Annual Do 2018

Our sixth one!

Not bad for a one-off experiment, huh?

As a great believer in Bert Lance’s mantra of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, this year’s annual do was largely a case of evolution rather than revolution. So the format remained unchanged, and the only real breaks from tradition were:

·     Fulham’s season ending on a positive. Ordinarily Day One coincides with a dismal end to a mediocre season.

·     A “gala dinner”. OK, it wasn’t black tie and posh frocks, but the food was good, as was the company!

Continuing on from last year’s successful multi-media innovation of having the presentations accessible on the cloud rather than through circulating billions of bytes of data via email, if you click on the following link then…ta-dah!...away you go.

http://jmp.sh/b/FXntRsjo53GkZbZ6TsAL

As ever, Day One kicked off with our guest CEO. It was a pleasure to welcome the boss from my Polycom days to the stage (such as it was – “floor” would be a more accurate description). Steve Leyland, Chairman and acting CEO of Electrosonic gave an overview of his journey to date, leadership pearls of wisdom, and thoughts around what he looks for from his HR team. Key takeaways:

·     Get the top team right, fire on all cylinders, encourage constructive confrontation.

·     Recognize that the world of work has changed, so embrace technology to drive collaboration and celebrate cultural diversity.

·     Focus on the talent as much as you focus on the numbers.

Next up was Clive Bunyan and Rachel Locke to provide an overview of Ciena’s “Better Conversations” initiative.

·     This has seen Ciena move away from a ratings-based annual performance review process to an any-time discussion on performance and development.

·     They have also introduced grade transparency, so any employee can see how they are paid relative to the range they are in.

Jeff Wellstead then led an interactive session with The Pioneers on understanding and improving “employee experience”. The room split up in to 4 teams to work on a simple model which encourages the experience of an employee to be put at the centre of looking at any work-related process. The intrinsic motivators behind any employee experience is one or a combination of:

·     Belonging (our need to fit it).

·     Significance (our desire to stand out).

·     Fairness (our aspiration to be treated equitably).

·     Autonomy (our preference for our own choices).

·     Positive emotions (wanting to feel happy).

·     Progress (our impulse to improve).

·     Meaning (our drive to do something valuable).

Following some sarnies and crisps, Adam Hartley from DLA maintained tradition and took the post-lunch graveyard slot to talk about the major employment law developments within the UK. Brexit may have been mentioned. GDPR definitely was!

RBI’s Jo Portlock discussed the steps that the Tech Talent Charter are taking to address the shortage of women in technology.

·     Signatories commit to a set of undertakings that aim to deliver greater diversity.

·     There is access to case studies and best practice from signatories who have made changes to their recruitment and retention practices to encourage diversity.

Brexit… It was inevitable that this would rear it’s head! Don Cuthbert, Tom English and Ian Tomlinson-Roe from the newly created Centre for Organisational Intelligence led a working session to:

·     Establish the various approaches being taken following the June 2016 referendum.

·     Rank the top 3 challenges.

The day ended with a spot of “conscious leadership”. Nicky Pharoah from The Learning Curve led an interactive discussion on the following core components:

·     Compassion.

·     Emotional intelligence.

·     Trust.

·     Leadership conversations.

·     Pause.

·     Purposeful energy.

Day Two started with a guy with a brain the size of a planet. In a thought-provoking session, Robbie Stamp (CEO of Bioss) discussed the implications of AI on the working world, and (by virtue of it’s unique position in an organization) the key role HR have to play in thinking through the potential implications of any AI deployment on areas such as ethics, governance, authority, autonomy, accountability, etc.

Next up was Eliot Sherman from the London Business School, who took us through:

·     Some stats around the gender wage gap.

·     The causes of the gender wage gap.

·     Things that have not worked in trying to address the gap.

·     Things that may work…

What do you get if you cross a cup of tea with 6 sugarlumps in it and a bar of chocolate with a liberal dose of love? The human whirlwind that is Yetunde Hofmann, founder of HLC and CIPD board member. Key takeaways:

·     Leadership is about clarity of understanding of where you want to go, knowledge of how to get there, and the ability to mobilise people to follow you.

·     It is also about love, which she defined as an unconditional acceptance of self and of others, as opposed to any more hanky-panky oriented definition.

