people management - Blogs - DPG Community2024-03-29T14:08:46Zhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/feed/tag/people+managementShape Sustained Organisational Success by Building it into Your DNAhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/shape-sustained-organisational-success-by-building-it-into-your-d2017-03-24T11:33:40.000Z2017-03-24T11:33:40.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217227?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>In 1991 Charles Handy concluded that the basic purpose of an organisation is to perpetuate itself within the context of the environment in which it operates. You might not have thought about it in quite that way, but that conviction encapsulates and drives everything you do as a business leader. It shapes the way you think, the way you act and the way you expect others to think and act. That’s perhaps inevitable, but nonetheless spelling it out provides food for thought. Not least because it demands a long-term outlook. </p>
<p>Most business leaders will plead that they are thinking about the long-term and will cite all their strategic planning efforts as evidence of this. Yet, notwithstanding this, there seems to be increasing consensus that focus is too much on the short-term. All too often corporate failure seems to come as a major surprise: whether after a long-lingering painful demise that drained energy and resources, without achieving anything and failing to avoid the inevitable, or suddenly, as with the failures that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. This is subjective territory and open to discussion beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say that we need a more effective way of addressing the longer-term measures of organisational performance.</p>
<p>Here too Handy once again gives us some pointers as to how. He said, <em>“The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.</em>” I call it ‘Love at Work.’ But whatever you call it, it stems from people – your employees, your customers, and your suppliers – and the way you treat them – and Science supports this! </p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak">It seems that science – apparently much to its own surprise – has proved that <a href="http://i-uv.com/new-research-shocks-scientists-human-emotion-physically-shapes-reality/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="human emotion physically shapes reality">human emotion physically shapes reality</a>. I love that the article refers to this finding as “hiding in plain sight.” It seems to imply that it isn’t actually hidden or a secret, just that we have been slow in identifying it. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357891?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357891?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="320" class="align-left"></a>You are likely familiar with Henry Ford’s statement, <em>“If you think you can do a thing or if you think you can't do a thing, you're right.”</em> There are many others like it. They are also true: you need to look no further than placebos and the placebo effect to understand that our thinking does in fact govern our experience. For me, the exciting thing here is the fact that scientist have now proved it is not only true of our thinking, but also our emotions. Of course, that shouldn’t really be surprising either when you understand that emotions are effectively nothing more than unconscious or subconscious thoughts! Yet the implications are profound as they create a new reality.</p>
<p>Handy identifies them when he talks about the need to “make people happy.” Remember, he is saying you’re your organisation’s long-term survival depends on this. And long-term survival is the same as sustained success. So, if you want to be successful and avoid falling by the wayside sooner or later, you need to ensure that you make your people your primary focus. You need to build their happiness into your DNA. </p></div>Talking Heads or Turning Heads?https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/talking-heads-or-turning-heads2017-03-16T17:14:56.000Z2017-03-16T17:14:56.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217205?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Of course you are not a talking head. But are you – or any members of your team – in danger of becoming one or being seen as one?</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357907?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357907?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="320" class="align-right"></a>A talking head is defined as <em>“A person, especially a news reporter, an interviewer, an expert, etc., who appears on television in a close-up, hence essentially as a bodiless head.”</em> Unless you are a regular on the screen this might not seem to apply to you! Yet, as we all get so busy and obsessed with targets, deadlines and performance measures, heads start ruling hearts and we risk becoming metaphorical talking heads. This is not good.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak">Human beings are governed as much by emotion as intellect. That is why emotional intelligence is now more widely recognised and assessed. When you fail to consider people’s emotions you are effectively regarding them as no more than ‘hired hands.’ This diminishes their identity – and your own – and their sense of self-worth. You can never inspire employee engagement if you have people who feel unfulfilled, unappreciated and unvalued. (Even the word “feel” here alludes to the innate emotional need: it is not something you can quantify or measure.)</p>
<p>That is why I was interested in an article that came my way this week – <a href="https://leadershipfreak.blog/2017/03/14/5-ways-to-be-a-leader-who-turns-heads/amp/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Head turning leadership">5 Ways to be a Leader who Turns Heads</a>. I loved the photograph caption/headline, <em>“Power goes up when people talk around the table rather than to the head of the table,”</em> and the idea that leadership is about turning heads towards each other. </p>
<p>The articles goes on to give some very simple, but practical, tips for doing this, which you would do well to put into practice. Unfortunately though, at the end of the day they are just a list. They will, on their own, do nothing to change your behaviour. And, as I said earlier, the pressure of deadlines, targets and performance measures, make it all to likely that the list will be no different to a New Year’s resolution – soon forgotten!</p>
<p>To avoid being – or becoming – a talking head, you need to be more human and more humane. You need to ensure there is ‘Love at Work.’ People who love their work are engaged employees. And the ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model provides the catalyst to change your organisational culture and embed this ‘Love at Work.’ to radically transform your organisation and its results, and to enhance your own life and your employees. Turning heads will ensure that no-one in the organisation is merely a talking head. </p></div>Good Leadership: It’s All about Valuehttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/good-leadership-it-s-all-about-value2017-02-23T12:33:34.000Z2017-02-23T12:33:34.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217190?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Continuing with the <a href="http://blog.zealise.com/zealise_blog/2017/02/pursuing-good-business-leadership.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Business leadership">recent theme</a> of leadership and the question of whether or not you are a good leader, here is something else you can do to find out. Ask yourself, “Do I focus on value?” </p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b7c8d93a1c970b-pi" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b7c8d93a1c970b-320wi" class="align-left"></a></p>
