CIPD Conference Blog #7 of many

After a quick browse around the Exhibition I'm back in a conference session, this time on delivering large scale public sector transformation through effective HR, by Low Peck Kem from the Singapore Public Service. 

This session is of interest to me given my current work in delivering large scale transformation in housing through effective HR. Nowadays I'm not too certain whether we class housing as public, private or voluntary sector, given recent ONS decisions, but we have a lot of people working in housing who used to be public sector and would think of themselves in that way, and a lot of processes and policies that have evolved from a public sector background, so this talk promises to be very relevant. 

Low Peck began by setting the scene for what it's like to live and work in Singapore, a city state with few natural resources but home to an economic miracle, punching very much above its weight. She talked about how the Singapore government worked with unions and businesses to build resilience and withstand the impact of the economic recession, and helped both to train workers and cover loss of productivity. This was an interesting dimension and one I can't imagine happening in the UK either at a governmental or organisational level. 

This helped by establishing a shared understanding of the problems they faced, and a shared vision of where they wanted to be. 

And with the biggest natural resource being their own population, which is declining, Singapore understands the need to invest in its people in lots of ways. Not just in training and development, but in encouraging them to increase the birth rate!

Now that's taking long term planning and state intervention to a whole new level. 

Low Peck talked about performance management transformation. She challenged whether the performance management processes in operation were delivering greater benefits for the individual and the organisation than the time and effort it took to administer such processes.

They weren't. So she stopped doing them and has created new processes. 

She had a number of other examples of similar challenges and drew heavily on her background of working in private sector technology companies such as HP and Agilent. Her focus was to move away from delivering efficiencies, to delivering effectiveness. 

There's a different focus from lots of the change initiatives I've seen, which have been efficiency focused. Not that these aren't good, but they have negative connotations sometimes and can only go so far before the law of diminishing returns begins to apply. So the focus on effectiveness seems more positive for all stakeholders. 

Low Peck continued by stressing the importance of building trust with your employees if you want them to contribute to transformational change and deliver effectiveness. It's probably true that change programmes focused on efficiencies won't have the same degree of employee trust. 

Towards the end of the presentation Low Peck covered what she felt the role of HR was in delivering transformational change. Her main points were:

- ensuring strong leadership

- building engagement amongst officers

- being professional and effective in their own HR services

- develop a future ready public service through partnership working, unleashing potential of workers

She ensured that the HR Directors don't report to her, they report to other operational directors. Her role is to professionalise HR only, and in doing so she relies on five pillars of success:

1. Building one trusted HR community. 

2. Uplifting the capabilities of HR people. 

3. Inspiring careers by building career develpment programmes in the public sector. 

4. Strengthen credibility by making HR fit and effective

5. Collaboration and cross learning by benchmarking and being best in class. 

She finished with a complicated slide on HR strategy that I simply can't type fast enough to translate and haven't got a camera good enough to focus on the small print!

I struggled with this session if I'm honest. Low Peck has clearly achieved a lot, more than I might ever aspire to, but there was a lot of content in here that detracted from the story and the key messages we needed to take away. I'd struggle to distil it into anything I could recount to others after the session, and wonder whether this was the best vehicle for Low Peck explaining her insights and main points. A magazine article in People Management could achieve a lot more. 

Now...lunchtime...

Till next time.

Gary.

CIPD Conference Blog #6 of many

So Day Two arrives and I'm a bit tired. 

Blogging and tweeting for about ten hours non stop yesterday and then attending the CIPD Press Dinner and then not getting home till midnight made me a little fatigued. Waking up at 5am and not being able to sleep was perhaps always going to happen. 

Anyway, three coffees, two ibuprofen and one Lucozade later and I'm ready to blog. 

Although I am on the lookout for exhibitors with the massage people on their stand. I will visit those stands today. 

In fact, even if there are no massage people BUT the exhibitors themselves are willing to give me a quick shoulder massage then I will happily give them some publicity via this blog and Twitter. 

Yes, I'm THAT shallow. 

What yesterday taught me was how effective our new digital world now is, and watching the #cipd15 Twitter stream was incredible at many points. Attending a conference is now just as much about what happens digitally as what happens in person, and that's amazing. 

