CIPD Conference Blog #3 of many

One thing that's different this year is that I can't spend as much time stopping to chat to exhibitors as I'd like, or previously have. With only half an hour between conference sessions and the need to work on the lowest level of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs in that short space, exhibitors are losing out on my custom at the moment. 

I will try to put that right later. There looks to be some good stuff out there. 

Right now I'm in another conference session on using HR Business Partners to drive culture change. Helen Thevenot from Thomson Reuters spoke about how this had worked in her organisation. The key question she started with was "what more can I do to results?"

Now this, to me, seems like an obvious question to ask and I'm surprised more HRBPs aren't asking it of themselves or those they work with. 

But Helen explained this is related to their "mood elevator", and asking HRBPs how they have helped other people achieve THEIR goals and measuring them on both of these as well as their use of technology. 

So that's something to consider. How many HR staff appraisals focus on the achievement of personal goals, as opposed to the achievement of other people's goals? And how many HR staff appraisals look at the use of technology by those HR staff and the people they work with?

I guess the key thing to take away from Helen's talk was to challenge HRBPs to think differently, and to put other people's needs and goals ahead of their own. 

But I recently did some pay benchmarking of HRBP roles in the housing sector and the median salary was below £30k (but not much). I wonder if those roles are true BP roles and whether there's a mindset and skill shift required to allow those individuals, or others, to act as true BPs, and be remunerated as such. 

The other speaker in this session, Steve Foster, focused on what drives culture, is it created by processes or does it create processes? He gave examples from TfL about how levels of bureaucracy can stifle culture change, and sometimes it's hard to change the culture without rethinking the processes that allow the organisation to work. He spoke about the need to have a change framework - any will do - and stick to it. 

That's a good point because I've seen lots of change programmes fail because there isn't an underlying change framework or perhaps several competing ones, and because whilst everyone signs up to the new vision and wants to change, the organisational history, legacies, artefacts and processes don't allow the true culture change to happen. 

There's no point wanting to be fast acting, fast thinking and flexible if any change needs multiple layers of signoff and a protracted negotiation and consultation phase. The two don't mix. 

Foster asked three key questions to help you introduce successful change. Firstly who is key to success and able to influence? Secondly where is being a change agent on your priority list? And thirdly how can you develop teams and not just individuals? Focusing on these can embed change. 

I'd agree with this, it makes a lot of sense and backs up my own experiences of delivering large scale change, something I'll explore further in a future blog. 

He finished by asking people involved in change to think emotionally and not rationally. Now that's a new concept and something that lots of senior leaders don't think through fully sometimes. I'm a highly emotional person, my MBTI score and TMSDI profile say so. I make decisions based on gut feel and look for evidence to back it up later, rather than the other way around. I'm not suggesting I've got it right, but I think that considering emotional factors is a crucial thing in change programmes and it's not just about having a rational, logical reason for change. Sometimes people want to react and think emotionally. 

And now it's lunchtime. It's been a good morning, focusing on change and mental health. Let's see what the afternoon brings.

I need to stock up on free goodies from the exhibition. I didn't bring this big bag to take it home empty. 

Till next time. 

Gary. 

CIPD Conference Blog #2 of many

The first session I've been to today has seen Professor Sir Cary Cooper talking about mental wellbeing and health.

There's a lot that he covered and I can't type quick enough but here are some things that resonated with me.

He talked a lot about presenteeism and what is causing the rise of it across the UK. A large and growing group of people now attend work without being well enough to do so, and this is as big an issue as those who take time off because they aren't well.

Sometimes these people are coming in to work because they are engaged and want to be there, but sometimes it's fear of taking time off. And yet we all know someone who is there in body but not in spirit, and who seemingly does little or no productive work on a regular basis. Cooper suggests that this group accounts for as much as 28% of the workforce. 

What % is it in your workplace?

He also covered the factors that can make people unwell in the workplace. Aside from the expected and usual ones like long working hours, and poor line management relationships, he included the "Americanisation" of workplaces, not taking your full holiday entitlement and inappropriate work/life balance. 

