Roc - Blog

QUALITY OF MANAGEMENT FOR THE FUTURE

Les Hayman — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:44:40 +0000

I believe that “People join companies, but leave managers”.

People will join a company in the belief that the image and reputation that it projects is what they are looking for in an employer, and as such somewhere that they can learn, develop and grow, be challenged, meet and work with great like-minded people, and have fun along the way.

The vast majority of people tend to leave a company because they have not been able to establish a credible working relationship with their immediate supervisor. It is rarely about money or working conditions. This seems reasonable, as your boss is the one who determines what you do, who you get to do it with, how you are measured, how you are rewarded, how you are developed and what opportunities are presented to you.

I therefore consider “Quality of Management” not only one of the critical elements for talent retention and development, but also the key element for business success.

One of the disappointments in my move to Europe in 2001 was that I have seen little evidence that European companies have created a culture of management as a profession. Management skill appears to be more of an add-on to vocational brilliance, rather than being viewed as an art, a science and an asset in its own right. The idea is that management skill is a “nice to have” rather than a mandatory part of an executive’s role.

I had a long series of interchanges with one executive who actually told me that managers were like horses, and that “ … in life you were either born a race horse or a draft horse, and race horses shouldn’t pull carts and draft horses shouldn’t run at Epsom … “. His belief was that any skilled, intelligent, well educated professional could become a manager, and that being intelligent he would work out what was needed to fill the role. Interesting thought, but I have always believed that the difference between a race horse that looked good, and one that could also win races, was how well you trained and prepared the horse for what was expected of him. (see Flogging a Dead Horse posted on July 2, 2010)

1. Furthermore the predominant European management style of “command and control” will not wash well with the next generation.

There are changed expectations that rather than a top down approach to management, the future will involve much more discussion, much more involvement, much more collaboration, much more personal involvement in role definition, much more peer review, and much more self managing teams, as well as possibly significantly less full time work.

2. Emergence of mega-corporations.

I also believe therefore that the nature of Corporations will also change dramatically, and as such so will the need for management needs and skills change with it.
Over the last decades, we have seen the emergence of mega-corporations. We have seen more mergers and acquisitions this century so far, than we saw in the entire 200 previous years of business history. Companies grew because they could, as capital was readily available in support, and from a belief that “bigger is better”, and in particular as a way to counter the competitive threat coming from countries like India and China.

I believe that the days of the mega-corporations may well be numbered. Under the current economic realities, companies are not prepared to keep hiring just to build hordes, whilst at the same time I see a changing attitude amongst young people today to the concept of fulltime employment, whatever the weekly working hours, or vacation plans.

3. The days of joining a company for life are long gone.

The days of joining a company for life are long gone, even with my own generation, and whilst my children’s peers still considered the idea of a career spanning maybe a handful of companies, I see that today’s youth can see careers that involve working for 20 or more companies in their work life. On top of this there is a rejection by many of the idea that they will be “allowed” to take 4 or 6 week’s vacation each year. They want to build a work life where for example, they work full time for 6 months and then trek in the Himalayas for 3 months, or work on an “awesome” project for say 2 years, but then spend a year back at university doing something interesting, or sailing round the world.

4. Coming growth of the independent professional.

I see therefore the coming growth of the independent professional, who chooses what he does and when he does it, and with/for whom, linked in to and visible to his potential hirers through specialist networks where his skills and experience can be vetted and proven, and where he can bid for and/or receive offers for roles that suit his skills and his personal requirements.

This is very much the way that movie studios work, bringing together the specific team that they need to make a particular film, which will then disband on its completion. The sequels will bring together some of the same people, but it is unlikely that they will ever reconstitute exactly the same crew as needs will have changed somewhat over the intervening time period.

I believe that many Companies have a long way to go to establish a culture of management as a profession for today. Their onward journey to be able to professionally manage the next generation may be just too great a distance for them to cover.

I was wondering whether anyone else had also seen this trend away from the concept of full-time employment and a move more towards something more like the film studio model.
I would be interested in your comments and input.

MOVE THEM UP OR MOVE THEM OUT

Les Hayman — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:21:31 +0000

I have long believed that managers need to always have a “ladder” of their people graded from best to worst performer. This is not just to ensure visibility of the top performers, but also to ensure identification of those that need help. The problem is that most managers find it very easy to work with the people who are doing well, as that generally means easy contact and positive conversations, but find it hard to work with those that are struggling, as that involves some confrontation and considerable effort.

I am not saying that managers should stop having significant focus on their best people, but I am often amazed at how many people don’t actually understand that they are not performing to the expectation of their immediate supervisor until they have their annual performance review at the end of the year, generally too late for remedial actions to be taken.

I believe that the role of a manager is to personally work with whoever is on the bottom rung of the ladder and to focus on helping them to move up. This generally means that the manager will need to expend effort as it involves some coaching, some development and some hand-holding from the manager (and even others) for a while, but this is one of the things that managers are meant to do anyway, even though few actually do so. Once the manager realistically feels that his charge has now moved off the bottom rung, this will then uncover the next person that needs help, and the manager can now shift his focus and efforts to this one. In this way, a manager will develop a team that is continually improving.

Keeping the focus just on the top performers may be easier but doesn’t necessarily achieve much improvement in the team. Moving a hi-performing employee from 100-105% performance is not only harder, but also doesn’t deliver as much benefit to team success as does moving a struggler from say 70-90%. Too many managers leave people sitting on the bottom rung for too long, without remedial action being taken quickly enough and then it becomes too late to do anything to save them.

I have always believed that if you hire people for their strengths then you can’t remove them for their weaknesses until you have made significant effort to help them to overcome these. Only after you have expended this effort jointly, and they are still sitting on the bottom, can you now consider more critical action hence “Move them up or move them out”.

I believe that the same holds true if a manager has a team where all are great performers and are all achieving their goals. There are still significant benefits to be gained by focussing on “moving up” whoever is the least of the hi-performers and keeping the whole process alive.

By “move them out”, I mean initially looking at whether they can be moved out of their current role, and into a role where their strengths can be used to add value to the organisation. If the recruitment process that brought them in to the organisation was well run and stringent, then there is significant chance that they can still be valuable in a different role. Only as a last resort should they be terminated. A “hire ‘em fire ‘em” attitude is too expensive and disruptive to any organisation, and should never be allowed to become a way of compensating for bad management practices.

IT WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

Les Hayman — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:27:25 +0000

When I was appointed to the SAP Global Extended Board in 1999, my bosses at the time (the Global CEO and the Board Chairman) approved my title as “CEO Asia Pacific, Board Member SAP-AG”. This was based on the fact that no-one outside of Germany really knew what “Extended Board” meant, and they felt that anyway we had a 12 member Global Board and I was part of it.

