Royal wedding bell blues for employers
With the date for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding set for 29 April 2011 and David Cameron declaring that there will be a public bank holiday to celebrate, workplace information provider Croner, is advising employers to consider their legal obligations and plan in advance for the day.

The additional bank holiday falls between Easter and May Day, meaning that if employees are entitled to bank holidays, there will be a four-day week, followed by a three-day one and then another four-day. It is therefore advisable for employers to give advance consideration to any related contractual obligations and operational issues.

Although there is no statutory entitlement for employees to be able to take paid annual leave on a statutory or public bank holiday, the Working Time Regulations 1998 state employees must receive a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid leave each year.

Carol Smith, senior employment consultant at Croner, explains: “For employees the news of an extra bank holiday is cause for celebration. However for employers it may cause concern about additional cost and operational difficulties. We’ve already had a number of calls to our telephone advice line from employers asking if they have to grant the time off, and if they do, whether employees should be paid. The short answer is it really depends on what is written in their contract of employment.

“Some contracts may simply state that the employee will receive four weeks’ annual holiday per year plus bank and public holidays – or inclusive of bank holidays – sometimes referred to as statutory days. If this is the case, then any newly declared bank holidays, such as the royal wedding, may well be included within this clause.

“Alternatively some contracts may simply state that the employee is entitled to 5.6 weeks annual holiday inclusive of bank and public holidays, in which case, if the employee wishes to take leave on the additional bank holiday, it will have to come out of their remaining holiday ‘allowance’.

“If however, the contract is more specifically drafted and it refers to each bank or public holiday by name, for example, Christmas Day, Good Friday and so on, the extra bank holiday will not be provided for in the contract. Therefore it will be up to the employer to make a decision about that day – whether to trade or not and whether the day off will be paid or unpaid.”

In the event that employers decide it will be ‘business as usual’ on 29 April, but employees wish to take a day’s holiday, they can request to use a day of their annual leave entitlement. Employers should then review business needs and decide in advance how many employees can be absent on this day. Any requests for holiday should normally be dealt with on a first-come first-served basis.

Conversely, should a business wish to close down for the day and employees are not entitled to bank holidays and do not wish to take one of their days – the employer can, under the Working Time Regulations 1998, serve the employee with no less than two days’ notice forcing them to take a day’s annual leave from their entitlement on that date. In practice, rather than leaving it to the last minute, it would be sensible for employers to set out any compulsory shut down periods, including this additional day, at the start of the leave year.

Whatever option an employer chooses they will need to ensure they do not unlawfully discriminate against employees because of one of the characteristics protected under the equality act or because of their part time status.

Carol adds: “Those employers that can afford to grant the additional bank holiday as a paid day’s leave even if the contract does not provide for it, can use this as a good will gesture and this may be well received from an employment relations perspective, particularly in the current economic climate where it may be difficult to award pay rises or bonuses. However, if bosses decide not to allow employees the additional day, they need to consider and be prepared for any potential employee relations or adverse publicity implications.”

International aid organisations tackle leadership challenges
Aid and development organisations are experts at logistics and mobilisation, but their impact is often limited by weak leadership capacity and communication problems, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) finds in a new survey of the sector.

The report from CCL and People In Aid, Leadership and Talent Development in International Humanitarian and Development Organizations, is based on interviews with organisations in Europe, Africa, Asia and the US. It gives a snapshot of the issues and expectations around leadership and talent management within this vitally important sector. Among the findings were that:

·        although technically sound, aid and development operations often struggle and fail because of ‘people issues’. In other words, leadership is lacking, or concentrated in too few individuals with the wrong skills and training;

·        the No 1 failure of leadership at every level was lack of communication – up, down and sideways – and part of that was a consistent failure to have courageous conversations and deal with poor performers;

·        ironically, there was also an issue of too much communication facilitated by social networking media, which made it difficult if not impossible to convey accurate messages and prevent damaging rumours from circulating around the world;

·        leadership recruitment and retention challenges – and competition with the private sector – were also top concerns. But there was evidence that as a result of the financial meltdown, the not-for-profit sector now looks more attractive to top performers for job satisfaction as well as job security.

The recession hit the international aid and development sector hard but the upside was that it forced a more realistic assessment of leadership needs. The report reveals that the smartest organisations made cut-backs but kept at least some training and development going even in the darkest days of the economic downturn. The full report can be downloaded from:

Center for Creative Leadership: http://www.ccl.org/leadership/capabilities/europe/index.aspx

People In Aid: www.peopleinaid.org/publications/leadershipandtalent.aspx

Sales behaviours ineffective
Cranfield School of Management has completed a research project with sales consultancy Silent Edge analysing the performance of 800 sales professionals observed in live sales interactions. The report identifies eight sets of behaviours in sales meetings. By understanding these behaviours, managers can effect changes in their current sales force and recruit better team members in the future.

The bad news is that only three of the eight behavioural types, a mere 37 per cent of the sales force, were effective. However the good news is that behavioural tendencies can be managed over time encouraging sales people to adopt behaviours of the most effective types.

In a subsequent article published in the Harvard Business Review, Do You Really Know Who Your Best Salespeople Are, co-authored by Professor Lynette Ryals of Cranfield and Dr Iain Davies, a lecturer at the University of Bath, some topical management insights resulting from this joint research project were highlighted.

“The most exciting part of our results is how the behaviours of these sales people are linked to their success” says Professor Ryals. “This is an important report for companies wanting to improve their sales performance.”

New apprentice roles in Scottish hospitality sector
Macdonald Hotels & Resorts has created 109 modern apprenticeship placements in partnership with Skills Development Scotland, reflecting the Scottish Government's ambition to maintain Scotland as a world class destination.

Based throughout the group’s Scottish properties, the new trainees will be equipped with recognised vocational qualifications in professional cookery, general hospitality, food and drink service, and hospitality management.

Lawrence Durden, tourism manager, Skills Development Scotland, said: “Skills Development Scotland welcomes Macdonald Hotels & Resorts to the MA Programme. It's exciting to be working with the group which has taken on such a large number of apprentices of varying ages. Skills Development Scotland is committed to developing the skills base for the tourism sector in Scotland and will continue to collaborate with others, including Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, to further strengthen the industry. Tourism makes a vital contribution to Scotland's economy and many exciting opportunities are available to those interested in forging a career in this dynamic sector.”

Caroline Bellenger, HR director, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, added: “We are absolutely delighted that Skills Development Scotland and Macdonald Hotels & Resorts have developed a framework which will enable those who want to have a career in hospitality in Scotland and in Macdonald Hotels & Resorts to achieve their goal.”

Private sector rush to hire migrant labour
With the latest quarterly ONS Control of Immigration statistics due out later today, the latest study on skills, migration and offshoring in the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook (LMO) report shows the demand for migrant workers has increased in line with the anticipated improvements to the UK labour market.

More than one in five (22 per cent) employers in the private sector intend to recruit migrant workers in the fourth quarter of 2010; its highest level since the LMO started tracking baseline migration data in summer 2009. Overall, about one in six employers (17 per cent) plan to hire migrant workers in the final quarter of 2010, with demand for migrant workers in the public sector falling to nine per cent. Migrant workers are mainly required for skilled positions; particularly IT professionals, finance/accounting professionals and engineers. More than half migrant workers will be recruited from outside the EEA.

The findings also point to greater offshoring activity. Almost one in five (16 per cent) private sector companies plan to offshore jobs in the 12 months to September 2011. Of those planning to offshore UK jobs, over three quarters (78 per cent) intend to offshore to India, a third to Asia excluding India and China (36 per cent) and two in five to eastern Europe (43 per cent). The most common functions outsourced by employers include call centres (55 per cent), IT (51 per cent), and finance (49 per cent). Almost all employers cite cost as the main driver for offshoring jobs. However, more than one in 10 (12 per cent) of those employers that plan to offshore jobs cite access to skills and knowledge as a reason.

Gerwyn Davies, CIPD public policy adviser and author of the report, comments: “The survey vindicates the Government’s sensible compromise to make intra-company transfer scheme exemptions and to increase the number of visas given to employers that have made a job offer. The announcement reflects the fact that there needs to be a phased, long-term reduction to immigration alongside an investment in the skills that employers are telling us are lacking in the UK jobs market, in order to boost home-grown talent. There is no doubt that a smaller question mark still hangs over employers’ ability to recruit the best people for skilled positions in the short-term.