<p>That might seem like a very strange question. Your instinctive reaction may be to shrug it off and say “Of course!” But I urge you to probe a little deeper. You may recall Oscar Wilde’s line that, “<em>A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing!</em>” Unfortunately cynicism seems to be a trap that many business leaders can fall into all too easily. So it may be useful to take a good, honest look at yourself, your behaviour and your thinking, to be sure that you haven’t inadvertently fallen into that trap.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak">A good way to ensure that you haven’t is to re-evaluate your long term focus. An insidious danger in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive business environment is that it demands an ever greater focus on the short-term. According to a recent <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/02/finally-proof-that-managing-for-the-long-term-pays-off" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review article</a>, DCLT surveys indicate that, “<em>Most executives feel the balance between short-term accountability and long-term success has fallen out of whack: 65% say the pressure they face has increased in the past five years</em>.” </p>
<p>This is a cause for concern. The report claims that “<em>61% of executives and directors say that they would cut discretionary spending to avoid risking an earnings miss, and a further 47% would delay starting a new project, <strong>even if doing so led to a potential sacrifice in value.</strong></em><strong>”</strong> (My emphasis.) This supports my long-held view that performance management is the tail that is wagging the dog, resulting in too great a focus on management at the expense of leadership. If you want to be a good leader, you need to focus on value.</p>
<p>In fact, the article “<a href="https://hbr.org/2017/02/finally-proof-that-managing-for-the-long-term-pays-off" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Managing for the long term pays off">Finally, Evidence that Managing for the Long Term Pays Off</a>” provides the evidence that I have been seeking for years. According to McKinsey’s research, firms that were identified as focused on the long term significantly outperformed the market as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Average revenue +47%</li>
<li>Average earnings +36%</li>
<li>Market capitalisation +58%</li>
<li>Economic profit (i.e. profit after deducting a charge for invested capital) +81%</li>
</ul>
<p>So, I ask again, “Now do you think you are a good leader?” I suspect that, once again, you are less likely to answer positively than you might have done earlier.</p>
<p>Yet, encouraging though this report is, there is more to value than just these traditional measures. It is certainly a step in the right direction that they include “economic profit” but the definition is definitely open to debate. If you truly want to measure value you would need to take account of two other elements that are generally excluded when looking at organisational performance:</p>
<ul>
<li>The value of the human contribution</li>
<li>The environmental cost</li>
</ul>
<p>As I am not qualified to talk about the latter, which is in any case being addressed in more august circles, let’s focus only on the former.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357878?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357878?profile=original" width="450" class="align-right"></a>Do you, as a leader, have any idea of the value of your people? If my experience is anything to go by, I will wager you do not. Early in my career I worked for a leading financial services company that decided to close down its private banking operation. This entailed making everyone who worked in the division redundant. Nothing unusual there and a valid commercial decision if it wasn’t making money, you might say. The issue, however, is that when setting up the function only two or three years earlier they had recruited their top 10% performers. This decision effectively meant that the company laid off some of its best people!</p>
<p></p>
<p>This would be bad in any organisation. But in a financial services company, where people are, fundamentally, the working capital of the organisation, it is inexcusable. The executives who made the decision clearly had no idea of the value they were destroying. This is unquestionably due to a deficiency in the way we account for people. The question you need to ask yourself is, “Would you do the same?” It is very likely you would if you have no idea of the value of your people. How then could you call yourself a good leader? </p></div>Pursuing Good Business Leadershiphttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/pursuing-good-business-leadership2017-02-09T12:43:10.000Z2017-02-09T12:43:10.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217177?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357876?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357876?profile=original" width="450" class="align-right"></a>Imagine, right now, that you are attached to a lie-detector and you are asked, “Are you a good business leader?” How would you answer? </p>
<p>If you are supremely confident, you might respond quickly, “Of course!” If you are more modest or less confident you might say, “I think so.” Either way, the likelihood is, like most executives and senior leaders, you are accustomed to empirical performance measures and will therefore have a reasonable basis for your answer. Accustomed to being in control and, perhaps unwilling to come across as unsure, you would be unlikely to stall by asking, “What do you mean by good?”</p>
<p>Yet, ‘good’ is a subjective term, and you would be quite within your rights to seek further clarification, or even to pull out that old consulting chestnut by responding, “It depends.” The fact is, your answer might well depend on who is operating the lie-detector and what lies behind the question or where the emphasis lies. Hopefully, however, the pressure derives from the lie-detector and this is a question you regularly ask yourself anyway. (If it isn’t, you definitely have little right to answer positively. A good leader will always be questioning their performance and looking to do better.)</p>
<p>So let’s move on to take a look at what you are doing to assess your leadership, and perhaps identify pointers for improvement.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak">Let’s start with productivity. There are two basic questions you need to ask yourself here.</p>
<ol>
<li>Are you satisfied with the productivity of your organisation?</li>
<li>If so, should you be?</li>
</ol>
<p>Productivity is invariably an issue, and the fact is it is always a people issue. In order to improve productivity you need to change the way people behave and/or the way they interact. “What about new systems and technology?” I hear you ask. Certainly they help to shape the environment, but your ability to optimise your return on investment on them depends on:</p>
<ul>
<li>The speed with which they are adopted;</li>
<li>The extent to which they are used;</li>
<li>The proficiency with which they are used.</li>
</ul>
<p>All of these depend on people, as does any reorganisation or organisational change. Thus it is hardly stretching a point to say that effective change ultimately depends on people. And, as a leader, your role is distinguished by the need to oversee both the present operations and the transition to an improved future. By extension, this demands managing your employees effectively. Hardly a surprise since ‘leadership’ identifies the ability to work with people. You cannot be a good leader if you cannot obtain the committed effort of the people you lead, or if you cannot successfully deliver change.</p>
<p>So, with surveys generally identifying that a significant majority (almost 70%) of all organisational change initiatives fail to meet their stated objectives, you might reconsider your answer to the initial question. If you want to improve productivity and create the business transformation that delivers step-change improvement in your organisation’s performance and bottom line results, you need to focus more on your people. </p>