When I took over the role of CEO Europe Middle East Africa in 2001, my secretary who was new to SAP, asked me what I wanted on my business cards. I handed her a copy of my Asia Pacific business card and told her to just change Asia Pacific to EMEA and so on … seemed like a simple solution.

That is until she went for printing advice to the PA of my predecessor, who immediately rushed to her boss to have this stopped. It appeared that in the previous 2 years (he and I had been appointed to the Extended Board at the same time), he had had “Member of the Extended Board” on his business cards as compared to “Member of the Board” which is what I had on mine. He seemed to be bothered that somehow my title seemed more senior than the one that he had used.

I pointed out that my business cards had been approved by both the Board Chairman and the CEO of SAP, but this was not acceptable to him, and he kept coming up with numerous reasons why I couldn’t have the cards the way that I had stipulated.

I kept pressing him for the real reason that he opposed it, and under my persistence eventually blurted out “Member of the Extended Board was good enough for me, so it should be good enough for you”.

An interesting thought.

I have come to believe that just as parents needs to believe that one of their responsibilities is to make things easier for their children, so managers need to believe that one of their responsibilities is to make things easier for their successors. It is totally wrong to believe that “What was good enough for me is good enough for who follows me”. It is actually critical for the growth and success of any organisation that everyone in a people responsible position has a strong belief that “What was good enough for me is definitely not good enough for my successors”.

For example I believe that a critical role for every manager is to build and grow the interdependencies across departments and geographies to ensure strong linkages for their team, and thus making the goals of their own team easier to achieve in the future. Another critical role is to grow the skills, knowledge and experiences of their managers and individual contributors so that their ability to perform gets easier every year. In other words, to keep growing their net worth.

I see that being given management responsibility for a team of people is akin to being given a garden to look after that you will ultimately have to pass on to someone else to care for.

You have choices to make.
You can just leave the “garden” alone and hope that nature takes its course, that rain and sunshine comes in the right quantities and at the right time, and that the weeds don’t strangle the flowers.
You could also choose to just do a little bit every once in a while, throw around a bit of manure, mow the grass when it gets really high and pull out the occasional and most obvious of weeds.
Or you could choose to really help to make this garden grow and flourish. You can encourage the best of the growth, add water and fertiliser as needed, weed out the parts that could strangle the good growth and add to the wealth of what exists.

Planting Spring Flowers

Flowers

Just believing that what is good enough now is what will be good enough in the future is unacceptable for a professional manager. Managers should be measured on whether they are net creators of talent for the organisation, whether their area of responsibility grows and develops in line with the changing needs of the organisation, and whether their team becomes more effective in meeting their goals year on year. In other words how well can a manager grow, develop and improve his “garden”, rather than believing that his role is to just keep it alive.

To stay with the gardening theme, I have come across too many managers who use the “mushroom approach” to people management. They keep their people in the dark and occasionally pour a bucket of manure over them.

THE THREE ENVELOPES

Les Hayman — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:28:58 +0000

Just after I was appointed to the role of IT Manager at International Harvester NZ about 40 years ago, a colleague told me a story that highlighted the tenuous nature of management roles.

It involved the removal of a CEO by his board after the company had delivered a number of years of unspectacular performance, and his replacement by a new, younger recruit from their industry.

On his last day, the departing CEO was clearing out his office when the replacement CEO arrived unexpectedly. After exchanging some mild pleasantries along the lines of “no hard feelings” and “it’s not personal”, the new CEO asked his predecessor whether he had any advice to share. The departing CEO handed him 3 numbered envelopes with the instructions that they should be opened in sequence if all else failed.

The new CEO threw himself into his new role. He visited the remotest parts of the company, listened to all opinions from every level of management, spent time with the engineers and on the shop floor, spoke to customers and suppliers, and after 12 months he felt that he had a real understanding of the company and the issues that it faced. His only problem was that he didn’t have a clear idea of what he had to do to bring the company back to competitive strength.

He then remembered the 3 envelopes in his desk drawer and opened the first one. It said “Blame your predecessor”.

He took the advice, and at the next board meeting told the board that after 12 months of in depth study he had come to the conclusion that his predecessor had been the problem, and that to save the company he would now have to go about changing everything that his predecessor had implemented during his tenure. This pleased the board as it supported their decision to remove the previous CEO, so they quickly allocated significant budget and resources to the CEO to effect the changes proposed.

Armed with this mandate, the CEO spent the next year changing every element of the company’s business processes both internally and externally. Unfortunately, even after all these changes, the company’s fortunes had not significantly improved.
Out came envelope number 2. It said “Reorganise”.

Armed with this new strategy, he reported at the next board meeting that now that they had totally changed the way the company worked, the current structure did not fit and that they would now have to go through a total global restructuring. Again the Board was thrilled that their CEO was so dynamic and once again voted him significant budget and resources to effect the changes.

After another 12 months of turmoil, and when things had still not improved, he opened the final envelope. It said “Prepare 3 envelopes”.

I recently saw a report from Price Waterhouse that said that the average tenure of a gobal CEO today is about 2.7 years. This means that few CEOs today are ever really tested, as they don’t serve long enough in the role to actually have to live with their decisions, directions and implementations.
I guess that just like art imitating life and vice versa, we have now reached a point in the business world where life actually imitates humour.

THE 3 GREAT BUSINESS LIES

Les Hayman — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:00:02 +0000

It is incredible that marketing organisations within companies spend such an incredible amount of time
developing a company’s mission, vision and values statements and yet they all tend to come up with
basically the same things over and over again, generally covering their elevated commitment to
Customers, People and Innovation.

For example, taken directly from their web-sites …

“Ensuring a high level of satisfaction among our customers and partners is a core component of our business” Microsoft

“Dedication to every client’s success.” IBM Values

“It’s about investing in our employees and their futures. For it’s only when they realise their full potential that we can achieve our broader business goals” British Airways

“SAP is committed to recruiting and retaining top talent … we strive to allow individuals to
realize their full potential.” SAP Values

“Faced with multifaceted competition, Air France is innovating constantly, including a proactive human resources policy for development of individual and collective programs” Air France (my translation from the French).

“BP is progressive, responsible, innovative and performance driven. We push boundaries today and create tomorrow’s breakthroughs through our people and technology”
British Petroleum

And yet, whilst every company professes to be heavily focussed on these 3 lofty aspirations, generally these tend to be the 3 greatest lies in the business world, approximating to:

1. Our Customer is #1
2. Our People are our greatest asset
3. We are driven by innovation

I haven’t chosen the above companies to suggest that they are examples of those that are guilty of expressing values that they don’t believe in, just that they all express their commitment to the same high moral ground … not in itself a bad thing, but in many companies what they write is very different to the behaviour that they exhibit. Ultimately any company is just the sum of its behaviours, its culture or “the way we do things”, irrespective of what they put in print for our edification.