·     HR’s role is to rethink the workforce relationship, and challenge the business to think about what difference love would make, what barriers there may be, and how these can be overcome.

Following lunch, Adam Hartley took us through the main legal developments within various EU territories.

Nigel Baldwin then took the floor to take us through the Smart Working initiative he project-managed at Thales. Key drivers included site consolidation, reduction in real estate and travel costs, technology adoption, etc. The reach of the project therefore incorporated:

·     Flexible working.

·     Travel and meetings.

·     Tools and technology.

·     Teamwork.

·     Environments.

·     People management.

Bringing the event to a close was Palantir’s Jason Pierantozzi and Matt Bilton. They took us through the deployment of Workday, and the ability to use this as a lever to:

·     Automate certain processes. They focused on onboarding as an example.

·     Transform the employee experience.

And that, as they say, was that. It was all over for another year, bar the customary end-of-event beer or two.

As ever, “muchas gracias” to Adam and the team at DLA Piper, for putting up with us for a couple of days, and for the employment law updates.

Thanks too for all the delegates who took time out of their busy schedules to take part and make the event what it is – a good craic.

And finally I invite all the presenters to take a bow. A large thanks for sharing your thoughts and expertise.

Right – I’m going to put my feet up for a bit, watch Fulham win the playoff final at Wembley next weekend, and then I may get around to planning our 7^th Annual Do.

Until then!

Annual Do 2017

By cracky, has another year really flown by?

Well, yes, it has actually. 

And what a year it has been!

Brexit. Trump. Elections elsewhere across Europe too. And not forgetting the global impact of Brangelina, of course. And so it was against a backdrop of political, economic, social and celeb uncertainty that the IHRF gathered for it's 5th annual get-together.

What follows is a short summary of the two days. However, for the first time ever, whilst reading all about it you can also access the presentations by clicking on the following link. Cool, eh? 

http://jmp.sh/dCeHd2c

Hopefully it works - I have a patchy record when it comes to technology :)

So without further ado, let's go!

Day One kicked off with our traditional "big cheese" slot, which was capably filled by Andy Smith, from Severn Trent. In taking us through his career journey and thoughts on HR, the key takeaways were:

- Get involved in the "muck and bullets". Understand the front line, experience the operations of the business. "The business" is not separate from HR!

- Make allowances for different ways of doing things in different countries.

- Always anticipate the human impact of what you are trying to do.

- Encourage diversity and business benefits will follow.

- The three ingredients for effective leadership - think, pace, team.

- Come armed with solutions, not just advice.

- Despite the proliferation of technology and advance of automation, "the human touch" is still vital.

Tiffany Gaskell from Performance Consultants International was up next. It's always good to get a true pioneer up on stage - PCI was founded by the late Sir John Whitmore, who did much to introduce coaching to the workplace and was the inventor of the GROW model. Tiffany led a practical and interactive session that encompassed the following:

- Performance equals Potential minus Interference (P = p - i).

- Coaching is a safe place to improve performance and unlock potential.

- There is a "performance curve" that interacts with culture to enable a move from "things happen", to "I follow the rules", to "I am a high performer", to "we are truly successful together".

Jasmine Gartner led a session on engagement. The main points were:

- Hardly any change in the % of employees who are disengaged, as per Gallup's research it has been at around 33% for the past 30 years. This costs the UK economy between £52bn and £70bn per year.

- The key drivers of engagement are the provision of a strategic narrative, and the feeling on the part of employees that they are being listened to.

- Surveys only work if they are regular, and something happens.

Jon Ingham (Strategic Dynamics) threw caution to the wind and relied on flipcharts rather than powerpoint. Brave man, but it worked well! Jon was all over the use and impact of social media before social media had really taken off, and took us through the key messages arising from his forthcoming book "The Social Organisation". 

- Social capital (people's connections, relationships and conversations) are as important as organisation capital (structures, systems, processes etc) and human capital (employees, and their skills and capabilities).

- Manage the paradox between HR's focus on the individual and the business being built around teams.

- OD drivers include people (communities, inward focus), infrastructure (functions, divisions), work (project teams) and relationships (networks with an outward focus). There are "melds" between these drivers.

- These drivers should be underpinned by social technologies e.g. WorkPlace by Facebook, Sharepoint, Slack, Jive.

