English4HR

Another FA Balls Up

2012-02-11T00:49:00.000-08:00

The (FA) Football Association of England have managed once again to score an own goal and make a complete balls up of the Management Board's relationship with the National Team Coach.

For anyone who doesn’t know the story, here’s how it goes:

Captain John Terry has been accused of racially abusing another player and is currently undergoing an FA investigation and awaiting trial.

The FA have publicly stripped him of his captaincy.

The Coach, Fabio Capello, didn’t agree with this decision and was called to a meeting by the FA.

Neither would back down, Capello said he had been insulted and resigned - and all this, just four months before the Euro 2012 tournament which is second in importance, only to the World Cup.

Ironically, many people will see it as a blessing in disguise, bringing to an end an unhappy tenure of underachievement and leaves the door open for the people's choice, Harry Rednapp.

But that’s beside the point for the FA are an ongoing case study in mismanagement.

This is how it should have been handled:

The FA hold an informal meeting with Capello explaining that they respect his right to manage but also saying that keeping Terry as Captain could cause massive PR problems during press conferences and the run up to Euro 2012 - particularly as the majority of English football supporters now believe Terry should not be captain.

Capello sensitively but pragmatically, explains this to Terry.

Terry then voluntarily offers to stand down as captain for the good of the team and country, stating that his does not wish his personal issues to distract from or have a detrimental effect on the team’s preparation.

Capello reluctantly but graciously accepts.

Terry and Capello are not embarrassed and retain their dignity and credibility while the FA are not seen to be meddling in team selection affairs - simple; it’s called political skill; unfortunately, that’s something the Football Association know sweet FA about!

Glossary

To score an own goal - to do something that is self-damaging
To make a balls up of something - to make a mess of something
To strip somebody of something - remove
Captaincy - the noun for being Captain
To call someone to a meeting - to demand their attendance at a meeting
To back down - withdraw from a position, compromise
A blessing in disguise - something that looks bad but is in fact, good
Tenure - presence, time in position
Underachievement - to achieve less than expected, poor results
To leave the door open for something or somebody - creates an easy opportunity
To be beside the point - to be irrelevant
Mismanagement - the act of incompetent or bad management
To handle a situation - to deal with, to manage
To stand down - to resign from a position
Detrimental - harmful, negative
To meddle - to interfere
Sweet FA - absolutely nothing; abbreviation and euphemism for F**k all

Sacked for clocking in a colleague

2011-12-28T04:11:00.000-08:00

In the old days, factory workers used punched clocking-in cards to register when they arrived at and left work. There were Draconian punishments for those found guilty of clocking in colleagues and a fair chance that the misdemeanour would be given their cards. (result in dismissal)

These days, the technology has advanced to electronic swipe cards but should the same sanction be applied to an employee discovered clocking-in a workmate?

It rather depends on whether or not you consider it gross misconduct which is usually an example of an extreme or persistent offence.

In a company in Warsaw, Poland, an employee was dismissed for clocking in a colleague who, he claimed was on his way, although camera evidence proved this was not the case. On the one hand you can argue that the employee lied and could not be trusted but for a first offence, dismissal seems a bit over the top.

We also have to question why, in this day and age, we don’t trust employees enough to assume they will do a fair day’s work. On balance, employees probably give more of their time to employers unpaid than the opposite. Maybe a bit of give and take, and common sense would be the best solution.

Is clocking in a joke?

Clarkson - bad joke or bad behaviour?

2011-12-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

Top Gear TV presenter, Jeremy Clarkson recently said about striking public sector workers in the UK that they should be:

‘taken outside and executed in front of their families.’

This led to uproar from the public sector union, Unison.

Is this an over-reaction to a bad taste joke or is it genuinely offensive and out of order?

Should his employer, the BBC take disciplinary action?

Watch the video and judge for yourself.

Personally, I have seen Jeremy Clarkson’s career develop over the past twenty years and in my opinion, he has always been a smug conceited snob who is thoroughly obnoxious. It’s no surprise that as his success and fame have increased, he’s become more convinced of his belief that his reactionary views are representative of the British public.

If they are, God help us all

Shoot and make friends

2011-11-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here in Poland, the idea of ‘integration’ is very popular. Generally, this is the local term for team-building. For many people, it’s just an excuse to drink large quantities of vodka but some organisations try to be a bit more imaginative.

Boisterous and physical activities such as abseiling, quad-biking and paint-balling are very popular but this week, I came across a new one.

A lady I work with informed of her department’s planned integration activity which in fact, involves three things:

1) A meal - OK, you’d expect that
2) Ten pin bowling - always a winner
3) Shooting - excuse me?

You know, shooting with guns. Let me tell you, the lady works for a bank. Is it preparation for a heist? No, it’s in a shooting gallery and just for sport. Ah, I see, with blanks. No; live ammunition.

Apparently, the Director’s very keen on shooting and believes nobody hates him enough to want to kill him. (I guess, he’ll find out)

Joking aside, do you think shooting is an appropriate activity for team-building?

(Maybe the next step is Russian roulette as a method of redundancy selection.)

BANG!! Perkins - you’re fired!

I have to be honest and say I find it quite worrying.

Skype v F2F

2011-11-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

When I started Skyping three years ago it was still something of a minority interest. Not everybody had it, used it or believed in it as a viable teaching medium. So is it fair to say that there is no substitute for face to face coaching or teaching?

Probably there isn’t, but it’s like asking if books are better than films or if a hammer is a better tool than a saw; you have to take each for what it is.

Skype and other similar platforms offer greater time flexibility and greater time efficiency. For example, you can have a half hour session without any problems of travel. You can even have them the minute you get out of bed if you really want!

For trainers you can have lessons back to back moving effortlessly from Paris to Rome in seconds. Moreover, there is now a lot of conferencing, webcasting software enabling simultaneous, multiple use - or in other words, lots of people at the same time so companies can really make their training budgets stretch out by reducing unit costs.

You can also share PowerPoint presentations and look at web pages together or use it as part of a blended learning package.

On the other hand, it makes you realise how much we depend on body language clues and cues during conversation so a camera, whilst theoretically an optional extra, in reality is a must. That’s a F2F aspect worth keeping.

But here’s the bottom line - it’s not an instead of but an as well as kind of thing and to add it to your resource pack as a learner or a teacher is well worthwhile.

So, if you’re interested in Skype sessions with me for Human Resources or Business, you can contact me direct on george@english4hr.com

I look forward to seeing you!

http://www.english4hr.com/contact.html

George

Workplace heroes

2011-11-05T03:47:00.000-07:00

Do you ever say to a colleague? ‘Thanks pal, you’ve saved my life!’

If you do, it might be for making a ‘life-saving’ morning coffee or perhaps covering for you when you need to leave early. Very rarely, if ever, does someone save your life in reality.

Hats off then to pilot Captain Wrona and his faultless plane landing this week in Warsaw. Normally, this would be a standard procedure but without wheels it’s a bit trickier.

Congratulations also to the ground staff at Warsaw Airport for preparing the runway for a crash landing.

A professional operation all round that really did save lives - sometimes, going to work is more than just a job!

Interview skills for non native English speakers

2011-10-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

When applying for a new job in a multinational, it is almost certain that at least part of the interview will be in English. Furthermore, it is possible that you will have to participate in a tele-conference or give a presentation. Even if you have confidence in your language skills, some brushing up may be advisable; better still, invest in some professional English interview coaching.

It is important to remember that in most cases an interview will be held in English for one or a number of the following reasons:

The interviewer does not speak the local language.
Contact with customers and colleagues will be in English
The company is multi-national and uses English as its Lingua Franca.

The point of the English interview therefore, is not to catch you out on some finer point of grammar but to make sure that you can communicate effectively and without confusion or difficulty.

Here are some important do’s and don’ts

Do

Immerse yourself in English through CD’s and TV etc. if you are not in daily contact with the language.
Book extra language lessons and coaching, preferably with a native speaker.
Anticipate likely questions and plan your answers.
Think about the key points you want to communicate; say them in your own language and then ask yourself if you can express the same in English to your satisfaction.
During the interview, listen carefully to questions - it will go against you if you answer a different question.
Focus on speaking clearly and meaningfully.
Be concise but interesting and expressive.
Enhance your message with appropriate body-language.

Don’t

Say you are fluent if you are only intermediate - you will be found out.
Plan every answer word for word - it will sound like you are a robot.
Particularly don’t do this with presentations - it’s really boring.
Don’t over complicate speech just to incorporate a complex tense.
Don’t make your answers too long.
Don’t panic or freeze if you can’t find the exact word you want, keep going and use the best alternative.

Remember that you have got where you are through hard work, thorough preparation and determination; carry these traits into the interview and you are sure to give a good account of yourself. Good luck!

And if that doesn't work, you can always pick up some tips from this video.

E-cigarettes at work

2011-10-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

As most countries now have workplace bans on smoking, nicotine addicts look for new ways to get a hit at work. Of course, you can join the regular smokers at the building entrance but as winter weather approaches, that can be a grim and depressing experience, not to mention fighting with the wind to light up.

E- cigarettes could provide the answer because they look like regular cigarettes, provide the required nicotine to the user but produce a clear vapour rather than smelly smoke. But how should employers respond; is it legal and if so, is it desirable?

The law on smoking may vary from country to country but typically describes smoking as smoking tobacco or any other substance that is lit. Now, the e-cig protagonists may argue that an e-cigarette contains nicotine, not tobacco and is heated and not lit - so stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

So, let’s say that the legal argument is somewhat hazy but that doesn’t stop employers giving their own rulings in the same way they might on dress code. There may be a perceptual problem in other workers and customers still considering this to be smoking in the workplace, particularly as the e-cig looks very similar to the real thing. Many people may not want to encourage smoking of any sort in an office or work environment. Therefore, by far the simplest solution is to ban it in the work place, end of argument; end of story.

BTW - I'm an ex-smoker and I figure quitting was one of the smartest things I ever did.

But that's just my view - here's a couple of people who seem pretty keen on it.

Abbreviations

2011-10-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

Td's BLG P is @ ABS - IP, UAM ABS. Or to put it another way, today's blog post is about abbreviations, in particular, useless and meaningless abbreviations. Which sentence did you find the ETU? (Easiest to understand)

Obvious, isn't it. Why then do companies persist in filling their communications with such nonsense?

I was recently working with a company on their strategy document (you know, the one with the 25 priorities) and it was pretty H2F (hard to follow) due to the number of abs. We had Rps and TRG to name but a few. These are pretty stupid because they represent everyday words that are not long and complicated and require no further simplification - reports and training, to be exact. Furthermore, they are not any quicker or easier to say.

The document was so heavily peppered with abbreviations that I nearly sneezed! I said, jokingly to the CEO, 'you need a directory of abbreviations!'
'Oh, hang on a minute,' he replied, 'I've got one somewhere.' He looked through his papers but was disappointed to discover his directory was for another set of abbreviations!

Of course, HR (Human Resources) isn't exempt from using abbreviations - here are some of TMU (the most used)

AL - Accelerated learning
ASAP - As soon as possible
AV - audio visual
BBB - behaviour breeds behaviour
BL - blended learning
BPR - business process re-engineering (one of the all time greatest HR bull***t phrases!)
BTW - by the way
CBT - computer based training
EI - emotional inteligence
EP - evaluation process
ET - evaluation tool
ETA - estimated time of arrival
ETC - estimated time of completion
FYI - for your information
Gigo - garbage in, garbage out
HC - human capital
HRD - human resource development
HRM - human resource management
IMHO - in my humble opinion
IDP - individual development plan
KISS - keep it short and simple
KPI - key performance indicator
LO - learning objective
MS - milestone
NA - needs analysis
NLP - neuro-linguistic programming
OJT - on the job training
PA- performance assessment
PM - performance management
PR - performance review
QA - quality assurance
QC - quality control
QI - quality improvement
SKA - skills, knowledge and attitudes
SMART - specific,measurable, achievable, relevant, time framed
SPEC - specification
T&D - training and development
TA - transactional analysis
TBA - to be arranged/announced
TQM - total quality management
VAK - visual, auditory, kinaesthetic

Learn these until you have ZD - zero defects. GS saying BFN- bye for now!

25 priorities

2011-09-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

I was recently working with a company CEO reviewing their strategic plan. As we worked through the document, it transpired that there were 25 priority areas. ‘

Can you have 25 priorities?’ I asked.
‘I guess not,’ he admitted, ‘maybe they’re rather, points.

A priority is a very simple notion; it’s something that’s more important than other things. You can’t have 25 of them; you have to choose. You have to prioritise!

Learning to prioritise is one of the most useful skills you can master in life. Here’s a lesson from a Master. Make it a priority to watch it!

Business English Phrasebook - writing story

2011-09-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

A lot of work went into the writing and production of Business English Phrasebook and you might want to know what writing an e-book involves.

When writing English for Human Resources for Cambridge University I was frustrated by the slow pace of every stage of the procedure; many drafts with much editorial comment and emails bouncing endlessly between Warsaw and Cambridge. When the writing was finally done, a further 6 months for final editing, proof reading and design seemed excessive.
I was therefore excited by the quick turnaround offered by self-publishing an ebook.

However, I was aware that I am not perfect and that however good you think your material is, it’s useful to get a second opinion and a third, forth and fifth for that matter. Furthermore, like a band going on tour before going into the recording studio, I wanted to test drive and trial the material before bringing it to the market.

Having designed the framework and content areas of the book, I was lucky to find a host organisation in the form of LegeArtis BDM, a property valuation company run by their very progressive thinking owner, Szymon Mojzesowicz. Not only did they trial the material but also sponsored the project.

The trialling involved working with each of the units with two groups of students from the company who were required to complete weekly feedback sheets on which exercises worked well or not so well, what had been useful learning and any errors or points of confusion. This input proved invaluable and had a significant impact the quality of the final product.

After five months of working with the material, it was finally ready for conversion - a piece of cake, I’d imagined. I love the possibilities that new technology offers but it’s really not my forte and I decided to enlist the assistant of ‘Text Bender,’ Piotr Kołodziejczak. Not only is he tech savvy but a thoroughly kind and helpful person without whom I wouldn’t have survived in Poland, let alone on this project.

However, I think I made something of a mistake by transferring a lot of the design elements from the Cambridge book onto Business English Phrasebook and this caused more technical work than you would get on straight text. Mostly because mobi files don’t behave like word documents and dynamically adjust the text size to fit the reader. Anyway, these difficulties were overcome.

A word about Esmerelda; I believe that even for an e-book, a strong cover is required and I scoured the pages of stock photo libraries to find a suitable image. I even bought a licence so that it’s all legal and not just lifted off Google images. I wanted an image of a young business woman reading and concentrating and found just the thing with, as I call her, Esmerelda. I rather like her but my wife refers to her as cross-eyed Lil - most unkind!

So that’s it - the book is good to go and I hope you’ll find it an enjoyable and useful read. It works as a self-study book or teacher’s aid and has lots of dialogues (written, not audio - that would be another project) and useful tips. In fact that was some of the feedback that came from LegeArtis was that it was helpful from a work perspective as well as pure language. I hope you’ll find the same.

Thank you to everyone who made it possible.

The tyranny of extroversion

2011-09-10T01:21:00.000-07:00

I have recently been coaching a lady in preparation for an important presentation she has to give in Brussels. She is an experienced lawyer with expert knowledge but is less confident about her English and very uncomfortable about presenting a full day training session.

Why doesn’t she just say, ‘thanks Boss, but that’s not my gig; choose someone else instead.’

Why? Because in modern corporate life it would not be an acceptable answer. There is an expectation that people will give presentations, go on team building courses and go to the Christmas party. Yet, for many more introverted employees all of these events can be stressful.

Solution? Training; presentation skills, public speaking, assertiveness and confidence building.

But why can’t we just allow people to be shy? Why? Because organisations have an unwritten and inbuilt favouring of extroversion; it’s seen as a more desirable, even necessary quality.
Furthermore, the bookshelves of management books and self-help books are awash with titles such as ‘Overcoming shyness,‘ implying that is a fault to be rectified. This is the tyranny of extroversion.

Rather than forcing people to be something they are not, we should be helping people to be closer to their true selves and feel comfortable within their own skin whether that be extrovert or introvert.

Phrases for communication

2011-08-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

In many ways, life is all about communication so these extracts of the Business English Phrasebook might come in handy:

Seeking information

Could you tell me when …?
When do you think …. will …?
I wonder if you could tell me when …?
You couldn’t tell me where … is, could you?

And best of all!

I don’t suppose you’d happen to know where the nearest Post office is, would you? If it’s not too much trouble.

Seeking clarification

Could we just go over that again?
So are you saying …?
Am I right in thinking that …?

Refusing

No thank you.
I’d rather not.
If you don’t mind, I won’t.
Not today, thank you.

Expressing dissatisfaction

When you …, it makes me ….
I really must complain about …
I’m not at all happy about …
There’s something we need to discuss.

Rejecting unfair criticism

I don’t think that’s justified.
I think that’s very harsh.
I think your accusations are unreasonable and unfounded.

Surprisingly, or not, maybe, it took me ages to find a good video about communication - but this is pretty neat!

Love your job, hate your boss?

2011-08-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

What if you love your job but hate your boss? Normally, it’s just tough luck and you either have to put up with it or look for employment elsewhere. Not if you work for Happy People, a company featured recently in a UK Personnel publication. They say, if one of their employees is unhappy with their manager, they can simply change them for another one. Perhaps they have a point. Work based conflict can be a cause of stress, absence and low productivity. It can be physically and emotionally draining and if the boss is the problem, the employee can feel helpless. Whilst disputes between a manager and an employee can be dealt with through the company’s grievance procedure, the reality is that in the majority of cases, the company will side with the manager, making the employee’s situation even worse. A happy workforce is a productive one, so why not allow employees to choose their own manager? Perhaps they could even participate in interviews and make the appointment decision?

Or maybe it’s not so simple. The first problem might be finding a supply of alternative managers, particularly in the same department. If there was no such choice, would it be realistic to have an accountant not reporting to the Senior Accountant but to the Marketing Manager instead?

How would it affect the power balance? Would managers be reluctant to delegate in case they were perceived as too demanding? Would they be forever treading on eggshells?

How would it affect the self-esteem and credibility of the ‘dropped’ manager?

What would be the impact on internal politics? Perhaps some managers would want to identify themselves as an exemplar of good management, collecting new employees like a politician collecting votes.

How would the company cascade authority and objectives if the chain of command became broken?

Maybe the ‘choose your own boss’ philosophy might work in a small consultancy practice; maybe it would work in Happyland or Utopia perhaps but in industry, construction, retail, business and in Poland? I don’t think so; what about you or do you hate your boss and would like to give it a go?

Glossary

Put up with - tolerate, accept
Absence - time off work, usually due to illness
Emotionally draining - psychologically exhausting
Grievance procedure - a formal process for employees to raise complaints about their manager
Side with - take the side of, support
Appointment decision - choosing who will get the job
Power balance - the unspoken dynamics of the power relationship
Treading on eggshells - an idiom meaning acting with extreme caution, usually not to upset or make someone angry
Self-esteem - how people feel about and value themselves
Credibility - how believable someone is, respect gained through competence
Internal politics - battles for influence and control within an organisation
Exemplar - someone who personifies best practice
Cascade - flow downwards; usually authority or information
Chain of command - the structure for passing power down through the organisation
Consultancy practice - usually a company specialising in law, accounting or business advice
To give something a go - informal phrasal verb meaning to try something

You think you've got a bad boss? It could be worse!

How to breathe

2011-08-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

Feeling stressed; fatigued?

Practice breathing; it’s worth doing well.

Of course, it's not enough just to be told to do it, you have to know how - so here's how.

Happy breathing!

Phrases for meetings

2011-08-13T05:25:00.000-07:00

Need some useful, standard phrases for meetings?

Try these examples from Business English Phrasebook - George Sandford:

http://www.english4hr.com/business-english-phrasebook-e-book.html

Useful phrases

For each aspect of a meeting, there are some useful phrases you can use.

Stating purpose

The aim of the meeting is….
What we need to agree/decide is ….
The purpose of today’s meeting is ….
Our objective today is ….

Processing the agenda

The first item on the agenda is ….
Next,
Moving on,
Right, now the next item is ….

Inviting contributions

Dave, what do you think?
Has anybody got any ideas/suggestions?
Who’d like to start?
What’s your opinion?
How do you see it?

