Art and Science of HR

 

I posted here last year that I thought the CIPD were - and are - making a mistake in linking HR too closely to decision science.  There are aspects of science which we can learn from and use to improve what we do, and the more transactional, operational elements of HR are often pure science too.   But the strategic, future oriented elements of HR are, at least should be, more heavily based on art.

Note that I'm not suggesting it's all science, just that it's probably more art, and I'm concerned that others are exaggerating the science perspective leaving art far behind.  So I'm really just trying to rebalance the commentary around science and ensure art gets a look-in too.


One of the ways I'm trying to do this is through the Art of HR global conference taking place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 13 to 16 November 2014.


And I'm also trying to stimulate some conversation about what we mean by HR's artful role in this Linkedin group which I'd encourage you to join if you're interested.


One perspective on art and science I'd like to share was developed at my US colleagues at Buck / ACS (now Xerox) whilst I was working there as Director for Human Capital Consulting for Europe part-time seven or eight years ago.  Using house building as a metaphor we suggested:
 

"Science represents the heavy lifter. In building terms, this would be the general contractor, the builder or the plumber. In the world of business, this translates to the taskmaster—the person responsible for structure, tasks and milestones.

Art represents the architect or the interior designer. In terms of your change man- agement team, this is a person, typically very well connected throughout the organization, who gathers feedback, asks “why” and is outstanding at motivating peo- ple to do things, because of his or her relationships. 

Scientists are the drivers of the change, while artists are the navigators who cycle in and out, asking the questions that keep things on track. They’re the people who make sure that everyone isn’t so intent on the destination that no one realizes the car is out of gas."

 

Our change management model pictured above included the top half representing science and the bottom half representing art. 

"The science side is the tactical side, driven by outstanding time managers who are detail-, schedule- and task-oriented.  The art side ensures that perspective and feedback get back into the system so that the outcome works for the company and accomplishes the ultimate goal." 


Then the bit I really liked looked at how art and science need to link together but with one or the other leading at different stages in a project:

If all you're doing is science, you're missing out on a large piece, and potentially the most important aspects, of any change or HR project.

If you've got any other thoughts, please do join the Linkedin group and if you can, come along to the Dubrovnik conference in November.


Also see: Thoughts on the Art of HR

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#HRSummitExpo - The Credible Activist

 

  There are some nice links in the programme at the Miiddle East HR Summit.  So after Dave Ulrich yesterday talking about his outside-in competencies, today and tomorrow is organised by competency area.

We're starting with the Credible Activist competency and a well delivered presentation from Christel Heydemann, EVP Corporate HR from Alcatel Lucent.

Christel has presumably been selected for this session because she was a business executive who was selected to run HR because the CEO thought this function said 'no' too often.  She got lots of good feedback on her appointment because she was someone who had been in the field and understands the company.  (Not that pure HR people can’t develop this level of credibility but it’s a useful warning shot to those who haven’t or say no too much.)

Christel saw her challenge as making HR simple, selling it and executing:

-   Simplification because Alctel Lucent face the same issues as other organisations.  And a lot of what they do is common sense (Christel repeated this point several times).  So Christel grouped activities into three areas:

• High performance culture
• Execution of strategic workforce plan
• Attract and develop talents

 

-   Sales because the company had lots of initiatives but people weren't clear what these were for.  She spent time explaining to managers what they were doing and simplifying corporate initiatives.  Often this was about explaining what the team was already doing - so there was no resistance.

-   Execution - doing what was needed well.  For example, one activity I quite liked was setting up an internal job opportunity market, 'ijob', where employees post CVs (or use their Linkedin profiles), and hiring managers post internal job opportunities.

 

Credible? - yes, clearly.

Activist? - yes - Christel clearly understands what she wanted to do in the business.

Great HR? - well, I’d have liked to have seen more...  That's not a criticism of Christel or Alcatel Lucent HR - they've skillfully executed the approach they’ve wanted to use.  It's just that I personally would have focused more on developing their HR strategy.  Please note that I'm not arguing for unnecessary complexity.  But I do think great HR has to involve more than just common sense.

This is part of my issue with outside-in.  Christel talked about listening to what managers, employees (and yes, customers) want and translating these into HR terms.  Fine - that's going to help you gain credibility.  But I’d have wanted to see more in this presentation (other than the ijob site) that would help Alcatel Lucent gain competitive advantage.  Doing the same as other organisations, or doing common sense things well doesn't do achieve this.

And to me, creating competitive advantage is the key opportunity for HR.  So I don't think practitioners can really be seen as credible activists unless we're focusing on this agenda.

But I suppose that’s also more about the Strategic Positioner competency which we’re moving onto next…

 

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Technorati Tags: Dave Ulrich, HR, IIR, Middle East, Summit, Christel Heydemann, Alcatel Lucent, Credible Activist

Economist’s High Growth Markets conference

 

   So I may have missed the Singapore human capital summit this week but I am  0000attending the Economist’s high growth markets summit today.  And we’ve not been talking specifically about Singapore, but obviously have been focusing fairly heavily on Asia.

