Great to see my new book, The Social Organization , out in the UK. Use code AHRTSO20 on the Kogan Page website for a 20% discou...
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Here’s my Chirstmas present list for you:
Oh, and finally, I had some big peaks and troughs again this year. Do me a favour – have a think about when you’re going to want my support during 2011, and let me know early! My contact details are below!
And finally, let me know if you think you can help me escape from the UK before the Royal Wedding!
Best wishes to you all.
Jon.
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Visit here if you’d like to subscribe to future editions of the newsletter.
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Internal HR practitioners can win a free ticket to the Economist’s Talent Management Summit in London on 9th June next Summer.
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This is the list of ‘real-world’ as opposed to ‘online’ influencers, so it’s nice to see “a rekentless travel schedule and the depth and clarity of his thought” having an impact as well as my blog.
It’s a good write-up too although I do have an issue with the final line: “It’s not outrageous to imagine him as the next Ullrich”.
Surely it’s that Ulrich was the previous Ingham?
OK, I’m not totally serious about that. But I really don’t want to be defined in comparison to him or anyone or anyone else. For example, my focus on organisation capabilities (including human capital) may be quite similar to Ulrich’s but my belief in the need to create value is fairly unique (at least amongst advisors if not an increasing number of organisations – eg see this case study on creating value at QBE).
I may or may not be right in these views (and actually I’m not sure that this statement really means anything anyway). But I hope that these views will challenge your own thinking. Sometimes you may want to implement my ideas. More often you may just find yourself reflecting on why you’re doing what you are. And that’s fine too.
If you want an example, have a look at my proposals for career partnership on the MIX. And I’d appreciate your votes as well!
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These included this video blog suggesting that HR needs more ambition (a point that I still strongly support) and a podcast suggesting that this would be the year that things would start to change (towards a more people centred approach). Note that I did only suggest ‘start to’ – I didn’t expect to see much progress, but I don’t think I’ve even seen a start, to be frank.
For example, one thing I wrote back then was “Perhaps banks will even change their bonus policies next year!?” Well in Ireland at least (home of Krishna De, my co-host on the podcast) they have – but not at the bank’s initiation. And perhaps there will still be a similar change in the UK before the end of the year?
But in general, I’d give my predictions about a 3 out of 10.
I want (us) to do better next year – so if you’re working in HR in an organisation, please help me out – take my survey and let me know what you think the main challenges and opportunities for HR are going to be next year. If you can get to London next Summer, there’s the potential of a prize in it for you as well.
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My friends at Connecting HR are meeting for some Christmas drinks tomorrow night – unfortunately I won’t be able to be with them.
But this is what I imagine them doing:
Have fun everyone!
Video credit: Elfyourself
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So, if you’re an HR / talent management / similar practitioner (working within an organisation) would you be willing to share with me your thoughts on what you expect to see happening next year?
If so, I’d like to invite you to complete this short (17 question) survey.
As an incentive, I’m offering a free ticket to The Economist’s Talent Management Summit on 9th June next Summer to one survey respondent, chosen at random on Monday 10th January 2011.
(The winner will, however, need to be wiling to engage in a short discussion about their responses which I will publish here along with the overall summary.)
If you can’t get to London for the Summit then you’ll still have my gratitude for completing the survey for me.
Click here to take survey
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The first is the idea of mass online influencers who help spread trends through the web. These consist of two groups (see picture) based on Malcolm Gladwell’s analysis from ‘Tipping Point’ – mass connectors who know a wide variety of other people through social networks (huge Twitter followings, lots of Facebook friends etc), and mass mavens - experts and post and comment on particular topics. [This seems to correspond in part to Chris Brogan’s differentiation of social from new media.]
Mass connectors are a small proportion of all online users but account for 80% of all ‘influence impressions’ about products and services. Mass mavens are a similarly small proportion of online users and account for 80% of all influence posts. Exactly what these proportions are depends on the product or service in question. The reason I make this point here is that I think the same analysis could be made for employees too – but not many organisations I know consider these mass connectors and mavens within their talent groups!
But there’s something else that’s interesting here too. Bernoff suggests that 11 million people from the US online population are mass connectors and 24 million are mass mavens. 7 mission people are in the overlap between the two (as shown in the Venn diagramme).
