A Dec HRD63 Cove

Issue 63

Also featured in this issue:Roundtable report

Leadership: cohesive strategy

that delivers effective

leadership, for the long-term

demands of business

Leadership Setting the

foundations for leaders of

today and tomorrow,

learning from the past and

navigating the future

Innovation in HR Smart

thought holds the key to

beating the downturn and

unlocking the potential of

the workforce

Change management The

times they are a’changing -

aligning the HR agenda to

facilitate the changing

needs of the business

Analysis and reporting

Cohesive, accurate and

timely reporting can be best

achieved through qualitative

and relevant data

www.thehrdirector.com

100%independentcontent

theHRDIRECTORThe only independent strategic HR publication

HRD INTERVIEW:Harry DunlevyHR Director - Independent Limited(Formerly Global HR President EMI Music)

The innovationachieved 20years ago is thelegacy of HRtoday

Looking for a degree that really works?

Foundation Degree.

www.fi ndfoundationdegree.co.uk

Our future.It ’s in our hands.

www.thehrdirector.com Contents

HRD Issue 63

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contents Issue 63

On the cover...This issue we interview Harry Dunlevy. From his early days at British

Leyland, locking horns with the unions, heading up HR at BMW/Rover,

Marconi, Tube Lines and most recently as Global HR President at EMI.

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theHRDIRECTOR

20 What makes a great leader? 32 Recovery looks to be jobless 44 Business value, diversity delivers

I think a lot of the innovation achieved 30 yearsago is now the legacy of HR today

04 Editor’s welcome

06 Legal updates and movers & shakers

08 Main interview: Harry DunlevyThis issue we interview Harry Dunlevy, formerly Global HR President at EMI

12 Roundtable: HR has a clear focus to provide an optimised, fully

functional leadership philosophy in order to prepare businesses for the upturn

20 Leadership20 Psyche of leadership

Delving into the minds of leaders to discover the good, the bad and the ugly

22 Opinion: The terrible cost of bad leadership

Consequences of poor leadership and the importance of training at the top

24 Setting the record straight

Creating a culture around effective communication and greater transparency

25 Case study: Introverts can be successful leaders

Judy Curson, Director of the NHS Workforce Review Team

26 Survey: Winning back trust in leaders

How can HR help improve employee perception ratings of UK leaders?

28 The solemn oath of leadership

Should leaders take the equivalent of a ‘Hippocratic Oath’?

30 Opinion: Are your leaders “emotionally intelligent”?

Tough times require emotionally intelligent leaders

32 HR’s role in change management32 Leading by example

Effective ways of tackling poor leadership behaviours

36 Agility is key

HR is key to organisations becoming agile and adaptive to change

38 Innovation in HR38 An injection of innovation

Innovation to unlock the true potential of the workforce

42 Case study: In pursuit of excellence

Rolls Royce undergoes a rigorous review of the HR function

44 The diversity advantage

UK employers are still not embracing diversity and recognising its advantages

46 Analysis and reporting46 Analyse this...

Analytics is key - HR is bound to deliver to achieve business objectives

48 Top ten tips

Optimising workforce management systems

49 Bridging the gap...

Workforce planning is making its mark

50 Predictive analytics

Quantifiable efficiencies revealed through reporting and analysis

52 To the pointWhy aren’t more CEOs ex-HRDs? Only three percent of CEOs come from an

HR background

54 Events CalendarUpcoming conferences, workshops and roundtables

editorialEditor Jason [email protected]

advertising salesAccount Manager Lee Francis [email protected] t: 01454 292 063

administrationOffice Manager Danielle [email protected] t: 01454 292 060

Administration Jan [email protected]

subscriptionsUK annual subscription: £175UK 2 year subscription: £260 (Save £90)Overseas annual subscription: £250Overseas 2 year subscription: £400 (Save £100)

Call us on 01454 292 060 or email us [email protected] for further details

design & production8foot3 Creative Designwww.8foot3.co.uk

contributorsPhotography www.garybatchelor.com

Founder and Managing DirectorPeter Banks

contacts

The publishers accept no responsibility in respect of advertisementsappearing in the magazine, and the opinions expressed in editorial materialor otherwise do not necessarily represent the views of the publishers. Thepublishers accept no responsibility for actions taken on the basis of anyinformation contained within this magazine. The publishers cannot acceptliability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication ofany advertise ment for any reason whatsoever.

ISSN 1754 0224

Carolyn Dyer Human Resources ConsultantStandard Life Investments

Anthony Hesketh Senior Lecturer & Deputy Director of theCentre for Performance-Led HRLancaster University Management School

Richard Higginson Reward ManagerTowry Law

Ian Iceton HR DirectorScanska

Makbool Javaid PartnerSimons Muirhead & Burton

Linda Thompson European Director of Operations Gallup

Graham White Director of HRCity of Westminster

Andrea Winfield People & Organisation Capability ConsultantMicrosoft International

from

£175pa

ed panellists

Innovation is commendable, attractive, even dynamic, and

when it comes to people management, re-invention

and pushing boundaries takes bravery and conviction.

Innovation also requires restraint and prescience and

many innovative programmes, put in place no more

than a year ago, could be wholly inappropriate for the

last quarter of 2009 as we struggle to relinquish the grip

of recession. HR has evolved and grown in prominence

because of innovation, and it transcends every aspect of

people management. But innovation for innovation sake is pure vanity,

and likely to cause more harm than good.

It is easier to push a bull elephant up the stairs than force change in the

workplace. And so it is that HR’s key role in change management is that of

change champion, communicator and pragmatist, winning people over and

getting them onside for the collective push forward, whether they like it or not.

As ever, HR is positioned as the buffer, mediator, Aunt Sally and the effervescent

flag waver, dragging stragglers, forming a team mentality and dealing with those

hell-bent on pulling in other directions. It’s rough, tough and unpleasant at

times, but change management is most often a necessity of survival and an

admission that the status quo has to go.

Never has leadership in business been held up to such close scrutiny than the

current downturn. Media coverage has put the blame outside the boardroom

door with such venom and vitriol; you get the feeling that had this happened in

ancient times, the only growth in recruitment would be for executioners and

trainee torturers. But no aspect of human life can exist without leaders, and no

matter how tarnished leadership becomes, people will always gravitate towards

trusted leaders. Mistakes have been made and lessons will be learned.

Some HR directors claim that data is not what it is all about. Others will have

analysis and reporting at the cornerstone of their strategy. The fact is, as business

and the workplace becomes evermore complex and unconventional, accurate

analysis and manageable reporting is not an option, it is essential.

Jason Spiller

editor

editor’s welcome...Welcome to theHRDIRECTOR – the only magazine dedicated to HR directors.

Editor’s welcome www.thehrdirector.com

HRD Issue 63

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Printed on environmentally friendly paperRegency Satin is an FSC Mixed Source

Material, is totally recyclable and

biodegradable, ECF fibre.

employment law

legal updatesfrom theHRDIRECTOR Editorial Panellist,

Makbool Javaid , partner, Simons Muirhead &

Burton. They comprise employment law and

diversity briefings, both of which provide the

latest legal information affecting business.

The DWP has published a report showing the results of a test for racialdiscrimination in recruitment practices in England and Scotland involvingsubmitting duplicate "matched" job applications from white and ethnic minorityapplicants. The net discrimination in favour of white names over equivalentapplications from ethnic minority candidates was 29 percent.

Many British fathers are working long hours, struggling to balance work and familyand fear that requesting flexible working will damage their careers, a new reportfrom the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found. Forty-five percent ofmen fail to take two weeks paternity leave after the birth of their child, with themost common reason being because they can’t afford to.

The Autism Bill has passed its final stage in the House of Lords to become theAutism Act, England’s first ever disability-specific law. The National Autistic Societyheralded the new law as ‘groundbreaking’ and said health and social care servicescould now face legal action if they failed to provide support for people with thecondition, which affects over half a million people in the UK.

Stonewall has published guidance for employers on supporting bisexualemployees at work. Guidance is supported by the Home Office, contains keyrecommendations and suggestions on how to create an improved workingenvironment for bisexual workers.

This month’s mover and shaker

interviewee is Carol Moor, who has

recently got the post of HR Director for

NEC, which includes the entire

conference and exhibition operation as

well as LG Arena.

What has been your greatest HR challenge?Restructuring a business when it was going throughgrowth as, during part of the restructuring, some staffwere made redundant. It was very difficult for people tounderstand why this happened when the business wasgrowing. The challenge was we didn’t have the rightstructures in place for the future and had to resolve this.

What is the best piece of advice you have been given?In a work context, the best piece of advice I have beengiven is always be true to yourself. If at homehowever, always make sure the top is on the tomatoketchup before shaking the bottle!

What motives you to do your job? Knowing that I ammaking a difference.

Who inspires you the most? In a workcontext, business leaders who are

not afraid to show who they reallyare and who are great atconnecting with people at anylevel. For example, Alan Cook

who is the MD I worked for atPrudential. Also Archie Norman

and Alan Leighton who were the duowho revived Asda.

HR director Liz Bell has been appointed to the boardof B&Q with immediate effect. Bell has beenresponsible for HR for nine months, under MartynPhillips, retail operations director, who previouslyrepresented HR on the board. Bell joined the B&Qleadership team four years ago.

RWE Npower has appointed Chris Pilgrim as its newHR director. Pilgrim replaces Saudagar Singh, wholeaves after nine years. Pilgrim was previously at BritishSteel, Exxon Mobil, Nutricia and served three years as HRdirector at Uniq, a food manufacturing organisation.

Jacky Simmonds has been promoted to deputygroup HR director at TUI Travel. Simmonds joined thetravel business in 2000 and held several seniorpositions before being promoted to HR director ofFirst Choice Mainstream in 2005.

Phillip Dixon has been appointed HR director atSheffield Hallam University. Dixon has been workingat the university since 2002, and was appointeddeputy HR director in 2004.

movers & shakers

other movers & shakers...

Legal updates and movers & shakers www.thehrdirector.com

HRD Issue 63

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To see full updates, movers & shakers and much more,please visit our website www.thehrdirector.com

The Government has commenced further consultation on its proposals, and thedraft regulations, designed to transpose the EU Agency Workers Directive into UKlaw. The Government has confirmed that it hopes to have the legislation in placeby the end of this Parliament, but it will not come into force until October 2011,giving employers and agencies over a year to prepare.

The Tribunals Service has published the final version of the employment tribunalstatistics for the period 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009. Key figures show majorincreases in claims for unfair dismissal (up 29 percent), breach of contract (up 31percent) and redundancy pay (up 48 percent). The median award for unfairdismissal was £4,269.

The Government has provided full details of its Forward Programme, which setsout all prospective regulatory measures that have been publicly announced,which are projected to give rise to costs or benefits to business and which havebeen scheduled to come into force by April 2011. The Programme contains anumber of employment related measures.

The Government has set out its response to its previous consultation onexpanding the right to time off for public duties. The original proposal was toextend the right to time off to people serving in a wider range of civic roles.However, given the current economic climate, the Government has decided towork with employers on a ‘hearts and minds’ approach.

diversity updates

HRD interview

Harry Dunlevy, HR Director - Independent Limited (Formerly Global HR President EMI Music)

8

HARRYDUNLEVYAfter nearly 40 years in HR, Harry Dunlevy has seen it all. From his early

days at British Leyland, locking horns with the unions, heading up HR at

BMW/Rover, Marconi, and Northern Foods and most recently as Global HR

President at EMI, he knows something about crisis and change, and what

is required to meet the challenges it presents. Jason Spiller interviews.

Harry Dunlevy, HR DirectorHarry Dunlevy has just stepped

down as Global HR President at EMI.He is now an independent HR

consultant. He was interviewed byJason Spiller and was photographedby Gary Batchelor at his new offices

in Leamington Spa.


9

I don’t think that HRactually understoodits role. Personnel wasstill being regarded asthe fixer of disputes,the sorter-out and itwas pretty ineffectual

Harry, how did you end up in HR? It was a pretty indirect route. Whilst I wasat university I worked at Otis Elevators. I was a time clerk; basically a clericalrole measuring jobs and piecework rates. What struck me early on was thegap between the shop floor and the management. However, what wasreally impressive was the creativity and innovation of people on the shopfloor and their attempts to maximise their earnings with the minimumamount of effort, in the shortest time frame.

I’ve said this to a lot of people as I’ve gone through my career, that if youcould harness the energy and creativity they were putting into their ownagenda and channel it into the performance of the company, then manyorganisations could transform themselves completely. I guess this is thejourney many people in HR have been on over the last 20 or 30 years. Afterleaving university I took a gap year and joined Plessey Telecommunications,possibly the biggest UK company in its sector at the time. I worked onmanagement remuneration, writing job descriptions and grading, so it wasreasonably analytical and I did it for about 18 months. It was the mid 1970sand so a great opportunity to understand the organisation and experienceat firsthand the antagonistic relationship between the unions and themanagement on the shop floor.

This early experience of the relationship between the unions andmanagement, as well as the impact on the workforce, must have preparedyou for your long tenure at British Leyland? When I joined British Leyland, itwas one of the biggest UK employers. I was in a management role doingsimilar work; grading, pay and reward, and I really got a taste of how abreakdown in employee and employer relations can damage productivity,morale and engagement.

Do you think the gulf between employee and employer relations and anentrenched union position did a lot to promote the evolution of the HR role? Ithink it was certainly significant, but I don’t think that HR actually understoodits role. Personnel, as it was known then, was still being regarded as the fixerof disputes, the sorterout and it was pretty ineffectual from a strategic pointof view. But it was the beginnings of HR as a facilitator of relationships,although it was serving two very separate entities. In a way you couldn’t win.By trying to facilitate relationships you end up either being toounderstanding of the union position and undermining the management, orvice versa. HR could not be any more than transactional in its role. It was firefighting on a daytoday basis and there was no room for strategic work.

Was it a case that HR was just not involved in the business aspect oforganisations? Yes it was, but this was about to change. British Leyland’sproblems were very HR related. The cars themselves were reasonablycompetitive, but the quality was not great. Productivity was low and this waslargely due to disputes and poor employer/employee relations. You can’t

build cars, or indeed anything, unless you have a rhythm, some harmony andengagement. My HR epiphany came early. You work with certain peoplefrom whom you learn something significant. One such person was Mikenow Sir Hodgkinson who went on to work with many successfulcompanies. He taught me that understanding the business is critical to theHR role, and goes handinhand with influencing the workforce so theyengage with the product. This is exemplified by the gulf between BritishLeyland and Land Rover, where engagement and pride were writtenthrough the organisation like a stick of rock. Although there were somedisputes at Land Rover, the product was the best in the world and there wasa six month customer waiting list. There was definitely a sense of prideamongst the workforce that evolved into greater engagement.

At what stage did you start to form reasoning that HR was more thanpersonnel, it was more strategic and scientific? In the late 1980s, Japanesemanufacturers were importing massive volumes of products that British carmanufacturers couldn’t compete with. It was a case of survival and HR cameto the fore, as it could directly influence the quality, efficiency andengagement of the workforce. For the first time, a “Total Quality”programme provided the chance to talk to the workforce from a muchmore objective standpoint. Rather than say, “if you keep striking you’regoing to lose your job,” we were able to demonstrate how the Japanesemanufacturers were operating and make obvious comparisons. Thedominance of UK manufacturers in the car market was rapidly disappearing.

So how was HR able to influence change and what were the obstacles thatneeded to be overcome? At Land Rover we believed we manufactured thebest 4 x 4s in the world. With an HR strategy based around leadership inthe factories, we were improving quality and increasing sales volume andprofitability. We were driven by ideas on lean manufacturing and how toget a more focused management team, so we brought in shop floor basedteam leaders. It’s common practice today, but back then it wasrevolutionary and there was a lot of resistance from the trade unions. Intime though, the leadership and the work organisation became the core ofthe strategy. By introducing fewer layers, broader, more responsible rolesand flexibility into the organisation, we achieved high levels of multiskilling. We refocused our managers to champion communication andtransparency and cultivated an environment of understanding. Based onwhere the organisation had been before, it was a radical plan. At the time,we were about to launch a new Range Rover, a very high risk undertaking,and quality was essential, especially as Land Rover was the only profitablepart of the group. HR was pivotal to pulling it off.

Terry Morgan, the Managing Director, looked to me to drive much of thechange and to get the workforce onside. It was patently clear to me thatleadership, organisation, communication and engagement were key. Team

building and achieving buyin through regulartwoway communication with the workforcewas essential. We had to hammer home theimportance of work flow and for the first time betotally open to the workers about the challengesand the state of the business so that we couldbuild common goals. A further vital platformwas engagement; getting people involved sothat we could continue improving performance,productivity and quality.

You seemed to put a lot of faith in the generalworkforce at a time when this wasn’t the vogue. Ireferred back to my very early experience at OtisElevators. The people putting the nuts and boltstogether, know the product intimately and areoften best placed to offer the most effectivesolutions. If you can channel that innovation youcan drive performance and efficiency. It’s a fineexample of empowerment and engagement.We introduced over 200 discussion groupswhich transformed our levels of continuousimprovement. Meetings were at least an hourlong so it was a big investment. The mostimportant thing was to respond positively tooutputs from the groups, whether it was abroken toilet seat or a change in themanufacturing process. As time went on itbecame clear that people were enjoying theempowerment of the process as the companygained millions of pounds of value from thecontributions and suggestions they made. Thissupported the HR strategy which was focusedon reward, learning and development.

Did this employee empowerment feed careerprogression within the organisation? Yes, manywent from the shop floor to managerial jobsbecause the engagement opportunity had given

people a companywide understanding of thebusiness. We were cultivating maximumengagement and contribution and the messagewas, “if you’re prepared to work you will progress”.

Do you think in a significant way, HR actuallynegated the need for trade unions to represent thework force? I don’t think HR could claim toreplace trade unions and negate the need forthem. But I think a lot of the innovation achieved20 or so years ago is the legacy of HR today. In the1980s and 90s the position of unions waschanging. Many trade unions were still playing bytheir own rules and memberships were declining.

The car industry was becoming a global market;you must have feared that the UK car buildingplants were going to be found out as outdatedand uncompetitive? We took the JointNegotiating Committee around the world on aneducational benchmarking tour so they could seethe threats for themselves at firsthand. We splitthem into different teams with subspecialismsand sent them to Japan; North America, Italy,Korea and France. It became obvious where weneeded to improve in order to compete. For thefirst time we felt that the message was gettingthough clearly and securing a number ofbreakthrough agreements, not to mention thefirst three year pay deal in the industry, withoutdispute, were testament to that.The general ERscene was now much more settled within thecompany and disputes were rare.

Describe the BMW take over and where did it allgo wrong? It was dramatic in terms of a culturalmerge but it wasn’t really an integration. Iwouldn’t say it was a restricted partnershipbecause Rover did get something out of it. Onthe positive side, we experienced brilliantengineering from BMW, new ways of looking atprocesses and obviously financial backing. Sowhere did it go wrong? It failed because BMWdidn’t understand the poor quality of theinfrastructure, the extent of the investmentrequirements or the market pressures. As aresult, the figures started to deteriorate andwhile we had some successes with products,performance wasn’t good.