 

 

The Economist’s Robert Ward (above) set the scene, comparing the sluggish performance of Europe in particular, and especially Greece’s collapse loosing 20% of its economy over the last six years with China’s growth of 50% over the same period.

 

The not-so-goods (you can work out the countries behind the podium):

 

The star performers (followed by Mozambique, Laos, Rawanda and Ghana):

 

Looking forward, Europe is expecting 0.4% growth in 2013.  The US will be performing better, but is heading to a fiscal cliff at the end of 2012.  Compare this to China’s expected growth of 7 to 8%.  The session on China later this morning suggested that this was a soft landing, but that further big challenges remain ahead.

In fact the best economic prospects are in Sub Saharan Africa.  The rest of the world is hanging in the breeze, including the rest of Asia and the Middle East.

So, we should all be trying to do more work in some of these higher growth markets, shouldn’t we.

IESE’s Pankaj Ghemawat scribed some of the challenges faced by countries and companies in doing this.  Firstly, you can’t just look at economics, but also need to think about cultural, administrative and geographical factors..  A country’s trade with another nation is generally about double what it would otherwise be if 1. they share a common language (+103%); 2. they are in the same trade block (+96%); 3. there’s been a history of one colonising the other (+110%) and 4. there’s a common land border (+78%).

So you can look at Wal-mart for example.  In the same year that the company’s CEO suggested that moving from Arkansas to Alabama was the same sort of challenge as moving to Argentina, Ghemawat’s analysis suggest its only really successful expansions were to those countries sharing a common bond of English; being part of NAFTA or the same country (Puerto Rico) or sharing a land border.

Wal-mart’s figured it out since then (really? – I’m still a bit worried about its use of the ‘cheer’ outside the US).

 

Many companies haven’t yet learnt these lessons yet.  Eg BMW is one of the very few companies that earns over 20% of its revenues from each of North America, Europe and Asia.  But 73% of its workforce and close to 90% of its management are German.  That country’s engineering based culture won’t necessarily be the one the company needs to respond to the issues it’ll face in emerging markets.

It’s a good and very well argued point and although I still remain cautious about relying on national stereotypes (see my last post), stereotypes exist for a reason, and the more diverse we make our workforces and particularly top management, generally the more successful we’ll be.

 

Any thoughts on these points from anyone else out there, particularly those attending the conference either physically or virtually (since the sessions were being live streamed)?

I’d be particularly interested in the perspectives of the other HR / L&D folk attending the conference, eg James Cullens from Hays; Mazzy Cameron from Henderson Global Investors; Patrick Casseday from Schneider Electric; Jane Ferris from BA and William Scott Jackson from Oxford Consulting.  Any thoughts from all of you?

 

I’ll share some of my own thinking on this agenda when I speak at, and blog from, the Emerging Markets HR Summit in London in December!

 

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Technorati Tags: Economist,conferences,emerging,high growth,markets,HR

People Strategies for Asia

 

   So my mate Dave will be out in Singapore by now for the Human Capital Summit taking place there today and tomorrow.

I attended the Summit last year but couldn’t make it this time around.  I will be trying to follow virtually but I don’t expect it to be that easy if the level of blogging and tweeting is anything like it was last year (ie very low).

If I do manage to follow along, there’ll be two particular topics I’ll be particularly interested in.  The first of these is ‘developing a culture of innovation in Asia’ which includes an input from the CIPD’s Peter Cheese (the good news is there’s no sign of Bridge (spit!) on the agenda).  It’ll be interesting if there is more evidence of radical Asian innovation than there was last year.

Secondly, I’ll be interested in the broader agenda of uniquely Asian leadership styles – which also got addressed last year but I thought could have been developed more deeply.  I agree leadership does need to look different there than here (and every other place as well).  But then there are a lot of different factors which influence leadership style and geography is only one of these.  So for example I still believe, as I explained last year, that my own management style probably fits with an Asian perspective better than it does an Anglo Saxon one.

Take this analysis by Dave, taken from a recent article on HRM Asia:

Table 1 Differences of Western and Eastern Business Approaches   Western   Eastern Strategy Leading to allocation of resources today (short-term) Leading to positioning the firm for the future (long-term) Decision making Fast to decide; longer to sell and implement Slow to decide; but quick to implement Accountability Personalised, and focused on “I” Shared, and focused on “we” Rewards High pay gap between senior executives and lower employees; Pay often based on performance Smaller pay gap between senior executives and lower employees; Pay often based on tenure and position Leadership philosophy Hands on, walking ahead of people: “Leadership is done from in front. Never ask others to do what you, if challenged, would not be willing to do yourself.” – Xenophon, Athenian general, 350 BC Hands off, walking behind people: “In order to guide people, the leader must put himself behind them. Thus when he is ahead they feel no hurt.” – Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 400 BC Source: Adapted from Asian Leadership: What Works, edited by Dave Ulrich & Robert Sutton

 

All the things on the right resonate for me more strongly than those things on the left (you’ll even find posts on quite a lot of them).  Stereotypes can be useful but we shouldn’t forget that they are only that.