<p>For Traci Fenton at <a href="http://www.worldblu.com/leadership.php" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Worldblu</a> this begins with creating greater <em>freedom at work</em>. For Alexander Kjerulf at <a href="http://woohooinc.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Woohoo Inc</a> it is about creating <em>happiness at work</em>. (If that sounds too unbusinesslike for you check out his very good <a href="http://positivesharing.com/2017/02/the-20-most-common-objections-to-happiness-at-work-and-why-theyre-wrong/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">video</a> addressing any likely objections you may have.) Both approaches will help you become a good (or better) manager, because they start with people. They just have different starting points.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Ultimately a focus on your people entails a more humane approach to business. This still means optimising your human capital, but doing so less from the point of the benefits to you and rather from the benefits to them. Thus it still means winning employee engagement but by creating a common purpose and providing a culture and environment that provides the autonomy, mastery and purpose that enables people to enjoy their work and creates a sense of satisfaction and self-fulfillment.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357931?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357931?profile=original" width="450" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p>The ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model offers you exactly that. A framework of shared purpose it underpins a new employer/employee relationship with little or none of the innate conflict that has historically cursed industrial relations. You might, perhaps, even call it <em>love at work </em>but it’s not the name that matters; it’s the results. And those could exceed anything you might currently contemplate. </p></div>Cats, Caterpillars and Businesshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/cats-caterpillars-and-business2016-12-08T11:36:43.000Z2016-12-08T11:36:43.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217132?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Have you ever noticed how sensitive a cat’s fur is? Barely touch a sleeping cat and it will twitch where you touch it. It’s purely reflex, I know, but it is something I love doing and always makes me smile. But it provides a useful lesson.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak">Perhaps I have been watching too much Planet Earth, but when it happened this week while our cat slept on my lap, I couldn’t help thinking about the role of hair in nature. My balding pate suggests hair is not an essential but, on these cold autumn mornings, I certainly wish I still had all mine! Slightly envious, I began to think about all the different types of hair and the other non-insulation purposes they serve. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357865?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357865?profile=original" width="450" class="align-left"></a>For instance, in the case of cats, they seem to act as an early-warning indicator, alerting the animal to potential danger. Yet you can safely stoke a cat and even find it a pleasurable experience. But it’s not the same with a caterpillar, as you know if you have ever tried to stroke one. Here the hairs act like miniscule porcupine quills and make life pretty uncomfortable. They also serve to deter potential predators from making a meal of them.</p>
<p>Nor is it just creatures. The wise gardener wears gloves because so many plants adopt the same strategy and tactics. Yet you also find hairs on the roots of plants and trees, where they serve a completely different purpose. Here the hairs act as a storage device or a capillary tube to collect and store moisture to nourish the plant and ensure its survival.</p>
<p>And there may well be other uses that I have missed. Most, however, play an essential role in safeguarding and sustaining life. Thus, while apparently insignificant, hairs are an integral part of the nervous system. So they provide a pretty good “for-the-want-of-a-nail” analogy for the role of people in business, and for considering your organisation as an organism. Just as the survival of an animal or plant depends on hairs fulfilling their function, so too the success of your organisation depends on your people.</p>
<p>Imagine a grand slam tennis tournament without the ball boys and ball girls. Or a football match where the groundsman had failed to mow the grass. It may not be appropriate to call your organisation a team, because it is simply too big and too complex and people may work without any knowledge of a huge number of their colleagues. But it can only operate effectively if everyone does their job properly. Every individual who fails to do the best they are capable of under the circumstances diminishes the performance of the whole organisation.</p>
<p>That is why you need to start thinking of your organisation as an organism too. A traditional hierarchical model is inherently inefficient. The diagram below gives an insight into why this is. It shows the effect of hierarchy on headcount assuming that each level has 7 direct reports.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b7c8ba14dd970b-pi"><img alt="Hierarchy and headcount" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54ee26aa1883301b7c8ba14dd970b image-full img-responsive align-center" src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b7c8ba14dd970b-800wi" title="Hierarchy and headcount"></a></p>
<p>It is no wonder that executing strategy becomes such a difficult proposition in larger organisations! But is isn’t just strategy that is made more difficult. Day-to-day management is also harder! This is because each level has accountability for <strong><em>all</em></strong> the levels below. This increases concern and the desire for control. In turn this increases both the amount of regulation and interference in how subordinates are allowed to do their work. Demotivating in the extreme, this negatively impacts on performance, productivity and engagement. It also increases the risk of poor decision making either because employees are likely to become more risk averse and pass the decision back up the line, slowing procedures down, or else make the <em>expected </em>rather than the <em>appropriate </em>decision for the situation.</p>
<p>Formulaic or shirked decision making will ultimately always harm your organisation in the long run. You need people who deal with issues on a daily basis, to be able to make the appropriate decision on the spot. That means you need to eliminate hierarchy and make your organisation more organic. As you can see from the diagram, eliminating hierarchy could, potentially, reduce your headcount from the total headcount to the incremental headcount. That, however, doesn’t mean simply making your organisation flatter. That’s still hierarchy. Rather it entails giving your people the ability to be the best they can be. That is essential for creating an organic business and is ultimately what ‘Every Individual Matters’ means.</p>
<p>So, if you want your organisation to be “the cat’s whiskers”, you need to understand that ‘Every Individual Matters’.</p></div>How The People Paradox Negates Employee Engagement Effortshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-the-people-paradox-negates-employee-engagement-efforts2016-09-22T11:27:42.000Z2016-09-22T11:27:42.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217028?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=395"></div><div><p>Have you ever heard of The People Paradox? I hadn’t either, although I was well aware of Lord Acton’s famous quote that, “<em>Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.</em>” Well, apparently that’s not just a bon mot: power does corrupt. Certainly according to research cited in the HBR.</p><p>In an October 2016 HBR article entitled <a rel="nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt-you%E2%80%A6" target="_blank">Don’t Let Power Corrupt You</a> Dacher Kilter describes how twenty years of research has shown him how, in all types of work environments, <em>“people rise on the basis of their good qualities, but their behaviour grows increasingly worse as they move up the ladder.</em>” That's 'The People Paradox.' I am sure you can think of instances in your own experience that support this. I still haven’t forgotten the CEO who completely ignored me when I was introduced to him by my Vice-President manager and added insult to injury by proceeding to question him about me as if I wasn’t there!