a minute).  The quality of these raw materials is hugely important but it’s just not enough.  The even more important activity is what the organisation does with these raw materials – how it converts these into something more useful for the business to use.

There’s a direct analogy to the business value chain.  Businesses also buy raw materials or other inputs and then transform these into something more valuable which can be sold to customers.  Procurement is therefore a vital activity, but even with advances in areas like supply chain management there are very few businesses which compete on they way they procure raw materials.  Most do this on the way they add value to these materials through some transformation.

Organisations don’t compete on the way they do recruitment either.  They compete on the transformation of their new joiners into an aligned and engaged workforce.  Much of this transformation is down to the role of talent development, including the way that people are progressed up and across the organisation.  And the need to focus on the transformation rather than the raw materials becomes ever greater then more we focus on competing through organisational capabilities.

That’s because competition rests upon differentiation.  If we recruit the same people as our competitors, if we have the same culture as them, we simply can’t compete upon these things.  And OK, it may be possible for one organisation to recruit better or different people simply based upon its employer brand or the speed of its recruiting activities etc.  But the difference is likely to be quite small.  The key difference is much more likely to come from the transformation of the people we’ve hired and the creation of organisational capabilities we can use.

 

You’ll be able to read more arguments for and against this perspective on the Monster Thinking blog leading up to the debate.

 

A final note: I hope I haven’t offended any of my readers in recruitment!  As I noted earlier on, this is a rather theoretical debate.  We need both recruitment and development and the real need is to have them both better integrated together; both focused on achieving the same thing – and for both of them to be doing this more strategically.

 

 

  • Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
  • Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
  • Contact me to create more value for your business
  • jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

.

READ MORE - Internal recruitment: right or wrong?

Posted in: , , , , | 0 comments | |

Top 50 HR Blog

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 by Franklin Bros

 

   Strategic HCM has once again been selected as a top HR blog to watch for 2012.

I’m particularly honoured by this as the listings show me finally catching up with Laurie Ruetimann’s blog that she stopped writing three years ago – it doesn’t get better than that, (LOL)!

 

 

There are some other interesting choices in the listing but good to see a number of international blogs in there.  However, the list is still  fairly US dominated eg there are just five other European HR blogs:

 

 

  • Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
  • Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
  • Contact me to create more value for your business
  • jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

.

READ MORE - Top 50 HR Blog

Posted in: | 0 comments | |

#ECTalent – Net Gen Leadership

Monday, June 18, 2012 by Franklin Bros

 

   I’ve already posted on some of the morning session’s from last week’s Economist Talent Management Summit.

After lunch I was due to moderate a panel featuring Ryan Blair but he didn’t show up, so Lucian Tarnowski stepped into Ryan’s shoes, I stepped into Lucian’s, and Robert Guest, the Economist’s business editor stepped into mine.

The session was designed to consider how organisations can build, manage and retain leaders from gen y / the net generation who are more mobile and eager to self-develop than any previous group.

I’d have enjoyed moderating the discussion but didn’t feel so comfortable inputting - as you can probably tell from the photo, I’m largely unconvinced by a lot of what is talked about gen Y (or in Lucian’s terms, Gen Why?).

In my view, and experience, there definitely is something about gen Y which is different from other generations, and isn’t just about their stage of maturity.  But many of these characteristics are shared by others outside of this population (desire to make a difference, propensity to collaborate, use of social media etc – me, me me!) – it’s just that gen Y are showing these characteristics earlier on.

Eg when I was a junior consultant at Andersen Consulting (Accenture) I had one Partner who made me stay late in the office, sometimes standing up my friends to do so (this was in the days before mobiles)*.  I don’t think gen Y employees would put up with that today and nor should they have to.  However, I do sometimes think that they’re lucky to live in the times that they do.

I also think we have to be careful about talking about gen Y as a global category.  Due to social media etc, gen Y may be more similar around the world than previous generations, but they’re definitely not the same.