 

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Technorati Tags: Singapore,human capital,summit,Dave Ulrich,Asian,western,eastern,leadership

Middle East HR Summit

 

   I’ve got more great conferences coming up later in the year.  One of these I’m really looking forward to is IIR’s HR Summit in Dubai in November.

Dave Ulrich kicks the conference off with a full day on HR from the outside-in and leadership (the why of work).

The rest of the programme is the split into sections based upon Ulrich’s HR competencies.  You may remember that one of these is ‘technology proponent’ and I’ll be presenting on social media in HR, and HR’s role in supporting the use of social media in business.

I’ll then be wrapping the programme up with a workshop on HR measurement.

 

Other speakers include:

• Christel Heydemann, EVP Corporate Human Resources & Transformation, Alcatel‐Lucent, France
• Ehab Hassan, Group Chief HR Officer and Executive Vice President, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, UAE
• Hussain Al Obaidly, Chief Human Resources Officer, Mubadala – GE, UAE
• Thomas Bartridge, Director of Human Resource, Masdar, UAE
• Wayne Davies, HR Director – Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, GE, UAE
• Craig Deaves, Organisational Capability Manager, BP, Iraq
• Maryam Al Falahi, HR Consultant and Former VP ‐ HR Strategy & Planning, Etisalat, UAE
• Maha Al Mansouri, Associate Director – HR and Emiratisation, Masdar, UAE
• Cora Koppe‐Stahrenberg, Chief Human Resources Officer, Emirates Investment Authority, UAE
• Akif Tashkandi, HR Director, Boeing International, Saudi Arabia
• Jalal Al‐Khaled, Chief Human Resources Officer, Abu Dhabi National Insurance Company, UAE
• Salwa Al Nuaimi, Vice President Talent Acquisition, Etihad Airways, UAE
• Charlie Sampson, Former Regional Head of Talent Management, HSBC Bank, UAE
• Othman Haddi, Associate Director, CEEMEA HR Headquarters, Procter & Gamble, Switzerland
• Tamer Elewa, Regional HR Business Partner ‐ Global Operations, Merck Serono, UAE
• Jonathan Budden, HR Business Partner, Microsoft, UAE
• Dilpreet Singh, HR Leader ‐ Middle East & Africa, IBM, UAE
• Salem Baabdullah, General Manager ‐ Talent Management, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Saudi Arabia
• David Capozzalo, Lead ‐ Executive Leadership & Development, SABIC, Saudi Arabia
• Veronica Munro, Head of Leadership Effectiveness – West, Standard Chartered, UAE
• Matthew Mee, Vice President – Human Resources, Jumeirah Group, UAE
• Colin Gow, Group Head of HR Shared Services, Al Futtaim, UAE
• Khaled Helaly, Director ‐ Strategy and Business Planning HR, Qatar Foundation, Qatar
• Indi Seehra, Director of Human Resources, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Khalil Cotran, Managing Director – Human Resources, NBK Capital, Kuwait
• Assaf Al‐Quraishi, Vice President ‐ Human Resources MENA, Unilever, UAE
• Lee‐Anna Nussbaumer, Corporate Director of Human Resources, Emaar Hospitality Group, UAE

 

If you’re in the region I hope I’ll see you there.

 

Technorati Tags: Dave Ulrich,HR,outside in,competencies,why of work,Dubai,Middle East,IIR,Summit

 

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Social media in the hopeful continent

 

   I was in South Africa for a few meetings and a workshop on HR and social media last week.  It’s been a while since I’ve been to southern Africa but it was good to be back – particularly as this meant missing the news that the UK is possibly already back in recession and the announcement that austerity cuts are going to be deepened and lengthened, as well as the public sector strikes during the week (Jeremy Clarkson’s comments on the strikers were still well reported however).

In comparison, South Africa’s economy is getting along quite nicely thank you.  An article in the Economist this week suggests that Africa will grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia.  Although this relates to the continent as a whole, the article touches on a lot of the key themes from my week there too.

For example:

“Africa now has a fast-growing middle class: according to the World Bank, around 60m Africans have an income of $3,000 a year, and 100m will in 2015…

Population trends could enhance these promising developments. A bulge of better-educated young people of working age is entering the job market and birth rates are beginning to decline. As the proportion of working-age people to dependents rises, growth should get a boost. Asia enjoyed such a “demographic dividend”, which began three decades ago and is now tailing off. In Africa it is just starting…

Having a lot of young adults is good for any country if its economy is thriving, but if jobs are in short supply it can lead to frustration and violence. Whether Africa’s demography brings a dividend or disaster is largely up to its governments.”