</p><p>The fact that such behaviour seems objectionable makes the paradox credible. And, arguably, underpins the thinking behind employee engagement efforts. Yet, objectionable though it seems, one has to question why such “bad” behaviour is so pervasive and widespread. Is it possible that this behaviour is “built-into” our DNA as social animals? After all, it is not unique to humans: the consequences for any creature that strays from the clear pecking order of its group can be swift and severe. The fact is, any sort of community almost invariably necessitates some kind of hierarchy. And the hierarchy needs to be sustained.</p><p>The consequences of this are profound, because it would mean that the “paradox” is not in fact a paradox. Rather it is an entirely natural phenomenon, which means that this “corruption” is in fact anything but. This, in turn, makes it a lot harder to eliminate than one might envisage, and may well explain why, despite all the efforts to improve employee engagement, the results seem to be negligible.</p><p>Good as the remedies identified in <a rel="nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt-you%E2%80%A6" target="_blank">the article</a> may seem, because they appear to be looking at the problem the wrong way, they are highly unlikely to provide any meaningful, lasting solution. Finding this necessitates:</p><ol start="1"><li>Establishing whether this “corruption” is really a problem; and – if it is:</li><li>Finding a way to rewire our thinking to change our patterns of behaviour.</li></ol><p>On the face of it, the idea that power has a corrupting effect, suggests there is a problem. This is endorsed by the article’s remedies, which indicate that more considerate behaviour elicits improved performance and more positive results. And, if that is not enough, the prevalence of efforts to build employee engagement point to a widespread acknowledgement that all is not well.</p><p>If, however, the behaviour is innate, the remedy becomes more of a challenge, as the general failure of efforts to increase employee engagement substantiates. You need to ask yourself. “How do I address this and avoid the prevailing mistakes? Will the benefits justify the effort?” It’s your decision but one thing is for sure: if this behaviour is replicated at every level in your organisation, the potential benefits will be enormous, making the effort highly desirable. </p><p>The good news is that achieving those benefits does not have to be proportionally enormous. If the “corrupted” behaviour <em>is</em> hard-wired due to the need to survive in hierarchies, the best way to re-programme our thinking has to be to eliminate hierarchy in our organisations. Effectively this means shifting from an organisational structure to an organic structure. This makes the organisation more responsive, more adaptable and more change efficient. There are organisations that have done this and achieved – and sustained – significant success as a result. What's stopping you becoming one? </p></div>How to Create a Great Employer Brandhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-to-create-a-great-employer-brand2016-08-04T10:05:42.000Z2016-08-04T10:05:42.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216981?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Where does your company rank in the echelons of “best employer” or “best company to work for”? After all the likelihood is that, even if it is not ranked, it will have taken, or considered taking, part in the evaluation. Ranking has become ubiquitous. We have league tables for schools, universities, hospitals and who knows what else. Perhaps the time has come to question whether we have taken this competitiveness too far, and to recognize the practice as counter-productive, insidious and invidious.</p><p><img class="mce-pagebreak" alt=""/>What is the difference between being fifth, fiftieth or one hundred and fiftieth? Especially when all too often your choice is limited. And, even if it isn’t, it seems a shaky basis of selection when next year’s position might be drastically different. Apart from anything else, most measures are retrospective, which means the criteria lag behind reality and the benefit or damage of current actions may only be identified some time later. </p><p>Furthermore, only one organisation can ever claim to be “the best”, whatever that means. Thus, to give a greater chance in the lottery and encourage greater participation we often divide them into sub-categories – best large company employer, best small company employer, etc. But the process still remains the result of a tabulation of averages and subjective, non-empirical performance measures, taken to the nth decimal place. Despite this, we give these rankings a dangerous amount of power: not only to determine status but also to mould decisions and shape strategy, tactics and, ultimately, the culture of our organisations.</p><p>This can have a massively distorting effect. As soon as you start measuring and ranking you narrow the focus and create the temptation to manipulate the outcome. Thus, in many ways, the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.zealise.com/zealise_blog/2016/07/how-to-effectively-align-your-performance-and-rewards.html#more" target="_blank" title="How to effectively align performance and rewards">arguments against conventional incentive remuneration schemes</a> that I raised last week also apply here. But again it is not too difficult to reduce the risk: all you really need do is remove the competitive element to your efforts.</p><p>You know that your success depends on the efforts of your people. So, rather than striving to improve your position in such a league, you need to focus instead on making your organisation a great place to work. The difference with this goal is that you create a more authentic environment. Instead of focusing on externally driven measures, your focus is on what is best the organisation. This inevitably leads to a great employer brand, with greater employee engagement and the improved results that naturally follow.</p><p>Ron McIntyre puts it very succinctly when he talks about enabling “<em>a company to operate at its fullest potential by allowing people to do their best work.”</em> Isn’t that ultimately what any business leader aims for? And in his article, “<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-make-your-company-engaging-workplace-ron-mcintyre?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish" target="_blank" title="Creating an engaging workplace">How to Make your Company an Engaging Workplace</a>” Ron identifies 6 invaluable ‘characteristics’ that provide a framework for this. His agenda is:</p><ol><li>Encourage authenticity of everyone</li><li>Encourage transparent communication</li><li>Empower people to leverage their strengths</li><li>Stand for stakeholder value</li><li>Make daily work relevant and challenging</li><li>Have a vision people can embrace and minimise rules.</li></ol><p>These may sound Utopian and some even run counter to traditional practice, as Ron says, but it is the recipe you need to follow if you truly wish to transform your organisation.</p><p><a rel="nofollow" class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b8d20cf406970c-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54ee26aa1883301b8d20cf406970c img-responsive align-center" title="Growing trust through authenticity 123rf 47499932_s" src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301b8d20cf406970c-320wi" alt="Growing trust through authenticity 123rf 47499932_s"/></a></p><p>The fact is that they are all inextricably linked and ultimately mutually reinforcing which is why you need to embrace them. In fact you could sum them all up in the word “Authenticity.” After all you cannot have an authentic organisation without embracing all 6 because, apart from being unable to create authenticity without trust:-</p><ul><li>Nobody can be authentic in an organisation that is not authentic.</li><li>You cannot have transparent communication unless everyone is authentic and the organisation is too.</li><li>Authentic people by definition are fully utilising and developing their capabilities.</li><li>Neither people nor organisations can be authentic without the trust stemming from a common purpose which inevitably necessitates creating value.</li><li>Work has to be relevant and challenging if people are to be authentic and leverage their capabilities.</li><li>Rules become largely redundant in an authentic environment driven by common purpose that automatically provides the guiding vision.</li></ul><p>This means that a great employer brand has to be an authentic organisation, and that in turn, entails creating trust by recognizing that ‘Every Individual Matters.’