I also believe that a lot of gen Y’s more narcissistic tendencies have been reshaped by events over the last couple of years.  Eg, and I felt a bit exposed saying this sitting next to the man from the Economist, but I risked sharing statistics on Greek and Spanish youth unemployment (both over 50%) to suggest that in many ways this is the new lost generation and that they’re not that lucky at all (and we haven’t even begun to consider the state of the planet that Doug Baillie mentioned).

A generation’s characteristics may be mainly shaped by the experience during their teenage years, but you don’t live through the shocks of the last half decade without it leaving an impact on you, whatever age you are.

We also talked about social media and I referred participants back to Doug’s points on the crisis of leadership – if HR leaders want to understand more of the characteristics of the net gen / gen y then registering with Twitter would be a great place to start!**

 

Also see:

 

* Gary Kisler – I’m talking about you!!!

** OK, OK, I know this isn’t where gen y tend to hang – but it’s  better place than most to experience what social media is really all about.

 

 

  • Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
  • Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
  • Contact me to create more value for your business
  • jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

.

READ MORE - #ECTalent – Net Gen Leadership

Posted in: , , | 0 comments | |

#ECTalent - Strategic Workforce Plannning

Thursday, June 14, 2012 by Franklin Bros

I've just finished a session talking about next gen talent with Lucian Tarnowski from BraveNewTalent where I did my usual thing of encouraging more of the HR people here to get involved in things like social media themselves. And I'm back blogging again for the afternoon.

This first session is on strategic workforce planning and particularly on building effective talent pipelines.

First up Christ Benko from Merck talked about how business is changing, leaders need more international experience and the company needs to focus on these key people - they can't afford to invest in everyone to the same extent anymore.





Asked whether companies need to invest in their staff when they can buy them from outside, Phillip Snalune suggested that organisations need to do both [interesting, given an event with Monster I've got coming up in July! - more on that here soon].

Melanie Long from SHL suggested they often find clients are surprised how much runway they have inside their organisations. So there's a need for earlier development, better development planning etc.





And what about HR - what competencies do HR business partners need to support this? Some of the suggestions were ability to engage the executive to drive the agenda and direct their attention appropriately (it helps if the CEO has had or is having good development experience themselves, eg by sitting on other company's boards).

Increasingly, HR needs to be able to take advantage of tools like analytics and semantic search too.


- Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
- Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
- Contact me to create more value for your business
- jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com
READ MORE - #ECTalent - Strategic Workforce Plannning

Posted in: | 0 comments | |

#ECTalent next gen leadership styles

by Franklin Bros

First up, Carole Jones at Aviva talked about their search for a new CEO following the shareholder spring revolt against Andrew Moss. They're looking internally as well as this is often the best option but when you're facing lots of change, someone from outside may work best. Plus traditional succession planning often fails to deliver. The difference is about honest and meaningful conversations - vs making promises we don't necessarily believe in.

Vinod Kumar, Tata Communications built on some of Budaraju's points about market growth in India. They have a new leadership signature they're assessing their leaders against.

Stevens Sainte-Rose, Coca-Cola are facing a disconnect of a surplus of potential candidates at junior levels and a deficit of skills higher up in the emerging markets he covers. Part of this is to work with other organisations to invest in communities for the benefit of these communities, but also to dramatically up skill talent (sort of what I was suggesting that Doug Baillie / Unilever should be doing).

Aviva are doing something similar called Streets to Schools - partly for community responsibility but mainly because of the pride this develops in their employees (particularly in next generation employees). And Tata probably trumps them both with national building being one of its central purposes.

Coca Cola are also doing a lot on social media, but probably not anything like enough - eg they're encouraging their leaders to register on LinkedIn and next gen employees want to read about them there. And they're using Chatter internally and find this conversation a great learning device, sharing information across markets.

The key question customers ask employees isn't about what's in Coke - its what it's like to work in the company. People want to know if they're living what they're selling - a happy environment etc. So they're also using social media to enhance transparency about the company - helping employees share their stories etc.