1. Our Customer is #1

Companies will always profess that their customers are the number 1 priority. I believe that in many companies “customer focus” would be lucky to make it into the top-10. The latest marketing “whimsy” is to have a goal “to delight customers” without any real understanding of what this would entail, and when just being able to meet basic customer expectations is already a tough but worthwhile task, and something most customers would consider a major advance.

I prefer Apple’s approach to defining their customer commitment which is “We are genuinely interested in solving customer problems, and we will not compromise our ethics or integrity in the name of profit”. Simple and achievable.

2. Our people are our greatest asset

When it comes to “Our people are our greatest asset”, over my 40+ years of corporate life I have seen only a handful of companies that truly try and live this. The majority seem to see people as being either “bums on seats” or, as one CEO I worked for who believed that people were just part of his business formulae that could be manipulated and used as any other physical asset, without any consideration for peoples’ personal aspirations and needs … so much for having a CEO with a mathematical rather than a business background. SAS, who were voted as the #1 company to work for by Fortune Magazine’s 2010 survey of employees globally, says it well “If you treat employees as if they make a difference, they will make a difference”.

3. Innovation

Innovation in most companies seems to be only based on their view of “genius”. The belief that if you hire bright, well educated people, that this will be enough as they will work out how to create something different or new. Genius is a critical ingredient but it is not enough. I prefer Peter Drucker’s view of innovation which is more based on “… hard work over a long period of time ..” and where the company culture (sum of behaviours) is conducive to driving change because it is part of a company’s DNA, rather than just a reaction to crises. This means that beyond just being based on genius, innovation needs to be built on things like how well you match company objectives with employees’ personal needs, whether you can build commitment and engagement, if you encourage people to take calculated risk, how you handle failure and whether you allow newly recruited bright young people to question things and drive change. Larry Page, co-founder of Google says “Through innovation and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways” … hard work over a long period of time!

It’s a pity that so many companies can’t seem to realise that to be more successful they could start by focussing on turning into reality these 3 statements that they have already enunciated in their Vision, Mission and Values.

When it all boils down, committed customers, partners and staff are the only true competitive edge, and if given the environment, encouragement and opportunity to contribute, will drive the innovation needed for success.

CONGRATULATIONS … YOU’RE A HIGH POTENTIAL … HERE IS YOUR TATTOO

Les Hayman — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:37:37 +0000

Ever since Jack Welch told the world something along the lines of “ … look after the top 10% because they create the magic ..”, every company has put some effort into implementing a “High Potential” or “Top Talent” programme (Pesto effect ?), that attempts to recognize people that are not just top performers and achievers in the company, but also to identify those that have the potential to go further, to do more, maybe even to get to the top.

In most of the “HiPo” programmes that I have seen, this is akin to placing a brand on the forehead of the anointed. It is a title conferred on an individual that he will openly wear and parade brazenly in his work arena. Some companies even go as far as to have the title printed on the individual’s business cards and I have seen one company that handed out a lapel pin to the appointees.

How wrong can you get?

Firstly, as this honour is generally limited to about 2% of the employee population, managers now have to explain to the other 98% that they have lesser or limited or no (?) potential at all compared to the chosen 2%. Not an easy job for any manager, and incredibly de-motivating for those that have worked hard, and who have achieved the goals set for them. Managers must remember that whilst they may have for example 20% Top Performers of which only about 10% may be Hi Potential, there are still another 80% who keep the business going, and merit attention. When managers talk about “talent” it should cover all their people not just the few at the top.

The other issue is that you have now set expectations in this chosen 2% of “wunderkind” that something momentous is now due to happen to them, like an imminent promotion.

I worked with one company that had an employee population of about 60.000 and a manager population of about 6.000. Their employee turnover was relatively low at about 4%, so no more than about 240 managers would depart annually (both voluntary and involuntary). At 2%, HiPos numbered about 1.200, so it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that even if the company was in high growth (which was pretty average for their industry), there were just not going to be enough management jobs opening up to meet these expectations. What was interesting was that the departure rate of HiPos was about treble that of general staff, so the HiPo programme, which had been specifically designed to retain the talent, was actually driving a lot of them away, because of unmet expectations that had been set in the minds of these smart, ambitious people. If you can’t meet these expectations, they will find someone else who can, and they do.

Managers cannot afford to turn the high potentials into a club of the chosen people.

I believe that this will make the programme have as many drawbacks as advantages.

Don’t misunderstand me … I am not saying that programmes that recognise hi potentials should not exist, I am just against their implementation as an exclusive club and the term “High Potential” becoming a title, with all its attendant expectations of what should happen to those branded as being superior.

I have always believed that what a manager should say to those that he does consider of high potential is along the following lines:

“I am delighted with your performance for the following reasons ….. (enunciate them). I believe that you have exhibited potential beyond your current role, and therefore in support of that I, as your manager, will ensure that you have the opportunity for personal development and growth while you are in my team, so that if a more senior/interesting/challenging/rewarding role should become available in the future somewhere in our organisation, you will be better prepared to be able to compete for it.”

No commitments beyond the fact that you as his manager are prepared to spend your own time, effort and energy to help him further his development in whatever direction you jointly decide is needed. This makes his development programme a personal one, jointly owned with his manager, rather than an obligation from the company, and enables the manager to allocate some measurable and challenging tasks/projects that will enable the individual to grow and develop and also to be tested.

As a responsible manager you will ensure that all your direct reports will be going through some training and development during the year anyway, as one of your critical goals is to improve the skills and value of all your people, so no-one has specifically been openly elevated above his peers.

The fact that you believe that you have some individuals in your organisation that merit development and investment beyond the norm can be advised upwards, but without fanfare, without the badges and without the attendant over setting of expectations.

People of high potential are a valuable resource and should be nurtured and developed and given every chance to progress, and Jack was right when he said that they can “ … create the magic …”.

It is just unfortunate that too many companies have rushed into their HiPo programmes, maybe because of the “Pesto Effect” driving HR to be able to tick another box, without any real understanding of their people and the land mines that they have sown for themselves.

GYMNASTICS AND BUSINESS

Les Hayman — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:07:23 +0000

Some time ago I was surprised to learn that in gymnastics competitions at global levels such as the Olympics, achieving a “perfect score” for a perfectly executed routine in any of the disciplines, needs more than just the perfection of the routine itself.

The judges hold back a small percentage of the overall score in search of 3 extra elements. Whilst these in themselves are not a huge part of the overall score, for these world class athletes they can mean the difference between just a great score and actually winning the gold medal.

The 3 elements are Risk, Originality and Virtuosity.

Risk …The athletes generally train 8 hours per day, 7 days a week for 4 years to get to the Olympics after a lifetime of preparation. The judges want to see that they are prepared to take a calculated (not crazy) risk in their routine, to go for the Gold.

