Lumesse #Engage2012

 

   I'm at Lumesse's international customer conference in London today.

The most interesting things for me have been:

• Listening to Josh Bersin - always great value even if I don't agree with everything he says - eg the development of Strategic HR into Integrated Talent Management (agreed) and then a business enablement function vs a separate function managing people (disagree). He's got research on his side, but there are always different ways of reading this!
• Catherine Berridge at Sara Lee talking about their Lumesse implementation, and the separation of their coffee company, but also their focus on collaboration, which is cascaded through their HR processes - at least their performance management one, with the inclusion of shared objective setting with anyone else in the company, not just through their own hierarchy (Lumesse apparently supports it too).
• Seeing the focus on collaboration continued at Tata Beverages in Nalin Miglani’s presentation (“individually excellent, collectively brilliant”).   Nalin didn’t make the link, but I think you can see this focus in Tata’s processes too, eg its appraisals are called ‘the conversation’ – and in fact they don’t even bother keeping the paperwork (I’m not sure whether it’s tracked in Lumesse’s systems or not).

 

In terms of Lumesse itself, the most interesting change for me, supporting their 'hashtag' (buzzword bingo) slide (above), is the development of 'Talent Cloud'.

I've long believed the greatest opportunity for using technology to support HR isn't just the system of record or even supporting managers, but actually supporting individual employees to do their jobs better. Talent Cloud support this, before, during and potentially after employment, including through social connections with other team members or others in the company.  Something to keep an eye on…

 

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2011-12 CHRO Challenges

 

   I obviously had too good a Christmas as I’ve been struggling to get back into work mode again.  But I’m now back at client work so it’s time to kick off blogging again too.

This year I’m keen to continue a good rate of posting, and to make my posts more strategic too.  There are now an awful lot of HR bloggers out there, but I want to ensure this blog is the one you continue to return to for advice on strategic people management and development.

I therefore thought it might be appropriate to start this year’s posting by reviewing Cornell CAHRS’ report, the 2011 CHRO challenges (based upon meeting the CEO’s needs for HR).  I may of course just be reinforcing my image of always being a bit late to the party, but then I only received this document towards the end of last year, and I’m sure the same sort of challenges will apply in 2012 as well.

The other reason that I wanted to pick up on this is that for the first time in three years, CAHRS have been able to separate out European data.  I write here for a global audience, but most (not all) of my clients are European based, so I’m particularly interested in their challenges.  And it’s interesting to see that European CHROs (or Heads of HR) generally experience the same main challenges as their US counterparts – particularly related to dealing with the lack of talent in the HR function.

However, this challenge is greater here too – leading to a significantly enhance challenge in transforming the HR function.

 

 

I had thought initially seeing this result that the difference in Europe would be down to the multi-country / language / labour code environment in which we work in here, but actually the obstacles are mainly about people – HR competencies (Europe 97%, US 58%), HR resources (25 / 34%) and organisational talent (19 / 25%), as well as in Europe, HR processes (29 / 5%), HR technology (25 / 10%) and line support (25 / 6%).  Not regulatory / legal constraints – which are actually higher in the US! (6 / 13%).

So what’s behind this lack of people and competencies?  One factor is the low promotion rates of CHROs compared to other CXOs (HBR article pictured above), particularly in Europe, where just 24% of CHROs are promoted from within the function.

 

I also think its about the lack of strategic development opportunities available, particularly again in Europe.  OK, we’ve got the CIPD in the UK which is broadly comparable to SHRM, but we don’t have anything comparable to HCI, HRPS etc, and I think it shows.

I’ll be making more announcements about my forthcoming support for strategic HR development during 2012 shortly…

You can also join my webinar on innovating HR at 4.00pm GMT tomorrow.

 

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Innovating HR - webinar

 

   If you want to know more about innovation in HR eg developing some innovative activities in 2012, or just improving your / your team’s ‘HR innovator and integrator competency, perhaps implementing some of Vance’s suggestions, or setting up an internal HR app store, then join me for this webinar on Thursday, 12th January 12 2012 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM GMT.

