Sterling Performance

HR has a big role to play in helping their employers weather a downturn. But HR professionals may need to adapt to the new demands of the workplace. They should take the initiative and start talking to senior executives in a language they will understand, says Dr John Sullivan in a commentary for Workforce.com.

Businesses that need to tighten their belts will be shifting their focus to the shorter term and may put grander, long-term growth plans on the backburner.

Priorities will be more immediate — and will centre around workforce productivity, flexibility and planning.

Here are some of tips for getting HR into a more strategy-driven mindset:

• Focus on productivity
  Focus on your goal as HR professionals — to raise productivity by providing advice and training to help people become effective at work.
  Sullivan even proposes changing the departmental name from HR or personnel (does anyone use this anymore?) to “workforce productivity”.
  Develop metrics that measure productivity — the ratio of employee-related costs to output.
  Identify any barriers to productivity and make sure managers have the proper training and advice to improve quickly.
• Increase employee innovation
  This is an opportunity for HR to act in a consultancy capacity and show its worth in an area its often left out of — innovation in products and services. Put together a special group to work with key innovators, identifying obstacles to innovation and overcoming them with training and advice.
• Increase workforce flexibility
  As headcount comes down in many companies, HR is in a strong position to know how to re-deploy employees to where they will have the most impact, and can ensure there’s a supply of contingent talent. Advertising and communications group WPP keeps a percentage of its workforce on temporary contracts in order to ensure it flexibility in a downturn. (It has the added bonus of bringing fresh eyes and new ideas to projects.)
  Shift your focus from recruiting to developing talent — a silver lining for layoff survivors, who can broaden their skills.
• Associate metrics with money
  Your boss will want to see evidence that costs have gone down while revenue’s risen. That means understanding how to translate your financial reporting into a form that most directly translates into relevant financial facts.
  Sullivan’s example: instead of simply reporting your turnover rate is six per cent, also explain that the cost of that turnover was £12.2m in lost productivity or revenue.
  Another silver lining: HR can demonstrate the “hidden” costs of cutting the training budget too drastically.
• Plan for recovery
  This, too, shall pass — and the company will need to keep an eye on the horizon in anticipation of an upturn in the economy.
  “To weather the storm in a truly strategic fashion, HR must increase its workforce planning capability so the organisation can explode out of the starting blocks when the economy swings back.”
  Keep building your image as an employer of choice, help managers cope with the fluctuations and focus on keeping your top talent.

There should be a health warning stamped on the foreheads of bad bosses: “Working for this person could be damaging to your heart.”

Research published last month in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal showed that people working for bad bosses have a significantly increased risk of angina, heart attack and death, whatever their age.

Researchers monitored the hearts of 3,100 men over a period of three years and compared their rates of heart disease with those of the general population. People who thought their bosses were incompetent suffered a higher rate of heart disease than those who worked for bosses they deemed competent. As competence of the boss declines, the rate of heart disease increases.

What makes a bad boss? Apart from technical incompetence, our research, conducted over a 30-year period and involving more than 5,000 managers, has identified three types of behaviour that have negative effects.

They are

• Defensive-aggressive behaviour.
• Conflict avoidance behaviour.
• Responsibility avoidance behaviour.

The research indicates that 80 per cent or more of this behaviour is a result of external pressures on the individual — stress, pressure, uncertainty, anxiety, threat — and only about 20 per cent is due to personality.

We are capable of reacting adversely to strains at work, regardless of our personality. If you’re being pressured by your boss to produce some work, but the people to whom you’ve delegated are not delivering, this puts you under emotional strain.

Humans tend to react in one of three ways — fight (defensive-aggressive behaviour), flight (responsibility avoidance behaviour) or submission (conflict avoidance behaviour). Whether you get angry and tear a strip off your subordinates, pass the responsibility for the failure to deliver on to them, or fail to address the issue with either them or your boss and hope for the best, your being a “bad boss”. You’ll leave others feeling threatened and stressed. And stress relates rather strongly to a number of health problems, from heart disease to diabetes.