Originality … The judges are always on the lookout for something new in the routine.
For many years the “iron cross” on the rings was a part of every gymnast’s repertoire.
At the London Olympics in 1948, one of the competitors became the first person to do it upside down (inverted cross), and he would have received the bonus for originality. Since then it became a standard, and expected, part of every competitor’s routine, and does not attract any bonus points.

Virtuosity … The judges look for at least one element in every routine, whether it is a mount or a tumble or whatever, where they could consider that the athlete would be amongst the best in the world in that particular element, before they would award this bonus in the overall score.

It became quickly obvious to me that these 3 criteria are just as critical in the business world, and I have included an element of these in my performance reviews over the years.

Calculated risk is a critical element of business success not only at the organizational but also at the personal level, whether it is standing up to one’s boss, or speaking up for your beliefs against a generally popular decision, or choosing one particular direction from a vast choice and sticking with it to a successful conclusion, and I have always sought and encouraged this level of bravery. A manager has to ensure that he can have some “crazy” people in his team who are prepared to question things and thus drive change, if allowed. Too many people take the safer route, which involves keeping ones head below the parapet, not questioning decisions taken, joining any stampedes and keeping away from taking individual and measureable risks. I believe that this is one reason why so many companies have built cultures of continual meetings. The justification is usually that it drives greater involvement, but the reality is that it is generally done for covering ones tracks. If the resultant team outcome is successful, everyone can lay claim to the decision. If it is a failure everyone can blend back into the safety and anonymity of the herd.

Originality, not just in product or service innovations, but also in how and what we do to address business need, are today more critical than ever, especially the “how”. How we build successful and loyal relationships within our ecosystem of customers, partners and suppliers. How we establish ourselves as an integral part of the community. How we build commitment and engagement with our own staff. Some years ago, to gain some competitive advantage, it was just about enough to develop an innovative step change in your product. In the automotive sector, for example, it could then take your competitors years to be able to catch up. With today’s technologies, product advantage even with the patent madness we have created, can generally only be measured in months. The “how” you do things is much harder for your competitors to emulate. What we did yesterday to be successful will not work today, and what we do today will be unlikely to work tomorrow. If we don’t keep changing we become predictable, and being predictable makes us competitively vulnerable.

Virtuosity in the Olympic gymnastics involves the judges looking for athletes to be amongst the best in the world. This ability to hire the best in the world is significantly harder in a business context, as most companies tend to hire the best that is available to them at the time, and this will depend heavily on how they go about targeting the pool that they will get to choose from. I worked with one company that believed that they were hiring the brightest and the best that were keen to be part of changing the world. When we surveyed the previous year’s intake, we found that the majority of them had joined for safety reasons, which was exactly the public image portrayed by this company. We quickly had to separate the recruitment image from the overall global company image to try and appeal to the needed would-be world changers.

I have never expected people to be the best in the world, but I have always expected and believed that, irrespective of their role, they owed it to themselves to be the best that they could be.

MANAGING YOUR CAREER

Les Hayman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:25:50 +0000

I have found that most people do very little to manage their own careers.

The majority of people seem to work their way through their jobs with varying degrees of skill and commitment, and wait for opportunities to present themselves, then pick the ones that they consider to be the best out of what is on offer. It is therefore no great surprise that many people seem to have much to complain about in their present role, whatever it is.

I believe that it is critical that you plan out your career much more proactively, by looking up in the organization at people that you admire, and at the roles that you seriously believe that you would want to have, and work a career and development plan that supports your ability to move along that trajectory. Of course it is mandatory that you have the required capabilities, or can develop them, so it helps to be personally honest in this assessment.
I have met a lot of people who could tell me that in the future they wanted to be a CEO for example, but who had little or no idea of the steps that they would need to take to get there, neither the upward movements needed nor the personal development plan to build the commensurate skills. These sort of career aspirations are just based on hope, and hope is never a strategy.

It is also critical that you find a good mentor. Most people wait (and hope) for the company to appoint one which I believe to be totally wrong. It is better to pick someone you admire and respect that is on your trajectory, and approach them directly. Very few senior executives are personally approached by younger people and asked to be their mentors. Most of them too wait for the system to appoint their mentees, and I am sure that both sides would prefer to make their own choices, rather than have someone in HR, for example, make these decisions for them.

To make this approach you must be well prepared and be able to articulate your case, your reasoning, and also, critically, why it would be important and beneficial to the mentor, as well as the benefits to the company. You should also have a plan of what you intend to do, and what you will need from the mentor. In other words you will need to sell yourself, and nothing makes a sale easier than being prepared and understanding the needs of the buyer (mentor), as well as a good understanding of the product (you).

I have also found that there are 3 Golden rules that are the starting point for at least managing the enjoyment and fulfillment of what you are doing, and therefore at least creating the potential for some success in your career. These are:

1. Never do a job you hate.
2. Never work for a boss you can’t respect.
3. Never work for a company you can’t be proud of.

I am constantly amazed by the number of people I come across who hate what they do, but do it anyway. If you do a job that you hate, there is a really good chance that you won’t do it well anyway, so it is unlikely that you will get moved out of it to something more interesting and exciting. It often boils down to money. People will tolerate a job they dislike because it pays more than what they would really like to do.
However, I believe that if you can do something that you really love, not only will it make your life more worthwhile, but if you do it really well, there is a good strong chance that the money and rewards will come anyway. I am particularly dismayed by the number of people I come across in management roles that would have preferred to have stayed in the role of an individual contributor, but moved into management to get more money, more influence, more prestige. I regularly have to spend time with companies that I work with, helping them to build dual career paths to overcome this lack of opportunity for great professionals.

I have been fortunate in my career over the last 40+ years to have worked for some outstanding managers, and I have not stuck very long in a role where my immediate supervisor was not someone that I could look up to and respect. From surveys done regularly, it appears that the vast majority of people change jobs because they haven’t been able to build a solid working relationship with their immediate boss. It is not surprising, as your immediate supervisor is the one who basically decides what you do, whom you do it with, how you are measured, how you are rewarded, how you are developed and what opportunities are presented to you. In other words they control your entire work future, so it makes no sense to stay with someone who sees that future as being very limited.

Lastly, you have to ask yourself whether you would readily try to entice people that you know, admire and respect to come and join the company that you work for, and whether you talk about your employer with enthusiasm and excitement to your friends and family. One of my personal tests was always whether I was prepared to wear my employer’s logo on my chest on one of the many T- and Polo shirts that IT companies love to hand out.

