I am passionate and determined that organisations will move from business as usual to recognising people as the opportunity to grow. Within organisations I believe we have perfected the art of creating structure to keep sellers on the road; marketers in the agencies; counters at the desk;workers under the thumb; programmers in our systems and analysts on numbers. An organisational structure, that creates the bureaucracy of monitoring staff and controlling direction; that promotes business as usual and an impenetrable wall around status quo. But I have been asked to contribute; so wow I have an opportunity to make a difference! Now I am feeling I am more than just a number, just counter, just a seller, just a worker! I am feeling enthused and willingly want to create time in the weekend, between making breakfast and taking my son to soccer, to write my beliefs. A belief that we can break through the seemingly impenetrable wall around status quo

Business has turned personnel into human resources and created for the very people I am passionate and determined about a place for them to vent their frustrations and suspicions about the very things I would not deny. But what can I do? I know people join companies and leave managers because they feel more bullied than managed; but what can I do? I know our managers prefer to impress the ‘boss’; but what can I do? I know decisions are made for political reasons of self preservation; but what can I do? I know the key to success is held by the very people who knock on my door; but what can I do?

What I can do? Recognise I have a network where we are here to develop others; to be the organisational conscience; to be the catalysts of change and to be the ones who listen to the pulse through understanding people. People are the key to organisational growth and without doubt we need to align and integrate people strategy with business strategy and create a culture where effective leadership will emerge. Whilst leadership is for all, we tend to see leadership as a management function; as a task within a specific role or as a trendy thing to do.

Creating leadership requires an organisation to let go of business as usual through challenging status quo, through moving from I to we; from control to catalyst; hierarchy to team; suspicion to questioning; caution to courage; telling to asking; and from copied to authentic leadership. The challenge; leadership is a journey not a destination.

A journey like Dr Seuss’ ‘Oh the Places you’ll go’ is a great place to start, for “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go”.

Do you believe business managers will let go of control in favour of becoming a catalyst for change; a catalyst that will create learning, energy, self awareness and above all opportunity for growth?

Guest  Author: Chris Lund is a speaker at the HRINZ Nine to 9 Conference, 12^th May in Auckland. His session is titled: Management is a Title – Leadership is a Gift.

Chris Lund has gained an appreciation of effective management and leadership styles by having a diverse managerial background in hospitality, supermarkets, military & manufacturing. He has enhanced his experience with an academic insight through completing a Master of Management degree in Authentic Leadership at the University of Auckland’s Business School. Professor Brad Jackson, who holds the Chair of Leadership, was Chris’s Supervisor. Chris is presently the Human Resources Manager for Wattyl NZ Limited and facilitating the leadership development programme throughout Australasia. Fuelled through his thirst for knowledge he has developed a passion for learning leadership and feels energised when he shares the knowledge he has gained. In completing his thesis he was required to develop a leadership development programme which, through involving key stakeholders, is an integrated and well-received programme throughout his organisation.

On 15 April I attended the Gala Dinner to officially launch the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management (HKIHRM) new Professional Standards. I attended on behalf of HRINZ who were one of the members of the International Advisory Panel that had helped the Hong Kong Institute over the last four years in putting the standards together.

In the last four years Beverley Main, Kris Cooper, Crispin Garden-Webster and I all had direct engagement with the Hong Kong Institute during their standard setting process.

The Gala Dinner served two purposes – to officially launch the Standards and to also acknowledge and thank those that had been involved in the work that resulted in the standards being finalised and accepted.

The dinner was well attended by HR professionals, Business leaders, Academics and Members of the Hong Kong Government. The International HR Community was represented by Ernesto Espionsa, President World Federation of People Management, Peter Wilson, President of Asia Pacific Federation of Human Resources Management,

Brian Glade, Society of Human Resources Management, and myself.

The dinner was a very well run event with some excellent speakers and speeches. A speech on behalf of the Hong Kong government was given by Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare. As well as congratulating the Institute, like most politicians he couldn’t resist the opportunity to try and get some support for New Government Initiatives. One that I found really interesting was introducing a minimum wage for the first time into Hong Kong. This created great debate around the dinner table as there were people both for and against. The other part of his speech that interested me was the challenge for Hong Kong to meet the targets set by China. If the targets are met then Hong Kong is able to continue basically as an independent country. If the targets are not met then the Chinese government could take a much stronger role in the running of the area.