In the Q&A, Budaraju suggested talent management includes too much focus on doing and becoming and not enough on being. Unfortunately the panel didn't get time to respond to this - it would have been interesting...





I'm going to be moderating a session on next gen talent after lunch, but before this we're going to focus on female talent (increasing the proportion of women in senior leadership positions) with:

Lisa Calvert, Getty Images stressed that women have choice and opportunities. Foundational programmes can help but aren't always needed. And these programmes can start at the top but don't need to. If people respect each other organisations can build diverse cultures without formal programmes.

Emily Lawson, McKinsey suggested that companies have an average of 22 diversity initiatives but none of them are working effectively. Then I got lost (it was interesting hearing a McKinsey consultant speak without their normal packed power points, but we still got a whole heap of numbers and percentages).

Neeha Khurana explained that Bank of America have a range of formal programmes which they think work because they're so open and because people are prepared to be challenged (so culture is important even when you're using formal programmes). Eg senior women are paired up with top executives Who act as their advocates.

Sue Swanborough, General Mills also suggested that mindset is key and also supported McKinsey that measures are important. Diversity works for them because they're such a values driven company. Valuing different perspectives is massively important. So they help people become more self aware so they feel about to put themselves forward.






- Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
- Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
- Contact me to create more value for your business
- jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com
READ MORE - #ECTalent next gen leadership styles

Posted in: | 0 comments | |

#ECTalent - Repositoning HR

by Franklin Bros

This is the session I've been most looking forward to.

If talent management is going to shift, given our business challenges, and the move to next gen leadership etc, then HR is going to have to change too (my words).

Let's see what the panel have to say. And we've got:

- James Cullens at Hays (one of the many HR people I've trained on social media)
- Khurshed Dehnugara at Relume
- Budaraju Sudhakar at Tata Chemicals
- Lesley Wilkinson at Citi.






Lesley talked about Citi's increasing focus on diversity to match their customers and support innovation, and how this is then enabled through their recruitment etc. Another aspect is offering people something to connect to - so Citi focus on people and community as well as shareholder value.

Hays are emphasising the digital skills discussed by Unilever and PepsiCo already. And they're trying to respond to the changing expectations of the next gen talent who think about careers in a very different way to how James did when he started his career. We need to be clearer about what companies offer and what value an individual can get from this for their career.

Khurshed is trying to make their clients' environment more exciting for next gen talent ("what we find scary they find exciting"). If we don't do this they'll leave quickly (or else well find that "the seat's still warm but the brain's not there"). Next gen can do an awful lot but our over-controlling environments constrain them from performing [I'd suggest this applies to all generations actually]. Our talent processes aren't supporting this - we need more disturbance in the system. It needs to be more real day-to-day - not everything can be fit into a 9 box grid! [Hurrah!]

Budaraju suggested the average tenure in India is rapidly coming down. The average age of CEOs is coming down too. Something about Indian culture too - I missed this. We need to help people manage their insecurity. We tend to focus too much on closure and not enough on the process of closure. This is about values of trust and respect. Tata are training their people on human relations through 'human process labs'.


Although this was a great session, I thought much of it got stuck in the prevailing thinking about 'business-oriented HR', with eg James stressing the need for HR to understand the business very deeply eg new business models etc. [Yes - but we need deeper skills in psychology, sociology and anthropology etc too] and Budaraju emphasising the need for HR people to work outside of HR.

Eg Khurshed noted that next gen talent are desperate for something more human. Well they're not going to get this if HR turns its back on this need!

It's one reason I'm not generally a fan of appointing CHROs from outside of HR (as per Doug Baillie). But that only applies if HR remain people focused - not 'business person first, HR second'.

And why I'd like to see more companies implementing human process labs (I'm not actually sure what these are but they sound more like how I believe how HR needs to reposition itself than anything else I've heard at the Summit so far!)


- Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
- Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
- Contact me to create more value for your business
- jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com
READ MORE - #ECTalent - Repositoning HR

Posted in: | 0 comments | |

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)