</p></div>How to Effectively Align Your Performance and Rewardshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-to-effectively-align-your-performance-and-rewards2016-07-28T11:20:49.000Z2016-07-28T11:20:49.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216968?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=350"></div><div><p>As someone who aims to be an effective organisational leader, do your ever wonder why you have a performance related pay/incentive remuneration scheme? Certainly, if you are one of the nearly 15 million people who have watched "<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc" target="_blank" title="The surprising truth about what motivates us">The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us</a>" that is a question you ought to have been asking yourself. Or is it something you haven’t dared asked yourself, simply because performance related pay is virtually ubiquitous? When nearly every organisation – regardless of type or nature of business – has such a scheme, you would be bucking the trend and possibly damaging your employer brand if you didn’t. </p><p>If that is the case there are still a number of criteria that you should be looking at to ensure that you have performance measures and remuneration and reward structures that optimise organisational performance. When it comes to effective performance measures and rewards you naturally need to ask yourself 3 questions.</p><ol><li>Do I have the right performance measures?</li><li>Are the rewards for achieving those performance measures appropriate?</li><li>Does the combination of performance measures and reward ensure behaviours that consistently produce the best overall results for the organisation?</li></ol><p>So, how good are your answers? Can you be sure that you are optimising your people, their capabilities and their collective effectiveness? Chances are that you cannot do so with any degree of confidence.</p><p>Earlier in my career I worked for a financial services company that paid sales people for generating new business. Unfortunately, the definitions of new business and the boundaries between the different departments were not sufficiently clearly delineated. Thus money transferred from deposit accounts to mutual funds and vice versa was treated as new business. Consequently sales commissions were paid when there was in fact no benefit to the company and money was regularly ‘churned.’ The sale people did well out of the arrangement, but the company didn’t! This was a factor in the company ultimately going bankrupt.</p><p>Now, you might think this is an extreme example (and hopefully it is) but you need to be sure your organisation is not also prey to manipulation or abuse of your performance versus reward systems. As this <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.blackbox-consulting.com/blog/2016/07/performance-mis-management-part-1?utm_content=33692188&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin" target="_blank" title="Article of performance management">article on performance management </a>illustrates, ways in which incentives can be manipulated and undermine organisational effectiveness are virtually infinite. This makes finding examples in any organisation, including yours, highly likely. The only way to eliminate the risk is to remove the link between personal performance and reward.</p><p>Removing that link may seem like a step too far in today’s workplace and, even contemplating it, organisational suicide but it isn’t. Pervasive incentive remuneration across all walks of life is a recent phenomenon and its inherent flaws makes it inevitable the pendulum will swing back. You can precipitate that by adopting my ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model and its key elements that ensure remuneration and rewards cannot be manipulated and are equitable across the board. The key principles are:</p><ul><li>Performance is not ranked, but is assessed purely against the role requirements.</li><li>Remuneration is linked exclusively to the role and the going market rate for the role.</li><li>Pay increases are awarded only to reflect increases in living costs and are applied universally and uniformly throughout the organisation. Otherwise remuneration only changes as a result of personal development and its effects on the role or career development.</li><li>Additional earnings (effectively recognising the life-investment the employee is making) are possible but are distributed based solely on total organisational results and universally shared on a dividend basis as a fixed percentage of the individual’s ‘human asset value.’ </li></ul><p>This not only overcomes the inherent weaknesses of conventional performance-related pay schemes, but offers you the strategic alignment and synergy that will ensure your ongoing success. </p></div>Why Employee Engagement Efforts Aren’t More Effectivehttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/why-employee-engagement-efforts-aren-t-more-effective2016-06-02T11:59:31.000Z2016-06-02T11:59:31.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216906?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>In his book, “Leaders Eat Last,” Simon Sinek expounds on how the human species has been biologically programmed for survival. He describes the chemical stimulants that the body produces under different circumstances. He identifies 6 different chemical reactions and the situations in which they are produced. These are, briefly, as follows:</p><p><img class="mce-pagebreak align-center" alt=""/><a rel="nofollow" class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090af5af970d-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090af5af970d image-full img-responsive align-center" title="Biological Chemical Survival Mechanisms" src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090af5af970d-800wi" alt="Biological Chemical Survival Mechanisms" border="0"/></a></p><p>However, having just <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/16/05/p8022769/the-starr-conspiracy-intelligence-units-2016-employee-engagement-vendor#/ixzz49bUMmuvW" target="_blank" title="Expenditure of employee engagement">read</a> that expenditure on employee engagement exceeds $74 billion I cannot help wondering if this also explains why there has been so little improvement in employee engagement generally with levels of disengagement continuing to hover around the 70% mark.</p><p>Why would I think this?</p><p>Well, having long maintained that employee engagement is an umbrella concept that covers many issues, not least the fact that people are all different, I may well be prejudiced towards doing so. Nevertheless, I feel this provides other sound reasons for thinking this. </p><p>Firstly, engagement is an attitude or state of mind. This, inevitably, makes it entirely subjective. It also suggests that it is likely to be susceptible to circumstances, which would make engagement more mood-like, and – as a consequence – more likely to fluctuate and hence be a transient condition. The biological science that Sinek describes reinforces that logic and, by confirming that our responses are chemically induced, proves that susceptibility. All of which makes measuring employee engagement a moving target and a questionable exercise.</p><p>And, while logic may suggest otherwise, the consistent levels of employee engagement may bear this out and could simply be the result of attempting to homogenise the classification of people. Ultimately this inherently runs counter to the concept of recognising an employee’s individuality. When people want to feel that they “make a difference” and to be recognised and appreciated for their contribution this is counter-productive. It completely fails to recognise and address what Dan Pink identifies as the three drivers of motivation – autonomy, mastery and purpose – and does nothing to give employees any sense of that.</p><p>Consider Oxytocin for starters. It produces trust, and if you continue to run an environment in which command and control are the order of the day, where people are judged by the amount of time they spend at their desks or by their ability to achieve ever more “stretch” targets you will never build the trust you need to gain the engagement you are looking for.