 

This mixed opportunity and challenge was something that came up in several of my meetings.  Elijah Litheko from South Africa’s IPM suggested that the country’s dual economies is one of the major issues that HR practitioners there need to deal with, ie that they have a key role in nationalisation and economic development.

One of other things Elijah believes is different is that South Africans are more diverse and that therefore organisations have to deal with, and benefit from, more different perspectives (“everyone in Europe thinks the same way”).  I wasn’t there long enough to test this out thoroughly, but am prepared to accept the suggestion.

I think a result of this diversity, which I also discussed with people, and was demonstrated in my meetings, was that South African culture prioritises conversation, and that people are prepared to really listen to each other until they arrive at a consensus.  This willingness to participate also came through in my workshop (and our use of social media within the workshop, which, whilst not quite as much as I would have ideally liked, was more than I’ve been able to encourage in any other social media workshops I’ve run in Europe or Asia).  And I actually think this is a very positive indication of Africa’s future success as well.  (In the new world of work, organisations need their people to come forward with suggestions and contributions – I think the fact that some cultures don’t support this will limit their future development.)

 

And:

“Africa’s enthusiasm for technology is boosting growth. It has more than 600m mobile-phone users—more than America or Europe. Since roads are generally dreadful, advances in communications, with mobile banking and telephonic agro-info, have been a huge boon. Around a tenth of Africa’s land mass is covered by mobile-internet services—a higher proportion than in India.”

 

We discussed this development too, building on the statistics and presentation Bill Boorman had produced for Tru South Africa a few weeks previously.  We didn’t find any HR applications for the local tween focused networking system, MixIt, but did agree that mobile was going to be key for participant’s future social media activities (eg they liked LV’s mobile focused approach to social recruiting here).

We also hypothesised about the deep take-up of social media (especially Facebook) on a personal basis, but the still limited take-up within corporates.  We thought maybe that whereas Europeans in particular tend to do a lot of their mobile social networking on, or waiting for, public transport, given that people tend to drive rather than take public transport in South Africa, and given intermittent mobile coverage and security concerns that they wouldn’t want to try using an ipad in a car, there’s less time for people to go online for company purposes.  I’m not totally convinced by this, but again, am prepared to take it forward as a working hypothesis.

 

I’ll be back in South Africa again during February…

 

Picture from The Economist article

Technorati Tags: South Africa,HR,Elijah Litheko,IPM,social media,statistics,economy

 

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#HRTechEurope – CedarCrestone survey

 

   It’s the HR Technology Europe conference in Amsterdam today where I’ll be acting as emcee.

Just in time, Lexy Martin at CedarCrestone have provided a summary of the European data for their global HR Systems Survey I encouraged you to enter earlier this year.

This is the 14th time the company has run this survey which in the past has been mainly focused on North America.  However nine percent of the 727 respondents are now from Europe which provides sound insights for this side of the pond as well.

Key conclusions include:

• European organisations have lower adoption of almost HR technologies
• Main areas of focus are HR systems strategy (good news, especially if this is supported by talent management strategy too) and talent management processes and automation
• European organisations are more focused than their US counterparts on using competency frameworks (supporting Ahmed Limam’s conclusions)
• There is less focus on the adoption of social media which has yet to enter the CedarCrestone’s list of the top ten activities for Europe (a shame as the company concludes that the outlook for growth of socially enabled HCM processes is ‘stupendous’)
• European companies aren’t seeing the reduction in HR administrative staff which accompanies the use of HR service delivery applications in the US (because of the additional complexity here?).

 

There’s a lot of opportunity here, particularly as CedarCrestone find that higher adoption of HR technology leads to (or supports) HR being seen as strategic and improvements in business performance eg in sales per employee, profit per employee and operating income growth – see picture.  So I’m sure those organisations attending today’s conference will gain a lot of benefit from this.

 

There are some more interesting conclusions in the survey, which I may come back and report on again when I have more time.  But do check out the report yourself at www.cedarcrestone.com/research.

 

Technorati Tags: HR,technology,systems,survey,CedarCrestone,Lexy Martin,Europe,conference,HRTechEurope

 

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Best global HR conferences

 

   I may not often comment on other peoples’ blogs, but I do read a lot of them.  My favourite post last week was Informa Group HR Director Alison Chisnell’s report on the HR Forum in Lisbon which made me think this was one event I should try to get to  (ie present at) one year.

As it so happens, I have recently provided one of my contacts with a list of what I consider to be the best HR conferences (core HR vs recruitment, L&D etc) around the world, and should probably add the HR Forum to that.