I recently noticed that Air France staff have stopped wearing name tags, and that this is now voluntary rather than mandatory. This suggests to me that many (if not most) are actually not very proud of their job nor their company. When I questioned one staff member about this, she told me that management had advised them that if people had complaints they could complain about the company and not the individuals. This appalls me as I have always believed that companies are really just the sum of their individuals. No wonder that it is such a lackluster company when it comes to customer service.
These days, if I need help from someone in Air France, I always seek out someone with a name tag.
At least I then have a reasonable chance of talking to someone who actually “does give a damn” about their job, their company and hopefully about me as a customer.

I LIVE TO WORK OR I WORK TO LIVE

Les Hayman — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:59:15 +0000

The great thing about being a Manager is that you only have one primary objective.
All you have to do is to create an environment where people can be unbelievably successful.
I understand that this is easier to say than to do, but it’s not a bad starting point.

To me one of the critical measurements of this has always been whether your people will get up on a freezing cold, wet Monday morning and say “Thank God the weekend is over, I can now spend another 5 days at work”.

I am not talking about work/life balance here…. I am talking about work being an integral part of life.

I have always been staggered by how many people fail to make this association. I find it hard to understand how many people have the attitude that they have to “work” 5 days per week so that they can “live” the other 2 days per week. This means that many people spend about 70% of their life doing something that they basically dislike so that they can then spend 30% of their life doing “fun” things … like watching TV ?

I will quite often ask people to list the 10 things that they love doing most in life, based on the premise that if they could spend the major part of their life doing these 10 things that this would make their life more enjoyable, more interesting and more fulfilling. It is very rare that people put “watching Television” down as one of their Top 10, and yet it is amazing how much time people actually spend in front of the Box. The trouble is that it is just too easy to drop down on a sofa in front of the TV after a “hard day’s work”, even if there is nothing worth watching, and anyway, it is critically important that we are up-to- date with the News …. much more acceptable an excuse than watching the 56th rerun of “Friends”, which will be on next anyway.

In most cases the Top 10 things that we actually love to do tend to take some time, effort and planning… it’s a lot easier to just plonk ourselves down on the sofa. There has to be something worthwhile due to come on at some time on at least one of the 500 channels that are available.

WRONG !!!

I have numerous Anglophone friends in France that have both French and English satellite TV, which theoretically should give them about 1000 channels to choose from, but in reality they actually have access to about 20 channels repeated 50 times, just in different languages.

Now that I live in France, I am fascinated by the National obsession with retirement. Even 25 year olds freshly out of university, and starting their first job seem to already have their eye on when they can retire.
So can one assume that retirement in France means that a whole new world will open up when this Valhalla-like point arrives. That it will herald a whole new period of creativity and learning , and catching up with all those things that full-time work kept one away from.

It appears not to be the case. Most retirees seem to spend their time in front of their TV or sitting outside their cottage watching the traffic go by. I once got into trouble by suggesting at a conference that France could solve all its Energy needs by hooking up the chins of retirees to the National Grid. That way we could at least get some benefit out of all those heads swiveling round as another Peugeot or Citroen went through the village at warp speed.

I understand that there are many people who have had little choice in what they have had to do in life, and I deeply sympathise with them. However I don’t sympathise with those people I come across more often that are well educated and intelligent enough to make choices in their lives, and do little but complain about their lot.
In these cases, my advice is that if you won’t change your job, at least change your attitude. This is, after all, something that you can control 100%.

FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE

Les Hayman — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:54:39 +0000

I have lived and worked in Europe for the last 9 years after more than 30 years working in the IT Sector in NZ, Australia, Singapore and the USA, and have worked with, for, and also been responsible for, hundreds of different Managers at varying levels of seniority in that time. I came to Europe with high expectations of what I would find from a Management skills perspective. I have to say that I have been extremely disappointed by not only the Management skills that I have found here, but also by the attitude that I have found towards building professional Management.

Europe has generally not built a culture of management as a profession, not built a culture where management skill is highly valued as critical a skill as vocational excellence, but has tended to build business cultures where management as a science, as an art, as a way of life is seen as just an add-on. In many cases, management excellence is only seen as a “nice to have” rather than as a mandatory set of skills in senior executives. There is a lot of discussion in Europe about “leadership” and this is often transposed and confused for “management”, but in most European countries, the objective is the discussion itself, rather than the desire to go beyond this alone … discussion means that you can sound knowledgeable without ever having to do something that can actually be measured. It means that the Academics can expound all their theories about Management, without ever having had to live them. I have had numerous arguments with Academics in most countries when I felt that their theories could not work in practice. They tended to believe that this was acceptable as my Management practices could not work in their theory anyway. The problem is that this “academic attitude” is also prevalent in much of the Business World.

When I first joined the SAP Extended Board in 1999, I was the then CEO/President of SAP Asia Pacific. We had worked very hard over the previous 5 years to ensure that at SAP APA we had implemented working Management Evaluation, assessment and development programmes in place for all levels of management, and I felt that this was something seriously absent in SAP on a Global basis. When I put a proposal in front of the Board to turn this Management Excellence@SAP Programme into a global reality, I had some interesting reactions from other Board members. One of the executives in particular told me that he felt that Managers were like horses, and that in life you were “…. either born a race horse or a draft horse, and race horses shouldn’t pull carts and draft horses shouldn’t run at Epsom”. His feeling was that any intelligent, well educated, skilled professional could become a manager, and that being intelligent, he would work out what he needed to do in his own time.

Interesting approach, but I have always believed that the difference between a race-horse that looked good, and was well bred, and a racehorse that could actually win races was how well that race horse was trained, and how well he had been prepared beforehand for what was expected of him.

The idea that you could leave a racehorse sitting in a field until race day when you threw a saddle and a jockey on his back, and then expected him to know what to do, and perform well, made as much sense as believing that you could just wake up one morning and play Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, having never actually learned to play a musical instrument. Moreover, whilst this brilliant-to-be Manager was acquiring his skills, what was happening to the people for whom he had been given responsibility?

Even after we had gone ahead (initially on a “skunk works”) with some enthusiasts from across the Company, and then successfully implemented the needed Management Development Programmes on a global basis, and had started to put some measurable value on Management as a skill, and as an asset, at SAP, I still would receive messages from this particular Executive with jokes about “flogging a dead horse”.

The belief that Europe will grow and develop as a major economic powerhouse that will be able to compete against the Americas and the Asians, appears to be more of a hope than a real strategy. I doubt that this will be possible until we all understand that skilled management and leadership is a critical starting point for success, that these don’t just happen because we wish them to, and that creating these skills involves more than just spending a few weeks at INSEAD and then handing out titles.

VIVE LA FRANCE

Les Hayman — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:27:06 +0000

The French Unions have called for National Strikes in response to the Government’s announcement that it will raise the official pensionable retirement age in France from 60 to 62.

