The second IHRF Annual Do took place over 14 and 15 May
2014.
Still a “Do”, as the proceedings are far too informal and
unstructured for a conference, and not quite trendy enough to be an
unconference…
And what a “Do” it was. Standing room only at times, and a
great mix of external gurus sharing their expertise, IHRF members with
innovative and interesting case studies, and of course Peter Cheese, he of CIPD
leadership fame.
Of course, as this is very much an amateur event there was
the odd hiccup along the way, but not too many people noticed them. Apart from
the first one, which happened right from the off, when the first presentation
disappeared in to the ether. It was enough to drive me to drink, and I probably
would have had a few, were it not for the fact that first up was Dr. Adam Winstock, one of the foremost
experts on addiction medicine. A slightly unusual opening to an HR event, but
an eye-opening one as he took us through the often overlooked (or even unknown)
perils of drug and alcohol use and its impact in the work environment. It was
quite mind-boggling to hear how many people actually do partake in the two
hours before they start the working day…
We then experienced a “slight crunching of the gears” as we
moved from addictions to trends in the world of European Works Councils, where Philip Sack explained where the next
developments were likely to be. Company-funded expert advice for the EWCs,
training, etc. along a battleground where the EC and other authorities are
looking to extend the roles of EWCs as opposed to the corporate world where
keeping the scope quite limited and narrow is the order of the day. It was
interesting to hear about the mixed experiences amongst the attendees with
EWCs. A necessary and largely pointless evil v. a force for good? Discuss…
Next up was Nigel
Baldwin, IHRF stalwart and award winning HR dude for the harmonization
project within Thales that he and fellow IHRF member Joe Ales presented last
year. This time around Nigel took us through Project Advance, which was an
initiative within Thales to identify the role of HR, its core processes, the
coverage model, and ultimately the skills of the entire UK HR team. The drivers
were to reduce costs, raise service quality, increase capabilities within HR,
improve the “customer experience” and make team members proud to be part of a
fit-for-use HR team. The CIPD’s competency framework for HR business partners
was used as the benchmark.
Nick South, from
Boston Consulting Group, then took us through some research conducted with the
EAPM which quantified the differences between companies with high capabilities
in managing people, and those with low capabilities. A number of practices
across 10 broad HR categories were identified, the key learnings were to ensure
alignment between company strategy and HR activity, to break down silos in
favour of effective cross functional and regional collaboration, and a
continuous monitoring of HR effectiveness through the use of effective data.
Following an employment law update from DLA’s Adam Hartley, Geoff Boot took to the floor to lead an
interactive session on the use of HR metrics. It was interesting to see the
proportion of the room where there was not a clear linkage between any HR
strategy and the metrics in use, along with the range of metrics used, and the
scope for what was notionally the same metric to have different meanings.
Possibly the hottest topic over the two days was the growing
trend in the world of performance management to move away from an annual
fixed-in-time, documented, ratings-based performance review process to
something that is ratings-free with no format and no set timing. Rod Ireland took us through the journey
they have been through in parts of Intel, whilst also drawing on Adobe’s
similar experiences. Whilst the desired goal of a more “natural”, engaging,
ongoing, coaching-based approach to performance management was widely accepted,
the steps required to get there along with the implications of de-coupling
processes traditionally dependent on a performance rating were seen as
potential issues to overcome.
The lure of alcohol and nibbles proved too difficult to
resist, so Day One came to an end…
Day Two got off to an inauspicious start with a couple of
hangovers, a presenter pulling out at short notice, and 9:30am passing with no
sign of our star guest, Peter Cheese,
CEO of the CIPD! Good old South West Trains… Fortunately Peter wasn’t too late, and what followed was a 90 minutes of insight in to Peter’s
thoughts on the role of HR, skills and capabilities within the function, and
the role of the CIPD. Refer to my separate blog on this for a more detailed
overview.
David Bickerton
then took us through the approach to employee engagement and the use of pulse
surveys at BP, which has undergone a shift following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
His key tips were to ensure that any surveys are quick to complete, that they have
visible and actionable outcomes, that there is sufficient focus not just on the
employee experience but also manager responsibility for championing engagement,
and that the results and hard-wired in to the business planning process. He
also had a cautionary tale around the need to ensure the data security of any
third party web based survey tools used…
It was then the turn of Marc
Weedon to take to the stage (well, the floor at the front of the meeting
room) to outline the approach that Ciena has taken to crafting out a 3 year
people plan. What were the key points? The promotion of global coherence and
consistency whilst recognizing the need for local adaptation. Ensuring the plan
is aligned to business strategy and values. Making sure that the plan defines,
resources and prioritizes key activities and has at its heart the ability to
attract, develop and engage top talent. And being clear about the critical
enablers – OD, change management, internal comms and HR capabilities in this
particular case.
Following a further employment law update, Mike Rugg-Gunn from Norman Broadbent’s
Leadership Consulting practice led an interactive session on the role of
psychometric assessments in the workplace. The room split in to various camps
to work through why they were believers, agnostic or non-believers, and then
these thoughts were shared amongst the wider group. The main learning was to
ensure that any tool used was appropriate for the task at hand, and that it
should be a complementary process to back up and support decision making rather
than being the main thing that drives decisions.
So that’s it. The curtain closed on our second annual event.
It seems to have made a successful transition from a “let’s see how it goes” kind
of experiment to what looks like being a permanent fixture in the IHRF calendar.
A special thanks to all of those who contributed, to all of
those who turned up and interacted, to DLA for hosting the event and laying on
the booze and bites, and finally to Rob Cook who helped me with the planning and
logistics…
See you next year J
Really wish I could have been there Marc! Roll on 2015.
ReplyDeleteMartin