Anyway, I thought I would share the list with you as well, and would be really interested in your other recommendations too:

 

CIPD Annual Conference	Still the main event in the UK, with increasing focus on social media, if not yet the social business.  Don’t miss the tweet-up!
HR Director Business Summit (also the Pan European HR Forum)	A fair bit smaller than the CIPD conference, but definitely punching well above its weight and introducing new innovations year after year (eg, next year - the integrated unconference sessions that I’ll be chairing).
The unconferences (ConnectingHR, HRevolution)	Then there’s the real unconferences.  My contact wanted plenty of insight, but also good conversation – and if that’s what you want, then these are the places to go!
SHRM Annual Conference	OK, I’m only guessing here as I’ve never been to this as it’s too big a trip without being asked to speak, or sponsored to blog etc.  Shame because SHRM merged its international conference into the annual conference some years back, but it’s still a highly US-centric event.
HCI Annual Summit	I’ve not been out to this conference for a few years though I have attended virtually.  It’s a good event, and HCI’s tie up with the MIX should ensure ongoing good content.
HR Technology	Wow, I had a good time at this.  Whether I enjoy Chicago just as much as I did Vegas (and whether I go to Chicago next year) we’ll just have to see, but this regardless of your role in HR technology, this was a thumbs up event!
HR Technology Europe	Nothing to do with the above show, but Europe’s first serious attempt to do something focusing on the strategic use of HR technology.  This year’s conference has a great line up if a rather suspect MC, and I predict great things both in this and in future years. (It runs on 2nd and 3rd November)
Singapore Human Capital Summit (I also want to try the Hong Kong Institute event)	Breaking out of Europe and jumping over the Middle East (though Fleming Gulf’s events are pretty good), we arrive at Singapore for this premier event.  Not to be missed if you’re in Asia (or even like me, if you’re not).
Australia National Convention	I’ve not been to this event, but how could I say no if I ever got the offer?
Linkage OD	I missed this one out but my client mentioned it, and although I’ve not attended it, I know a few people who have, and they’ve all raved about it too – so Linkage must be doing something right.
Bersin Impact conference	And a heads up to China Gorman for reminding me that I missed this one too, which I shouldn’t have done – particularly as I attended virtually last year, and was pretty much bowled over by the quantity and quality of insight.
?	So, what else? Eg I obviously don’t get to South America or Africa as much as I would like, so what are the main programmes here?

 

Interestingly, I’ve now spoken at a good proportion of, though by know means all these events - even of those I’ve attended fairly regularly – eg the CIPD are stlll keeping me me off the platform at their annual conference for some reason, though they are letting me get involved in delivering a twitterversity session as one of the interactive gatherings in the exhibition this year.

It’s not going to help me share many insights with people, but it’ll be good fun, and I’ll get to meet lots of people – over a few feet of interweb, if not in real life!

Including you maybe?

 

Technorati Tags: conferences,summits,events,HR,talent,global,US,UK,Europe,Asia

 

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#HRTechConf / #HRTechEurope - HR Technology in Europe

 

   There’s just one more session at the HR Technology conference I wanted to comment on – this is the session presented by Ahmed Limam on HR technology in Europe.

Limam noted the impact of the ‘European integration process’, which just served to remind me how much the UK stands outside of this, but many of Limam’s concerns do apply:

• Competencies loom large: many countries requires them and because your can’t fire someone on a Friday afternoon you need to be able to find a new place for them – meaning that you need to understand their competencies (and if you do this in a cavalier way than the labour courts will strike it down).  Labour unions are powerful and not everything is down to the decisions of management.
• Processes are not the same eg benefits are driven by law, exit interviews are not part of the culture, companies don’t see the point of onboarding (I don’t see these last two things).
• Shared services are now extending, particularly out of Ireland (English speaking) and Romania (lower tax rate, labour cost and bilingual)
• Differences in outsourcing – North and South – the further South you go, the less outsourcing there is, eg Limam estimates about 20-30% of Swiss / France companies outsource payroll, compared to 80-90% of those in Belgium and Denmark.
• Technology adoption is different.  Companies may be OK to use SAAS for sub-processes but are likely to be more reluctant to put their overall HR technology in the cloud.

 

I’ll be speaking, and blogging, more about these topics at next month’s HR Technology Europe conference in Amsterdam where I am acting as Master of Ceremonies (note though that although I’m really looking forward to this role, I’m not even going to try to live up to the way Bill Kutick orchestrates the US conference here).  I hope to see some of you (or your European colleagues?) there!

 

Technorati Tags: HR,technology,USA,Europe,conference,Ahmed Limam,challenges,trends

 

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#HRTechConf Day 1 notes

 

   HRevolution has finished (sort-of, though there are some HRevolution sessions taking place on Wednesday) so it’s time for the main event: Bill Kutik’s HR Technology conference:

 

Technorati Tags: #HRTechconf,HR,Technology,conference,Bill Kutik,Las Vegas

 

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Singapore Human Capital Summit – Summary

 

   I’ve been telling everyone I’ve been meeting here how much I’d love to come and live in Singapore. The challenge I’ve had from a couple of people is that it’s difficult to add value as an expat here without significant experience and understanding in the region.