Would you say the core of it was this difference in culture? It certainly played a part, but I think itwas more than that. In 1998 the companycollapsed with an 800 million pound loss and Iwas given the task of restructuring the businessfrom an HR viewpoint. I pride myself on gettingresults, but in the end it was a very tall order. The HR function delivered a major redundancyprogramme and instigated radically new workingpractices. We then went to the BMW Board anddemonstrated how we could continue tooperate, saving 200 million pounds in the process.

What did you do then? I worked through theredundancies and reduced the workforce from40,000 to 29,000. We had a new product in theRover 75, investment was being channelled into areplacement for the Rover 200, the current RangeRover was about to be launched and we hadsecured a 500 million pound investment from theBMW Board in Hams Hall. Hams Hall was a modelplant and we made a breakthrough in theintroduction of new working practices whichexisted nowhere else in the UK car industry.

We brought in a new management team and Iwas promoted to Personnel Director of the wholeBMW/Rover group. I was now the only senior Britleft at board level, reporting to a new BMW CEOand Finance Director. McKinsey had also beenengaged and we had regular sessions with theBMW board which were demanding andchallenging, updating them on redundancies andproductivity improvements. There were also ongoing meetings with the trade unions both in theUK and Germany as we attempted to reenergisethe Rover workforce and encourage them thatthere was something to work towards. But by2000 it was clear that another agenda haddeveloped. In January 2000 I was told by the CEO,Werner Samaan, that Rover was being sold toAlchemy and I was charged with working throughall the HR issues to see this through. Sworn tosecrecy and with the rumour mill in top gear, weset up a series of project teams and beganpreparing the business for breakup and sale.

How do you prepare for something of this scale,particularly considering the complexity of theundertaking? Personally, it was the most taxingexperience I have ever encountered and havingworked in the business for a long time, it feltvery personal. It went completely against thecode of honesty and openness I had aimed todevelop within the HR function. After the newsbroke publicly it became incredibly difficult.Once the Government was involved I attendedthe Select Committee, constantly met with thetrade unions and was then dragged into themedia frenzy. It was an impossible situation.

How did you contain this? We planned in detail,did an enormous amount of consultation andcommunication and came to expect theunexpected! There was a constant round ofmeetings with the Joint Negotiating Committeeand with the other consultative bodies. I cameto a personal decision. The group was going tobe broken up and I felt it was time for me toleave. Alchemy and BMW fell out, the deal fellaway and Land Rover was to be sold to Ford. Adeal was done with the Phoenix Consortium. Iwas offered the role of HR Director of MG Roverbut by then I knew I didn’t want to get involvedand it was the right decision.

HRD interview

Harry Dunlevy, HR Director - Independent Limited (Formerly Global HR President EMI Music)

10

I don’t think HRcould claim toreplace tradeunions and negatethe need for them.But I think a lot ofthe innovationachieved 20 or soyears ago is thelegacy of HR today

You joined Marconi, which was also about to facemassive change. Marconi had absorbed Plesseyjust before the dot com bubble burst, so I wasabout to trade one crisis for another, although onthe face of it the sector was smashing through theceiling. The organisation had a workforce of59,000 people worldwide, and I was working withJohn Mayo, who was positioned to become CEOof the organisation. We worked very closely on thenew organisation plans and the key talent thatwas going to take the business forward. It was verydynamic and a totally different focus to that of myprevious role. When it transpired that thecompany was massively overvalued there camean almighty crash. From an HR perspective, it hadto be controlled and very quickly we realised thatwe had to reduce the scale of the businessdrastically. As a result, we made 5,000 peopleredundant in the first restructuring phase. Theshare price was tumbling and confidence was fastdisappearing. John Mayo left and I worked withthe new team, many of whom were promotedfrom within, with a view to transforming thecompany. Within ten months I had to take theworkforce down from 56,000 to 24,000. It was alldone under control, with decent terms and totaltransparency with the trade unions.

There are many HR Directors experiencingsimilar scenarios. What would you say to themabout your experience? The quality of the teamaround you, good planning, constantcommunication and an ability to anticipate theunplanned are essential. For this reason therewere no significant tribunal claims, despite thevast numbers involved. It’s important to do theconsultation well and ensure goodcommunication with line management. Wedidn’t know how far things would have to go,we had to respond quickly in the crisis and whatneeded to be done was done. Commercial lifecan be like that. It was an accelerated collapseand we had to manage effectively daybyday.

Did you perhaps think that being HR director of alarge organisation was more trouble than it wasworth? Not in the slightest. It never crossed mymind to change my career path. For example, Ijoined Tube Lines because it was very different a Private Finance Initiative that needed someprivate sector practices, and it was a refreshingchallenge. From an HR point of view I focusedon performance management and working withthe unions. I treated it as a project with the aimof getting people engaged and working to a setof values. A more private sector mindset wasadopted, giving recognition for goodperformance and emphasising managementand leadership development.

You then moved to Northern Foods, a verydifferent sector? The attraction was that it took

me back to manufacturing. Northern Foods had aworkforce of 25,000 and again the business was intransition. From an HR perspective it was familiarterritory; building engagement with theworkforce and introducing lean ways of working.It was important to raise skill levels and we madea number of good breakthroughs on learning anddevelopment with trade union involvement inthe shop floor areas. Based on my automotivesector experience I was very keen to developpeople from within the organisation, creatingcareer opportunities from the factory floor up. Wedeveloped learning centres and elected learningteam leaders, which made a significant differencein helping employees to raise their skill levels andperformance. In terms of engagement, what hadtraditionally been viewed as a low skill, lowexpectation environment became one of greateropportunity. With so much pressure on costs,margins, material, energy and labour, maximisingperformance and productivity and limitingabsenteeism were critical to the success of thebusiness and HR took the lead in much of this.

So now you have decided to step away fromcorporate life and take up a role as anindependent HR consultant. Even though I havespent my career in large scale corporateorganisations, I have always had a secrethankering to go into business myself and applythe lessons I have learned, sharing my learningwith other companies. The opportunity arose forme to partner with Phil Clarke, who I had workedwith at Marconi and together we establishedIndependent Ltd.

Phil is an RPO expert and we felt that bycombining our mutual experiences andexpertise we could create a powerful HRconsultancy. In my case, I also felt that I coulduse the hard won lessons I’d gained over theyears to help organisations that required radicalchange. It’s been a timely decision. With theeconomic pressures that all businesses are nowfacing, our company is combining the practicalexperience of managing change with achievingstrong commercial results. While I lead on HRstrategy, business restructuring and changemanagement, Phil’s expertise drives down costsby improving or directly managing a company’sresourcing processes.

In the time we’ve been in partnership, we’vedelivered major HR programmes at Morrisons,Kingston Communications, Lloyds and RollsRoyce, among others. Our position is simple,we’ve been there and done it and we can clearlydemonstrate results. To date we can point tosavings of over £50m on restructuring and inexcess of £5m on resourcing improvements.Also, we’re very handson. We lead the projectsand do the work ourselves and don’t just

delegate to other consultants that we’ve boughtin. It’s a cliché but when you’ve been there donethat and got the teeshirt, you really are wellequipped for anything. Times and situationschange, but the challenges remain the same.


11

The quality of the team around you, goodplanning, constantcommunication andan ability to anticipatethe unplanned areessential

For further information:

www.independentltd.com

Roundtable: Leadership

HRD Issue 63

12

The debate focused on engaging leaders andchanging the mindsets to become moretransformational in approach, and lesstransactional. Short termism maintains a moretransactional mindset, which in turn prevents theorganisation from pursuing new directions,gaining competitive advantage and drivingperformance change. Less than 20 percent of

leaders in the UK hold a formal managementqualification. With the link between engagedemployees, higher productivity and enhancedcorporate reputations taken as read, why are somany organisations cutting corners on leadershipdevelopment? What are the key measures foridentifying leaders of tomorrow, and how bestcan they be nurtured and developed and long-term engaged to stay with the organisation, tofulfil their potential? With 52 percent ofemployers reporting that ‘damage to theirreputation’ is a major worry, HR must takeresponsibility for championing the developmentof existing leaders and the effective preparationof tomorrow’s leaders.

Jason Spiller: Where is the profile of leaders inbusiness organisations today?

Ruth Spellman: Fifty percent of our managementmembership feel that they could do a better jobat the more senior levels than their current seniormanagers. I think that that feeling of people atthe top not being in control is partly becauseeverybody reads the papers and to be honestyou would not miss that message but it’s also theway people are feeling at work.

Dave Heath: I would agree with that but I’d saythere is a failure of leadership that’s beenexposed in the last couple of years. Many of theleaders of our top companies today are peoplewho’ve never led through really difficult times,they’ve been a leader through growth constantlyand all of a sudden we’ve hit difficult times andthey’re like rabbits in headlights.

Jane Owen Jones: There’s a huge focus on whatwe might badge as transactional leadership sothere’s a real focus on the short term. There is abig issue about performance, there’s a big issueabout numbers. There’s little engagement ofpeople in terms of a direction.

Penny Tamkin: Fundamentally you can lay thecharge at their door. Partly through the actions ofvery senior leaders, we ended up in the crisis and,for me, that’s about moving away from the strongsense of organisational purpose with shareholdervalue as one element of a much more balancedapproach to business. I think we can blameleaders for some of that behaviour

Ad van der Rest: Some business leaders did notdeal with the fear that if a middle-manager doessomething brave, their own job may becompromised because they’re being too bold orthey’re rocking the boat.

Jason Spiller: Is the public face of business havingto change? Is it now more about conscience andmorals, rather than profit?

With leadership in businessin the spotlight, HR has aclear focus to provide anoptimised, fully-functionalleadership philosophy tomeet the challenges ofbusiness today and thefuture. theHRDIRECTORLeadership roundtable isfocused on delivering acohesive strategy thatdelivers effective andrelevant leadership.

Introducing the Leadership

roundtabledelegates...

Jane Owen Jones Managing Director - Lloydmasters

Ruth Spellman OBE. Chief Executive - Chartered Management

Institute (CMI)

Christopher Syder Partner and Head of Employment

- Davies Arnold Cooper LLP

Ad Van der RestInterim HR Director - Visible Goal Ltd

Peter Morgan Head of Human Resources

- MacMillan Cancer Support

Jenny French Group Head of Leadership Development - BT

Alan Farmer Executive Director of Workforce

- The Princess Alexandra Hospital

Christian Hasenoehrl Partner - Gallup

John Maxted CEO - Digby Morgan

Paul Kennedy HR Director EMEA - NewBalance

Dr. Penny Tamkin Programme Director Leadership

- The Work Foundation

Peter Mason Associate - Lloydmasters

David Heath Global Director of People Capital

- Alexander Mann Solutions

Alison Jenks Integration Director HR - Tetley/Tata Beverages

Harry Dunlevy HR Director -Independent Ltd

Ian Iceton Director of HR Operations - Skanska UK

Craig Marsh Research fellow, Centre for Performance HR -

Lancaster University

Chairperson: Jason SpillerEditor - theHRDIRECTOR

RoundtableLeadership

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Penny Tampkin: CSR and green issues? There’s amiss match between espoused ethics and reallife. The gap is deeply uncomfortable and what’shappened is we’ve exposed that gap.

David Heath: The speed at which manybusinesses dropped learning and developmentlike a stone a year ago was staggering.

Craig Marsh: I wonder to what extent ourconcept of leadership is? Whether we’ve just builtup unrealistic expectations, about what leaderscan actually do - an inflated view of how muchinfluence they actually have on their organisation.

Ruth Spellman: There’s not much time to put into communicating the new strategies or the newvision and often it’s been said that strategy andvision itself is not well expressed. It’s notexpressed in terminology that people always get.

Peter Mason: Leaders struggle with theirstrengths and weaknesses. Leadership has torecognise what it’s good at and not. They justcarry on in the way that they always have done.

Jason Spiller: What can we learn from the past?

Jane Owen Jones: I’ve lived through three recessionsand leadership behaviour hasn’t altered one bit. Theconcept of lessons learnt in the first recession hasnot managed to move on. I think there is somethingabout this particular era of leadership which is isquite short term. How do we make leaders realisethey’ve got a role and what their role is?

David Heath: In India, leaders of business believethey’re stewards of the organisation, custodiansas opposed to just people who are out to makethe next buck, and it’s a very different approach.

Alison Jenks: Is the leadership model as we knowit, correct? Our expectation is that topmanagement have all of the answers and weinvest everything in that position of power I thinkthis results in some challenges. Leaders have not

felt it acceptable to talk to other leaders wholived through the last recession.

Craig Marsh: The trend is away from the heroicidea of the charismatic individual who leads fromthe front and yet we are asking for that kind ofleadership, so I think it is a failure of ourunderstanding of expectation.

Harry Dunlevy: I wonder if HR carries the blame?Competency models, frameworks, convincingboards that this was the way, this was howleadership had to work in this organisation. We’veassessed people against this model who havescored ten on everything, so they’re bound to bea wonderful leader, and life is very rarely like that.We never seem to learn lessons or we do nothingpractical with the findings.

Peter Morgan: The issue of ‘heroism’ is key here. Itis regarded and rewarded, whereas we should berecognising and rewarding leaders for just doinga great job.

Jane Owen Jones: The most effective leaders are rarely public heroes, they move patiently,quietly and carefully. They do what is right,inconspicuously and without casualties.

Jason Spiller: People at the top have been seen asthe untouchables. Should leaders sign theequivalent of an Hypocratic Oath?

Penny Tamkin: Absolutely! Heroism is long dead,although it has a seductive power. But we’removing towards a collective people-basedleadership, much more empowering. I think if wego down the autocratic route, we’ll see thesame things happening again.

Jason Spiller: Do you think a committeeleadership can really work?

Penny Tamkin: It’s not a committee, it’s acollective. We try and impose control onorganisations by a cascade of targets. Take for

example the public sector, which is almostcastrated by this approach of measurement.

Craig Marsh: I think it is entirelycounterproductive, the idea that what we shouldhave collective leadership can be a very badcombination of circumstances which is not aboutone individual. It’s about that collective groupand the way they lead the organisation.

Chris Syder: As an employment lawyer, myperspective on this is there’s been an awful lot ofdefensive/reactionary behaviour from leadersover the last 18 months in particular. OurEmployment Group has seen the human cost offailures to effectively engage the workforce,senior management and middle management,fail to promote the vision of the business.

Jane Owen Jones: There’s no doubt about it, inthe last ten years there’s more focus for leaders tobe external looking because they have to actuallydeal with a huge array of stakeholders. Thirtyyears ago the focus was on work place issues.Leaders were much more careful about whatthey were doing and they had to come up withstrategies for the organisation because they hadto engage with the unions, and so on.

David Heath: We’re at a watershed in terms of theway that people communicate. The competenciesthat are required to get in to a leadership positionin a company are different to those that wererequired just a few years ago. Power is shiftingfrom a small number of people at the top, to awhole range of people throughout the business.

Peter Mason: Stakeholders are better educatedand therefore the demands that they’re placing,their communication process, their speed ofrequirement, the demands on businesses are fargreater it’s a new dynamic and it will continue.

Jenny French: I’m beginning to see a groundswell of change, people are requesting morefrom their leaders about how they deliver.


13

Jason Spiller: Do you think also the change ofculture from culpability to responsibility isimportant? There’s been an awful lot of guardedattitude towards leadership.

Paul Kennedy: What does responsible leadership mean when we’re talking aboutcorporate responsibility? I’m not sure putting inprogrammes of responsible leadership actuallybenefit us in any way, shape or form in thecurrent climate.

Peter Mason: I’ve really struggled with the notionof responsible leadership. It’s suppose to beintuitive.

Ian Iceton: I joined Skanska this year. Recently wehave been involved in talks about ethicalleadership with the business and taking it out tothe whole of our operating units, to use it as adifferentiator. One example, we will no longeraccept corporate hospitality, in an industry wherepreviously a lot of corporate hospitality has beenused. From a leadership point of view taking thethings that are going to work for the future andrelating them back to the business is reallyimportant.

Peter Mason: How does a leader need to show upin the new world. Walking, on a bike? I think wemake assumptions about what our leaders oftomorrow need to look like,

Ruth Spellman: It’s simple. It’s about honesty andit’s dishonesty that really gets to people. Whether Iagree with you or disagree with you, I expect youto tell me the truth, whether you’re leading a bigor a small company and expect me to work foryou or expect me to buy your products or expectme to provide you with supplies and services.

Craig Marsh: Every utterance that leaders make tothe public has to go through the PR departmentand is kind of washed clean of any real meaning...how can they possibly demonstrate honesty andintegrity?

Chris Syder: We have a system that doesn’tencourage total honesty. There’s often a shareprice at the end of the day, so the message isbalanced rather than honest, because leaders arevery mindful of this.

Ruth Spellman: Politicians have set the tone, themajority of politicians don’t deserve the bad namethey’re now getting but I believe that you can andshould hold people accountable. I do believe inthat. I think it’s fundamental to the whole job ofmanagement and leadership, honesty is thenumber one value.

John Maxted: How can we engage a fairlyapathetic population in the political process andhow can we make the changes at the individuallevels that are going to help put this country backin the black?

Chris Syder: We live in a society that typicallyexpects everything now, and it’s going to taketime. There’s a workplace expectation that needsaddressing.

Jason Spiller: So is this the new reality? A return tothe old days... a job for life?

Chris Syder: I think it could be. It means engagingpeople to stay with companies for longer, it’s aquestion of talent attraction and talent retention,it’s a question of business vision and it’s a questionof a philosophy of long-termism and loyalty.

David Heath: What will drive it is the changesthat are going to ultimately force behaviours. Ireally believe the power basis shift is happening.

Jane Owen Jones: What is missing is some realtrue and meaningful corporate governance. Goback to the 1970s and 1980s, there was a sense ofcorporate governance, driven by the fact thatorganisations had to engage with the workforce,

had to engage with unions, had to engage withpeople who forced them to look at themselves.

Jason Spiller: Deeply ingrained behaviours andcultures can change, providing it changes as awhole.

Craig Marsh: Our ideas of leadership come fromNorth America. Now we’re forced to reconsiderour ideas of leadership and it potentially willcome from other countries and cultures.

Ad Van der Rest: A business can’t one year say “let’scut costs” and inelegantly make people redundant(including sometimes top talent bizarrely). Thenafter Christmas, say “hey we’re in an upturn so let’sbe engaged with people”, because the people inthe business just won’t buy that duplicity.

John Maxted: The employment relationship haschanged from one where there has been somecommitment and responsibility, to a purelyeconomic one. So I think the reality now is thatpeople are paid a hell of a lot more but are treatedas a commodity and you’re not going to get thatlongevity of employment as long as that remains.

Penny Tamkin: You can throw money at people,but you can’t buy their loyalty or their commitment.

Alan Farmer: Much of it is clarity of purpose. In theNHS it is about providing care. They are clear aboutwhat the organisation is there for. Obviously, thereis criticism of management, as with anyorganisations and the issues are the same.