You may not recognise this behaviour in yourself. We need someone or something to point it out and help us to think about the causes, try to deal with them, or at least learn to stop reacting to them.

So what can you do if you’re a boss?

Get some feedback on your behaviour. If you find it difficult to ask people around you at work, there are confidential questionnaires available that will tell you what you’re doing. Or ask your partner or someone close to you for an honest appraisal.

Ask yourself what’s causing that behaviour. Bad bosses generally aren’t bad people — they’re just frustrated and pressured.

Oh, and by the way, if you are being a bad boss, have your heart checked because it’s not only the people who work for you who are at risk.

(Photo: furryscaly, CC2.0)

In search of Einstein: The UK’s generous but safe approach to scientific funding will never yield the kind of revolutionary results of an Einstein or Crick and Watson, finds Tom Feilden.

Nice idea, but the timing’s a little off: London charity The Brokerage has a new website — to help disadvantaged teens from the local boroughs to get placements and jobs in the financial sector.

“(G)oldmen Sachs”: the FT on Goldman Sachs’s new retirement plan.

The blog of blogs: talent management top 25, courtesty of Fistful of Talent.

And came across this vintage magazine cover… What do you think? Does Steve Jobs have a future in software?

(Photo: MrBill, CC2.0)

Thinking Managers picks up Claudia Lacy Kelly’s piece in BusinessWeek on the seven questions the board should be asking about the company’s talent management strategy.

1. Succession planning: what plans are in place?
   There are three types of succession strategies the business should have in place for every member of the top team. First, the retirement plan. Second, the intermediate plan, in case an executive leaves before retirement. Third, an emergency back-up strategy for sudden departures. Board directors should also spend some time getting to know the next wave of successors.
2. How is the business evaluating senior executives and their direct reports?
   Do directors know the executives’ strong points, where they are weak, and how individuals are assessed? Directors should know the methods HR use to build up a picture of executive competencies — and there should be a pipeline of strong candidates for key positions, should they become vacant.
3. How much time does the senior team devote to succession planning?
   Use companies such as GE as your inspiration — their succession planning strategies are established and involve senior managers and directors, not just HR.
4. Is someone below board level taking ownership of career development and succession?
   HR should be updating the board — or the appointments committee, if that’s most appropriate.  If HR doesn’t report to the board, then the company doesn’t value its people strategy highly enough, notes GE’s Jeff Immelt (pictured).
5. What plans does the business have to address global workforce planning?
   This means identifying the most important jobs internationally — multinationals already know the value of workforce planning on a global scale. But, despite the expectation of growth in emerging markets, many companies aren’t actively planning their international workforce development.
6. What is the business doing to retain its high-potential talent? Directors need to know that there is a strategy for holding on to the most talented people in the business. They needn’t know the details. Just that there is a plan in place.
7. Has HR kept pace with the changing demands of the workplace? Top HR leaders need to both global and local experience and a very clear understanding of what individuals are needed and where. It’s a demanding role that requires leadership and strategic thinking.
   Directors should regard talent management as another aspect of asset management, and treat it with the same deference as they would financial or risk management.

A couple of questions: do companies actively plan their workforce development at local level, let alone globally? And do directors really take people development seriously?

(Photo: World Resources Institute, CC2.0)

Sometimes, all a business can do in the face of recession is accept that it will make less money, says John Timpson, chairman of the UK-wide Timpson chain of dry-cleaning, shoe repair and locksmiths outlets. But it doesn’t pay to penalise your employees.

There may be parts of your business where it’s possible to save on head-count — parts that should perhaps have been addressed anyway. But if you cut bonuses or lay-off large numbers in order to make a quick saving, you’ll probably struggle to survive in the long term, he says. Timpson should know — his business is over a century old and has had its share of near-misses.

Now it operates in a radical way — it’s run by the people who work in the outlets, rather than at HQ. Like other unconventionally run businesses such as Brazil’s Semco, Timpson works because it has buy-in at leadership level — John Timpson explains how it can work in any business in the full interview here.