Well yes… But:

1. I think this need to understanding the context applies to every country, and actually every different organisation. Asia is different from Europe, America and elsewhere, but it’s not THAT different – at least I’ve not heard anything during these two days, or during my previous two day workshop in KL, that convinces me it is.

By the way, I have by the way done a decent amount of work here, though most of it was before the recession (or from an Asian perspective, the slow-down).

 

2. I think what is different is HOW business is done, rather than WHAT it involves. And here, I actually feel more at home with business in Asia than I do in the West. For example, I love the way that the Singapore Stock Exchange is so focused on encouraging their registered businesses to improve Board diversity to improve corporate governance and valuations. Just not something you’d see in the West.

 

3. Most of what I do is about helping HR teams innovate. Success is doing this is about being able to think differently. I believe it can actually be useful not to be close to the way that things are currently done. And I’m not convinced that enough Asian businesses are thinking transformationally enough, to cope with the environment they’re in (just like Western businesses in fact).

 

My posts:

• Learning from India
• Innovative Asian People Strategies
• Vineet Nayar on the perfect storm
• Leadership strategies in Asia
• Collaborative Leadership in Asia

 

 

Technorati Tags: Asian,Singapore,human capital,HR,summit,innovation,consulting

 

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Learning from India

 

   Peter Cappelli (or Peetr Kappalli) hasn’t always been my favourite academic, but I did very much enjoy his recent book, The India Way. So I thought I’d take a chance and attend his session today, and listen to a couple of organisations which participated in his research.

We kicked off with Peetr describing some of his research.

 

The one thing which I think came out most strongly was the importance of having a social purpose.

 

Ed Miliband may now recognise that “we need a more ethical capitalism in which we recognise that business has real responsibilities. Business is not just about making money.” (though he doesn’t seem to be getting much support for these views) but in India that’s long been the way things are done.

Social purpose drives the business and making money certainly won’t be what you want to lead with. This approach pays off – employees will be more motivated when they see and believe there is a social purpose.

 

We then had a presentation from Rajeev Dubey, President at Mahindra & Mahindra.

M&M are creating Tomorrow’s Company. This is a business transformation created from a cultural transformation (creating value) – about moving people from the subtext to the headlines, and aligning behaviours in support of the triple bottom line.

 

The transformation requires a mix a logic and intuition, in which people are in the flow – and can go deep into any situation, and trust through authenticity.

M&M run fireside chats to connect young employees with senior execs (these are also streamed virtually).

 

And they provide ESOPs but these are employee social (vs share) options –facilitating employee volunteerism in social activities.

I thought this was a great presentation – absolutely the way that companies should be run.

 

Technorati Tags: Peter Cappelli,Rajeev Dubey,Mahindra & Mahindra,India,Asia,talent,strategy,Singapore,human capital,summit

 

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Innovative Asian People Strategies

 

   As someone who focuses on helping organisations develop more innovative people management and organisation development strategies, I’m interested in this statement from the CIPD:

“Across Asia, unprecedented rates of growth and levels of change are making strong demands on the strategic ability of organisations to innovate and on their creativity.  Building organisations that thrive, and developing the talent pool to lead them are challenges at the heart of business strategies.

We’ve developed new insights into these challenegs through our research in Asia.  this paints a picture of a regional HR profession that can overtake current global best practice to deliver uniquely Asian HR strategies that are truly growth-orientated.”

 

It’s a bit of a fluffy statement, but also quite profound, if true.

Given this, one of the sessions at the Singapore Human Capital Summit I was most looking forward to was the one on innovative Asian people strategies. Unfortunately, there wasn’t as much innovation in evidence as I would have liked, although a couple of the case studies were reasonably interesting.

So Sumeet Salwan, VP HR, SE Asia at Unilver described the scale and growth that Unilever is facing, and also emphasized that it is having the right people, and a performance culture, not technology etc, which is critical to business success.

Summeet gave a nice example of workforce planning leading to a better understanding of the sorts of actions which would be needed to generate this success.

 

And I agree with Sumeet that Unilever deserves credit for understanding that this required some significant investment and big actions, not just “focusing a little more and working a little harder”. So Unilver has invested 45m (SGD?) in a new ‘4 acres’ leadership campus in Singapore.

I also liked the presentation from Hamidah Naziadin at CIMB. She has been working at this major regional bank for 20 years (starting off doing all the payroll etc herself). The company has also seen huge growth and challenges including mergers, Unions etc, and was also the one organisation to note that it now uses social media to support orientation etc.

 

I liked CIMB’s focus on ‘carefrontation’ – being a type of open confrontation based on respect for the individual, which struck me as a very appropriate Asian approach..

I was also interested that at the same time I was tweeting about this, someone else at the conference tweeted about the perspective of an employee in another Asian company suggesting that the Western concept of straight talk is simply an excuse to be rude – something which I think is often true. So I like the idea of carefrontation, but is it that innovative?