Jason Spiller: NHS leaders must be used tocriticism, regardless of the economy.

Alan Farmer: That would perhaps imply that theNHS is, or has not been, as good as other sectors.I don’t agree with that. Whatever theenvironment you have to be clear where thelevels of accountability and responsibility arewithin the organisation and I believe that’s therein terms of what the NHS provides.

Jason Spiller: So you’re posturing the NHS as anexemplary model for leadership?

Alan Farmer: Well I think so, quite rightly. Yes,absolutely. In developing the organisation wemust be able to maintain at lot of the goodthings, such as our approach to governance, bothclinical and corporate. Therefore, the effectivenessof how we lead our organisation is perhaps morecritical to our success than ever before.

Alison Jenks: From my Indian businessexperience, in terms of the Tata organisation,much of our profits go to charitable Trusts. So it’snot just about making the individual richer, it’s

Roundtable: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

HRD Issue 63

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Roundtable: Leadership

HRD Issue 63

about enriching the individual that works withinthat organisation.

Alan Farmer: We have to demonstrate flexibilityaround our leadership style as we cannot boxissues. From our perspective, in terms of turningour organisation, our leadership style was verycommand and control. It had to be in order tounpick the issues we were facing. We can get alittle hung up on talking about models all thetime. I think that you must have a core aroundwhich you determine your approach.

Ad Van der Rest: Surely business leaders are thosewith the business acumen and political acumen.Not because a potential leader has studied for a‘leadership 101’ exam in order to get into thatposition. So surely the ‘ethics of business’ willalways come secondary to an individual’s politicalor business acumen.

Jenny French: Then we get into a debate abouttechnical leadership versus behavioural leadership.

I think a lot of organisations globally suffer from thetension, coming from the fact that a lot of peoplehave been promoted because of their technicalcapability rather than their ability or desire to lead.

John Maxted: When you ask people about theiraspirations they say I want to be a manager. Inthe 1980s, a lot of people that were accountants,were put in to general management positionsand, my experience of working with accountantsis, generally they’re quite risk averse. I think youmust be an entrepreneur, if you’re going to besuccessful in business you have to take somecalculated risks.

Jane Owen Jones: This is quite key to the debateabout leadership, this link between functionaland technical capability versus generic.

Penny Tamkin: I’m just really nervous of leavingthis ethic-free world just kind of hanging therehaving suggested that ethics have to pay theirway. I think it’s almost as if we are saying we’llhave ethics if ethics are profitable, but if ethicsaren’t profitable then we’ll abandon ethics again.

Ruth Spellman: There are common leadershipattributes in every sector. If you do theemployable test, they do apply in all threesectors. Now the issue is, of course, how you flexthe model and how you enable people to accessthose common core skills.

Jason Spiller: Does hope lie in young peoplecoming into the workforce. They appear to have agreater understanding of ethics?

Ian Iceton: Younger people have been quite adriving force and barometer around some of thethings you’ve talked about. Unfortunately, we willhave a period for the next five years or longerwhere they will struggle to get into theworkplace, which is a great shame..

Jason Spiller: Should leaders really take stock oftheir positions and obligations?

Paul Kennedy: Leaders today have forgotten howto be humble. The next generation are moreunderstanding, more humble and will be able tobring that in to the workplace.

Ruth Spellman: Our survey showed that 90percent of Gen Y managers say the mostimportant motivator is to believe in theorganisation that they work for.

Jason Spiller: What are the values and standardsthat businesses will need to instill to supportemerging potential leaders of tomorrow?

Ruth Spellman: Every organisation will have slightlydifferent ways of expressing their values but I thinkthe first thing is to have a clear set of values in anorganisation, to be clear what they are.

Ian Iceton: So what you’re suggesting is that inthe past managers may have been earmarked forpotential leadership based on their academicskills or their capabilities. Perhaps those are all thewrong reasons to put people in a position wherethey may be leaders of people?

Ruth Spellman: Well, you’re always going to needpeople with very super technical skills and I’m notwanting to downgrade that, but we are requiredto make management and leadership decisionsevery day.

Peter Mason: What legacy is the leader of todayleaving for tomorrow? I think one of the things thatwe really struggle with as leaders of today is, howto cope with building the leader of tomorrow, howdo we create that legacy?

Jane Owen Jones: The question is how can we dothat if we can’t actually develop the leaders thatwe’ve got today?

Craig Marsh: One of the most effectiveinterventions that I’ve seen HR directors do is towork precisely with the leaders of the senior teamin doing some very intense one to one

What legacy is theleader of today leavingfor tomorrow? I thinkone of the things thatwe really struggle withas leaders of today is,how to cope withbuilding the leader oftomorrow, how do wecreate that legacy?

17


development work and they’re using the full suiteof HR tools that we know and love in terms ofprocess and that seems to have actually asubstantial effect and added value.

Jane Owen Jones: But how does HR currentlyleverage that link or even are allowed to havethat time with the senior leaders of the business?

Chris Syder: That’s education and an awareness ofthe value of HR and the value of engaging peoplein a business, so that the leaders who go upthrough the food chain when they arrive have anappropriate skill set. They’ve been educated inthe soft skills before they get there, so you’recomplementing and adding to a base that’salready there. For new leaders there isn’t a baselevel of skills so they improvise.

Jason Spiller: Wouldn’t that be a valued position forpeople who have retired or are near retirement,inorder to fulfil that role, in terms of mentorship?

Chris Syder: I agree. It’s not just mentoring theleaders. It’s important to have mentoring atdifferent levels of management, as they’re comingthrough, with regard to those soft skills; havingdifficult conversations for example, changemanagement, managing people’s expectations.

Alan Farmer: There is an assumption that leadershave to be at the top of the organisation andthey don’t. There are people with leadershipcapability and effectiveness throughout anorganisation and that’s not always recognised.

Jason Spiller: Is it possible to train anyone to leadand manage?

Jane Owen Jones: Who says what constitutesgood leadership skills?

Ad Van der Rest: And isn’t leadership alsosomething very difficult to criticise people forbeing poor at? It’s a bit like being criticised aboutsex and driving.

Peter Mason: I think, often, it’s about holding up amirror to show the impact that managers have.

Penny Tamkin: Leadership can be learnt but itcan’t be taught. It requires a completely differentmindset about learning leadership and what thatentails and having significant others in place whohave an interest in you... people that support youthrough that learning process is absolutelyfundamental.

Jane Owen Jones: It’s understanding thoseunintended consequences and therefore there’sthe question, do leaders really understand theirrole?

Paul Kennedy: It’s important that senior teamsremain connected with the business. At NewBalance, we manufacture training shoes, we takeour senior team to the manufacturing site everyquarter. As part of our leadership team meetingsthey go out on the site and they go and work aspart of the manufacturing process.

Peter Mason: True, it’s the detail that can oftenmake a real difference in terms of a leader’sunderstanding.

Paul Kennedy: And its the language that we useas leaders and the interpretation of what is said isso important. If your messages are misinterpretedat the grassroots any good intentions can be lostand wasted.

Jane Owen Jones: The apprentice model actuallygets people to really understand what it’s about,how they can grow, they’ve got all the observationsof how the business runs, about how differentleaders work, so they can make their own choice.

Jenny French: That really resonates, theapprenticeship still lives and breathes in BT. Manyof our apprentices who joined 20, 30 years ago aregreat examples of leaders in the organisation sincethey are still able to connect with what it’s like tobe an engineer out in the vans.

Jason Spiller: So, it’s about removing barriersbetween the management and the workforce?

Craig Marsh: Recent research I’ve read onleadership is actually saying that in order todevelop a leader you need the same kind of rigourand time as an apprenticeship can provide. I think alot of the problems of leadership start at the age of22, 23 and not at 40 when you get to the executiveteam. Then it becomes a process of mentorship.

Jenny French: I think there’s such value in actuallyshaping development solutions with the peoplewho are going to be on the receiving end of it.

Christian Hasenoehrl: In a survey of employeesGallup compiled what consistently came backwas four areas: hope, trust, compassion andstability. We then sense checked this researchwith a random sample of 10,000 employees fromour client base and the results fell out in exactlythe same areas.

Jane Owen Jones: So that suggest leaders areborn, not made.

Christian Hasenoehrl: Yes, we don’t see from ourresearch that you can actually develop in to agood leader if you don’t have any talent to be agood leader, but what we also see is thatleadership talent generally develops in the late

twenties. The other important areas to look at incombination with talent are skills, competencies,education, experience, etc.

Alan Farmer: Can you define what innate talent

Christian Hasenoehrl: We look at what makes theleader successful in that setting, versus what arethe talents of leaders who are not successful inthat setting and then we compare the differential.But what we see in our broader study is those fiveattributes of drive, direction, execution, influenceand relationship hold true consistently.

Ad van der Rest: If those factors are so important,many leaders don’t exemplify those factors hiddenin board rooms. Because there are now socialnetworking sites, today’s leaders perhaps should beon Facebook, on LinkedIn and on Twitter, becausehow else are members of their workforces going toconnect with what those people’s values are?Excluding the drunken photographs of course.

Christian Hasenoehrl: I think what you’retouching on is communication. You have toadjust the ways in which you communicate withthe people, and make it relevant.

John Maxted: A lot more leaders are using newmedia and social networking to communicateboth within their organisations and the broadercommunity. Barack Obama is a great example ofusing new media to project his leadership at thehighest level.

Jane Owen Jones: Are we talking about thoseinnate leaders who are the charismatic type whostand there and suddenly have all thiscompassion, and can actually build all this trustwith people, because they tend to be visionaryand they tend to be very transformational. Or arewe talking about in this debate people who areleaders by their very job title?

There are peoplewith leadershipcapability andeffectivenessthroughout anorganisation andthat’s not alwaysrecognised

18

Roundtable: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

HRD Issue 63

Craig Marsh: There is possibly another way oflooking at leadership - what is it that leaders haveto do in practice? Make decisions and solveproblems. I think where the leadership part comesin, is know your limitations, recognise that you can’tuse management techniques to solve everything.

John Maxted: What about the role of intuition inleadership? I think a lot of great leaders, both inbusiness and politics, and other areas, have thiscapacity to use their intuition very effectively. Ithink we are in danger of over-intellectualisingthe role of a leader. I think good leaders emerge,and there’s a sense that maybe there are greatleaders that haven’t come out.

Jane Owen Jones: I’m getting very nervous aboutthis conversation. I can think of loads of schoolswhere they make people head boy and head girlfor the wrong reasons and I think the issue is, ifgood leaders are going to come up anyway that’sfine, we don’t have to worry about them becausethey’re already out there being a good role model.

John Maxted: A lot of people are supposedly inleadership positions, but actually they’remanagers. The pure definition of the word leaderis, you can’t have hundreds of leaders, you canhave a lot of managers, but I think leadership issomething very specific.

Christian Hasenoehrl: That’s where the problemstarts because once they define who goes intothat category, all of their efforts and support goesin to those people and the rest received very littleattention, but are still held accountable forleading people.

Jane Owen Jones: But we’re still back to thequestion of how we develop them because, in asense, it’s easier to say, how do we developleaders of tomorrow because we’ve got the time.If we look at organisations at this moment intime, it’s how do we actually influence anddevelop the leaders we’ve got?

Chris Syder: Isn’t it about engaging with leaderstoday and understanding what their pressuresare and supporting and educate the onescoming through, in order to help the leaders oftoday and tomorrow address these issues.

Peter Mason: I think it’s about simulatingleadership and leader challenges and leader skills,in a whole variety of different ways, so that theycan learn by being exposed to challenges andcrisis and decision making.

Jane Owen Jones: There’s so much changebecause of the global nature of business thatleadership needs flexible skills. Leaders need tounderstand the environmental and social trendsthat operate today, particularly given the widercommunity challenge.

Craig Marsh: Every company has its own view andmodel and I don’t think that’s necessarily a badthing because somewhere in the heart of that willbe some common sense about effective individualsand effective management of other people.

Jane Owen Jones: There’s a gap in developmentat the moment so it’s a question of... if leadersthink there’s a gap in their development there’s aquestion of how you fill it.

Craig Marsh: Very true... look at how muchleadership development goes on at CEO andexecutive levels?

Christian Hasenoehrl: At Standard CharteredBank, for example, people are heavily matrixedand they look at the leadership attributes thatwe’ve identified, but they place much moreimportance on relationships or connectivenessbecause in their environment, in a multi-culturalenvironment, a matrix environment is the onlyway you’re going to be effective.

Jason Spiller: What is it about leadership that isdivisive and also what is it about leadership thatmakes people either hate leaders or love leaders?

Jane Owen Jones: Bringing leadershipdevelopment back to the table, is HR the enabler,the sector that is responsible for this?

Alison Jenks: HR is the enabler. I think some HRdirectors have a good enough relationship withtheir CEOs to be able to sit down and have thatconversation and I think that’s the measure of thebetter HRDs. It’s about the leadership team andits inter-relationships.

Paul Kennedy: In the role of HRD you’ve got to bea great leader yourself and be able to displaythose attributes and have the charisma and theconnection with the board and you’ve got tohave their trust. You have to have that influence,that gravitas.

Dave Heath: Most leaders that I’ve met at the toplevel in most companies actually do want to learnand do want to develop. Sometimes, they’re alittle afraid to say so. I think the role of HR is tohelp them do that, to assist, act as a catalyst andact as a personal mentor.

Craig Marsh: Leaders are only human, they dohave feet of clay and if we raise our expectationstoo high there’s only going to be one thing thathappens, expectation are not going to be met.

Leaders are onlyhuman, they do havefeet of clay and if weraise ourexpectations toohigh there’s onlygoing to be onething that happens,expectation are notgoing to be met

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Introduction: Leadership

Rhea Duttagupta, Founder - Corporate DNA Consulting Limited

20

Leadership is one of the oldest areas of researchin the social sciences, yet the most controversial.Historians, corporates, economists, psychologists,consultants and even entire nations invest mostof their energy trying to fathom what makes agreat leader. What are their strengths andweaknesses, their foibles and graces, their lightand dark sides? The resulting lists are usuallysimilar, noting the importance of intelligence,stamina, compassion and so on. In a society as

individualistic as ours, leadership is also shroudedin an elitist halo of ‘born, not made’ category,which is detrimental in helping organisationsbuild the right leaders at the right time for theright purpose.

There is no dearth of literature on the basics ofleadership, how leadership is created, (nature ornurture) and what defines a leader (a focalperson, a high status group, or network of elite

Rhea Duttagupta,Founder of Corporate

DNA ConsultingLimited delves into the

minds of leaders todiscover the good, the

bad and the ugly.

Psyche ofLeadership – thegood, the bad andthe ugly

What makes a great leader -what are theirstrengths andweaknesses, theirfoibles and graces,their light anddark sides?

Leadership matters, more now, than ever. The team in charge of the

organisation, its DNA at the apex, can make or ruin the business.

Character, a combination of identity and reputation is just as essential for

top teams as is skill and competence. The correct code builds a strong

leadership DNA, by bridging the growing disconnect between the

‘leader’ and the ‘ship’ it leads.

position). The market is stifled with opinion and research on the topic.Instead, this paper will first ask and then answer the three most ignored, yetfundamental facets of leadership, that are the bedrock of corporate.

The three fundamental facets of leadership: The philosophy in definingleadership as a group process is grounded in the creation, management andcontrol of group identity, a shared sense of us. It reflects the variable andflexible nature of leadership identity, distinction between power, influenceand the responsibility of binding following members to leaders, which is theprinciple basis of charisma and vision.

The recession... a timely blessing in disguise for redefining leadership: Aleadership crisis that has been brewing for decades has finally irrupted in2009. The seeds of this were sown perhaps in antiquity but stems from the1840s when English Philosopher Thomas Carlyle put forth the theory of ‘greatman’ as the prime mover of history and change. This became the special fewwho had the intellect to envision, to inspire and then by virtue of theiractions earned the ‘right to lead’.

It is crucial to focus hard on shifting the individualistic leadership to a morecollective, stronger and sustainable leadership ethos at different levels ofbusiness. Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli says this recenttype of lapse in leadership dates to the 1980s when companies began tofocus on aligning executive incentive with shareholder interests. Anexcessive focus on individual financial goals at the expense of the collectivegood of the organisation is at the root of the leader’s debacle that rocked ustoday. Taking risks and covering our failures has become a norm. Therecession can be viewed as a timely blessing in disguise to drive forward thebasics of the good, the bad and the ugly of the leadership of tomorrow.

Focus on the good, overcome the bad and avoid the ugly: The reasons forleadership crisis is often cited as polarities or ‘pulling tensions’ in an executiveteam. Some of our client anecdotes across different sectors illustrate thetensions well: Alliance versus competition: “We struggle to view the leader asa trustworthy ally, in the merger, he often is a competitor to be contended”.

Clarifying expectations versus second guessing: “There is a dilemma overwhether we first clarify expectations before setting objectives or riskmisinterpretation by second guessing expectations”. Initiative versusdependence: ‘we are a leadership team that is still storming. Often uncertainwhether to take self initiative and make a difference or show dependence bywaiting for the leader to take the initiative’ Differentiation versus identification:“in our board we identify the leader as someone to build affinity, although whatwe really need is to add complementary strengths and stronger diversity”.

Task versus relationship: “There is a skewed bias towards being task focusedat the expense of being relationship focused – too hard to strike a balance”Group of individuals versus one team: ”We have formed a good, diversegroup but we are not a leadership team yet“.

Aspiration versus meaningful Articulation: “We invest a lot in culture, valuesand employee satisfaction. But we could not begin to define what the DNAof the leadership team is”.

Problem versus solution talk: “We spend most of our energy probing,analysing and redefining the problem and then wonder why we haven’t yetsolved it!”.

Tournament versus contest: The degree to which each step is an eliminationprocess or a contest in which one builds an incremental track record of short andlong wins. So, we now understand good and sustainable leadership. So, what aresome of the psychological traps we may fall into while implementing this:

Excessive positive psychology. Sometimes, corporate misinterprets positivepsychology. Sometimes leaders take that notion too far. As Financial TimesLucy Kellaway says, “An illogical love of ‘yes’ is the fundamental basis of allmodern leadership thought. From a default position of yes as the enablinganswer, no is considered demotivating and bad. No, you cannot travel ClubClass; no, you cannot be promoted. The end result is a bias against criticalthinking. Organisations now favour belief and force of personality over anyobjective analysis”.

Too much confirmation bias: Members tend to look for information thatproves rather than disproves their theories and ideas. Secondly, the celebrityleader’s rhetoric can exploit our reflexes and explain how misplacedoptimism can trump logic. In boards, likeability and being part of the innercircle become so important that people often reinforce, not challenge aCEO’s optimistic forecast. Often, resorting to white lies, large and small, inorder to be accepted and liked.

Imbalance in task dependency: This occurs when a leader is dependent onhis team for results, but the latter is not allowed to be dependent on theleader. Confronting reality. Jim Collins in ‘Good to Great’ quotes a CEO “whenyou turn over rocks and look at the squiggly underneath, you can either putthe rock down or deal with the squiggly”.

