Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in November & December
Finally, we hope you enjoy our latest 10 of the best HR Transformation articles and a big thank you to all those that come back to us with ideas and suggestions to share with the HR community. Do keep in touch with any of your future Top 10 articles and suggestions - @AndySpence on Twitter.
1. In Search Of HR Tech Best Practices, by Naomi Bloom
2. The Future of Human Resources and Social Media, by Sharlyn Lauby, aka HR Bartender, on Mashable
3. HR Costs Rebounding? from Michael O'Brien in HRE Online
4. Performance management: looking in the wrong place from Glyn Lumley, aka HR Maverick
5. Service Levels for HR Services Delivery – An Evolution, from Jim Koenig – Equaterra
6. A systems thinking guide to outsourcing for the sceptical public sector leader, from the Systems Thinking Review
7. Is HR too big to innovate?, from J.Keith Dunbar, from DNA of Human Capital blog
8. Mobile Apps are Ringing up HRO, Linda Merritt from HRO Insights Blog
9. What Next for HR, Connecting HR at HRO Europe, from HR Transformer Blog
For those at the conference or interested, here are the views of Jon Ingham and Gary Bragar as they give their highlights of the conference themes in HR Transformation and HR Outsourcing.
10. Shared HR services the way forward for local authorities
Shared services ‘not a panacea’ for cost-savings. “Shared services have been heralded as a panacea to solve the [public sector spending] problem,” continued Shoesmith. “It is one option but there are many others. £81 billion is a lot of money to lose out of public services over the next four years, but the cuts can be delivered in a variety of different ways.”
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Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in October
1. The end of “here’s one I prepared earlier” – from the HR Maverick Blog, aka Glyn Lumley
2. The evolution of HR Systems – from Josh Bersin
3. If I could change one thing about HR – from Nick Shackleton-Jones, BBC's manager of online and informal learning – Guest Post on XpertHR
To answer this requires the full suite of tools from both HR & L&D. In this context, any silos between HR and L&D does not make sense.
4. The HR Ratio Or "How Many Employees Does It Take to Screw Up an HR Department?" – Mike Haberman, HR Observations
5. Is Benchmarking Destructive? – in Consulting Magazine, reporting on a Booz & Company article
We couldn’t agree more with this view as too often we find organisations worrying about external benchmarks when it is not clear why their HR Ratio is much bigger in a particular region or business.
For more on UK Government HR Benchmarks, see our post - "HR Benchmarks – A Government Health Warning"
6. What we teach, How we learn – A Guide for Workplace Learning and Engagement – From Benjamin McCall and others at RestartHR
7. Fear and Loathing on LinkedIn – from Steve Boese on Fistful of Talent
8. What future for the NHS staff record – from Vince Lammas at Attractor Consulting
9. Central Government is rubbish at managing Management Consultants – Flip Chart Fairy Tales
10. Recapping the Not-so-Dog-Days of HRO’s 2010 Summer – from HRO Insights
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Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in July
1. HRO’s Summer Gets Hotter – Aon to Acquire Hewitt - from Linda Merritt, Nelson Hall
There has been further movement in the HR Outsourcing and HR Consulting industries with AON buying Hewitt. The industry analysts have been busy, but we don’t believe this is ”a sad, bad day for HR Outsourcing?”, as Horses for Sources report. Linda Merritt at Nelson Hall reports this deal is about growth, at Glass Bead Consulting we also see this market growing in the coming years.
So all is not lost, this market is developing and this should ultimately be good news for buyers – watch this space as the HRO Monopoly game continues….
2. The Care and Feeding of Your CFO – from Charlie Judy, at HR Fishbowl
According to Charlie, if there’s one position in the organisation that most HR leaders have trouble connecting with, it’s the Chief Finance Officer (CFO).
Charlie outlines some useful suggestions for maintaining a good relationship with the Finance community. One of our favourites is to create an “HR Dashboard” that you share with the CFO and their team monthly. Include turnover, headcount, FTEs, cost of benefits, payroll, hiring statistics.
3. Reading Oracle's tea leaves from Bill Kutik, HR Executive Online
In HR Technology,
“The 800-lb. gorilla of HR technology sits where it wants to, talks when it wants to and, certainly, only to whom it wants to. “
Find out more about Oracle’s Fusion plans from the man in the know, Bill Kutik. Bill also gathers the opinions of other leading industry analysts.
4. Nine key workforce trends for the next decade – from Graeme Codrington, Tomorrows Today Blog
Working out future workforce trends is important in designing HR Operating Models and HR Strategies. Graeme Codrington outlines some key changes including more older workers, more women in the workplace, unprecedented youth unemployment and generational conflict.