On annual leave, Cooper suggested that people are working such long hours in general that they are having to take and use their annual leave to do things that are routine and ordinary family and non work stuff that they would normally do in non working time, and therefore missing out on the relaxation that annual leave is meant to bring. 

I'd not looked at annual leave in this way but equally am guilty of doing that myself. I took two days off last year to work on my garden, and so did my partner. That was because we didn't have time to do the garden in the evenings or at the weekends because one or both of us had some work commitments that were eating into those times. 

Does this happen in your workplace?

On wellbeing initiatives Cooper talked at how effective some interventions can be in reducing absence, for example EAP schemes. I've recently discussed whether it's right or cost effective for an organisation to have an EAP scheme and concluded that yes it is, but Cooper is right to point out that whilst such interventions will have an impact on some individual cases, and be enormously helpful to those people, the interventions themselves are usually dealing with the symptoms of absence and poor health rather than dealing with the causes. In short, they don't change the culture. 

An interesting point. 

I've blogged on another of Coopers themes of ignoring or switching off work emails in non working time to make that distinction clearer, and it was telling that many people in the audience understood the need to do this, but as the straw poll showed, can't do this themselves. 

Even now I struggle to leave work behind in the evening and at weekends, although annual leave days are different, but at least I've made a start. 

Cooper closed by quoting Dilbert, and Robert Kennedy. But so many of the gems of wisdom in this session came from Cooper himself, making so many salient and interesting points about wellbeing. 

A brilliant opening speech at #cipd15 from Professor Sir Cary Cooper. 

Till next time.

Gary.

CIPD Conference Blog #1 of many

So here I am at the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition (ACE). And this year I'm part of the Blogsquad. 

That means you'll be seeing more blogs from me this next few days than usual. You don't have to read them, but if you do then fantastic. 

I've been looking forward to this and had trouble sleeping last night because I was a little bit excited*

*sad

The train journey was packed and I was eagerly looking round to spot fellow #cipd15 attendees. But how does one spot a fellow HR professional, without the help of a conference badge?

It proved too difficult, and I was making some people distinctly uneasy with my staring, so I had to stop. 

And I arrived in the Press Office to meet my fellow Blogsquadders, feeling a little bit nervous about what was expected from me over the next few days. 

My badge actually says Blogsquad, which is making me a bit giddy. I can see exhibitors clocking this as I walk through the exhibition hall and drawing some kind of conclusion about me base on that. Quite what conclusion, I'm not sure. 

I've picked the sessions I want to attend and am prioritising the conference sessions over the free exhibition sessions, even though those free sessions have been my lifeblood at previous ACEs. My ability to wander the exhibition hall and network is also diminished this year. But the learning I get from the sessions I attend will be enormous, both in my current role and any future work I do. 

I'll blog when I feel I can. Speed blogging is not necessarily my thing, I like to review, edit and polish my blogs once I've written them and this week I'm having to do it fast. 

It's a learning curve. 

I may even have to abandon spell checking, so apologies in advance. 

If you see me wandering round the exhibition or conference, do stop me to say hello and maybe we can grab a selfie that might make it into a later blog or a tweet.

Right now Peter Cheese is opening the conference by highlighting major trends that are changing the world of work, setting things up nicely for Professor Sir Cary Cooper to follow on.

Peter is talking about how HR needs to respond to the challenges posed by the different working environment, and at the same time build a credible profession for the future based around ethics and values, and less around rules and policies. He's mentioned the uphill battle we all face to make our profession noteworthy and credible compared to other more established professions like finance. 

Maybe a start point is to stop HR professionals hiding themselves away on trains on the way to their annual conference.

Till next time...later today probably.

Gary

2040 vision

I realised when reading an article in the most recent issue of People Management that I'm still (at least) 25 years away from retirement as we understand the concept now, and therefore am not even halfway through my working life.

That's a scary thought even if it is Halloween today.

It kind of puts recent thoughts and discussions about my on future into perspective. I've been with my current employer for 11.5 years and I've never been anywhere that long, and yet with 25 years left (assuming I retire at 65) I could surpass that in two different organisations before I retire, so maybe 11.5 years isn't so long after all...