A designated critic or a house sceptic may be a good thing to build realisminto your company’s culture. An HR director is best positioned to take on thisrole. The right leadership team should include members who adopt one ofthese three roles; which may be a sub-divided: task-oriented role – facilitatingand coordinating making task e.g. initiators, information seekers, informationgivers, coordinators, evaluators. Or relation oriented role, building group centretask, interpersonal relationships and collective view points, e.g. encouragers,harmonisers, gatekeepers, standard seekers, followers, group observers, or

Self-oriented role, focuses on member’s individual needs sometimes at theexpense of the group, e.g. blockers, recognition seekers, dominators, avoiders.

Human existence, to paraphrase a Samuel Johnson adage, is the victory ofhope over experience. Perhaps now we have learnt what psychologists havefound, that most people systematically overestimate their odds of successand it may be rooted in our denial of mortality. But a major tenet ofpsychology is that healthy individuals are well grounded in balanced reality.Organisations and leaders are no different.


21


www.corporateDNAconsulting.co.uk

There is a dilemma over whetherwe first clarify expectationsbefore setting objectives or riskmisinterpretation by secondguessing expectations

The recent ‘crashgate’ scandal enveloping Formula 1 racing and the‘bloodgate’ episode played out so publicly by the world of rugby union arethe latest in a long line of high profile failings brought about byquestionable management decisions and weak leadership. Both serve todemonstrate that bad management doesn’t just affect those directlyinvolved in a decision. They show that the ramifications of a leader’s choicecan be felt through tarnished reputations, financial penalty or, in the case ofmore ‘traditional’ businesses, commercial ruin.

But whether it is sporting mismanagement or the cavalier attitudes that ledthe UK into recession, one thing is clear; bad management costs lives andlivelihoods. With redundancies and pay freezes still the hot topic of choice inmost publications this, alone, should make HR directors demand thatemployers pay more attention to leadership training and development. It is,quite simply, too short-term an argument to say that training costs. Failingto train costs even more. Furthermore, these catastrophic managementfailures raise important questions about the ethics and code of conduct thatis deemed acceptable within today’s organisations. Individuals in highly-paid, highly public positions have a responsibility to set an example ofstrong, but fair leadership. No matter what industry or seniority, there aremanagement standards that everyone should follow, especially as it is aleader’s responsibility to look after people first.

So why is it still the case that just 20 percent of leaders in the UK hold aformal management qualification? And when evidence exists to prove thelink between engaged employees, higher productivity and enhancedcorporate reputations, why are so many organisations still keen to cut theirtraining budget? If ever there was an opportunity for HR to make the casefor management and leadership development, this is it. The recession,coupled with the sporting examples of Formula 1 and rugby union, has

shown how important it is for organisations to tackle the huge gaps inleadership skills that the UK seems to suffer from. Yes, you could argue thatthese examples are a one-off, but there have been too many of them forthat to be true. You could even suggest that ‘management’ alwaysshoulders the blame for high-profile, costly and sometimes tragic failures.But leadership is about taking responsibility, for the good and the bad.

Put this in the context of a world dominated by changing technology andgrowing international competition, and every manager in this country has aresponsibility for ensuring that he or she has the best possible skills tocontribute to successful business performance. In recent years the CMI hasconducted a number of research projects with the intention of highlighting,to employers, the value of management and leadership development.Figures from this year’s CMI / CELRE National Management Salary Surveyshow that 46 percent of employers admit they are losing staff because of afailure to offer adequate training programmes. The truth is that we spend lesson management development in the UK than our European competitors. Itdoesn’t make sense because, through inaction, organisations are losing toptalent to the competition.

However, if that isn’t enough, there is ample evidence to suggest thatorganisations offering professional development enjoy a better reputation,amongst employees and external stakeholders - than those who don’t. With52 percent of employers reporting that ‘damage to their reputation’ is amajor worry, it is alarming that this fear isn’t followed by action. The HRprofession can certainly help by highlighting that a world dominated byqualified managers and leaders will be one where top-class performanceexists right across British businesses, the public sector and our not-for-profitorganisations, where management isn’t a byword for bureaucracy andfailure, but plays a real role in boosting performance.

Opinion: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

Ruth Spellman OBE. Chief Executive - Chartered Management Institute

22

The terrible cost of bad leadershipRuth Spellman OBE. CEO of the Chartered Management Institute looks at the terrible consequences of poor

leadership and the importance of keeping leadership training and development at the top of the HR agenda.

opinion

But whether it is sportingmismanagement or the cavalierattitudes that led the UK intorecession, one thing is clear;bad management costs livesand livelihoods


www.managers.org.uk

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FYI: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

Dona Roche-Tarry, Managing Partner - CTPartners

24

A survey by The Guardian recently claimed thatexecutives at FTSE 100 companies saw theirbasic salaries rise by ten percent in 2008, despitethe fact that overall pay fell by five percent onaccount of reduced bonus payments. Separateresearch by Hewitt New Bridge Street found thatexecutive bonuses paid in 2008-09 were at 65percent of the maximum possible (or 90 percentof salary), compared to the previous year’s figureof 80 percent (110 percent of salary).

Executives in some organisations such asCitigroup and Channel 4, meanwhile, waved theirbonuses altogether and others have joined themin this, without necessarily publicising it. The likesof BT and G4S, meanwhile, have introduced“clawback” provisions to their remunerationschemes, which will allow them to reclaimbonuses paid out on profits as a result of decisionsthat prove in the long-term to be detrimental.

Yet the media portrayal of “fat-cat pay” meansthat for many employees perception is reality,regardless of the facts, and it falls to HR, alongwith the marketing communications team, toensure the right messages get through to staff tokeep them engaged as the economic situationimproves. The key to this is effectivecommunication and transparency of information.A good number of executives have chosen totake no increase in salary and zero bonuses forthe good of the company. HR mustcommunicate that they have done so becausethey are concerned about the company andwant it to be successful in the long run.

Where bonuses have been paid, HR needs toexplain why, if there has been positiveperformance in some divisions, for example, andwhat metrics have been used. More often thannot it is tied to performance. If the company hasonly achieved 80 percent of its target, bonusesmay have been paid at 65 percent and executivesend up getting less than they expected. It’s vitalthis is communicated effectively to employees.There are many different layers to an effectivecommunication strategy, from regular writtendialogue, to face-to-face meetings, podcasts andconference calls. But the most important elementis to establish a common and consistent messagethat goes out to all staff, from the first line ofmanagement right up to the CEO. It needs to beconstantly reinforced; if everybody is saying thesame thing, people will start trusting the message.If they’re hearing four or five different thingsthey’ll only get confused.

Before deciding on any strategy HR needs to engagewith the employee base to understand what theissues are and which areas could be improved. Somecompanies conduct employee surveys on a quarterlybasis but many don’t, and they need to think aboutdoing so quickly. Once a communication policy hasbeen established, HR needs to bring the workforceand management together. This needs to be morethan just sending an email to all staff. Managementand the executive team have to go on the road,visiting every site, meeting employees and havingopen and transparent question-and-answer sessionsso those who are feeling disengaged can have theirsay and listen to the response.

If it’s a UK company they need to go fromScotland down to Portsmouth. It’s not an easything to do and it takes time, but it’s got to bedone. In terms of results, most companies aremeasured quarterly or monthly, so every quarteror every month, whatever their measurementsare, they should be out there communicating theresults and the impact of these on the business.

Part of this is to get the CEO to commit to moreeffective communication and then working withall the management teams. In some cases this willmean organising training so managers arecomfortable with their responsibilities. The mostimportant levels are the first and second lines asthey’re the ones who are most in touch withemployees. If the company culture is such thatexecutives sit in an ivory tower and rarely mix withstaff, it’s likely that employee engagement hasdeclined pretty dramatically in recent months.

The economic downturn has been so dramaticthat it will have a long-term impact on almost allcompanies. The key message for HR is to use it asan impetus to shift to a more transparentcompany culture and to work even harder atemployee engagement. Only then willorganisations be able to bridge the gulf that hasemerged between leaders and the widerworkforce, however these have come about.

Setting the record straightMedia coverage about fat-cat pay has left many employees feeling disengaged just when it seems an upturn

could be on the horizon. HR needs to seize the opportunity to create a culture based around effective

communication and greater transparency. Dona Roche-Tarry, Managing Partner, CTPartners reports.

The media portrayal of “fat-cat pay” means that for many employees perceptionis reality, regardless of the facts”

FYI: Dona Roche-Tarry


www. ctnet.com

Introverts: “People who arequiet and self-centred, not highin confidence, not looking tolead, and prefer individualactivities to team games”.

This quote, taken from my son’s PE GCSEp textbook, is a worryingly distorted view ofintroversion. Unfortunately, such misconceptionsare widespread in today’s society, particularly inthe workplace, where success is often equatedwith extroversion. As founder and director of asuccessful NHS body, and an introvert through-and-through, I believe there are many pre-requisites to being a successful leader, such asdedication, enthusiasm and the ability tocommunicate effectively, none of which aredetermined by an individual’s preference towardsextroversion or introversion.

The theory behind extroversion and introversion,first introduced by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung inthe 1920s, is often misinterpreted. It has little todo with shyness or social skills, and more to dowith how you as an individual feel energised. Doyou source your energy from the external world,through communicating and socialising? Or doyou find that your energy comes from within,through time alone with your thoughts? A usefulanalogy might be if you would describe yourselfas ‘solar powered’ or ‘battery powered’. Withintroverts outnumbered by three to one, society isset up for the extroverts among us and this isparticularly apparent in the workplace. Anintrovert’s preference towards quiet, independentthinking/working, their dislike of interruptions andreserved temperament, often results in the viewthat we are ‘shy’ and ‘withdrawn’, sometimes even‘uncooperative’ and ‘aloof’.

Stemming from this misinterpretation, introvertscan find themselves overlooked in the workplace,in the shadow of the extroverted majority. As notedby Laney in her book The Introvert Advantage: HowTo Thrive in an Extrovert World, just like the socialarena, the workplace demands certain attributesthat challenge the natural preferences of introverts,such as a reluctance to contribute in meetings andpublic speaking. Ultimately, this can impact on anindividual’s opportunity for development andprogression within a company.

How to embrace your introversion

There is an important distinction betweenaccepting and working with your introversion, asopposed to trying to oppress it and “actextroverted”. There may be challenges toovercome as an introverted leader, but no morethan there are for extroverts! I have adoptedvarious strategies and ways of working that suitmy introversion and have enabled me to developsuccessful working relationships.

Public speaking is clearly a fundamental part ofany leadership role and, although not somethingwhich comes naturally to me, an aspect that Ihave learned to embrace. I enjoy the researchand preparation process and always ensure that Iam as informed as possible about the topic athand. The result is often a carefully consideredview point, rather than an off-the-cuff, ad libpresentation - although both have their place inthe business world.

As the natural preference for introverts is to avoidlarge groups of people, semi-social work eventscan also be a challenge. Needless to say, I attendbusiness dinners and networking events and Imake sure that I sit with people I don’t alreadyknow, but it is an effort consciously made. My

secret is that I would rather go home and spendthe evening with my family, or in their absence, agood book. You will never find me in the latenight bar at conferences; instead I will haveretreated to my room, weary from the day’sexertions. I prefer to ‘network’ through one-to-one meetings and conversations, which buildstrong, personal relationships.

As an introvert, I have no desire to be centre ofattention and like to encourage others to takecentre stage. Instead, I have adopted anempathetic and facilitative style of leading, which isvery empowering for my staff and opens upopportunities for them to develop their personalskills and independent ways of working. Above all,it is important to remember that neitherintroversion nor extroversion is better than theother, just different. People are multi-dimensional,and are likely to display tendencies towards bothintroversion and extroversion in different situations.

My introversion has played an important part inmoulding me into the leader that I am today andcontrary to my son’s text book, I very much enjoymy leadership role!

Introverts can be successful leaders...Director of the NHS Workforce Review Team, Judy Curson, describes herself as an introvert. But that hasn’t hindered

her career or achievements. In this personal case study, Judy explains how introverts can make very good leaders.


www.nhs.uk

www.thehrdirector.com Case study: Leadership

Judy Curson, Director NHS Workforce Review Team - NHS

25

Survey: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

Andy Lowe, Practice Leader of Talent Management - Right Management

26

At least according to their employees, whoranked them 10th across the globe. This result isdisturbing as leadership is so vital in creating anengaged workforce. So what role can HRprofessionals play in helping improve the ratingsof UK leaders? Influencing the behaviour ofleaders is a key challenge for any HR professional.How do you persuade your board and seniormanagers that they may need to re-examinewhat they say, how they say it and also how theybehave if they want to re-engage their teams?

On the face of it, there’s a big job to be done.Recently released results from talent and careermanagement consultancy Right Management’ssurvey, which spoke to more than 28,000employees across the globe, showed that justhalf of UK respondents say their senior leaders arevisible to staff and over a third say that theirsenior leaders do not lead by example.

The ranking in tenth place puts the UK behindemerging markets such as India, Brazil and Chinaas well as more established economies such asthe US and Germany. The results are not justabout a popularity poll for leaders, however, theydo have a real bearing on the performance of ourbusinesses.

The survey results also highlight the clear linkbetween perceptions of senior leadership andthe level of employee engagement. Whenemployees perceive senior leadership to beeffective, they are twice as likely to be engaged(77 percent versus 33 percent).

There is a similar correlation with productivity. 61percent of participants who view their leaderspositively see themselves as working for a veryproductive organisation, while of those whoviewed their leaders unfavourably, 51 percentperceived their organisation as unproductive.Clearly leadership can help make the differencebetween a good organisation and a great one. Aswe all know, perceptions can have a big impacton reality. So how do UK HR professionals addresssuch negative perceptions in a market where lessthan half of respondents to the UK survey werefavourable about senior leadership?

As companies are increasingly recognising, thelevel of engagement and, therefore, theproductivity of the workforce can have animportant part to play in the speed at whichorganisations emerge from recession. HRprofessionals have a vital role to play in

encouraging their management teams to get outon to the “shop floor” and talk to their staff. HR isthe function that can effectively give senior leadersthe skills and confidence to get out among theworkforce and motivate them during times ofturbulence or change. It could well be that leadersin other countries are placing more emphasis onthe way in which they communicate with andmanage their staff, hence their higher scoring inthe league table.

Employees want their leaders to lead by exampleto help steer businesses out of recession. Thesurvey reveals that currently a third of employees

say UK leaders do not lead by example. It is notenough to say the words about the changes thatneed to be made to help businesses moveforward – they must prove it in what they do. Theimpact of leadership on the company culture issignificant; the tone is set from the top. If thesenior leaders tackle challenges face on, the restof the business is more likely to follow suit.

Again, the role of HR is to encourage bothbusiness leaders and managers to change theway in which they behave, and to make thebehaviour visible to their teams. That may requirenot only a change in attitude but also mentoringand training to bring about that change. HR is ina good position to reinforce the values by whichthe organisation operates, and to help leadersand senior managers solicit feedback andbecome more self-aware. As we can see then, theperception of leaders and their abilities caninfluence the success of the organisation in anumber of different ways. The benefits are clear;the survey shows that when employees perceivechange to be handled effectively they are tentimes more likely to be engaged.

The need to understand the complexities ofengagement provides one of the bestopportunities for HR professionals to build theirrelationships with leaders and senior managers.Leaders need to work closely with their HR andemployee communication teams to prioritise thekey messages they need to communicate and tospend time making sure they get those messagesacross. It is companies who pay attention toengagement who are more likely to emerge fromrecession both faster and fitter, and withemployees committed to the business.

Winning back trust in leadersHow can HR help improve employee perception ratings of UK leaders? A global survey conducted by Right

Management shows that UK leaders have some serious shortfalls in their abilities. Andy Lowe, Practice Leader

of Talent Management for Right Management, summarises.

Survey reveals a third of employees say UK leaders do not lead by example. It is notenough to just say the words about thechanges that need to be made

Survey: Andy Lowe


www.right.com

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Feature: Leadership

Dr Tommy Weir, Managing Director of Leadership Solutions - Kenexa

28

Several months ago, I was sitting in the audienceat the Global Competiveness Forum in Riyadh,Saudi Arabia when Dr. Angel Cabrera, Dean of theThunderbird School of Management, walked tothe podium and said: “I owe you an apology.” Thiscaught my attention as I wondered why this manfrom Arizona would need to apologise to globalHeads of States and CEOs of top corporations.

He went on to say: ”I, actually myself and the deansof the top business programmes, owe the world anapology for the financial crisis.” He pointed out thatmany of the corporate leaders that led the world’seconomy into the downturn were graduates ofschools like his and other top tier institutions. Hislecture went on to point out the flaws in thecurriculum that could lead to this type of self-

centred and short-term thinking. As I sat therestunned and admiring his humility, it occurred tome to look at the book that is touted as one of thetop business texts to see if it was right. And myconclusion is that “Good to Great” by Jim Collinsshould be changed to “Good to Great to Grave”.

Many companies held up as examples of successin countless business books, led the way in layoffs,lined up for government bailouts and hadplummeting stock prices. For example what wasleft of Circuit City after its bankruptcy was sold inan auction and they closed their doors. FannieMae was taken over by the US Government and ifwe include the “Built to Last” list we findcompanies like Citicorp (now Citigroup), Ford, GMand others, need I say more?

Leadership short-sightedness’ has been

the downfall of manycompanies that were

held up as examples ofsuccess in countless

business books. Tommy Weir says

leaders should take theequivalent of a

‘Hippocratic Oath’ inleadership to ensure this

doesn’t happen again.

The solemnoath of leadership

Many leaderswere graduates ofthe top businessschools, so whatflaws are there inthe curriculumthat lead to suchshort-sightedthinking?

Being a leader has its trappings and rewards and rightly so. After all, it often

takes years to get to the top, not to mention talent, experience and vision.

But as has been recently witnessed in the banking crisis and subsequent

recession, when leaders fail, the impact can be catastrophic. How can

leaders be made more accountable for their actions?

It’s clear that many ‘successful’ companieshave suffered a leadership catastrophe. Asthey went into bankruptcy, they were takenover by the Government, or simply turnedout their lights and locked the doors forgood. Are these the companies to look at asrole models of success? They were. Butwhat went wrong? What type of leadershipwas in charge and what happened (or didnot happen) in their development path thatenabled them to put the world at risk? Theleaders in these organisations had masteredthe game of business and become thedarlings of Wall Street, after announcingtheir quarterly targets and then beatingthem. But in the midst of this, they lost sightof society and a larger responsibility thanjust to their shareholders. The missingelement was responsibility.

Something different needs to happen and itis not more Government oversight. Manyleaders were graduates of the top businessschools, so what flaws are there in thecurriculum that leads to such short-sightedthinking? The pervasive logical thinking styleputs organisations at risk because unethicalbehaviour is provoked, not prevented, byreason. In a series of experiments, researchersconcluded that when test subjects wereencouraged to think rationally and ignoretheir emotions, they chose to cheat theirpartners. And when encouraged to make gutdecisions, they became trustworthy.