</p><p><span>Similarly, an environment in which there is a constant threat of losing one’s job, or the justification for most new technology or change initiatives, is how many jobs it will ‘save’, means that people will continue to be paranoid and produce the cortisol which is the ultimate cause of stress and ill-health. This is likely to be a significant factor in your sick days lost and/or absenteeism. In such an environment how can you ever expect your people to be engaged?</span></p><p>I am sure there are many other examples that would reinforce the point. The question you need to ask yourself, however, is how much do your employees trust you? Even if you have given them assurances that their jobs are secure, how do they know that you mean it and that their jobs will be not be in jeopardy the moment there is a deterioration in your trading conditions? If you haven't earned that trust you haven’t a snowball's chance in hell of ever securing greater employee engagement, no matter how much money you throw at the project. </p><p>Next time I will share more about how you can achieve your employee engagement objectives more effectively, but if you don’t want to wait you can always contact me directly.</p></div>Human Capital Reporting: Breaking the Impassehttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/human-capital-reporting-breaking-the-impasse2016-05-26T14:15:41.000Z2016-05-26T14:15:41.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216897?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><strong><em>A third of FTSE 100 companies</em></strong><em> are withholding vital workforce related information from their annual reports, including skills challenges and employee turnover. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.valuingyourtalent.com/research-insight/vyt-research/reporting-human-capital/index" target="_blank"><strong>New research from the Valuing your Talent partnership</strong></a> finds that this failure to adequately communicate the value of people to business is creating a clear risk to users of these company reports, such as investors.</em></p>
<p>That was the opening paragraph to a broadcast email I received from the CIPD this morning. Feeling a flicker of hope, I downloaded the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.valuingyourtalent.com/media/Reporting-Human-Capital-Exec-summary_tcm1044-7503.pdf" target="_blank">executive summary</a> immediately. Alas, the phrase, “Including skills challenges and employee turnover” should have warned me of the kind of narrow constraints that would dash my hopes. I cannot help feel the report avoids the real issues.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak" alt="">More than two years ago I completed a comprehensive analysis of the annual reports of one of the world’s largest companies for my book <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bayjordan.com/books/the-democracy-delusion/" target="_blank" title="The Democracy Delusion How to Restore True Democracy and Stop Being Duped">“The Democracy Delusion.”</a> This analysis showed that over the ten year period:</p>
<ul>
<li>Employee numbers had reduced by more than 110,000 people. (39%)</li>
<li>Savings in employee costs (2.014 billion) were nearly 136% of profit growth (1.487 billion)</li>
</ul>
<p>For me there is no clearer proof of what I call “<a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.zealise.com/zealise_blog/2016/01/the-paradox-of-management-and-how-to-remedy-it.html" target="_blank" title="The Great Management Paradox">The Great Management Paradox</a>” than this. The practice of managing people exclusively as costs rather than as assets is so pervasive that it may even threaten the ultimate viability of the market. After all, who will be able to buy the goods if large numbers of people are unable to find work security and/or face little prospect of real income growth? There was nothing indicated in the report to suggest these issues had even been looked at, which I find disturbing at a time when there is great debate about the “living wage.”</p>
<p>The research was apparently broken into five distinct areas.</p>
<ul>
<li>Knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA)</li>
<li>Human Resource Development (HRD)</li>
<li>Employee welfare</li>
<li>Employee equity</li>
<li>Workforce risk</li>
</ul>
<p>Unfortunately these were not defined and the reader is left to deduce what each one means from the content of the report. And what is included in each is not necessarily self-evident. So while KSA includes innovation, entrepreneurship and flexibility which you may expect (or not); employee welfare included ethics along with well-being and employee engagement; and employee equity, which you might envisage covering employee ownership, in fact included equality, diversity and human rights. Workforce risk apparently comprised key terms from the other categories and included talent management, succession planning and ethics. </p>
<p>Equally unfortunately the report seemed to focus on the extent to which reporting on these issues had increased or decreased over the comparative period, rather than identifying the method of reporting and its relative quality.</p>
<p>This inevitably makes the report disappointing. In fact, despite the study showing an increase in HC reporting, the finding that, “<em>It is debatable whether investors or other stakeholders will be able to make informed decisions</em>” it is downright depressing. Apart from anything else, it certainly suggests that our current direction of travel is inappropriate and the pace too slow.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357789?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357789?profile=original" width="347" class="align-right"></a>If you don’t also think that, just consider this. The report itself states, “<em>People are the only part of a business that can improve itself and they are fundamental in increasing value in it.</em>” It continues later, “<em>Hiring difficulties are becoming more commonplace and what are termed as ‘hard-to-fill’ vacancies are also on the rise in most economic sectors.</em>” The need is clearly urgent. And it cannot be addressed from a mind set that persists in regarding people solely as costs.</p>
<p>It is thus extremely ironic that a body called Valuing Your Talent can imply this – as it does in the title of the report – without recognising, or effectively addressing it. Fortunately the ‘Every Individual Matters’ model does so. It offers you the way to both speed up your efforts and to create new standards for accounting for, managing and treating your people and building a more effective, humane working environment.</p>
<p>________________________________________________</p></div>Meeting the Most Pressing Human Capital Needshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/meeting-the-most-pressing-human-capital-needs2016-05-19T10:19:25.000Z2016-05-19T10:19:25.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216902?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>What are executives’ major concerns these days? I was grateful to get a fresh insight recently when I obtained a copy of the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2016 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends.html" target="_blank" title="Deloitte Human Capital Trends 2016">report</a>. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to identify the trends and ascertain:</p>
<ol>
<li>What <strong><em>are</em></strong> executive management’s most pressing concerns?</li>
<li>To what extent my ‘Every Individual Matters’ model meets those concerns?</li>
</ol>
<p>And I am happy to report that the answers were extremely satisfying. The trends are a clear barometer of the way that organisations are changing. There was nothing surprising about them or the concerns that are driving them. They are clearly long-term changes and, as such, will reshape the organisation of the future. And my ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model goes a long way to addressing nearly <strong><em>all </em></strong>of them. Let me explain why I feel so positive about this.</p>
<p><img class="mce-pagebreak" alt="" />Naturally you will first need to know what the trends are. The following chart from the report summarises them neatly.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb09029360970d-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb09029360970d image-full img-responsive" title="2016-05-18 Deloitte global survey findings" src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb09029360970d-800wi" alt="2016-05-18 Deloitte global survey findings" border="0" /></a></p>
