Sir Ken Robinson tries to give an answer and makes an entertaining and profoundly case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Category Archives: Human Capital
“Nobody is irreplaceable” – two sides of the same story
I was recently thinking of all kinds of strategies and best practices on how to make an organisation work regardless if a person (any person) suddenly leaves the company. A saying however was stuck in my mind: “nobody is irreplaceable”.
I realised how true this was and how much syncretism it involvs:
- Nobody is irreplaceable. This merely means that if you think you are irreplaceable you must be nobody.
- On the other hand, it doesn’t say that no soul is irreplaceable; it just states that no “body” is irreplaceable. As simple as this.
What else is there left out?
The 160 characters speech. How to get the attention of Generation Y.
I presented a KM tool this year twice for two different groups in the same company. Once in January and once in June. In January the audience was aged around 30 and over with at least some years of work experience. In June I had people around 20 or slightly over, I assume most of them new joiners.
The presentation was highly interactive, practice-based, with no PowerPoint but… what a difference between the two groups! The first one showed an interest in all aspects of the tool, asked relevant questions to clarify how they can use it best for their own projects and you could see the thrill when they found something new. The second group did not ask many questions and when they did there was more a superficial clarification of functionalities. Moreover, even if it was a new tool for them and highly applicable for their daily job, the thrill of discovery was just not there…
This made me thinking about the new generation. How do you get their attention and what would be a better way to train these people?
Working environment
Raised in an educational culture of working in teams and being highly socially connected through computers, cell phones, text messaging, instant messaging, social networking, blogs, multi-player gaming, etc., the new generation is extremely social-centric. They are building relationships virtually and they are bringing a culture of constantly working together into the workplace – wherever that is. They make sure their friends remain “in the know” by sharing information such as articles, job opportunities or YouTube videos. It is a continual habit – not daily, but hourly.
Education
Statistically, generation Y (and Z) will be the most educated generation ever. According to the “UNESCO Global Education Digest 2010″ the number of secondary education students rose from 195 million in 1970 to 526 million in 2008, meanwhile, the number of tertiary students increased by six times over the same period, from 32 million to 159 million students in 2008.
Is this relevant? How much do this change the interest they will show in doing their job at the highest standards? Does this mean they will be ready for a life-long learning environment? In some cases it may be so but I’m not convinced about the majority. Education nowadays is a “must have” because you cannot find a proper job otherwise but I see way too much superficial behaviour here. You can do a paper work a lot faster by web searching today than you could have done it 5 or 6 years ago (needless to say 15 years ago) but you don’t pay much time analysing the information and its sources. Issues such as credibility of sources have melt down into wiki and blog posts. In this way you may have time to chat or post a joke on Facebook but this will not make you a better performer at your work place.
Training
When it comes to learning IBM has found different age groups respond best to different methods of training and professional development. Baby Boomers prefer the traditional structure of a classroom and teacher. Generation X typically opts for online courses that are self-paced, while Generation Y benefits more from social-based learning approaches.
I do agree with IBM’s results. The new generation needs an informal learning environment and messages have to be short and action based. It’s the culture. You need to communicate to them with some of the techniques used in advertising. You have to advertise your new tool the same way you would do with a new tooth paste. Otherwise, they will not be interested in using it. It just won’t create the buzz!
Thinking about all these I reached the conclusion that the best presentation for the new generation is a 160 characters speech. Maybe, just maybe, this “twitter-like” message would have a chance.
And just wait for Generation Z…
Update: 28 October 2011
I read today an interesting article from Knowledge and Innovation Network: Six little words
It seems I’ve been too generous with the 160 characters speech. Here are some links on storytelling using six words:
Restructuring checklist #3
Retaining key talent
• Can you identify your key talent today?
• Are you prepared to put a retention payment system in place to ensure that key talent does not leave your organisation?
• What will be the effect of such a programme on employees who are not covered by it? Are you ready to manage the consequences?
Reward effectiveness
• Is this the time to review remuneration structures and to consider increasing the variable and/or deferred element?
• Have salary sacrifice cost reduction opportunities been fully explored?
• Can you use this opportunity to maximise the financial efficiency of current and future incentive arrangements?
Flexible working
• Should you review flexible working policies to drive down cost and extend the concept for specific areas of the business?
• Would it be appropriate to open up part-time working opportunities to employees who might not qualify under the existing policy arrangements?
• Is this the time to introduce policies for unpaid leave, career breaks and sabbaticals?
HR effectiveness
• Do you need to review effectiveness of your HR function, its restructuring capabilities and future role?
• Do your HR business partners have a clear understanding of the commercial realities facing your business?
