HR Departments - do they need to be exemplars of talent-management best practice ?

Imagine the following scenario:  

You have recently moved into a small town with two hairdressers/barbers.  Each week you walk past both salons.  One individual always has immaculately cut hair, while the other looks clearly pays little attention to their appearance.  Both are fully qualified, with plenty of certificates on display in their premises.

• Which would you choose to cut your hair just before you go for an important job interview?

• To what extent would other factors (price, waiting time, customer feedback …. ) influence your decision ?
  

  

“In a knowledge economy, companies with the best talent win. And finding, nurturing, and developing that talent should be one of the most important tasks in a corporation.” FAST COMPANY, 2005

Hence, to what extent is it important that senior HR professionals manage their own departments as exemplars of talent-management best practice?  

Does this build credibility and trust with business leaders, enabling HR to style the organisation-wide people-strategy? Alternatively, is this viewed as diverting effort from supporting the core business agenda?

I doubt there are clear answers to these questions.  Equally, I feel that it would be helpful for the HR profession to invest more time in understanding this issue.  We should aim to research which elements of talent-development best-practice are best ‘sold’ to leaders through how we manage the HR department, versus using economic (ROI) arguments; just-in-time relevance, or (iii) client feedback from pilot projects.

  

I’ll be interested to hear your views on this. 

CIPD L&D Survey - Managing expectations 10 years on

In a recent People Management on-line article - Daniel Wain (who will be speaking at HRD in April) previews some of the finding from the CIPD tenth annual Learning & Development survey.

The article reveals that the results of 1999 survey reads 'like a sneak preview of the latest survey results'.

In 1999:

• eighty-one per cent of respondents were reporting training activities explicitly designed to support strategic business objectives
• knowledge of business objectives ranked almost as high as knowledge of people management, at 95.4 and 97.8 per cent respectively
• skills of organisational development, consultancy and knowledge of business objectives were seen as important for the training manager

While I agree that as a profession we do need to reflect on whether our pace of 'evolution' is sufficient ..... I also feel that the statement: “One senses little real movement over the past decade – worrying given the extraordinary developments that have happened in the wider business and economic world.” misses a key point.

L&D (in the context of HR) is primarily focused on people-management and leadership effectivness.

As expertly highlight by Gary Hamel in his current book - The Future of Management; it is actually the model of management that has had 'little real movement'. This is not just over the past decade, but the last century !

So we do need to keep the Leadership Pipeline flowing ...while (in my view) playing our part in management innovation. For most organizations I suspect that this will continue to be reflected overall as evolution rather than revolution !

PS: I love the 'sound-bite' from Jimmy Naudi, Head of L&D at Christian Aid: "We have to facilitate more, helping people to help themselves, acting as 'a guide on the side' rather than 'a sage on a stage' .."

Predictions for 2008

Happy New Year !

Given that it is traditional at this time to make predictions for the forthcoming 12 months - here are mine relating to the L&D Profession.


Firstly - I see 2008 as the year when Web 2.0 tools will start to be integrated into mainstream L&D. Currently I see a massive gap between the knowledge of the early adopters of Web 2.0 technologies and the vast majority of L&D/HR colleagues (and other colleagues in our organisations). For example: just do a quick straw poll on how many colleagues know what an RSS reader is, and how it can improve workplace productivity. In 2007, we started to see the occasional article in CIPD, ASTD and similiar L&D publications ...in 2008 I hope the discussion will increase.

From increased awareness, I anticipate we (as the L&D profession) will start to identify the most beneficial tools for enhanced 'blended' learning (blended - both in the sense of (i) instructor led & 'e-learning'; and also (ii) L&D influenced & manager-influenced workplace learning).



Secondly - given the anticipated ecomonic 'slowdown', I anticipate that 2008 will further differentiate between organisations that see L&D as an investment to navigate the difficult operating climate, and those who dont make this a strategic priority (and hence impose significant financial cuts to L&D activities).

Many L&D professionals are already well skilled in driving value-for-money - through solid management of training services procurement (e.g. leverage of volume discounts with third party vendors), attendance (e.g. ensuring classes run full) and metrics (e.g. demonstrating to line managers their role in securing lasting behavioural change)

I'd anticipate these skills will be ever more important (as well as those more traditionally associated with our profession - e.g. instructional design, learning needs analysis, facilitation).



Thirdly - I see 2008 as a year of increased merging of roles & responsibilities in our HR profession. In 2007 there seemed to be an increasing number of articles highlighting the limitations of the Ulrich model - and the dangers of L&D being a silo (or even separate profession).

The need for the L&D profession to look beyond 'training' to ensure effective workplace learning, and the need for HR business partners to engage (ever more impactfully) with business leaders on both performance management & talent management/development, should help bring HR more closely together.

Hence, for L&D professionals, we need to expertly understand 'Performance Management' and 'Talent Management' strategies, tools & current best practices.



....only the next 12 months will tell !

'Excellence in HR 2007'

The following link: http://www.business100.tv/ provides some interesting links to videoclips exploring the subject of Excellence in HR

I've yet to view them all - but Peter Cook of Hyman Dynamics does a great job in showcasing themes from his recent book 'Sex, Leadership & Rock'n'Roll'

Peter draws on the metaphors of:

• Sex = focus on relationships [e.g. Collaboration Skills, Communication Skills]
• Drugs = motivation [e.g. Colleague Engagement Skills, Change Management]
• Rock'n'Roll = performance & delivery [e.g. Performance Management Skills, Innovation]

not a bad starting point for a robust leadership training curriculum !

NB: if you get time to explore other clips - please add comments here on their key take-home messages

So what differentiates L&D Consultants ?!

The increasing focus on 'Learning' rather than 'Training', by definition blurs the boundaries of what is the role of the L&D Professional, vs. other HR roles such as:

• Organisational Effectiveness Consultants
• Business Partners ('Client Consultants)
• Diversity & Inclusion Consultants
• Talent Management Consultants
• Change Management Consultants

This raise the question, as to what is at the core of a L&D Consultancy Role (and hence what differentiates L&D from these other associated roles).

In recent discussions I have participated in, it was suggested that:

L&D Consultants need to be able to translate organisational performance & development needs into skills, knowledge and behaviours to be learnt by the individuals involved.

does this work for you ?

Ulrich Model of HR

L&D Professional working within HR departments will be very familiar with the 'Ulrich' model of HR - a three-legged stool separating out:

* Business Partners (also known as generalists or client consultants)
* Service Centres (focused on the 'back-office' transactions)
* Centre of Excellence (the specialist functions such as Recruitment, Compensation & L&D)

I know several colleagues have observed that Ulrich's model lead to a focus of 'who does what' - pulling apart these area of the HR profession. While all three areas are essential, the focus on splitting foundational vs. strategic roles can devalue the former. Similarly, while 'Business Partners' and 'Centres of Excellence' have strategic roles, clarity of how they blend together to support the strategy of the business 'client' is a source of potential confusion.

I'd suggest that the HR profession may be better served from starting with the frame of reference of a different three-legged stool:

* focus on enhancing current business performance achieved by colleagues/managers & leaders
* focus on enhancing planned business growth (building the talent required to accelerate the pace of planned sustainable development of the business)
* focus on building organisational adaptability (to help survive/thrive when unpredictable changes take place in the business environment)

This may result in more variety in how HR structures itself - but, I'd suggest, this would help build collaboration & common purpose across the different disciplines that the include L&D professional.

Discussing L&D interventions in terms of which of the three bullets (perform, grow, adapt) is being targeted could also help maintain a clarity of strategic focus