A new approach

It is clearly time for a new approach thatincludes reforming management educationand creating leaders who are responsiblefor the actions and impact of theirorganisations - not just the financial resultsto shareholders. In light of questionablecorporate practices and the global crisis,what can we learn from their leadershipshort-sightedness? Organisations need toaddress the role of responsibility inleadership in order to ensure that‘leadership failures’ don’t happen again. Apractical example is for organisations to asktheir leaders to pledge their responsibilityfor the life of their organisation, takingaccount of society in general, and to createa culture where they can live by this pledge.

It is time for organisations to borrow fromthe ancient practice of the HippocraticOath, by which doctors are asked to swearto ethically practice medicine and not tocause harm. It is almost incomprehensiblethat society does not require somethingsimilar from the leaders to whom they trusteverything other than their health. Until

now, the people who provide society withgoods, services, and supposedly a return oninvestment are free to act as they choose.

I believe that the corporate world needs asimilar rite of passage and that all leadersshould take an Oath of Leadership. Thiscould include the following:

• I will be competent in my skills andactions whilst continually striving toimprove my leadership

• I will maintain and strengthen the visionof my organisation and strive to createsustainable prosperity in a way that isrespectful of the environment andcontributes to social growth

• I will respect the rights and dignity of allpeople; I will hold accountable thoseemployees over whom I have beenentrusted with leadership responsibility.And I will provide opportunities for theirgrowth

• I will conduct myself with the highestlevel of integrity and take responsibility formy actions, whilst labouring for the goodof my organisation. I will keep myself andmy leadership far from all intentional ill-doing, especially from anything thatmight damage the economy, society orthe environment. And I will oppose allforms of corruption and exploitation.

Leaders should make this oath freely andupon their honour because being a leaderis honourable and requires hard work, skill,rightful behaviour, accountability andresponsibility. By taking this oath, you aredeclaring to the world that you will act as aresponsible and accountable leader. And,by practising it, you will be respected andyou’ll make a positive contribution to yourorganisation, your employees and toshareholders, as well as society at large. Imake this oath freely and upon my honour.Will you?

Lead likeShackletonProfessor Marc Buelens from Vlerick

Leuven Gent School of Management

explores the five key lessons a leader can

learn from the methods of Ernest

Shackleton, the great polar explorer.

The topic of leadership has been thrust to the foreagainst the backdrop of recent economic troubles.While many leaders have been vilified as architects ofthe financial meltdown, others have been chargedwith the task of rebuilding from the wreckage. Theinternational MBA programme at the Vlerick LeuvenGent School of Management in Belgium seesleadership as a critical asset for any manager.

Often over-shadowed by his contemporary, CaptainScott, Shackleton's reputation as one of the greatleaders is largely based on how he saved his team,against all the odds, when they became trapped inthe Antarctic ice during an abortive attempt to crossthe continent. Shackleton’s methods can teachmanagers some of the most important aspects ofleadership; how to bring order and success to achaotic environment, how to work with limitedresources, how to let go of the past, how to keeptroublemakers close and how to be self-sacrificing.Drawn from his techniques and philosophies.

Lesson 1: ACBD - Always consult before deciding.Shackleton was a decisive person. However, he alwaysconsulted the group before deciding on a course of action.

Lesson 2: Discuss bad news in front of all concerned.Do not share your concerns only with your lieutenant,but with the whole group.

Lesson 3: When in trouble or conflict, use the EPOformula: Empathy, Positivity, Order.• Always start with empathy. See the other side’s

perspective – it will lead to a more informeddecision and harmonious outcome.

• Always remain as positive as possible. Be optimisticbecause all emotions are contagious.

• Postpone the ‘order’ as long as possible, i.e. waituntil you are sure everyone in the group is ‘onboard’ before giving the order to move forward.

Lesson 4: In crisis, let go of the past. Previousconventions, prior successes and respected traditionsare of no use. However, do remain loyal to basic values.

Lesson 5: Creativity is NOT out of the box thinking, it isderived from an attitude:• Never give up • Never give up • There is more, there is better, it can be done

differently.

For further information:www.vlerick.com


www.kenexa.com


29

Like the yapping dog that barks at and chases after every car that comes up anddown the street we follow every leadership fancy, every model, new theory or“paradigm shift” and add to the rich vocabulary of meaningless jargon. Is“Emotional Intelligence” another car for us yapping dogs to chase? The heartsinks with the term and the plethora of tools, articles, workshops it spawns onthe strength of a few sound-bites and sometimes exaggerated claims. Make nomistake; emotionally intelligent leaders are going to be needed but to getourselves out of the mess we are in needs more than EQ. We need leaders whohave ability, experience, and discipline and who don’t rely on people skills alone.It is not enough to wave EQ around the Board-Room as some mildly sanitizedroom freshener when what we need is a complete rebuild.

So what is it that Emotional Intelligence can offer to the leadershipchallenge? Many of today’s leaders, in businesses and organisations, are outof date and out of touch. Their style of leadership focuses on their personalcontribution and on keeping control over others through a false andexcluding preoccupation with what they mistakenly call results. They missthe point entirely that in knowledge-based organisations the task of leadersis to release talent, foster a sense of collective responsibility, and encouragea values-based and largely self-regulated contribution from everyone.Emotionally intelligent leaders create and perpetuate a culture within theirorganisation where everyone is proud to contribute.

The daunting challenge facing leaders is to restore trust, with their ownteams and with clients. For the past decade the whole nature of trust hasbroken down in business, politics and in our financial institutions. It has alsobroken down in many places of work where the psychological contract hasbeen torn up. Businesses have lost their sense of direction, and work hasbecome meaningless. People are fearful, their confidence in the worldaround them and their leaders is weakened, and their belief in the meaningand purpose of what they do is destroyed.

Trust is built or restored in the workplace through the emotionallyintelligent way in which leaders are seen to behave. The values they expressneed now to be the values they live day in and day out. Forget thepresentations, the road-shows and the rhetoric. No-one in their right mind isprepared to believe words alone. Emotional Intelligence helps to define thebehaviours leaders must show day in, day out, to demonstrate their valuesand create a culture of pride and collective responsibility throughout anorganisation. Leaders must recognise how their actions affect others. Thisself-awareness is not some narcissistic indulgence but is the means tounderstand the impact a leader’s behaviour has on others in the team andto use that effectively. They need to stay calm in the midst of the chaosaround them and to manage complexity. They will spend time trying toexpress what is happening, and listening to others as the wholeorganisation strives to find a new understanding and meaning.

Since all our signposts have been knocked to the ground leaders must be ableto create new ones to give that new sense of direction. Modern leaders will bepositive and work to their strengths. Without being blind to the risks and outof touch with reality it is essential that they persist in their determined drive toachieve their goals. They must behave in a way which shows concern forothers, not as some sentimental and sloppy affectation, but as a truerecognition that building trust means showing genuine compassion andunderstanding. More than anything, people need to feel respected, valuedand trusted. Leaders must show their own need for others by consulting andinvolving their teams and their clients. They will show humble recognitionthat success can only be achieved through the skills, commitment andcontribution of everyone in their team. They must keep a sense of perspective,avoiding the extremes of complacency and panic. They should articulate thisperspective and make meaning to others of their collective experience.

Opinion: Leadership www.thehrdirector.com

Stuart Walkley, Director - Oakridge Training and Consulting

30

Are your leaders “emotionally intelligent”?Far too often our approach to leadership is to follow every fad with a great deal of noise and excitement but very

little focus and purpose. Stuart Walkley, Director of Oakridge Training and Consulting, explores.

opinion

People are fearful, theirconfidence in the world aroundthem and their leaders isweakened, and their belief inthe meaning and purpose ofwhat they do is destroyed


www.oakridgecentre.co.uk

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation

(CTA), an international organisation based in Wageningen,

the Netherlands, working in the field of information and

communication for the agricultural and rural development

of the ACP countries (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific)

signatories of the Cotonou Agreement, invites applicants

for the following position:

Human Resources Officer

We refer you to the CTA website -

http://www.cta.int/en/About-us/Announcements

- for the full text of the vacancy and the conditions.

Closing date: 15 January 2010

Senior HR VacancyHuman Resources Officer

Introduction: HR’s role in change management

Christian Hasenoehrl, Partner - Gallup

32

Following numerous announcements of greenshoots and other wishful thinking over thesummer, in the last week of September, the USunemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 9.8percent, following the 21st consecutive monththat jobs have been shed. This importantindicator blasted across the front pages of everynewspaper on the 2nd October, tells us that therecovery, if one can even apply that term, will bejobless at best, ringing in a new reality for allthose companies that have already gone throughredundancies and change programmes.

Broadly speaking, in the past 18 months thefollowing four business case scenarios could beobserved amongst companies. In the first - great

companies have used the recession as anopportunity to calibrate their workforce, in somecases even increasing hiring and going on thehunt for talent at less fortunate employers. Onesuch global UK-based company in the financialservices sector, has picked up entirely newleadership teams from another global US-basedcompetitor that was partially nationalised.

In the second, even good companies havenecessarily had to reduce their headcount toreduce their cost basis to remain competitivebeyond the next 12 months, and in most casesfor up to three years. A leading UK telecomscompany and a leading UK retailer have shownthe way with innovative compensation schemes

There is not a singlecompany that has not

gone through some kindof change programme

in the last 18 months orat least has had to

calibrate to adjust todifferent economic

realities. ChristianHasenoehrl, Partner at

Gallup reports.

Changemanagement… a euphemism forour new reality

All leaders havean obligation tothose who remainbehind, to regaintrust and to painta picture of theworld after, thefuture state of theorganisation

The recovery looks to be jobless, and we are a long way from truly

emerging from the current environment. To manage change therefore,

simply is to manage and HR has a huge responsibility and opportunity to

support management in these times.


33

for senior management, focused on a three yeartrajectory. Both were amongst the bestperforming companies in the FTSE 100 in 2008. Inthe third, many struggling companies had toreduce headcount and freeze investments andfind any way possible to survive. A leading UKcompany in auto retail, arguably one of the worsthit industries, underwent major redundancies, cutcosts and froze budgets but is on a trajectory tobreak even this year.

Resisting, incorporating, adapting

Change management is a term that is often usedbut mostly not well understood. As individuals, weall go through constant change. Consider forinstance changing schools, graduating fromcollege, moving to a new town, starting a new job,the birth of a baby, and so on. Well, organisationshave stages too, stages that associates passthrough during times of disruption, which wesometimes prefer to call “change”. Severalbehavioural scientists have examined theemotional effects of change on individuals, whichare summarised into the three stages below.

The first phase is Resisting or Informed Pessimism.In this stage, employees quietly refuse to use thenew system. Sometimes they grumble andgossip. People like security and the comfort ofknowing familiar tasks, schedules, offices, clients,and colleagues. This could be called the endingof the old. In most organisations Changehappens very quickly. Transition however tend totake longer. Most employees will not have had anopportunity to completely digest a change thathas occurred. It is therefore important to givethem an opportunity to develop a new identity,before they can let go of the old one.

The second phase is Incorporating or InformedOptimism. Employees begin to emotionallyintegrate the change into their daily routines.However, they may frequently be confusedand/or scared. This is also a time of creativity andof trying new things to see if they will work. Thiscould be called the “neutral zone”. The neutralzone is between the old and the new. The oldway is gone, and the new way is not yetcomfortable. One door closes, another one opensbut the transition may be very difficult for manyemployees and therefore require HR intervention.

The third phase is Adapting or the SustainedEquilibrium of the New State. In this final phase,employees are emotionally committed to doingthings the new way. They adopt the change intoeveryday work and go on to find advantages inthe new way, and teach others, thus buildingconfidence. This stage could be called the“beginning of the new”. HR has a uniqueopportunity to identify leaders in this phase whowill make the best coaches and leaders of others

who cannot seize the opportunities and newmethods. Getting here may take a while, longerthan many organisations expect.

Change management and engagement

Managing organisational change is important toemployee and workgroup engagement. Ifchange is not managed well, employees becomeresistant to it, and begin to move from being“Engaged” to “Not Engaged” employees.Furthermore, if change is not discussed openly,employees can become “Actively Disengaged”.Employees in this group tend to be destructiveand can sabotage your efforts. HR can providevaluable input by determining the readiness ofeach team to incorporate change and adapt to anew organisational reality. Gallup has found clearlinks between organisational change andengagement with a direct impact on the bottomline. HR can provide great value to theorganisation by working with management toensure that the focus on engagement does notslip from the agenda, especially during times oforganisational change.

Across a section of clients Gallup measureschange management with the followingquestion items: • There is open communication throughout all

levels of the organisation• My supervisor is an active supporter of the

changes that affect our group• I am asked for my input regarding the changes

that affect my work• Leaders in my organisation help me see how

changes made today will affect myorganisation’s future.

Gallup has found that 77 percent of those teamsthat can strongly agree with these four items arealso highly engaged, while only one percent ofthose teams that does not strongly agree withthese items are highly engaged and 54 percentof those that do not strongly agree are activelydisengaged.

Gallup has worked with over 500 organisations inthe last three years to measure and manageemployee engagement at a team level using theQ12 framework. Our latest meta-analysis of ourdatabase of over 6.1m employees shows thathighly engaged teams have; 37 percent lowerabsenteeism, 49 percent less attrition (incompanies with low attrition levels), 27 percentless theft, 49 percent fewer safety incidents, 60percent fewer quality defects, 12 percent highercustomer metrics, 18 percent higher productivityand 16 percent higher profitability. Thus, thefinancial implications of managing engagementand focusing even more strongly onengagement during times of change should beobvious. But how can HR provide further value?

Removing barriers to change

HR can help management by creating an effectivechange strategy with a clear vision. However, anychange strategy has to be driven by credible andeffective leaders who display a sense of urgency.Without that credibility and sense of urgency, noteven the best HR department can effectively help toimplement change. Amongst the more successfulcompanies we see that any change programme hasto build around a series of tactical steps, including acombination of quick wins and long term strategicobjectives. Management must show a strong focuson communication, empowerment, endurance andcommitment throughout the change initiative, tomove the organisation from Resisting toIncorporating to Adapting.

It is crucial to first and foremost understand theeffective barriers to change before designing thejourney. Gallup has found that there are broadlyover 200 types of barriers to business performance.However, these can be classified into fivegeneralisable groupings: fear, resources, informationflow, alignment and short-term thinking. HR can bea valuable partner in providing objective analysis ofthese five types of barriers to inform management’sapproach to change. For instance, information flowor internal communication is crucial to the successof any change programme. By ascertaining theblockage of information flow in downstream orupstream communication, HR can helpmanagement determine how to best communicatethe upcoming changes and, more importantly, setexpectations for the duration and outcome of thechange programme. This approach needs to bereinforced by managers with the smallest span ofcontrol but greatest influence on employees, thatstand to be affected by potential redundancies orcost measures.

Fear is also a substantial barrier to the execution oforganisational initiatives. Fear of displacement is

If change is notmanaged well,employees becomeresistant to it, andbegin to move frombeing “Engaged” to“Not Engaged”employees

very common in the current environmenteven in relatively stable companies. HR can,therefore, work more effectively withcolleagues if that fear can be pinpointed andaddressed prior to managementcommunicating any sweepingannouncements. Resources are another areaof great importance. If one third of theworkforce is made redundant it means thatthe remaining two thirds will potentially haveone third more work. This can cause greatunease and, in turn fear, unless managementcommunicates new responsibilities andresets expectations for everyone.

Alignment typically starts with the top team.It is not uncommon to interview the entiresenior management team individually andto get ten different interpretations of acompany strategy or of the impendingchange programme. Thus, in the firstinstance, management must be alignedaround the strategy and around thecommunication of that strategy. It is alsocrucially important that front-linemanagement is aligned with theirmanagers. If colleagues on the groundsense that a change programme is beingdone ‘to them’, versus ‘with them’, they willbe highly uncooperative, and envisionedchange will most likely face huge resistanceand potentially may take years tosuccessfully complete. The same can also besaid about ‘short-term thinking’. Employeesmust get the sense that the changes arebeing made to support the long-termsurvival of the company. Management mustwork with HR to understand the requiredlevel of communication to achieve a senseof understanding for organisational changefrom employees. Employees must feel thatthe changes are being implemented tosupport the long term viability of theenterprise; otherwise the stars will leave aswell, whenever the environment becomesmore conducive.

A basic model

In principle, we have found the followingmodel, based on Gallup research and thewritings by Kotter, in Leading Change, asan effective approach to changemanagement: Some underlying principlesare important to note. Engagingemployees should be a common topic ofdiscussion in performance reviews, resultsmeetings, town halls, and across companymemos. The costs of implementing nochanges should be communicated as wellas the costs of the change programme.Leadership should set dramatic goals andover communicate all messages related to

the change programme. Guiding teamsmust have credibility, skills, connectionsand formal authority to drive the changestrategy. As discussed earlier, a changeprogramme must have a clear strategicview with a finite time horizon, whether itis one or three years. Leadership mustmotivate employees and HR must workwith managers to create a robustcommunication strategy to cover vision,initiatives, successes, and best practices.

HR must work with management to identifyand remove real and imagined barriers tosuccess. Proper time must be available formanagers to make this a priority. During thechange journey, it also becomes moreimportant than ever to recognise efforts ofindividuals and to foster managers whoinspire others. Management must haveshort term tactical goals and rewardmanagers and employees who makesignificant and visible progress on thoseplans. Finally, a plan is only as good as itsexecution and it is crucial that HR andmanagement follow-up on all plans atregular intervals. Interventions andmeasurement of key change metrics likeengagement should be strategicallyscheduled every three or six months toensure that the organisation is on track.Conversely, impact on results should beshared immediately and a constant cycle ofpositive reinforcement should be built intothe communications framework. As theorganisation and managers begin to adaptto the new reality, the change programmemust be anchored to the culture.Behaviours, values and associatedexpressions of the culture must also beadapted and communication must reflect amore stable, organisational state. Aleadership assessment can also provehelpful to reflect on the type of leaderrequired to take the organisation throughthe next phase of the organisational journey.

Introduction: HR’s role in change management www.thehrdirector.com

Christian Hasenoehrl, Partner - Gallup

34


www.gallup.com

10

Top Ten Tips

Leading by exampleHR needs to find effective ways of

tackling poor leadership behaviours.

Jamil Rashid Director of Leadership and

Management at JARA, provides some

tips, defining management rules that

deliver change.

1 Be honest with yourself: make sure you have thedesire and commitment to take on more of anorganisational development role, as an HRDirector, it’s surely within your remit, but it may notbe for everyone.

2 Ask your CEO to be honest too: he or she must alsobe committed to the job you are trying to do, it’sunlikely to be easy for them either!

3 Understand the problem: help your CEO to be totallyclear (so that they can explain to the managementteam with specific, quantifiable examples) why theproblems they want to fix are the ones that willdeliver the change that the business needs.

4 Avoid best practice solutions: don’t let your CEOfind the answers in a management book. Berigorous in expecting them to define exactly howand why different management behaviours, the‘rules’, will fix the problems.