John Bell from A Different View took us through the steps to take to develop an effective EVP. Key themes:

- Base it on "what is your why".

- Recognize different needs - one size doesn't fit all.

- The EVP needs actively managing across the entire HR lifecycle.

- There should be a clear connection with the values of the org, and how it also shows externally.

- Test with your customers, shareholders and other stakeholders before going live.

- Don't be tempted to try and explain everything in your EVP.

- Measure it...

Technology and mobility are driving a sea-change in how recognition in the workplace can be mobilized. Chase Dolomont from Achievers explored the 7 key principles for a successful recognition strategy:

- Make it inclusive.

- Make it pervasive. 

- Make sure leaders are involved in building a culture of recognition.

- Recognize frequently.

- Recognize with and without reward.

- Tie recognition to business values and goals.

- Leverage technology.

Day Two kicked off in sombre mood, at least on my part, given Fulham were knocked out of the playoffs the night before. Fortunately Nicola Josephs from the CEB was on hand to lift spirits with valuable insights on change management.

- Change is the new constant, on average organisations have experienced 5 enterprise changes in the last 3 years.

- Traditional models of top-down change need to shift to open source change, where change strategies are co-created with employees, there is employee ownership of change implementation plans, and communications focus on two-way dialog rather than one-way telling.

- Seven key "lessons": permanence isn't a requirement for success, repetition doesn't make change easier, employees have to get it rather than like it, change is key person rather than key leader dependent, employee readiness rather than willingness is key to success, a clear goal matters more than a perfect plan, and change implementation should be adaptable rather than consistent.

Mike Haffenden, he of CRF/PARC/Strategic Dimensions fame, was up next. In a week of manifestos, I suggested that he had done well in releasing the "HR Manifesto" before Jeremy Corbyn had launched the Labour Party's communist manifesto, and Theresa May had launched the Conservative Party's UKIP manifesto. He was clearly put our by being mentioned in the same breath as Jeremy Corbyn, but rallied well to challenge the "industry" that has built up around HR and propose through the HR Manifesto that the role of HR is to focus on where the true value is by delivering core operational services, creating a high performance work environment, managing talent, and improving performance. This is difficult work, and will require:

- Analysis before action.

- A theoretical underpin.

- A clear business case.

- Effective project planning and management.

- Involvement and communication.

- Delivery.

How exactly do you rev up team performance at a time when the pace of change means the average longevity of a team has been steadily decreasing? Stand up Alyse Ashton and Richard Spence from Team Healthcheck to lead a practical session to explore this with us. 

- Drive improvements in positivity and productivity.

- Be aware of what makes for an effective team e.g. psychological safety, shared airtime, empathy, leadership, stimulate social connections, etc.

- Encourage diversity in teams. 

- Constantly review which teams are important, what is working well, what can be improved.

- Use tools (e.g. Team Healtcheck!) to drive effectiveness.

John Stuart, founder and CEO of Active Inspiration, bounded up to the stage next. Funded by the European Space Agency and Oxford University, he outlined:

- The latest research that demonstrates a clear link between exercise, happiness, productivity and retention. 

- How the Active Inspiration platform shows that through enabling measurement, setting challenges, and providing rewards incentivizes people to exercise more.

- A major research project just launched in conjunction with Leeds University to set challenges across a number of employers to determine effectiveness and outcomes.

Diversity and inclusion has been an increasingly prominent part of our annual events, and Kalwant Gil (PatchWork Quilt) explored with us how to take diversity beyond the usual compliance route by looking at:

- How traditional approaches have not had the desired impact.

- Overcoming resistance to change.

- Ownership of initiatives. 

- Changing mindsets and perceptions.

- Incorporating diversity in to organisational culture and structures.

- Masculine and feminine traits and how they show up in leadership situations.

- The need to base any programs on sound situational analysis, leadership education and change management.

Drawing two days of fun and frolics to a close fell to Alan Crozier from q4. How do organisations become more resilient in a world of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity? By moving from fragile to agile... The key differentiators are:

- Role clarity.

- A culture that supports experimentation and innovation.

- Capturing external ideas.

- Having process-based capabilities.

- Strong operational discipline.

- Internal competitiveness. 

- Meaningful values.

- Knowledge sharing.

- Inspirational leaders.