So it was a good choice for me to open up day two by attending Dave Coplin's session on outsmarting the digital deluge. He was talking about outsmarting technology and making the best of our relationship with it. 

He started by talking about how we let technology run our lives and to an extent ruin our lives. And from someone who works at Microsoft, that's a big statement. 

He suggested that we need to learn to cope with it all. 

Technique one, from Coplin, is skimming. Learning to quickly scan the deluge of information we get to get a broad understanding of it without going into detail. 

Technique two is snacking. Learning to be able to dip in when appropriate and not spend too much time consuming digital information. 

Technique three is multitasking. Learning to do other things as well as obtaining information digitally. 

The multitasking bit resonates. As I'm blogging this conference, I'm having to multitask. Write, listen, digest, and scan the environment (digitally and in real life). It's hard, but it can be done if you focus properly. But Coplin suggests that each time one gets distracted you lose 23 minutes on average. And how often does that happen per day?

Coplin went on to suggest that the more data we have, the better our decision making can be. But we need to know what data we want, how we will use it, and to be able to get it and focus on it. When you can do that, you can start to accurately predict the future. 

Our problem is that we will be faced with a potentially unmanageable sources of data in every aspect of our lives, but if we can manage that then we can make our lives so much better. 

Some of the scenarios that Coplin explained came straight out of Terminator, Star Trek or any sci fi show you'd care to mention. But the technology is there and he showed how we can use the technology to improve our performance. 

Again some sporting analogies came out here, echoes of Sir Clive Woodward yesterday in using technology and data to drive better decision making. But it's happening. 

I already live my life digitally and use my iPad to run many aspects of my life. I have a work colleague who does the same with his Apple Watch. And the pace of change is increasing. 

Coplin went on to talk about us making a simple choice though. Given what we are about to do, can technology help? If it can, great. If it can't, don't use it. You'll be able to navigate your way through the digital deluge and survive and succeed. 

How often do we subconsciously make that choice, and make the wrong one?

I'm guilty myself. Too often. 

He also talked about creating a culture of flexible working where workers can make a choice about where and when the most appropriate place and time is for them to complete the task in hand. That place and time may or may not be in the office between 9am and 5pm. 

Now I think I'm already doing OK on this one, but I come across a LOT of people who don't think in this way. 

Coplin finished by challenging us to use technology as a platform for success. I wonder though how many people use it as an anchor to prevent them being their very best?

Till next time. 

Gary

CIPD Conference Blog #5 of many

My final session of the first day is on the subject of Laughology.  Unleashing the power of happiness in the workplace...

Now as I've commented before, at work I have often and traditionally been a very serious person. I held to the belief that work was a serious place, and HR a serious profession, and I as a senior HR professional needed to uphold the seriousness of all this. 

After all, there was no room for the "outside work" Gary to be in the workplace. I couldn't be seen to be laughing, could I?

Recently I realised I was wrong, and my attitude was preventing me forming better relationships in the workplace. 

So when Stephanie Davies from Laughology introduced her session by outlining the case for humour and laughter in the workplace, I understood completely. 

Not that I'm the stand up comedian of my current workplace, or even that outside work I'm a laugh a minute man either. 

But I acknowledge there is a middle ground, and I'm currently trying to occupy it. 

It's about thinking and reacting differently in the workplace. 

To get people to think differently, Laughology encourage people to play at work, and to use their imagination to unlock the child like persona within them. The areas of the brain that control happiness need to be unlocked. 

Stephanie got us doing a number of exercises to help us to understand how to unlock those areas. And it's true. The exercises had us laughing sometimes in spite of ourselves and in spite of the lateness of the day and that we were all tired. They were fun. 

We laughed at each other and ourselves when we came out of our comfort zone and engaged with the activity. And it's true that laughter makes you feel happier, lighter, child like even. 

We don't do enough of it in the workplace. And I don't do enough of it per se. 

In the case study (INS), humour and laughter had been used to creat a new set of organisational values and to engage staff with a new culture.