5. Talent Management systems – Market update – from Josh Bersin
This is a useful overview of developments in the Talent Management Systems from Josh Bersin. This includes ADP’s acquisition of Workscape. Taleo introduces its Talent Intelligence Strategy and Saba introduces Saba Live.
6. Bring on the math(s) and stats – from Thomas Otter, Gartner
We couldn’t agree more, HR needs more number crunchers and not just to keep in with the CFO. HR Analytics is essential as our businesses, workforce and economies change.
7. When is a strategy not a strategy? – from Jocelyn R. Davis, Edwin H. Boswell and Henry M. Frechetter, Jr. at TLNT.com
8. Beginners guide to using social media for HR – Guest post from Natasha Stone on Steve Boese's excellent HR Technology Blog
9. World Cup Leadership Lessons – Rosabeth Moss Kanter – Harvard Business Review
So back to work it is, unless that is, you do actually work in Football.
10. Government Cuts: A view from the inside – from Karen Wise's HR Blog
Karen writes about HR in the NHS, and gives some interesting perspectives from the inside. The UK Government is planning to make up to 40% cuts to budgets. Karen outlines some of the challenges including demographics of the workforce and attitudes of the senior team.
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Why England Lose – Talent Management Insights from Football
1 – A new manager wastes money. Typically the new manager wants to make their mark by buying and selling players. This is usually disruptive to the team, with the manager unlikely to stay around long enough for this tactic to pay dividends. Would you let your new Executive ‘hire and fire’ and bring in their own team in the first few weeks? Or get them to utilise the existing resources, understand their strengths and weaknesses before filling capability gaps to match your strategy?
2 – Stars of recent World Cups are overvalued. You can pick the player who dazzles for their country in the big tournament, playing for their national pride, but will they deliver on a cold, wet evening in Blackburn in November? A new recruit is “only as good as their last project” this cliché is simply not true. Don’t be dazzled by the last project – look for a consistent pattern of performance.
3 – Centre-Forwards are overvalued – goalkeepers are undervalued. Do you have to pay more for some roles because you are told you have to pay more for that particular ‘in demand’ new skill? Isn’t it more important to get the best people who delivery the core elements and pay them appropriately? Don’t be blinded by the flashy or those who ‘talk a good game’ – you might find it’s the goalkeeper who really keeps the company moving forward (and stops those painful own goals!)
4 – Use the wisdom of crowds. When Olympique Lyon think about signing a player, a broad group debate the transfer. In England it’s usually the manager. The more collaborative system has proved to be successful and tends to avoid the typical mistakes in the transfer market. How can you benefit from the wisdom of crowds in recruitment, and implement a process where different views are taken into account?
5 – Gentleman prefer blondes. At least one big British football club noticed that their scouts recommended more blonde players – apparently in a field of 22 similar looking players, the blondes tend to stand out. The club in question began to take this distortion into account when judging scouting reports. Sport is all about improving performance – there is no point in excluding a section of the population if they give your team advantages. An example quoted by the authors is a decline in racism against black footballers since the 1970s. So you may have a diversity policy and track demographic data religiously – but are you missing out on the breadth of talent that can help your organisation really shine? Identify and abandon your organisation ‘sight-based prejudices’ and look for systematic failures – rather than individual mistakes.
6 – Replace your best players even before you sell them. Do you wait for your trusty Finance Director to decide that it’s now time to spend more time in the garden or with the grand children? Have a succession management plan in place, so when the big day comes (and retirement is the nicest option here), you have someone who can fill the boots of the star players.
7 – Buy players with personal problems, and then help them deal with their problems. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were great football thinkers, they had their vices and this possibly gave them particular empathy with troubled players. Once they identified a ‘more challenging’ player’s issue, they helped that player manage it. Their motivation might have been altruistic, but the outcome was they got much better value out of the transfer market and better results. In football the attitude has been “we pay you a lot of money now get on with it” – as if mental illness, addictions, or homesickness should not exist above a certain level of income. The modern attitude of Arsene Wenger also helped Tony Adams through his own recover from alcoholism, see Adam's charity, Sporting Chance. We are not suggesting you make “personal problems” one of your recruitment selection criteria, but this is a real issue in maintaining a healthy workplace. According to the 2001 World Health Organisation, one person in four will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their life. There is an ethical and strong business case for helping employees who are having a hard time. See the CIPD Factsheet – Mental Health at Work.
8 – Help your players relocate. Why spend £24 million on a new member of staff and then let them fend for themselves in a Hotel in a new country. Clough and Taylor found that many transfers failed because of problems off the pitch. Use relocation consultants or find some way of integrating new joiners into their new role in your organisation. Didier Drogba spent months in a hotel looking for somewhere to live after training with Chelsea, how much faster would he have assumed his current form if his move, six years ago, had been better managed?