- Ongoing performance reviews.

- Deploying an Agility Index to measure engagement (commitment and alignment). This can be accessed via www.q4metrics.com/agility/le

  

And with that, the 5th Annual Do was over, and the merry band of delegates decamped for a beer or two before heading off in to the driving rain.

As ever, a huge thanks to Adam Hartley and the team at DLA Piper for hosting the event, and also for providing the two employment law updates during the two days. 

Many thanks too for all the delegates who invested £0 in money but plenty in terms of their own time to come along and take part in this. The power of this event lies not just in what is heard up on stage, but also in what gets shared during the breaks.

And finally, a standing ovation accompanied by some whooping and hollering to all the contributors who gave up their valuable time to share their thoughts, perspectives and expertise. Hugely invaluable.

Will there be a 6th Annual Do? Of course... The planning for that will start in a few months time, and hopefully not coincide with GCSEs, Fulham in the play-offs, and assorted other distractions! Any volunteers for content, ideas, etc. gratefully received! 

Until then, toodlepip amigos :)

Brexit Update

I just thought it would be worth pulling together a quick update following Theresa May's speech yesterday.

She outlined the following 12 areas of focus.

To facilitate an opt-out of the principle of freedom of movement, and to avoid paying contributions to the EU budget, Britain will no longer be a member of the single market. 

Full membership of the customs union has been ruled out. The theory is that this will enable Britain to do free trade deals with other countries. She did howwever go on to muddy the waters somewhat by suggesting that we could be an "associate" member of the customs union.

Not surprisingly, the PM said that Brexit would enable Britain to control immigration from the EU. There were no specifics around what sort of immigration system there would be, or how Britain would be able to continue to "attract the brightest and the best" (her words).

Notwithstanding the last point, the PM did indicate that she wanted to guarantee the rights of the 3m EU citizens already living in Britain, as well as the rights of 1.2m British citizens living in other EU countries. 

There was a pledge to maintain freedom of movement across the Ireland / Northern Ireland border.

The PM said that the government would take back control of our laws and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice would end.

There was a pledge to continue to cooperate with the EU on crime, intelligence sharing, terrorism, law enforcement and foreign affairs.

The PM stressed the need for a "phased process of implementation" after the Article 50 process, rather than a cliff-edge. In particular, Britain will be seeking transitional deals on trade, immigration, customs systems, and financial services regulation.

On workers rights, the PM suggested that the government would not only protect the rights of workers set out in EU legislation, but build on them. 

The PM stated that she wanted Britain to continue collaboration with the EU on science, research and technology initiatives. 

The PM said that she wanted Brexit to strengthen the union, so will continue to hold joint ministerial committee meetings on EU negotiations.

Both Houses of Parliament will be given a vote on any final deal with the EU before it comes into force. In theory, a parliamentary veto of any deal would not stop Brexit, just the terms of any Brexit deal that had been laid before parliament. Most political commentators this morning have suggested in reality a veto would probably trigger a general election.

So where does this all leave us from an HR perspective?

In much the same position as before!

It is "business as usual" until:

1. Article 50 has been triggered.

2. The fine print of any deal becomes clearer...

3. ...and has been approved by both Houses of Parliament.

4. Any transitional arrangements have been implemented.

From an employment law perspective, the smart money remains on not making any significant changes to the basic structure of the current legal framework. Why?

- Much of the employment protection reflects accepted standards of good employee relations practices.

- Some EU legislation supplemented rights that were already enshrined in UK law.

- In some areas, UK law goes further than EU legislation.

- Some UK employment laws are domestic in origin.

- In maintaining strong trading relationships with Europe, the UK will need to demonstrate that it has minimum employment protections in place.

So at most we should expect to see changes to laws that will not be viewed as an erosion of any fundamental rights e.g. simplifying TUPE, agency worker regulations, redundancy consultation, holiday accrual and pay, etc.

Finally, as per my prior blog on this subject (see "Brexit Briefing"), during this time businesses should continue to maintain engagement and motivation during a prolonged period of uncertainty. 

And in the longer term, it remains to be seen whether Brexit will be followed by Grexit, Departugal, Italeave, Fruckoff, Czechout, Finish, Slovakout, Latervia, Byegium, and any other corny national terms for leaving the UE you can come up with :)