Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in November & December

We start 2011 with a bumper issue of HR Transformation blog articles from the last two months of 2010. In between meeting year end goals and wrapping presents, our HR bloggers, writers and thinkers are in a reflective mood with some thought provoking articles.

Out with the old and in with the new, we kick off with a couple of articles which aim to smash some of the myths surrounding ‘best practice’ in HR. Our HR Maverick presents the case on why we should dump the dreaded annual Performance Review, with some help from Mr. Deming.

The ‘love/hate’ relationship HR has with Social Media illuminates the dichotomy HR sometimes finds itself in – on the one hand in its traditional role as “enforcer” and on the other side as an “innovator”. We highlight a couple articles that will appeal to both sides, from Malcolm Gladwell to Mashable.

At Glass Bead Consulting we are embracing social media in HR. Jon Ingham and myself co-hosted a Connecting HR Twitter chat one foggy evening in Amsterdam, from the HRO Summit Europe Conference – read more about our discussion.

Do you know your “HR Cost per employee”? Is it $1000 or nearer to $3000 per employee or? Read up on some recent trends before the CFO taps you on the shoulder and asks you…

Talking of costs, cost cutting is in at the top of British Government’s agenda, as it looks for ways to allocate more resources to frontline services. We have three insightful articles on the case for HR Shared Services from a UK perspective.

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

In this article Naomi Bloom reflects on the quest for best practice in HR Technology and HR Transformation.

We have all seen the sales pitch of “this system will transform how you deliver HR Management.” However, in Naomi’s view this won’t happen unless you are willing to redesign your HR processes. She writes that “If you don’t have proven competency models for your key roles, you won’t get competency-centric HRM, no matter what the software does”.

Naomi outlines three types of practices that are amenable to process improvement through automation, outsourcing & process redesign. Read more about her big P processes, little p processes, and business rules in this excellent article.

Another person to tackle HR “Best Practices”, is Ron Ashkenas, in the Harvard Business Review. He answers the question “Why Best Practices Are Hard to Practice” and according to Ron, there are two main reasons.

Lack of Adaptation – companies are so different, it is rare that a practice developed in one place can be applied elsewhere without significant customisation.

Lack of Adoption – companies that utilize a borrowed process or tool without full leadership support and commitment, think that just having the tool itself will generate the desired results.

In our view, somewhere along the line someone in the organisation needs to think deeply about how to actually implement organisational strategy. This will nearly always involve the challenging task of asking people to work in a different way. If this change uses tools, theories or methods derived from Systems Thinking, Lean, 6-Sigma or ‘some Blu-Tack, Post-It notes and elastic bands’ then so be it. It doesn’t really matter which tools and methods are used as long as the change works.

2. The Future of Human Resources and Social Media, by Sharlyn Lauby, aka HR Bartender, on Mashable

The adoption of social media at home and work seems to pose some problems for HR. The challenge characterises HRs’ struggle to deliver true value in its role as Business Partner.

There is a balancing act; on the one hand HR needs to maintain one of its traditional roles of policing policies and keeping managers’ noses clean. On the other hand, HR is required to improve employee performance, engagement and be Technology Champions looking for new tools that can transform the workforce, help them to be more productive and ensure the ‘stars’ stay at your company.

For sensible tips on Social Media Policy, read The Future of Human Resources and Social Media, from Sharlyn Lauby, aka HR Bartender, via Mashable.

For the HR police…

If you are worried about your employees flippantly using Facebook all day, then imagine what the introduction of the telephone must have done to “Staffing Managers” or whatever our HR predecessors were called ! Humorous and thought provoking cartoon here from Competitive Futures,The Telephone – a disruptive technology.

For the social media revolutionaries…

Those that get a little carried away, with “vive de revolution” approach when it comes to Social Media will find this article interesting “Small Change – Why the revolution will not be tweeted", by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.

3. HR Costs Rebounding? from Michael O'Brien in HRE Online

Do you know your HR Cost per Employee?

A new report, from PricewaterhouseCoopers/Saratoga “2010-2011 US Human Capital Effectiveness Report”, finds that this key HR statistic is returning to pre-recession levels. The report finds that HR costs-per-employee rose in 2009, to $1,569, up from $1,462 per-employee in 2008 and close to the pre-recession average of $1,610 in 2007.

In our view, HR cost per employee is a very useful metric – much more useful than the traditional “HR:Employee Ratio”. It takes into account the amount of outsourcing, relative cost of the HR function and is easier to make comparisons.

4. Performance management: looking in the wrong place from Glyn Lumley, aka HR Maverick

Do you currently run an annual performance management process where line Managers sit down with their team members and discuss their performance, sometimes with a link to remuneration and improving contribution? The Systems Thinkers, such as Glyn Lumley, say that this process is not only a complete waste of time, but is also destructive to morale.

According to Glyn, Improvements to organisational performance does not happen one employee at a time. The problems are in organisational systems and processes – it’s here that we will find the real opportunities for improvement.

An article referring to System Thinking, is not complete without a quote from Dr. W Edwards Deming. “The supposition is prevalent … that there would be no problem in production or in service if only our workers would do their jobs in the way they were taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to management.”

If you don’t get improvement in performance, then why bother? Wouldn’t it be better to invest time and cash in initiatives that deliver better results?

5. Service Levels for HR Services Delivery – An Evolution, from Jim Koenig – Equaterra

So you have an SLA in place, however your managers say that “the service levels are all green but we are still frustrated”. Jim Koenig from Equaterra show the evolution of service levels along the continuum from tactical to measuring both tactical and strategic health.

On too many occasions we see SLAs as a bureaucratic step, rather than as a useful way to manage service relationships.

