Insight...not just Info

 

I just came off a busy week with a public-run WSQ talent management module as well as a corporate team building at Resorts World last Saturday for the Singapore office of a global legal firm.

The opening comments from the sponsor of the team building session really brought home for me about how important it is for organisations to be able to make sense of the data on their people so that they can make the right human capital decisions as part of their talent management (TM).

He said that in looking at the office, he and HR realised that this group, the secretarial/admin group, was the "single largest group" (job classification in TM speak) doing the same function. The lawyers obviously a large group but were in silos according to their specialisations like banking & finance, litigation, M&A (mergers & acquisitions) etc.

This is info (information) that organisations can glean from gathering data / statistics on their workforce. But so what?

He goes on to say that as a result, this group has the "largest impact on the tone of the office" i.e. the culture, how things get done, the feel at the work place, hence the need for investment into them and  this full day team-building program. This to enhance team work, promote collaboration, establish a culture of collegiality so as to achieve better organisational effectiveness and business performance.

Insight.

There are many tools associated with talent managment - job profiling, competency matrix, performance management, job classifications, bench strength ratios, talent mapping, lag measures, lead measures etc

Organisations sometimes get too caught up in collecting "data" on their workforce - attrition rates, MC rates, profile of departing employees, tenure, qualifications, age etc that they become indundated with so much info that they can't see the forest from the trees.

They would do well to understand this simple philosophy of info versus insight.

Are they gaining insight into their workforce to make appropriate human capital or talent management initiatives, or are they drowning in a sea of data and cannot ascertain the right steps or even where to start?

Which describes your current organisational situation today?

 

 

Sharing

Heading into a busy August with training assignments, overseas visitors, kids exams etc. So will get away with this post on a write-up of me in an Apr2012 edition of the HCS CoP magazine.

Corporate Conversations

I recently conducted an employee engagement training for a corporate group that included a survey prior to the start of the program. Amongst the top 3 areas identified as the lowest in terms of engagement for this group of employees was "communication" i.e how this was carried out in day to day corporate life.

As a facilitator and also a Community of Practice (CoP) facilitator, I am a strong believer in meaningful conversations at the workplace as a key differentiator for improved employee engagement, reduced conflict and enhanced organizational alignment and performance.

In an article in the June 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review entitled “Leadership is a Conversation”, authors Groysberg and Slind discuss employee engagement in today’s “flatter, more networked organizations.”

The authors concluded that by talking with employees, rather than simply issuing orders, typical of command & control type of organisations,  leaders can promote operational flexibility, employee engagement, and tight strategic alignment.

They identified four elements of organizational conversation that reflect the essential attributes of interpersonal conversation: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality.

Intimacy shifts the focus from a top-down distribution of information to a bottom-up exchange of ideas, advising leaders to “step down from their corporate perches and then step up to the challenge of communicating personally and transparently with their people". It's less about issuing and taking orders than about asking and answering questions.

Interactivity entails moving away from simple monologue and embracing the vitality of true dialogue i.e. traditional one-way media--print and broadcast, in particular--giving way to social media and the idea of social thinking.

Inclusion challenges the employee to play a greater role in the communication process, turning them  into full-fledged conversation partners, enabling them to provide their own ideas so that they can create content and act as brand ambassadors, thought leaders, and company storytellers.

Intentionality enables leaders and employees to derive strategically relevant action from the push and pull of discussion and debate so that the conversation reflects a “shared agenda that aligns with the company’s strategic objectives”.  The leaders role is then to “generate consent rather than commanding assent” for a strategic objective. The belief is that this enables employees at the top; at the middle; and at the bottom to “gain a big-picture view of where their company stands” on any issue which has gone through this process.

The article is not only insightful but thought-provoking and I am hopeful, that finally, conversation(s), will become an accepted and wider-spread part of the corporate landscape.

My Portfolio Life

Tells the story of author Dan Pink's transition from speechwriter for the Vice President of the United States to independent businessperson - detailing how he left his steady job to start his new life as a free agent and his insights and inroads into the micro-businesses, solo workers and independent professionals he met as he travelled across the US with his family.

Pink writes that more employees than ever are abandoning their old jobs and creating new ways to work as proprietors of home-based businesses, telecommuting freelancers, self-employed knowledge workers and independent contractors, highlighting the shift in economic and social power from the organization to the individual.

It has been three years since I embarked on my own "free-agent" journey as a full-time freelance facilitator / corporate trainer. I must admit when I first started it seemed a very daunting task. But by God's grace and hard work, I have managed to carve out a sustainable and enjoyable career that I can integrate work and life into a manageable blend.

I have also had many an individual asking me how I did it? what's it like? and if they could do something like that as well? For obvious reasons, everyone's story is different - arising from financial situation, family committments, career aspirations, time requirements etc.

One advice I give is for them to talk to as many people as they can to sound them out to gain better clarity about their aspirations and secondly, to read this book, which to me, is a compelling read for anyone at their career crossroads and asking what's next?

One of the greats of management thinking Charles Handy coined the term portfolio worker - for someone who worked independently of an organisation and whose living was drawn from a number of differing elements. He expounds this concept of a "portfolio life" in his 2001 book "The Elephant and the Flea".

Are you ready to be a free agent?

Breakfast Talks

I know this flyer is kinda small, but it's a busy training month this March, so I thought to do a quick post on this breakfast talk I am giving at HCS next Friday on a very topical issue of the day - Employee Engagement.

I will be sharing in part from work done by Towers Perrin in their Global Workforce Study and lessons about how organisations can improve engagement at the workplace and I look forward to a lively discussion from the attendees as they share their personal experiences - from the bad to the good to the great!

Kung Hei Fatt Choy

迎春接福 , 歲歲平安 ; 新年快乐 , 萬事如意 ! Wishing One & All

A Happy & Healthy YEAR of the DRAGON!

"THE" HR Guru

I just completed conducting a 3-day training about "aligning human resource services with business needs" where I was reminded about the work of one whom I consider as perhaps THE guru in HR.

Dave Ulrich is Professor of Business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and co-founder of THE RBL Group. He is greatly sought after as a speaker, management coach and management consultant, who has been listed by HR Magazine countless times as their "most influential person in HR".

More importantly he has authored/co-authored many books that are almost mandatory reading for anyone planning a career in HR.

Some of these essential readings include:-

The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win,with Wendy Ulrich 2010

HR Transformation: Building Human Resources from the Outside In,with Justin Allen, Wayne Brockbank, Jon Younger, and Mark Nyman, 2009

HR Competencies: Mastery at the Intersection of People and Business,with Wayne Brockbank, Dani Johnson, Kurt Sandholtz, and Jon Younger, 2008

The HR Value Proposition with Wayne Brockbank, 2005

HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance
with Brian Becker and Mark Huselid, 2001

Human Resource Champions: The Next Agenda for Adding Value and Delivering Results, 1997

Happy Reading!