Here's the article that prompted my thinking and this blog post anyway.

Basically, I realised how outdated my thinking and some organisational thinking is about the whole concept of employment and careers.

Recently I've been talking to colleagues in my organisation about becoming Fit for the Future, looking at how we become the employer of the future. In doing so I drew comparisons with what it was like when I started work at ICI in 1986 and highlighting how different the world and concept of work is 19 years later. I was trying to get them to imagine how different work might be in another 19 years, but only a few grasped this with any clarity and most could only conceptualise to the end of their own careers in the next 5 years or so, and couldn't envisage any major changes.

So we often talk about 2020 and having 20:20 vision. But I'm still going to be in the workforce at 2040 and I'm trying to change peoples ideas and concepts about what working life may be like then, and in particular from an HR perspective what employment arrangements might look like.

The world of work my children enter in 10-15 years time will be almost unrecognisable from that I entered in 1996, but it's being shaped largely by people whose ideas of work and employment are based around that imparted by their own parents and shaped by their own experiences in the last 20 years or so. It's like we are reacting to events rather than proactively planning a future for our children to work in and finding out what they want.

I work a lot in the housing sector and it's not unreasonable to expect a house built now to last 100 years, and for the main components within the house (kitchens, bathrooms, electrical wiring etc) to be replaced 5 times in that lifespan. So organisations working in housing are good at thinking long term from a customer perspective and product perspective, but with the average career now lasting around 50 years I am finding few people in any sector are planning for employees lasting that long.

As Jo Faragher points out in her article, the concept of permanent work is on the decline. Interim contract usage is up 93% in recent years, and 6% of the UK workforce work on temporary, interim or other fixed term contracts. Non permanent staff are an integral part of organisational workforces and for many it's a way of life that suits them and still allows them to be engaged and embedded. Indeed, the article comments that some agencies have now started paying their contractors for "bench time" in between assignments, something I think may catch on.

With a range of contractual arrangements now on offer from some organisations, it may be time to revisit the old Atkinson Model of the Flexible Firm that I remember from my studying and teaching days. 15 years ago it was an idea probably ahead of its time, but very perceptive and one that has accurately foretold how work will evolve, and will continue to evolve in the coming years. Organisations will increasingly operate on a model that has a minority of core, permanently contracted workers, and a majority of flexible and peripheral staff who give their all whilst working for that organisation, but who are not tied to that organisation or the need to work full time and build a 50 year career.



This idea redefines what work actually is and celebrates the diversity of working arrangements that can be implemented. The UK is due to fall off the workforce cliff by 2021, so if we are going to remain competitive then we need to attract the best of the younger workforce, retain the best of the older workforce AND appeal to the one fifth of the UK population who aren't economically active but could be.

Tall order, and it's a good job I've already lost my hair.

But it strikes me that the best way of doing this is to offer different working arrangements. Different times yes, different contractual ties too and different terms and conditions to suit. But I don't see many organisations adapting and evolving in such a way, and many see the employment relationship as an exclusive one in a very old fashioned way.  Why can't workers have relationships with lots of organisations?

(my oft-referred to concept of looking at the employment relationship the same way as personal relationships just took a whole new turn...)

I also think that organisations need to think longer term in terms of their attraction strategies. This goes beyond community management (alumni, referral schemes, apprenticeships, partnerships with local colleges, social media groups and customer interactions) which is a good recruitment practice in and of itself, but looks at what the majority of workers due to ENTER the workforce in 10 - 15 years time actually want. This may sound daft, but that involves talking to children of primary school age and building links with them before they reach the age of 10, not just when they're in college or university - by which time its too late.

Thinking about it, football clubs are amongst the few organisations that DO do this. When my son used to play under 8s football there were scouts there watching from professional clubs, and having spoken to a few of them they always stressed the importance of spotting talent aged 6 - 7, and nurturing that talent over a 10 - 12 year period before they could actually employ that individual and get something productive back from them - and that if a child hadn't been "recruited" by the age of 8, they knew they'd never make it as a professional footballer.