“However, a bigger question surrounds the effect of future reductions during the lifetime of the Parliament. These may have a damaging impact on UK organisations, especially if the economy starts to recover in the second half of this Parliament as the Government expects. This makes it all the more important that the Government maintains a careful and balanced approach when it reviews the migration cap annually, so that the needs of employers are met in a way that reflects the changing economic and competitive fortunes of the UK economy.”



This month we talked to Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results, about the inspiration for his book about the what could be learnt from military history and effectively applied to current business organisational structure...

What inspired you to make the connection between military history and business organisational development?
My main interest is in strategy, leadership and organisations. Warfare and business are two areas of human activity in which they are central, so it seems to me to be perfectly natural to move from one to the other. While researching my book ‘Alamein’ in 2002 and looking for reasons for the consistently high performance of the German Afrika Korps, I discovered the organisational model called Auftragstaktik which had been developed decades before. The applications to business were obvious so I began introducing it to clients and discovered that it works just as well in a business context.

In your book you stated that Prussian officers were expected to share a set of core values and that if those officers acted with integrity, disobedience was legitimate. How do you think modern organisations can best balance this independence of mind with hierarchical order?
You can give people freedom of action to use their own judgement under three conditions: that they are pursuing a common intent (and it is your job to get that intent across!); if they are competent (and these days most people in businesses are well educated and decently trained); and if they share a common set of values. The last is more difficult because companies do not grow as slowly and organically as the Prussian Army did, but many professional service firms have a strong value system binding the partners together. People who do not share them cannot be trusted and usually end up leaving. In my experience erring on the side of trust is usually rewarded with higher performance. But you have to use common sense.

The book also states that the three fundamental variables of warfare — force, space and time — lost forces could be replaced and lost space could be recaptured but lost time could never be made good. What mitigates the problem of ‘lost time’ in today’s business organisations?
Losing time means losing opportunities. In warfare the penalty is often disaster. But if the other side are slow as well, you can get away with it. What mitigates slow decision making and action taking in business is that competitors are often just as slow. It is a widespread phenomenon. But if you have the bad luck to have a fast competitor, they will exact a heavy price from you.

What happens if a business has an overall plan that is flawed, can they still make corrective decisions? In the long run, great operators who follow a bad strategy lose. That’s why Germany lost the war (and having a maniac in charge did not help). But in the short run, mistakes made at high levels can be mitigated by good decisions – and sometimes disobedience – lower down. This happens all the time in warfare and in business. The Prussians created an intelligent organisation which did pretty well even when the top leadership was weak. If you abandon the idea of strategy as a masterplan which the organisation just implements and see it as ‘the evolution of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances’, you syndicate risk and the organisation can make a mediocre strategy. No CEO is such a genius that they can get it all right. That’s not their job anyway. They should seek to raise the performance of the average employee and use strategy to shift the odds in their favour. They won’t win every time but in the long run chance will favour them and they will do better than the competition.

The Prussian Army was not a fan of micro-management, nor does your book advocate such policy. Can you tell us why?
I cannot put it better than von Moltke himself: ‘a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things that other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispenses with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks so much that he can no longer carry them all out. The demands made on senior commanders are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that.’ The quote dates from 1869.

What single succinct word of advice would you offer business organisations today?
Here are three words of advice: 1) Answer the Spice Girls’ question: ‘tell me what you want, what you really, really want’; 2) Cut out the gobbledygook and state it in clear simple language; and 3) Get off peoples’ backs. Or if you want just one line: cut the crap and set your people free.



Keeping it in the family during the holiday period, we feature an article from our sister publication Performance Measurement & Client Reporting Review (PMCRR). Focused on the performance analytics and client reporting in the financial sector, PMCRR takes an inclusive approach, addressing not just the technical side of financial institutions but the human side of the industry — management and engagement. Here Anthony Stevens of Northern Trust offers his top 10 guide to keeping your troops of talent on form.

Retaining the troops
A number of large retail companies offer graduates a dedicated management training program. Some of the most well known programmes are run by Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer and McDonald’s. They can run for up to two years and generally consist of rotations through each department and a number of different stores. The idea is to train you not just in being a ‘manager’, but also to show you the nuts and bolts of the business.

The whole first year of one of these courses is not about managing other people but managing the process — and, in effect, a lot of cardboard boxes. These companies know that if you make any ‘management mistakes’ in your first year, the boxes that you were looking after will not walk out of the door in protest at your ‘style’. When the basics have been covered in detail, it is time to work with a more animated audience and so the second year is about managing people. Most importantly, it is to show how best to do both — manage people and process — at the same time.

These retail groups invest millions every year into the management teams of their stores. They know it is these managers who will make or break their profit targets for the year and they know that —in a big way — this is down to how their management teams motivate, train, develop and retain staff.

Financial companies are different from retail businesses, but the basics of how to manage the process, engage with your employees, develop your direct reports and retain your key staff are not all that different.

I know that in the retail world you are ‘taught’ to manage before you actually get to manage anything or anyone, and if you turn out not to be a good manager then you will never make it to a managerial position. In the world of performance measurement, however, one day you may be a senior performance analyst, doing a good job and minding your own business, and the next you are ‘head of performance’ and in charge of not just an entire technical process but also a team of individuals.

Retail groups are generally recognised for devoting resources (money and time) to teaching staff how to manage other people first — it’s part of the training process before you are let loose to actually manage other people. It seems, from my experience, that financial companies tend not to do this in the same way; they tend to promote people into management roles and then start the management training process. The training provided can be fairly generic in nature and may not cover all of the areas of experience that managers of performance measurement teams may need in order to cover the full — and growing — remit of the role. However, it is not all one-way traffic; retail management training methods are not necessarily perfect either. Not once during my time working at one large consumer retailer in my youth did anybody mention succession planning or provide me with a senior manager to act as my mentor. Both of these areas are actively promoted by Northern Trust, and I am aware of many other financial companies where this is also the case.

Should we take a more ‘retail’ view when training our management teams?
Having worked as a manager for Sainsbury and Kingfisher, and now that I am running a performance measurement team, I can see good reasons for the different approaches. However, I do feel that managers within financial institutions could gain a lot by at least looking at the different approaches. No matter how competent a head of performance is at the ‘management’ part of the role, they can always enhance their skills and learn new ways to manage. A reminder every now and again of the key development, engagement and motivational skills that are required for us to be successful in our roles can only do us good.

The traditional City view is that managing is mainly common sense anyway, right? In reality, we have to ensure that we get the training we need over the longer term while also performing the day job.

What do we, as managers of performance teams, need to think about? How can we build in our teams a sense of commitment to us and the company we work for? How can we do this when the role of the performance function not only covers the traditional and technical role of generating the performance and attribution numbers every month, but now may also cross over into client reporting, presentation of technical data to both internal and external clients as well as sales and relationship management? These are skill sets that may not have been required in the past, but which we need our teams to master.

First let’s look at it this way: assume we do not even think about career development or the retention of the people who work with us, let’s just get our heads down and crank the performance handle. The result: I should think that people would quickly start to think about leaving. The grass will always be greener elsewhere, the world of performance is small and there is always a performance team somewhere in the City on the look-out for new staff.

The actual physical cost to replace an individual today is in the region of 150 per cent of the salary of the outgoing member of staff. Performance analysts (even juniors) generally have a three-month notice period, so the gap from one person leaving to another starting can be at least three months and up to six, nine or even 12 months. If somebody left your team today, can you even rehire in today’s climate? The result is that you, personally, and the rest of your team, may end up being under-resourced for a period of time. Consequently, the service you provide to your internal and external clients could be negatively impacted, causing credibility issues for you and your business. A significant number of negative possibilities, and not many positive ones, spring to mind.

Doing nothing is not an option

To begin, I would suggest reflecting on yourself, ‘the manager’, and your own management style. No style is wrong, but some will no doubt be better suited than others to the business and team with which they are associated. You have to be honest to your own style and management knowledge. Focus on the parts that you know you do well and ensure that you use these skills as much as possible, make sure you know your own shortcomings and either stop doing certain things or get some training to improve the areas where you are weaker.