An MBA qualification is the culmination of gritty determination, tenacity and many late nights. Working through the models and the wisdom of eminent scholars takes some doing, and everyone achieving this qualification is to be commended. But in the real world, implementation is easier studied than done.

Being knowledgeable is a great start, but is rarely enough to get the job done. What MBA grads need are the skills to influence people, both tactically and strategically.

They need to become skilled at influencing their organisations to accept and implement their ideas. The ability to withstand resistance, competition and even opposition is vital. Without these skills, a glittering career may prove elusive.

Influence and political skills bridge the gap between theory and practice. Wise MBA graduates are realising that they can develop extra pace in their career by focusing their personal development on power and influence.

Leading business schools are catching on to this need and helping them to understand how influence works and how to handle the political dimensions in the workplace.

Take action

1. Discuss with friends how important they believe influencing skills are to implementation.
2. Research and develop your own model of what influencing skill means in practice.
3. Rate yourself against each area in terms of your capability– get feedback from others if you can.
4. Determine which area of influencing skill it would be prudent for you to focus on.
5. Watch out for role model influencers and notice what they do that you could incorporate into your way of working.
6. Read books like “Influence without Authority” by Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford, and “Managing with Power”, by Jeffrey Pfeffer.
7. Regularly review your development and progress on becoming a great implementer.

(Photo: Quinn.Anya, CC2.0)

What stops middle managers from progressing? “When you are fighting off the alligators, it’s hard to remember you’re trying to drain the swamp,” says Richard Jolly, adjunct associate professor for organisational behaviour at London Business School.
Middle managers haven’t fully grasped the challenge of what it takes to be a senior manager. They are so busy working at the coalface that they don’t have time to step back and consider their career. But they must actively do so if they want to progress.

While technical expertise is what got middle managers to their current position, it could be a hindrance if they want to get to the next level.

Early in our careers, we aim to make ourselves indispensible by becoming an expet in a particular area. But as you get promoted, that can become a liability — senior managers won’t want to promote an indispensible technical expert out of their job.

Middle managers need to learn new skills and actively start managing their careers, says Jolly, if they want to move to the next level. They are excellent at fighting alligators, but they need to take responsibility for draining the swamp.

So how do you start thinking like a senior manager?

Here some things to think about if you’re looking for a promotion to senior management:

• What are the top three priorities of your role? Look at your diary or planner to see where you are spending most of your time. If you’re not focusing on the top three, you’re wasting time.
• CEOs look for people who understand what the business is trying to achieve and will help them reach those goals. Managers need to figure out what the organisation needs them to do — how can you, in your role, help the organisation achieve its ambitions?
• Are you wasting time in meetings? “Meetings are a way of avoiding having to do any real work,” says Jolly. Are back-to-back meetings a good use of your time?
• If you read the writings of people who’ve been successful, they describe having had a mentor at key times in their career. Do you have someone who can tell you where you can shine, and what strengths to maximise?
• Last, and most important, are you in the right job? Can you envisage a time when you are able to delegate to people who know their jobs better than you? Senior management is about helping other people achieve a sense of authority, rather than controlling them.

(Photo: CGAphoto, CC2.0)

Is it better to hire people on the basis of their experience or their potential? If you believe experience is preferable, and that age equates with experience, there’s no better time than now.

By 2011 about half UK workforce will be over 40, which means they will have had 20 or so years of work experience.

But experience is not the issue. The question is, experience of what? Is experience as a bank manager a predictor of performance as a customer service manager in a telecoms company? Is a person who has been in a job for five years more experienced that someone who has been in the job for one year, or does five years actually mean one year’s experience five times in a row?

The problem of hiring on the basis of experience gained in a former job is the assumption that it parallels what is needed in the new job. Organisational cultures and situations can and do differ dramatically. There is a litany of highly competent executives like Bob Nardelli, who excelled at GE, but was unable to duplicate that success at Home Depot. Experience is situation-specific.

Experience also tends to equate with baggage. Behaviour is learned. We do what we do on the basis of it having led to success in the past. We’ve all been annoyed by people who insist on telling us how things were done in their last company or last job. There are benefits to learning how other people do things, but the underlying message is that what we’re doing is no good, and that can be demoralising.