Speeches were also given by Ernie and Peter and by Wilfred Wong Kam-pui, the President of the Hong Kong Institute. The MC for the night was the enigmatic Lai Kam-tong(known to everyone as KT). KT has been the Chairman of Accreditation steering committee and has been the driving force behind the project and steering it to a final resolution. KT is one of those people that won’t accept words or phrases like “no”, “too hard”, “can’t be done,” or any other negative words. His drive and enthusiasm was acknowledged at the dinner.

The new accreditation model that has been adopted has three parts to it; Capability, Knowledge and Experience, which are then translated into three levels of membership, Associate Member, Professional Member and Fellow Member. In looking at the model in detail you can easily identify some parts of the HRINZ model, some from CIPD and some from SHRM. The important matter though, is that HKIHRM has come up with a model that works for them and their members and has the support of their Government, Business and Academic Leaders.

For more information on the event and the Professional Standards and Membership scheme go to www.hkihrm.org

But what motivates that sense of loyalty? According to Kiwi employees, it’s the very elements of your business that will drive greater productivity, efficiency and profit. Your staff want to be able to work to their full potential, to face challenges and have their skills developed.

But to really succeed, your employees are also demanding great leadership.

When employees were asked the question: ‘What one factor would be most likely to cause you to leave your organisation?’ the leading answer was poor management. Employees of all ages and backgrounds rated poor management above factors like lack of opportunities for advancement and poor staff morale.

To maintain an engaged and productive workforce, Kiwis are clearly saying they want to be challenged and extended, while being led by positive, confident managers.

And it’s not only current employees who are interested in the quality of management in your organisation, but potential employees as well.

The quality of leadership and management in a company are some of the first things a possible employee evaluates.

What the Kelly survey has revealed is that the strength of your employer brand is one of the strongest influencing factors – internally and externally – in staff engagement. And that brand is built on a strong leadership team.

The recession has paid an unlooked-for dividend in workplace engagement. The hard work of managers and employers – often with a focus on business survival and stability – has been recognised by employees, who are now more engaged and motivated.

They are also ready to take on new challenges. And work with you – not necessarily at greater cost – on the growth and development of your business.

The new workplace environment is ready for a new, engaged and productive future. And new and existing employees are waiting to take on emerging opportunities. All they are waiting for is leadership, and a clear vision of what that future could bring.

For decades, developing silos of expertise in individual business disciplines such as finance, human resources, marketing and logistics has been the way to advance personal careers and organisational objectives. Now, as a result of downsizing, outsourcing and technology, experts in those fields are no longer in an adjacent office cube and managers are forced to make decisions in areas where they have limited experience or knowledge.

Here are some business literacy programme suggestions for Human Resources professionals. These are in response to recommendations made by corporate recruiters and alumni at the State University of New York at Albany where I teach:

1. Learn how the business operates and know as much about the business as possible, e.g.:

1. How does it make money?
2. What is its competitive advantage?
3. Who are your customers and why do they buy from you?
4. Who are your main competitors and why to people buy from them instead of you?

2. Learn how to read and understand your company’s financial condition. If you are a public corporation, that information is freely available in the company’s annual report.

1. What are the financial pressure points that executives worry about, and from which most decisions are made?
2. How does the work of your department help advance the business objectives of the company?
3. Are your company’s financial metrics trending in the right or wrong direction? How does that impact the decisions you must make?