I joined Northern Trust to take on a broad performance function that is not just responsible for technical processes, but which also includes a team that manages client relationships, presents reports to investment managers, pitches for new services and works with a wide range of departments within many different asset management organisations. I have needed to look back at both my retail training and my experience from the world of performance measurement to develop a team that copes with, and enjoys, these varied tasks and functions. To help me to keep the most important things I should be doing in my daily management role front of mind, I keep a list of my top 10 ‘reminders’ in view on my desk. This ‘top 10’ lists, in order of importance, the aspects of management — personal to my management style — that I want to bring to my team every day.

1. Communication

I have to ensure that I clearly communicate why the team is doing what it does every day. How pointless must it seem to an individual in the team to calculate a set of performance numbers and not understand why we are doing it or where the numbers end up. Understanding why exactly we come to work every day and how we fit in to the bigger picture is crucial and, I think, the fundamental principle of any management role.

2. Trust

I try to ensure that at all times I am working towards, and building a climate of, trust with the team. This means that what we promise to deliver we actually do deliver and if we cannot, we communicate exactly why. This has to work both ways and the people who work with us have a responsibility to be open, honest, fair and consistent with us as well.

3. Career paths

All members of the team — no matter what level — should have a written and clear career path. This document should be reviewed on a regular basis. We, as managers, should use this document to ensure that the plans we have for the team as a whole match up with the individuals’ aims and goals. Work with the team to ensure realistic and balanced goals. These goals may well not be within our team, so we have to ensure we encourage our team to look within our own company for career advancement. It is best to keep good people within the company rather than to lose the skills and experience of an individual to a competitor.

4. Time

Managing a team requires commitment, and time. It takes a lot of time to manage a team of any size and, as managers, we have to be prepared to dedicate this time to fulfilling this responsibility. I see no point at all in ‘just’ turning up for a review session — or any meeting for that matter — unprepared. I do the planning and put thought into the process in order that I/we get the most from it. Notes from meetings should be written up, circulated, agreed and kept on file. Action points raised should be carried out within the agreed time frames. This process ensures that I can provide both informal and formal opportunities for the team to communicate issues/wants/needs with me and for both parties to take action if necessary. I try to build into the normal appraisal process both informal monthly meetings and formal quarterly reviews where notes and actions are taken and followed up. I find this makes the year-end appraisal process much more efficient and effective because I have covered and documented the detail during the course of the year.

5. Knowledge

The ability to inform my team of what is happening in the market, in my own company and within my actual team itself, is key in building a two-way flow of information and an understanding of how we all fit into the ‘bigger picture’.

6. Responsibility

Now that my team understands why they are at work and how actions they take can affect the bigger picture, it is a lot easier to make them all individually responsible for the work they generate and the conversations they have with our clients. Somebody who is personally responsible for a set of tasks or a process, and who fully understands the importance of that task and how it fits into the bigger picture is a valuable asset to my team and to my employer. In my experience, it encourages motivation, a stronger commitment to the team and to the employer, and pride in one’s own output.

7. People

As a manager of a team I am responsible for hiring the right people in the first place. Most people have a gut instinct about another person when they first meet and generally act on that. However, a manager under pressure may minimise some negative aspects owing to the need to fill a role quickly or just ‘get a bum on a seat’. True, it is not always possible to delay making a hiring decision, but if in doubt, and if possible, just keep on looking. The wrong person in a team can be disruptive, can cause you to have to spend more time on ‘issues’ rather than team development, and will most likely, after a short period of time, leave anyway, putting you back to square one.

8. Recognition

How to recognise hard work and then reward it can be easily overlooked. We expect that people will work hard and when they do we can promote them — right? Is that what they want? (Hark back to the individual development plan). Sometimes a simple ‘well done’ or a pat on the back is enough as this proves that you have noticed their efforts and have made an effort of your own to praise it. How about rewarding hard work with a well-thought-out gift? The value is immaterial if the sentiment is right. A manager I have worked with recently rewarded one of his team by getting him two tickets to see his football team play — simple yet personal and very well received. Recognise hard work, register it, think of a personal reward and ensure you make the team aware that hard work will be rewarded.

9. Training

Training, training, training — and then some cross-training. Work out what people want from their working life in the short- and medium-term, and what you need to get the job done. Then, ensure that training is available and is carried out. This could be training in advanced performance and attribution techniques, fixed income analysis or LDI portfolio management theory, but it could just as easily be a time management or client communication course. Tailor the training offered to the individual; tie it into the appraisal process; ensure it actually happens. Then get the individual to provide some training to the rest of the team on the skills and knowledge they have just learned.

10. Fun

Perhaps this should be point number one. More than one of us will spend more time in the office than in our own homes, so we have to ensure that work is a fun place — at least some of the time. Think of ways you can work some fun into your daily routine. Laughing in the workplace is allowed and in my view should be encouraged as much as possible. Performance teams do put in the hours, so try to nurture a serious and high-achieving yet fun environment that will motivate the team. I will not go into the many examples of things that we have done at Northern Trust since I joined last year, but if you bump into any of the team ask them about the Friday ritual of crowning that week’s King or Queen of Performance…

The key points for me that I need to remember when managing my team are: to plan, to dedicate the
time required to deliver on those plans, and to ensure that the team is trained for the role it is doing or progressing towards. This, I believe, will breed commitment and responsibility. Your team will notice what actions you take and how much effort you put in; they may very well not appreciate it at the time and they might not pat you on the back and say ‘well done’ to you for the effort, but it will be noted and, little by little, it will build a loyalty that will not be lost. If other performance teams are getting this level of manager attention and this level of career planning and development, can you afford not to provide it as well?

Remember, also, to look at your own experiences outside of the City and the world of performance measurement and try to bring in some of the skills you have learned from other fields. The asset management performance team should be made up not just of highly trained performance specialists, but also of motivated individuals who are encouraged and given the opportunity to develop their skills and careers broadly within the team, within the performance and analytics group, and within the organisation more broadly.

December is the busiest month of the year for functions, but networking at such events is not always easy. So, how can we resolve the dilemma?

If you feel awkward and uncomfortable because of being intrinsically shy, consider the following.

Listen: Be on ‘receive’ not ‘transmit’.

There is a fallacy that extroverts are more effective with potential clients and customers by their assertiveness and socially skilled networking. The reality is that most people like to talk themselves, and tend to respond much better to people who take a genuine interest in them and are prepared to take the time to listen to them. In fact, they are likely to respond less well to the pushy, assertive person who is constantly on ‘transmit’ and is the centre of attention.

Don’t ‘do the room’: Invest in the few and not the many.

I think it is best to spend more time with fewer people, get to know them as individuals rather than ‘touching the flesh’ with everyone in the room for two and half minutes each.

Be yourself: It is important in these contexts to be yourself, not to be what you think others expect you to be. By being you, you will feel less uncomfortable. People generally like someone who they perceive to be transparent and honest, introvert or not. 

On a final note, If going to these events out of office hours is disrupting your family time, then let the people who invite you know that you will have to leave early because you need to spend some time with your family or have some family occasion – just be honest.  I have found that people will respect for wanting to spend more time with your family, and only wish they had the guts to say it. Prioritise the events and decide which ones are really important and say ‘up front’ when invited which ones you are unable to attend due to other commitments.

Professor Cary Cooper,  Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School

As we wind our way to recovery, this is an excellent time for HR to take the lead in forging business partnerships within an organisation and show your true value-creation ability. Professor Paul Sparrow, Dr Anthony Hesketh and Martin Hird of Lancaster University lead the field of knowledge in this area and generously pass on their wise advice.

Introduction
Once more, HR is at a crossroads. As the recession bites, and unemployment is forecast to continue to rise for at least a year after any economic upturn, has HR been placed on the backfoot or has it become more integral to organisational strategy because of the recession, not despite it? Will CEOs now ‘get’ the people proposition, or will the function be blown back 10 years in a wave of rationalisations and cost focus? The answer, we argue, depends on the extent to which the organisation’s strategy to survive the recession and then prosper after involves fundamental change to its business model. This is the dominant performance logic that specifies how business is done, who the customers are, how financial and non-financial resources have to flow through the organisation and what organisational capabilities are necessary to ensure joined-up implementation of the strategy.

In this report, we draw upon the findings from the research agenda that has been pursued by the Centre for Performance-led HR from 2006 to 2009. We focus on exploring ways to enhance the experience of the workforce, and the productivity and performance of both employees and HR functions. We believe this is a central issue for innovation and growth in businesses, and the essence of how HR can prove their worth.