This is about the sixth time I’ve had to reschedule this webinar (apologies again for those of you who have tried to book before) but I’ve deliberately rebooked it for before I get too busy after the break – so hopefully there won’t be any problems (and I really will do everything I can to ensure there won’t be).  So reserve your webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/178781337.

I hope to see you there!

 

Picture credit: LaurMG

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New HR Competencies for Innovation and Technology

 

   Dave Ulrich’s latest update to the global HR competency framework was announced last week.  I’ve been using and talking about the various iterations of this framework for about 15 years now and on first look, it’s my favourite list so far.

The competencies are:

Strategic positioners who understand evolving business contexts, stakeholder expectations, and business requirements and translate them into talent, culture, and leadership actions

Credible activists who build relationships of trust and have a clear point of view about how to build business performance

Capability builders who define, audit, and create organization capabilities required for sustainable organizational success

Change champions who initiate and sustain change at the individual, initiative, and institutional levels

HR innovators and integrators who look for new ways to do HR practices and integrate those separate practices to deliver business solutions

Technology proponents who use technology for efficiency, to connect employees, and to leverage new communication channels, e.g., social media.

 

In a sense, it’s not that much of a change from last year.  Strategic architects has been renamed positioners which might not be much but it’s a useful shift because positioning suggests a sense of uniqueness and competitiveness ie it’s not just about architecting the same HR model as every other organisation.

Talent managers, Organisation designers and Culture Stewards have been grouped together as Capability builders which I think again is useful, as it emphasises that talent, organisation and culture aren’t just resources, but can be sources of competitive value in their own right.

Business allies and Operational executors have been dropped which again I think is positive.  Operational execution is the basic minimum, not the difference that leads to success.  Business alliancing is pretty basic too, and it’s removal emphasises, to me, that HR doesn’t achieve the difference that makes the difference simply by being closer to the business – it achieves this by creating unique positions of organisational capabilities.  These are what is important, and they’re different to, not the same as the value that can be provided by other business functions.

That just leaves change champions – fine – and credible activists – which was my favourite competency in the previous list.  Plus – and this is where it gets interesting – HR innovators, and Technology proponents.  (No mention of measurement which may surprise some people but I think is right.  But also no mention of facilitating decision making, which I still think Ulrich made a mistake of removing from 2003’s to 2007’s iteration.)

 

I think innovation and technology are essential additions too.  Innovation is critical to achieving unique positions and capabilities, and technology – especially, though not just social media - is becoming increasingly central to achieving this innovation too.

Have you seen these posts last week on HR innovation?

• HR iphone & ipad apps
• Vance Kearney on Innovation / 2
• Innovative HR in 2012

 

I’ll also be continuing to post on HCM technology next year – including on the new site linked to the HR Technology Europe conference which I’ll be MCing again next year.

 

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HR iphone & ipad apps

 

   I’ve been included in this article in HR Magazine on HR iphone apps.  I write about some of the favourites that I use or have been able to find.

I don’t think it’s the best piece of writing I’ve ever done, and I think a lot of that is down to feeling rather less than excited about the HR apps which are currently available.

There are a few more apps available for ipads and I think these are generally better, but even here there are still a limited number available.  Some provide the same sorts of access difficulties I describe in my article (Workday, Globoforce etc) although one – Peoplefluent – includes a nice demo and a fun training tool (or that’s what my daughter says) – Talentastic.

I’m sure we’ll see more of, and improvements in these and other apps during 2012.  I might even do one myself to give you better mobile access to Strategic HCM!?

 

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Vance Kearney on Innovation / 2

 

   Supporting my post on innovation yesterday, I thought I’d share with you some of Vance Kearney from Oracle’s thoughts on this topic.