This could be the first real test of the Sarkozy Government and its resolve to drive through needed reforms to ensure that France doesn’t implode economically. So far the Sarkozy Government and the Unions have been nervously circling each other without any real attempt to test the others “stomach” for an all out confrontation.

In Australia the qualifying pensionable age is 65 phasing to 67 by 2017, in Germany it has recently been raised from 65 to 67, in New Zealand it is 65 but with pressure to move to 67, as just some examples where there appears to at least be an acceptance that falling birth rates and ageing populations demand critical changes.

It is heavily supported by changing life expectancies, which in France have risen from an average for both sexes of 68 in 1950 to 80.7 in 2005 (Gilles Pison, Population and Societies 410, INED March 2005). At the same time, by comparison, Australia’s has similarly risen to 81.2, Germany to 79.4 and New Zealand to 81.2 (Figures from United Nations statistics (2005-2010).

It does appear that moving France’s retirement age to 62 is in reality a very minimal step considering the situation with retirement conditions in the rest of the world.

The notion that what is past is past and that this generation needs to ensure that we live up to our responsibilities rather than to just pass the problems on to the next generation does not appear to sit well with French Unionists. There is an attitude that as others have benefitted from easier conditions in the past, so now it is their turn to benefit in the same way, and to hell with the consequences… someone else can clean up the mess. I see this as being exactly the sort of selfish, “I’m all right Jacques” attitude that could flush this country down the gurgler.

It is obvious that we cannot continue with the excesses of the past, as these were totally unsustainable. The French Budget Deficit is estimated this year to be at least 5.6% of GDP, which is well beyond the EU ruling of less than 3%, and even higher than Greece (which has just crashed) at 3.7%. Even the UK, who have at least admitted that they are in a “parlous” state at 4.6%, have started to take measures to address the issues with an austerity budget, and serious clampdowns on public sector spending.

Strikes in France appear to be one of the main National Sports, and with France having been knocked out of the World Cup, there appears to be little else to satisfy the sporting hunger.

What I find most amazing is that in France only about 10% of all employees are actually Union members, whereas even Australia and New Zealand are over 20% (OECD Figures, from EIRO in France), so ultimately they represent only a very small percentage of the French population. It is therefore madness that in the past, successive French Governments have backed down on needed reforms whenever the Paris crowds took to the streets in opposition.

Most French people I know are hard working, responsible people who understand that France, like most other countries, has to rein in the excesses of the past, and that there will be a price that we will all, jointly have to pay.

The Sarkozy Team was voted into power in the belief that they would “have the balls” (quote from Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Finance in a BBC Interview 24^th June 2010) to execute these reforms that were needed to bring France back to economic health.

For the sake of my adopted country, I dearly hope that the French Voters and Christine Lagarde were right.

GROWING A NEW LEG

Les Hayman — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:12:57 +0000

I was in Belgrade, Serbia, recently to speak at a conference of Business people.

On the way in from the Airport to my hotel, I asked the young driver as to whether he felt that things had improved or worsened since my last trip to Belgrade a year earlier. He said that he felt that things had gotten worse, but that it was all going to be all right soon, as the Government had said that things would get better next year.

It seems that all around the world, people are waiting for the Economic Crisis to end, and for things to get better sometime next year.

I think that it is time that we stopped talking about this Financial Crisis as though it was something that was about to end, and started talking about the New Economic Reality instead, as I believe that this environment of economic restraint, of uncertainty and of regular market heaving surprises will be with us for a long time.

Companies (and individuals) who sit around waiting for things to get better are a lot like a man with one leg sitting around waiting for it to grow back … it just isn’t going to happen !

A man with one leg needs to get on with living. He can go out and get a prosthetic leg and get on with his life. It will not be the same as before, and he will need to make some adjustments, but it can still be a good and worthwhile life. In the same way, I believe that Companies need to get on and learn to live within the new Economic Environment in which we now find ourselves. It will not be the same as before, as obviously that was unsustainable, but it can still be a worthwhile existence.

Waiting for “the Government” or the “Central Bank” or some other external body to make the Business Environment better doesn’t make any more sense than the man with one leg waiting to develop lizard-like qualities so that he can regenerate a limb.

The success of the Companies and Organisations that we are part of depends totally on the ability to adjust our business models and our thinking to the new realities, and the sooner we can make these adjustments the more successful we will be.

If by some fluke of chance Governments and Central banks do work out some way of making things better for us all, we should just take this as an added bonus, rather than something that we were all depending on.

TEACHING OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS

Les Hayman — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:14:12 +0000

I have been regularly surprised about how many Managers I come across who believe that a valid Management approach is to look for people to do something wrong and then to help them correct it. I surmise that this satisfies two basic urges that these managers must have. The first one is that it gives them a chance to prove that they are more skilled than their subordinate, and therefore justify their elevated position, and secondly it gives them a chance to show that they have retained the Vocational skills that made them the brilliant “engineer” that they were in the first place. For many this helps to overcome the worry that being just a “manager” is not enough.

I have always believed that this is totally the wrong approach, and I am reminded of a friend of mine in New Zealand who went through a rather messy divorce. After the departure of his wife and son, he realized that he was rather lonely and decided that he should get a puppy to keep him company during the evenings and weekends.

Unfortunately the puppy got into the habit of peeing on the floor of his bedroom. Being a skilled “Engineer”, and seeing a problem that needed solving, he attacked this problem with incredible zeal. Every time that he found a puddle of pee, he would grab the puppy by the scruff of the neck, drag it into the bedroom, rub its nose in the pee, slap it on the rump with a piece of rolled up newspaper, and throw the puppy out of the window. ( he had a one story house so no need to call the SPCA). He could justify this approach by rationalizing that he had shown the puppy the problem (pee on the floor), had administered the resulting punishment (slap), and had shown the solution (do it outside).

After about 10 days of this the puppy started going into the bedroom, peeing on the floor and jumping out the window.

The problem with this approach to problem solving is that the puppy obviously understood the process. It was just trying to cut out the bits that it didn’t like …. It didn’t like having its nose rubbed in the pee nor being slapped with the newspaper.

People are no different.

When we make mistakes, none of us particularly like having our noses rubbed in it, neither do we like being punished for it.

As a result, when Managers take this approach to problem solving, the result is that people take the same approach as the puppy… they start to cut out the bits that they don’t like, such as being caught, reprimanded and punished, which means that mistakes often get hidden rather than being made visible and resolved jointly.

The way to train a newly acquired puppy to pee where you want it to, means that you have to dedicate at least the first weekend to training the puppy on what is expected. You do this by taking the puppy out to the required dog loo every 30 minutes or so, and waiting for the puppy to pee. When it does (and they do a lot), you praise it lavishly, and at the same time give it a command as it does the job. It will very quickly associate the praise and fuss with doing the job in the right way, in the right place, and very quickly the command (like “busy, busy, busy” which we use with our five dogs) becomes the suggestion to the dog that it is time it went outside and relieved itself. The early positive re-enforcement of the behavior that is required, quickly gets established as the pattern of behavior that should be followed.