Is there really more innovation taking place in Asia than in the West? I’d have loved to have read through all the entries to the Asian Human Capital Awards, and certainly the winners of this – HCL and Manila Water were quite innovative. But I’m not sure there’s as much HR innovation going on in Asia as the CIPD suggest – or that needs to happen of course…

This is certainly a region of immense challenge, I’m quite certain of this. And the conference was full of data points emphasising the huge numbers of people who need to be recruited and developed as leaders etc (Walmart Asia suggest they’ll need to interview 1 million people over the next 5 years). They do need innovation, but I’m not currently convinced that many more of them will be able to follow in HCL’s footprints (meaning finding a unique strategy which differentiates them – not just copying Employees First, Customers Second – which I’m not convinced will work) than will be able to do so in the West…

(Without the right help of course!)

 

Technorati Tags: Innovation,Asia,HR,Hamidah Naziadin,CIMB,carefrontation,Sumeet Salwan,Unilever,Singapore,human capital,summit

 

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Vineet Nayar on the perfect storm

 

   No real surprise that HCL Technologies won this year’s Asian Human Capital Award.  CEO Vineet Nayar always speaks a lot of not-so-common sense and I’ve been looking forward to the awards session since Vineet let the cat out of the bag by tweeting about his session yesterday.

I wasn’t let down and think Vineet’s input has been the most insightful piece around Asian business / HR so far, talking about the current ‘perfect storm’ and suggesting that given the returning economic crisis in Europe, that the West is looking more seriously at the East than ever before (which is I guess why I’m here for the first time too).

Do take a look at his speech:

(To be uploaded)

 

I stop the video at about 10 minutes as Vineet started to get more deeply into HCLT’s experience – not that this was any less insightful but simply because I’ve already covered it previously – see:

• http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2010/07/vineet-nayar-employees-first.html
• http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-with-upside-down-ceo.html

 

As the Singapore Minister for Manpower explained, Asian organisations are responding to economic turbulence by developing their own innovative, effective and impactful human capital solutions rather than by translating solutions from the West (why would the East want to copy the practices that have got the West into this economic mess?).

HCLT’s experience is a good example of this – Employee First Customers Second “isn’t a people strategy identified to support the business, but a business strategy built around having employees build high performance and generate value for customers” (ie it’s creating vs just adding value).

 

Technorati Tags: Vineet Nayar,HCL,Employee First,Customers Second,Sinagpore,Human Capital,Summit,Asian,A,ward,perfect storm,East,HR

 

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Social Media in Asia

 

   One of the reasons that I’m so pleased to be delivering this HR and social media workshop in Kuala Lumpur is that I’m really interested in how social technology is developing in Malaysia and the rest of Asia.

 

 

From one perspective, it doesn’t seem that there’s much happening there – evidenced by the lack of HR bloggers in Asia (outside India) that I mentioned recently.

One the other hand, usage is clearly growing quickly.  For example, commenting on the displayed infographics from Burston Marsteller, Digital Buzz notes:

“Internet usage is sky-rocketing throughout the Asia-Pacific region, obviously making the growth of social media the fastest in the world, as you’ll see, it’s not all about Facebook, but it still leads the way across the region, at least for now. This is a nice collective Infographic from Burson-Marsteller.”

 

And I thought these comments in The Marketer were also very interesting:

“After a sluggish start, Chinese usage of social networks is leapfrogging pretty much every country in the world.  More than 200 millsion Chinese now have a social network account, and eMarketer forecasts that this will reach almost 488 million by 2015.  In terms of time spent online and intensity of engagement, Chinese social networks boast astonishing metrics.

China’s version of Twitter, Weibo launched as recently as August 2009.  Yet the top Weibo stars now boast more fans that Twitter’s leading celebrities.  Instant messaging platform QQ has more than 600 users, who regard it as their day-to-day e-mail platform.

Jerry Code, the Shanghai based head of cultural insight for WPP-owned marketing agency Value Added, says social networking is changing the fabric of Chinese culture.  ‘The impact has been massive – arguably more than in the West,  The changes in Chinese society have been so dramatic because people are used to change, which means the adoption of technology and social networks is much faster.  People of all ages are jumping into it.’ ”

 

 

The different languages, alphabets and technologies used in China and other Asian countries is clearly one reason it’s difficult to keep track with Asian thinking about HR through social media.  But with Google Translate and other tools it shouldn’t really be that difficult.

So I’m still not sure why there’s a disconnect between Asian usage of social media, and external use by Asian HR people.

Any thoughts?

 

Technorati Tags: Social media,workshop,course,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia,Asia,recruiting,learning,HR

 

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Reinvention of the Human Resources Function through Social Media / Kuala Lumpur

 

   I’m going to be delivering this session on HR and social media in Malaysia on 26th and 27th September.

“Social media is one of the main drivers of change in business at the moment.  In HR, it is enabling major transformations in recruiting, learning and other areas.

