HR – evolving and connecting…

 

   Earlier in the week I asked HRevolution: What’s next?

My second answer to this question deals with the session at the end of HRevolution (#HRevolution): how do we extend the conversation out of the echo chamber?

I think it’s an important point.  Now I love meeting other blog / twitterarti, especially from the HR field, and you’ll find photos of most of those I’ve met on this site.  But then, for me, this enjoyment is mostly about wanting to meet people that I feel I’ve got a virtual relationship with (one based on the joint use of social media), rather than any deep desire to talk about social media with them.

So, where I can, I like to mix my social media linked with more generic networking.  It’s one reason the Connecting HR tweet-ups (#ConnectingHR) don’t require people to be currently using social media (other than the few suppliers bringing practitioners along as well).

And it’s also important if we want to use these sorts of events to impact on the way that HR is done – particularly if we are after revolution rather than evolution (I do) – see this post on connected, innovative crowds.

This is one reason that the forthcoming Connecting HR Un-conference (#CHRU) in the UK will focus a bit more broadly – including non-social media users, and including social media on the agenda (as one of the biggest factors impacting on HR right now), but focusing on a much broader agenda than this too.

Of course, to enable social learning, it’s still important that there’s some form of community there – something to enable the formation of ‘learning teams’.  So participants should have something in common and would ideally some form of proto-relationships (real or virtual) with each other too.

Also reflecting more about this need for something in common – I think this needs to be a common desire to share and learn.  And I do think this is one additional reason why networking with other social medi-arti is so much fun – these are all people who are willing to share (or they wouldn’t be using social media).

This raises two questions to me:

1. How do attract people to attend if they’re not using social media (part of the reason I think other events focus on social media so much is that the attendees have all heard about the event on social media)?
   • My hope here is that the people who have or are attending Connecting HR tweet ups will act as ambassadors for us for this – putting the word out in the real-world as well as in the virtual one.
2. How do ensure we ensure attendees are all willing to share and learn?
   • Actually, I don’t think this should be too difficult – it’s one of the benefits of working in HR.  HR practitioners may not always be great networkers, but they do generally know how to socialise, and the benefits of this.

 

It should work – we just need to get the powerpoints out of the way and allow connecting and relating to fill the space they leave.

 

It would be great to get some feedback on these rather random thoughts (particularly from those who have attended ConnectingHR tweets-ups, TRU or HRevolution etc…).

 

Also see my other HRevolution related posts:

• HRevolution: What’s next?
• Employer rating sites: why are they important to HR?
• Is social learning team learning

 

And Gareth’s recent post on Connecting HR:

• Time to start the HR conversation…

 

Photo credit: akustik

Technorati Tags: Social,learning,networking,connecting,media,HRevolution,HR,tweet-up,unconference,London,UK,GG

 

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Is social learning team learning?

 

   I commented on an excellent post by Mervyn Dinnen, reflecting on social learning at HRevolution, yesterday.

Mervyn asks:

“Maybe if we are to get maximum benefit from Social Learning, especially from our unconferences, networking and crowd sourcing then…the answer may well lie in getting Social before you can get to the Learning…”

And I respond:

“Absolutely. Social learning isn’t just about sitting round with a group of people, it’s connecting with people you have a relationship with. It’s these relationships that give knowledge an added element and which makes the learning deeper than that gained from formal training. If you don’t have relationships with the other people, these need to be developed first, or together. So it’s probably easier in smaller rather than larger groups. But it can be done in larger groups too, depending on the context, ie as long as everyone understands what the objective and approach is, participates in helping to achieve this, and that’s there time to do the social relationship as well as the content learning stuff.”

 

Then last night, I was flicking through a presentation send to me by a friend and partner in India, which included the attached slide.  And I thought, is social learning team learning?

I don’t mean by this that social learning can only be done in a workplace team.  After all, unconferences like HRevolution and ConnectingHR aren’t based on teams, rather just collections of people with common interests.

But perhaps these people do need to think about being in a team – a learning team – in order to maximise the benefits they get out of their social learning?

One in which they need to progress from forming to norming (with a focus on connecting / relating itself as the ‘task’ objective) before they can proceed onto performing ie learning?  What do you think?