In this respect, people are not very different.

You can achieve a lot more as a Manager by looking for your people to do something right, and then reinforcing that behavior with praise and reward, than by waiting for the mistakes. I understand that there are times when the mistakes need to be addressed, but if the culture of positive re-enforcement is the predominant one in the group, the need to occasionally address the problems becomes easier to deal with and has less negative impact on the group’s ability to work openly and well together.

Equality Bill, Diversity Management

Damian Williams — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Diversity management is one of the largest challenges organisations will face over the next decade. Making sure an organisation has a successful mix of staff from different genders, races, ages and ability levels is not only becoming a legal requirement but is also crucial to ensuring staff satisfaction and positive career outlook. Staff diversity also brings a varied skill set and a valuable range of experience to the company. Skilfully implemented diversity management can have a large impact on a company’s future competitive success. But what are the key challenges and opportunities and how can an organisation effectively tackle this highly complicated task?

The UK job market is constantly evolving thanks to the thriving EU-wide staff pool, increasing globalisation, a growth in outsourcing and the development of UK-based multinational companies. Alongside the cultural, racial and religious-based issues that must be considered with new staff coming into the country, ever-changing diversity legislation helps to keep managers on their toes.

Global workforce issues, discrimination, gender pay gaps, glass ceilings and providing appropriate opportunities and working environments for disabled staff, ensure the onus is on modern companies to develop extensive and well-planned diversity policies. Managers must then make sure their policies are implemented properly to avoid the various legal consequences.

The days of legislation driving diversity are fading. This year’s Equality Bill tasks public sector companies and their private sector partners to assess their diversity policies and get their houses in order. Attention must be paid to this new legislation to avoid possible employee litigation and hefty governmental fines. Companies are now scrambling to define their policies, establish effective audit procedures and manage their information to adhere to the new rules. Transparency is the key to the Equality Bill. Ensuring companies face up to their responsibilities and be seen doing so, can only bring benefit to the UK’s workforce as a whole.

Developing and adhering to diversity policies does not only benefit an organisation by protecting it from legal risk. Diversity can breed a thriving and profitable company whilst increasing its wellbeing and ambition. A positive atmosphere of equality and fair play, with opportunities clearly available for all, will make the organisation a pleasure to work in and attract new desirable talent. Motivated, fairly-treated staff are more likely to strive to be the best they can be, providing benefits to both the organisation and the individual.

But it’s easy to talk about diversity; implementing diversity policies can be more complicated, especially in larger companies. The execution of new diversity plans and their corresponding results can take some time to appear. For example, simply reporting a snapshot of the current employee makeup may reveal diversity issues but these can take over a year to fix from instigation to impact. Creating and rolling out procedures, assessing their current workforce and predicting future trends all have significant time and cost implications for managers and HR that cannot be overlooked. For this reason, it’s important that organisations start their diversity management as soon as possible.

A good diversity management plan should be quite straightforward and centre on the core topics of gender, race, disability, age and religion. The various issues emanating from each topic are complicated and far too extensive to be covered in one article. However, there are certain all-encompassing areas that can be addressed to put your organisation on the right path.

Firstly, putting the right systems and technology in place will help a company effectively manage diversity. The analysis of existing staff makeup, the tracking and projection of trends and most importantly the logging of documents, communications and other collateral relating to these actions can and should be implemented through an interlinked diversity system. Larger companies will find the size of their task comparative to the size of their organisation, and enlist the support and technology appropriate to their needs.

Secondly, put in place plans and systems for the whole recruitment process, such as advertising, short-listing, interviewing and selecting should be an initial step. Companies can start looking at their existing staff and implement systems for checking staff makeup to ensure that going forward, all groups are represented appropriately. The appraisal system of an organisation should be rigorously over-hauled if necessary. Fair and honest measurement, achievable objectives, appropriate promotion and remuneration should all be provided under an umbrella of accountability and transparency.

Internal harassment, grievance and disciplinary procedures are also of paramount importance to the company. All employees have the right to work in a pleasant environment, free from discrimination and bullying. The Disability Discrimination Act also forced companies to sit up and respond to any potential problems for disabled employees. Companies may think that they already comply well with these aspects of employment law – but is their workforce really able to cope in a sensitive and professional manner with a colleague undergoing gender transformation? Is the line management currently able to adapt to a new team member who needs completely bespoke training due to a physical disability?

There are also likely to be many other processes and actions to monitor and control that are specific to a particular organisation. It’s important that HR professionals pick apart all internal processes for their own organisations that could influence diversity and adjust their own plans and policies accordingly.

Another major part of organisational diversity is being as prepared as possible to counteract criticism. A core benefit of effective diversity management is the creation of clear and interlinked audit trails. Once implemented, these should then be able to help protect against alleged legal breaches whilst also improving the administrative burden of diversity management. Companies can then easily demonstrate their compliance with diversity and anti-discriminatory legislation. They will have access to appropriate and coherent documentation should an employee or union complaint reach a legal stage. The monitoring and recording of information relating to diversity should then become a simple, routine process and thus a way of life for an organisation.

The government’s Equality Bill was specifically designed to create a wave of diversity in public sector and their private sector suppliers. The Equality Bill was initially proposed to cover every company and organisation without discrimination, if you’ll excuse the pun. But with many private sector companies behind the public sector in their diversity management, the Bill was reduced in scope. But this certainly isn’t the end of legally imposed diversity in the private sector and private-sector companies should not sit back and wait for diversity management to be legally forced upon them, especially if they are trading with public sector organisations.

Future legislative changes will only increase the pressure on companies to put diversity on their boardroom agenda. While many organisations will groan, the ramifications of a diversity ‘wave’ can be highly positive. The implementation will be difficult for some but now is the time that savvy companies can take the initiative, dominate diversity and come out better-suited to the needs of our multicultural society and their own respective markets. With diversity being managed properly, we’ll be left with a better environment for the public and private sectors and of course, for employees.

Damian Williams is MD of ROC UK

The Equality Bill – Time to Sit Up and Take Notice

Damian Williams — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Government’s Equality Bill, announced by Deputy Labour leader and Equalities Minister Harriet Harman in July, has been long anticipated by public sector organisations and long dreaded by many of them. While the anticipation of the Bill and the implications it has for the sector have been heavily discussed, it appears that it may have caught many unawares. Data is yet to be released on the sector’s compliance with the bill but with a spate of new employee litigation filed shortly after its reading, it sends a clear message to organisations that aren’t ready that they need to get ready soon.