Many HR teams are now using social media and other web 2.0 technologies to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of their people management processes.  Most of these teams are using social media in the same way as traditional communication channels to ‘push’ information to employees.

However, social media also provides access to further benefits including improving the quality of recruit, the capability of individuals and teams, employee engagement and organisational culture.  HR teams gaining these additional benefits are using social media to ‘pull’ current and potential employees closer to the organisation, and to enhance sharing and participation across the workforce.

In addition, HR professionals have the opportunity to play a further role in their organisation’s use of social media too.  Businesses are using 2.0 tools to empower their employees to deliver better customer service; to keep track of customer needs (social CRM); to support knowledge management and to enable collaboration and innovation (enterprise 2.0).  However many of these projects present behavioural and cultural (rather than technological) challenges, requiring HR to lead or at least collaborate in the implementation of these systems.

Attend this workshop to understand how to gain all these sets of benefits for your HR team and your organisation.  In addition, we will also talk about why you yourself might benefit from more personal involvement in social media. And to start you off along this path, we will be encouraging you to get onto Twitter to tweet the session and ask questions of the trainer, and to contribute to a new blog summarising learning from the two days.”

 

I don’t know why all of the faces in the brochure are western, and am a bit worried that the guy in the bottom left clearly doesn’t want to be associated with the programme, but I’m sure it’ll be a great event for everyone who attends.

 

If you wish to book for the session, contact Ms Sarah Avery Chua (Marketing Executive) at International Podium Allianz Group:

Email: sara.a.chua @ ipa-group.com

Tel: 6631 9899

Fax: 6631 9894

 

Technorati Tags: HR,communication,recruiting,recruitment,learning,social media,workshop,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia,course,International Podium Allianz Group

 

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The Talent Race: Europe vs Asia

 

  My last post on Haier has generously been included in the current HR carnival posted by Abhishek Mittal on his Mumblr blog.   The theme of this carnival is ‘the talent race’, with a particular focus on Asia, although Abhishek hasn’t had many Asian bloggers contributing - the same problem I had when I hosted the ‘international HR carnival’ last year.  It’s strange, particularly given that many of the countries with the highest proportion of bloggers are in Asia.  So if you’re an Asian HR blogger, particularly if you’d like to increase your blog’s profile, do get in touch with us both.

Anyway, I think one of the best posts included in the carnival is from Laura Schroeder (Working Girl) writing at Compensation Cafe: Where has all the talent gone?.  And one of the reports Laura refers to it the Economist’s new Global Talent Index (GTI) report.  Amongst other things, this report concludes:

• NORDIC AND DEVELOPED ASIA PACIFIC COUNTRIES ARE PROMINENT IN THE GTI TOP TEN. Australia and Singapore are strong performers, the former due, among other factors, to its high-quality universities and the latter to its openness to international trade and foreign direct investment.
• CHINA OUTPERFORMS OTHER  COUNTRIES IN THE INDEX. China rises to 31st place in the GTI in 2015 from 33rd in 2011, but more notable is the five-point improvement in its score – the largest increase in 2015 of any country in the index. A major contributor is an expected increase in the country’s willingness to embrace foreign workers.

 

These conclusions aren’t much of a surprise, particularly as I’ve recently seen the Economist’s Robin Bew describing them at the recent Big ReThink and Talent Management summits.  Robin noted that whilst emerging markets will likely come off the boil, the trend was still definitely west to east (see pic).  More instability is forecast too, which I can definitely understand given the growing problems in Greece and its potential knock-on across effects across the rest of Europe and beyond.

So I can certainly relate to the perspectives of respondents to this recent survey by GfK NOP in HR Magazine.

“The GfK International Employee Engagement Study reveals the extent of the brain drain facing Britain, as it struggles to emerge from recession. More than a quarter (27%) of British workers are willing to move country to find a better job, possibly driven by a desire to escape the UK's soaring cost of living and static wages.

Our findings indicate Britain has a risk of 'brain drain' in the coming year, posing significant problems for companies looking to recover from the downturn. Both blue collar and white collar workers in the UK show a quarter of their number are willing to look overseas for work - and that figure rises for the higher educated workers. Even if only a fraction of these people actually make the move abroad, UK businesses will face a significant loss of talent, just at the time they most need it….

The findings highlight just how globalised and fluid the labour market has become in many countries. The truth remains that, for many employees, moving country is no more daunting than moving company. Companies looking to recruit, engage and retain the best staff need to compete, not just against rivals in their own nations and markets, but from right around the world.”

 

I’m certainly up for a move if anyone wants to offer an opportunity.

Perhaps that’s the solution to Abhishek’s Asian blogger shortage?

 

Technorati Tags: Talent,race,Asia,HR,carnival,Abhishek Mittal,Mumblr,blog,Laura Schroeder,Working Girl,Compensation Cafe,Economist,GTI,global,index

 

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