6. A systems thinking guide to outsourcing for the sceptical public sector leader, from the Systems Thinking Review

If you are a public sector leader (Chief Executive, politician, manager), your budget has been obliterated and you know you have to save money. Some of your peers are jumping headfirst into outsourcing and you are considering doing exactly the same. You hesitate. Who hasn’t heard of the outsourcing horror stories? This is a good article with some useful questions if you are thinking of outsourcing, with free PDF attachment.

7. Is HR too big to innovate?, from J.Keith Dunbar, from DNA of Human Capital blog

Keith Dunbar asks a good question: “is HR too big to innovate?”

The recent 2010 IBM Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) Study identified three key areas requiring attention.

1. Cultivating creative leaders

2. Mobilizing for speed and flexibility

3. Capitalizing on collective intelligence

All three of these focus areas will rely heavily on the ability of HR to innovate itself at a pace that keeps up with the global changes taking place.

A key question for HR is; are we too big to innovate?

8. Mobile Apps are Ringing up HRO, Linda Merritt from HRO Insights Blog

What are the killer apps for mobile devices in HR Services?

From mobile workers submitting an expense claim, commuters with access to their teams holiday schedule, approving a training request while waiting for the bus, Gary Bragar from Nelson Hall, outlines how Mobile Apps will stimulate the HRO Market.

For buyers using SaaS HRO platforms, providers will be developing mobile apps that meet the needs of multiple clients, as well as rolling out applications as they become available by the provider of the underlying HR system (usually Oracle or SAP.)

9. What Next for HR, Connecting HR at HRO Europe, from HR Transformer Blog

I enjoyed speaking on the expert panel at the HRO Summit Europe Conference in Amsterdam with Peter Cappelli, Jon Ingham, Nigel Perks, Jane Owen Jones. Jon and myself carried on the conversations from the Plenary Expert Panel and opened up online with a #HRChat – you can read the transcript here…..watch out for other HR Chats, at Connecting HR site.

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. S hared HR services the way forward for local authorities

Here are three different articles on the use of HR Shared Services in UK public sector.

Shared HR services the way forward for local authorities. Two East Midlands authorities in the UK, are to team up the HR services in an effort to cut costs and improve efficiencies. Leicestershire County Council and Nottingham City Council have signed a partnership deal to share HR and other administrative functions in a bid to save more than £2 million per year.

HR ‘must lead from front’ on MoD cuts. HR staff numbers in the Ministry of Defence will be reduced by half over the next two-and-a-half years but, at the same time, the austerity measures facing the public sector present the profession with a “phenomenal opportunity”, according to Jonathan Evans, director, civilian personnel.

Gus O’Donnell [head of the civil service] described the challenge we face as the leadership challenge of a generation. “I think it is not just a generation but a number of generations,” he said. “It is important that HR leads from the front. HR is uniquely placed to make a difference and we have got to make that difference now.”

There are 85,000 civilians in the MoD but, as announced in last month’s Strategic Defence and Security Review, over the next three to four years this will be reduced by 25,000 – nearly 30 per cent.

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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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 29th, 2011 at 9:54 am and is filed under Change Management, HCM, HR Benchmarks, HR Blogs, HR Business Partner, HR Careers, HR News, HR Operating Models, HR Outsourcing, HR Project Management, HR Shared Services, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HR Tools, HR Transformation, HR in the UK Public Sector, Leadership, Social Media, Talent Management, Top 10 HR Transformation Articles, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.

Why England Lose – Talent Management Insights from Football

For England fans the World Cup is sadly over, our ears have recovered from the din of Vuvuzelas, and once again the England team has fallen from its precipice of unrealistic expectations.

The question of the day is “Why do England lose?”

To answer this, rather than ask the usual football pundits, we look to our ‘dismal’ friends the economists. Usually found researching and thinking about stagflation, economic stimulus and other boring stuff, when they turn their inquisitive minds to football, we discovered some interesting insights. From their findings we have identified some broader talent management lessons.

“Why England Lose: And other curious phenomena explained” is a book by Simon Kuper who writes a weekly sports column in the Financial Times and Stefan Szymanski, a Professor of Economics and MBA Dean at Cass Business School in London. The book draws on geography, economics, statistics and psychology.

The answer to the question of why England lose at football, is of course – they don’t. The authors did some number crunching on historical data of football games and using regression analysis determined how much of a given outcome (winning football games) can be related to a other factors (wealth, population size, footballing experience, home advantage). The authors suggest that England are in fact over-performing.

The authors came up with some interesting findings about football, which we think poses some interesting lessons for management and in particular talent management. Sport played at the highest level really hones management techniques as every win and loss is played out in public. Getting the most out of your people is crucial, with small differences in individual performance making or breaking a season (and of course a towns’ collective heart).

The authors also looked to case studies of teams that have had great success, they looked for structural reasons rather than individual greatness or prowess.

Some lessons come from Olympique Lyon, who have progressed from a relatively obscure provincial club to rule French football, winners of Ligue 1 from 2001/2 until 2007/8. In England in 1979/1980, this occured with Nottingham Forest (before then even less known in football terms than Lyon) who won consecutive European Cups with the footballing management duo Bryan Clough and Peter Taylor. More recently there are lessons from another modern French thinker of football, Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal Manager.

The authors highlighted 12 main secrets of the football transfer market, and from these we have pulled out 8 broader talent management lessons for you :-

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?

Before we blow the final whistle, here is our final thought – if we can learn something from football management, what can football management learn from talent management practices in other businesses?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 5:57 pm and is filed under HR Blogs, HR Business Partner, HR Careers, HR News, HR Strategy, Leadership, Talent Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.