The first major implication of the Bill is the impact it will have on the private sector. The government hopes to use it to bring both public organisations and their private sector suppliers into line on diversity management. From now on, companies bidding for contracts worth £160bn a year can actually lose work if their competitors have a better record on equality in the workplace. Likewise existing suppliers may find themselves playing catch-up to compete with dynamic and diverse equality-ready suppliers as a wave of diversity compliance sweeps public sector procurement.

To the unprepared, bringing an organisation in line with the bill could be a difficult task and is definitely more than a box ticking exercise. The Bill is a real legal minefield, providing many potential stumbling blocks for unsure HR departments. Complying will require a step change in the way some those dealing with HR issues operate in order to avoid being taken to the cleaners by legally-wronged or, of course, underhanded employees.

The Equality bill brings together over 100 separate pieces of legislation covering areas of race, sex, age, religion, disability and more. Basically anything about a worker (that doesn’t obviously prevent them from doing a job) that could be classed as discriminatory, features. Examples of this include: removing gags on discussion of pay to eliminate gender pay differences and promoting provision of employment and appropriate working environments for older people.

One could be fooled into thinking that the Bill was a completely negative thing for the sector but it shouldn’t be viewed like this. In many ways the Bill is an opportunity – why? Well to start with, it brings together a heap of disparate legislation meaning it is now much easier for organisations to get their heads around what they should be doing and recording regarding diversity. The Bill also paves the way for a diversity code of practice to aid compliance, so it may yet become even easier to comply with the tenets of the bill and get organisational diversity on track. It should also help well-prepared organisations avoid possible legal trouble in our increasingly litigious culture.

A central tenet of the Bill is in encouraging transparency in diversity management. The law now allows the Equality Commission to set-up investigative tribunals who can then request and assess appropriate documentation to support an organisation’s diversity claims or of course claims against them. A lack of clear documentation could lead to court orders and hefty fines. The Bill also provides ample ammunition for critics and lawyers to hit an organisation with. So to avoid being caught out the onus is really on being as prepared as humanly possible to counteract criticism.

What this means for an organisation is a need to record all pieces of important information that relate to diversity and highly detailed audit trails demonstrating compliance with the Bill. The Bill calls this the public sector’s ‘Equality Duty’ and puts pressure on organisations to attend to the key areas of gender pay, ethnic minority, disability and age representation and religion.

The trouble is that the audit trails needed to back up an organisation’s diversity credentials can quickly become highly complex and highly admin-intensive. Consider having to log all background details on recruitment ads, interviews and recruitment decisions, promotions, pay rises, bonuses, disciplinaries and grievances – understandably this can become a real bottomless pit for man-hours. Having the right systems and technology in place can help an organisation create clear and interlinked audit trails which can then mitigate against alleged breaches of the bill and of course remove some of the administrative burden.

Some important areas of diversity that organisations should think about straight away are: employment advertising, dealings with recruitment agencies, communications on appointments, disciplinary actions, documents pertaining to promotions, demotions, position applications and so on. There are likely to be many other processes and actions to log that are specific to a particular organisation. So it’s important that HR execs pick apart all internal processes for their own organisations that could influence diversity and adjust how they comply with the Bill accordingly. And it makes sense to do this sooner rather than later. Compliance requires a lot of forward thinking and planning and cannot be carried out in a piecemeal fashion. For example, simply reporting a snapshot of the current employee makeup may reveal diversity issues but these can take over a year to fix from instigation to impact. So waiting until the law comes into effect could leave organisations exposed for some time while they wait for revised policies to flow through.

Some commentators have derided the bill for the fact it will not be imposed upon the private sector. However it’s likely that disastrous and costly consequences of being shut-out of public sector procurement will have a large effect on private companies. With the FT reporting the public sector outsourcing has doubled over the last ten years to £80bn this year, there is an even larger onus on the sector to sit up and take notice. As a long term-view the government has signalled its hope that private organisations will actually start reporting on diversity in company accounts and that shareholders will start using this as important indicator of a company’s investment prospects.

For public sector organisations to be able to enforce diversity checks in their own procurement it is vital that they first get their own houses in order. While in the long term it may more efficient for a company to bring in an HR consultant to overhaul policies, there are avenues that can be looked at right away. Putting in place plans for the whole recruitment process, such as advertising, vetting, interviewing, selection should be an initial step. After this companies can start looking at their existing staff and implement systems for checking staff makeup to ensure that going forward, all groups are represented appropriately. Once these systems, whether developed in-house or bought-in, are in place the monitoring and analysis of pay deals, new employees, promotions and as a result compliance with the Bill should become much more simple. Indeed, once the appropriate policies are in place diversity management should become a way of life for an organisation.

While many organisations will have groaned at the announcement of the Equality Bill, in the end the ramifications for both the public and private sectors should be broadly positive. The shakeup will be painful for some but now is the time that savvy companies can take the initiative, dominate diversity and come out better suited to the needs of our multicultural society. Hopefully, after the shakeup, we’ll be left with a better environment for the public sector, private companies and, of course, for employees.

Damian Williams is MD of ROC UK

Talent Management: Nothing to do with employee benefits?

Damian Williams — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Talent management is the current buzzword in HR. Talent management is the identification, recruitment, development and deployment of a company's most capable employees. It is a strategy used by employers to improve the retention ratio of their best staff, increase employee loyalty and boost productivity.

Talent management is focused on growing the individual; concentrating on their training and development within the company, while ensuring there are always successors in place that are suitable for key positions should someone leave.

Benefits have an important role to play in talent management. They form an intrinsic part of the value proposition that organisations offer new and existing employees. Flexible benefits can be worth their weight in gold in the employee retention stakes. Research published by the Economist this year, called Talent Wars - The struggle for tomorrow's workforce, discovered that salaries and employee benefits still rank extremely highly in designing a new value proposition for tomorrow's workforce (56%), second only to providing for a better work-life balance through offering flexible working arrangements in terms of hours and place of work (62%).

Structuring a flexible employee benefits programme so staff can select the incentives that are pertinent to their lifestyle is a key weapon in the arsenal of talent management and the retention of star employees. When an organisation is attracting new talent and a candidate is deciding between several offers, it can boil down to what an organisation can offer them. Flexible employee benefits allow the employer to appeal to a diverse range of applicants, and attract good quality candidates.

The ability to mix and match benefits, from pensions and childcare, to holiday allowances and gym memberships, performs a key role in organisations' approach to attracting talent. What appears to be a benefit for one employee may be less important to another, for example, pensions are often less attractive to the younger workforce but become important later on in life.

Although talent management is a corporate level strategy and benefits are ultimately employee incentives, the two are inherently linked. The return on investing time and money in attracting, training, nurturing and retaining key players in the company is diminished if a flexible approach to benefits is not offered as well.

Damian Williams is MD of ROC UK