And if you can help individuals, teams and organisations be happy, you'll make a big difference to performance. So I fully understand and embrace the Laughology principles. 

My eldest daughter, when just a toddler, asked me what I did at work. Ever tried explaining HR to an adult, let alone a three year old child?  I thought for a while and told her my job was to make people happy at work. She now thinks I do something with paints as painting is what makes her happy. 

I don't paint. 

But ultimately I, as an HR professional, do try to make people happy and if I can do that, they ought to perform.  

I also need to make myself happy, and I'm working on that. Watch this space. 

I've enjoyed Day One of #cipd15 and even though I'm tired, I'm looking forward to the evening activities before getting back here in the morning. 

Till next time. 

Gary

CIPD Conference Blog #4 of many

'After a ridiculously healthy lunch I tried to get around the Exhibition to pick up goodies, but never actually managed it due to running into numerous people and getting sidetracked. 

Now I'm sat listening to Sir Clive Woodward talk about the DNA of a Champion. I've admired Clive's work for a long time and have read his Leadership book a few times. 

Talent alone is not enough is the phrase he opened his speech with. Talent can only get you so far, and melding various talents together is the more difficult task. 

Clive shared his view of what else you need to make the most of talent. You need to study your craft and be interested in it, and you need to be a sponge in order to soak up new techniques and skills. 

I agree wholeheartedly with this and my development from couch potato to above average triathlete is based around those principles. I recognise I can only get better by showing an interest in being the best, and by watching and learning from others. And so that's why this year I've joined a triathlon club and started adapting my training regime after watching others who are better than me. 

In managing a team, Clive asserts that one needs to identify students and sponges and work with both. 

Clive showed us how he used technology and the emerging tech of things like Prozone, now commonplace in analysis on Monday Night Football with Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, to develop his team but develop the use of IT and use of data and analytics to look at performance within the England Rugby Team. 

Absolutely right, too. 

The sporting world is years ahead of the business world in its use of technology driven data to analyse its best performance. What is interesting though is how Clive really pushed for the front line staff (rugby players) to develop their own IT skills and analytical skills to review their own and others performance, as opposed to this being something the manager or coach did solo. 

In my own training and sport, I am all over the data I have about myself. I use it to improve what I do, to set myself targets and to motivate myself. I can't imagine training or performing without it. 

But how often do we see that in business?

Clive started using Prozone and similar tech to look at the game and performance in a different way, and sometimes began using it instead of looking at actual video footage. And then he broke down the whole of a game of rugby into just seven areas, and began capturing the knowledge of every person involved in the team in each of the seven areas. 

This is knowledge management at its most basic, but also being applied in an advanced way. If that makes sense. 

Clive showed how everyone could contribute to this and collaborate with each other using technology. But in a way it's the Wikipedia principle, downloading the knowledge of everyone and putting it in one place for all to see and use. Again, how often does this happen in business? Not as often as it should. 

But having the knowledge is one thing. Using it, as Know How, is another. Converting the knowledge into strategy and tactics is tricky, and often needs to be done under pressure. So the ability to use knowledge under pressure and to perform is critical. 

And Clive coaches this ability using the T-Cup principle. Thinking Correctly Under Pressure. It's common in sport, but not in business. 

Clive got individual players to come up in coaching sessions and talk about what they would do in a pressurised situation, then he expected them to do it for real. 

I've done this in my triathlon training. For example in the swim lots of things can go wrong, most commonly colliding with other swimmers and the risk of losing your breath and swallowing water etc. You can't practice for this as it's difficult to recreate, but you can think through what you would do in such a situation. So I plan for it and visualise it. What would I do if it happened? And then of course it DOES happen and you remember what you've told yourself. 

And it works. 

But we don't do this kind of visualisation and planning often in business. 

Clive finished by talking about attitude and having a passion for detail, showing how the margins of victory and success can be so narrow, that one needs to make the most of ones talent by having the right attitude, the right approach to learning, an awareness of technology and the benefits that data can bring, and a passion for using knowledge and working hard. 

Great teams are made up of great individuals, said Clive. But these individuals need to be able to work together and learn together. 

Food for thought. 

Till next time. 

Gary

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