 

Also see:

• More more social learning at informatology
• More social learning at informatology
• Google Collaboration
• The future of learning (Talking HR 026)
• Josh Bersin on informal and social learning
• Using social media at CIPD09
• Social Learning (Talking HR 020)
• Learning 2.0

 

Technorati Tags: Social learning,unconference,HRevolution,Connecting,HR,team,Mervyn Dinnen,Bruce Tuckman

 

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Employer rating sites: why are they important to HR?

 

   I’m quoted in an an article in Personnel Today on employer rating sites such as Glassdoor.com.

"They are becoming increasingly important," says Jon Ingham, social media expert and executive consultant at consultancy Strategic HCM. "In particular the younger generation, who are more internet savvy, are used to using sites like TripAdvisor for personal things and they are increasingly using employer rating sites before they apply for a new opportunity or before they accept an offer."

[Please note, I didn’t call myself a social media expert!]

 

The discussion in the article is part a wider issue about who has control of an organisation’s employer brand.

This issue was nicely addressed by John Sullivan in an article last year (I particularly like Sullivan’s point on the power of bloggers!), and has been taken forward by Bill Boorman and the TRU unconferences as well as HRevolution in the debates about whether employer brands have been employee branded.

 

I’m still on the side of control.  And I don’t mean that organisations can control the (social media) conversation – I don’t think they can, or should.  I completely support Mervyn Dinnen’s reflections on ‘control’ as the subject of conversation at HRevolution:

“During one track I asked if we could just forget CONTROLLING social media and start EMBRACING social media! It’s my belief that if you try to control what people say, whether through a policy or strict guidelines, then you stifle the creativity and spontaneity that, I believe, are at the heart of social media.”

 

But I do think that by participating in these conversations, organisations can still control the general image of their brand.  I think this post at Social implications sums it up quite well:

“Think of it this way — all of your customers, readers, or whoever your target audience consists of are like this big conversational sea. It might be calm one day and you might hit rough waters the next. But either way, you’re always at the helm. You have the ability to steer or influence the image your company portrays.”

 

Also see: Employer brands debate at HRevolution 2010: Are your staff your best ambassadors?

And more of this at the HCI webcast in a couple of weeks time.

 

Photo credit: Bvld11

Technorati Tags: Employer rating,Glassdoor,employer brand,control,social media,HCI,webcast,HRevolution

 

 

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HRevolution: What’s next?

 

   Most of this blog’s readers live in the US, but for the benefit of those readers in the UK (who perhaps don’t read all the US HR blogs, or the recruitment focused ones of Mervyn Dinnen and Bill Boorman in the UK), there was been a big event taking place in the US this weekend.

HRevolution (revolution or evolution?) was an unconference involving 130 HR bloggers and tweeters meeting up in Chicago this Saturday to discuss HR, social media, communications and leadership/development.

I didn’t go, partly because it was my daughter’s 8th birthday, and partly… well, I just can’t go to everything I’d like.  But reading the blogs and tweets from the event, it seems to have gone exceedingly well,  However, the main question participants are taking away with them is the same as last year’s: where now, what happens next?

I’d like to suggest two answers to this:

The first suggestion relates to a comment I made on one of Trish’s posts last year: one action will be to take this approach international.  And I like Lance Haun’s build on the ‘what next’ question:

“Will your behavior change at all or are the things that inspired you getting shelved until you have more time (which ends up being never)?”

 

Well, the change that I’m going to make is to get cracking on a UK / Europe focused HR unconference, linked to our existing tweet-ups, Connecting HR.

This is provisionally going to be a one-day un-event, including pre- and post- evening events, to be held in London sometime in September.  I’m already working on this with Gareth Jones (and Mervyn Dinen / others from the Courtenay HR team), but we’re keen to get more people involved.  So do get in touch if you want to join the organising committee, or you’ve got suggestions for location, session themes etc.

 

So, there you go: in a very real sense, Connecting HR will be the ‘what next’.  But I also hope this event will respond to ‘the question’ in a rather deeper way as well.  I’ll post on this, my second answer, in a couple of days time.

 

Photo credit: The Telegraph

 

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HCI webcast: Telling the European brand story

 

    I’m already involved with the Human Capital Institute in the US, delivering its Human Capital Strategist certification programme in the UK and Europe.