You may also want to read:
- 10 guiding questions to help restructuring initiatives
- Restructuring checklist #1
- Restructuring checklist #2
Restructuring checklist #2
Managing your employment brand
• Have you thought about how best to minimise the negative impact of restructuring on your employment brand values?
• Do you need to reinvigorate your employment brand initiatives for future talent acquisition?
• Do managers know what you are expecting of them when it comes to maintaining the equity of your employment brand?
Communication
• Do all your stakeholders (shareholders, employees, suppliers, community) know what your vision is for the organisation going forward?
• Is the message clear and supportive to your business plans?
• Have you considered the customer perception of your restructuring actions?
Consultation steps
• Have you considered what your employee relations strategy needs to be during a restructuring phase?
• Have you built in the time necessary for consultation in all the markets in which your business operates?
• Do you need the approval of any employment inspectorates before you implement your restructuring proposals?
Hiring freezes
• Are you prepared to stop external hiring to ensure that future employment opportunities are available to your existing employees first?
• Are you required to stop hiring in some markets where you are implementing compulsory redundancies?
• Are you going to police the consistent application of any hiring freeze you announce?
You may also want to read:
- 10 guiding questions to help restructuring initiatives
- Restructuring checklist #1
- Restructuring checklist #3
The world in 2020: 79% of CEOs said they would be changing their strategies for managing talent as a result of the downturn
Image by Ian Sane via Flickr
A recent PwC report – Talent Mobility 2020 shows that in the next 10 years companies will have a greater need to deploy their talent around the world, and as a consequence, international assignment levels and overall mobility will increase significantly. Having access to the best talent continues to be a challenge for CEOs and business leaders – with 97% of CEOs in PwC’s annual global CEO survey saying that having the right talent is the most critical factor for their business growth. In addition, 79% of CEOs said they would be changing their strategies for managing talent as a result of the downturn – and 55% said they would look to change their approach to global mobility including international secondments. In the wake of a foreseeable upturn, the winners and losers of the next decade will be defined by those who are able to attract, retain, and deploy their key talent globally. The sentiments outlined above are well aligned with PwC’s key findings:
• Assignee levels have increased by 25% over the last decade; PwC predicts a further 50% growth in assignments by 2020. There will be more assignees, more business travel, more virtual tools, and especially more quick, short-term, and commuter assignments.
• The growing importance of emerging markets will create a significant shift in mobility patterns, as skilled employees from emerging markets increasingly operate across their home continent and beyond, creating greater diversity in the global talent pool.
• Mobility strategies will need to become more sophisticated and complex as organizations meet growing deployment demands, while simultaneously managing the very different needs and expectations of three generations of workers.
• Governments and regulators will accept the economic benefits of talent mobility to stimulate economic growth. This acceptance will lead to greater collaboration between governments and businesses, and within the business community, to remove some of the barriers to mobility around the world.
• The millennial generation will view overseas assignments as a rite of passage, an outlook that will change the way workers and organizations approach overseas opportunities in the future.
• Organizations will adopt “destination pay and local plus” remuneration methodologies as compensation levels across some skill sets and industries will begin to harmonise across the globe.
• Technology will play a key role in global working arrangements and help to support compliance obligations; however technology will not erode the need to have people deployed “on the ground”.
The nature of overseas assignments has changed significantly since the 1970s. Businesses, like the population, seam to continue adjusting their operations, nature and geographic location of the workforce, as well as their fundamental structure and roles.
How an organisation responds to these rapid changes will be critical. Business and mobilisation strategies will need to progress quickly to keep ahead of both changes in the organisation’s geographic landscape, and the further increases in assignee numbers that will result. The winners of 2020 will be those companies that adjust their strategies now.
For details see PwC’s report
Virtual teams: opportunity during crisis. Tips & tricks on effectively managing virtual project teams.
Market Watch recently published one of my articles regarding virtual teams’ management seen as an opportunity of cost-cutting and performance improvement. However, significant issues could arise in managing virtual team communication; overcoming them is one of the most challenging tasks of any project manager.
Article headlines:
- Available technologies;
- Tips & tricks on effectively managing virtual teams;
- Virtual communication problems: how can we overcome them?
You may find a PDF copy (Romanian version only) at:
“Echipele virtuale: oportunitate in timp de criza”, Market Watch Nr. 116, Iunie 2009, 12-13
or you may read it online at:
http://www.marketwatch.ro/articol/4991/Echipele_virtuale_oportunitate_pe_timp_de_criza/
Corporate social responsibility: the importance of corporate environmental, social, and governance programs
Image by Claudio.Ar-150.000 views/1,4 M visits THANKS!!! via Flickr
A recent McKinsey Survey shows that the perceived importance of corporate environmental, social, and governance programs has soared in recent years, as executives, investors, and regulators have grown increasingly aware that such programs can mitigate corporate crises and build reputations. However, no consensus has emerged to define whether and how such programs create shareholder value, how to measure that value, or how to benchmark financial performance from company to company.
The McKinsey survey asked CFOs, investment professionals, institutional investors, and corporate social responsibility professionals from around the world to identify whether and how environmental, social, and governance programs create value and how much value they create.
Results show that, among respondents who have an opinion, 67% of CFOs and 75% of investment professionals agree that environmental, social, and governance activities do create value for their shareholders in normal economic times. By wide margins, CFOs, investment professionals, and corporate social responsibility professionals agree that maintaining a good corporate reputation or brand equity is the most important way these programs create value.
Respondents to this survey are split over whether putting a financial value on social programs would reduce the reputational benefits to companies: slightly more believe stakeholders view financial value creation as important than believe it’s a distraction.
Investment professionals generally agree that the global economic turmoil has increased the importance of governance programs and decreased the importance of environmental programs to creating shareholder value. Respondents do, however, largely agree that environmental and social programs will create value over the long term, and that governance programs create value in both the short and long terms.
Some 67% of CFOs, investment professionals, and corporate social responsibility professionals also believe that the shareholder value created by environmental and governance programs will increase in the next five years relative to their contributions before the crisis. Expectations of social programs are more modest; half of respondents say these programs will contribute more value.
Most respondents cite attracting, motivating, and retaining talented employees as one way that environmental, social, and governance programs improve a company’s financial performance, but few respondents think communications could be improved by reporting data in this area.
Some future perspectives
• A clear first step would be to develop metrics that focus on integrating the financial effects of environmental, social, and governance programs with the rest of the company’s finances.
• A few companies see environmental, social, and governance programs as an opportunity to create new revenue streams. Given investors’ demand for financial data, companies could benefit from explicitly including these programs and their revenue streams in planning and reporting.
• Corporate social responsibility professionals can help their own companies and their investors fully value their environmental, social, and governance programs by understanding how various stakeholders see them and by learning to communicate their value.
McKinsey’s survey included responses from 238 CFOs, investment professionals, and finance executives from the full range of industries and regions and it was conducted along with a simultaneous survey of 127 corporate social responsibility professionals and socially responsible institutional investors.
Financial Times: More than 1 million British workers will lose their jobs over the next 2 years
Brian Groom and Nicholas Timmins published an interesting article in today’s Financial Times. According to them, more than a million British workers will lose their jobs over the next two years as unemployment figures are expected to show a widespread rise in UK joblessness, taking the national total above 2 million.
Here are some other trends mentioned in the article:
- Industrial production is falling faster than at any time since 1981, while financial services have so far escaped lightly.
- Unemployment has risen fastest in the West Midlands, north of England and Wales. London gained 33,000 jobs in last year’s final quarter.
- The pattern of job losses has forced Oxford Economics to tear up forecasts it made only a few months ago. It now foresees 1.3 million job losses from 2008 to 2010. While London and the south-east are expected to regain pre-recession employment levels within five years, it warns that the West Midlands, north-east and Wales may not have recovered within a decade.
As John Philpott, Chief Economist at the CIPD, commented on February reports, “the final quarter redundancies figure of 259,000 is fairly horrendous and suggests that the CIPD forecast of 300,000 redundancies in the first quarter of 2009 will, if anything, turn out to be an underestimate. The normal lag between redundancies being made and people joining the unemployment count also indicates that, whatever comfort might be taken from today’s jobless figures, unemployment remains on course to rise above 3 million before the economy recovers.”
Values are proven during crisis
You may proclaim your values anytime but during crisis you have to prove them. I admire Scotland which, three years ago, became the first part of the UK to outlaw smoking in public places and resisted to the lobby addressed by the tobacco industry against the regulation.
Recently, Scotland’s devolved government announced an initiative to set a minimum price for alcohol. Of course, Scotch Whisky Association claimed that such a measure would have damaging consequences on local alcohol export trade.
Before making an opinion, let’s see the reasons this initiative even started. Dr. Harry Burns, Scotland’s chief medical officer, said alcohol misuse claimed many hundreds of lives in Scotland every year – twice as many as 15 years ago. Moreover, Nicola Sturgeon, health secretary, said the scale of Scotland’s alcohol misuse problem was shocking: 42,500 alcohol-related hospital discharges; 1,500 deaths per year; soaring rates of liver cirrhosis; the eighth highest consumption in the world and a GBP 2.25bn annual cost in extra services and lost productivity.
Governments, like companies, have their own set of values. If they say their goal is to protect the citizens’ health, they should do so, even in crisis. Actually, especially during crisis because this is the time you really prove your commitment.
Likewise, any company can say, for instance, “we value people”. It is the crisis that makes the difference between those only saying it and those who really mean it.