5 Involve the team: it’s vital that the seniormanagement team buys into the new rules too. This can be tough because it usually requires anacceptance of their own previous leadership failings.

6 Rely on data, not gut feel: the key to thisacceptance is validating why the new rules willactually work, through hard data, and you need todo it quickly.

7 Create effective measures: the CEO and themanagement team need to define the measuresthat will show whether or not the organisation is(and they as individuals are) ‘living’ the new rules.

8 Don’t dictate: your role throughout this process isnot to prescribe rules or measures, the leader (andsubsequently the management team) must defineand own them, but you should suggest additions.

9 Be prepared: this can be an uncomfortable processfor everyone involved, including you! It alsorequires long term commitment to new ways ofleading people if change is to be sustainable.

Let the measures do the talking: if you’ve got themeasures right, you’ll never have to tell your CEOthey’re failing because those measures will do it foryou – and, more important, help fix the problem.

For further information:www.jara-management.com

www.thehrdirector.com Advertisement

HRD Issue 63

35

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With relentless change increasingly the norm, in customer priorities,competitive offerings, technological advances, and economic trends,fortune favours those companies that can anticipate and respond quicklyand accurately to short-term urgencies. To thrive, much less survive,organisations need greater agility, adaptability plus speed.

How does an organisation best build this capability? And how can HRprofessionals be most effective in supporting senior executives to translatestrategies into operational realities at high speed? Given scarce time andresources, there are three areas where HR leaders should focus their efforts:rapid re-skilling of the workforce, collaborative learning, and the use of analytics.

The economic downturn and the global realignment of skills and workforcesthat is now taking place point to the need for companies to rapidly revise orupgrade employees’ skills. In many countries, for example, millions of jobvacancies exist in spite of the recession and high unemployment rates, oneindicator of a mismatch between the skills of available workers and the skillsneeded to succeed in a changing economy. Moreover, with companiesincreasingly pursuing growth by expanding abroad or off-shoring certainactivities, they need a workforce and culture that can tailor strategies for avariety of regional markets.

Re-skilling can occur through selective hiring, but it also depends on morecollaborative enterprise learning. Traditional corporate learning takes place informal classrooms on infrequent occasions, where knowledge retention andtransfer rates are never better than 40 percent. To create an agile workforcecapable of responding faster to marketplace shifts, HR should add informallearning and knowledge-sharing activities that are accessible in real time.

At telecommunications provider BT, for example, the innovative“Dare2Share” programme allows employees to create a podcast ordocument on any topic, from using equipment safely to tackling a

challenging customer situation. The approach is equivalent to an enterprise-wide YouTube system with a strong social dimension, encouraging peopleto experiment, collaborate, and share their experiences in engaging ways.Dare2Share enables BT to become a more adaptive organisation, harvestingfrontline experience and moving it into knowledge bases that quicklytransmit to the entire staff.

Another example of new learning technologies that promote agility isMicrosoft’s “Academy Mobile,” which helps the company’s salespeople getup to speed on a particular product or solution so that they can capitalisefaster on customer opportunities. The Academy provides fresh informationon what other salespeople are doing in the field to produce successfulresults. Content comes from product experts and can also be harvestedfrom conference calls, presentations, and third-party vendors, then turnedinto short podcasts and videocasts.

Agile organisations also use analytics, data-driven insights that are used toshape business decisions, to gain understanding across all the dimensionsof their business, including the human capital dimension. A new generationof HR analytics can help companies become agile by more reliablyidentifying the organisational capabilities they need the most. Newmeasurement tools improve a company’s ability to measure the adoption ofcomplex efforts such as large-scale change programmes. With these tools,companies can be more scientific in the way they track their progresstoward developing an agile culture. A change acceptance predictive model,for instance, helps companies predict how workforces in differentgeographies will embrace the kinds of change needed to be more agile.

Opinion: HR’s role in change management www.thehrdirector.com

Aimie Smith Chapple, Executive Partner - Accenture

36

Agility is keyThe Human Resources function must play a key role in helping organisations become agile and adaptive to

change. Aimie Smith Chapple, Executive Partner at Accenture explains.

opinion

The economic downturn andthe global realignment of skillsand workforces that is nowtaking place point to the needfor companies to rapidly reviseor upgrade employees’ skills


www.accenture.com

Introduction: Innovation in HR

Dr. Debbie Buckley-Golder, Programme Director - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

38

While some businesses have unfortunately had totake steps to reduce staff numbers, others havefound that changes to recruitment and traininghave allowed them to strengthen the businessand, in some cases, adapt and seize new marketopportunities. Human resources professionalshave been central to this shift in workplacedynamics, helping businesses to maximise theirpotential by ensuring the workforce is equippedwith the best knowledge and skills to enable theorganisation to survive and thrive in thischallenging economic environment.

They have also been at the frontline of influentialdecision making, such as whether companiesshould continue graduate training or internshipschemes during a recession. With big names such

as Marks & Spencer, the Co-operative Group andBT signalling an ongoing commitment to thisactivity, other smaller businesses will also decidethat graduate opportunities should remain ontheir management agendas too.

A programme which has a 35 year history ofsupporting businesses is Knowledge TransferPartnerships. KTP provides grant funding whichcontributes to the cost of a collaborative projectbetween a business and academic team, tostimulate innovation within the business and helpachieve real strategic change. Funding is providedby Government, and is led by the TechnologyStrategy Board. Each KTP project recruits a recentlyqualified graduate to work on the project withinthe business, supported by both an academic and

HR directors and theirteams could play an

influential role in helpingto speed recovery for UK

businesses by findinginnovative ways to unlock

the true potential of theworkforce, says Dr.

Debbie Buckley-Golder,Programme Director for

Knowledge TransferPartnerships (KTP).

An injection of innovation

It is clear thatequipping theworkforce tobetter understandand communicatea company’sobjectives can be a valuable tool inthe businessarmoury

A large percentage of the UK’s smaller businesses are already making

workforce-related changes in order to cope with the ongoing economic

crisis, according to recent research by the Department for Business,

Innovation and Skills.


39

business supervisor, to transfer much neededknowledge and expertise into the business.

Businesses which have undertaken KTPs are foundin all sectors and range from very small or nichebusinesses to large multinational corporations.There are many examples where the delivery ofbusiness objectives is heavily influenced by theeffectiveness of the HR function. Many KTPprojects are either wholly or partly focused onunlocking the true potential of human resourcesin order to bring a host of wider business benefits.

Fosters Bakery in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, is anexcellent example. This family-owned businessemploys more than 200 people and in recentyears found itself dealing with both soaring rawmaterial costs (e.g flours, fats and oils) and anumber of persistent HR challenges which werelimiting its ability to grow. The management teamat Fosters teamed-up with academics fromSheffield Hallam University who were keen to gaininsight regarding HR practice in the SME industrialsector, and an ‘associate’, Sarah Carmody (nowSarah Taylor), a graduate in Human ResourceManagement from Keele University.

When they embarked on the KTP in 2006, Fostersvision for the future was to grow, invest inresearch, and develop innovative products.However, this aspiration was threatened by anumber of serious HR problems; including highlabour turnover, high levels of absence, poor skillslevels and a lack of HR knowledge and expertise.

The overriding purpose of the KTP was, therefore,to develop and embed an HR strategy supportedby new HR systems, policies and managementcapability. This involved carrying out an audit ofcurrent practices, as well as conducting aStrategy Workshop with the company directors,to ensure the HR approach was being alignedwith core business goals.

Key action taken, facilitated in-house by AssociateSarah, has included the implementation of an ‘E-Days’ holiday and absence management system.This simple system is internet based and allowsemployees to book their holidays from home,also enhancing their ICT capabilities. This hasbeen coupled with closer monitoring of absence,return to work meetings and disciplinary actiontaken against employees with persistentunauthorised absences.

To help better address training and informationneeds, the bakery also introduced a ManagedOn-line Learning Environment (MOLE) systemsupplied by the Regional Food Group forYorkshire and Humberside. Fosters employees donot use a computer as part of their ‘everyday’ job,so the introduction of the MOLE system has

made essential training, such as Health and Safetyand Food Hygiene, accessible through sharedcomputers in communal areas. This has againenhanced employees’ ICT skills and hasintroduced the concept of using a computer tomany employees who were apprehensive at firstabout using such systems.

Crucially, line managers have all been fully trainedin numerous aspects of people management(appraisals, return to work interviews aftersickness, what makes a good manager training,Investors in People training). Managers previouslyhad little ‘management’ training before the KTP,having been promoted to managers, based moreon their technical bakery ability and length ofservice, rather than their people andmanagement skills. The majority of Fostersemployees have now completed or are in theprocess of completing an NVQ and have anagreed career pathway, including management.This resulted in the company winning an LSCCelebration of Learning and Skills award (CoLaS)in the category ‘employer’s outstandingcontribution to learning and skills’ 2009.

This combined activity has contributed to staffturnover decreasing by more than 10 percentand sick pay reduced by more than £10,000 overa 12 month period. Staff retention and moralehas also been vastly improved.

Such was the success of the KTP, Sarah was alsoinvited to join the company permanently as HRManager and has just completed her MSC inHuman Resource Management. She also lecturesonce a week at Sheffield Hallam University,sharing her experience of knowledge transfer, aswell as maintaining an academic link for thebusiness in the longer term.

Sarah told me: “KTP has instilled within thecompany a powerful commitment to personaldevelopment, plus a willingness to trialinnovative solutions to existing business issues.For example, we have explored the employmentof both migrant labour and ex-offenders,recruitment strategies which have resulted in thecompany being shortlisted for the CBI HumanCapital Awards (Education, Skills and Leadershipcategory) and winning the Food Manufacturer‘Diversity in Recruitment’ Award. We are alsoworking to share our experience, for the benefitof other businesses, through the Centre forIndividual and Organisational Development atSheffield Hallam University.

“It is difficult to quantify the results of the KTP inexact figures, but it has definitely prompted aculture change and an acceptance of the crucialrole of the HR function within a growingbusiness. We have also maintained our

investment in training despite the recession. Forexample, two of our managers spent three dayswith the Institute of Directors in September, toundertake the diploma in company direction. Weknow these people could be the companydirectors of the future, so we want to ensure theyare well equipped for the job. The KTP has helpedto provide the foundations for future companygrowth. The company’s strengths are itsversatility and its production capability, but it alsohas a great team of people who have the skills tosupport the future direction”.

It is clear that equipping the workforce to betterunderstand and communicate a company’sobjectives can be a valuable tool in the businessarmoury. Another organisation which used KTP asa mechanism for boosting staff knowledge andexpertise was Brighton-based digital marketingagency SiteVisibility. This fast-growing companyembarked on a KTP project in 2008, working withthe University of Brighton and BusinessManagement graduate, Shirin Maurer. As part of aprogramme of activity, designed to improve theirbusiness processes and internal communications,SiteVisibility specifically focused on developingnew ways for staff to share their digitalknowledge and expertise.

A key aspect of Shirin’s work was to achieveimprovements throughout the team by settingup new processes, whereby staff could moreeasily share their digital marketing knowledge.This included the creation of an internal Wiki pagewhich allowed staff to post innovative techniquesand processes that all staff could share.

In addition, Shirin set up regular round tablediscussions for staff to share their search engineoptimisation (SEO) techniques and skills, a keyservice offering for the business. This led to the

Many graduatesplay a valuable rolein helping up-skillexisting employeesduring their timewith a company,with many stayingon as permanentteam members

creation of a multitude of new ideas andrecommendations that SiteVisibility couldprovide to its existing customers and offerto future prospects. A skills matrix was alsocreated as a result of ongoing staff liaison,which allowed senior staff to identify skillsgaps that could then be plugged withinthe team and from recruitment.

The impact of these internal changes led to avast improvement in both the base level andthe sharing of advanced SEO knowledgethroughout the company. This in turnsignificantly improved the consistency andquality of work which is critical for its UK andinternational business prospects.

Jason Woodford, SiteVisibility Sales &Marketing Director, told me: “Since westarted the KTP our business processes andoverall team knowledge has vastly improved.We are now much better organised and theresults of our work are more predictablewhich has improved our confidence andpro-activity when developing commercialproposals for our customers. It is nocoincidence that we have also beenenjoying significantly improved profitability,reduced business stress and increasedcustomer satisfaction during 2009.”

Many graduates play a valuable role inhelping up-skill existing employees duringtheir time with a company, with manystaying on as permanent team membersafter the KTP itself has ended.

Leon Barauh joined Philips Electronics UK asan Associate in 2005, as part of a KTP

designed to develop a new, flexible e-learning platform, which could be used byboth staff and customers. With input fromthe Bartletts School of Graduate Studies atUniversity College London, Philips developedan online training platform focused on itslighting products and services. The result hasbeen a better trained workforce who are nowincreasingly able to sell leading-edgetechnical products with confidence andadvise customers accordingly. Leon himselfhas achieved chartered status with theInstitute of Lighting Engineers as part of theKTP and has since accepted a permanentposition with the company as CustomerServices Technical Advisor.

Leon told me: “Taking part in KTP was agreat opportunity for me, helping me todevelop personally, as well as gain valuablecommercial experience. I certainly believesuch partnership programmes can opennew doors to fresh graduates.”

KTP company supervisor, Mike Simpson,Technical & Design Director at PhilipsLighting added: “Previously we only had apaper-based correspondence course whichwas in need of updating, due totechnology changes. At the same time, wewished to change the delivery mechanismto e-learning, using the experience of theUniversity in this area. The KTP was verysuccessful, helping us to boost staff skilllevels which is likely to translate into highersales of our more technical products.”

The government has long recognised theneed to encourage SMEs to getincreasingly involved in graduaterecruitment, as well as boost knowledgetransfer and encourage innovation. SinceApril 2009 additional funding has beenmade available via KTP to help companiesof 250 employees or less to benefit fromthe initiative. Projects can vary in lengthfrom one to three years (a classic KTP) andfrom 10 to 40 weeks (a shorter KTP),depending on the needs of the businessand the desired outcomes.

Introduction: Innovation in HR www.thehrdirector.com

Dr. Debbie Buckley-Golder, Programme Director - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

40

City slickerA recent YouGov survey named Sheffield

as the UK’s capital of flexible working.

David Fletcher, Director of Business

Investment at the City’s development

company Creativesheffield, explains why

Sheffield came out on top.

The YouGov survey recognised Sheffield as the mostforward thinking city in the UK when it comes toflexible working. It revealed that Sheffield has themost progressive set of employers in the country,where 32 percent of employers in the city offer theirentire staff some kind of flexible working arrangementand 63 percent of companies embrace the concept offlexible working to some extent. The survey alsohighlighted a widespread belief that implementingflexible working benefits the employer, as well as itsemployees. It found that 72 percent of businessesbelieve flexible working boosts company morale, 53percent think it improves productivity and a similarmajority, 58 percent, think it boosts staff retention.

There are many companies around the city looking forinnovative ways to offer flexible working to theiremployees, including VEN Management who hasimplemented a Cloud Computing system. This systemallows employees remote access to their officethrough a secure network, letting them use MicrosoftOffice applications as if they were sitting at their desks.

A report by Oxford Economics stated that Sheffield isone of few big cities less vulnerable to the creditcrunch than the Great Britain average, and flexibleworking is a crucial part to this. City developmentcompany Creativesheffield is leading a number ofinitiatives to encourage businesses to offer flexibleworking, such as the Digital Region project. TheDigital Region project aims to give open access tosuperfast broadband of up to 25mb/sec, putting thecity three to four years ahead of other cities in Europe,in terms of broadband internet speeds. High speedbroadband is crucial to businesses wishing to offerflexible working and remote access to computernetworks for employees.

Roaming Wi-Fi is also more readily available inSheffield than other parts of the country, making itmuch easier for people to work and meet in the manycafes and public spaces across the city. This report isthe latest to prove that Sheffield is becoming a moreand more influential part of the UK economy, as thecity is moving up in a number of independentrankings as a place to do business.

For further information:www.creativesheffield.co.uk

The overridingpurpose of the KTPwas, therefore, todevelop and embedan HR strategysupported by newHR systems,policies andmanagementcapability


www.ktponline.org.uk

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Our practical tools and training activities help to build and maintain an engaged workforce, while our leading-edge research and unrivalled networking opportunities help to build your business capability.

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Rolls-Royce plc competes in the power systemsand services market for the civil aerospace, defenceaerospace, marine and energy industries. With trulyglobal reach, it is a global engineering companythat manufactures in 20 countries and has acustomer service presence in 30 more and employs38,000 people worldwide. It numbers among itsclients 600 airlines, 4,000 corporate and utilityaircraft and helicopter operators, 160 armed forces,2,000 marine customers, including 70 navies and ithas energy customers in 120 countries. Withannual sales of almost seven and a half billionpounds and a firm and announced order book ofover £26 billion, its future pipeline is strong.

The brand is driven by the single organisingthought “to be trusted to deliver excellence” andthis applies as much to its internal operations as itdoes to its promise to customers. The companyintroduced a Functional Excellence program in allareas in 2006. The HR leadership team began torestructure the function following a now commonmodel, with a UK Shared Service Centre (SSC)based in Derby, Centres of Excellence (COE) andHR Business Partners (HRBP), all underpinned bySAP technology.

While a strong start was made in implementing theUK HR Shared Services element of the model, both

the CoE and HR Business Partner elements wereless well developed. When the new Global Head ofHR, Tom Brown, was appointed in the summer of2007 he began a review of the function’sperformance and benchmarked it against thecompetition. He concluded that while the broaddirection was right, there was need to focus onbetter execution to improve both efficiency andeffectiveness. A key area of focus was theeffectiveness of his HR BP teams and he asked forproposals from a number of firms to design andrun a development centre for the HRBPs.

Orion Partners, a specialist HR transformation anddevelopment consultancy, was one of the firmsapproached. As Jane Saunders, a Partner with thefirm, says of their proposal, “We felt that whilefocusing on developing the HRBPs would bebeneficial, there was an opportunity to do more.There was a need to improve the way in whichthe organisation was working across the newboundaries that had been created by thetransformation. We believed that Rolls Roycewould be better served by looking at thecapabilities required for the whole of HR. Wesuggested that we work with the in-house teamto develop a capability framework for the wholefunction and then design development centresthat would allow them to assess the whole

department’s needs by level, rather than byfunction. There is such an opportunity to bringpeople together across boundaries duringdevelopment events like these and we felt thisapproach would add much more value.” Brownagreed and awarded the contract to Orion.

Orion started by looking at what the companyalready had in place, and then worked with theleadership team to identify and interviewindividuals who were seen to be role models forthe best of what the HR function had to offer.Orion compared what came out of thoseinterviews with its own HR Success Profile. This isa template the company developed andreinforced through its work with successful HRprofessionals that helps identify ‘the differencethat makes the difference’. What emerged forRolls-Royce was a framework that covered fourmajor areas of skills and attributes: mindset,business acumen, generic competencies such ascommunications and people leadership, andtechnical HR skills. Mindset is the aspect that isusually overlooked in more traditionalapproaches to competency frameworks and itcovers the underlying attitudes of the mostsuccessful people. In Rolls-Royce’s case this wastheir passion, their independence and their focuson execution.