But aside from football clubs, what businesses follow this pattern and actively engage with the talent of the future 10 - 12 years before they come to work for them?

Maybe we should. Maybe we'd find out a bit about what they want us to do for them when they DO work for us. What hours they want, what pay they want, what benefits and what engagement.

I think we'd find that very few expect to work the way we, their parents and grandparents, work.

And even fewer have a concept of being engaged with and tied to one organisation on a permanent basis.

Food for thought.

Till next time...

Gary

PS in other news, Poppy turned one this week and we had a good couple of days celebrating. She hasn't adjusted to the clocks going back though and has been getting up at 5.30am most days, so we're all dead on our feet...and I thought I was fitter than I used to be...

Baby blues

On 26 October 2014 my beautiful youngest child, Poppy, was born.  Its been a really good year, but earlier in the year my partner and I encountered some treatment linked to Poppy that caused us a lot of upset and heartache.

Given the recent publicity around #motherswork2015 and Best Companies style lists like THIS, I thought I'd share some aspects of this and how it affected us, along with my views on what can be done in the modern world about such treatment.

I've been prompted in part by reading two blogs from @HR_Gem on this subject, something she feels very strongly about.  You can read these blogs HERE, and HERE.

Go on, read them.  And then come back here.  I'll wait.

Done?

The CIPD talks about improving working lives and both Gem and I think there is a real need for a body like the CIPD to add its weight to improving working lives not just for mothers, but parents in general, and carers and grandparents too.

Maternity Action is a good group and well organised, but has the feel of a fringe protest group and it shouldn't.  It may take a body like CIPD, or the CBI, to wade into this issue before its taken more seriously.

There is a lot of evidence that pregnancy discrimination is rife in British industry.

And so I learnt this year.

My partner wished to return to work at the end of her full maternity leave but wished to do so on a part time basis, and submitted a flexible working request that took the company over two months to respond to, which in itself is unacceptable.  The response was to refuse the part time work on the basis that there was an inability to reorganise the work of the department.  They said she could only return full time.

As a result of this, my partner was left with no choice but to resign as neither of us felt our family could sustain a full time return to work.

And that might have been it, had I not got an HR background and could immediately see flaws in their process, decision-making and logic.  And helped my partner to do so and reach an outcome that we found acceptable (ultimately though still resigning and finding, almost immediately, an almost identical job on a part-time basis - which in itself made a mockery of some of the arguments put forward by the employer about the feasibility of and ability to recruit to part time roles).

The survey cited earlier suggested that this kind of situation is extremely common but that few women actually do anything about it.  We were lucky that I had a relevant professional background that was helpful, but how many other women just accept their lot and bow to their employers' demands or resign and struggle financially?

Worse, how many organisations have qualified HR professionals working for them who stand by and let this behaviour and treatment carry on?

What did we enter HR for if not to stand up for certain values and ethics?  Does our professional standing mean nothing?

HR's role is to support the business and to help it perform, but not - surely - at the cost of ignoring our hearts and what we know is right?  HR's role should be to be the heartbeat, soul and conscience of the organisation, upholding principles, values and ethics that see people treated fairly.

In general though outdated attitudes such as those that allow such treatment and those experienced and talked about by Gem shouldn't exist in this day and age, and its sad that they do.  I've been lucky to work for progressive, enlightened employers but maybe I've been sheltered from reality.

But the world of work has changed.  Back in 1996 when I first started working in a "proper" job there was very little technology, there was no homeworking, you could smoke at your desk, it was considered "manly" to have 5 pints on a Friday lunchtime and spend Friday afternoon doing little other than sobering up, you called the Chief Executive "Sir" or "Mr" and the executive floor had plusher carpets and nice smelling toilets compared to the other floors.  And that's less than 20 years ago.  So how come so much has changed so much but some other things, like attitudes towards parents and carers, have changed so little?