We draw upon a range of ideas that have been developed at the Centre for Performance-led HR and point to the respective authors behind each of these in the references. We are therefore grateful to Craig Marsh and Shashi Balain, who have contributed to our thinking and some of the frameworks in this report. The first project at the Centre involved working with HR directors and senior practitioners from 15 organisations — Britannia Building Society, the Cabinet Office, Co-operative Financial Services, Hanson plc, IBM, McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd, N G Bailey, Nestlé, North West Development Agency, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Mail, Sellafield Ltd, Shell International, United Utilities and Vodafone — to define what is implied by the concept of performance-led HR. We identified seven areas that, if mastered, enable HR to prove its worth (see Figure 1, page 8):strategic competence and business model change; boardroom engagement; performance drivers and organisation design; the engagement-performance link;changing the way talent is managed; evaluating and benchmarking the ways in which people improve the capital of an organisation; and HR trajectories — coping with the changing technology and the ways HR services can be resourced.

Together these themes help define what, at the level of organisations, performance-led HR requires. To be effective, they need to master each of these areas. The answers to the strategic problems faced by organisations are not easy. The HR function has to address the people issues raised by the operational challenges faced, but also has to be able to contribute to strategic thinking. As we argue later,
there is no one-size-fits-all structure or line of best fit the function should use to combine business strategy, model and HR, as the daily challenges faced by organisations are highly contingent on the contexts they operate in.

This report is intended to enhance our understanding of HR’s contribution to the business and its functioning. We lay out our thinking about four key questions:

How can HR align itself with business strategy and sell itself to the board?
How can HR demonstrate added value?
How does HR speak the language of the CEO?
How can HR contribute to the organisation’s development and do so in terms the board can quantify?

Articulating how HR contributes to the creation, improvement and leveraging of value through the reconfiguration of business model change in our view now represents the central challenge to today’s HR executives. This is far from a straightforward process. Even before the credit crunch we showed that a significant number of organisations were already changing business models. For some, change was incremental, with the business model being tweaked here and there, but HR fully cognisant of the organisational capabilities it has to support (a ‘we can fix it’ capability). For others, the organisation was in reactive mode — there were changes in the rules of the game as a result of external factors — and HR was just one of many functions struggling to understand the business capabilities and politics of change to navigate a new path through these debates.

Will HR get through the recession on its knees, or can it be more proactive? Even before the recession we found that some HR functions were in a more proactive space. Where the organisation was innovating a new business model — changing the rules of the game — HR had to be a central player, helping design the implementation and execution of the strategy. In a handful of cases HR could argue it was capable of responding to very fluid levels of change, sharing in the strategic evolution of the organisation on the basis of what we called a ‘Golden Triangle’ in the interpersonal relationships between key strategic players, and the possession of insights into the organisation design issues entailed.

The credit crunch has merely amplified the strategic changes that have already been afoot. It will hasten the demise of some ill-equipped HR functions and prove the making of those armed with the right assets. In this report we detail the assets HR directors need to marshal. They have to prove their worth in three ways: creating value; improving and leveraging value; and protecting and preserving value. The latter — as many business model failures that led up to credit crunch showed — has been under-valued. HR directors can argue that they create value by being able to diagnose the people and organisational blocks and contributions to the business model, turning its imperatives into something of value and relevance to employees, building and acquiring the requisite talent and developing HR processes designed for performance (ie, to create innovation, customer service, efficiency or effectiveness). They must also demonstrate value improvement and leverage — enhancing the new business model as understanding about it develops, getting involved in the forums that start to interpret and transfer strategic knowledge, managing the learning that results from the strategic implementation initiatives (nearly always learning-by-doing), building multiple channels of engagement into the business and optimising its HR policies accordingly. Last, but by no means least, HR has a crucial role as a protector and preserver of business value. The more HR directors can create and leverage value, the more legitimate their role can be in making sure that any value created through the business model does not get lost or destroyed. This requires insights into risk management and business governance — the constructive surfacing of risks inherent in business models and implementation arrangements, the maintenance of corporate reputation and brand, and the engagement and continued contribution of talent. But to do this HR has to be bilingual — switching from its own professional expertise to speaking the language of the CEO. HR does not need to worry about being at the table (having access to the formal decision making structures) — it just needs the confidence that it is part of the conversation. If there is one lesson from the credit crunch, it is that HR (among others) needs to be more confident in playing the governance card. Without leverage and protection, value creation is ephemeral. But difficult messages can only be conveyed alongside solutions. In the report we expand on how HR can ensure it has the agency — the social power and influence that gives it a zone of manoeuvre — to become part of the conversation.

In previous work we have raised the importance of the Golden Triangle. Golden Triangles — which have to operate at corporate board level down to business unit teams — are not about HR structures, they are about relationships. To navigate their way out of the recession — but to remain reflective as the ‘fog of war’ disappears — CEOs will look for searching (but highly informal and political) discussions with trusted peers. There needs to be a pattern of relaxed and informal discussions between the CEO, the CFO and the senior HR executive, a culture of mutual respect and support, with the HR director acting as coach and counsellor. We detail four important contexts through which HR directors can build this Golden Triangle. A key message is that for HR, this is not (just) about creating metrics to demonstrate the bottom-line of HR’s contribution. Executives will not trust numbers for a while to come. Nor can the HR director get away with saying, “trust me, I have put in place great HR architecture and systems that makes my people business partners”. They will need to show they have the arguments to convince all stakeholders that the post-recession business models are sustainable, and employees and high-talent alike believe in the performance the model promises. CEOs will want world class execution, the confidence that business and then employee engagement can be assured. They will judge their HR directors on their ability to deliver the recovery project.

We note some of the recent questioning about the relevance of ‘organisation development’, but argue that as a field it is still healthy and vibrant and has a continuing role to play. However, the half-life of organisation design seems to be eroding at an ever-faster rate, and HR directors need now to be bringing organisational design capability to the fore. In a post-credit crunch world there will be inevitable industry restructuring and attention to organisational issues, but there are also deeper and more longstanding pressures. Organisation design has increasing financial utility, and is a central component of the ability to effect successful business model change. This raises three challenges for HR directors: the capability of their HR teams, the relevance of their knowledge base and the position of the HR director in entering these debates at boardroom level. We outline the sorts of knowledge HR directors need in their function to consider design issues and the sources of expertise they need to engage with.

Finally, we consider what the messages in the report mean for the debates currently taking place around HR delivery models.

In our previous research we have drawn attention to two key issues: how HR aligns itself to the organisation’s business model; and what is meant by HR added value.

Let us begin with the question of value. It is worth outlining some of the language we have used as our research has developed — language that enables HR directors to demonstrate HR’s contribution to the business and its functioning, or more specifically how the function contributes to value inside the organisation. Value may well have become, in the words of Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank, ‘the bellwether’. In their book The HR Value Proposition they pointed out that the function’s value remains very much in the eye of the receivers, not the givers of HR services.

In our forthcoming Winter edition, Nick Kemsley will be writing on the ‘third game’ for HR — looking at changes that need to be considered in the future. In the meantime he gives us a quick taster.

Now that the public sector is facing so many cuts, what do you think is the challenge for the private sector?

Nick Kemsley: The challenge for the private sector is a paradoxical one. On one hand, they need to generate growth in order to counteract the predicted six to seven per cent contraction in UK GDP, where money from the outside is in short supply. On the other, they must keep their own businesses healthy in a very difficult and competitive climate. This inevitably means an increased focus on finding sources of efficiency within their own organisations while keeping one eye on the longer term.

You talk in your forthcoming article (TER, Winter; Vol 1.2) about the ‘third way’ for HR – what is that in a nutshell?

Nick Kemsley: This challenge for business lands in the middle space between HR's traditional approach to organisation and capability (ie, operational day-to-day and the longer-term developmental, more in the arena of productivity and effectiveness. This requires HR to bring to bear the best of both of its offers in one, to deliver short term change which does not destroy longer term value, and drastically reduce ROIs on the developmental side. This is potentially a major challenge for both HR functions and HR people.

Do you think there is an answer to the dilemma of balancing short-term cuts with long term investment in growth?