Vance and I have been having an off-line discussion about this topic following his presentation at the CIPD conference (which I also blogged on).  Although it was an interesting panel, Vance felt that he didn’t get the opportunity to talk about the practical steps that HR practitioners can take to encourage innovation. He’s therefore agreed to let me publish some of our exchange of views.

Here are his thoughts:

Had I been asked what we practitioners including all those in the audience could do,  I would have said encourage the proliferation of shared interest groups and communities around products, services, technologies and processes. Support them with the very best networking and social enterprise tools that you can and also encourage them to meet physically from time to time to share and refine their ideas.

Innovation happens when passionate and interested people are encouraged to share ideas with a shared vision and ambition to create the very best.  Working together ambitiously and passionately is what drives innovation and HR can assist by making the case for the benefits of the social enterprise at the senior management level. 

Creating informal professional communities around shared product, technologies or functions and specialties is a relatively easy thing to do. Using blogs, social networking, conferencing tools can bring people together and its best if its done, by those communities, for those communities, rather than something which is imposed or heavily regulated. 

In this effort HR can encourage managers not to seek to regulate the communities but instead encourage the involvement of employees at every level, not just those with formal responsibilities from the senior levels. In my experience some of the best innovations have come from teams that have not "included" the more senior managers but instead just been given their encouragement and support

HR can champion the social enterprise to create innovation, and it does not need to carry a huge financial cost, it can even save money. Informal networking can be very much more productive than formal agenda  and powerpoint driven meetings and the cost of the tools can be more than offset by reduced travel costs.

Social networking the enterprise is the best way to encourage and create innovation.

 

So there you go.  I just thought these points were worth sharing rather than leaving as part of a personal communication – particularly as I totally endorse them!

 

Picture credit: HR Magazine

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Innovative HR in 2012

 

   I presented a session on the future of strategic HRM yesterday.  Now I’m no futurist – I much prefer to focus on the opportunities that are available to us today, but I think I’ve got a good idea of some of the changes we’ll see happening over the next 5 –10 years (I’m not going to repeat them here – just have a scan through this blog).

But of course this is the time of year that everyone produces their predictions for the next one.  I’m not going to do much of this either – I never seem to get these right so there doesn’t seem much point.

But I do want to single out one thing which I’m sure is going to become more important next year.  And this is being more innovative in HR.

There are three reasons for this:

1. It’s going to be a tough, tough year – at least for those of us in the flatlining (developed) vs growth (emerging) economies.  We cut the fat before the last recession and after a tincy bit of jobless growth, there ain’t much of that left.  Trimming further is going to be harder, and require more radical approaches, than before.
2. There’s just a ton of stuff to do eg see Josh Bersin’s predictions which include globalised specialisation in recruitment, glocalisation of HR, integration of recruiting/HR etc, social medialisation of recruiting and in fact all HR activities, holistic engagement, transformed development, agile performance management, strategic mobility, enterprise career development, borderless leadership, flexible use of technology and big data segmentation - all of these are mini innovations in their own right (no wonder Bersin’s additional prediction was for reskilling of HR – the function is going to need it!).
3. Most importantly, no one organisation can (perhaps just the very largest), or should (including the largest), do all of the above.  What companies need to do therefore it to understand the future of strategic HRM for them, and then pick the developments from the above list, and other things, that best fit with their own strategic needs.  Few organisations are doing this well currently, hence some broader innovation in HR’s approach, rather than just what it does, is required.

 

It’s going to be a tough, but an interesting, year!

 

Picture from my recent visit to CERN on the day that we’ve possibly confirmed the Higgs boson – innovation at its most extreme (you may also recognise Katie McNab)

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Looking forward – Economist Talent Management Summit

 

   As well as Learning Technologies, the HR Directors Business Summit just before it, and the Enterprise 2.0 Summit shortly afterwards, there are a few other conferences I’ve already committed to attending / speaking / blogging at next year.

One of these is the Economist’s Talent Management Summit in June.  The focus of this year’s conference is going to be on the next generation of leadership, so as well as sessions on engagement and workforce planning, the event will focus on:

 

Differences in the next generation eg more female, and more mobile

The number of women in senior and top management roles is still shockingly small. What must be done to increase the female talent pool and get them into senior leadership positions?