3. Study the objectives of the other silos in your company and link the work that you do to help them achieve their goals:

1. Link your work to the success of other silos in your company. The failure of the product delivery team to deliver its goods on time and in the condition specified in the sales contract impacts everyone, not just one silo;
2. If there are significant product defects, learn to identify the root cause of such defects and how can you help fix them. You don’t have to be an expert in the other fields, but your job may be to find the experts and work with the financing team to secure money to fix the problems;

4. Discover who is the best in various areas or expertise and adopt their procedures and best practices:

1. Determine benchmarks of excellence within your industry and determine how they achieved that rank. Kodak once had a serious problem delivering their products to the dealers where customers could buy them. They sent a team to L.L. Bean – a world class outdoor clothing distribution company – to study their distribution methods. The result: distribution problems for Kodak cameras were virtually eliminated;
2. Think creatively and outside the box for your solutions. One retail automotive sales and service company was having trouble with the large amount of time it took for their tyre installation process. They sent a team to study NASCAR technicians and adapted some of their procedures for their technicians. As a result, tyre installation time was reduced by 50 percent.

5. Improve constantly and forever, your business literacy skills.

1. Study the business environment and the forces that impact it (technology, demographics, legal & political, culture, etc.);
2. Improve your mastery of your own discipline and the changes demanded within its practice;
3. Step outside your silo of expertise and help other silos, through your work, achieve their objectives. The failure of one silo affects the success of the other silos and the organisation.

How do you gain this knowledge?

1. Ask your internal experts in every discipline to present tutorials on their field of expertise. Lunchtime seminars and workshops are marvelous opportunities to gain knowledge of other functions and weave the threads together into a seamless process.
2. Many schools, colleges, and universities do a thriving business teaching business literacy skills on their campus or on your site. Check out their curriculum and contact them for details;
3. Ask your trade organisations to sponsor programmes in your area of development interest. Attend other trade organisation meetings to see what programs they offer and talk with their membership. Often, solutions to HR problems are found in non-HR environments.
4. Contact the writers of articles such as these. They are always willing to help people achieve their objectives;
5. Read and study reputable publications in other disciplines and general business magazines, blogs, newspapers, and websites. You’ll soon see patterns emerging on common issues and interests.

By Guest Author  – Ken Moore

Ken Moore, a member of the Society for Human Resources Management in Washington, D.C., is the president of Ken Moore Associates, a management consulting group focusing on organizational development and productivity improvement. He is a professor at the State University of New York at Albany and at the Union Graduate College where he teaches graduate and undergraduate business courses in strategic management. He may be reached at kmoore01@nycap.rr.com.

Every now and again, when you have just read yet another article in an HR magazine where a correspondent whimpers away about the lack of recognition for HR and then indulges in a bout of self flagellation about the perceived shortcomings of the profession, a sigh escapes me.

Bear with me, as I am unashamedly positive about the contribution HR people can make in an organization , not when they are given the opportunity, but when they take the opportunity.

As an HR professional who has lived and worked in senior roles in a variety of organisations, including telecommunications, retailing, food and carpet manufacturing as well as stints in universities, a trade union and a law firm  I have had the opportunity to experience and to learn about how an HR practitioner can influence the strategy of organizations. This has been both through my own efforts and by observing and discussing with my internal peers and externally with other HR practitioners.

Some of the learnings that I have found to be beneficial can be summarised as follows:

i) It is often better to ask forgiveness rather than permission when introducing new practices into organisations, but make sure the basic HR processes are working before you indulge in this practice.

ii) Learn the language of the business and express HR initiatives in those terms. Do not expect the business to learn HRspeak.

iii) Become the confidant of the CEO and the senior team and learn to listen without judging. Always however retain the ability to take distance on issues and on the actions of your colleagues.

iv) Get around the business and become the Company Chaucer, the one with the interesting tales about the people.

v) Find new ideas for the business, from anywhere, about anything and share them with everyone. Become the facilitator of projects built off new ideas.

vi) Plant seeds in the organization, nourish them and celebrate when people come to you with “their” flourishing pot plant of an initiative.

vii) Take on additional responsibilities when they are offered and volunteer for things that no one else wants to do.

viii) Build “frameworks’ and talk benefits not features when you are driving initiatives, especially in any strategic planning process.

ix) Stay on top of the knowledge, read everything, and look to learn from everyone. Most people know more than you do.

x) Do everything with a sense of humour and don’t take yourself too seriously! No one else will…

By the way, many of these learnings can apply to any senior manager in any function…

“Taking” the opportunity is probably the essence of a successful HR role, and doing this enables you to see where you have been in an organization. There are always opportunities to make a contribution in an organization, although often you end up working on things that you may feel do not add the most value and are not, in your own considered view, what the organization ”really needs”.