Nick Kemsley: Yes, but not a perfect one. HR should be being the conscience of pragmatism and compromise, preventing the wider business from cutting off its nose to spite its face by presenting alternatives which speak to both short and longer term, and not being afraid to go with imperfect solutions or partial implementations in order to shorten benefit horizons or tackle the issues of the moment.

Do you believe that HR can (and should) make pre-emptive strikes in order to contribute to overall business strategy?

Nick Kemsley: HR should be pre-emptive in areas; for example, it should be using its overview of the business to look for joined-up solutions and identify the plays which give most benefit for least effort. It should also help to create the decision-making landscape for the business, making the implications of different options clear from the start, and using organisational data proactively to identify options for productivity improvement. At the same time, HR's agenda should be visibly aligned to what the business is asking of it, which will mean dropping activities which do not speak to the reality of the business situation.

What do you see as the upcoming talent implications within HR itself?

Nick Kemsley: I believe that we are entering a new phase where we need to offer a more overt blend of specialist and generalist skillsets from within HR. This will highlight capabilities such as OD as being increasingly important, but perhaps offered in combination with other functional skills in order to be cost-effective. This speaks to increased multi-skills across strategic and operational disciplines, a re-examination of career paths in HR and an increased capability to use metrics which extend beyond process performance.

Keeping the flame alive
Kevin Chapman, director with PricewaterhouseCoopers HR division, describes what it takes to stoke engagement when the psychological contract between employer and employee has been sorely dented...


HR is having to step up to the mark to become the relationship counsellors of the 2010s. All relationships have their ups and downs, but the prevailing economic conditions over the past two years have seen the psychological contract between employer and employee being placed under significant strain.

Damaging the psychological contract with employees has always been easy as HR professionals will know. A single comment about the quality of cut-glass sherry decanters (complete, famously, with six glasses on a silver tray) and your employees are left working for a company associated with selling goods of dubious quality. In 1991 Gerald Ratner, then chief executive of a high street retailer, gave a speech at the Institute of Directors’ annual conference in which he jokingly described the decanter set as ‘total crap’. The speech remains a great example of how a corporate brand can be virtually destroyed in a careless breath – the value of the group fell £500m in the months following the speech and today is no longer in operation. It is a comment that no PR professional could have saved.

Of course, it is not just single comments that can affect the psychological contract between employer and employee. Any change to an organisation’s reputation brings changes to this nurtured relationship. An operational disaster can place significant strain, often overnight, on relationships that have enjoyed years of investment to create employees who live and breathe the brand and are loyal to their organisation.

And whole industries are not exempt. The downfall of the banks is a stark reminder of how quickly a love affair between employer and employee can be broken. One minute you are working for a reputable, long-standing, financial institution doing a job which your friends consider to be an honest way to earn a living. The next minute, you’re part public-owned, uncertain about your future employment and – perhaps the hardest part – you are included in the conversation at a cocktail party (or more likely a child’s birthday party) about greed, incompetence and perhaps your role in the current financial meltdown.

A whole new dynamic of social media brings a further tension to the relationship. Employees in many organisations are beginning to lose the sympathy of customers as celebrity-led Facebook campaigners begin to influence how much bankers can get paid. So what can HR do to help? I have four pieces of advice:

Be honest and confront the facts
There is a need to help staff to understand the brutal facts behind the industry and the organisation, to provide the fundamental context for all the changes that need to be made. It is the responsibility of leaders to be honest about the challenges faced. Nowhere is this more important than when there is a potential disconnect between employees being engaged with the company they originally chose to work for and the very different company they work for today. Take, for example, many bank workers who have become civil servants, the postal workers at the formerly Government-owned Royal Mail who no longer work for a protected monopoly. Some companies have changed beyond recognition.

Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) is a great example of how an organisation changes: the retained staff there are in the business of winding down an insolvent entity, not building wealth.

Jason Miller, of Tinder-Box Business Coaching, who has been supporting them through the process of transition with an accelerated coaching  programme, says: “As a business changes, so does the employee/employer relationship and like any significant period of transition, there is a need to reassess. That can often mean new opportunity to turn change into advantage. It is about understanding the individual, taking the time to realign personal and professional goals, to assist them in both understanding the change and providing support to find the role in the new organisation.”

Rarely does a company never change. Employees often struggle to come to terms with that fact or yearn for ‘the good old days’. It is a dangerous human trait when this is taken with a denial of the true problem.

This leads to my second point.

Revisit employee engagement
HR has the opportunity to turn the perceived soft topic of employee engagement into a hard-nosed, top-table conversation. And at a time of business recovery, employee engagement has hard commercial benefit.

If employee engagement is about creating conditions similar to being in love, HR has all the cards required to give that much needed first kiss to help recreate an organisation that employees say great things about and have a deep desire to be part of.

This may mean taking a fresh look at your employment proposition. Recruitment is an important part of this and HR professionals should be acutely in tune with the prevailing mood in order to create a new employment deal to attract new talent and retain those who are still resentful at the downfall of their great company.

Rebuild trust
A third piece of advice: rebuild trust in your leaders and your values. For staff to move on, they probably need to hear leaders say ‘sorry’.

If you have lost a personal fortune as an employee in a pension scheme or share offer, you are going to want to blame someone and without an apology there can be a bad feeling which can last for years. And for organisations that have made wave after wave of redundancies and are announcing pay freezes, now is the time to be truthful about what’s next. Are promises that things are going to get better a hollow soundbite?

Leaders must demonstrate the values that really matter to improve credibility of leadership teams and their external reputation.

Focus on the greatest return
With pay and bonuses in the spotlight, it might be time to turn to other areas such as training and development to help with the courting process.

Sarah Lewis, head of HR and managing director at Lehman Brothers in administration, explains the need to ‘capture and sell’ the employee experience: “It’s important that we help our staff understand that despite the fact that our firm has entered administration, the employees here are in a unique situation.

With our team of like-minded, focused professionals they continue to make a significant contribution, develop their skills and, ultimately, for many employees this experience will enhance their future career opportunities. Understanding what the individual gains from working at Lehman Brothers is an essential message for retaining our current team and for when we need to bring people on board.

There are real opportunities here for high achieving, talented individuals to continue to develop and build
their careers.”

Honesty and trust...
So the message for employers seems to be that honesty and trust are key factors in the process; something that any marriage guidance counsellor will tell you when talking about how to maintain a special relationship. HR needs to engage working on its employees in new ways and, with the right focus, the flame can certainly be kept alive.

 
Women in interim management earning 7 per cent less than men

Female interim managers earned 7 per cent less than men in the six months from July to December 2009, according to the latest snap shot survey of 11,000 interim managers from Russam GMS. Women were paid on average £553 a day, compared with £592, the average daily rate for men.

The gender pay disparity was pronounced  in sales and marketing, HR and financial services but not so in general management,  where women were paid an average of £650 a day, compared with £634 for men.  Interestingly, the research also showed that whilst women only accounted for 12 per cent of the database, 51 per cent of women who responded to the survey were on assignment compared with 45 per cent of the total number of Interims on assignment. 

Russam GMS wanted to find out why women are being paid less than men and winning a greater number of jobs so it questioned Interim Managers to see if there are differences in male and female attitudes to pay and willingness to negotiate rates.  The research showed there is very little difference between the way men and women negotiate their rates. 54 per cent of all interims said they occasionally negotiate their fees with clients and interim providers, and 42 per cent of men and 41 per cent of women admitted they negotiate often. Only 3 per cent of men and 4 per cent of women said they never negotiate rates.

Interims were divided on the question of reducing rates - 47 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men said they had reduced their fees over the last 18 months but 40 per cent of all interims stated they hadn’t reduced their fees. Those that had reduced their rates believed it was far more profitable to work at a reduced rate than not work at all, whilst others urged Interims not to reduce their rates, stressing that Interims should compete on quality and not on price.

There was much common ground between men and women in terms of the challenges they faced. Most agreed the market was now flooded with people they termed ‘in-betweeners;’ individuals who had been made redundant and were trying out interim management as a stop gap. These people were squeezing the market rates and intensifying competition for jobs they stated. One interim described the bun fight for jobs saying, “At a recent interview, 28 qualified accountants were interviewed and put through two hours of psychometric tests for one four month maternity assignment.”  Others said that management consultants had also reduced their fees and were competing for the same roles.