Unlocking potentialWhen new Global Head of HR at Roll Royce plc, Tom Brown, was appointed in 2007, he began a review of the

function’s performance and benchmarked it against the competition. He concluded that, while the broad

direction was right, there was need to focus on better execution, to improve both efficiency and effectiveness.

Jane Saunders, Partner at Orion Partners explores.

Case study: Innovation in HR

Jane Saunders, Partner - Orion Partners

42

Once the framework was agreed, Orion beganmapping out a matrix by role, showing thedegree of competence needed at each of threelevels; Director, Manager and IndividualContributor, across the three functions; HRBPs,COEs and Shared Services. In this, Rolls-Royce’sdesire for excellence came through again insetting the competence bar at an aspirationallevel for all roles, reflecting the need to stretchand develop the function rather than be satisfiedwith the status quo. As Tom Brown recalls,“staying with what we had was not an option. Myultimate goal is to create a function that allmembers will be proud to be part of. This startswith sending a clear message about the desiredstandard of performance which this provided theopportunity to do”.

The capability framework was first used forselection purposes. The capabilities were used tostructure assessments made by independentassessors who made recommendations based ona mixture of individual interviews and linemanager assessments. Meanwhile Orion’s designteam, working closely with the HR ExcellenceProgramme Manager and Rolls-Royce’s GlobalHead of Resourcing and Development, used theframework to set to work on designing acomprehensive, development centre.

The first group to go through the developmentcentre was Brown’s global HR Executive. Theywould test the robustness of the centre and alsoprepare themselves to participate in futurecentres as in-house assessors, alongside the Orionassessors. Working in a fictitious companycreated for the development centre, that boremany similarities to Rolls-Royce, such as its globalreach and its cultural mindset, they participated

in a challenging set of exercises. Some werewritten, others tested their performance asindividuals, while a number showed how theyinteracted in groups. All of the exercises weredesigned to mirror closely the situations andcontext they would actually encounter in theireveryday work in Rolls-Royce.

Once the internal assessors had been trained inboth the general assessment skills andmethodology and the specific exercises to beused, the programme was then rolled out tocover 150 senior HR Professionals-and run inmajor training centres in Derby, Indianapolis andBerlin. Participants came from around the world,including the UK, USA, Germany and Norway.

The end result for the senior HR leadership teamwas a clear picture of what skills and capabilitiestheir people had and what their developmentpriorities were. For individuals, detailed feedbackgave them a clear basis from which to plan theirown development. For the function as a whole,the experience of going through thedevelopment centre together gave them acommon language and a clear focus on whatmatters for the future in terms of theirperformance. It also went a long way towardsbreaking down some of the potential barriersbetween the different parts of HR, creating onefunction working effectively together to servetheir clients.

The senior HR team at Rolls-Royce are nowequipped to take this forward themselves. Theyhave already adapted the capability frameworkinto the wider Rolls Royce competencyframework and are using it for talent planningand to address development needs. They alsoplan to use it as an assessment tool for futuremovements within the function.


www.orion-partners.com

For the function as a whole, theexperience of goingthrough thedevelopment centretogether gave thema common languageand a clear focus onwhat matters for the future


43

Be innovative... attend this eventDon’t forget, the European HR

Director’s Business Summit in on

19 – 20 January 2010, at ICC,

Birmingham, Broad Street.

theHRDIRECTOR is the only media partner forthe European HR Director’s Business Summittaking place from 19th-20th January 2010, atthe ICC, Birmingham, Broad Street. This is theleading exhibition, revealing the latest HRideas, issues and innovations. Every year theevent delivers powerful insights andguaranteed solutions into the challenges youface as an HR professional. This event deliversexpert speaker addresses, presentations, casestudies, seminars, workshops, interactivediscussions and a focused exhibition coveringthe entire human resource spectrum.

The streamed event programme will help youdevelop the HR function within yourorganisation through topics including:Engaging top talent in turbulent times,Managing change and transformation projects,managing HR across multiple jurisdictions -European, global and regional HR strategies,adding value and aligning the HR function withyour business goals developing the role of HRin your restructured organisation legislative HRand the latest legal HR change, plusoutsourcing and shared services provision.

There is a roster of top notch speakers at theevent including: Tom Stewart, LeadingManagement author. Dave Ulrich, Professor ofBusiness at the University of Michigan and aPartner at the RBL Group, a consulting firmfocused on helping organisations and leadersdeliver value. Julian Birkinshaw, Professor ofStrategic and International Management; SeniorFellow, Advanced Institute of ManagementResearch, Liane Hornsey, HR Director EMEA,Google. David Fairhurst, Senior Vice President,Chief People Officer and Matthew Brearley, HRDirector at Vodafone.

The European HR Director’s Business Summit is the leading exhibition, conference andnetworking event for senior Human ResourceProfessionals, revealing the latest HR. Every yearwe deliver powerful insights and guaranteedsolutions into the challenges you face as an HRprofessional.

Organised by: World Trade Group t: 020 7202 7500 // w: www.wtgevents.com

The moral case for diversity is well understood: better representation ofminorities across the seven diversity strands within your workforce is a fairand inclusive way to do business. But, for the majority of businesses, diversityis still little more than an obligation, or a chance to demonstrate corporatesocial responsibility for the good of the brand. The UK will only truly embracediversity when it understands the business value diversity delivers.

The problem is that value is difficult to pin down. Put simply, people fromdifferent backgrounds will bring new perspectives to age-old challenges,new solutions to problems, and fresh life to ongoing debates. Consider thecurrent economic crisis: Harriet Harman wants to put women on the boardsof bailed-out banks, believing that the testosterone-fuelled environment wasthe key contributor to the financial meltdown. She is implying that differentapproaches and mindsets would have reduced risk, and I certainly agree withthat. But while her attack made welcome headlines for the cause, we need tounderstand diversity extends beyond gender.

Would women from the same backgrounds as the men they joined onboards have made much of a difference? Well, maybe. But I think they wouldhave still fallen prey to the concept of “groupthink”, whereby groups ofsimilar people tend to try to make decisions without properly testing andevaluating ideas, because they want to reduce conflict. Individual creativityand independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group acceptance andcohesiveness. If you’re earning millions of pounds sitting on a board, rockingthe boat could threaten your position, so you’d be more likely to tow the lineto protect that mansion in Surrey. Yes, I know I sound bitter.

In the UK, the diversity agenda has been historically guided by legalobligation or corporate social responsibility. But those drivers will only take usso far towards achieving diversity. The real changes will come whenorganisations realise they can derive a genuine competitive advantage fromachieving diverse representation at leadership level. Understanding thatcompetitive advantage starts with understanding the simple fact that

diversity of groups leads to new innovations and approaches, and ultimatelya better understanding of customers. That breeds new ways to achieve goals,new ways to deliver more effectively, new ways to save money, and newways to make money. In reality, diversity, like everything in business,eventually comes back to money.

Adam Smith, the famous economist, introduced the concept of “the invisiblehand”, whereby the businessman (or woman) “pursuing his/her own interest,frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he/shereally intends to promote it”. I believe that concept loosely applies toincreasing workforce diversity, particularly at leadership level. In pursuit ofprofit, organisations will increasingly come to realise the strength ofcollective difference, and be inexorably drawn towards achieving minorityrepresentation. The invisible hand will help us achieve diversity, particularly atsenior level. But that’s going to take a very long time, and forward-thinkingorganisations can’t sit around waiting for it to happen.

While organisations are being pushed toward diversity, we all need to playour part in pulling them towards the opportunity to achieve competitiveadvantage. Human Resources departments have traditionally been the“diversity police”, but that role must evolve into a more positive “diversitychampion” position. HR professionals need to understand the business casefor diversity, and articulate it in such a way that it wins the engagement ofsenior stakeholders. That business case starts with recognising the strengthof collective difference.

An example is the L’Oreal acquisition of Maybelline. L’Oreal sought to changethe Maybelline’s workforce makeup, proactively bringing in people ofdifferent ethnicities, that would have traditionally been excluded. There wereprobably a variety of contributing factors, but in just five years Maybellinehad become the biggest cosmetics brand in the world. The value ofdiversity? I certainly think so. I’m looking forward to a new normal: wheremore and more companies proactively capitalise on the diversity advantageas part of their business strategy.

Opinion: Innovation in HR www.thehrdirector.com

Raj Tulsiani, CEO - Green Park

44

The diversity advantageThe UK will only truly embrace diversity when it understands the business value diversity delivers, and that

includes in the boardroom. So says Raj Tulsiani, CEO of interim and resourcing firm, Green Park.

opinion

In the UK, the diversity agendahas been historically guided bylegal obligation or corporatesocial responsibility. But thosedrivers will only take us so far


www.green-park.co.uk

www.changeboard.comour network also includes consultantsboard.com

Changeboard is an hr and career development resource. We provide hr jobs to the global human resources community, as well as being a space for everyone interested in sharing ideas and information about the world of work. We provide the tools, knowledge and networks to assist and support career-minded individuals throughout their career life cycle.

www.changeboard.com/career

• 2000+ HR jobs

• Nationwide HR roles

• FTSE 250 companies, professional service fi rms

and all major HR recruitment companies

• ABCe audited

Introduction: Analysis and reporting

Mark Thompson, Managing Director - COA

46

As the HR guru David Ulrich said in the HarvardBusiness Review in 1997, "HR should not bedefined by what it does, but by what itdelivers…results that enrich the organisation'svalue to customers, investors and employees”.These are wise words and as Ulrich states, it is vitalfor the HR function to move away fromprocessing employees to providing a morestrategic value to the organisation. This strategicapproach can only be achieved through clear andaccurate HR measurement, analysis and reporting.

The number of companies in the FTSE 250 with aHR Director on the main board remains low. Ifpeople are a company’s most important assetthen you would expect the person who was

responsible for this to be sitting at the top table. Ifhe or she isn't, then we can conclude that eitherpeople are not such an important asset after all orthat the HR function is not taken as seriously as itshould be. The latter is the most probable.

So, why is HR not taken as seriously as say, financeor operations? The answer lies in the fact thatorganisations are like machines. They suck inresources including land, labour, materials andfinance and spit out products and services asefficiently as possible. To do this requires tangiblefinancial, production, logistical, sales andmarketing measures. HR measurement is far lesstangible and so its value is not as easily recognised.And when organisations do recognise the value of

“Measure twice and cut once" are the first

words that gethammered into every

apprentice carpenter orplumber. As Mark

Thompson, ManagingDirector of COA

Solutions explains, HRprofessionals would be

wise to heed thisadvice too.

HR - analysingthe fine detail

HR, and notfinance, needs to own themeasurement ofpeople and deliverinsight into howpeople add value to the organisation,in line with theorganisation’s goals

As it stands, the value of people is still not fully understood and reported

on. With the economic climate and Government policy forcing budget

cuts, redundancies remain the first cost cutting measure, often without an

understanding of the true worth people bring to an organisation.

• G Dec HRD63 p46-55 23/2/10 13:57


47

measuring HR, there tends to be other barriers inthe way of actually doing it such as the cost, timeand importantly, the know-how of doing it anddoing it well.

So, the HR function needs to be taken seriously. Itthen needs to earn its place at the top table byproving its strategic worth. Only then can HReffectively contribute towards an organisation’sbusiness objectives.

HR, and not finance, needs to own themeasurement of people and deliver insight intohow people add value to the organisation, in linewith the organisation’s goals. To achieve this, HRshouldn’t try to measure and report on everythingstraight away as this can lead to dilution of the keymetrics and ultimately, confusion. Initially focus on anumber of key measurables and then steadilyincrease the number of reportable metrics.Ultimately, HR needs to be in the position toaccurately and intelligibly answer questions such as:• What is the net revenue per employee?• Are we getting a return on staff training?• Are we recruiting the right type of people?• What are our absenteeism levels?• In which departments are we overstaffed or

understaffed?• How does staff performance compare to 12

months ago?• How can we improve staff performance?• How engaged are staff?

A good starting point is to measure that which hasa productivity output measure attached to it and,where possible, this should be attached to theindividual or to the team or group. It may be netrevenue or margin per employee, cost per invoiceprocessed, cost per completed project or whateverelse can be attached to a quantifiable measure.

The return on investment (ROI) of a particularemployee can also be calculated, providingvaluable insight, especially when redundanciesare inevitable. For example, the cost to hire, trainand retain a person in sales can be measuredagain the amount of revenue they havegenerated within a particular time frame. Similarlythe costs to employ and retain a marketingmanager could be measured against revenuederived from marketing activity.

If investment into recruitment and staffdevelopment is to be retained, or even enhancedin order to meet performance goals, financialmanagers need to be persuaded in the languageof comparisons and measurement. Execute alimited but focused range of effective metrics thatcan demonstrate the cause and effect of HRinterventions such as training courses. Forinstance, HR can calculate and measure employeeperformance and development both before and

after a training course e.g. has revenue peremployee increased? Have customer satisfactionlevels improved? Has productivity increased?

The analysis can also be used to more effectivelytarget training needs, concentrating on trainingcourses where they are most needed and whichdeliver the best return rather than spreading themthinly and ineffectually across the organisation.

With the cost of absenteeism to UK businessamounting to £13.2 billion per annum in lostoutput according to the CBI, employee absenceis a significant risk to an organisation’s operations.Therefore, HR needs to ensure it can accuratelyand comprehensively measure absence levels(and the root causes of absence) and report onthis information at board level. Any potentialdisruption to the business due to absenteeismcan then be successfully managed and the rootcauses can be more effectively tackled. Forexample, if 70 percent of absence is due tomusculoskeletal reasons, there is a case for theorganisation to invest in improved workingconditions and heath and safety advice tailoredtowards reducing musculoskeletal injuries.

One such council in Yorkshire did just this. Afteranalysing its staff sickness levels, it discovered thatthe single biggest cause of staff sickness wasmusculoskeletal problems amongst social servicesstaff, many of whom did heavy lifting as part oftheir jobs. The second biggest cause ofabsenteeism was stress. With this information tohand, the council implemented a number ofmeasures including providing physiotherapy tostaff with musculoskeletal complaints, setting up astress helpline and partnering with anoccupational health company. By effectivelytargeting its resources, the council has reduced itsabsence levels, ultimately improving productivity.

The ‘Employee-Customer-Profit Chain’ modeldeveloped by Sears in the late 1990s, whichhighlights the relationship between howemployee engagement leads to revenue gains isstill held as the benchmark of organisationalmeasurement. There is a lot to be said for therelationship between employee engagementand productivity, however, all too often, the Searsapproach is simply lifted and plonked onto anorganisation without much, if any, thought. Thereis then disappointment and surprise when theSears model is not a magic bullet. HRprofessionals need to remember that employeeengagement is complex and is the result of anumber of factors (both internal and external).

Even though engagement is complex, this doesnot mean that it cannot and should not bemeasured. It can and should be analysed andreported on as it is crucial to creating a more

effective workplace and improving staffperformance.

In some cases, collating basic information into aspreadsheet and doing a simple equation issufficient for analysing certain HR metrics such asnet revenue per employee. However when itcomes to more complicated and detailedmeasures, HR professionals may need thesupport of specialised HR and corporateperformance management software systems.Corporate performance management, anextension and broadening of traditional businessintelligence, is an umbrella term covering theprocesses, methodologies, metrics and systemsneeded to measure and manage the performanceof an organisation. CPM systems encompass arange of key functions to help an organisation tomonitor, understand and improve its performance.

HR professionals can use HR analytics tools,which form part of the CPM family, to delve intoits HR data to find, measure and report on arange of information, thereby taking the donkeywork out of HR analysis. By extracting data fromexisting applications and various operationalsystems, HR analytics tools provide HR with acomplete, consolidated 360 degree view ofemployees including demographics, training,levels of performance and absenteeism levels.Analytics software can also analyse and report onthe effectiveness of HR measures such asrecruitment strategies.

Law firm, Browne Jacobson, uses its HCM systemto more closely monitor HR issues such asabsenteeism. The company has also tailored theHCM system to assist with recruitment. Byrecording the assessment scores of potentialtrainee solicitors at its Open Days, the HR team

The return oninvestment (ROI) of a particularemployee can alsobe calculated,providing valuableinsight, especiallywhen redundanciesare inevitable

• G Dec HRD63 p46-55 23/2/10 13:57

Introduction: Analysis and reporting www.thehrdirector.com

Mark Thompson, Managing Director - COA

48

can easily produce a series of reports whichanalyse their performance and suitabilityfor the business. This has helped to shaperecruitment strategy and make moreinformed employment decisions.

HR analytics tools can even notify HR of anyemerging issues that could impact theorganisation, such as a steady increase inabsenteeism or a drop in a particulardepartment’s performance. HR can thendrill-down through the data to explore thereasons behind the emergence of theissues and work with management to takeremedial action so that the organisation isback on track as soon as possible. In fact, aNorth of England Council has saved £1.5million through reduced sicknessabsenteeism, the second highest drop ofany local authority in a single yearnationwide, directly as a result ofimplementing HR analytics tools. Suchsubstantial cost savings can contributedirectly to the bottom line.

Advances in technology have even made itpossible to effectively measure employeeengagement. Employee engagementsoftware can accurately measure, cultivateand manage an employee’s well-beingagainst pre-defined key performanceindicators (KPIs). The information used bythe employee engagement software tomeasure and manage levels of staffsatisfaction is typically generated from theresults of staff surveys. This engagement software will interrogateand extract a range of HR data and thenproduce a number of key reports on areassuch as employee development, teamengagement, new starter satisfaction andleadership capability, enabling organisations

to proactively and more effectively manageand retain their workforce.

HR professionals need to be placingthemselves at the heart of the business inorder to contribute to and influence businessstrategies. However they can only do sowhen there is a rigorous understanding oftheir strategic role and how they contributeto corporate performance.

HR analysis and reporting is therefore keyto providing management with a clearunderstanding of the value of HR and howit can be used to underpin decisionmaking. The value of each employee to thecompany, the cost and root causes ofabsenteeism and how performance levelsrelate to staff engagement and retentioncan all influence business strategy and soneed to be measured and reported on atthe highest level.

As it is the HR director’s role to ensure HR istaken seriously and earns its place at thetop table, it is also the HR director whoneeds to spearhead HR measurement andanalysis in his or her organisation. With anumber of key, focused HR metrics tohand, even the most skeptical chiefexecutive can’t ignore the true value of HRand its role in organisational strategy.

HR professionalsneed to be placingthemselves at theheart of thebusiness in orderto contribute to andinfluence businessstrategies


www.coasolutions.com

10

Top Ten Tips

OptimisingworkforcemanagementsystemsAndrew Crosbie, Director, Stanley

Communications, shares his Top Ten Tips

on Optimising workforce management

systems for improved efficiency.

1 Choose a system that provides complete HR, timeand attendance and payroll functionality andintegration and that can be easily adapted as yourbusiness changes.