Controlling disruptive behaviour

I’m sorry, that’s not what we’re here to discuss.
Can I stop you there?
I’d appreciate it if you’d keep to the point.
I’m afraid if you are going to be disruptive, I’ll have to ask you to leave.
Please speak through the Chair!

Agreeing

I totally agree.
That’s a good point.
That makes sense.
Good idea!

Disagreeing

I must beg to differ.
I’m afraid I can’t agree.
You’re way off beam.
I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Weighing up pros and cons

On the one hand …, but on the other…
The advantages are …, however, the disadvantages ….
Taking all things into account….
On balance…

Summarising and concluding

To summarise/sum up.
In conclusion….
OK, just to go over what we’ve agreed,
So, what we’ve decided is ….

And if that doesn't work - you could try this:

How to change your professional stereotype

2011-08-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

Many professions carry stereotypes; accountants are sensible but boring, IT people are weird and geeky and HR people are obsessed with their own systems and disconnected from the business reality. Like racial stereotypes, they don’t have to be true to be believed but in the business world and beyond, reality is perception.

Whatever your job, how can you shake off your professional label? The answer is you can’t; it’s too big a project for one person but how to improve your standing and increase your personal capital within your company is another matter. Here, the answer lies in effective personal branding. You need to think of yourself as a micro business within a market place and develop a personal, strategic plan covering the following steps:

Carry out an internal political audit of allies, enemies and neutrals; do not spend time fighting or trying to convert enemies; keep your head down and work on increasing your support base by converting neutrals.

Identify the most influential people in your network; strengthen these ties
create a clear idea of the image and message you want to present.

Make a communication plan of what you will say, which communication channels you will use and how frequently you will transmit; take control of your output.

Increase your F2F visibility, particularly with influential people.

Get involved in cross-cutting projects that lift you out of your core-function.

Become an expert on your company’s business not just your profession.

Become a problem solver not a problem creator.

Raise your profile inside and outside the company through social media channels, professional body events and inter-company meetings.

Never complain that people misjudge you; if they do, it’s down to poor marketing.

Accept personal branding as a time consuming but essential part of your job.

Of course, doing all of these things is a project too but it’s one with a realistic chance of success, that is unless you’re too boring, geeky or lacking in business acumen to try it!

Need more ideas? Check this.

Office in the clouds

2011-07-30T01:53:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the online portal HR Zone asked if cloud computing would lead to the end of the office as we know it. After all, if people are able to access their files remotely, then surely a movement to remote working is inevitable. This could produce immense savings in expensive office accommodation, less commuting, leading to environmental benefits and better work life balance as workers would save two or more hours a day in stressful travel.

They say, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is so of course, there is a downside.

Firstly, is it really going to happen? Being able to access your entire music collection while on holiday in Thailand might be one thing but to what extent are companies going to feel happy and secure about placing company sensitive information on a cloud?

Let’s say we find a way round that and can choose to work where we like. Even with regular contact via Skype or tele-conferencing, people can soon feel isolated and disconnected. It can be difficult to build a team that never meets in person. Furthermore, whilst accommodating people in offices may seem a rather inefficient strategy, it allows for the creativity of randomness; people can meet incidentally, without a plan or an agenda and happen upon ideas that would not have occurred in a structured conference call.

The building boom in the in the BRICS countries shows no let up and corporate companies the world over want some A Class city centre space to show their customers that they are dealing with an A league player.

It could be argued that we can have the best of both worlds with a mixture of remote working and workplace time. However, to maximise space utility companies are likely to use hot desking, which for all it’s apparent merits, is unpopular with workers. Personally, I found it made me feel marginalised and like an unwanted guest, gate crashing a party.
Perhaps one model that might develop is that of the independent traveller where workers become office backpackers periodically calling in at the work ‘hostel’ to share ideas and experiences.

Whatever happens, if you think that the cloud will obscure the office, you must be living in cloud cuckoo land!

Glossary

cloud computing – a process that enables accessing information from anywhere (for fuller explanation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
remote working - working at home or away from the office
commuting - travelling to and from work
company sensitive - confidential and with a potential impact on competition
in person - physically present
BRICS - acronym for fast developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
no let up - not stopping or reducing
A Class - most expensive, prestigious office space in prime location
the best of both worlds - idiom for getting the benefit of two different advantages
hot desking - not having a dedicated office or desk but temporary access to desk, phone and computer
marginalised - pushed to the margins; the edge, not included
gate crashing - entering a party uninvited
living in cloud cuckoo land - thinking in a totally unrealistic way

Well, for an office in the clouds, you'd need a head for heights. Don't look down! (And I thought floor 31 on Rondo 1 ONZ, Warsaw was high!)OMG!

Rehab

2011-07-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

The tragic events of last weekend remind us of the fragility of human life and the sad waste of youth and talent. There is little that governments can do to predict and contain the actions of a lone wolf extremist and little friends and family could do to dissuade Amy Winehouse from a path of inevitable self-destruction. Spookily, she joins an illustrious band of other 27 year old victims including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janice Joplin and Kurt Cobain. What, if anything, does this have to do with HR?

The answer lies in employee welfare and the potential hazards of depression, mental health issues and drug abuse. Without becoming paranoid or ultra- puritanical, employers need to raise awareness among staff and managers and encourage a degree of compassionate vigilance.

A good starting point is attendance and time-keeping as erratic patterns may conceal an underlying cause. Frequent and rapid mood changes may be indicative of drug use and or internal disturbance. Return to work interviews for all absences, however small, are a great way to keep on top of things. Counselling can be useful but is best left to trained professionals, possibly as part of an anonymous telephone help line. The organisation needs to reassure employees that they will not be punished, disciplined or sacked for problems but helped through them. That said, some organisations go as far as random drug testing which, for certain professions and activities, may be appropriate. In some cases maybe rehabilitation may be advised. For some, it could provide an answer.

R.I.P Amy

Non spaces

2011-07-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

When is a space not a space? Answer; when it's a non space. That's according to French intellectual, Marc Auge. Non spaces are defined as spaces we travel through with no sense of belonging, ownership or attention. This may be bits of waste ground, an alley way or maybe something bigger, like an airport. They are populated but somehow abandoned.

It occurred to me that there must be many such places in larger organisations and that these non spaces may be physical and virtual - creating non-communication spaces.

Should we identify them and fill them or leave them as they are? After all, we all need a bit of space; maybe even a non space.

Merged or submerged?

2011-07-17T04:49:00.001-07:00

Big news in Warsaw recently is the merger of property management giants Jones Lang LeSalle and King Sturge. Beyond the hype and slick PR externally and internally, employees will be wondering if they will be merged or submerged. It's certainly being presented as an expansionist strategy rather than desire to create economies of scale but naturally, employees will wonder if they will be surplus to requirements. It's said that redeployment and naturally wasteage are the only pruning tools likely to be used.

With the need to combine departments, relocate and reallocate staff, not to mention integrate two cultures; there's plenty of work for the HR Director - well, one of them anyway!

Glossary:

Submerged - go under water
Economies of scale - being able to do this more economically by being bigger
Surplus to requirements - no longer needed
Natural wasteage - reduce the workforce by not replacing them as they leave
Redeployment - given a different job within the company
To prune - cut back plants to encourage new growth

Here's an, as ever, professonal production from a media savvy organisation.

Checking your work life balance

2011-07-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever laid on a beach or walked along the shore and thought - this is it! You have time to reflect and to question your priorities and wonder why you are stuck in the rat trap.

How is your work life balance? Complete the self-assessment questionnaire to find out!

Write yes - if this statement is true for you.

I often….

1) wake up in the night thinking about work and things I need to do
2) work from home in the evenings
3) do some work at weekends
4) have to apologise for working late and being late home
5) can’t relax on Sunday evenings for thinking about work
6) feel tired but don’t sleep well
7) find it difficult to relax without alcohol
8) work through lunch
9) don’t eat proper meals but survive on snacks, coffee and carbonated drinks
10) feel guilty if I sit and do nothing
11) feel guilty because I don’t spend as much time with my family as I should
12) don’t have the time or the energy for hobbies or exercise

If you answered yes to:

2 or less - Well done! You’ve got things well under control.
3 - 5 - Watch out! Work is starting to take over.
6 or more - Take immediate action to restore the balance.

This is an extract from Business English Phrasebook - George Sandford. To order your copy, visit www.english4hr.com now!

If your balance isn’t right, you might find this video inspiring.

Cambridge English for Human Resources - book story

2011-07-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

Cambridge English for Human Resources - George Sandford, released worldwide July 2011. It was an important landmark for me in what was sometimes rocky journey.

As a new author, I didn't know what to expect and if you've ever wondered what's involved in writing a book, (for Cambridge University Press, at least) I can tell you.

The first surprise was how long everything takes and I started discussions about proposals as long ago as May 2009. After the submission of two proposals, (outline and detailed), a sample chapter and a revised sample chapter, approval was finally given in March 2010.

The writing schedule of 8 - 9 months seemed ample time to produce 10 units of approximately 3,000 words. But then you need to add a further 2,000 per unit in audio scripts. (which amounts to around two hours of listening!) However, I hadn't bargained on the weight of editorial comment and the need for innumerable redrafts.

The Cambridge English for Specific Purposes Series has quite a well defined format and I can see in hindsight that my original efforts were way off the mark. Without the immense editorial talents of Jeremy Day and Nik White, I would have sunk without trace.

As the clock ticked down and each deadline neared, the Warsaw summer temperatures rocketed to a dripping 34 degrees centigrade. My airless apartment trapped me in a demonic writing inferno. It's no exaggeration to say that I went a little bit mad last year as the boundaries between living inside the book and out, became increasingly blurred.

Somehow, I emerged from this chaos and the writing was suddenly over. I learnt some very useful lessons about the writing process; namely that it's essential to have a good structural plan and to build units around authentic documents. Beyond this, I'd sought to provide range and authenticity in the audios by setting each unit in a different industry sector in a different country. I created a cast of characters and a story board to run, like plaited hair, through the architecture of each unit.
Above all, I learnt the importance of just doggedly keeping going.

There was additional work to do in terms of finalising the glossary and co-writing the supporting teachers' notes but the main text was now handed over to clever graphics people to turn the book into something visually beautiful and well designed.

Despite moments of doubt along the way, I can honestly say that I have a book of which I am truly proud. I genuinely believe that it will be a great asset to anyone wishing to develop their English HR knowledge, language and skills and of be of assistance to teachers facilitating this. Above all, although it was never part of the brief, I have aimed to produced a book that is not only functionally effective but entertaining and interesting to work with.

I do hope you'll buy the book. Forged from the furnace of a long, hot summer, English for Human Resources is a little treasure.

You can buy it at:

Cambridge University Press

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

English4HR

Blue Ocean strategy

2011-06-29T03:04:00.000-07:00

It's over five years since there was a big splash about Blue Ocean Strategy - the book and concept created by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgre. Five years on, is it still making waves or did it turn out to be a drop in the ocean and a passing ship on the horizon of fleeting fads?

Here's a short video that explains it extremely well and you can then decide for yourself if the idea is still afloat or is sunk.

Bon voyage

Belbin - 85 not out

2011-06-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

The creator of team roles, Meredith Belbin is still alive at the age of 85. I’m not surprised. Some 15 years ago, I ran a series of team work seminars featuring him as the speaker. He was passionate about his subject and showed no signs of weakening.

The Belbin team role model is still used by many companies 40 years on from its inception - is it still valid and relevant?

Belbin identified eight and then nine roles that people play within teams. These are:

Coordinator - Calm leaders, able to delegate and see the big picture, good at coordinating complex projects involving many people
Shaper - Strong personality, lead from the front, highly competitive, sometimes dominant and aggressive
Plant - Imaginative and creative, original thinkers, may be eccentric and unorthodox
Resource investigator - Well connected inside and outside the company, always able to access the necessary contacts and resources
Monitor evaluator - Logical problem solvers, analytical, critical, sometimes negative
Implementer - Good at putting plans into action and following instructions, prefer routine and predictability rather than using own initiative
Team worker - Good listeners and diplomatic, concerned with maintaining group harmony
Completer finisher - Perfectionist and anxious, concerned with meeting deadlines and completing jobs
Specialist - Provide specialist knowledge, experts within own field but less concerned with things outside it

The basic theory proposes that an effective team needs a range and balance of different team roles.

The roles were identified using observations of high flying managers in business simulation games. Belbin became able to predict which teams would succeed and why. However despite the model’s longevity, there are critics who say the experiments on which the theory is based was rather limited and artificial.

My own concern would be if and how the model still applies now in the age of Generation Y and virtual teams.

You will have to decide for yourself and don’t forget to send Belbin a telegram when he reaches 100 - I’m sure the old professor from Cambridge will outlive us all!

(85, not out - an example of a cricket score where the batsman has scored 85 runs and not yet been bowled out)

Here's an interview from when he was just a youngster of 82!

Summer team building

2011-06-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

It’s the time of year when many companies are planning their summertime team building activities. The aims of such events include a number of factors such as focussed problem solving for a particular section, integration of newly formed units, general, company wide cohesion or as a bit of a jolly which forms an unofficial bonus or reward.

Typically, events last two days and are at an off-site venue. They can be residential in a hotel or outward bound. Outdoor training is very popular and can incorporate a beautiful environment with physical activities such as orienteering, abseiling or tackling an assault course; all activities designed to build trust. Additionally, there may be some timed, team tasks in which a team has to work out how to fill a leaking barrel or how to dismantle a time bomb; usually, with at least one of the team being blind folded. Such exercises focus on effective planning, problem solving and communication. However, as seen recently, there is always a risk of the weather spoiling the party but as the Swedes say, ‘there is no bad weather, only bad clothing!’ Coping with adverse conditions could even be a positive factor in learning how to overcome difficulties and maintain morale, or in other words, keeping your chin up when you are in a tent in the middle of a wet field in a thunderstorm at night!

For more luxurious, hotel based events it’s still important to keep activities varied and lively through the use of team games and syndicate work. Access to technology provides the opportunity to use business simulation games which can be enjoyable and developmental.
Companies may also incorporate presentations from top brass communicating business results and strategic plans.

Whether indoors or out, inevitably, social activities will gravitate to the bar. Fortified by Dutch courage, some will want to demonstrate their talents at the karaoke and there will always be someone eager to record the evidence to play back at work. Team building; you can’t beat it!

Glossary

Cohesion - sticking together
Jolly - usually an adjective synonymous with cheerful, as a noun it describes a light hearted break from the work routine which forms an unofficial bonus or reward.
Off-site venue - a place away from work, often some distance
Residential - involving staying over night
Outward bound - involving outdoor activities
Orienteering - a kind of treasure hunt involving clues, a compass and running through a forest
Abseiling - descending down the side of a cliff with ropes and other equipment
Assault course - an army training route involving ropes, netting, posts, etc.
Blind folded - having the eyes covered with a piece of material
To keep your chin up - idiom describing staying positive through difficulties
Syndicate work - working in small groups
Business simulation games - computer software programmes designed to imitate a business environment
Top brass - informal term for senior management
Dutch courage - informal term for confidence caused by alcohol

Try this maybe?

Are you culturally aware?

2011-05-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

For people working in a country other than their own, apart from the obvious language difficulties, understanding the culture is also very important. People need to become sensitive to differences concerning customs and behavioural norms so that they do not cause offence and damage working or business relationships.

Some of the key areas where cultural differences occur are as follows:

Politeness/ directness - this could concern forms of address, how much small talk is considered appropriate and the extent to which it is acceptable to talk directly so for example, in a sales meeting, would it be OK to say, ‘So do you want to order our product?’ or should you say, ‘Naturally, you will want time to consider our offer.’

Collective or individualistic - a country such as Japan has a strong collective ethic and it is unlikely that an individual would make any maverick moves whereas in the USA or the UK, individual initiative would be more welcome and possibly desired as a character trait.

Risk taking or risk averse - this is a related theme and concerns how rule bound people may be and the extent to which they are prepared to bend rules.

Deference to status - Whereas some countries might be quite happy to call the MD, ‘Mike,’ others may consider this totally inappropriate and rude.

Body language - this can be a minefield in your own country and can be more troublesome abroad. In particular, issues such as eye contact, physical contact and personal space need to be understood and boundaries adhered to.

Customs and conventions - these can apply to business meetings and social meetings which are business related such as visiting the home of a client or colleague. You need to know if it is appropriate to take flowers or chocolates and in business, one man’s idea of a gracious good will gesture of a gift (‘please use my country home for the weekend’) may in other countries, be considered bare faced bribery.

For HR managers organising the relocation of managers to different countries, arranging cultural awareness training could be a wise investment to make sure that the new kid on the block doesn’t put his foot in it and blot his copybook on his first day.

Have you got that? No offence intended!

Glossary

Culture - a wide range of activities and convention that define a particular society
Sensitive - being very aware of something, feeling things strongly
Customs - social activities that are customary in a particular society
Behavioural norms - normally expected behaviours
Cause offence - upset people through language or insensitivity to feelings or beliefs
Politeness - the act of being polite and using forms of courtesy
Directness - saying explicitly what you want to say without any linguistic padding
Forms of address - words used to speak to people directly - Sir, Madam, Mr, Mrs, Pan Janusz, Janusz, Janek, etc.
Collective - group allegiance
Individualistic - having the qualities of favouring individuals
Maverick - noun or adjective to describe someone highly individualistic and careless of group feelings or norms
Initiative - thinking for yourself
Character trait - an aspect of personality
Risk taking - in the habit of taking risks
Risk averse - having a dislike and aversion to risk taking
Rule bound - tied to rules and procedures
Bend rules - euphemism for not sticking rigidly to rules
Deference to status - the extent to which people respect and behave humbly towards people in higher positions
MD - abbreviation for Managing Director
Body language - all non-verbal communication
Minefield - a metaphor to describe a dangerous and difficult area to navigate
Eye contact - how directly and how much of the time people look at each other
Physical contact - touching, can involve handshakes, hugging and kissing
Personal space - the distance at which people stand or sit apart
Customs and conventions - national habits and expectations
Good will gesture - something done to demonstrate good intentions
Bare faced - open, unabashed
Bribery - giving money or favours illegally to a decision maker in order to gain something in return
Relocation - move, often to another country
Cultural awareness training - training designed to integrate people into a new culture
New kid on the block - new, high profile, rising star
To put your foot in it - say or do something that you shouldn’t
To blot your copybook - damage your record or reputation

As you will see from this advert- sometimes it's well worth becoming aware of local customs and etiquette!

Welcome aboard

2011-05-13T23:55:00.000-07:00

How should a company welcome its new employees? Some people still favour a sink or swim approach but luckily for employees, these people are in the minority. Starting a new job with unfamiliar faces and surroundings can be very daunting, so some form of guidance can be most helpful.

It’s easy to overlook the obvious but new recruits need to have some very basic, essential information such as where to put their coats, the location of toilets and how to get into the building. The highly publicised opening of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 was a PR and operational disaster precisely because new staff couldn’t gain access to the car park or the building. Customers were waiting at check-in desks with no one to serve them!

Most larger companies organise formal induction training where employees are briefed on key information. It is important that this is timely. I once worked for a company that enrolled me for induction training two years after I had joined! Remarkably, I still discovered facts that I didn’t know so it would have been useful to have had it earlier.

Induction courses can make sure that employees understand the procedure for phoning in sick and which policies and procedures they need to be aware of. However reading through these can be very boring so it is necessary that trainers deliver this in a concise and interesting way. Very often this is combined with essential health and safety training and it’s worth making sure that people know the location of fire exits.

Other organisations take a longer term view of induction and integrate new workers over a period as long as a year. One way of doing this is through a ‘buddy’ system whereby an employee is looked after by an experienced member of staff. This could also take the form of ongoing coaching by helping the employee to become familiar with and skilled at new tasks.

Another option that some organisations choose is to appoint a mentor. This is usually a senior manager with no direct line responsibility for the person they mentor. This can be very useful in developing the new recruit and helping them to become culturally aware. On the other hand, the process needs to be carefully managed and it’s important that the mentee is comfortable with their mentor. A specific mentoring period with a defined end should also be set.

Some people might think that this all sounds like a lot of work and that maybe it is not worth the investment in time and money however, the T5 example shows that there is a cost attached to getting it wrong. A good induction process should ensure that a new employee is adequately informed, feels valued, is integrated and up to full speed as quickly as possible. That’s good for the employee and good for the business.