There's a lot of discussion about paternity leave too at the moment, and I've referenced Netflix forward-thinking approach to people management in other blogs - and here's how they treat parental leave - but maybe the UK in general is taking longer to catch on, despite some recent legislative changes.

I've been a new father three time and in none of those cases have I been able to afford, financially, to take anything more than one week off work.  The most recent time I added some annual leave on to make two weeks on full pay, but even two weeks felt like not enough and I think new fathers should ideally be able to take four weeks on full pay.  That certainly would have helped me this time last year when Poppy came along.  And my employer treated me more than fairly but I still felt like I needed more.

And now we have grandparents leave due.  I think this is long overdue.  Both of my parents, and both of my partners' parents, have long since finished work but I wonder whether any of them could have stayed economically active for longer had grandparental leave been available in days gone by?  Could this encourage grandparents to stay in work and contribute to the economy for longer?  Its got to be a good thing.

But what I've hoped to achieve with this blog is show that, in 2015, employers can still treat people badly because of issues related to their being a new parent, and that a growing minority of people now recognise that this is a bad thing.

Its time that we in HR stood up and shouted about this.  And upheld our values.

Till next time...

Gary

PS in other news, Poppy has her 1st birthday party this weekend and we are all looking forward to it - can't believe she's one year old already...

#connectinghrmcr

On Wednesday evening I attended #connectinghrmcr for the first time.  Despite such an event being well outside my comfort zone, I found that I enjoyed myself tremendously.

I had tried to attend this event twice previously, recognising it as a great networking opportunity and a chance to get to know more HR people in my region.  The first time I tried to attend, I then booked a holiday and couldn't go.  The second time I tried to attend, my partner and I had our baby the week of the event (a full two weeks late she was) and I was needed in the hospital.

So third time lucky I figured, and in light of some upcoming changes to my own role and where I might well be in the future I wanted to take the opportunity to get to #connectinghrmcr and talk to people who I thought might be able to give me some advice and even help me in the future.

So I went.  Even though I am not good at networking events.  I've said this before.

I find talking to people difficult sometimes, more so when those people are more or less complete strangers.  I can do it, but I have to feel really confident before I do, and need to have some "downtime" before it all happens.

But I have been trying to force myself out of my comfort zone and with good reason.

In order to get myself in the zone and ready for the event I tweeted a few times beforehand to see who was going and to make some initial contact.  I also had to both go for a swim at lunchtime and for a run straight after work - basically time to think and prepare and deal with my energy levels.

I find exercise and training is good quality thinking time and fuels up the introvert in me to be able to be more, well, extrovert.  I can think on my own, and there's no distractions when I'm swimming, biking or running.

But somehow this all worked.

The event was brilliant.  Full of talented, friendly, helpful and interesting people who happen to be connected through a common profession.

I was made to feel welcome, one of the crowd.  I found myself talking freely to almost everyone I met and, what's more, enjoying it.  I talked to lots of people and found loads in common.  Two colleagues came along too (@kimdillon78 and @Laura_Torus) and seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did.

I left after nearly three hours and drove home, and if it was possible to feel both buzzing and tired, then that's what I was feeling.

Doing so much talking was energy sapping.  Do you ever recall the arcade game Track and Field?  Or Daley Thompsons' Decathlon?  When running the 1500m you had a little energy bar and when that was used up the little runner used to go so slow.

I think that's what its like for me as a high introvert.  I can act extrovert when I want to be - I can stand up in front of a room of 1,000 people and deliver a cracking keynote speech, or can deliver training sessions that are inspiring or exciting and involve me being lively and energetic - and then I tell people I'm an introvert and they refuse to believe me.

But its true.  Introverts need time to fuel up the little energy bar - so hence my running and swimming before #connectinghrmcr.  They also need time afterwards to refuel, and so what you see with me after any burst of extrovert energy is me having to be mega quiet and barely talk for a few hours afterwards.

So when I got home, I could hardly speak despite my mind and brain buzzing with information.  I had no words left.

But back to #connectinghrmcr...

I'll go again.  And in fact I'm looking forward to it.  Not sure when the next one is, but I'm there.