2 Ensure proper training is given to all system users,both management and employees, to ensure theyget the maximum benefit from the system and itsfeatures.

3 Ensure you understand your business’s overallworkforce demographic for example full timesalaried, part time or flexi-time staff; contract,temporary or agency staff; the proportion of homeor remote workers.

4 Ensure that actual hours worked are closelymonitored, that arriving late and leaving early isrecorded and that you have a policy in place thatencourages and/or rewards good time-keeping.

5 Monitor the cost of absenteeism and set a targetand timescale for reducing it. Achieving thisrequires visibility into every form of absencetracking and ongoing identification and reportingof trends or patterns of abuse.

6 Try to differentiate between short and long termabsences. Have specific policies and sophisticatedmetrics in place to deal with repeated absences.

7 Keep abreast of employment legislation andintroduce automated workforce managementsystems that maintain compliance.

8 Empowering employees to take control of theirown time management can have major benefits.

9 Be flexible. Offering flexible working makes anemployer a more attractive proposition to a widerpool of employees and is seen as a key motivator.

Put as much, if not more time and effort intonurturing talent and encouraging, motivating andrewarding the best people in the business as youdo tackling poor performers and under-achievers.

For further information:www.stanleyworkforce.co.uk

• G Dec HRD63 p46-55 23/2/10 13:57

Leading organisations in the spotlight

Infohrm’s recent Global Workforce Planning Surveyprofiled leading workforce planners and their bestpractice planning techniques. Thirty-twoorganisations made the grade and were labelledLeading organisations. To qualify as Leading,organisations were required to meet four key criteria:• The business sees workforce planning as highly

valuable• An ability to demonstrate the impact of

workforce planning• Capability to measure the Return on

Investment of workforce planning• Ability to use workforce planning as a strategy

for competitive advantage.

Leading organisations demonstrated thefollowing distinct characteristics; characteristicsthat other organisations should consideremulating to target workforce planning success: • Structurally attach workforce planning to the

risk or business planning cycle• Have a Centre of Excellence approach that

allows workforce planning to be integratedand owned across the business

• Use multiple scenarios to identify future risks• Prioritise business competencies as

characteristics of their workforce planners.• Use advanced technologies to support and

enable workforce planning efforts• Employ a diverse range of talent management

initiatives to address identified risks within the workforce

• Implement a monitoring and measuringframework that assesses the plan’s value andalerts when change is required.

Diverse strategies hit the mark

Workforce planning strategies are movingbeyond the common attraction and retentioninitiatives. Seventy five percent of Leadingorganisations not only employ retention andattraction strategies, they also use career paths asa means to execute on business strategy.

In the past, organisations have focused solely onretention and attraction initiatives. The growinguse of career path strategies significantly expandsthe talent management toolkit. Other popularstrategies employed include:• Partnering with schools, universities, and other

educational institutions

• Increasing the range of supply sources• Workforce redesign• Shifting the desired mix of permanent, casual,

and contract labour.

Strong foundations build success

Workforce planning is about identifying strategiesto effectively execute the business plan. Using acombination of qualitative and quantitativeprocesses will result in a credible strategy ratherthan a process based on intuition. Strategic analysis,demand forecasting using multiple scenarios,supply forecasting, and strategy development arepractices core to an effective workforce planningprocess. Leading organisations are more likely thanother organisations to use all steps in the workforceplanning process. Whereas, 65 percent oforganisations surveyed use only certain steps withinthe process, the study shows a growing conformityof the key pieces of the workforce planning puzzle:

• 90 percent of organisations use strategicanalysis incorporating the external businessenvironment

• 54 percent of organisations use multiplescenarios during demand forecasting

• 52 percent of organisations use supplyforecasting to understand the flows of talentinto, out of, and through the organisation

• 90 percent of organisations integrate theprocess with strategy development.

The strategy development phase is critical and isthe tipping point for effective workforce planning.When supported by a robust process and forecastanalysis of skills and numbers this phase drivesacknowledgement of future risks and moreimportantly, the conviction to take action.

Another effective workforce planning method is tointegrate the planning process into the business.This is such a critical component of success thatLeading organisations indicate they value businessskills over workforce planning competency. Acombination of a solid understanding of businessplanning processes and effective communicationand influencing skills are becoming sought afterworkforce planning qualities.

Leading organisations see the value of workforceplanning as a business process that is acoordinated decentralised process housed outsideof the HR function, with 50 percent of respondentsperceiving workforce planning as highly valuableto the business opposed to the 39 percent oforganisations where HR manages the process.

www.thehrdirector.com Survey: Analysis and reporting

Julia Howes, Senior Consultant - Infohrm

49

Bridging the gap...Workforce planning is making its mark! According to the findings from Infohrm’s Global Workforce Planning

Survey 2009, the majority of business (81 percent of survey respondents), are reaping the benefits of workforce

planning. And with as little as two years workforce planning tenure, organisations are seeing as remarkable

results as their longer tenured peers. Julia Howes, Senior Consultant at Infohrm, reports.

Workforce planning strategies are moving beyond the common attraction andretention initiatives

Survey: Julia Howes


www.infohrm.com

Feature: Analysis and reporting

Jonathan Legdon, Commercial Director - NorthgateArinso

50

Predictive analysis through data mining is criticalto business survival and growth. It’s commonlyunderstood that staff are the most valuable assetof a company, but many businesses don’t havethe information they need at their fingertips toprove this. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to ignorethe value you can get from your data, despite itoften being the most important, and often leastexploited area of business knowledge.

The recession has driven keener competition andleaner cash flows, and as we emerge into thesunlight of the recovery, organisations need todemonstrate clearly to the board that they havethe clarity of vision and the practical policies tomanage their way through challenging times.

The hidden costs of HR

Prompted by the economic downturn, firms havehad to make use of business intelligencetechnology to capture critical data, to apply it tothe business and derive evidence-based strategiesfor definitive action. The longer a business takes toget to grips with this, the more time andresources are wasted and costs begin to creep up.The CIPD’s 2008 Recruitment, Retention andLabour Turnover survey report sets averageturnover cost per employee at £6,000. This figureonly includes the visible costs associated withadministration, recruitment, training and thepotential loss of output. But even more damagingare invisible losses, those of skills and experience,which are more difficult to replace.

HR managers are being challenged to

demonstrate conclusiveevidence for the successof the department and its

processes JonathanLegdon, Commercial

Director atNorthgateArinso,

considers what role dataplays in changing HR

policy and reporting atthe highest level.

Predictive analyticsto measure success

Within the publicsector especially,reportingrequests meanthat certain datarequirementsmust be met inorder to avoidfinancial penalties

Quantifiable efficiencies revealed through reporting and analysis are now

more important than ever before. The recession has stripped away any

internal niceties and replaced them with a transparent glass wall,

affording senior management scrutiny over all expenditures and costs.

HR managers need to prove their worth and be seen to be adding real

value to the organisation.

The report also calculates the average cost ofabsence to be £666 per employee per year.Predictive analytics enables a company to lookinto the history of this figure, aiming to equip HRprofessionals with the data they need to predictwhat might happen in a business, make changesto HR policies, where necessary, track the successor failure and report back to the Board.

How predictive analytics works

It sounds technical, but it really isn’t: Data miningand predictive analytics enable a company to useits data on previous HR activity to predict whatmight happen in the future. This can coveremployee churn, absence management, benefits– almost any aspect of HR can benefit from thiskind of analysis.

To provide further explanation, data mininginvolves the extraction of information into arecognisable format and order. Predictiveanalytics takes this one step further by dissectingand manipulating data so trends in the workforceand the real status of a company’s HR isidentified. Complex data can then be taken andturned into digestable information thatbusinesses can trust to build policies that actuallydrive performance and simultaneously save oncosts. Once the relevant information is collated,predictive analytics involves scanning data forany associations, correlations, dependencies andsimilarities that could impact decision makingprocesses. As humans, this comes as secondnature. When there is too much information forour brains to naturally scan, the data overwhelmsour capacities and the relationship between theinformation and any associated correlations islost. This is where technology comes in. Data canbe analysed rigorously, highlighting patternswithin what otherwise might appear to bemerely a mass of stats and figures.

Bringing data mining to life

One example of where data mining can be veryuseful is in managing absence. In mostorganisations there will be employees withexemplary attendance and others who needcloser management. Predictive analytics enablesbusinesses to collate information about thesepeople and compare the results to provideinsight into what factors contribute to good orbad performance.

HR professionals might go one step further toconsider the reasons behind poor attendanceamongst certain age groups or departmentswithin a business. They might discover that amale 24 year old is more likely to resign hisposition than his 34 year old colleagues becauseof a lack of training and progression open to himwithin his job role. Alternatively, skills gaps couldbe identified within what appear to be flourishing

departments or a business might discover thatemployee benefits could be better placed inorder to improve motivation and encouragecertain members of staff. Financial institutions forexample are keen to implement strategies topreserve high flyers. A priority for theseorganisations is investment in new staff with thepre-emption of future reward for the company.

This is exactly what data mining technology isdesigned to help with. Using the rich data sourceof the HR system, details can be fed into datamining tools. The algorithm then carefully siftsthe data to identify strong and weak connectionsbetween elements, revealing patterns. What’smore, the technology can be trained throughtesting stages, so that the results become moreand more reliable, meaning the analysis can beused to frame best practice policies. At this stage,projections of planned changes to the workforcecan be calculated. Having the right technology atyour fingertips means that HR departments canreact more quickly to problems and changes inthe organisation, which again helps prove itsvalue to the Board.

Why is predictive analytics HR’s best-kept secret?A major stumbling block for many organisationsfirstly is that not enough data is captured. Currentsystems may not have the necessary capacity orcapability to analyse the data once sourced. Also,particularly in these uncertain times, analysingraw data is unlikely to take priority over other dayto day demands on an HR director. Speed is ofthe essence when it comes to accurate and usefulreporting. However another reason why HR isn’tturning to predictive analytics more often is thatservers are frequently full of databases that areeither never used or inaccessibly formatted.Records get lost, technology changes anddatabase experts within IT move on to pasturesnew. Simply getting to the right data in the firstplace can seem like a Herculean effort. Even if acompany does recognise the value of datamining, by the time it comes to analysing andreporting information it is often out of date, andtherefore rendered useless.

In an ideal situation, as we race for the recessionfinishing line, information would be accessible atthe HR department’s fingertips. Past records wouldautomatically be catalogued so that new datacould be easily added and updated where andwhen relevant. Businesses are often daunted bythis task, unwilling to devote the time andresources necessary. Even if they do have capacity,managers may not recognise the benefits in doingso and fail to fully appreciate the technology thatcan help simplify the process.

It may at first seem daunting to ‘let the cat out ofthe bag’ and accept some of the problems and

issues that could be uncovered. But as we preparefor the upturn, it is more important to make use ofbusiness intelligence technology to capturecritical data, make it meaningful and deriveevidence-based strategies for practical action.

Within the public sector especially, reportingrequests mean that certain data requirementsmust be met in order to avoid financial penalties.This is particularly relevant within further andhigher education institutions where details onabsence and student progression must bedocumented and submitted to local authorities.As technology and capabilities grow, it is likelythat regulations will demand more fromorganisations, putting further strain on HRdepartments. The quicker that HR professionalsget to grips with data mining and the technologyassociated with it, the more beneficial it will befor those involved.

Data mining deals in probabilities rather thancertainties, but it can also supply insight thatwould be difficult to achieve any other way. It’sworth remembering that ineffective data producesinaccurate results, regardless of the analysismethods used. HR professionals must be certainthat the data employed is relevant and 100percent accurate otherwise any appliedtechnology will not interpret trends correctly.


51

Another reason why HR isn’tturning to predictiveanalytics more oftenis that servers arefrequently full ofdatabases that areeither never used orinaccessiblyformatted


www.northgatearinso.com

The statistics raised in the surveysuggest a lack of awareness aboutthe importance of the HR functionwithin the organisation and theboardroom. But according to thesurvey, two thirds of organisationsnow have HR board representation.It would seem HR is recognised ashaving an important function onthe board. Our survey focused onHRDs and revealed that 71 percenthave no aspirations to be a chiefexecutive, 20 percent who did, andthe remainder non-committal. Doesthis tell us that HR directors preferbeing number two, they just don’twant to be held accountable? Thiswas a question raised at our surveysummary discussion.

A CEO is the face and spokespersonfor an organisation and for somethat kind of attention isunattractive. So the reason theymay wish to remain, as thedelegate put it, ‘number two’, isthat they simply don’t want to be inthe CEO spotlight. An HRD, somefelt, is in a safer position and lesslikely to lose their job if anorganisation does badly. For somethere just isn’t that aspiration tostep up because close proximity to

the reality of the CEO role revealssome unattractive aspects to thejob. This may be exacerbated whenHRDs already spend a lot of thetime on the front-line deliveringdifficult messages, wielding the axeand so on.

However, another delegate putforward the idea that it is an issue ofconfidence and perhaps a lack ofrole models. Some HR directorswish to remain number twobecause they lack the self-belief toput themselves forward. This lack ofconfidence amongst HRDs isenhanced by preconceptions aboutHR and those that work within HR.This leads them to believe that theycouldn’t become thatspokesperson and face of anorganisation, which then manifestsas a lack of desire for the job.

Another guest at our dinner flatlyrefuted this notion, saying thatwhile of course becoming a CEO isa personal choice unattractive tosome; others would in fact leap atthe chance to be considered forsuch a post. The truth is, theseopportunities rarely arise.Preconceptions and prejudices

about HR, it was suggested, havemeant that those willing and eagersimply aren’t given the chance. Insome cases there are structuralobstacles, with succession planningstepping stone roles such as COOor divisional MD reserved for thosewith specific experiences.

‘An organisation typically has theCEO and then the FD and then allthe other board members. HR isseen in a supportive rather than adriving role and not viewed ascapable of understanding the widerbusiness issues.’ This was aprominent feeling around the table.These preconceptions, it was felt,came out of the perception of HR onthe board and can even beencouraged by the profession itself;‘Which other profession has“business partners” the others are inthe business, not distant from it’ saidone of our panel. While the statisticsfrom the survey did show that HR isrecognised as a necessity, in reality,when a major business decision ismade, the CEO and usually the FDcome to some understanding aboutwhat needs to be done. The CEOlooks to the FD first for advice andevaluation of options.

Redundancy was used as a topicalexample. The organisation needs tomake cutbacks and a round ofredundancies is decided by theCEO and FD. Often, the HR directoris then brought in forimplementation, rather than adiscussion of how and whether theorganisational adjustments couldbest be targeted. There seems to bea misconception that because HRprimarily deals with people asopposed to numbers they lack thewider strategic knowledge.

52

next issue

Why aren’t more CEOs ex HRDs?

Management of flexibility True flexibility has many implications and challenges for HR and, paradoxically, acontrol and measured approach has to be adopted for the longterm. // Training What is the future of training andhow important is it that training remains the spine of the business? // Cohesive teambuilding Promotingcommunication and interpersonal skills is just a part of building effective teams. // Attracting talent Does thetalent drought really exist? If so, is your business truly attractive to the elusive crème of talent?

theHRDIRECTOR

to the pointJonathan Flowers

In a recent survey only three percent of CEOs came from an HR background, and only 20 percent of HRDs

surveyed even aspired to reach the top job. Jonathan Flowers, Partner at Veredus asks, why aren’t more ex-HR

Directors becoming CEOs?

To the point www.thehrdirector.com

Jonathan Flowers, Partner - Veredus

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54

Events calendar www.thehrdirector.com

HRD Issue 63

theHRDIRECTOR

events calendar

8 - 10 February 2010, London - 4th Annual Shared Services & Outsourcing SummitThe forth year in a row that the Annual Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit has been staged. The popular event isdesigned to be strategic, informative and most importantly accessible to delegates, and is entirely Interactive Formatswith no slides, focused on real talk, and based on real experiences. It includes a revamped Blue Sky Leadership Forum,plus featuring a BPO Exclusive Content on Smart Partnering, straight talk from the buyers plus Augment Your Capability &Capacity for End-To-End Scope and Transformation.

Organised by SSON

t: 01295 225500 // w: www.sharedservicesummit.co.uk

21 - 24 April 2010, Olympia, London - CIPD HRD Conference and Exhibition 2010CIPD the 2010 HRD Conference and Exhibition will be attended by thousands of learning and development professionalsto discover the latest developments and trends in this increasingly competitive sector. In 2010, HRD attendees will onceagain have the opportunity to explore the latest developments in learning and development, coaching, training,leadership and more. With the changes and challenges facing HR across all business sectors this is one event not to bemissed. The CIPD events continue to be flagship events in the HR calendar.

Organised by CIPD

t: 0208 612 6202 // w: www.cipd.co.uk

3 - 6 March 2010, Stratford Upon Avon - 16th Annual HR & Payroll Conference 2010 16th Annual HR & Payroll Conference 2010 is housed in a beautiful setting in Stratford Upon Avon. It is a two dayresidential training event with essential, topical updates, relevant to all HR and Payroll professionals. Agenda includes: Taxand National Insurance update including changes to the operation of tax codes, update on “false self-employment”.Update on Maternity and Paternity, Employment Rights and Pay including the extension of Paternity Leave and pay. Allthe crucial payroll issues are discussed to support the ever changing workplace requirements.

Organised by Payroll Solutions UK

t: 01295 225500 // w. www.learnpayroll.co.uk

2 February 2010 - Graduate Recruitment and Development Forum 2010Graduate Recruitment and Development Forum 2010 will be the ideal opportunity for leading recruitment, HR and talentprofessionals to share best practice strategies for attracting and retaining the brightest graduate talent and keeping theemployer brand alive. Combining leading case studies, updated insights into the demands of generation y graduates anda variety of networking opportunities. The trends for graduate recruitment seem to stimulate conflicting reports and thisforum shines a light on the topic and sets out to provide timely solutions.

Organised by Symposium Events Ltd

t: 020 7231 5100 // w: www.symposium-events.co.uk

28 January 2010 - Absence Management Forum 2010The 6th annual Absence Management Forum 2010 is aimed at HR and Occupational Health professionals who aretackling absence in their organisations. The conference will help you to successfully challenge and overcome the absenceissues you face through a unique series of best practice case studies from industry experts, an open Q&A session with ourlegal expert and a Government update from the Department of Work and Pensions. With changing needs of businessrequiring a new approach to dealing with absenteeism, this event is focused on providing guidance.

Organised by Symposium Events Ltd

t: 020 7231 5100 // w: www.symposium-events.co.uk

19 - 20 January 2010, ICC Birmingham - The European HR Director’s Business SummitThe European HR Director’s Business Summit is the leading exhibition, conference and networking event for seniorHuman Resource Professionals, revealing the latest HR. Every year we deliver powerful insights and guaranteed solutionsinto the challenges you face as an HR professional. This event delivers expert speaker addresses, presentations, casestudies, seminars, workshops, interactive discussions and a focused exhibition covering the entire human resourcespectrum. The streamed event programme will help you develop the HR function within your organisation.

Organised by World Trade Group

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