<p>As the report indicates, these trends are a direct response to the need to reshape the organisation itself, largely as a result of the changing nature of business and the need to keep on top of operations to respond rapidly and appropriately to market forces. Knowing the trends, however, does not automatically make the actions any easier to take.  Especially, if you try to address them in isolation.</p>
<p>Fortunately the ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model provides a more integrated solution that offers you the capability of addressing many of these issues simultaneously. This is also best illustrated graphically and the following chart sums up why this is the case.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090294b9970d-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090294b9970d image-full img-responsive" title="Global Human Capital Trends and EIM" src="http://blog.zealise.com/.a/6a00e54ee26aa1883301bb090294b9970d-800wi" alt="Global Human Capital Trends and EIM" border="0" /></a></p>
<p>It is clear then: in the modern business world, every individual matters and the ‘Every Individual Matters’ model offers you a definite solution for meeting these most pressing human capital needs.</p>
</div>Evolution, Not Revolution, Powers Innovation and Changehttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/evolution-not-revolution-powers-innovation-and-change2016-05-05T08:49:13.000Z2016-05-05T08:49:13.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216991?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357775?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357775?profile=original" width="347" class="align-right"></a>Having long championed the idea of organisations as organisms – as living entities rather than as machines – I have lately become increasingly aware that this is the key to eliminating hierarchy and burying command and control. It also demands a fresh approach to change and is essential for the innovation so vital for commercial – and economic – success. Because organisms only change through evolutionary process.</span></p>
<p><span>In fact, if you accept revolutionary change to be any non-evolutionary change, historically, most effective change has happened through evolution rather than revolution. Even the agricultural and industrial revolutions were more evolutionary changes than revolutionary. Most revolutions that can be identified as occurring at a specific time – e.g. the French and Russian Revolutions – could be said to be revolts against a very unsatisfactory status quo rather than specific efforts to introduce pre-designed, and tested, new models. </span></p>
<p><span>Consequently it seems logical that embracing change as an evolutionary process will enhance change management initiatives and help any organisation survive and thrive in our fast-changing world. It is, therefore, encouraging to find so many others are thinking along the same lines. But HR will need to step up to the plate.</span></p>
<p><span>The words of economist Eric D Beinhocker are particularly pertinent at a time when innovation is becoming a key strategic objective<i>; “Evolution is an algorithm; it is an all-purpose formula for innovation … that, through its special brand of trial and error, creates new designs and solves difficult problems.”</i> More than that, though, he also calls for its application in business; <i>“The key to doing better is to ‘bring evolution inside’ and get the wheels of differentiation, selection and amplification spinning within a company’s four walls.”</i> ‘Bringing evolution inside’ certainly implies the need for a new business paradigm. </span></p>
<p><span>This is something long advocated by management guru Gary Hamel, who makes the point that, <i>“The most powerful managers are the ones furthest from the frontline realities. All too often decisions made on an Olympian peak prove to be unworkable on the ground.”</i> You could say that is a statement of the obvious, yet organisations of all sizes and descriptions persist in pursuing such revolutionary change – change initiatives and re-engineering programmes intended to bring about organisational change. And keep employees and consultants alike busy investigating why over 70% of them fail!</span></p>
<p><span>That is not all either. In pursuing these efforts, managers also ignore their leadership role and fail to recognise their effect on their employees. Those ‘frontline’ people who are facing the day to day realities end up doubly frustrated, because they know what the correct action ought to have been but have to spend their time, effort and energy on the wrong thing. And HR then spends further resources trying to repair employee engagement! HR can spare itself a huge amount of effort if it focuses on this more pre-emptive process.</span></p>
<p><span>In organisms, each and every cell, both individually and as part of a larger organ, is a self-managing entity. This, with the concomitant capability to respond, adapt and change, is what enables the whole organism to survive and thrive. Every cell matters. It therefore seems abundantly clear that, for organisations to become more organic, the people need to be seen as cells and to be self-managing. The minute any individual becomes frustrated due to problems carrying out their work and the inability to address such problems, the effectiveness of the organisation itself is impaired. This inevitably has a compounding effect, inhibiting organisational performance even further.</span></p>
<p><span>Every individual matters.</span></p></div>How HR Should Transform to Take the Lead in Putting People Firsthttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-hr-should-transform-to-take-the-lead-in-putting-people-first2016-02-11T13:33:27.000Z2016-02-11T13:33:27.000ZBay Jordanhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/BayJordan<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216743?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>You likely heard the news late last week that the Shell share price rose 7% in response to the news that the company was cutting 10,000 jobs. So, what was your reaction?</p><p>I wager it hardly made any impression on you. Yet that report encapsulates the pervasive attitude that people are simply a resource, and reinforces my case that the HR profession needs to change its approach. Let’s take a look how it could go about this.</p><p>Stalin is reputed to have said, <i>“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”</i> Whether he did or not, it is a profound statement and one that now seems to be as apt for the loss of livelihoods as it is for the loss of lives. We have become inured to and blasé about redundancies; to the point of accepting them as an inevitable part of running a business. Of course there may be times when there is no other option, but business leaders do seem too over-rely on layoffs.</p><p>This is what Simon Sinek is alluding to in “Leaders Eat Last”, when he writes about increasing scale making things more abstract. Business leaders of large organisations become too removed from their employees to consider them as anything more than a statistic. They would find redundancies much more difficult if they knew the people they were dispensing with, and might then be far less likely to do so. And HR has been complicit in allowing this to happen. </p><p>The issue here is not one of socialism vs capitalism but rather one of economics. Studies show that organisations that take more care of their people outperform all their competitors by a considerable margin. South Western Airlines has been the only airline to have been consistently profitable since it was founded and Sinek opens eyes with his comparison between Costco and GE. The former, where founder James Sinegal made people his priority yielded a return of nearly 1200% between being listed in 1986 and October 2013 while GE, more famous for its “rank-and-yank” approach yielded a return of 600% over the same period. (Note: This period <i>included</i> the difficult trading conditions following The Great Recession.)