Glossary

Sink or swim - offering no help so that a person has to manage or not
PR - public relations
Operational disaster - the operation of the business failed badly
Check-in desks - section where passengers arrive to check in
Formal induction training - official, organised company training
Briefed - given information
Timely - at an appropriate time, when needed
Enrolled - signed up, put on a list to attend
Phoning in sick - notifying the employer of staying off work due to illness
Policies and procedures - company rules
Concise - brief, short, to the point
Health and safety - matters concerning potential risk and danger in the workplace
Worth making - note, after worth you always use ing form, never to + verb; that’s worth knowing!
Fire exits - places to leave by in the event of a fire
Integrate - mix, become pert of a team
Buddy system - appointing an employee as a ‘buddy’ or friend
Ongoing coaching - continuing, task based employee development
Mentor - (noun) the person who mentors
Senior Manager - someone near the top of the organisation
Direct line - immediate supervisory relationship
To mentor - (verb) the process of mentoring
Culturally aware - know and understand the company culture (unwritten rules)
Mentee - (noun) the person who is mentored
Mentoring period - set timeframe during which mentoring takes place
Cost attached - not in accounting terms but in reality, mistakes cost money
Adequately informed - know what is necessary
Feel valued - feel appreciated, recognised, worthwhile
Up to full speed - working at maximum efficiency and capability

See what happens when companies get it wrong!

What's in a name?

2011-05-07T00:05:00.001-07:00

As an HR manager or training person, how many employees in your organisation do you know? As you walk along the corridor and bump into people, how many faces can you put a name to?

Does it matter? Maybe strategic HR can focus on the big picture and doesn't need to trouble itself with small details like people's names.

But it does matter. Unlike logistics, people are not containers in a freight yard waiting to be moved but human beings with a strange habit of using personal identifiers, otherwise referred to as names.

A flashy, strategy presentation in the boardroom will remain just that unless it is effectively implemented. In order to do that, it will need the cooperation of the workforce - you know, the data set with the personal identifiers.

Start learning identifiers and then show an interest in the people behind them and you'll be surprised how it increases the respect for and influence of HR.

Sorry, what did you say your name was?

Glossary

To bump into someone - to meet someone unexpectedly - 'Guess who I bumped into.'
To put a face to the name - to meet someone and whose name you know and connect their appearance with their name.
Flashy - adj. showy, deliberately made attractive and noticeable

If you need some techniques on remembering names, this might help.

Caught napping

2011-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Head of USA Air traffic control resigned recently amid criticism regarding nightshift air traffic controllers sleeping on the job. Although this might have been shocking news to some people, to me it was no surprise.

Back in the 1970’s, I lived near London Heathrow Airport and a friend shared a flat with an air traffic controller. As I called round one evening, the flatmate was stuffing a sleeping bag into a rucksack.

‘Off on holiday?’ I enquired naively.
‘Nah.’ He replied dismissively.
'Just off to work on the nightshift. We take it in turns to sleep.’
'Isn’t that dangerous?’ I returned.
‘No, there aren’t many night flights. Usually two people get to sleep each night - tonight, it’s my turn.’

I wouldn’t say he was boastful but matter of fact as if the logic of it couldn’t be disputed.

Now, I’m not suggested that air traffic controllers the world over are sleeping on nights but what if they were? It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

I briefly worked nights in my youth for the post office. It was a numbing three shift pattern of mornings, afternoons and nights, a week of each in rotation. Within six months I was the living dead and would wake at four not knowing if it was am or pm. If somebody had offered me a sleeping bag and a quiet corner, I would have gladly taken it. Let’s say, maybe I’m not alone.

The question is then how a 24/7 business should manage tiredness at work and particularly the small hours. Maybe shorter shifts would be the answer but who’d want to get up in the middle of the night for four hour’s work; perhaps a more stimulating work environment, bright lights, security cameras, closer supervision and regular checks?

What do you think is the answer?

Well, you don’t have to decide right now; you can sleep on it. Sweet dreams.

Check this out for air traffic control conversation.

The death of Dear

2011-04-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Sir or Madam,

A recently long and heated discussion on Linkedin debated whether or not the term, ‘Dear,’ in business correspondence was outdated and redundant. The proponent of the idea stated that it was overly formal, archaic and should not form part of the modern business lexicon.

The problem with this idea is that it rather depends on which part of the world you live in. The, ‘Hi Dave, have a nice day!’ approach might be OK in LA but would be less acceptable when addressing a Chinese or Japanese client. All languages use a parallel code of formal and informal terms specifically because, as social animals, we recognise the need for deferential and respectful behaviour, particularly when talking to older or more senior people.

To declare the death of ‘Dear,’ is premature and to actively seek its demise would leave a large and embarrassing hole in the fabric of business etiquette. Some formality and conventions are useful in setting out a common template of courtesy that is easy to follow and avoids causing offence. Far from being dead, ‘Dear,’ is alive and remains a dear friend and faithful servant.

Yours Faithfully,

George Sandford

Glossary

Heated - with strong opinions, forcefully expressed
Proponent - a person who proposes a course of action
To address somebody - to use a particular term (such as Mr) when speaking to someone
Deferential - (adj) to be respectful
Premature - too early, before it is ready
Demise - death or end
Template - a model pattern to copy

Well, if you're unsure to address me, I'm not too fussy.

If you'll be my body guard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al

Pardon my French

2011-04-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Am I being naïve or blasé maybe when I say that English is full of French? It’s a bit of a **** take - Pardon my French! I often find myself explaining to students that English is just French with a funny accent. Don’t get me wrong, having lived in France, I’m no xenophobe, (Hm - Greek) but even the business world isn’t sacrosanct. (Hm - Latin)You can have a tete a tete or a boardroom coup. The 1980’s went through a rather pretentious phases of making payments in tranches. Looks like it’s a fait a complis!

Pardon my French - something you say after swearing (in English)
Xenophobia - fear or hatred of aliens (foreigners)
Sacrosanct - sacred, untouchable
Tete a tete - head to head
Coup - takeover - from coup de tat - cut of the head
Tranches - slices, stages
Fait a complis - sealed fate

What do you get if you cross two great script writers, English comedy and silly French accents?

Allo Allo!

http://youtu.be/6DrAp5gzdqc

Bank holiday

2011-04-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

Today is a bank holiday in the UK but what is the origin of this strange name?

In fact, it has a very British explanation.

It dates back to the Bank Holiday's Act of 1871 introduced by Sir John Lubbock. This identified four days; Easter Monday, Whit Monday (in May), August bank holiday and Boxing day.(26th Dec)

With the exception of Boxing Day, it was traditional for village cricket matches to take place on the other days. Now, Sir John was a great cricket fan and he felt that it was only fair that bank employees should be able to participate too. (Probably, he needed a banker for his own team!)

Well as you probably know, cricket is very important and it doesn't even matter who wins - it's the taking part that counts!

One of England's greatest cricketers was 'Beefy' Botham - an all-rounder who could bat and bowl and hit the opposition for six - like this!

Leveraging

2011-04-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

These days we're being encouraged to leverage everything in sight. I recently saw a poster on a PriceWaterhouseCoopers wall saying 'Leverage your customers.'

Hm - tip them up and throw them out of the window maybe?

A Polish HR Manager in another company asked if I could explain what she was meant to do when told to leverage her office. Quite honestly, I was struggling for an answer.

This application of the word seems strange given its economic meaning which is synonymous with borrow.

Maybe we should borrow customers or office equipment?

It seems just about anything can be leveraged and what bigger thing could you leverage than the universe?

Mike Dooley reckons he knows how. Check out the video, maybe he has a point.

Oh sorry, I mean leverage this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSlyFJUroWc&feature=related

Hire and fire

2011-04-17T05:25:00.000-07:00

A key role of Human Resources is to hire and fire people; that is, employ them and sometimes, dismiss them. There are a number of words to describe these activities, as well as other stages in between.

We can hire, take on, recruit or employ.

When business is bad, we may need to put people on short time working, lay them off or even make them redundant. A company may describe this as down-sizing or right-sizing. It’s important to remember that these measures are taken because of economic reasons. It’s not the same as being sacked which is a disciplinary action, taken as a result of misconduct.

Regarding firing someone, we can also give them the boot, give them the sack, give them their cards or give them their marching orders. These are all informal terms and it’s more professional to describe it as dismissal.

Well, I hope you’ve got all of that; I’ll be testing you later. Toodle-pip!

George

Glossary

Short time working - reduced hours or days
Lay off - to temporarily stop people working because there is no work
Make redundant - end someone's job permanently
Disciplinary action - a formal process to punish at work
Misconduct - noun for doing something wrong at work
Toodle pip - rather old fashioned and silly way to say goodbye.

CV Resume

2011-04-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

What does CV stand for? Curriculum vitae certainly but what about cool version, clear vision or sadly, completely valueless! I am often asked to check peoples’ CVs, usually with the purpose of checking and correcting the English. Unfortunately, this is often the least of the problems.

Despite the plethora of guide books on the market, most CVs do little to attract the recruiter. A recent forum discussion on the social network channel, Linkedin, highlighted the pet peeves of recruiters.

The first area relates to presentation and some people in an attempt to spice up their otherwise dull work history use many different exotic fonts and print sizes, bold, italics, boxes and underlining, the result of which leads to an unattractive mess.

However, you could say that you can at least award marks for effort. What is possibly the biggest turn off to would be employers is someone who has simply rehashed their job description without imagination or offering any additional or interesting information.

Many people fail to think about the CV as a marketing tool to promote themselves so fail to include something like a simple personal statement listing a set of adjectives such as hard working, determined, imaginative, team player, etc.

Another basic approach to personal marketing is to keep messages short and direct but many potential candidates think just to be on the safe side it is best to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. The worst examples can be as long as seven or eight pages which include a summer job done when they were 17 and an endless list of every training course attended including an introduction to computers in 1990!

As HR people and recruitment agencies know, the selection process can be tough and one simple way to conduct initial filtering is to discard any CV that has been constructed without effort, thought for the reader and does nothing to highlight and promote the candidate’s key strengths.

So what do you look for in a CV, complete variety or something which is credible and valuable?

Glossary

Plethora - high quantity, excess almost
Pet peeves - pet hates, things that annoy people
To spice up - to make more exciting or attractive
Work history - career record
To Rehash - reproduce, rework but unimaginatively
Personal statement - a paragraph of information which highlights the candidate’s key attributes
Team player - someone who works well as part of a team
To throw in everything but the kitchen sink - a metaphor meaning to include everything
Initial filtering - the first round of screening, selecting and deselecting candidates
Discard - to throw out

Here are ten top tips:

Music for training and teaching

2011-04-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

I posted a debate on Linkedin asking what the role of music in training was. I got quite a mixture of responses including a few blunt, emphatic, ‘no’s! Some people thought it had uses but others viewed as a distracting gimmick. It soon deteriorated into a sub-debate about the legality and copyright issues pertaining to playing recorded music.

Time out; here’s my take.

Music has a legitimate role in teaching and is a great part of the toolkit. I have used music in training sessions for over 20 years - it works, when used correctly.

Here’s how:

At the beginning of a session it can set the mood and break an awkward silence as people arrive - particularly on an open course where people don’t know each other.

During exercises and group work; the trick is to play it very quietly at an almost inaudible volume. It helps to remove self-consciousness, eavesdropping on other groups and aids concentration.

Then, when you turn it off, people notice the difference and you have their attention for the review and feedback of group work.

With a presentation - as an alternative the ‘here we see….’ why not just play some instrumental music and allow people to read the slides without commentary.

In a language lesson - a song can be featured. I’ve used cut up exercises of lyrics, getting students to reconstruct the song and then listen to see if they have got it correct. Depending on the song, you can focus on vocabulary or grammar - The Clash - Should I stay or should I go is good for conditionals!

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/clash/should+i+stay+or+should+i+go_20031789.html

On writing courses with tired, afternoon eyes, I’ve turned the lights off and played a classical interlude. This provides a rest and time to assimilate information.

Finally, at the end of the course you can play something upbeat during evaluations and as people leave the room to end on a high note.

Of course, you don’t do all of these things on the same event but they are options at your disposal. With some experimentation, you’ll find what kind of music works best for the type of students you work with but I have found pop classics, Motown and Ska work very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown

As for the copyright issue, I wouldn’t get hung up about it. You don’t need a Public Performance Licence or to pay royalties to Madonna. Maybe, if you’re Tom Peters playing to a hall of 10,000 you do but as a humble teacher with a class of four and a CD player, you don’t; the law makes this distinction.

Just a word of caution about how not to use music:

What doesn’t work - for me at least is:

Big, loud pieces like Stravinsky or Vivaldi on arrival. Some NLP and Accelerated learning coaches use this to provide a stimulating atmosphere but frankly it just gives me a headache and I feel overwhelmed by it. It also makes it difficult for delegates to talk to each other and many just mooch around outside the training room, so it’s counter-productive..

Musak

Continuous background music throughout the session, particularly when important points are being communicated.

Happy clappy

Extrovert trainers who want to get people to join in presenting their findings in song. It might work with children, it might work with adults but for many, it’s excruciatingly painful.

My play list

OK, Let’s say you think Bruce Springsteen is the greatest thing since sliced bread, (actually, I do!) So for starters we’ll have Working on a Dream, maybe Born to Run to zip it up later and, for a quiet song, Philadelphia. Sounds wonderful - unless you hate Bruce Springsteen and you’re stuck listening to his greatest hits all day.

Self-indulgence is one of the seven deadly sins of trainers.

Gladly, these situations are exceptions and on balance music can raise the tone of a session, create harmony and send people out of the room on a high note.

Ah well, physician heal thyself - what better way to end than with a bit of Bruce!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsRNqF0CbC8

HR Vocabulary test 2

2011-03-31T03:56:00.000-07:00

Use the words below to complete the text which follows.

rebranding
PC
executive burnout
off shoring
whistleblowers
gobbledygook
employee engagement
corporate social responsibility
transition
talent management
Generation Y
leverage

The trouble with HR is it is full of jargon and abbreviations like
1) ________________; some would even call it meaningless 2) _________________.
Either way, there’s a lot to learn as new words are always appearing, like 3) _________________ instead of change and 4) _________________ instead of use.

The past two years has seen a lot of developments such as policies protecting
5) _________________ who expose wrong doing and companies needing to consider their impact on society and 6) _________________. The use of 7) _________________ has increased as companies seek to locate operations in cheaper labour markets.

Some important themes have emerged concerning work life balance and how to prevent
8) _________________. Companies have tried to attract and develop staff through
9) _________________ and retain employees by improving 10) _________________ and getting people to feel connected with the organisation. The issue of how to interest and manage the new 11) _________________ is yet to be fully resolved.

Put all these issues together and it’s no surprise that HR has had to repurpose itself and give some thought to 12) _________________ the service. Looks like the next two years and 100 editions will be just as busy!

Here's little vidleo so you don't sneak a peakeo at the ansloaders! Deep joy!(An example of gobbledygook!

Answers

1) PC
2) gobbledygook
3) transition
4) leverage
5) whistleblowers
6) corporate social responsibility
7) off shoring
8) executive burnout
9) talent management
10) employee engagement
11) Generation Y
12) rebranding

Talent is an asset

2011-03-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the 1990s the term talent management came into existence. At the time, the main concern for HR departments was how to retain talented employees and this led to a focus on reward systems, development opportunities and career planning in order to provide a variety of incentives for people to stay.

This century has seen the introduction of the concept of Human Capital Management and a broadening of the term ‘talent’ to embrace all employees. This has caused a degree of ambiguity as the word talent can now be synonymous with ability or potential whilst others see it as referring just to those employees who are extremely gifted. In reality, both approaches co-exist although only a minority of companies have formalised talent management systems. For those that do, it covers all the stages of the employee’s interaction with the company.

Perhaps the first stage is to create a cultural talent mindset that is part of the strategic plan and shifts the responsibility for identifying and managing talent away from corporate HR onto managers. The role of HR in such scenarios becomes that of facilitator ensuring that every stage from recruitment to development and promotion maximises talent by converting potential into actual performance. One way of achieving this is through skills and knowledge audits to create an internal talent pool which can be drawn upon and individuals be selected for projects according to their specific aptitudes.

However, other talent management philosophies may focus more specifically on the grooming of future leaders and people in pivotal roles, in effect, dividing the workforce into A and B Team players. In such cases, this elite set may receive specialist coaching, assignments or secondments in preparation for leadership. As well as seeking to confirm the high flyer’s suitability for a top position, the organisation may be on the look out for potential derailers in the employee’s make-up.

Whether called talent management, human capital management, aimed at everyone or the chosen few, talent management looks to be well towards the top of the HR agenda and there to stay.

Glossary

Retain - keep. Also, compound noun - employee retention
Reward systems - processes for paying people
Incentives - things that encourage a particular behaviour
Embrace - cover, include, involve
Talent management system - a total process covering the strategy and actions required for talent management
Talent mindset - a company wide, positive attitude to identify and maximising talent
Facilitator - someone who creates an environment or process for someone else to achieve something
Talent pool - an internal resource of identified ability
Drawn upon - accessed, used
Aptitude - natural ability
Grooming - preparation for a role
Pivotal role - a role within the organisation that has a higher than average impact on the business
Secondment - a temporary transfer to another role, department, location or even company - e.g. subsidiary or charity
High flyer - someone moving quickly through high levels of the company
On the look out - in search of, on guard against
Derailers - factors that could lead to failure
Make-up - personal characteristics and psychological traits, e.g. vanity, exclusive self-interest
HR agenda - the subjects with which HR is concerned

So, talent is an asset and Elvis surely has it so there's no greater talent than impersonating Elvis.

Hygiene factors at work

2011-03-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Hygiene factors are best known in relation to Freddie Herzberg's motivation theory which develops Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In this, he identified different levels of need ranging from basic physical to spiritual and self- actualisation.

In workplace psychology, Herzberg described aspects such as pay and conditions as hygiene factors, stating that these are not motivators but merely limit dissatisfaction. He cited psychological rewards as being more motivating.

Now, if there is anything likely to cause dissatisfaction at work, it's a colleague with B.O. or bad breath. A recent Guardian article quoted a Reabur HR Consultancy study which reported that people with hygiene issues were less likely to get a job - now there's a surprise!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/sep/23/personal-hygiene-bad-habits/print

So, if you're stuck in traffic or packed into a tram on a hot, sticky day, just remember to pack the Deo or you might get the cold shoulder from your colleagues.

Language notes

B.O - body odour
Stuck in traffic - traffic is uncountable but you can be stuck in a traffic jam
Deo - deodorant
To be given the cold shoulder - to be rejected or ignored

And, here's a real life brain teaser; how should you tell a member of staff that they have a hygiene problem?

A Hey, stinky, never heard of soap?
B I'm going to freshen up; care to join me?
c Is it me or is there a funny smell in here?
D I hope you don't mind me saying but you seem to have a bit of B.O.

Maybe, there's no easy way.

Sexual harassment at work

2011-03-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

Today, English for Human Resources asks - Can a man be sexual harrassed at work? It's a touchy subject.

A security guard who tried to sue Britney Spears for sexual harassment claiming that she paraded in front of him in the nude was laughed out of court. The general view of his employers was, 'Sure Pal, in your dreams!'

Security Guard Sues Britney Spears For Sexual Harassment

A more recent case in the UK of bottom slapping, also ruled against a male employee at John Lewis.

This ruling is a bit more concerning because the facts were accepted that the behaviour was repeated and the man had asked the women in question to stop. The argument that the man was over sensitive and couldn't take a joke seems weak and irrelevant given that sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature. The woman was much older than the man and you have to ask how the court would react to an older man slapping the bottoms of his younger female staff.

It seems that the prevailing view is that men can't be harassed - or am I being too touchy?

'Too sensitive' worker loses his slapped bottom fight.

Well, this seemed the logical place to go next: The Police and Don't stand so close to me; Lyrics. (if you enjoyed this post, feel free to join as a follower)

How can HR support innovation?

2011-03-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Innovation is one of the primary ways of gaining competitive edge over your rivals and many companies may look to their HR Departments to create a spirit of entrepreneurship within the organisation - so what can HR do?