 

I’m now going to be presenting HCI’s first webcast focused specifically on the European market:

Telling the European Brand Story

Track: Talent Strategy in UK/Europe
WEBCAST: Webcast Airs: June 25, 2010 * New, updated date *

We often hear about the need to continually attract, motivate and retain our employees. Many of us tie these issues to our employee brand and continually strive to become an employer of choice. But are we missing out on opportunities to utilize technology to improve our brand and solidify our place in the global market? Technologies that are already being utilized by your company can assist you in maintaining brand integrity and driving employee engagement.

This webcast will look at multiple technology platform that can work with your existing brand-- and provide big results at a small investment level. We'll look at corporate social networking as a tool to create "employee ambassadors" and see how creating relationship brands and leveraging the social web can promote grass roots brand engagement. We'll also examine best practices from companies who have leveraged their technology systems-- and find out what pitfalls to avoid.

 

You can register for the webcast here.

 

Technorati Tags: Human Capital Institute,HCI,talent strategy,employer brand,technology,social networking,webcast,UK,Europe

 

 

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100,000 visits

 

   I’m working at home today, catching up on work after having a bit of time off with a bad cold.  And I just noticed (really!) that this blog’s hit the 100 thousand reader mark (in terms of unique visits).

Not great, as I’m sure some blogs get this traffic per day.  But not too bad either.

So, Virginia Beach: thanks for stopping by this morning.

And thanks to all my other readers over the last (nearly) three years.

 

Technorati Tags: Jon Ingham,strategic,hr,hcm Strategy,hr2.0,blog

 

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More more social learning at informatology

 

   I was just being a participant, albeit a fairly active one, on the second day of informatology.  The choice was between some fairly traditional presentations by Great Places to Work, Nick Shackleton-Jones on video production and Jane Hart on social learning.  In the end, I spent most of the day with Jane and Karyn Romeis on social learning.

I think this was the right choice.  I’d love to know how to make video better, but the key challenge for most organisations remains getting people to post videos and other content, not how to raise their quality (a point supported by someone from BT who noted the challenge they had had in shifting thinking from the quality of lip synching etc to just getting stuff on their social learning site, Dare2Share: “they’re missing the point – we just need to get them sharing and collaborating”).

And definitely better than more butts in chairs (those sitting the third room know what I mean)!

 

See Jane Hart’s summary of the day:

• http://janeknight.typepad.com/socialmedia/2010/05/using-twitter-in-a-facetoface-workshop.html (Jane has also captured all of our tweets in a Tweetdoc PDF here)

 

Also see Craig Taylor’s thoughts on the day:

• http://craigtaylor1974.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/anti-social-to-social-all-in-a-day/

 

And these two recent articles on social learning and Dare2Share on XpertHR’s blog:

• http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2010/04/if-elearning-is-still-not-seen.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
• http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2010/04/why-go-beyond-e-learning.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

Technorati Tags: Jane Hart,social learning,c4lpt,masterclass,informatology,Twitter

 

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Pecha Kucha at informatology

 

   As well as speaking at informatology, I also chaired an ‘unconference’* session consisting of pecha kucha presentations (a series of 20 slides, each auto-forwarded after 20 seconds).

I thought it went well – and certainly found it more engaging than a traditional series of presentations.

Some of the other speakers’ thoughts are here:

• http://winningbysharing.typepad.com/oaxaca/2010/05/what-do-companies-need-to-survive.html
• http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2010/04/30/ideas-for-an-unconference-process?blog=5

 

And see Scott McArthur’s thoughts on pecha kucha too:

• http://mcarthursrant.blogspot.com/search?q=pecha+kucha

 

*  And look out for more details on the Connecting HR unconference shortly.

 

Technorati Tags: Pecha Kucha,unconference,presentation,informatology

 

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Talent management, collaboration and competition: GE and IBM

 

    I presented a short talk at today’s informatology conference.  This was a plenary and I was asked to do something linking together the three strands focusing on talent management, learning and new media.

To an extent, and at a high level, there are some clear commonalities between these three themes, but digging a bit deeper there are some interesting tensions between them too – particularly if you see talent as something that is differentiated and exclusive.