Clients were also more cost conscious than ever said 8 out of 10 Interims. They were more specific and exacting about the skills they needed for each role and less willing to pay expenses. They urged Interim Providers to educate clients about the difference between ‘career’ interims and ‘in-betweeners.’

Chairman of Russam GMS, Charles Russam said, “Whilst our statistics showed that women earned slightly less than men in the last six months – we have no concrete evidence as to why this is the case. There is no difference in the way in male and female view money and negotiation and they face common challenges including competition from new entrants and clients being more choosey and cost conscious. To win jobs, it is essential for all interims to keep their skills up to date, present themselves well, be flexible and willing to travel to assignments and market themselves effectively."

UK managers admit they're wrong in seven out of ten people decisions
 
According to the results of a study by workplace psychologists OPP, 71 per cent of all line managers would change the people decisions they’ve made if given a second chance. It’s an indictment on the “gut instinct” culture that costs UK businesses millions of pounds in performance issues each year. Worryingly, nearly four in ten (39 per cent) line managers said they still rely on gut instinct as one of the most important factors when making any decisions about their people. Twenty-five per-cent even admitted that whether they like someone personally was also a major influence.  
 
There is one small ray of hope; people who had taken a psychometric (personality) test in the course of their career were twice as likely to find this kind of data important to them in making a range of decisions about people. This group is also much more likely to look for evidence in past behaviour than those who have not received feedback on a personality test in their career (68 vs 51 per cent).
 
A major factor in this is managers’ mistaken belief that they truly know their people – a view not shared by employees. Ninety-seven per-cent of managers feel they know their people fairly well or better, as opposed to 74 per cent of workers. Almost half (47 per cent) of managers even say they know a great deal or everything there is to know about their people, while only 23 per cent of employees share this view. Moreover, 45 per cent said that they don’t trust their manager’s instincts on staff decisions relating to them or to others. The result is a workforce that is becoming increasingly distrustful of management decision-making.
 
Dr Robert McHenry, CEO of OPP, comments: “The results of this study make chastening reading for any management team. Organisations have to ask themselves why they demand objectivity and transparency in every other decision about resources, particularly in these difficult times when all investment is under scrutiny, but when it comes to people, they allow themselves to ‘fly blind’? Managers are making the wrong people decisions more often than not, unable even to stand by their decisions after the fact. Mistakes range from overestimating the potential of a person to discovering information further down the line that would have changed the decision. In any case, these decisions are often made covertly and in the absence of hard facts.
 
“Many managers place a lot of pride in their business instincts, but our study shows that this confidence isn’t shared further down the food chain. Workers are increasingly mistrustful of any decision made based on instinct alone, not least because it’s very difficult to explain or justify,
 
“The economic cost of bad people decisions is well documented. Putting the wrong people in the wrong jobs has a direct impact on productivity and efficiency, and the cost of reversing the decision is often considerable.
 
“Management habits need to change. It’s possible to obtain robust and objective information on which to decide. Considering proven, prior experience, data from psychometric testing and colleague feedback together creates a better foundation for these decisions. It’s the best way for businesses to manage risk when it comes to their people, and it’s a way that every CEO should demand.”

Shadow Minister John Penrose highlights a need for higher skills in Britain’s economy

To help employers in the region meet the needs of the evolving regulatory climate and changing political and economic landscape, the National Skills Academy for Financial Services (NSAFS) hosted a conference for South West financial services employers titled “Recession, recovery and regulation”.

Keynote speaker John Penrose MP, Shadow Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform said there was a need for better skills across all sectors including financial services to help the UK remain competitive. He said: “If we are going to earn a living in an increasingly globalised world, we have to have a far higher average rate of skills in Britain’s economy than we have had in the past.

“Our plans at the moment are to have 20,000 more graduates than we have had in the past, but also far more apprentices – 200,000 more apprentices is what we reckon we can afford at the moment by redeploying money from elsewhere.”

Independent education charity, NSAFS launched in the South West 12 months ago and is working with employers from large well know companies to SMEs in the region, to provide a knowledgeable and supportive service that assists them with their skills and training requirements.

Some 82 per cent of European companies are planning to hire employees to new positions in 2010, according to a new survey by Towers Watson, a leading global professional services company. However, most of these companies expect hiring to remain at best sluggish – with 45 per cent saying it will be below levels typical of past years.

Hiring expected to go hand-in-hand with continuing employee layoffs

Moreover, while most companies are hiring, 49 per cent still expect to make workforce reductions in 2010 – 5 per cent say these will be broad-based and 44 per cent say they will be targeted. This compares with 12 per cent who have made broad-based reductions and 55 per cent who have made targeted reductions since the start of the financial crisis.
 
The Towers Watson survey, conducted in early January and based on responses from 131 mostly large employers across Europe and 459 employers globally, found that while the picture is slowly improving, Europe lags North America. For example, 92 per cent of US companies indicated they would be hiring in 2010 and only 37 per cent expected workforce reductions.
 
Not surprisingly, given employment patterns both pre- and post-crisis, 40 per cent of the survey respondents in Europe agree that it’s easier to retain talent now than it was before the financial crisis. However, 48 per cent think that retention will be more difficult a year from now. Respondents also noted a rise in productivity over the past year, with over half (54 per cent) agreeing that employee productivity had risen compared with pre-financial crisis levels, and more still (57 per cent) expecting it will continue to rise by next year. Interestingly, the recession’s impact on employee engagement has also been mixed. While 23 per cent report lower engagement today, 33 per cent believe employee engagement has risen since before the financial crisis. For 2010, far more companies expect engagement to rise (41 per cent) than decline (10 per cent).
 
“Without question, the last 18 months have been challenging for employers and employees alike, and while there are signs of improvement, it’s clear we’re not going back to ‘business as usual’ anytime soon,” said Laura Sejen, global rewards practice leader at Towers Watson. “While it’s heartening – and a testament to employer focus and employee commitment – that productivity has increased, that’s also part of the reason for slower hiring and more caution about increased investments in workforce programmes. As always, the question is how lean can companies run – especially as demand for products and services rises? Those slower to reinvest in their workforce could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.”
 
The survey confirmed the toll the past year has taken on employees in terms of pay and benefit cuts, and how employees have responded. For instance, 15 per cent of respondents said the percentage of their employees working past their desired retirement age is higher than it was before the financial crisis, and 24 per cent expect it will be even higher a year from now.
 
Employers are acknowledging their employees’ concerns. Some 34 per cent expect that, in a year from now, they will put more emphasis on ensuring benefits provide a desired level of security for employees. Much larger numbers of respondents, however, expect to increase their focus on controlling and reducing benefit costs (45 per cent) and managing the risk and volatility of those costs (45 per cent).
 
“While employers are clearly hopeful that 2010 will bring healthier balance sheets and bottom lines for their businesses, they also seem mindful their employees might not share that optimism,” said Laura Sejen. “With unemployment numbers still high, many employees will not be able to shake off their concern for the future. How a strengthening global economy will affect these trends remains to be seen. The good news, based on our client experience, is that many companies already recognise the need to make thoughtful investments to retain and engage their existing talent despite the continuing uncertainty about the business climate and the resulting caution about taking on added workforce costs.”

Organisations waste £9.5bn on training, claims study

UK organisations could be wasting an estimated £9.5bn on training each year, according to a new study from KnowledgePool, the managed learning specialist, which finds that a quarter of all training fails to yield a significant performance improvement.

In a three-year evaluation study, KnowledgePool has analysed the 'learning outcomes' of over 10,000 learners by questioning them, and their line managers, on the transfer of learning to the workplace and performance improvement.

The results show that 69 percent of learners use what they learn and experience significant performance improvement. A further six percent of learners don't use what they learn, yet they experience performance improvement anyway. However nine percent of learners use what they learn, but their learning does not lead to significant performance improvement, and 16 percent don't use what they learn and don't experience performance improvement either.

"By combining the nine percent and the 16 percent, we get 25 percent, so we can conclude that a quarter of all training fails to deliver a significant performance improvement," said Kevin Lovell, Learning Strategy Director at KnowledgePool. "Figures from the Learning and Skills Council* show that UK organisations spend around £38bn on training annually, so that means they could be wasting £9.5bn of training investment each year."