So what about hiring on potential? This, too, comes with some small print.

For “potential”, read “lack of directly applicable experience”. That means giving the individual time to learn, which implies training, coaching and the provision of development opportunities.This one of the reasons many companies fall back on what they hope is the quicker-fix solution of hiring so-called experienced people — it takes less effort.

There are a number of companies that have successfully hired for potential though, notably Southwest Airlines, the originator of the discount airline model. Southwest claims it hires for “attitude” — motivation, energy, keenness, and team spirit.

But Southwest doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that’s enough. It follows up with intensive skills and culture training. People learn what behaviour is acceptable and rewarded. Very few organisations make a conscious effort to do this. Instead, people have to learn the hard way.

If you wish to hire people for their potential, you need to define the core competencies for the roles in question. These are things like a demonstrated ability to motivate people, being able to close sales, a record of building effective teams, or being able to make and stand by hard decisions.

Either people have done these things or they haven’t. They can be tested and observed. Assessing potential doesn’t have to be subjective — it manifests itself in observable behaviour.

But as James Callaghan, a former British Prime Minister, once said: “Some people, however long their experience or strong their intellect, are temperamentally incapable of reaching firm decisions.” No amount of experience can change that.

(Photo: Ezioman, CC2.0)

Chancellor Darling’s Pre-Budget Report took a Robin Hood-approach to the UK’s top earners to which even captains of industry couldn’t disapprove. But there may be unwanted consequences for UK competitiveness as talented workers reassess their options.

In a few years, anyone bringing home over £40,000 — that’s where the top layer of earnings begins in the UK — will be paying an extra £1,000 in taxes, while the super-earners over £150,000 will be stung for 45 per cent tax (a staging post, say some, to an inevitable 50 per cent).

While those at the top end of the earnings pyramid may well be able to afford higher taxes, they may not want to — especially if their talents can be put to use in lower-cost economies.

Matt Ellis, employer services partner at Deloitte, predicts the war for talent will escalate as talented people opt for cheaper places to live, or look to employers to mitigate the high cost of living in Britain. Companies could offer shares to employees (which attract less tax) or advance income ahead of the 2011 change of rate, but it all comes down to higher employment costs.

National Insurance Contributions will rise by 0.5 per cent from 2011. Anyone earning more than £20,000 will be worse off, with the overall cost of £3.8bn in 2011-12, according to KPMG.

Arguably, globetrotting entrepreneurs and, in particular, venture capitalists may look less favourably on the UK as a potential HQ, even though the PBR pushed through several measures to kick start small businesses. Likewise, multinationals, which have been given a break on foreign dividends, may find it more expensive to keep their top talent in Britain.

When it comes to learning and development, it’s horses for courses: one style of training will certainly not suit all.

Honey and Mumford outlines four different styles of learning

1. Activists, who are described as ‘have-a-go’ learners.
2. Reflectors, who are ‘tell-me’ learners.
3. Theorists, who are ‘convince-me’ learners.
4. Pragmatists, who are ’show-me’ learners.

But while styles of learning may vary, there are some common rules for both trainers and learners to take on board. Here are three things to consider if you’re embarking on a training course.

• Break the formula… Both trainers and learners should be prepared to get out of their comfort zone. Buoyant trainers faced with an introverted, reflective group will need to curb their energy to avoid overpowering them. A gung-ho group, on the other hand, will want to get stuck in and may switch off if a trainer starts with too much theory.
• Sometimes you have to get stuck in... Consider the nature of what’s being taught. Some learning needs to be hands on, rather than observational. No matter how many times you read a recipe or watch Jamie Oliver cook a dish, only once you go through the experience of handling the ingredients, adjusting the temperature and adding the seasoning and spices do you learn how to cook it.
• This may hurt a bit… At some point in our career, most of us will be sent on a presentation course, a tortuous experience of being videotaped and standing up in front of a room of people and stumbling through the learning process. As painful as this may be this is the best way to learn how to present — in front of an audience, full of self-awareness, but just doing it.

Is your training course stretching you enough?

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