So I talked about these tensions – about how a focus on competition vs collaboration can influence the implementation of talent management, change the focus of learning, and make it much less likely that people will spend discretionary effort on things like new / social media.

To support my points, I referred to a recent, excellent article in Business Week, “Can GE Still Manage?”.  The article asks whether GE’s highly regarded leadership and people management practices are now outdated.

So for example, it notes the role of Crotonville, GE’s 53 acre leadership development campus – somewhere GE’s 191 most senior executives will have spent a whole year at during their first 15 years with GE.

Business Week notes that GE thinks this is a virtue, but asks what if it’s not.

It compares GE with IBM:

“Like GE, it is old—dating back a century—and big. But it's nimble and transparent as well. While GE posts vignettes of selected employees on its Web site, IBM offers a full 400,000-employee directory. It has been an innovator in connecting its people via an internal social network where workers post photos, CVs, and a list of professional skills… While it offers classroom training, the company increasingly favors social networks… and "any other tools that enable peer-to-peer learning."

 

And it asks:

“Who is the pioneer of peer-to-peer learning, or what executive coach and author Daisy Wademan Dowling calls the "leaders teaching leaders" model? A company called GE. The main difference at GE is that much of the peer-to-peer learning takes place in front of an audience at Crotonville.”

 

The interesting thing here is that, to me, the article seems to suggest that the difference between the two companies is the use of social media as opposed to physical facilities and that this is the key factor which leads to the two companies difference approaches to leadership

I don’t think it is.  I think the difference is about the companies’ difference approaches to differentiated talent management.

We all know about GE’s focus on differentiation – its Session C process and rank and yank approach.

And actually IBM differentiates it’s workforce too.  In fact IBM is the main case study in Dick Beatty’s book on this subject.  And I suppose also the basis for Tim Ringo’s remark at the CIPD HRD’s conference last week that the company might reduce its workforce from the current 400,000 to 100,000 people by 2017 (also see Ringo’s comments on focal jobs).

But this is a different sort of differentiation too.  BW’s article refers to its full employee directory and I’ve posted previously on its W3 intranet as well.  And then you’ve got its Value Jam and other activities it has conducted to increase the inclusiveness of its whole workforce. 

OK, GE has got its own ‘SupportCentral’ users have created over 50,000 communities with over 100,000 experts signed up to answer questions and manage information.  But I doubt this system gets the same level and type of social usage as IBM’s.

I just don’t believe that IBM’s activities would work at GE, where the culture strikes me as simply too competitive for managers and employees to want to devote much of their time and discretionary behaviours to collaborative activities like contributing to new media.

 

Where is your organisation on a spectrum from competitive to collaborative culture, and what does this say about your approach to talent management, learning and new media?

 

Technorati Tags: IBM,GE,Business Week,competition,collaboration,new media,social media,informatology

 

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More social learning at informatology

 

Other social learning case studies (see my previous post on Google) from informatology included:

 

   Tiina Paju-Pomfret on using social media in a learning context at BUPA.

BUPA’s learning system, BUPA Live, allow Bupa staff to access training from wherever they are and whenever they need it and also help grow ‘One BUPA’: connecting people and creating a cohesive company:

• The system links to, rather than replaces, BUPA’s LMS.
• Implementation of the system was led by the business, not Tiina’s Information Systems group.  This included training (face-to-face followed-up with further learning using BUPA Live itself) to create super users who shared what they had learnt more broadly.
• One interesting aspect of the way it is being used is that people can use an approval route to have their contribution checked before it is published (use of this is optional).
• People are using the system daily and those who do are 6% more engaged than their other colleagues.

 

   Michelle Russell from Royal Caribbean International talked about their use of e and social learning to engage the network of travel agents to actively promote their cruise packages:

• After having tried different systems, the company now mainly uses Facebook to provide information and enable interaction (the travel agents also use RCI’s page to chat with each other)
• They use webex to provide virtual classroom based training
• They evaluate the learning that has been provided by chatting with the travel agents on their Facebook page, emailing them after learning has been completed, and inviting them to future events.  they also get feedback when they are out on the road meeting with the travel agents.

 

Technorati Tags: Tiina Paju-Pomfret,BUPA,Michelle Russell,Royal Caribbean International,learning,social,media,informatology

 

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