KnowledgePool's study highlights four reasons why learners are unable to convert their learning into performance improvement: lack of support from their line manager; they attend courses that are ill- suited to their needs; they attend courses when they know they will not use what they learn and 'bad timing' (either the work requirement came and went before the training took place or they'd forgotten what they had learned before they had the chance to apply it).

"Organisations should encourage line managers both to work closely with Learning & Development teams, to ensure training is properly targeted, and to help learners apply what they learn," said Kevin Lovell. "When learners do receive line manager support, 94 percent go on to apply what they learned. There's a positive correlation between the transfer of learning to the workplace, line manager support and performance improvement. Sadly, too many line managers assume that when the training finishes, that's the end of the process."

Lovell also recommends that organisations should capture and analyse post-training data.

"If you don't gather data on the impact of the training back in the workplace, you won't know what's working or not working," he said. "The data can help you to spot trends in particular courses, or specific areas of your business, and target areas of concern. By taking action, British companies can enhance the performance of their learners and gain 25 percent more value from their learning spend."

Commission outlines changes to address ageing workforce

 

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Unemployment and youth unemployment fall as Government increases help for unemployed

• ILO unemployment fell by 7,000 on the quarter to 2.46 million (7.8%).
• The number of people claiming JSA fell by 15,200 on the month to 1.606 million (5pc compared to around 10pc in the 80s and 90s).
• The number of young people classed as ILO unemployed fell by 16,000 on the quarter to 927,000; these figures include 269,000 who are actually students in full time education but are looking for work, including part time work.
• Excluding full time students, the number of young people ILO unemployed is 658,000, and dropped by 26,000 on the quarter.
• The number of young people claiming JSA fell by 7,600 on the month.
• Number of vacancies has increased by 16,000 to 448,000.
• The number of people in work has decreased by 14,000 on the quarter to 28,921m
• The number of people classed as economically inactive rose by 79,000, but this includes an 81,000 rise in the number of students.
• If you take out students economic inactivity fell by 2,000 on the quarter.
• The overall number of people classed as economically inactive includes a record number of over 2 million students.
• In stark contrast to previous periods of economic downturn when the numbers on inactive benefits rose dramatically, in this recession the numbers on Incapacity Benefit/Employment and Support Allowance have remained broadly similar while the number of lone parents receiving income support has continued to fall.
• Government is today announcing successful bids for a further 6,000 youth jobs, as part of the future jobs fund to be delivered over the next 18 months
• From next week all young people out of work and claiming JSA for six months or more will be guaranteed a job, work focussed training or work experience

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Hewitt Associates survey says 41 per cent of European sales incentive plans
are not working

Hewitt Associates, a global HR consulting and outsourcing company, today published its European Sales Compensation Survey looking at sales workforce incentive practices in 138 organisations across 15 European countries and 20 industry sectors. The survey reveals that 41% of the companies interviewed rate their sales incentive plans as ineffective or are uncertain of their plans' effectiveness. 

Despite this finding, only 30% of companies made changes to their sales plans during the first half of 2009, with many organisations remaining unsure of the impact of these changes in terms of driving the business.

Robert Miller, senior reward consultant at Hewitt Associates, said: "The low perceived effectiveness of sales plans, despite a relatively small number of companies actively making changes to them was a surprise element of the results. The findings reveal that most organisations have opted to change their targets to reflect economic conditions, but have stopped short of fundamental plan design. Many are adopting a wait-and-see approach before committing to any significant restructuring of sales plans. Another interesting finding was the increased use of long-term incentives to retain top sales talent through the economic downturn.

"Changes around targets were predictable. However, it came as a surprise to see that long-term incentive plans were used in 41% of the companies surveyed.  Another striking finding was how few companies actually tinkered with their plans through overlay incentives – temporary incentives that operate on top of an existing sales plan – such as an additional award of 8% of salary for hitting a target."

Robert Miller continued: "We expected to see more initiatives aimed at top talent such as overlays specific to this group and higher accelerators for out-performance or higher incentive caps. When organisations that did make changes (25% of the sample) are examined, the study found the "usual suspects"; measuring and rewarding the sales force on margin, introducing more role specific plans rather than a one-size-fits-all plan design, modifying the accelerators for outperformance under their plans or introducing a cumulative rather than a month to month measurement system."

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Demand for office support staff strengthens in City

Employment prospects for executive PAs and business support staff in the City are looking bright for 2010 according to office support recruiter Crone Corkill.

Despite the downturn hitting the financial markets hard, demand for good business support staff in the City remains strong and talented executive support professionals are in short supply. In the last few weeks in particular, many candidates have started to receive counter offers and multiple job offers. Additionally, as conditions slowly improve, the recruiter says that it is beginning to see an increase in staffing budgets. “City institutions are starting to convert temporary hires into permanent positions, showing that  head count freezes on permanent hires are lifting. This is very encouraging for candidates who are going into temporary positions in the hope of going permanent” says Helena Gray from Crone Corkill’s City team.

Many businesses are losing out on the best talent though, Crone Corkill warns, due to over lengthy hiring processes and candidates registering with multiple agencies to try and secure the best position in what has been a tough market.

“The shortage of good, solid career PAs and secretaries within the banking sector is an ongoing problem,” say Lee Dempster, operations director at Crone Corkill. “Many businesses assume that in the current climate they have their pick of top calibre candidates but this just isn’t the case – this type of candidate is always in short supply, they may be being well looked after by their current employers and aren’t willing to move. Good candidates will be able to secure several interviews and choose the best option offered to them but with the lengthy recruitment processes that the recession has created, many are snapped up before other employers have made an offer.”

“Confidence is definitely returning to the City. Business support roles within equity research is another area where we’re seeing roles come back as the market picks up. With October to December showing the highest level of temporary and permanent jobs registered by some distance, it is looking like 2010 will start off in a more positive footing than any time in the last year.”

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GenY-ers demand commitment to CSR

Nearly half (47%) of UK employees consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an important feature when looking for a prospective employer, according to the latest Employment Study from Badenoch & Clark.

However, the overwhelming majority of workers in the study (83%) said that their employers lacked a genuine commitment to it.  According to UK professionals, one in ten (11%) employers totally ignore CSR, while more than a quarter (28%) view it largely as a box-ticking exercise.

More than any other age group, it is those aged between 25 and 34 years  - Generation Y - for whom CSR is most important.  When looking at prospective employers, 55% of them say it heavily influences their opinion. However, they are also the age group least convinced by employers’ CSR efforts, with 92% recognising a lack of genuine commitment from organisations.

Neil Wilson, managing director of Badenoch & Clark, comments: “These figures highlight a key challenge for UK employers as they look at ways to attract and retain top talent into their organisation.

“In an age of increasing consumer awareness, CSR is becoming a more important issue to people –  particularly the younger generation. Although there are few strict legal requirements for companies to get involved in CSR, this will likely change. The Companies Act 2006 proved a major step in this direction, obligating businesses to make information available to shareholders about the impact of the company's operations on the community and the environment.

“CSR can help significantly with recruitment, engagement and retention of employees which is why most large companies, and many smaller ones, claim to be firmly committed to it. Yet it goes beyond changing light bulbs and donating money to good causes at the end of the financial year. Instead it is an ongoing responsibility that encourages open and transparent business practices that are based upon moral principles and respect for employees, communities and the environment.

“It seems that although many employers have caught onto the value of CSR they are falling at the first hurdle by failing to communicate and involve their staff in these initiatives. It shouldn’t just be a box ticking exercise but embedded into an organisation’s culture and business processes.”

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UK HR Professionals Focus on Leadership in 2010

TOn-demand talent management solutions provider Taleo, today announced results of its fourth annual HR Challenges Survey, polling HR leaders on their priorities and expectations for 2010. The research found that HR’s top focus in the coming year is on supporting and sustaining their businesses’ leadership. However, it seems that HR’s ability to meet these challenges may be compromised by smaller budgets for strategies and tools.

The results came from a survey of more than 100 senior HR managers in the UK about the challenges they expect to face in the coming 12 months, what tools they need to help them and their HR budget expectations. 

The survey found HR’s top three challenges for 2010 to be: succession planning; employee retention; providing leadership with better management information and reporting.

Employee retention was named as HR’s biggest challenge in each of the previous three years. This year’s emphasis on succession planning suggests that HR will also be focused on longer term growth drivers in 2010.