Ie Bernoff suggests there are many more online mavens (bloggers and commenters) than there are online connectors (social networking site users). And once you take out the overlap, there are actually very few (well, a few million) online connectors who aren’t also bloggers.
What I find interesting in this, related to my previous posts on social influencers in HR, is that Bernoff’s findings are the direct opposite of what I’m seeing in the (UK) HR social media space where there’s now a fairly sizeable number of HR practitioners on Twitter and in other social spaces (eg the Connecting HR Yammer group) but a lower if still substantial number of bloggers. I think Rick was probably the last of the high profile UK HR bloggers to make the move onto Twitter so we’re all on there now. In fact with the exception of my Connecting HR activities I’m probably the most maven vs connector-like of the UK HR social media using group (go on, comment on this post and prove me wrong!).
I guess this is a consequence of all being part of a professional community (in the broadest sense) where there is a clear common interest and some fairly easy ways to connect with each other. Obviously a consumer of a particular organisation’s products is a lot less well connected with other consumers, so is more naturally going to turn to blogging than tweeting.
But I think it supports the points I’ve been making previously about social influencers in HR not just being HR bloggers, but people who are using social media in its broader sense to help connect, engage and converse (being connectors vs mavens).
Comments?
Picture credit: http://code.google.com/apis/chart/docs/making_charts.html
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You can submit either a STORY (a real-world case study) or a HACK (a bold new idea) through to 20 January 2011.
I’ve submitted a hack for my idea of career partnership which I’ve often thought was a good test of true human capital thinking and commitment. Have a read if you’ve not seen my previous blog posts on this, or take a look at the supporting video (especially for Trish):
If you’re not going to submit a hack yourself, and you like mine, I’d appreciate your votes (5’s please!).
Also see my previous posts on Gary Hamel’s reinventing management / moon shots / management 2.0, including his last HCI Summit presentation (top of this list), plus some related topics:
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My webinars are delivered using GoToWebinar with the support of Citrix Online and I will also be delivering a webinar for them at 11.00am on Tuesday 1st March: Online training and the learning organisation.
There’ll then be another one for them (tba) on Monday 6th June (look out for details on this blog closer to the time).
More about me:
@joningham, http://linkedin.com/in/joningham
info@joningham.com, +44 7904 185134
Top 100 HR Tech Influencer - Human Resources Executive
HRD Thought Leader - HRD Connect
Mover and Shaker - HR magazine
Also develop your Strategic HCM capabilities at my new Strategic HR Academy
The draft agenda includes:
You can register here (early booking is open through to 31 January 2011).
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I’ll be facilitating a joint tweet-up and twitter / social media introduction for new users, and also presenting on HR 2.0.
Other speakers include:
You can book here, and do let me know if you’re going to attend and would like to meet up.
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One of these is that I’ll be appearing in HR Magazine’s new series of web debates and discussions, HR Vision, along with:
As well as having my picture included in this month’s HR Magazine, I’m also mentioned in the magazine’s Blogwatch:
“The wedding of Billy Windsor to the future Queen Kate failed to impress HR blogger Jon Ingham who lamented the imminent arrival of “crappy plates and other chintz” and announced the acceleration of plans to flee Britannia for sunnier – and possibly more republican – shores.”
I’ve still not done much about this – but am definitely going to put it down in my list of New Year’s resolutions.
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I’ve also been posting on Social Advantage and you’ll find more posts there on developing social cultures, and selecting social technologies etc.
The point I want to make about social technologies is that buyers need to be really clear about what they’re trying to do with the systems that they buy. Yes, all social technologies do largely the same thing, and an organisation is likely to require any one system to do a number of things, but the right technology can make the difference between success or failure too.
And the same thing applies in HR as well. I’ve covered social recruiting and social learning quite extensively before, but I’d like to introduce one functional area you may not have thought about in social terms before.
This is social feedback. It’s about providing the opportunity for employees to share their views, ideas and thinking – and to build upon the ideas and thoughts of other people too. This type of system can support a variety of HR applications including satisfaction or engagement surveys, and all sorts of consultation processes too (quite topical at the moment given the amount of restructuring underway).
I still believe the future is one which is totally networked – inside organisations as well as between organisations and outside. But this future, if it ever emerges at all, is a long, long way away for most organisations. And until then, most of these are going to want to limit suggestion, consultation and other feedback processes to the issues, people and timescales that they want to cover.
The best system – in fact the only system I know of – which is designed to do this is called OrganisedFeedback. I particularly like the way this system gives organisations the ability to select functionality (ideas, consultation etc) according to their needs. So I’m really pleased to welcome OrganisedFeedback as a sponsor of this blog.
You can find out more about OrganisedFeedback here or contact their Director, Jim Sproat via email: jim [dot] sproat [at] organisedfeedback [dot] com, on Twitter: @jimsproat or by telephone: +44 (0) 845 508 1585.
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Cappelli had just presented on his Talent on Demand book before the panel. He certainly presents a persuasive (and well practiced!) case. But I’ve posted my challenges here twice before (1, 2) and I’m still not convinced.
So, I posted previously that:
In fact, the very best organisations will be doing the very opposite of what Cappelli suggests. This isn’t about being an academy organisation, but truly treating people as sources of competitive success. Taking advantage of this opportunity is about finding the best people and bringing them into an organisation, knowing that they will create advantage for an organisation (eg job sculpting) rather than just plugging them into a particular hole in the organisation.
So in the panel, I talked about carer partnership – which I’ve posted on previously, and can feel I’m going to do again. And I urged people to be creative – to learn from the mavericks like Netflix, Zappos, HCL Technologies etc. And do something different to everyone else.
Yes, I know you already know this…. But you’re not doing it are you? (In fact, credit where it’s due – Cappelli did have a good line to close with: “Companies are talking about it, but they’re not doing anything about it.” Spot on.)
I also thought Cappelli’s proposals originated from a very US based mindset and were out of alignment with the way things work in Europe, so I felt even more dissonance than I did when I saw him present the same presentation at the HCI Summit two years ago.
I’m sure Cappelli must get challenged on this (and I’m sure he would have been in Amsterdam if he’d left more time for questions). And he did say that that his ideas applied less in Europe, but left it at that.
Actually, I think the challenge applies elsewhere as well. For example, maybe not in China, but certainly in India which Cappelli referred to as well (see his new book). So when Cappelli was asked about the opportunities of reinstating a ‘family model’ to keep employees for longer he said that this can’t work. But of course, in India (and even elsewhere in Indian firms) it often does – see my post on HCL Technologies for an example.
So I wish Cappelli could have contextualised his presentation for the European market and to bring in a focus on outsourcing (as David Fairhurst managed to do in his presentation on McDonald’s).
So actually the key point for me would be to encourage conference organisers to stop booking keynote speakers who trot out the same presentation time and time again for years at a time (pretty much word for word in this case) – particularly now you can simply look these up on someone’s blog!
By the way, I construct a new presentation every time I speak, so it’s always fresh and aligned to the particular event I’m speaking at. I’m probably not as expensive as Peter Cappelli either. Just thought you’d like to know…
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But the topic of pay transparency has not gone away.
Hutton Review (and the CIPD)
Today’s interim report from the Hutton Fair Pay Review (which I’m still reading) suggests that no civil servant should get paid more than twenty times the lowest paid worker in that organisation.
As the name of the review suggests, this focuses on fairness. But most of the reporting of the review, if not so much the review itself, seems to interpret fairness as showing tax payers that their investments are being protected, and that the 20,000 public servants who earn more than £117k per year (including heads of Universities on £200k and CEOs of NHS trusts on £150k) deserve their salaries. This is about managing perception – about ensuring everyone seems to be sharing the effects of austerity. And it’s why Hutton recommends setting principles and greater transparency in what people get paid.
I’m more interested in the effect of internal pay differentials. I think John Humphrys got it right on the Today programme this morning (as he usually does), quoting Peter Drucker’s concerns that differentials over 20 x can lead to resentment, falling morale and could become socially corrosive.
I think socially corrosive organisations is exactly what we’ve got – in the private as well as the public sector, and steep pay differentials have had their role to play in this.
But the issue is particularly significant in the public sector – particularly because, as I was discussing with Bruce Warman at the Personnel Today Awards last night, the ‘profit motive’ doesn’t really exist there. These organisations aren’t going to go to the wall, so the role of the strategist (part of the role of a business leader) is a less fundamental one. This means that there’s less of a need for high differentials than there is in the private sector.
And the issue is even more significant in the voluntary sector. Here, it’s about sense of mission, rather than high pay, being even more of a focus (or should be being more of a focus) than high pay. That’s why Jackie Orme is getting some rightly deserved stick (eg from Donald Clark: 1 and 2) for her £400k salary at the CIPD.
But for me, the whole debate has echoes of Denise Kingsmill’s Accounting for People review. Kingsmill was focused on providing information on human capital for investors, whereas in truth, the people who really need better information on HCM are business leaders.
Same again here. I personally believe Hutton’s suggestions are entirely reasonable. But they also miss the point. The real need is to educate remuneration committee members and other business leaders, as well as compensation consultants and their like about the impact of such a big divide.
It’s why my bigger worry about Orme’s salary is how are the CIPD going to support Hutton’s proposals when they must have a pay differential of around 20x themselves.
cHRchat
Anyway, if you’re interested in pay transparency we’ll be talking about this during #cHRchat on Twitter tonight (7.00pm GMT). I’m not going to pretend that we’ve deliberately set out to be responsive to current topics – it’s just that, by accident, the subject came up in a tweet of mine during last week’s chat:
| Big opportunities throughout HR for more social (thinking) approaches eg pay transparency in Reward #chrchat | ||
| RT @joningham: Big opportunities throughout HR for more social (thinking) approaches eg pay transparency in Reward #chrchat >like it yes pls | ||
| RT @joningham: Big opportunities throughout HR for more social (thinking) approaches eg pay transparency in Reward - Yikes no!! #cHRchat | ||
| AlisonChisnell Why not? (if the culture's right) RT @joningham: Big opportunities eg pay transparency - Yikes no!! #cHRchat | ||
| @joningham depends what you mean by transparent but if you mean everyone sees everybody elses then would be a nightmare #cHRchat | ||
| Don't see why - just different (& more social!) RT@AlisonChisnell @joningham if you mean everyone sees everybodys then nightmare #cHRchat | ||
| @joningham Large org, legacy issues, people chage roles...we don't operate a fixed pay structure enables us to be pragmatic #cHRchat | ||
| @joningham would lead to massive increase in salary benchmarking requests & deep unhappiness, Union would have field day. More? #cHRchat | ||
| @alisonchisnell i know a company that had it's payroll posted online - the issues were re discrepancies that COULD be justified #chrchat | ||
| @joningham Just not keen. Would work with very structured pay scales and progression but not in our org. #cHRchat | ||
| @gmcglyne brave move, that's for sure. We have made so many acquisitions over the years we real mix of legacy & new arrangements #cHRchat | ||
| @ALISONCHISNELL not brave - disgruntled employee posted it #chrchat | ||
| RT @ALISONCHISNELL @joningham Looking for salary transparancy: http://ow.ly/3eRht All norwegians' salaries online. #chrchat | ||
| @ALISONCHISNELL @joningham Pay transparency can work - check out Semco. #chrchat | ||
| RT @olliegardener: RT @ALISONCHISNELL @joningham Looking for salary transparancy: http://ow.ly/3eRht All norwegians' salaries online. #chrchat | ||
| Would love someone to do a #chrchat on pay transparency sometime.... | ||
| @ALISONCHISNELL @joningham PS: as an entrepreneur, mine is decisively borning :) #chrchat | ||
| @joningham How about i do the one on pay transparency? #chrchat | ||
| RT @joningham: Would love someone to do a #chrchat on pay transparency sometime....me too wrote about that recently http://bit.ly/dMsG9L | ||
| Up to you but I'd be on for it - might engage @thehrd back again too? RT @garelaos How about i do the one on pay transparency? #chrchat | ||
| @AlisonChisnell @joningham @thehrd i find pay transparency is only a problem when there are differences that cant be justified! #chrchat | ||
| Can you be totally social unless you do? If not, there's always going to be something in the way. #paytransparency #chrchat | ||
| Lynda Gratton on pay transparency http://bit.ly/gYelyM #socialbusiness #chrchat (probably enough till next week) | ||
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