It was refreshing to be in a room with lots of people who not only understand HR, but don't take it all too seriously and know how to laugh at themselves and our profession. To be able to talk to someone about what I do at work and not have their eyes glaze over, and to immediately both understand and sympathise with the issues others were telling me they are dealing with. To feel the enthusiasm and vibrancy in the room of people who have a real passion for people. To have conversations with people who understand how social media can make valuable and lasting connections.

Of course I can get a lot of this at work.  But this was in a bar.

With alcohol.


We did some great photos of most of the #CIPD15 blogsquad and the camaraderie was brilliant, from everyone at the whole event.

There's also the possibility of an HR blogger relay triathlon team in the offing with @HR_Gem, @fuchsia_blue and myself. 

I enjoyed meeting some people I've met once or twice before and catching up with them, like @Damiana_HR, @monaghanpj and @Community_Mike, and met others who I'd only tweeted before like @KingfisherCoach, @KevWyke, @TimScottHR, @HR Em, @LizardVanilla, @ryskicheyne.  And many others too numerous to mention so if I haven't mentioned you then my apologies and I'm more than happy to edit this post afterwards and add you in.

But basically if you're not already following all the people I mentioned in this post, then stop what you're doing and go and follow them.  They're all lovely.

And if you haven't been to one of these tweetups before, I can highly recommend them.

Till next time...

Gary

PS in other news, its the end of the triathlon season now (aswell as all my other summer sports) and I'm into winter training.  Roll on spring...

Blogsquad #CIPD15

Well here's a turn-up for the books.  I've been blogging since March, and last month the CIPD themselves noticed what I was doing, and asked me if I was going to #CIPD15 in November.

"Yes", said I.  "I haven't missed a CIPD Conference & Exhibition since I started going in 2004."

"Well", said they.  "Do you fancy blogging about it? You can be part of the official CIPD Blogsquad and you get a free ticket to both days of the conference and unrivalled access to all the sessions and speakers."

"Actually", said I, "I was probably going to blog about it anyway, but seeing as you asked so nicely, then OK."

And here we all are now.  Somehow I've managed to keep quiet about it until yesterdays big reveal by CIPD.

I'm liking the sci-fi theme of this although I'm fairly certain that the design team could have Davros-ed me up a bit given that I've spent 40 years honing just that kind of look.

So what's involved?  Well, the programme for #CIPD15 is here - take a look. Its a fantastic programme and there's some amazing speakers there.  My role, and bear in mind I'd have been going anyway, is to cover the event via this blog and report on what I see.  I'm part of a squad of more talented and more experienced HR bloggers who will also be doing the same, so between us we'll cover off the entire programme, but I'm feeling very much like the new kid on the block.

I love the CIPD Conference.  I first went in 2004 when it was in Harrogate and was blown away by the experience.  I came away from that trip absolutely loaded with reading material plus, strangely I thought at the time, free gifts from exhibitors.  When I got home it was like Xmas and birthdays all rolled into one for my children, and I don't think I've needed to buy a pen, or mints, or Celebrations, since.

The conference when at Harrogate was quite different than Manchester now - it felt bigger, despite Harrogate itself being much smaller.  But it was like the conference took over the entire town and all its hotels and bars, and everywhere you went you bumped into fellow attendees.  In Manchester, its lost in the shuffle somehow of a major metropolitan city, and doesn't feel as special even though I think the organisation and look and feel has improved.  I look forward to it every year - although the proximity of Manchester to where I live and work means that I've not been able to justify an overnight stay and experience the "evening" entertainment like I could do at Harrogate.

There's a good deal of free seminars purely in the exhibition so if you wanted to you could get a lot of value just from attending that, but the conference offers a whole lot more.

I'm excited about going, and even more so now I'm on the Blogsquad. I hope to gain a lot of knowledge and thoughts about leading-edge HR that I can take back into the workplace, aswell as give my views via this blog on the whole experience.

Bring it on.

Gary

PS in other news, Poppy turns 1 in a couple of weeks.  That's gone exceptionally quickly! How much things change in just one year...