</p><p>As the market response to the Shell announcement indicates, a key factor here is that analysts – and hence the markets they help shape – are fixated on results and consequently short-term rather than longer term action. This ultimately isn’t in the best interests of anybody, least of all the poor souls who lose their livelihoods and the families affected. And, if HR has been complicit in allowing this to happen, it is imperative that it takes a lead in ending it.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, this begins with creating and implementing a culture that puts people first; built on the principle that “<i>Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first</i>” (Simon Sinek) – a message that should be easy to sell to the Board. Once that is done the next steps are to:</p><ul><li>Reduce the addictive, dopamine-releasing policies that encourage self-interest;</li><li>Introduce more serotonin and oxytocin releasing policies that ensure a more collaborative environment in which trust is integral and employees look out for one another and the business.</li><li>Introduce policies that reduce stress and the production of anxiety-producing cortisol. </li></ul><p>The first of these can be relatively easily achieved by reducing the number and importance of personal performance measures and the imperative of achieving them at all costs. The second is not quite so easy, but can be relatively simply achieved by creating a common purpose and a culture that shares and celebrates success. The third is largely a by-product of the first two but can be specifically addressed by reducing the threat of job-losses for anything but criminal or wilful negligence.</p><p>Ideally these will all be part and parcel of your ongoing employee engagement efforts. If not, it is unlikely that those efforts will deliver the results you are aiming for. You need to incorporate them specifically. If you are still unclear or unsure how to go about this, please contact me, because my ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model provides a catalyst for achieving all these objectives. </p></div>Calling all SME's - CIPD People Management Awards 2015 entries are now open!https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/cipd-people-management-awards-20152015-02-23T16:40:30.000Z2015-02-23T16:40:30.000ZDebora Figueiredohttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/DeboraFigueiredo<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2216386?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;">The CIPD People Management Awards (PMAs) are the most prestigious Awards in the profession. Delivered in partnership with</span> <i style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;">People Management</i> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;">Magazine, the Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding achievement in people management and development and the impact it has on business success. The Awards are open to all types of organisations, regardless of size or sector.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;">Each category recognises outstanding achievement and contribution to business sustainability and success. The judges are looking for evidence that a particular business issue was tackled through a people management initiative and how business performance was enhanced as a result. They want to see real results and measurability as well as innovation and creativity that sets new standards of best practice.</span></p>
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<p>Take a look at the category :“<a href="http://www.cipdpmas.co.uk/categories/" target="_blank">Michael Kelly outstanding student of the year</a>”. There are 2 awards for outstanding participants, one at postgraduate level and one for foundation / intermediate level qualifications. We’d love to see our DPG students entering these categories.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;">You can find out more <a href="http://www.cipdpmas.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.7;"><span style="line-height: 1.42857143;"><b>Entry deadline: Friday 24th April 2015</b></span></span></p>
</div>Career or Mum - it shouldn't be a choice!https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/career-or-mum-it-shouldn-t-be-a-choice2013-08-15T14:55:03.000Z2013-08-15T14:55:03.000ZSarah Aubreyhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/SarahAubrey<div><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357338?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357338?profile=original" width="599"></a>"One in four mums cites discrimination in the workplace" according to CIPD's People Management Daily. I read this article with a sense of dismay about the plight of working women across the UK and a silent epidemic that appears to be at play. The findings, from the law firm Slater & Gordon, revealed that being overlooked for promotion or seeing junior employees progressing faster up the career ladder are common complaints.</p>
<p>Contrast this to the <a rel="nofollow" title="Recent Research" href="http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/11082/whos-breadwinning-working-mothers-and-the-new-face-of-family-support" target="_blank">recent research</a> published by the Institute of Public Policy highlighting that one in three working mums are now the main breadwinners and there is a mismatch here.</p>
<p>Having spent the last fifteen years post university building a career in an area that I'm passionate about, I didn't want to be in a position where I had to put my career on the back burner because I was becoming a new mum. Of course my child is the most important thing in my life but I love my work and it is a part of who I am. To quote Confucius "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life", I'm lucky to be in this place working in an organisation that I'm aligned to, with a great team of people and importantly a family friendly culture.</p>
<p>If my organisation wasn't flexible enough to support my new working pattern, I'm not sure I could have made it work. From the moment I joined DPG it was clear to me that people sit at the heart of the business. It was so refreshing in my early days to hear one of the partners Cliff Lansley say "If your team are working beyond 5pm we will want to talk to you about why…!"</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>I'm now Co-Managing Director at DPG alongside Robert Wagner. We share the MD responsibilities and this enables us to work flexibly together. Since returning from maternity I work four days a week and typically one of those is at home. I'm lucky to work with a great team and as a business we have a flexible working policy which we know is hugely valued.</p>
<p>Blocking opportunities to working women is truly shocking and nothing more than discrimination. Yes we may need more flexibility but there are many men out there too that are juggling the demands of career/family as well. This shouldn't be a gender issue anymore. From April 2015 the sharing of parental leave will enable parents to decide how they share care for their child in the first year after birth. This is a welcomed step forward that reflects changing family dynamics.</p>
<p>The way we work is changing too and organsiations need to change alongside this. The days of 9-5 are pretty much behind us. The use of social tools and web-enabled devices means that we can work more smartly at a time that suits us. We no longer need to be anchored to our workstations. We need business leaders to reframe their expectations and harness flexible working to make sure they retain key talent whilst supporting the aspirations of their female and male employees.</p>
<p>Early starts, late finishes, home working and so on can benefit our businesses in many ways. With the continued war on talent organisations need to make retention a key priority. In this day and age work is something we do (and do a lot more of….) not just a place we go to anymore. If organisations extend flexibility they get it and more back tenfold. That is our experience.</p>
<p><em><strong>Can you share what experiences you've had?</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>Has your organisation provided flexibility?</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong>What happens when flexibility isn't available?</strong></em></p>
<p>I'd love to hear from you.</p>
<p>Sarah</p></div>