Whenever HR people gather together and I think a “corollary” of HR people is the correct collective noun, there is always a discussion about how we know what the organization” really needs’. This is often accompanied by knowing looks, occasional sighs and the odd affirming grunt.

This then inevitably leads to a discussion about the lack of recognition of HR and sharing of personal frustration and vexation, usually accompanied by an Evian or a rough red wine.

Back at work this reinforcement by your external peer group of your almost criminal lack of recognition  translates into the development of a moderate siege mentality, expressed as a series of covert hurt looks during the monthly management meeting and begrudging assistance with initiatives which the business currently requires but which in fact they don’t “really” need.

Anyway, the thing is that it does not have to be like this and it helps to look at other functions within the business so that things are put in perspective.

Lets take Finance and IT-the numbercrunchers and the propellorheads. Each should make a contribution to the business at a tactical and a strategic level. In many cases however CEOs are frustrated because their Finance person is good with the numbers but not with suggestions about business initiatives based on trends with the numbers. They often use the IT person to fix their PC when they should be utilizing the knowledge and perspective of the IT guy about their business operation to enhance organizational performance.

The point is that both functions can claim to be misunderstood. The Finance person can claim unreasonable expectations and the IT person can claim to be treated as a technician rather than a business manager. Again, in both cases there are opportunities which are not being taken and in fact where these circumstances exist, there is often an opportunity for the HR person to increase their influence and job satisfaction.

HR people typically have a tendency to put Finance people on a pedestal, something that I feel is singularly unhelpful, both for Finance people and for HR people. Even where HR people report to Finance people this should not occur. Doing this acts as a constraint, putting a handbrake on influencing the organization by the HR person, because they are always awaiting either direction or approval  instead of getting on with things. In addition there is no mystery with Finance people. They simply count the numbers and explain them to the business –they are the scorekeepers, very nice scorekeepers but scorekeepers.

The point is that in every business or indeed every organization there is a requirement for managing various business processes including those relating to people .It is in the latter area that the opportunities arise for HR people.

Typically HR is responsible for ensuring smooth running personnel processes from selection to termination and everything else in between, sometimes known as “hatch, match and dispatch”. These are processes that are essential to the running of organizations and as such should be managed effectively and indeed enthusiastically by any HR practitioner.

For sure, there is drudgery in any job and leafing through the latest updates around health and safety legislation or chasing up managers who have not completed their appraisals ranks right up there in the drudgery stakes.

But once you have these processes ticking over then there is room to expand into the business partner quadrant. This principle applies regardless of the size of the organization.

In short, in today’s organizations where there is a dedicated HR resource there is a plethora of opportunities to make a difference. However, if those same HR people are looking for affirmation of their place in an organization, by virtue of their expertise they will be disappointed. Recognition comes from achievement not expertise.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Paul McCarthy is now a Consultant in the Human Resources field, and specialises in strategic human resource planning, organisational reviews, talent development and performance and change management.

He has had senior level HR experience in a variety of business organisations, including manufacturing (FMCG and textiles), food retailing (supermarkets)  and telecommunications, in both national and international organisations. He has operated at the Executive Committee level in all of these sectors.

In addition, he has had substantial teaching, research and administrative experience in Universities in Australia and New Zealand. He has also worked in a large New Zealand Law firm and as a Legal Officer for a large trade union.

He holds a law degree from the University of Auckland and has a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Queensland. He is also the author of two books on negotiation skills, published in both Australia and New Zealand .

So, before exploring that possibility, let’s get out of the way why you are wrong to ignore disability as an issue. The answer is easy: you could get hit by a bus tomorrow (if you’re in Auckland you are forgiven for thinking a chance would be a fine thing). If your organisation isn’t ‘disability-friendly’, then you could be excluding yourself when you return to work in a wheelchair, with a brain trauma, or experiencing extreme anxiety. If there’s white noise in your head right now and you’re thinking, “No, no, no, that would never happen to me,” then consider something else – stroke (Chris Knox recently had one and you can read writer David Herkt’s raw personal account.) It could happen to you but, like 99 percent of the population, you are in a state of denial that enables you to get on with life without being paralysed with fear about your potential doom.