Chris Phillips, Vice President of International Marketing for Taleo comments, “Succession planning is now critical to ensure that businesses have the talent they need to grow. Strategic succession planning links the leadership pipeline with top performer retention and leverage. As the economy slowly recovers, HR managers are worrying about short and long term employee retention. They are especially focused on identifying and engaging their key employees before they start to think about a move.”

HR departments may not have the additional budget to help them manage talent and support business leadership. The vast majority of respondents (70%) predicted that less than 10% of their organisation’s technology spend will be invested in tools to help them manage their talent in 2010.

More people expect their budgets to be reduced in the new year (32%), than expect it to rise (18%). However, there are signs that the economic turmoil of the last year is stabilising, with 50% of respondents not anticipating any change in budget.

Phillips continues, “Given the continued squeeze on budgets, HR managers will need to be creative about saving money to help fund new projects. One tactic is reducing or eliminating recruiting agency fees by recruiting online or through internal mobility programmes. Given even a reasonable level of turnover, these savings can fund investments in other strategic areas, such as succession planning tools. The organisations that get succession planning right and hold on to their key talent will be the ones making the strongest recoveries in the shortest amount of time.”

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Don’t get lost in translation

Almost half of multilingual job seekers don’t think beyond translation when it comes to careers using languages according to a recent poll by executive and business support recruiter Crone Corkill.

Crone Corkill asked visitors to its stand at the Language Show Career Fair what role first came to mind when thinking about jobs with languages and 45% of respondents replied with the answer ‘translator’ or ‘interpreter’. Other responses included teaching, tourism and customer service.

“The Language Show was a great chance for us to meet talented linguists and show them the career opportunities available where they could use their languages” says Helen Hook, senior manager at Crone Corkill. “We met people that spoke a wide range of languages, from French to Latvian to Yoruba! But it’s surprising how many people still automatically think of translation when it comes to jobs with languages.”

“Whether it’s a secretary, receptionist or team assistant, companies are always looking for candidates who not only have the right skills and experience for those types of roles, but who can communicate with people from around the globe. French and German remain the most in demand languages – especially within banking and finance and in the energy and media sectors too. However Eastern European and Nordic languages, Japanese and Mandarin are also becoming increasingly sought after as these markets expand.”

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Part-time jobs damaging student studies

A study by the UK’s only student-employer matchmaking site has found that 27% of students regularly miss lectures due to working part time jobs, with just 8% of the jobs applicable to the student’s chosen degree and prospective career path.

According to a study of 1,339 students by the UK’s only student-employer matchmaking site, 27% of undergraduates miss lectures regularly by their own admission to work. Given that recent figures show that there are more than 2.2 million 3.7 million students in post-secondary education in the UK, www.studentgems.com, the site which commissioned the study, estimate that nearly 1 million students regularly miss lectures in a bid to work.

Three in five of the respondents said they worked part time, of whom, just 8% said they missed lectures because they were otherwise participating in relevant work experience. 92% of the working students said their job bore no relevance to their chosen education/career path.

The top part time jobs for students included working at the Student’s Union, retail, restaurants, supermarkets, call centres and in catering, amongst others.

Of those who have done work experience placements, just 11% were paid for their time and effort. 86% of students were unaware that employers who offer unpaid work experience placements are operating illegally.

On average, students admitted to skipping 20% of lectures, with reasons ranging from part-time jobs through to hangovers. One in three students said they believed missing lectures to be detrimental to their studies.

Sue Harrison, co-founder of studentgems.com had the following to say: “The economic climate has affected students too, with many no longer able to rely on the time-honoured bank of mum and dad. Some are now in so much need of extra cash to fund their studies that they are skipping lectures to work. Whilst experience in the commercial world is valuable for any CV, studying should remain the number one priority for students. The vast majority are not working in areas relevant to their future career and often end up working in mundane low-paid low-skilled jobs.”

She continued, “Businesses are always looking for talented people and provide opportunities for students to gain paid experience in relevant sectors doing one-off jobs and projects. Doing this sort of work gives students more money and flexibility to fit the projects into their timetable, avoiding the need to miss lectures.”

She concluded, “It’s not a one-way street. Employers benefit from using bright, enthusiastic and well-motivated students who are learning the latest sector trends and developments. They also cost less than their qualified equivalent; a real bonus to cash-strapped businesses during the recession.”

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Professionals buoyed by improving job market – nearly half planning on moving job in 2010

With the light at the end of the tunnel finally visible for the British economy, the nation’s office workers are happier than they have been since the onset of recession. However, with the job market also looking brighter for 2010, it could be the prospect of changing jobs that is making people happier in the office.

According to the latest Badenoch and Clark Happiness at Work Index, 76% of respondents reported high levels of happiness in the workplace. That’s an increase of 4% from the last quarterly Index, which marked a happiness low point since the Index began.

However, despite these recovering levels of workplace happiness, nearly half (42 %) of all respondents are looking to move jobs in the New Year. The trend could mean challenging months ahead for employers, as people who fought to cling on to their jobs during the height of the recession increase in confidence and re-enter the job market, Nearly a quarter (22%) of respondents already feel more confident about their job prospects for 2010.

Some of the most high profile sectors to have been hit by the recession reported high levels of employees on the move. Nearly two thirds of employees in banking and financial services (63%) and sales, marketing and media (61%) reported plans to change jobs in 2010.

The prospective exodus of employees from their current roles comes at a time when workplace morale is at rock bottom. Nearly three quarters (72%) of employees found morale in their workplace low.

The Happiness at Work Index has tracked happiness in the workplace since its inception in early 2007, charting a slow but steady decline in workplace happiness throughout the UK. The recession has been a significant driving factor since the middle of 2008, but happiness is now notably higher as workers contemplate changing roles in the New Year.

Neil Wilson, managing director at Badenoch & Clark, comments: ”In the last year, we’ve seen the recession have a significant impact on happiness and morale levels. On the face of it, the increase in happiness in the latest Index is a positive thing for employers.

“However, when looked at alongside falling morale levels and increasing numbers of people looking to change jobs, the picture becomes less straightforward. An improving economic picture could mean people are happier at work as they feel more secure in their jobs. That security hasn’t translated to rising morale though, and many people are now feeling confident enough to start looking for jobs again – something which could be having a beneficial impact on overall happiness levels.

“Wherever possible, employers should capitalise on the feelings of security and happiness amongst their workforce by looking to enhance the prospects of employees’ current roles. Retention strategies should top the agenda. Tactics such as maintaining strong employer brands, providing clear career paths and offering competitive benefits should be employed to persuade workers to remain for the long term.”















The government welcomed the drop in the December unemployment and youth unemployment figures but warned that the jobless total was still expected to rise again before the summer.

ONS Statistics show a 7,000 drop in the ILO measure of unemployment, a 15,000 drop in the claimant count and a 7,600 drop in the youth claimant count in December. The employment level fell by less than in previous quarters and the number of vacancies increased. A significant increase in the number of full time students has increased the inactivity figures.

These figures mean that unemployment is 450,000 lower than predicted at the time of the Budget, reflecting the £5bn extra investment in expanding education and training, supporting jobs and helping the unemployed back to work. Even more support for young people is being introduced later this month.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper, said: "The jobs market is still tough for a lot of people, but the drop in unemployment and youth unemployment is very welcome. It means 450,000 fewer people are out of work than everyone expected last spring. The extra investment in jobs, education and training is making a real difference, helping people through the recession and preventing the kind of unemployment we saw in the eighties and nineties.

"However we know that things will still be difficult and unemployment is still likely to rise over the next few months. That is why we are determined to keep increasing the help and support to get people into jobs and training."

Minster for Employment Jim Knight, said: "These figures show the largest number of people coming off unemployment benefit for 15 years which is a sign that our £5bn investment to get people back to work is having an impact. The fact that tens of thousands more young people are taking up the Government's guarantee of a place in education or training means that they are getting the valuable skills they need to get into work.

"New figures published today show that more than 25,000 people have benefited from the new Six Month Offer, while the sixth round of winning Future Jobs Fund bidders will create almost 6,000 more jobs for young people. This brings the total number of successful bids to create jobs through the Fund so far to almost 104,000. This is in addition to more than 400,000 people who have been helped into jobs through the Job Centres' Local Employment Partnerships."

Today's employment figures published by the Office for National Statistics show: