New Business Ideas 4 U

Posts Tagged ‘Staff Development’

HR Sacred Cow 1     It’s HR’s job to Look after the People in the Company

Why is this sacred cow?

Let me share a true story. I was once taken to task by the assistant HR manager of a company to which I was consulting. I had proposed a change to the company structure, which included a change in the way the sales forces were paid. The lady bailed me up one day – almost literally ‘spitting tacks’. “You have no right to interfere with my staff” she spat. “Madam”, I replied, “you have no staff”. She became apoplectic, to the extent I deemed it expedient to withdraw – from the scene, not from the remark.

I am so glad that some few years later, the learned professorial authors of The Differentiated Workforce have justified my stand.

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Immunity to Change

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Harvard Business Press, 2009

After more than 40 years in the HR business, I thought I knew most of it. This was my ‘big assumption’. Kegan and Lahey know a great deal more than me, I found out, and I thank them for sharing a generation of experience with me – and I hope, you too.

The authors seem to have found the answer to why people find it difficult to change – as you have doubtless found it difficult to change some of your staff. Their discovery is startlingly simple. Most people have an immunity to change. Their research over many years and thousands of people has drawn them to this conclusion, and in this gem of a book, they share their findings with us.

They show how this immunity comes about, how to identify what the immunity – or blockage – to change actually is, and most importantly, how to use their research findings in developmental  activity with your staff and even staff teams.

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Here are the last three key points made by Baker, Huselid and Beatty on the relationship between line managers and HR in the development of the workforce.

Workforce accountability begins with creating performance expectations of both line managers and HR

• So both line managers and HR need to agree and spell out what are their respective accountability as regards workforce development and performance. By doing this the possibility of the whole process falling between the cracks – a concern I expressed in the last posting – is alleviated a little, but not entirely. The agreement must be:
  • Clear – it says exactly what each party will be accountable for
  • Written down – a verbal agreement is insufficient. Writing it down and signing off the agreement is a much stronger commitment
  • Measurable – how will each party be quite sure that the other has met the accountability?
  • Assessed – it needs to become a part of the performance appraisal of each party, and not just assessed on an annual basis only. Once a year is nothing like enough. This accountability is of sufficient importance to the functioning of the company it needs to be assessed at least monthly

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Losing All “A” Performers in a Small Office

This is a true story, and is offered to indicate how not doing what is recommended by Profs Becker, Huselid and Beatty can be expensive and serious for a company.

The office was a small sales office – around 15 people. The “A” job in the office is the sales and marketing manager. Why? Because the office was selling big ticket items – hopefully once in a lifetime purchases – and this manager is responsible for the total top line of the organization. Unfortunately, the “A” job was filled by a “C” performer and fortunately for both the office and the person, she was ‘promoted upstairs’ moving to a job in Head Office.

The recently appointed GM then set a winning strategy, and took over the role of sales and marketing manager, since Head Office would not allow the appointment of a replacement for the sales and marketing manager.  All other jobs in the office were “B” or “C” jobs. Interestingly, both I and the GM saw the job of Customer Support as a “B” job tending towards an “A”, while Head Office saw the job as , the company saw this latter as a “B” job, tending towards the “C” level. Just a necessary evil

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