That’s because you are also dysfunctionphobic – sorry to break it to you so bluntly – but again, you’re among good company. The fear (even hatred) of losing function (closely linked to the fear of death) is an invisible pandemic, silently gripping all societies and cultures. While it is no longer socially acceptable to hate homosexuals or fear cultural annihalation by ethnic minorities, I still sit in groups where people nod vociferously in agreement with someone who utters the old chestnut, “There but for the grace of God go I,” in reference to their hideous thought of anything less than so-called ‘normal’ ability.

Before you dissolve into a puddle of guilt for having thought or uttered something similar, give yourself a break. It’s not like we teach against this thinking in schools. You are as much victim of the idealogical curse of disability as I am. I rather sensationally referred to Copernicus in my introduction; before his bold revelation you could hardly have blamed people for thinking the Sun orbited the Earth – it was common knowledge, what people were taught to think. Unfortunately, as attested in Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, common knowledge is often proven wrong on closer inspection, as Copernicus’ attention to detail so rightly exemplifies.

So what if we were wrong about disability?

What if disability is not the dreaded existence we are all constantly told it is, by parents, doctors, the media, even disabled people themselves?

Disability is hard to define – even the medical profession, disabled academics and renowned thinkers disagree with each other and among themselves. Doctors will tell you that disability is a deviation from normal biological function; contemporary academics will argue it is a social process of creating barriers. But then disabled geneticist and leading theorist Tom Shakespeare suggests now that there is a biological component to disability that social model proponents, himself among them, have ignored. And creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, himself a survivor of polio, told Creative Momentum that the notion of disability exists because we have such a narrow perception of ability.

Well, I think they’re all wrong. Disability is simply a reality. Wherever you sit on the so-called ability spectrum, if you think disabled, you get disabled. If you think of it as a medical or biological deficiency, it is that. If you think of it as a societal barrier, it is that. If you think of it as a result of a narrow view of ability, well then it’s that too…or instead. Even if you think it’s something to be proud of, you’re still taking pride in being something you’re not – not normal, not included, not able enough. At best disability is a thoughtless label – at worst it’s a stupid word. It’s like calling women “dis-masculated” or gay men and lesbians “dis-heterosexualised”, brunettes “dis-blonded” or dancers as “dis-musicalised”. Please.

But what’s the alternative?

Quantum physics is something in which I have little, if any, expertise, but which I do find intensely interesting. I wish everyone had at least an iota of interest in quantum physics, because it solves a lot of complex problems. It’s something I wish was taught in schools, but if it was, we probably wouldn’t need schools (there’s a conundrum). In the knowledge that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I’ll collapse the field of quantum physics into a nutshell: as an academic discipline it bridges science and philosophy; and it can be interpreted to promote the unconventional wisdom that we create our own reality with our thinking and beliefs. Chances are you already either know that or think it’s a load of crock. You may have seen the films “What the Bleep Do We Know?” or “The Secret” – the former demystifies quantum physics and the latter commercialises it in the form of the Law of Attraction. Personally I don’t think it matters whether you give it credit or not. I just think it’s a useful paradigm to use to look at things differently.

I’ve been looking at disability and marginalisation through a quantum physical lens for the last three years and this is the conclusion I’ve reached: we create disability, however we define it, just by thinking about it (and cultural, sexual, religious and any other marginalisation for that matter, but I’ll stick to disability for now, for simplicity’s sake). I think disability is a negative, comparative, inaccurate and uncreative reality that we should never have considered. And now that I have pointed this out, in such a Copernican manner, I think we should stop thinking about it because the more we think about it, the more of it we create and experience. That’s why you’re right to ignore it or deny it altogether.