Not everybody can be an entrepreneur but HR can do much to support processes that encourage enterprise and innovation. A cultural audit which assesses the current formal and informal norms can be a useful starting point and help to identify which activities, behaviours and attitudes are rewarded or discouraged. This may lead to a culture change programme that will require the whole hearted support of top brass and not just paying lip service.

Structural changes might be required to encourage the development of an internal market with service level agreements for the delivery of services between departments. It could also be useful to instil the habit of team meetings in which ‘innovation’ is a fixed agenda item against which staff report progress.

Whilst companies may use suggestion schemes with rewards for individuals coming up with bright ideas, a more planned approach will create cross functional innovation teams to explore new product developments, the streamlining of systems and the achievement of cost savings. These teams can be particularly effective when selecting people from a diagonal slice, giving more junior staff the opportunity to work directly alongside more experienced employees.

As a final step, or earlier in the process, an organisation may opt to appoint Innovation Champions with representation throughout the organisation, including board level.

This may all seem like a lot of work but if innovation really is the key to gaining a competitive advantage then it is worth investing in by creating a climate and infrastructure which encourages and supports it.

Glossary

Competitive edge - having the lead over your competitors
Rivals - a synonym of competitor or enemy; your arch-rival is your key opponent
Spirit of entrepreneurship - a culture of seeing commercial opportunities
Entrepreneur - an individual who creative in business
Enterprise - boldness and imagination in business
Cultural audit - a survey of the style of the organisation
Norms - acceptable and practiced behaviours
Culture change programme - a specific, planned course of activities designed to change culture
Whole hearted - complete, genuine
Top brass - senior people, VIP’s
Pay lip service (to something) - pretend to show interest in or support for something
Service level agreements - formal, contractual arrangements between departments
Fixed agenda item - something which is always on the agenda
Suggestion scheme - a system to encourage employees to suggest improvements and innovations
Come up with - phrasal verb meaning create or think of an idea
Bright ideas - a common collocation for a useful idea; ‘has anybody got any bright ideas?’
Cross functional - involving different departments
Streamlining - simplifying, making more efficient
Diagonal slice - a selection of people drawn from different functions and different levels
Champion - a verb meaning to promote something; as a noun, the person who promotes and drives an initiative

Now, here's an interesting video featuring my old boss, David Hall. He's made his career in consulting and coaching businesses in how to be entreprenuerial.

Charlie Sheen - Basket case or HR case?

2011-03-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

Charlie Sheen’s recent antics have provided plenty of material for gossip columnists, the gutter press and even Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globe Awards, but what may be viewed as a Hollywood soap can also be interpreted as an HR story, for it cost Charlie his job.

When signing up high profile actors or product endorsers, companies include an opt-out clause allowing them to cancel the contract if the star acts in a way which might bring the company into disrepute. Tiger Wood’s fall from grace and transition from hero to zero was such a case. Clearly, a marketing campaign built around the credibility of a public figure becomes counter-productive if the icon becomes discredited, but what about a regular employee? How should a company react when one of their employees goes off the rails and loses the plot through drink, drugs or psychological problems?

In simple terms, the company has the right to dismiss on the grounds of incapacity. Furthermore, being intoxicated at work is likely to be considered a serious offence and risk to safety also. Some companies go as far as drug testing employees, which is reassuring if you are catching a flight! However, in a larger company, the likelihood that some its employees will run into emotional or behavioural problems at some time during their employment is high. A company might consider offering counselling or recommending seeking help from a specialist support agency that helps with rehab. This could be enabled by time off work, possibly without pay, to give the employee time to get their life back on track.

Some people may not have much sympathy for a highly paid celebrity going awol but for a humble employee there might be a bit more empathy and latitude.

Glossary

Antics - dramatic behaviour
Gutter press - critical term for newspapers specialising in destructive, scandalous reporting
Soap - short form of soap opera; serialised television drama sometimes accompanied by melodramatic acting and unbelievable story-lines.
Signing up - hiring, contracting
Product endorsers - well known people who give their public support to a product
Opt-out clause - an option to terminate the contract under specified circumstances
To bring into disrepute - to behave in a way that damages image and reputation
To fall from grace - to lose your good reputation
To go from hero to zero - to change from being very popular to unpopular
Counter-productive - having the opposite effect to one desired
To go off the rails - to lose self control and become psychologically unstable
Lose the plot - to lose one’s sense of reason and rationality
Incapacity - the state of being unable to do the work required
Intoxicated - under the influence of alcohol or drugs
Drug test - taking a blood test and analysing it for signs of alcohol and drugs
Specialist support agency - an organisation which gives advice and support in a particular area - such as Alcoholics Anonymous
Rehab - short form of rehabilitation but always used regarding addictive problems and not physiotherapy
Get back on track - to return your life to order
Awol - a term from the American Army meaning to go Absent Without Official Leave; also used metaphorically
Latitude - tolerance and understanding

Well, I won't comment - but this is interesting and maybe explains the decision:

Holiday camp

2011-03-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

Carlisle City Council, in the north of England, got into trouble recently for telling workers - not to treat work like a holiday camp.

Carlisle council staff told clock-out for non-work chat.

Here's a holiday camp:

Here's Carlisle City Council:

Furthermore, staff were told to clock out for non work conversations.

What do you think? Maybe it's right, after all, you get paid for the time that you are in work so why shouldn't the employer expect your 100% attention?

On the other hand, team working and cooperation are important and that won't be developed by working in silence.

To be fair to Carlisle City Council, I did a lot of work there and it's a good organisation. I think this was one manager going off piste that caused the organisation a lot of embarrassment. Nice story 'though!

And in the worst case scenario, it could be 1984.

Generation Y

2011-03-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

Generation Y is a hot topic in business these days. The term first appeared in American magazine Adage in 1993 and describes people born between 1980 and 1995 - although some definitions place the start date as early as 1975.

http://adage.com/

These are children of the Baby Boomers. It's a generalisation but it's said that Baby Boomers tried to rectify the short comings of their own parents through strong nurturing, love, encouragement, maybe even spoiling.

So, what's the noise all about?

Gen.Y are confident, have high expectations and are tech savvy. They are unlikely to work 50 years for one company to receive a gold clock and and a pat on the back. On the other hand, they offer energy, imagination and involvement.

The problem for companies is how to manage different generations who may communicate differently or not at all.

Here's a video of the guy they call the Y Gen. man. He talks a lot of sense - I just wish he wouldn't shout so much.

Another intersting youtube video - embedding disabled but worth looking at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YywgcWlW7fk

The Learning Organisation

2011-02-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

During the 1990's I had the good fortune to run some workshops with Tom Boydell, one of the co-authors of The Learning Company.

This was an approach quite different to much of the management literature of the time for it viewed organisations a complex, organic and intra-connected. Management success would be built not so much on charismatic leadership but on whole company learning.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Company-Strategy-Sustainable-Development/dp/0077093003/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=12988

The Godfather of this philosophy is Peter Senge with his book The 5th Discipline.
It makes a lot of sense but is not as easy to grasp as regular Gung-ho leadership - which might explain why it hasn't been fully accepted.

See what you think in this very informative book review.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fifth-Discipline-practice-learning-organization/dp/1905211201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298820154&sr=1-1

Giving feedback

2011-02-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

Giving employee feedback.

Doing it well can be tricky but with the right approach it's not too bad. Some managers confuse the desire to punish or express dissatisfaction with improving performance. Also, let's not forget that positive feedback for good work is important too.

Personally, I favour the DESC model:

Describe the situation
Explain the effect
Specify the desired outcome
Contract - agree what will happen next

Also, I think it's best not to mix positive and negative feedback so people don't receive mixed messages.

Well, there are lots of ideas on the subject.

Here are some. You could try it at work or if you are a teacher, why not practise positive and negative feedback in some work based scenarios.

Work life balance

2011-02-18T02:51:00.000-08:00

How is your work life balance?

It's something that has been on the HR and personal agenda for many years now but are we closer to achieving it?

Maybe we are just too busy to get round to it and of course, the bills won't pay themselves.

Is it just a nice but unrealistic idea or something we really need to work on?

To help you decide, here's a fantastic, must watch video featuring Nigel Marsh, author of Fat, Forty and Fired.

HR vocabulary test

2011-02-15T13:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a test of your HR vocabulary; choose the correct definition for the words or phrases below.

1 Constructive dismissal means

a) dismissal for a constructive and positive reason
b) the employer constructs a dismissal by making an employee’s life difficult and forcing them
to leave
c) the employee constructs his/her own dismissal in order to claim compensation from the
employer

2 Talent management involves

a) managing the talent and skills of all employees
b) managing the most talented employees
c) identifying which employees are the best singers and dancers

3) Employer branding describes

a) registering a company trademark
b) giving a company a bad reputation
c) creating a company identity for recruitment purposes

4) Offshoring involves

a) relocating the business to a coastal area
b) relocating part of the business to another country
c) relocating part of the business to an offshore island

5) On boarding involves

a) a team building course on a boat
b) getting employees to support a new initiative
c) inducting employees into the business

6 )Natural wastage means

a) disposing of company waste in an environmentally friendly way
b) reducing the workforce by not replacing them when they leave
c) the waste of human resources that occurs naturally in a business

7) KPI is an abbreviation for

a) Key personal income
b) Keep people informed
c) Key performance indicator

8) When somebody raises a grievance, they

a) request time off work to grieve for a death in the family
b) make a complaint about another member of staff, often a manager
c) make a claim for a pay rise

9) A mentoring contract is

a) an agreement between a mentor and a mentee
b) a contract to hire a mentor
c) an employment contract that includes mentoring as part of the job

10) A person specification

a) specifically names the person that is responsible for something
b) describes the qualities required of a job holder
c) is another term for job description

Was that tricky or easy-peasy?

While you are thinking about the answers, here's something to watch.

Here are the answers!

1b, 2a, 3c, 4b, 5c, 6b, 7c, 8b, 9a, 10b

Coaching - delegation

2011-02-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I’d built this little team from Pirates and renegades and I felt kind of protective towards them. After all, they didn’t have much experience and needed nurturing.

The Community Centre was open a lot of hours for all the different activities including evenings and some weekends. I found myself there many days from 8.00 in the morning through to 10.00 at night.

One day, I took a day off to do some decorating at home. I told the staff, ‘I won’t be in but here’s my number, call me if you have a problem.’

No sooner had I got up the ladder than the phone started ringing.

‘The light bulb in the toilet’s broken.’

‘Well, can’t you replace it?’

You’ve got the key to the petty cash.

‘Well can’t you get enough money between you to buy one light bulb; I’ll repay you tomorrow.’

‘Hm, I’ll ask around.’

This was the first of many such calls throughout the day and in the end, I got very little decorating done.

I reflected; why are they so lacking in initiative? They can’t seem to do anything without me telling them.

Do you know the answer? I do now.

Here's someone who knows better.

Coaching

2011-02-07T06:06:00.001-08:00

Twenty six years ago, I got a job as a Community Centre Manager in Wincobank, Sheffield, in the north of England. The ‘centre’ was in fact a church building with part being renovated for community use.

The area of Wincobank was a council housing estate perched high up on Wincobank Hill overlooking the Don Valley which, in better days, had been the power house of the industrial revolution and home to the perpetually burning furnaces producing Sheffield Steel. The 70’s and 80’s had brought severe industrial decline, the factories closed and the majority of the inhabitants of the area were unemployed. This was chronicled in the movie, The Full Monty.

It was a tough, working class area with a high crime rate, although some of the aggression and frustration was channelled into the St. Patrick’s Boy’s Boxing Club, where the trainer Brendan Ingle raised the likes of Bomber Graham and Prince Nazeem.

I was dropped into this slate grey landscape totally green with the brief to hire twenty people from the ranks of the long-term unemployed and develop a range of community services from youth groups to old people’s lunch clubs, taking on all the roles from recruitment, accountant, team leader and bingo caller.

At the time, the Thatcher Government had a scheme to discourage the unemployed from lying in bed and threatened to remove their benefits unless they participated in one of the state subsidised community projects. From this reluctant band of press-ganged conscripts, I had to form some kind of workable team.

I got my first taste of recruitment and selection and learnt the hard way that someone who interviews well doesn’t always deliver on the job. I also learnt that because many of these people had never worked, they simply didn’t know what was expected or how to behave. It wasn’t so much that they were deliberately recalcitrant, although some were, more that you couldn’t assume that they knew where the boundaries of expectation were.

Working with the unemployed was a fantastically useful experience and as a new manager, I had to learn everything from scratch, making many mistakes along the way. The first lesson was making expectations clear, that was particularly true regarding seeing a job through to end - clearing up after a youth club, washing up after a lunch. Along with this, creating a sense of responsibility to colleagues so that nobody went home until the job was done.

Learning points:

Set clear expectations - don’t make assumptions about what people think is expected
Encourage commitment to colleagues

Here’s a brief clip from the trailer to The Full Monty; a wonderfully warm, human story about a group of redundant Sheffield miners who form a strip group. If you look carefully, you can see Wincobank Hill in the background - really!

Psychometric testing

2011-02-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

Many organisations use psychometric testing as one of the methods of assessing candidates and employees. The history of psychometrics dates back over a hundred years. Much of the early work, such as that done by Francis Galton and Alfred Binet was focussed on measuring intelligence. Later, the book Test Your IQ by Eysenck became a world wide best seller in the 50’s and 60’s and everybody bought it to see if they could achieve the magic score of 148 to qualify for Mensa!

The value of intelligence to an employer can be viewed in the following way:

If you have two candidates who are equal in every respect, (all other things being equal) then you would favour the most intelligent candidate as it is predicted that he would work smarter and faster than the other. Intelligence tests have however been criticised as only measuring the ability to complete the tests rather than demonstrating pure intelligence and some suggest that they are culturally biased to a white, western, middle class society.

More popular these days is the use of Personality tests. Many of these are built upon the work of psychologist Carl Jung. Questionnaires designed to measure personality are also known as instruments. Two tests that were developed in the 1940’s are still used today and where recruitment agencies develop their own, they often use the same concepts as Raymond Catell’s 16PF Personality factor inventory or the Myers- Briggs type indicators. MBTIs look at what are known as The Big Five which are sets of traits placed in opposition to each other. So they look at:

Extroversion -introversion
Friendliness - hostility
Conscientiousness - impulsiveness
Emotional stability - neuroticism
Openness - closedness (to experiences)

Particularly in recruitment procedures, assessment centres or promotion situations, organisations will use a battery of tests which explore personality, motivation and leadership potential.

In order to use tests professionally and appropriately, it is often stressed that, people taking the tests should be given skilled and informative feedback. Furthermore, it is considered bad practice to base a decision purely on test outcomes and that they should provide additional data to inform decisions but should not be viewed as a pass or fail exam.

I hope you’ve got all that; I’ll be testing you later on!

Glossary

Psychometric (the measurement of education and personality)
IQ (intelligence quotient - how much intelligence you have)
Mensa (High IQ Society representing people in the highest 2% of intelligence)
All other things being equal (a popular phrase used to describe a situation where everything is equal except for one thing)
Predicted (expected to happen)
Culturally biased (favouring a particular culture)
Personality Tests (tests which seek to measure character traits)
Instrument (a tool or questionnaire designed to gather and interpret information)
16PF (shorthand form of 16 Personality factors)
Myers-Briggs type indicators (the name given to the factors assessed in the work of the test creators - Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs)
MBTIs (common short form for above)
The big five (the name given to the most significant dimensions of personality)
Traits (aspects of personality)
Extroversion (outgoing, enjoy social interaction, confident in groups)
Introversion (inward looking, dislike social situations, prefer solitude)
Friendliness (warmth towards and interest in other people)
Hostility (aggression towards or mistrust of others)
Conscientiousness (concern about following rules and honouring duty)
Impulsiveness (acting on impulse without thinking about possible consequences)
Emotional stability (emotions are not extreme and remain under control in most situations)
Neuroticism (emotions are volatile, balance is easily disturbed, negative thoughts may be intrusive)
Openness (to experiences) (find new situations, experiences and ideas attractive and interesting)
Closedness (to experiences) (find new situations, experiences and ideas unappealing or threatening)
Assessment centre (a place and time when a series of tests and observations are carried out)
Battery of tests (a number of tests used in combination)
Leadership potential (the likely ability of someone to become a leader)
Informative feedback (information given to a candidate or employee about performance or test findings)
Bad practice (unprofessional behaviour)
Test outcomes (the results of tests)

Here are two videos that explain in a little more detail.

Graphology

2011-02-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Graphology is the study of personality through hand-writing. It used to be more popular than it is now and many people and organisations such as the British Psychological Association dismiss it. On the other hand, it is used in criminology (on the TV at least) and in fraud investigations.

Now, it’s probably logical that a strong extrovert will write large and press hard and a more introverted person will have smaller writing - that’s been my experience.

So is graphology worth the paper it’s written on? What do you think?

Offshoring

2011-01-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

Offshoring is a word used to describe transferring a service that was delivered by employees in your country, in another country abroad.

This has seen jobs move from Germany to Poland - nearshoring.

And jobs such as call centres and I.T from UK to India.

Of course, the reason is cost savings through lower wages. It's never popular in the home country but in the long run, it's all for the best.

Or is it? See what you think?

Qualifying questions

2011-01-30T09:04:00.000-08:00

One of the skills that interviewers need is to validate or gather proof or evidence for the claims that interviewers make. If this is not done, it causes two problems. Firstly, we don’t know for sure that someone is telling the truth. That’s a bit harsh but people may make claims on their CV just to get the interview. However, it’s much more likely that there is truth in what they say but they have exaggerated or not quantified something. Our second problem is therefore that unless we ask qualifying questions, we are guessing or assuming certain important pieces of information.

Here are some examples of questions and answers.

Q: Tell me about your last job; what were your main responsibilities?

A: I was responsible for payroll and all employee administration.

Q: Tell me about your management experience.

A: I’ve been Office manager for the last two years.

Q: How do you cope with time pressure?

A: Oh, I’m very good at prioritising so I manage it well.

At first, all of these might sound like good answers but what do we really know? Not that much. We need some follow up questions to gather more information. How about:

Q: And how many people did that cover?

A: About 20 including part-timers. (Not so impressive now is it)

Q: How many people did you manage?

A: Well, there were three of us in the office and one was part time, so one and a half. (Definitely not impressive!)

And now a different approach - not a quantity but an example.

Q: Great, so can you give me an example of the sort of demands in your current job and how you decide which to do first?

Of course, it’s not just about catching people out but getting the information you need by giving them the opportunity to qualify their answer. It might be that the person really does manage time well and that you give them the chance to explain how so it’s better for both sides.

With a colleague or fellow student, you can practise giving vague answers and asking qualifying questions.

Note in English, it is common to use indirect rather than imperative language.

For example:

I wonder if you could tell me …
Would you mind explaining?
Could you go into a bit more detail?
Perhaps you could give me an example

They are still tough questions but are nicely packaged with soft material!

I wonder if you wouldn’t mind closing the door on your way out.

Here's a video featuring some interview questions - don't forget to smile!

Do work and alcohol mix?

2011-01-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

At Christmas, many companies organise their work’s ‘do’ or Christmas party. This may be at the place of work or more likely, off-site at a restaurant or function venue. Catering may comprise a buffet with light refreshments and hors d’oeuvres or a full, sit down meal. As well as soft drinks, there is a fair chance that copious quantities of alcohol will be consumed, leaving some of the guests a little tipsy. In addition to general merriment, this can sometimes lead to unwanted amorous advances, sickness through over indulgence and even the occasional punch up!

So do work and alcohol mix? In the 70’s and 80’s in Britain, lunchtime drinking was an every day occurrence and people would generally have two or three drinks each day except for Fridays during which time the lunchtime session could extend well into the late afternoon. The nineties saw a move towards prohibition and Puritanism as Perrier became the in drink. Companies sought to purge themselves of a drinking culture for a range of safety and performance reasons, preventing staff from operating machinery while under the influence or breathing beer fumes on customers through a complete alcohol ban which even extended to random alcohol and drug testing in some firms.

However, alcohol’s greatest impact on the workplace is due to hangovers which represent the single biggest cause of work days lost. Like most things, it’s a matter of degree and if you are going to get bladdered, hammered, rat arsed, wasted, wrecked, pickled, Brahms and List or drunk as a lord, you may be heading for trouble. On the other hand, I’m no party pooper and if it’s your round, I’ll drink to that. Mine’s a pint!

Glossary

I’ll drink to that! - a phrase showing approval and agreement through a celebratory drink
Work’s ‘do’ - work’s is a synonym for company and ‘do’ is an informal word for party, e.g. ‘we’re having a bit of a do tonight’
Off-site - away from the work building
Function venue - a place specialising in weddings and parties
light refreshments - soft drinks and beer
Hors d’oeuvres - snacks, French but used in English
Sit down meal - usually a meal with a lot of food and a number of courses
Soft drinks - drinks like lemonade and fruit juice, Spirits are sometimes referred to as hard drinks
Tipsy - euphemistic term for a little drunk
Punch up - informal term for fight
Perrier - mineral water
In - the ‘in’ thing, in fashion
Drinking culture - a culture where drinking alcohol is accepted, even approved of
Fumes - usually emissions from cars or factories but used in the term, to breath fumes on somebody
Alcohol ban - 100% prohibition of drinking during work hours
Random alcohol and drug testing - to randomly select and test staff without warning for signs of alcohol or drug presence in the blood
Hangover - the negative after effect of alcohol consumption
Work days lost - days of absence
Bladdered, hammered, rat arsed, wasted, wrecked, pickled - all synonyms for being drunk
Brahms and List - Cockney rhyming slang term for drunk but used nationally
Drunk as a lord - popular idiomatic term for being drunk, not to be confused with it’s opposite, as sober as a judge
Party pooper - someone who is a killjoy or no fun at parties
A round of drinks - a number of drinks bought for the group of friends you are with. People normally take it in turns to buy a round, e.g. ‘whose round is it?’
A pint - a unit of beer or lager; you can also half a pint which may also be contracted to ‘a half.’

Do work and alcohol mix? This lady thinks not. (Although, I'm sure she's not, she looks drunk on the still!)

The ambient office

2011-01-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

The office environment has gone through a number of facelifts over the years and it’s not easy to say which the ideal format is. In the 60’s and early 70’s, copy typists sat silently like battery hens in rows in large halls. Work was grimly distributed by starchy supervisors ensuring that there was no talking and overseen by managers spying from above through overlooking internal windows.

At the same time however, many people worked in labyrinths of Kafka like corridors and small offices where insular managers could remain anonymous and undiscovered for years. A simple communication between two adjoining offices could take a week by the time that a memo had been dictated, sent to the typing pool and disappeared in the complex and inefficient internal post system.

The 80’s saw a revolution as new architects and designers created atrium style buildings with open plan offices. Informal spaces and flexible meeting room structures were also created in a world where ‘communication’ was king. However, there were problems too, as the levels of noise interference and internal traffic of people moving around made concentration difficult and interruptions difficult to manage. It was even argued that this was a more stressful environment. In a bid to recover some territory and privacy, common space soon became a battleground, divided into parcels of land walled off by filing cabinets, bookcases and large plants creating virtual borders and gateways between sections.

Of course, many managers managed to preserve their private offices and these could often be made quite homely and individualistic with photos of loved ones, desk toys, ambient lighting and even classical music played on a stereo radio to the family dog, asleep in a basket under the desk.

In the cost conscious, cost cutting decades that followed, the personal office’s economic viability has been increasingly questioned, particularly where people may now spend less than 50% of there time there. Such poor asset utilisation has become increasingly unacceptable and companies are reducing costs by creating work booths or temporary workstations.

The advancement of cell phone and computer technology has enabled remote working anywhere from a café in Katowice to a hotel in Helsinki but is this the answer? Are we on a one way road to pure functionality in the workplace with no turning back or will the days of nest building and creating a home from home in an ambient office return?

Glossary

Facelift - cosmetic surgery but also a metaphor to modernise a building or room
Copy typist - someone who processed documents using a type writer
Battery hen - a chicken in a cage not big enough to move in
Memo - a brief, internal communication, like an email but on paper
Dictated - usually a letter spoken by a manger to a recorder or secretary to be processed
Typing pool - the large area of typists
Internal post system - usually, a system of brown envelopes moving between offices
Open plan - large, open, shared working area, usually called open space in Poland
King - the most important thing; e.g. the customer is king
Noise interference - noise coming from other employees and phones
Internal traffic - the movement of people through offices
Filing cabinet - usually, large, metal container with draws containing files of information
Homely - adjective meaning, having the characteristics of home
Desk toy - also called executive toy; a cat’s cradle or gyroscope are two examples
Ambient lighting - soft, subdued lighting; not bright
Asset utilisation - the extent to which value is derived from ownership of an asset
Work booth - a small cell with a single desk and phone connection
Temporary workstation - a desk which can be used by anyone as a working place
Remote working - working at home or somewhere away from the office
One way road - a road that only goes in one direction; literally or metaphorically

Will it look like this?

HR rebranded

2011-01-20T13:37:00.000-08:00

HR branding may be considered a relatively new idea but the reality is HR is already branded. Ask anybody in any organisation and they will have an opinion about HR and not one that is always flattering.

Common complaints from HR people are that they are undervalued and not taken seriously; looked at as a cost centre rather than one that adds value. If these are the complaints then these are the perceptions of the workforce and that’s the brand image they see. Your job is to change that perception through brand management.

Like any branding process, you firstly need to clarify your brand characteristics; what do you represent; what is your brand promise?

You then need to consider interfaces and communication channels. What are the points of contact between HR and other parts of the business? All activities, systems and F2F encounters are the contact points and these need to be managed so that they are consistent with the brand image. It’s useless claiming a brand identity of a workforce enabler if your performance review system is so complicated that everybody loathes it. Similarly, it’s no good claiming you care about people if you don’t know anybody’s name and it’s futile to consider yourself a strategic partner if you don’t understand the needs of sales and production.

Therefore, the message is that it’s not enough to create a branding platform based on rhetoric which is not backed up by clear productive outcomes that reinforce the brand message.

Having got those factors aligned, you can explore your communication channels to ensure that you are including all means at your disposal including SMS’s but always remember the importance of real, personal contact. Be proactive and build relations, offer constructive suggestions beyond the core boundaries of HR and then you will not be perceived as a peddler of internal HR products created for the glorification and justification of a bloated HR department. If you have a bad internal press, you have only yourself to blame. The good news is, with the right approach, you really can rebrand HR. Get cracking!

There's a lot of stuff on branding on Youtube and I decided against a 'how to' video in favour of this more thought provoking piece - one you've thought, you can do the 'how to!'

Coaching or mentoring?

2011-01-19T06:11:00.000-08:00

Whether it's mentoring or coaching, here's a quick, instructive video that you might find useful.

Language is not just about vocabulary but also perceptions and interpretations. It is interesting to observe that in Poland, a commonly held perception of mentoring is that it is a paternalistic, self-satisfied monologue of unwanted advice. Conversely, coaching is usually seen as being empowering and motivating with a much higher level of learner autonomy.

For an Englishman living in Warsaw this interpretation has the same effect as driving on the opposite side of the road for the use of these terms in Britain is the other way around. Although, it must be added there can be a lack of clarity between coaching, counseling and mentoring and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

As a rule of thumb, in the UK, coaching deals with knowledge, skills and abilities and is geared towards improving performance. Very often, it may be remedial in aiming to develop a weak area in a person’s work. The coach is often a line manager or someone with particular subject expertise and the coachee, their direct report. Very often, the performance goals may be quite short term with a specific timeframe and structure. In the US and mainland Europe, coaching is much more synonymous with Executive Coaching and focused on broad and deep personal and leadership development.

On the other hand, whilst mentoring may operate within the framework of a planned programme, it can also occur informally. There is usually, a holistic approach looking at the whole person in terms of career and personal development. There may be no set agenda and no specific objectives with the aim, if anything, being to develop an increased level of self-awareness through dialogue. The mentor is always someone who is not the mentee’s manager and may even be a consultant or person from another company. In the majority of cases, mentoring occurs at the highest level of the organization.

So, maybe now you see where this argument is going; if your definitions are the reverse of those given above, you can see that we both drive the mentoring and coaching buses but on opposite sides of the road - let’s hope that when we bump into each other, we don’t crash head on!

Glossary

Paternalistic - fatherly, protective, possibly patronizing
Empowering - making strong, giving power and confidence
Learner autonomy - learner independence and choice
Counseling - providing a support process for managing emotional problems
A rule of thumb - idiom meaning a rough guide or general rule
Geared towards - aimed at
Remedial - providing a remedy, solving a problem, improving something sub-standard
Line manager - direct manager
Coachee - the person who is coached
Executive coaching - strategic, business and personal development for senior managers and CEOs
Holistic - total, taking into account all aspects of the person
Set agenda - fixed plan
Dialogue - equal, shared discussion to explore ideas
Bump into - phrasal verb meaning to meet someone unexpectedly, e.g., guess who I bumped into today.

Can HR be cool?

2011-01-17T02:02:00.000-08:00

Coolhunting is a term from marketing and refers to the practice of researching youth culture for emerging trends. It’s about identifying what will be the next ‘cool’ design, style or product and how and where new things will be adopted. Children have increasingly become the barometers for the future and maybe HR departments, beyond worrying about how to manage Generation Y, should be looking even further to understand how work in the future will be organized and how employees will interact with their working environment.

Current schoolchildren have not only be brought up on technology but instantaneous technologies. Furthermore, for many, there is a disconnection or lack of clarity between physical and virtual worlds. Multi-tasking and immediate enquiry via Google and other search engines have long since replaced the encyclopedia. In fact, Generation Y may not be replaced by Generation Z but Generation G. Through blogging, micro blogging, Facebook and social media channels, people no longer read the news but create it and participate in it as if moving inside the game and reforming the game and rules as they go.

What are the implications for HR and the world of work?

Here are just some suggestions.

Generation G might not need a physical workplace to work but might want a workplace as a playground.

Video game culture will need to be designed into the workplace - intrinsic satisfaction will be an expectation; no fun, no engagement.

Hyperactivity and low attention spans will need to be managed through the creation of ‘race against the clock’ task setting.

All workers in a company will be networked in order to create self-forming communities of interest.

Lateral, abstract and right brain thinking might start to assert itself over the logical, linear industrial world we’ve become accustomed to.

Forget hierarchies, they will be irrelevant in a wired world.

Self-interested yet mutually beneficial payment systems based on the Farmville type model will create completely new structures for payment. In the same way that people can grow crops or trees, individuals may be able to accrue credits in money, healthcare or holidays, effectively designing their personal payment structure.

Sounds scary; unrealistic? Let’s see!

Maybe it's not so far away when you check out the Google office tour.

Coolhunting - researching new youth culture
Emerging trends - new fashions and patterns of behaviour that are developing
Barometer - a machine for measuring atmospheric pressure; also a metaphor
Generation Y - generally described as people born between 1980- 1995
Instantaneous - immediate
Multi-tasking - doing many things at once
Generation Z - generally accepted as people born between 1995-2009
Generation G - a term created by author Jeff Jarvis (What would Google do?) to describe people brought up with Google
Micro-blogging - very short blogs like Twitter
Video game culture - the phenomenon of world wide, multi-player, online gaming
Intrinsic satisfaction - value derived from the activity itself as opposed to secondary value
Engagement - commitment, connection and involvement
Race against the clock - an activity under a very pressing time limit
Self-forming - created spontaneously by individuals
Communities of interest - people who are connected through a common interest
Lateral (thinking) a term coined by Edward de Bono to describe indirect and creative thinking
Right brain - the hemisphere of the brain which usually manages visual, musical and artistic functions
Linear - literally, an adjective meaning created by lines but also meaning rational
Wired - in this sense meaning connected; also the name of an American magazine which explores the influence of technology on culture
Mutually beneficial - having benefits for both parties
FarmVille - a real time simulation game played by over 82 million people worldwide
Scary - frightening

Food for thought at work

2011-01-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

‘An army marches on its stomach.’ This is a reported quote of Napoleon. He wasn’t talking about crawling on the ground but the fact that food is important. In an army’s case, it would ensure health, energy and morale. The French of course, are famous for their love of food and many of them still take a generous two hour lunch break to consume a three course meal complete with a glass or two of wine.

In Britain, the focal point of many a factory and production based business used to be the staff canteen. This would serve all day breakfasts or meat and two veg round the clock to keep shift workers fully fuelled. Usually, these were offered at a subsidised price, well below market rates. As economy cuts kicked in, many canteens were closed or at least contracted out to outside catering companies. The Friday lunch time booze up also went out the window as companies introduced work alcohol bans. Some staff brought sandwiches whilst the more adrenal types survived on a high octane regime of strong coffee, carbonated drinks and cigarettes - until of course, the smoking ban came in! Many people just started skipping lunch altogether.

In Poland, it seems that most companies have water available, tea and coffee which is sometimes paid for by the company; sometimes not and a small staff kitchen with fridge and microwave where people can prepare basic meals. Alternatively, a mobile sandwich service may be used as is popular on industrial estates in Britain, where following middle class taste trends, old favourites like BLT or cheese and pickle were replace by a more sophisticated, status conscious choice such as brie and grape.

So what? You may ask. What has all this got to do with HR? For the answer, we have to go back to Napoleon. If we are interested in employee productivity and well being, we should be interested in what they eat. This isn’t about imposing a nanny state, healthy option or calorie count on people who don’t want it, but thinking about how company policy on food affects these factors. Encouraging staff to stay at their desks for longer might seem cost effective but if they become tired and make mistakes, it can be couter-productive. Closing the canteen might have saved money but it also had the spin off of providing an informal environment for team building and daily communication, not to mention productivity benefits.

In a fast moving culture that prefers to graze on the hoof, maybe we should review the traditional concept of stopping for lunch. It’s food for thought, at least. Bon appetite.

Glossary

Morale - general mood and level of optimism of staff
Factory - a large building with a production line to manufacture products
Staff canteen - company restaurant
All day breakfast - a full English breakfast served at any time
Meat and two veg - basic meal with meat and two vegetables
Round the clock - 24 hours per day
Shift workers - people who work shifts; mornings, afternoons and nights
Subsidised price - a low price due to the company paying part
Kicked in - took effect
Contracted out - given by contract to an outside company to provide
Catering companies - companies specialising in business food provision
Booze up - informal term for drinking session
Went out the window - ended suddenly
Alcohol ban - the prohibition of drinking alcohol during working hours
Smoking ban - the banning of smoking on work premises
Skipping lunch - missing, not taking lunch
Staff kitchen - kitchen for the use of staff
Mobile sandwich service - workplace and office delivery service of sandwiches
Industrial estate - areas where business and factories are grouped together, usually not near shops
BLT - abbreviation for a popular sandwich; bacon, lettuce and tomato
Status conscious - aware of one’s social position in society
Well being - mental and physical health
Nanny state - phrase used in Britain to describe over protective rules and advice
Healthy option - a choice which is healthy
Calorie count - measuring and monitoring the calorific content of food
Couter-productive - self-defeating, does not achieve its aims
Spin off - by-product, something that happens as a consequence of something else
Graze - what cows do, term used to describe eating small snacks throughout the day
On the hoof - whilst moving, on foot, on public transport or in the car
Food for thought - phrase used to describe something that is thought provoking
Bon appetite - French, but commonly used in English

Feeling hungry? Time for an episode of dinner ladies.

Happy Sheets

2011-01-06T01:34:00.000-08:00

Happy sheets are an informal term for post-course evaluation questionnaires. Whilst it may seem reasonable to gain customer feedback about course effectiveness, course evaluations can have a number of shortcomings.

The first is about timing. Evaluations are typically an end of course activity; people may be in a hurry to leave and not give them their full attention. Alternatively, they may take them away, promising to complete and forward them but never do so.

Very often, people focus on hygiene factors such as room temperature and the quality of the lunch and whilst these contribute to the overall experience, they do not provide information about the quality of the training.

It is also necessary to consider whether the questionnaire is narrative, numeric or a combination. A narrative QA can provide interesting comments but may take longer to assess be difficult to summarise and open to interpretation. Numerical rating schemes may be easier to score and collate but can easily be corrupted by the scale used and inconsistencies in individual marking styles; some individuals may choose a middle score, some may give everything high scores and others may avoid maximum points as a matter of principle. Therefore, although in theory, numerical rating schemes are more objective, they are still largely subjective.

Finally, we may be barking up the wrong tree altogether by measuring delegate happiness; perhaps the course was extremely enjoyable but not actually useful or vice-versa. A truer measurement of a course’s effectiveness is the extent to which it impacts positively on the organisation. However, that is not easy either as it difficult to prove that the course in isolation was the reason for a particular outcome. As statisticians say, correlation is not causation. Perhaps it’s easy to see why happy sheets are so popular!

Glossary

Post-course evaluation questionnaires - questionnaires completed at the end of or after a training course
Customer feedback - customer opinion about a service or product
Shortcomings - limitations, flaws, weaknesses
Hygiene factors - factors relating to physical comfort and basic human needs
Narrative - written
Numeric - number based
QA - short form for questionnaire
Open to interpretation -can be interpreted or explained in more than one way
Collate - collect, put to together
Corrupted - spoilt, damaged, rendered inaccurate
Scale - range and scoring mechanism
As a matter of principle - a strongly held point of view or value
Objective - rational, logical, dispassionate
Subjective - opinion based, emotional
Barking up the wrong tree - looking in the wrong place, working on the wrong premises
Vice-versa - the other way around

Well, there's nobody happier than a laughing policeman. (Classic 1920's music hall.

Dress Sense

2010-12-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

If you have good dress sense it means that you have good taste in clothes and you can match different items, colours and accessories well, but is it possible for a company to have good dress sense? Most companies, to some extent, stipulate what employees should wear even if it’s just implied through unwritten, expected behaviour. For example, you wouldn’t work in a bank in a bathing costume simply because there was no rule saying you couldn’t; you’d just know it was inappropriate.

The most obvious imposition on workforce clothing is compulsory wearing of a uniform as featured in organisations such as the Police Force, nursing and security firms. Here, it’s important to establish the difference between a member of the public and the person performing the job. Often, a uniform invests a certain degree of authority in a person.

Another totally non-negotiable aspect of clothing is the wearing of special safety equipment such as hard hats, protective goggles and steel toe-capped boots, essential in the building trade and heavy industry. Failure to comply with rules relating to this can result in disciplinary action.

How about other jobs; does it really matter what people wear? It’s interesting to note that the terms blue and white collar workers to label manual and office workers really do originate with the colour of shirt worn. In Britain, the general style of business clothing is still quite formal and for many jobs, a suit for men is standard. In general, on the continent, norms or more informal and a suit jacket or tie is not essential and smart casual is considered acceptable.
The American trend of Casual Friday, where workers can dress down, has also gained popularity in Poland.

That said, some companies have introduced a dress code which may go as far as specifying the depth of neck plunge on blouses, the length of hem on skirts and the height of shoe heel to be worn. This is sometimes viewed as invasive and even laughable by some employees and may be difficult to enforce. Will someone be appointed to go round with a tape measure to check? More generally acceptable are restrictions regarding outlandish hair styles and colours and particularly extreme body piercing which some customers may find disturbing. However, a lot is contextual and the suitable attire for a youth worker will clearly be different to that of a solicitor. Perhaps ultimately, it’s not so much about dress sense but common sense.

Glossary

Accessories - additional items warn such as jewellery
Stipulate - state
Bathing costume - something worn at a swimming pool or beach
Inappropriate - not suitable for the circumstances
Imposition - something which is imposed, forced upon somebody
Compulsory - must be done
Uniform - identical clothing, uni = one, unity etc.
Invests authority - gives power to
Non-negotiable - can not be negotiated
Safety equipment - equipment worn to protect employees from hazards
Hard hat - strong hat worn on building sites
Protective goggles - glasses to protect eyes
Steel toe-capped boots - boots with a reinforced steel toe cap
Heavy industry - industries like shipbuilding and mining
Disciplinary action - action taken against an employee for breaking rules
Formal - strict, not casual
Suit - pronounced soot, not sweet like suite
Smart, casual - an intermediate level of formality which usually means not jeans
Casual Friday - every Friday, where wearing less formal clothing is permitted
Dress down - dress less formally
Dress code - a formal company policy on what can be worn
Neck plunge - the part of a blouse that is open from the neck
Blouse - female equivalent of shirt
Hem - the bottom edge of a skirt or dress
Invasive - something that invades privacy or rights
Laughable - amusing but in a negative way, ridiculous
Enforce - put in to practice, use some kind of force to make it happen
Outlandish - very wild, unusual and noticeable
Body piercing - holes made in the body to decorate with pieces of metal and rings
Attire - synonym for clothing
Common sense - a commonly use phrase to describe something which is obvious

Gobbledygook

2010-11-09T04:49:00.000-08:00

Gobbledygook

Gobbledygook is a word to describe nonsense and meaningless language particularly regarding red tape, unintelligible instructions and corporate language.

Many organisations are awash with such language which can be very counter-productive as people either don’t understand it or feel irritated and alienated by it. Some of the phrases and metaphors are used in meetings perhaps to sound more intelligent or up to date with the latest jargon. This has lead to the development of the game, Bullshit Bingo, where people have cards with the ridiculous words and phrases and cross them off as people use them.

See how much of the following text, from a manager speaking at a meeting, you can understand.

‘I’m glad we’ve had this opportunity to touch base because it’s really important that we are all singing off the same hymn sheet. We’ve had some bandwidth problems so we need to do some blue sky thinking in order to leverage and monetize our relationship with customers. Probably, we can pick up some low hanging fruit and get some quick wins but we’re also going to have to peel the onion to come up with a robust, end to end, seamless strategy to repurpose our product portfolio and enter the webcast space. I’m sure I don’t need to stress that this is mission critical. I’m going to be out of pocket for the next week but if anybody needs some facetime, they can talk to me off-line. I hope that’s all clear.’

For once, you need to learn these English phrases in order not to use them but if someone else does, at least you’ll know what they are on about; that’s if you want to stay in the loop.

Glossary - (Non jargon words are in italics)

Red tape - bureaucracy
Counter-productive - does the opposite of what it aims to do
Jargon - language that is often industry specific and difficult for everybody to understand
Bullshit - mild taboo word for ‘rubbish!’
Touch base - be in contact to give an update on progress
Singing off the same hymn sheet - all be working to the same objectives
Bandwidth - resources
Blue sky thinking - imaginative, new idea creation
Leverage - use, convert
Monetize - turn into money
Low hanging fruit - work that is easy to pick up
Quick wins - something that is easily and quickly achieved
Peel the onion - a layer by layer analysis of a problem
Robust - very strong; works well under pressure and different conditions
End to end - throughout the whole business from customer service to internal operations
Seamless - a particular favourite of HR Guru, Dave Ulrich, meaning you cannot see the seams in a service that is continuous and flawless
Repurpose - give a new use to something
Product portfolio - the range of products that a company provides
Webcast - a seminar or presentation given online
Space - market sector or more abstractly, any set of circumstances, e.g. ‘in this space here and now’
Mission critical - an important business objective
Out of pocket - out of office
Facetime - personal, face to face meeting
Off-line - informally, after the meeting
In the loop - in the information sharing network

1 incentivize
2 modularize
3 moniteze
4 productivize

Well, you get the idea; I think I’ll endize this article now but not before you've checked out this short, fun video. BFN!

Does everyone need a mentor?

2010-11-07T12:51:00.001-08:00

It’s now 25 years since the seminal work, ‘Everybody needs a Mentor’ was first published. Subsequent editions have also enjoyed healthy sales so does the claim still hold water?

Firstly, what exactly is mentoring? Writers such as Megginson and Clutterbuck define one of the characteristics as being off-line. Namely, that it is carried out by someone who is not the direct line manager of the mentee. The mentor is typically a more experienced person with a lot of experience, knowledge, wisdom and probably useful know how when it comes to negotiating the corridors of power within the company.

Mentees tend to fall into three categories: newly employed graduates, high potential, fast track managers and senior executives earmarked for the board. The benefits for the younger mentee are the opportunity to gain access to experienced and knowledgeable senior managers who can offer priceless advice. This would not normally be available within the limitations of the formal hierarchy. For the aspiring manager in addition to having the opportunity to speak to someone confidentially about work related problems and issues there is the chance to use the mentor as a sounding board to explore and test ideas. At the highest level the aim is often to sharpen business acumen and to develop political and strategic thinking.

Whilst mentors have to invest some time into the process, they can gain benefits in terms of developing mentoring, coaching and counselling skills as well as enhancing their own reputation as an expert and role model. The company can benefit from mentoring by utilising in house skills and knowledge in a form of development that is both person focussed and company specific.

Usually mentoring programmes will last for around six months with meetings at two to four week intervals. In larger companies with diverse locations this may involve email correspondence or teleconferencing.

Despite all the apparent positives, there are criticisms. The main one is that it is an inherently paternalistic process with a clear power difference between the wise elder and the greenhorn. Furthermore, people may mentor for the wrong reason, solely to promote their own careers. In poorly organised schemes, there may be shotgun weddings of mentors and mentees who don’t want to work together. Finally, whilst attractive in theory, the real tangible benefits might be rather unclear and difficult to measure.

So what do you think; does everybody need a mentor?

Glossary

To hold water - to have a valid argument, to be true
Off-line - not your own, direct manager
Line manager - another term for your own manager; the next ‘in line’
Mentee - the name of the person being mentored
Know how - informal term for knowledge but also suggests practical knowledge
Corridors of power - From a book by CP Snow, now common usage to describe places of power within an organisation
Graduate - someone who has just qualified with a Bachelor’s Degree
Fast track - a rapid promotion plan for high ability employees
Earmarked - identified
Priceless - so useful that it can not be priced
Aspiring - ambitious, moving upwards
Sounding board - someone with whom you can share and evaluate ideas
Business acumen - useful collocation; acumen being awareness and application
Enhancing - improving, increasing
Role model - someone who provides an ideal example that we wish to imitate
In house - done by the company; e.g. in house training
Person focussed - Also, person centred; the person is the starting point, not an external agenda
Mentoring programme - a formal, structured plan with ground rules and a number of participants
Greenhorn - a term for someone young and inexperienced
Shotgun wedding - from the wild west, a forced marriage
Tangible benefits - visible and measurable positive outcomes

Is using recruitment agencies a cost or a saving?

2010-07-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

I was interested to see recently on a Linkedin discussion, strong criticism relating to the cost of using head hunters and recruitment agencies in the R&S process. The contention of the contributor was that if these activities were provided in-house, this would save the company up to 25% of total recruitment costs. It made me wonder. Hm - maybe he’s got a point.

However, on reflection, I think without specific cost examples, it’s not easy to make such a case. The key point here seems to be the assumption that by delivering in-house, the service becomes free. Who will do it; the existing HR people? Will they have the time? If not, we will have to recruit more and pay for their employment costs and house them somewhere. Conversely, perhaps the recruitment needs are not so great as to justify people dedicating their time exclusively to this task.

What about the database of potential candidates. Without a doubt, a dedicated agency will have a better one and access to a much broader candidate pool. This will particularly be the case in high level, international appointments. Then we may need screening interviews and possibly, assessment centres. If a company decides it wants to use such methods and not use external providers, they would need to develop the expertise in house which may require more training and higher wages.

The view of the contributor was that agencies were parasites living of the backs of candidates.
This seems a strange interpretation of the delivery of part of a process. This happens in all other activities from construction to accountancy and law so for me, it’s a very clear and unanimous verdict that outsourcing aspects of recruitment makes financial and practical sense in many cases.

What do you think?

While you're thinking about it, have a look at this at entertaining video about young career aspirations.

If you enjoyed this post and others, I'd be delighted if you add your name as a follower. Thanks from George.

Rebranding HR

2010-07-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

Self Service HR systems

2010-04-25T02:10:00.000-07:00

Increasingly, it's DIY (do it yourself) world. Automated email responses, menu phone systems are accompanied by self-service everything from a gas station, supermarket, online booking and airport check-in.

Why not HR too? There are many administrative processes ripe for the picking. This could include updating records relating to training, holidays, sickness etc.

In the workplace, the self-server becomes the employee who can perform many tasks traditionally managed by HR. Clearly there needs to be controls and a way of checking the data but this can be managed by authorisation processes.

I feel that I should be excited and enthusiastic about this development but somehow, I'm not. As a customer, I'd sooner interact with a person than a machine and not be fobbed off with the claim that self-service is for my own comfort and convenience.

Give me a break! Oh, I see; I have to give myself a break!

Is the fit note a sick joke?

2010-04-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

The BBC ran a news item today on the new concept of a 'fit' note.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8599354.stm

Is this the best way to encourage people back to work or is it an unworkable lame duck?

Doctors won't want the complication of prescribing someone partially fit for work, employees in search of a sick note will be as sick as a parrot when they get a fit note and employers will be saddled with the job of finding 'suitable' work - nothing too strenuous.
I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. Looks like this idea is destined for A&E!

Here's a cautionary tale from The Dubliners with a wise combination of health and safety advice and the laws of physics. Take care!

Coolhunting HR

2010-04-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Coaching or mentoring?

2010-03-28T02:02:00.000-07:00

The nameless CV

2010-02-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

In the name of equality - opinion piece

Is the nameless CV the road to equality or absurdity? Supported by the UK Government’s Equality office and some quarters in the CIPD, an argument might be made to take all measures necessary to eradicate discrimination from the selection process. If name, date of birth and gender are not determining factors in selection then why have them on a form?

Here’s why; because recruitment involves people and is not the same as ordering spare parts for a tractor. I like to know who I am interviewing and respond to them as a human being. It is insulting to any HR professional for it to be implied that s/he can’t be trusted with such information.

Such measures do little to attack the root causes of prejudice and provide ammunition for the ‘world’s gone mad’ lobby. Equality awareness courses that confront and open up a dialogue about attitudes and beliefs combined with thorough training of all involved in recruitment and monitoring of selection decisions are the answers.

As for the nameless CV, it can go down in history of one of the dafter ideas we’ve come up with. What do you think?

HR Unplugged

2010-02-06T03:45:00.001-08:00

The 80’s and 90’s saw a string of bands react against heavily produced albums by bringing out recordings of live, ‘unplugged’ performances. In these, the deceit and trickery of the mixing desk was removed, instruments were unplugged and not amplified, and songs were presented in their purest, simplest form; often for the better.

What if, HR became unplugged, how would it sound and would it be music to the ears?

Perhaps the first thing to go would be the heavy cabling of appraisal and performance management systems along with all of the performance indicators, generic and job specific competences. That would leave no home for the amplifiers of performance pay.

The keyboards of multi-octave grading systems and spinal points would have to go too, along with their real time interface, constant updating and remote accessing.

The brassy, showy instruments of psychometric testing and assessment centre observations, would also be muted.

The noisy drum-kit of policies and procedures along with the cymbals of mission, vision and values would be kicked out to be replaced by a single snare and bass drum to keep the beat.

The grandiose production of the glossy training brochure would be binned and recycled to ensure adherence to a few simple chords, leaving the virtuoso instrumentalist playing nothing but air-guitar.

For those HR players still with a role to perform, what would be the set? Maybe:

Hire and fire
Pay cut; pay rise
My door is always open

and

See you in court

Perhaps it would create a simpler, industrial landscape with HR returning to its roots. Sadly however, the musical unplugged phase turned out to be just a fad and one by one, the instruments returned until everything was just as is was before. Maybe it’s better that way after all or maybe it’s better unplugged?

What do you think?

Glossary

Unplugged - disconnected from the electricity supply
Heavily produced - subject to a lot of extra elaboration in the recording studio
Music to the ears - an idiom describing pleasing news
Appraisal and performance management systems - processing for measuring performance
Performance indicators - statements describing desired performance
Generic competences - general, covering most roles - e.g. managing people
Job specific competences - ones that only apply to a specific skill or knowledge area
Amplifier - a piece of equipment to make something louder or more generally, something that increases the magnitude of something
Performance pay - the element of pay based on achievement of performance targets
Grading systems - systems to place employees in different pay bands
Spinal points - particularly used in the British public sector, they describe the small sub-divisions within pay scales (taken from the word spine - your backbone)
Real time interface - a process whereby data is transferred from a source to a mainframe system in ‘real time’ as it happens
Remote accessing - the process of accessing data from somewhere other than where it is held
Instrument - used in collocation with musical but also can describe an analytical tool used in assessment or training
Psychometric testing - tests which assess and describe personality and psychological characteristics
Assessment centre observations - activities in which candidates perform team tasks under observation
muted - made quiet
Policies and procedures - documents which may be described as the company rule book
Mission, vision and values - a model created by Tom Peters to describe a company’s key aims and reasons for being
Grandiose - French but used in English to describe something decorative or elaborate - e.g., St. Petersburg, Wagner, The Palace of Versailles
Glossy training brochure - high quality, shinny programme of training events
Air-guitar - the process of playing an imaginary guitar to guitar solo - there are even International competitions!
Set - the name given to the collection of songs played by a group at a concert
Hire and fire - informal for employ and dismiss
Pay cut; pay rise - reduction or increase in pay
My door is always open - a popular metaphor used describe manager accessibility
See you in court - a statement threatening litigation
Industrial landscape - can be used physically or metaphorically
Roots - used to describe the roots of a plant or tree but also origin in culture
Fad - a short lived fashion

And here's part of one of the most famous unplugged concerts

Gobbledygook

2010-02-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

Gobbledygook is a word to describe nonsense and meaningless language particularly regarding red tape, unintelligible instructions and corporate language.

Many organisations are awash with such language which can be very counter-productive as people either don’t understand it or feel irritated and alienated by it. Some of the phrases and metaphors are used in meetings perhaps to sound more intelligent or up to date with the latest jargon. This has lead to the development of the game, Bullshit Bingo, where people have cards with the ridiculous words and phrases and cross them off as people use them.

See how much of the following text, from a manager speaking at a meeting, you can understand.

‘I’m glad we’ve had this opportunity to touch base because it’s really important that we are all singing off the same hymn sheet. We’ve had some bandwidth problems so we need to do some blue sky thinking in order to leverage and monetize our relationship with customers. Probably, we can pick up some low hanging fruit and get some quick wins but we’re also going to have to peel the onion to come up with a robust, end to end, seamless strategy to repurpose our product portfolio and enter the webcast space. I’m sure I don’t need to stress that this is mission critical. I’m going to be out of pocket for the next week but if anybody needs some facetime, they can talk to me off-line. I hope that’s all clear.’

For once, you need to learn these English phrases in order not to use them but if someone else does, at least you’ll know what they are on about; that’s if you want to stay in the loop.

Glossary - (Non jargon words are in italics)

Red tape - bureaucracy
Counter-productive - does the opposite of what it aims to do
Jargon - language that is often industry specific and difficult for everybody to understand
Bullshit - mild taboo word for ‘rubbish!’
Touch base - be in contact to give an update on progress
Singing off the same hymn sheet - all be working to the same objectives
Bandwidth - resources
Blue sky thinking - imaginative, new idea creation
Leverage - use, convert
Monetize - turn into money
Low hanging fruit - work that is easy to pick up
Quick wins - something that is easily and quickly achieved
Peel the onion - a layer by layer analysis of a problem
Robust - very strong; works well under pressure and different conditions
End to end - throughout the whole business from customer service to internal operations
Seamless - a particular favourite of HR Guru, Dave Ulrich, meaning you cannot see the seams in a service that is continuous and flawless
Repurpose - give a new use to something
Product portfolio - the range of products that a company provides
Webcast - a seminar or presentation given online
Space - market sector or more abstractly, any set of circumstances, e.g. ‘in this space here and now’
Mission critical - an important business objective
Out of pocket - out of office
Facetime - personal, face to face meeting
Off-line - informally, after the meeting
In the loop - in the information sharing network

And here's someone who made a career out of his own brand of gobbledygook - Prof. Stanley Unwin - Deep joy!

Whistle while you work

2010-01-29T03:17:00.000-08:00

As you are working now, can you hear music? Whether you can or can’t, do you think you should be able to listen to music in the workplace?

In Walt Disney’s Snow White, the seven dwarfs sang 'He ho ,it's off to work we go' as they commuted to work and Snow White's animal helpers sang 'Whistle while you work' as they helped to tidy. Further back and in the real world, sailors sang sea shanties to improve morale, team work and synchronise the pulling of heavy ropes - not so different from the modern world where the term, pull together’ is still used.

In the last century, the radio became an essential part of the factory worker’s routine to relieve the boredom and monotony of the production line. Some firms went as far as launching their own company radio stations with birthday dedications for ‘Mary in Purchasing’ and Fred in Stores.’ The medium could also be used as an ever present communication tool to inform workers about production - a touch Orwellian perhaps?

For night-shift workers, long distance lorry drivers and delivery men, not only does the radio provide useful weather and traffic updates but also, a travelling companion. Although the bland and irritating muzak of the eighties and nineties has thankfully died out, supermarkets and fashion stores play music continuously to heighten or dull the senses and encourage punters to buy.

In a modern variation of a classic theme, music is not always a shared but solitary activity; the wearing of headphones in an open plan office usually means, I’m here but not here; present but virtually absent.

Love it or hate it, music at work looks here to stay and when you think about it, what better way to develop harmony in the workplace!

Glossary

Whistle - noise made wit lips by blowing
Commute - regular journey to and from work, made by commuters
Sailors - people who work on ships, not to be confused with sellers
Synchronise - set to or do at the same time
Factory - place of manufacturing
Routine - standard, regular activity
Production line - a conveyor belt next to which employees sit or stand to assemble or check machinery or products; also called assembly line
Company radio station - one which only broadcasts to employees although this could be at many locations
Purchasing - synonym for buying but often used to describe the department or function
Stores - the place where parts and stock are stored and recorded
Orwellian - adjective from Orwell and reference to 1984 and ‘Big Brother’
Night-shift - the period of work from 10pm and 6.am
Update - to provide new, very up to date information
Muzak - the name of a company which provided background music to companies; particularly ‘easy listening’ it was also described as ‘elevator’ music
Punter - informal, slightly disrespectful term for customer to buy. From to punt - have a bet
Solitary - alone
Open plan - one, large, shared office, often described in Poland as open space
Harmony - complementary notes in music and good relations in a metaphoric sense

Unconferences

2010-01-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

If you are weary of the same old, tired format of training seminars and business conferences with long winded, boring speakers then an ‘unconference’ might be the answer!

As you probably know, a traditional conference tends to be a very formal affair; you have to book your place in advance, sign in at the registration desk, pin on your delegate badge and mingle for a while before the formal welcome speech from the Master of Ceremonies. Then, you are likely to listen to one or more branded speakers who may be on a promotional book tour or perhaps an expert in their field from a leading consultancy or possibly the government. After a substantial lunch, if you manage to stay awake for the afternoon session, it’s an achievement. Many people make their apologies and leave early, blaming the weather, heavy traffic or a long journey home.

An unconference is the opposite in almost every way. The purpose of the gathering is set but there is no formal agenda. Usually, anybody can attend. There may be a fee but only to cover costs and not to make a profit. The primary objective is to exchange information and ideas. Chairs are always arranged in circles. The events are democratic, participatory and self-organising. The people attending decide how to develop the ideas.

Additionally, often processes used in more radical training sessions may be employed; these could include updating notice boards as the event progresses, the movement of people between groups as a replica market place evolves where people can shop for ideas, and the use of mini-meetings and whole group sessions.

Another theme is that of pace and urgency, so people are not encouraged to make speeches and may be limited through the use of lightening talks to a public slot as short as five minutes or even one - so you’d better get your thoughts straight!

The process has been around on the margins of the scientific world for over ten years but over the last 18 months, it has started to gather speed and have a broader appeal. You don’t need to wait for one to come along as you could always set up your own; even in-company. Now that could be something to think about!

Glossary

Unconference - an informal gathering where people explore ideas in an ad-hoc and dynamic way
Weary - bored, tired and fed up
Long-winded - slow and boring, not getting to the point
Book your place - make a reservation
In advance - to do something before an event
Registration desk - a table at the entrance of a conference room where delegates register
Delegate badge - a badge with your name and your company name
To mingle - to mix and introduce yourself
Welcome speech - the opening speech made by the host or organiser
Master of Ceremonies - the person who introduces the event and the speakers
Branded speaker - somebody well known with a reputation
Expert in their field - somebody recognised as being an authority on a particular subject
Substantial - very large
Make their apologies - apologise for having to leave early
Agenda - the formal plan for the day
A fee - a charge
Cover costs - recover the money spent
Primary objective - most important thing
Participatory - involving joining in
Self-organising - left to participants to organise, not told what to do
Employed - in this sense, used
To update - to provide new, current information
Notice boards - boards where information can be posted
Mini-meetings - small, short, informal meetings
Whole group session - part of the unconference where everybody gets together
Lightening talks - very short presentations
Public slot - a piece of time where you can speak to the rest of the participants
On the margins - on the edge, not mainstream
To gather speed - to move faster
(To have) broader appeal - to become more popular
In-company - organised for the employees of, and taking part within, the company

And here's a link to something useful: TED (Technology, entertainment and design) Conferences. They are called conferences but look rather unconference to me!

http://www.ted.com/ And a video also!

2010 HR Predictions

2010-01-02T01:59:00.000-08:00

With the New Year just starting, it’s time to dust down the crystal ball and look into the future. What are likely to be the significant issues affecting HR in the next twelve months? Here are some suggestions.

1) Outsourcing will continue to grow in popularity. This will result in a smaller core workforce and consequently, HR Departments will have to shrink accordingly. For those people remaining, the nature of work will involve more development in service level agreements.

2) Similarly, Boards will seek to minimize fixed costs and move them to a variable, attributable basis. This will lead to more short-term contracts for specific pieces of work.

3) Employees will be less embraced and protected and need to learn how to make provision for personal health care and pensions.

4) This in turn, may lead to greater portfolio working whereby employees work part time for a number of employers.

5) Social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Goldenline will play an increasingly important role not only for Headhunters and recruitment agencies but for savvy employees. Those individuals who do not use, do not know how to or do not wish to get involved in such media will follow the same fate as the dinosaurs.

6) The language of marketing and branding will become more and more applicable to people and organizations. Individuals, and in particular, aspiring executives will need to have their brand identity well developed and clearly defined.

7) Despite the move towards greater employee independence and self-managed careers, employers will still want to find imaginative and attractive ways to engage people.

8) Time, flexible working patterns, development opportunities and interesting work will become more valued currencies than pure money.

9) Unconferences and participant led workshops will challenge the supremacy of traditional conference formats.

10) In an effort to save time and money, virtual meetings and conference calls will finally become the rule rather than the exception.

For HR professionals, it means a redefining of the role and some quick adaptation is needed. Happy New Year!

Vocabulary

Crystal ball - glass ball used by fortune tellers
Significant issues - important factors
Outsourcing - contracting services to external providers
Core workforce - the primary workforce performing essential tasks
Shrink accordingly - reduce in proportion
Service level agreements - contracts agreeing what services are delivered and for
how much
Short-term contracts - a contract of employment for a limited period
Make provision - make an allowance in time or money
Pension - regular payments during retirement
Portfolio working - working part-time for a number of employers
Social media channels - online networking platforms
Savvy - smart and knowledgeable (from French - savoir faire, meaning know how)
Brand identity - a clearly defined and recognizable brand image
Flexible working patterns - working hours which allow the employee choice in when to work
Unconference - a highly informal conference, with delegate participation and agenda set at the time by participants
Virtual meetings - a meeting where participants are not in the same place
Conference calls - a telephone conversation with more than two interlocutors

Accelerated learning

2009-10-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

Do you use accelerated learning techniques in your company training? If not, you might want to try some. Accelerated Learning techniques originated with the work of Bulgarian psychologist, Lazenov with his concept of suggestopedia. Through his work, he proposed that learning can be much faster and more efficient than is conventionally believed.

One of the key principles is about state setting which involves relaxing people to absorb information more easily than if they were tense or stressed. During training, mood is influenced by the use of lighting and music but lively as well as calming pieces can be used.

Another idea is that we can take in a huge amount of material sub-consciously so by placing information on flip charts, walls, pictures, booklets, etc., the process of overloading and over-stimulation will assist in reinforcement, retention and subliminal previewing of future material. Words that will not be used for another month may already have been learnt by the time that they are introduced. People will not remember learning them but somehow, they will be in their minds.

This process can be very effective when combined with the mnemonic work of people such as Tony Buzan who developed mind maps and encouraged the use of colour, association and visualisation to remember words, fix and reference ideas immediately. He also promoted the idea of ‘whole brain’ thinking which harnesses and combines the different logical and creative functions of the two brain hemispheres. (Traditional models of intelligence and learning have tended to focus only on the mathematical, logical side) The simplest example of whole brain thinking is counting sheep, which people used to suggest as a way of getting off to sleep. The visualisation of sheep jumping over a wall engages the visual part of the mind, whilst counting them, occupies the numerical.

When you add on top of this, NLP principles including positive outcomes expectation and the concepts of sensory preferences and multiple intelligences which incorporate visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities, you can see that there is a vast palate of colours available to the imaginative trainer which can only benefit the learner by providing interesting and effective learning interventions.

Lazenov even believed that we could learn by listening to recordings whilst asleep but the evidence is inconclusive. If none of these ideas bear any fruit, you could always try sleeping with a book under your pillow; now that does work, particularly if you count sheep at the same time!

Glossary

Accelerated learning - broad term for a range of learning techniques to make learning faster
Suggestopedia - Lazanov’s term combining the words suggestion and pedia (learning)
State setting - influencing and creating somebody’s state of mind
Sub-consciously - without awareness or thinking
Overloading - presenting more information than can logically be taken in
Reinforcement - making strong, often through repetition
Retention - keeping, holding in
Subliminal - unnoticed
Preview - to look at a part of something before it is fully introduced
Mnemonic - relating to memory
Mind map - a concept map which mirrors the connecting structures of the brain
Association - the process of linking to ideas and recalling one by reference to the other
Visualisation - to picture something in your imagination
Hemisphere - (Greek), literally half a sphere
NLP - Neuro-linguistic programming; a branch of psychology and learning methodology
Positive outcomes expectation - a pre-conditioned assumption of success
Sensory preferences - the individual’s preferred sense (sight, sound, etc.) for information input, rationalisation and expression
Multiple intelligences - the idea that intelligence can not be defined purely by verbal, mathematical and spatial reason but other skills such as musical, artistic, kinaesthetic and social skills
Auditory - relating to listening, hearing
Kinaesthetic - sense of movement and space
Learning intervention - a planned activity to impact on someone’s learning
To bear fruit - to produce a positive outcome

Get linkedin

2009-09-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

If you are not a member of Linkedin, then I would recommend you think about joining.

It is an online, business based, social networking platform. It was suggested to me by a member about six months ago and since I’ve joined, I’ve found it very useful.

Membership is free and you can join up to 50 subject or profession based groups. So, if you are interested in HR, there are a number of large groups and more specialist sub-groups. These have thousands of members. The site is generally in English unless you join particular group featuring another language.

Every group has a jobs board, news and discussions. It is really worth following and participating in some of the discussions. These are often intelligent debates with thoughtful and informative comments. You can post a subject yourself and if you wish, use this to seek advice or ideas for a work issue. People are generally very helpful and constructive and you get very little of the bitching that you can sometimes get on forums and discussion sites.

It’s also a fantastic way to improve your English and professional vocabulary as well as keeping updated about current trends.

Let’s not forget that it is a networking site and I now have around 150 connections. There is a protocol for connecting with people but it isn’t difficult to make friends and associates. I have a mixture of international and local contacts and I have met some of the people and generated business out of it, so it’s been great.

You need to spend a bit if time at the beginning creating your profile and it will take a while to work out how to get the best out of the site. At first, I wasn’t sure how useful it would be but I’m really glad I stuck with it. You can use it as a career development tool and get yourself noticed on the job market, if that’s what you want.

And no, I’m not on commission to advertise it! I was pleasantly surprised when someone put me on to it so I am paying forward the favour. I hope you find it interesting and useful.

Here’s the link to the site. http://www.linkedin.com/

And now for something completely different

2009-09-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided to shake up the blog and offer more variety in the style of postings. So, from now on there will be a mixture of the HR vocabulary lessons as before, but also topical discussions and information in different formats. I hope you will find it useful.

If you’re looking for something different, then Monty Python in the 1970’s, pushed the limits of what was comedy or funny. Some people thought it was rubbish and others thought it was pure genius; it certainly helped the careers of many of the cast including Michal Palin who is now famous as a BBC TV travel reporter and writer, Terry Gillan, who’s had a mixed career as a Film Director with some successes and some spectacular flops and most of all, John Cleese, who formed a training video company called Video Arts, produced and starred in the cult series, Faulty Towers and has made a tidy living in film and advertising acting.

Maybe, sometimes a change does no harm at all.

Dress sense

2009-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you have good dress sense it means that you have good taste in clothes and you can match different items, colours and accessories well, but is it possible for a company to have good dress sense? Most companies, to some extent, stipulate what employees should wear even if it’s just implied through unwritten, expected behaviour. For example, you wouldn’t work in a bank in a bathing costume simply because there was no rule saying you couldn’t; you’d just know it was inappropriate.

The most obvious imposition on workforce clothing is compulsory wearing of a uniform as featured in organisations such as the Police Force, nursing and security firms. Here, it’s important to establish the difference between a member of the public and the person performing the job. Often, a uniform invests a certain degree of authority in a person.

Another totally non-negotiable aspect of clothing is the wearing of special safety equipment such as hard hats, protective goggles and steel toe-capped boots, essential in the building trade and heavy industry. Failure to comply with rules relating to this can result in disciplinary action.

How about other jobs; does it really matter what people wear? It’s interesting to note that the terms blue and white collar workers to label manual and office workers really do originate with the colour of shirt worn. In Britain, the general style of business clothing is still quite formal and for many jobs, a suit for men is standard. In general, on the continent, norms or more informal and a suit jacket or tie is not essential and smart, casual is considered acceptable. The American trend of Casual Friday, where workers can dress down, has also gained popularity in Poland.

That said, some companies have introduced a dress code which may go as far as specifying the depth of neck plunge on blouses, the length of hem on skirts and the height of shoe heel to be worn. This is sometimes viewed as invasive and even laughable by some employees and may be difficult to enforce. Will someone be appointed to go round with a tape measure to check? More generally acceptable are restrictions regarding outlandish hair styles and colours and particularly extreme body piercing which some customers may find disturbing. However, a lot is contextual and the suitable attire for a youth worker will clearly be different to that of a solicitor. Perhaps ultimately, it’s not so much about dress sense but common sense.

Glossary

Accessories - additional items warn such as jewellery
Stipulate - state
Bathing costume - something worn at a swimming pool or beach
Inappropriate - not suitable for the circumstances
Imposition - something which is imposed, forced upon somebody
Compulsory - must be done
Uniform - identical clothing, uni = one, unity etc.
Invests authority - gives power to
Non-negotiable - can not be negotiated
Safety equipment - equipment worn to protect employees from hazards
Hard hat - strong hat worn on building sites
Protective goggles - glasses to protect eyes
Steel toe-capped boots - boots with a reinforced steel toe cap
Heavy industry - industries like shipbuilding and mining
Disciplinary action - action taken against an employee for breaking rules
Formal - strict, not casual
Suit - pronounced soot, not sweet like suite
Smart, casual - an intermediate level of formality which usually means not jeans
Casual Friday - every Friday, where wearing less formal clothing is permitted
Dress down - dress less formally
Dress code - a formal company policy on what can be worn
Neck plunge - the part of a blouse that is open from the neck
Blouse - female equivalent of shirt
Hem - the bottom edge of a skirt or dress
Invasive - something that invades privacy or rights
Laughable - amusing but in a negative way, ridiculous
Enforce - put in to practice, use some kind of force to make it happen
Outlandish - very wild, unusual and noticeable
Body piercing - holes made in the body to decorate with pieces of metal and rings
Attire - synonym for clothing
Common sense - a commonly use phrase to describe something which is obvious

Food for thought

2009-08-15T01:26:00.000-07:00

Holidays

2009-08-09T23:55:00.000-07:00

It’s the time of the year when many people are on holiday or summer vacation. Of course, you will have come to expect that this is paid leave or statutory holiday entitlement. This hasn’t always been the case and it has only been through the imposition of labour law that firms have been legally required to grant their employees paid holiday.

The amount of day’s holiday entitlement varies greatly throughout the world and in general, the Far East is not a good place to be if you like to go off on a trip as you’ll have to be back before you have used up your paltry seven days in Hong Kong or the Philippines. You are generally better off in Western Europe where Spain, France, UK, Austria and Scandinavia are all quite generous with as many as 28 days. Many countries increase the number of day’s leave incrementally according to years of service. This is particularly so in the public sector and armed forces.

There was also a time when you could save unused holidays and carry them forward to the next year so that you could build up a lot of day’s leave to be used in one go. Most companies now insist that employees use holidays within the year of entitlement but this can cause problems at the busy financial year end when many people are mopping up their remaining free days.

Then you have to consider public holidays determined by the state. In England these used to be Bank Holidays and they really were so called because the Bank of England was closed. In the UK, if a public holiday falls on a weekend, you still get a day off in lieu. Once again it’s a different story from country to country regarding how many days you get but generally a religion bumps up your quota. Catholic countries do well with Saints Days but the Far East and Central Asia compensate for their lack of statutory holidays with some interesting public additions.

One of the best places to be is Turkmenistan which celebrates no less than 24 public holidays. If you’re there, remember to look out for Melon Day which falls on the second Sunday in August. Introduced by the President in 1994, it’s by no means the strangest one there. You can also enjoy Good Neighbour Day, Race Horse Day and Carpet Day. Well if you’re planning to go on holiday, what better way to travel than by magic carpet? Bon Voyage!

Glossary

On holiday - note the preposition ‘on’ not at or for
Vacation - US term for holiday also suggesting a journey
Statutory holiday entitlement - legal minimum number of day’s leave
Imposition - Something that has been imposed, made to do
Labour law - Law relating to employment
Grant - allow, permit
Paltry - very small, derisory
Incrementally - gradually, in stages
Years of service - number of years of employment with the same employer
Public sector - publicly owned and managed bodies, EG City Authorities, Health Service
Armed forces - Collective term for The Army, Navy and Air Force
Carry forward - Transfer to the next year
Year end - In Britain, March, when the financial year ends
Mopping up - collect, gather, use up
Public holidays - national holidays decided by the state
Bank Holidays - a group of public holidays in Britain
Fall on a weekend - occur on a weekend
In lieu - in place of, E.G. a public holiday falling on a Sunday will be taken on a Monday
To bump up - to increase
Quota - allowance
Bon Voyage! Good journey! French but widely used in Britain

Corporate culture

2009-07-08T04:36:00.000-07:00

Corporate culture is not easy to define but generally refers to a set of unwritten rules and norms within the organisation. To some extent, it exists outside of formal systems and it is therefore important that HR departments are aware of it and try to manage it to ensure that it has a positive effect.

Corporate culture is also something that highlights differences in organisations so for example two very similar businesses in the same industry sector may be quite different culturally.

Perhaps the key to understanding culture is to consider where and how it shows up. Here are some things to look out for:

1) Attitude to authority

Is the organisation status conscious with deference shown to senior managers, or is it more informal with people treating each other as peers regardless of position in the company?

2) Rule bound

How rule bound is the organisation? Are there many rules which encourage people to be rigid jobsworths or is internal beaurocracy kept to a minimum?

3) Innovation and autonomy

Does the culture support originality and innovation where new ideas are welcomed or is ‘thinking for yourself’ discouraged in preference for compliance with existing practices?

4) Working hours

Is there a ‘long hour’s culture’ where people are regularly expected to stay on after work or is the considered to be an example of poor time management? How much flexibility do people have in determining when they work?

5) Internal co-operation or hostility

Do people within the organisation see themselves as ‘on the same side’ as their colleagues from other departments or is there an ‘us and them’ attitude characterised by mistrust and unwillingness to co-operate?

6) Customer focussed

Is everybody in the organisation customer focussed and aware of the importance of good service with a ‘can do’ attitude or is it seen as ‘not my department’ for anybody other than sales staff?

7) General outlook

What is the general mood of the working environment? Are people cheerful and optimistic or is there a constant drone of negative moaning?

Well let’s hope you identified more positives than negatives in your organisation! Hopefully, it’s provided some food for thought and is something you might want to investigate further because culture clearly has a big impact on the well-being of the workforce and the success of the business.

Glossary

Unwritten rules - rules that do not formally exist but people know them and follow them
Norms - normal expected behaviours
Formal systems -established systems within the company
Industry sector - a specific business area like banking or mining
Attitude to authority - how people think about and respond to authority figures
Status conscious - aware of and giving importance to status
Deference - showing extreme respect
Peers - equals
Rule bound - bound by rules
Rigid - inflexible
Jobsworth - a term to describe someone who will not take a risk or deviate from a rule because as they say, it’s more than my job’s worth!’ (A risk not worth losing the job for)
Autonomy - self rule
Thinking for yourself - using your own initiative
Compliance - conforming, following rules
Long hours culture - a culture where working long hours is expected
Determining - deciding
Hostility - bad feelings or behaviour towards others
‘Us and them’ - a phrase which characterises feeling not part of the same team
Customer focussed - conscious awareness of the importance of the customer and behaviours which provide good customer service
‘Can do’ a phrase used to describe a positive problem solving attitude
‘Not my department’ - a phrase describing rigid departmentalism where the customer is somebody else’s problem
Drone - a constant dull sound (Like bagpipes!)
Moaning - complaining to colleagues that everything is bad
Food for thought - a phrase describing something that gives you something to think about
Well-being - physical and mental health

Psychometric testing

2009-06-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

Many organisations use psychometric testing as one of the methods of assessing candidates and employees. The history of psychometrics dates back over a hundred years. Much of the early work, such as that done by Francis Galton and Alfred Binet was focussed on measuring intelligence. Later, the book Test Your IQ by Eysenck became a world wide best seller in the 50’s and 60’s and everybody bought it to see if they could achieve the magic score of 148 to qualify for Mensa!

The value of intelligence to an employer can be viewed in the following way:

If you have two candidates who are equal in every respect, (all other things being equal) then you would favour the most intelligent candidate as it is predicted that he would work smarter and faster than the other. Intelligence tests have however been criticised as only measuring the ability to complete the tests rather than demonstrating pure intelligence and some suggest that they are culturally biased to a white, western, middle class society.

More popular these days is the use of Personality tests. Many of these are built upon the work of psychologist Carl Jung. Questionnaires designed to measure personality are also known as instruments. Two tests that were developed in the 1940’s are still used today and where recruitment agencies develop their own, they often use the same concepts as Raymond Catell’s 16PF Personality factor inventory or the Myers- Briggs type indicators. MBTI’s look at what are known as The Big Five which are sets of traits placed in opposition to each other. So they look at:

Extroversion -introversion
Friendliness - hostility
Conscientiousness - impulsiveness
Emotional stability - neuroticism
Openness - closedness (to experiences)

Particularly in recruitment procedures, assessment centres or promotion situations, organisations will use a battery of tests which explore personality, motivation and leadership potential.

In order to use tests professionally and appropriately, it is often stressed that, people taking the tests should be given skilled and informative feedback. Furthermore, it is considered bad practice to base a decision purely on test outcomes and that they should provide additional data to inform decisions but should not be viewed as a pass or fail exam.

I hope you’ve got all that; I’ll be testing you later on!

Glossary

Psychometric (the measurement of education and personality)
IQ (intelligence quotient - how much intelligence you have)
Mensa (High IQ Society representing people in the highest 2% of intelligence)
All other things being equal (a popular phrase used to describe a situation where everything is equal except for one thing)
Predicted (expected to happen)
Culturally biased (favouring a particular culture)
Personality Tests (tests which seek to measure character traits)
Instrument (a tool or questionnaire designed to gather and interpret information)
16PF (shorthand form of 16 Personality factors)
Myers-Briggs type indicators (the name given to the factors assessed in the work of the test creators - Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs)
MBTI’s (common short form for above)
The big five (the name given to the most significant dimensions of personality)
Traits (aspects of personality)
Extroversion (outgoing, enjoy social interaction, confident in groups)
Introversion (inward looking, dislike social situations, prefer solitude)
Friendliness (warmth towards and interest in other people)
Hostility (aggression towards or mistrust of others)
Conscientiousness (concern about following rules and honouring duty)
Impulsiveness (acting on impulse without thinking about possible consequences)
Emotional stability (emotions are not extreme and remain under control in most situations)
Neuroticism (emotions are volatile, balance is easily disturbed, negative thoughts may be intrusive)
Openness (to experiences) (find new situations, experiences and ideas attractive and interesting)
Closedness (to experiences) (find new situations, experiences and ideas unappealing or threatening)
Assessment centre (a place and time when a series of tests and observations are carried out)
Battery of tests (a number of tests used in combination)
Leadership potential (the likely ability of someone to become a leader)
Informative feedback (information given to a candidate or employee about performance or test findings)
Bad practice (unprofessional behaviour)
Test outcomes (the results of tests)

Flexible working hours

2009-06-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

Most companies want employees who are multi-skilled and can cover for their colleagues during holidays, absence or maternity leave, who are flexible and ready to adapt to change. However, workers increasing seek flexibility from their employers in order to manage childcare provision and improve their work life balance.