• How do businesses explain poor retention and promotion of women?
• What can companies do to retain or increase women’s motivation to lead?
• What strategies can help overcome invisible barriers?
• How do you transform a corporate culture and management/employee mind-sets?

Sue Swanborough, Human Resources Director, UK and Ireland, General Mills

Future leadership teams will be composed of members of the “net generation”. How do you build, manage and retain leaders who are more mobile and eager to self-develop than any generation in the past?

• What are their key values and motivators?
• How should you align corporate strategy with different ways of working and career development?
• What role can social media play in engaging them in the organisation?
• What strategies do companies employ to win the loyalty of their high-potential talent?

A leading company will be quizzed about how they engage the net generation and help the brightest talent transition into the next executive team.

 

Business challenges for the next generation

Leadership quality is critical in times of change, whether moving from zero-growth to high-growth markets or managing a major organisational restructure.

• What key characteristics does the modern leader need to succeed? In a period of upheaval, what behaviours instil trust?
• What is that drives pattern observed in good leaders: a country’s culture or rather inherent characteristics of a complex organisation? What does this mean for selecting the right management teams for new, alien territories?
• How do you define and find the intellectual leadership needed for serious organisational change?
• What are the secrets of leading diverse or transforming organisations?

A panel of experts will discuss which leadership behaviours have the best chance to move the business forward in times of change and into new markets.

 

HR’s role supporting the next generation

• Business-oriented HR: putting talent strategy at the heart of corporate strategy
• How do you turn your top management into talent leaders?

In this discussion, senior management will be challenged on their views of the role of HR and talent professionals as business leaders and influencers.

Panellists:
Tanith Dodge, Director of Human Resources, Marks & Spencer
Doug Baillie, Chief HR Officer, Unilever

 

The 2011 Talent Management Summit was undoubtedly one of the best HR events last year, and I’m sure this one will be equally as good.

You can get discounted tickets up to the end of this / next month but I’ll also be looking for a couple of HR Directors who read this blog to come along as my guests – more details about this next month.

 

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Learning Technologies conference

 

   I’ll be talking more about learning at January’s Learning Technologies conference.

I’ll be presenting in a session with Paul Jagger from IBM and Rachel Roberts from City & Guilds in a session arising from a tweet this Summer:

The Learning Professional

Where should learning and development fit in an organisation? During the Learning and Skills Group Conference in June 2011, Paul Jagger tweeted that L&D needed to break free from HR. Almost immediately Jon Ingham came back to contradict him: HR is the natural home for L&D. Rachel Roberts, meanwhile, has a different, third opinion. It’s an important debate to have, and we can rely on our three speakers to share their thoughts openly and to kick off what promises to be an interesting debate between each other and with the floor.

 

Other speakers I’m looking forward to seeing include:

• Andy Jones, Head of Learning and Innovation, Sweet and Maxwell
• Andy MacGovern, VP - Strategic Talent, Thomson Reuters
• Andy Wooler, HR Technology Manager, Legal & General Assurance Group Plc
• Antoine Solom, International Director, Employee Relationship Management, Ipsos Loyalty
• Barry Sampson, Consultant, barrysampson.com
• Charles Jennings, Director, Duntroon Associates
• Chris Bones, Dean Emeritus, Henley Business School and Professor of Creativity and Leadership, Manchester Business School
• Clive Shepherd, Director, Onlignment Ltd
• David Wilson, Managing Director, Elearnity
• Denise Hudson Lawson, Head of ICT Training, Houses of Parliament
• Donald Clark, Board Member, Ufi
• Dr Brian Chimsamy, Head of Learning, Leadership and Talent for Barclays Africa
• Ed Scruton, Talent Development Operations Manager, Telefonica UK
• Edward de Bono
• Gareth Williams, Head of Learning and Development, Cambian Group
• Harvey Seale, Group L&D Manager, Nuffield Health
• Hasan Adnan, Head of Learning, Global Leadership & Talent Team, British American Tobacco
• Jacob Hodges, Associate Director to the Office of Naval Research Global
• James Rule, Head of HR Talent Systems, Thomson Reuters
• Jane Gardner, Learning & Talent Development Manager, Taylor & Francis Group
• Jason Corsello, HCM Thought Leader and Commentator
• Joanne Jacobs, Interaction Design and Social Media Strategy Consultant
• Jonathan Garrett, Group Head of Sustainability, Balfour Beatty plc
• Kathy Morris, Senior Learning Partner, RSA Insurance Group
• Keith Quinn, Senior Education & Workforce Development Adviser, Scottish Social Services Council
• Kevin Streater, Executive Director, Employer Engagement – IT & Telecoms, The Open University
• Laura Overton, Managing Director, Towards Maturity
• Matthew H. DeFeo, Senior Vice President Sales, Training and Recruiting, Techtronic Industries, Inc.
• Nigel Paine, Managing Director, NigelPaine.com
• Noreen Wolfe, eLearning Manager, Whitbread
• Sarah Harrison, Manager, HR Operations, Thomson Reuters
• Stephanie Dedhar, Learning and Performance Consultant, BP
• Stephen Heppell, CEO, Heppell.net and Chair in New Media Environments, Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, Bournemouth University
• Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of Learning Technology, University of Plymouth
• Tony Wardle, Learning Innovation and Technology Manager Global Learning Team, British American Tobacco

 

Hope to see you there!

 

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Integrating Formal, Informal and Social Learning

 

   The thing I don’t like about the 70-20-10 model, which I reviewed last week, is that social learning isn’t really a separate category from formal and informal learning, but a different category of these.  Ie, you’ve really got (or should want to have) these four different types of learning going on (descriptions taken from Jane Hart):

 

 

I think it is more useful to think about learning in these four ways, and to ensure that learning solutions and environments consist of all four (where appropriate).

However, the point from yesterday’s post still applies – it’s about creating a portfolio, not managing the percentages. There needs to be an overarching learning strategy too.

The model is also useful for thinking about measurements as I think these need to change in nature for each different form of learning too (whilst again, forming part of one holistic approach to learning measurement).

 

 

Moving from formal to informal measures become less quantitative and objective and more qualitative and subjective. This is just because the learning activities we are trying to measure become less tangible, and the relationships between these and the outcomes and impacts we are trying to achieve less direct and more complex.

Similarly moving from individual (or individual within a group) to social, measures become less about something which can be reported, and more about something that has to be discussed – ie more of a basis for conversation.

Incidentally, I was involved in some tweeting about this around the #SDDT unconference (another example of social learning) the week before last (see picture at the top of this post).

I don’t think there is a problem with this – some things are just naturally best measured in qualitative and conversational terms. But of course, there are things you can do to make them more quantitatively measurable and reportable. For example, technology is one big help.

But the type of technology that needs to be used also changes according to the type of learning. Despite some discussion on this, I still believe that the LMS has a vital role in supporting individual, formal learning. I think new media tools like blogging (social media tools which are not of necessity social) probably play an increasingly significant role here, helping to plan and capture the ongoing learning that takes place (a bit like an electronic learning log).

Over on the social side of things, social networking and social learning systems (social learning systems being social networking systems with more focus on learning content etc) are the prime tools.

 

 

But again, all of these technologies need to be integrated together as well.

It’s why I’m so pleased that the sponsorship of this blog, previously with Plateau, has been taken over by SuccessFactors, post Plateau’s integration (particularly now SuccessFactors itself is being acquired by SAP which I also do some work for).

Plateau gave SuccessFactors an LMS capability and Jambok and CubeTree, recently integrated as Jam, provide the social media and networking capabilities referred to above.  So you can do each separate, and the whole, thing.

 

 

This post is sponsored by SuccessFactors.

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