There was a time when time and motion studies ruled and every minute was recorded and measured. Factory workers started the day at the clock in machine and clocking in a workmate could result in dismissal. Now things are generally less regimented.

Organisations are more interested in outputs than inputs and many people have the opportunity to work from home, at least part of the time. That said, tele-working has not proved to be as popular as it was once expected to be as many people miss the social interaction of the workplace and can feel isolated.

For customer facing jobs, there is less flexibility as a minimum level of resourcing is necessary. In such cases, work is divided into core time and flexi-time with core time usually being 9.00 - 4.00 during which time, attendance is compulsory but outside of which, it is at the discretion of the employee. This can be useful for people with family commitments or simply accommodate the body clocks of early birds and night owls.

In businesses with a strong seasonal variation, annual hours contracts can be a good solution. Based on a standard week, the total number of hours per year is calculated. Wages are paid the same each month but workers will work more hours during peak months and fewer during the off-season. This is often used in the leisure industry.

However, such options are not always open to shift workers, particularly those on a three-shift pattern of mornings, afternoons and nights. It’s worse still for those in petrol stations on continental shifts of a late and early shift, followed by a day off and in pubs, split shift working is common place.

Now in banks and many corporations, personal security swipe cards are electronically linked to a computer which records everybody’s comings and goings, so really, it’s back to the old clocking in system. Maybe working hours are not that flexible after all!

Multi-skilled (being able to perform a range of tasks)
Cover (Temporarily do the work of others)
Absence (Time away from work due to illness)
Maternity leave (Official time off work to have a baby)
Childcare provision (Arrangements for looking after children whilst at work)
Work life balance (The balance of time between work and other aspects of life)
Time and motion studies (Recorded observations of employees’ actions and productivity in task performance)
Clock in machine (A clock with a punch card system for recording employees’ arrival at and departure from work)
Clocking in (the process of punching your card to record the time)
Dismissal (Getting sacked)
Regimented (Strict, like an army regiment!)
Outputs (The product of effort)
Inputs (Time and effort put into a job)
Tele-working (Working from home often using telephone and computer)
Isolated (Not connected to other people, lonely)
Customer facing (Direct customer contact)
Core time (Main work hours of the business)
Flexi-time (Time that is flexible)
Compulsory (Must be done)
Discretion(ary) (Not compulsory, you can choose to do it or not)
Body clocks (Individual, energy levels throughout the day)
Early birds (People who prefer to get up early)
Night owls (People who prefer to stay up late)
Seasonal variation (A variation in demand from one season to another)
Annual hour’s contract (As described in the text)
Peak months (Months of high customer demand)
Off season (Quiet months)
Leisure industry (Sports centres, holiday camps but also entertainment)
Shift workers (Workers who do not work nine to five)
Three shift pattern (As described in the text)
Continental shift (As described in the text)
Split shift (Usually, worked hours in late morning and early afternoon, the afternoon of and return to work for the evening)
Personal security swipe card (The card that employees have to gain access to parts of the building)
Comings and goings (Informal term to describe peoples’ movements in and out of a building)

Talent

2009-06-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

HR professionals and Line Managers are interested in appointing and retaining talented people; but what exactly is talent?

There are essentially, two schools of thought on this subject. The first believes in talented as meaning gifted. People in this category are in some way exceptional. They are not just at the top of the class but have some innate abilities that are rare. They may find something that most people find difficult, comes naturally and effortlessly to them. In terms of thinking, they may have a unique and inventive perspective that provides an alternative to traditional problem solving or analysis.

The second line of thinking is that everybody is talented in their own way; that schools and companies are too quick to categorize people into groups of ‘special’ and ‘ordinary.’ Furthermore, this group believes that with the right encouragement and support, employees can achieve much higher goals than were imagined possible. A variation on this theme is that many successful people do well simply because they apply themselves to learning and keep trying to master and perfect a skill, when many others have given up. It can be suggested that this is also a kind of talent.

Maybe the optimum strategy for HR Developers is to work on the basis that both beliefs are true. History is adorned with examples of individuals who are clearly precociously talented such as Mozart for example. However, usually, these people do not take their skills for granted but still spend more time than most, perfecting them.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of social research to suggest that it is harder for people from poorer backgrounds to succeed. Very soon, at school and at work, they may become labelled as not very bright or troublesome and the self-fulfilling prophesy occurs.

It is worth noting that many of the major football teams whilst spending fortunes on high profile superstars also invest a considerable amount of money and time on local children’s and youth teams to develop home grown talent. Possibly one of the biggest forms of wastage in organisations is unrecognised and undeveloped talent.

In terms of human capital, the valuation of employees should be based not just on current ability but also potential. With the right environment, this could greatly enhance the realised talent within the organisation, increasing job satisfaction and profitability. In short, they need to provide all employees with roots to grow and wings to fly, regardless of whether they are officially described as ‘talented!’

Appointing (Hiring, employing)
Retaining (Keeping)
School of thought (a particular belief or theory)
Gifted (In possession of a gift - given, not created)
Exceptional (Very unusual)
Innate abilities (those abilities resulting from natural, genetic attributes)
Categorize (to sort and divide into categories)
A variation on a theme (The same idea but with some differences)
No shortage (A double negative form used to emphasis the opposite - EG in this case a lot!)
Labelled (Identified, branded)
Not bright (Not intelligent or clever)
Troublesome (Causing trouble)
Self- fulfilling prophesy - the idea that belief leads to behaviour and reality - EG In this sense, if someone is labelled as stupid, they will believe it and behave stupidly)
Home grown (Developed within the organisation - can also be applied to vegetables!)
Wastage (The noun from verb to waste)
Unrecognised (Not seen or appreciated)
Human capital (Popular current term for thinking of employees as a tangible asset with investment potential)
Potential (The difference between current ability and that which can be achieved)
Enhance (Make better, improve)
Job satisfaction (the psychological reward that employees gain from work)

Suggestion Schemes

2009-06-10T03:54:00.000-07:00

Are suggestion schemes a good idea? Tell us what you think! It’s one of the ways that companies can increase employee involvement. They started to become popular when organisations realised that often, the people who understood a job best were those on the frontline or shop floor.

In everyday operations, particularly in more bureaucratic firms, there might be simple changes that could improve efficiently and have a huge impact on profitability.

On the other hand, another way that employees can make a difference could be by having bright ideas; something original that hadn’t been thought of.

One of the best examples was the schematic representation of the London Underground Map. This was created by an employee who was an electrician and inspired by a circuit board.

Sadly for him, he didn’t make any money from his idea but now organisations offer rewards and run competitions for the best ideas that employees come up with.

Employee suggestion schemes used to be just suggestion boxes on receptions and in workplaces but now they are much more likely to be online. It’s a good way of improving morale and building employee participation, particularly if suggestions are adopted.

They should not be confused with Employee attitude surveys that try to gather information about feelings and opinions. Suggestion schemes are about practical work based solutions to problems or inefficiencies.

Of course, not all suggestions might be polite, but that’s another story!

Glossary

Suggestion schemes (A formal process, inviting employees to make suggestions)
Employee involvement (Getting employees involved in decisions that affect the business)
Frontline (Workers with direct customer contact)
Shop floor (Usually production staff and factory workers)
Improve efficiency (Do things in a more in a way that uses less time, money or resources)
Huge impact (Great effect)
Profitability (The profit that a company makes)
Bright ideas (Good, original ideas)
Electrician (An employee working with electricity)
Circuit board (A board with conductors used in electrical processes)
Rewards (a positive reinforcement for desired behaviour)
Competitions (Competitive activities with prizes)
Come up with (Create, invent, suggest)
Suggestion box (A box usually made of card into which suggestions are written on paper and placed inside)
Improving morale (Contribute positively to peoples’ well-being at work)
Employee participation (The process of employees participating in decision making)
Adopted (Take up, used, accepted, implemented)
Employee attitude surveys (Questionnaires, usually anonymous used to get employee opinion.)

How do you measure training effectiveness?

2009-06-10T03:07:00.000-07:00

How do you measure training effectiveness? It’s an age old problem. The level and depth of analysis has improved over the years, but are we any closer to finding the answer?

When I started out in training, I once asked a potential client, "What are your training objectives?" "Just to put on some courses." Was the rather simple answer, and that’s how it was at the time. Training was in fashion and Managers had fat budgets that they needed to spend. The most important factors were a few jokes, a good lunch and an early finish, and this would guarantee the trainer a good score on the end of course ‘happy sheet.'

In time, course evaluation became more sophisticated. Course objectives were established upfront and were expressed in terms of outcomes. These were often broken down into skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. This influenced the wording of course outlines that would often start with the phrase, ‘by the end of the course, participants will be able to….’

However, it was realised in time that this was in fact more about validation or in other words, confirming that the course did what it said it would do. This still didn’t mean that the course did anything useful for the organisation.

Linking training to the achievement of business goals became the next thing but this was not so easy. The impact of a small development activity on a large corporation is very hard to measure. Some tangible things like critical incidents, errors, complaints and sales can be measured but many of the soft skills are not so easily tracked and the benefits may not accrue for some time.

In some cases, evaluation processes can be so complicated that they take up more time than the actual training intervention. Perhaps we should go back to ‘just putting on a few courses’ and hope for the best!

Glossary

Age old problem (a problem that has been round for ever)
Depth (the noun of deep)
Potential (possible)
Training objectives (what you aim to achieve from the training)
In fashion (fashionable)
Happy sheet (a rather dismissive term for an evaluation sheet that just measures participant happiness)
Course evaluation (the process of judging the value of a course)
Upfront (at the beginning, before starting)
Outcomes (the changes that come out of the training)
Broken down (reduced into a number of parts)
Skills (what abilities people have)
Knowledge (what people know)
Attitude (what people think)
Behaviours (what people do)
Wording (the words used in a document)
Course outline (a general overview of a course with bullet points)
Participants (the people who attend a course and participate)
Validation (the process of check if something is valid in terms of what it said it would do)
Linking training to business goals (Seeking to make the connection between corporate aims and training activity)
Impact (the effect that something has)
Development activity (A phrase that can cover training, coaching mentoring etc.)
Tangible (Real, visual, actual)
Critical incidents (major, high profile errors or problems)
Soft skills (intangible interpersonal skills)
Tracked (followed)
Accrue (Mount up, accumulate, realise)
Evaluation processes (methods of evaluation)
Training intervention (A training act that intervenes to make a change)
Go back to (return)
Hope for the best (A phrase meaning to be optimistic without cause or action)

Is healthcare worth the cost?

2009-06-10T02:54:00.000-07:00

For many employers and employees alike, a company private health scheme is an absolute must.

Whilst this is clearly an additional labour cost, beyond the obvious tax breaks, there are other advantages too. Even in the current economic climate, there can still be difficulties in attracting high calibre candidates; comprehensive healthcare can be one of the factors influencing candidates’ employer selection. Furthermore, a well planned healthcare policy helps to set out and communicate how the company wishes to be perceived by its employees; namely, as a caring employer.

Some firms take this a stage further, providing for example, free mammograms for all female employees, not just those in the over-fifty, higher risk category. Whilst this is to be applauded and strange as it may seem, it is possible for men to suffer from breast cancer also. However, a greater risk to men is that of prostate cancer which if left undetected, can be fatal. Perhaps for reasons of culture, pride or embarrassment, men tend to more reluctant than women to seek medical assistance. Standard testing for all could help tackle this problem.

Some might argue that such issues are either for the individual or the state to deal with and not the company’s responsibility. However, within the context of being a socially responsible employer, a whole range of matters including the physical and mental health of employees, now falls within the firm’s remit.

Finally, perhaps the most compelling argument is financial. Absenteeism is a major cost to the employer whilst a healthy workforce is one that is fit for work, turns up and helps to generate profit. Healthcare is well worth the extra.

Glossary

Company private health scheme - Health scheme paid partly or completely by the employer
A must - An essential need
Tax breaks - Tax savings, concessions
High calibre - High quality
Comprehensive healthcare - Covering all health needs
Healthcare policy - The company’s approach and policy regarding health
Set out - Present, establish
To be applauded - Supported, approved of, commended
Strange as it may seem - A phrase used to introduce a surprising but true fact
Undetected - Not seen or discovered
Fatal - Results in death
Tackle - Confront, deal with
Pride - Raised sense of self worth
Embarrassment - Feeling foolish in front of others
Socially responsible employer - An employer taking into account social as well as financial considerations
Falls within the remit - Within somebody or something’s area of responsibility
The most compelling - The strongest, most convincing
Absenteeism - Lost days due to sickness
Turn up - To arrive, be present
Generate - Make, create
Well worth the extra - A phrase used to describe a worthwhile investment of extra cost, time or effort.

Contracting Out

2009-06-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

In the current financial climate, outsourcing services might provide one possible way of saving money. Back in the UK in the 1990’s, it was the same. Government authorities were encouraged to find ways of saving money and outsourcing and compulsory competitive tendering became required for all contracts over a certain value.

I had worked closely with a very progressive City Council for a number of years when I attended a presentation given by the Chief Executive to all 1,000 employees. He explained the Council’s mission to deliver quality services to all of the citizens regardless of their social position. It was very inspiring.

Being a city, parking spaces were always in high demand but there was a car park right under the Town Hall. Afterwards, as I walked round the building to collect my car, I found a new security post had been erected. ‘Oh,’ I said to the guard, ‘is this to keep the winos out of the car park?’ ‘Oh no,’ he said proudly, ‘we have a better system; we just give them a good kick in!’ This clearly contrasted very badly with the presentation I had just attended and I reported it to my HR colleague in the Council.

The problem, he explained, was that in order to save money, parking and security had been contracted out and that it wasn’t always easy to get contractors to follow the same principles as the Council.

This is perhaps an extreme example but the point remains relevant now. HR departments invest much time creating and managing corporate values. In the rush to save money, it is important that values and standards are not traded for savings and that the years of creating a customer focussed ethic are not squandered hurriedly.

Contracting out - 1) To have a service delivered by an external organisation
2) To remove oneself from responsibility
Compulsory competitive tendering - The process of inviting companies to tender for the right to deliver services - compulsory, because Councils had to do it.
Progressive - Modern, supporting progress
Mission - Main purpose and reason for existing
Town Hall - The main Council building (Ratusz)
Security post - Kiosk with a security guard
Erected Put up, built
Winos (Informal) - homeless alcoholics
Kick in - A beating by kicking
Contrasted - Compared in opposition
Corporate values - What an organisation believes in and communicates as its values
Rush - Hurry
Traded - Exchanged, swapped, sold
Customer focussed ethic - A philosophy of reinforcing employee awareness of customer service
Squandered - Wasted carelessly or recklessly
Hurriedly - Quickly

HR - but what brand?

2009-06-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

For many people HR and branding are not words that naturally collocate. You might think that branding is about products and services and a job for the marketing department. That’s true but it’s relevant for HR too.

Some years ago I was introducing an appraisal scheme into a large public sector organisation. I had to deliver a series of employee briefing workshops and soon found that morale and trust in management were very low. "Have you spoken to HR about it?" I enquired naively. "You must be joking!" came the bitter reply, "they are the last people we’d talk to." I tried on a number of occasions to give feedback to the HR unit on how the sessions were going (badly!) but they just weren’t interested. I guess the employees had got it right.

So how is the HR function perceived in your organisation?

As a strategic force for change, an administrative function, a creator of time consuming and unnecessary policies and procedures, the secret police, a caring counsellor or internal consultant?

This is important not just from the ego point of view that most of us like to be liked but from a practical ‘getting things done’ angle. Without credibility and trust, everything becomes an uphill struggle.

Some things you can do to develop the HR brand are:

• Think about what brand identity you want to project
• Develop a brand platform plan looking at your HR brand vision, values and personality
• Consider if your department’s behaviour is consistent with your aims
• Explore all of your communication methods and take time to meet and speak to people in person
• Identify your network and build your sphere of influence
• Encourage feedback and the development of internal customer involvement in product development

Finally, perhaps I am old fashioned but I think an HR Manager should know everybody in the building from the cleaner to the CEO and treat them all with equal respect and interest. It’s courteous and brands you as someone people will want to do business with.

Glossary

Branding - Everything connected with creating and maintaining a brand
Collocate - Go together
Public sector - State funded organisations such as local government administration
Employee briefing workshops - Sessions arranged to inform employees
To give feedback - To relay information about something that has happened
Internal consultant - Someone who acts as a consultant but within the organisation
Credibility - The quality of being believable and respected
Uphill struggle - A metaphor for difficult
Brand platform - A marketing model for managing all aspects of branding
Brand personality - The human characteristics connected with a brand
Consistent - The same every time
Sphere of influence - The range in which you are able to have an influence
Internal customer - An employee or department perceived as a customer
Courteous - Polite

Learning - A Lifelong Habit

2009-06-10T02:30:00.000-07:00

There was a time when people felt that learning was something you finished doing once you left school or university. Now, lots of people recognise that as well as professional study, work based learning is important too.

On the other hand, there are often people in organisations who resist ongoing development. They say that they are tired and ask, "Why do we have to keep changing all the time. We are always introducing new strategies, structures and systems just when we’ve learnt the old ones."

Too much change can be disturbing for employees but in the current climate, standing still is not an option. So what can be done to help people feel more comfortable about continuous learning and adaptation?

1) First of all, people have to make the ‘reality connection.’ In the financial crisis, learning means looking for quicker, cheaper, more efficient ways of doing things whilst raising quality.

2) Through leadership. Managers need to act as learning role-models and not just pay lip-service to change.

3) Organisations, should build learning reviews into regular team meetings.

4) People should be encouraged to question why and how things are done and to actively challenge the status quo.

5) Employees should be given as much choice as is possible in choosing learning methods.

6) Regular coaching can form a natural part of a learning culture.

7) Learning needs to be perceived not as a chore done to satisfy the HR Department but as an interesting and rewarding journey.

The oldest person that I trained was a 78 year old local government politician in speed reading. Perhaps he felt if he was going to read all of the books he wanted to, he would have to be quick! He certainly understood that learning is a habit for a lifetime.

Glossary

Lifelong - For all of your life
Work based learning - Learning that happens at work and is focussed on work
Resist - Fight against
Ongoing - Continuing
Current - Happening now
Disturbing - Unsettling, causing distress
Reality connection - To make the connection between work and the economy
Raising quality - Improving
Build into - Make a part of something as design quality
To pay lip-service to something - To say something but not back it up with action
Status quo - The current stability

End of the Ladder

2009-06-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

The end of the corporate ladder?

The success of ventures such as Nasza Klasa and Facebook demonstrate the immense power and attraction of web-based networking. Whilst networking has always been important in business, it is only recently that this rich, online resource has started to be exploited professionally.

Recruiters and head-hunters are beginning to scour the pages of social networks for interesting and successful candidates. More importantly, ambitious individuals are bypassing normal communication channels and connecting with each other across companies and continents. Furthermore, the really smart ones perceive themselves as a unique product with a carefully designed brand identity which they are skilfully promoting on the web. In so doing, they raise their profile, build a portfolio of opportunities and may already be influencing somebody else’s boardroom. These factors are likely to lead to increasingly surprising appointments where previously unknown rising stars with an effective campaign, bag top jobs out of the blue.

The question for HR practitioners and Board Members alike is how long vertically managed structures will be sustainable in a world that is becoming increasingly horizontal, individualistic and self-determined.

Glossary

Corporate ladder - the normal career path within a corporation
Ventures - businesses, enterprises
Exploited - used
Scour - look for, search carefully
Bypassing - to go around something
Smart - clever
Brand identity - Clear, unique characteristics of a brand
Raise their profile - to become well know, recognised, spoken about
Rising stars - new people becoming successful quickly
Bag - to get, gain, win
Out of the blue - totally unexpected
Vertical - formal, hierarchical structure
Horizontal - without hierarchy
Individualistic - focussed on the individual