But that’s not the answer, because the truth is that we do exclude others and potentially ourselves when we don’t consider it. The answer is a question: What could we think about instead? That’s important, because if Copernicus had said the Sun didn’t orbit the Earth but that he didn’t know what happened instead, people wouldn’t have taken him very seriously. That’s why I don’t take people very seriously when they say, “We’re all disabled in some way,” or that people are “physically challenged”. It’s like Copernicus saying, with huge acclaim, “The Sun doesn’t orbit the Earth – they both move around in space,” or “It doesn’t matter which orbits which, they’re both round.” Yeah, thanks dude, come back when you’ve thought about it properly.

What could we be thinking?

Human beings function in and experience the world in a diversity of ways – let’s call that functional and experiential diversity. Diversity can be seen as a complex synergy of uniqueness and commonality (or difference and similarity) – that’s my definition of diversity, which is not the usual list of characteristics with which we associate diversity. Something is unique when it is different in a way worthy of note; it is common when it is ordinary, usual, lacking in distinction and unexceptional. Unique could be judged as interesting; common as rather dull and boring.

Using this change in lens, we are challenged to suspend judgment on what we now define as “disability” and reframe it as “unique” function and experience. Everything else then becomes common in comparison. We lose our fixation with normality, and begin to explore with interest the uniqueness of people that we currently see as abnormal. As a result we may begin to value and recognise with more clarity our own uniqueness, rather than desperately trying to “fit in”.

Were this lens predominant, “disabled” people would redefine themselves. They would wake each morning thinking about their unique function and experience, rather than setting out on another day of being disabled. Because they were not creating a reality of disability, they would stop experiencing it.

It’s starting already. I’ve been exploring my unique experience for the last 18 months and don’t experience disability anything like as much as I used to.

How can organisations both help promote – and benefit from – this change in paradigm?

Recently I sat on a panel and ran a workshop at the Auckland Art Gallery, leaving them with a challenge to accommodate functional diversity by embracing and exploring experiential diversity. They arrived expecting to be made more aware of disability. They left enlightened and looking for creative solutions and ongoing communication.

I’d like us to help each other. I’d like to help you be more disability-friendly by stopping thinking about disability and joining the quest to explore and embrace functional and experiential diversity. And I’d like you to help me spread a message that I think is as important to the world as its relationship with the Sun.

Let’s call it a bit of creative denial among friends.

Philip Patston creator of Diversityworks, is a social entrepreneur and change consultant with fifteen years’ experience as a professional comedian. He is highly regarded as an entertaining and engaging speaker on social innovation and constructive change.

It is a result of the need to answer this question that I came up with the following analogy about the value of HR.

Staff are like cars:

1. You need to pick the right model – the sports car looks very pretty, but isn’t much good if you need to tow the trailer
2. You need to steer them in the right direction otherwise they go off track, and ultimately are liable to crash
3. You need to service them regularly, or performance will deteriorate
4. A specialist mechanic (or HR Manager) will have much greater success at fixing issues properly than the enthusiastic DIY’er
5. Trade-ins can be very costly if you haven’t done steps one to four properly

The wage spend is the single biggest cost centre in virtually any business.  Therefore, as HR practitioners we can have a major impact on the bottom line of the company simply by ensuring that the right models are picked, the steering mechanisms are effective, and the servicing is done properly.

One of the most significant ways we can impact the bottom line is through focusing on productivity.  Productivity in New Zealand is appalling compared to the rest of the world.  This low productivity has a significant impact on New Zealand’s economy, and it is as a result of this that the Department of Labour has launched a major initiative to increase productivity.  If you haven’t already, visit the Department of Labour website and get a copy of the Productivity Starter Pack.

Based on international studies the DOL has listed seven key drivers of workplace productivity:

1. Building Leadership and Management
2. Creating Productive Workplace Cultures
3. Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology
4. Investing in People and Skills
5. Organising Work
6. Networking and Collaboration
7. Measuring What Matters

Well just in case you hadn’t spotted it, there is only one thing on that list, Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology, which is not under the direct influence of the HR team.

1.  Building Leadership and Management

HR has significant impact in this area by:

• Ensuring that you have correctly defined the competencies required for the leadership roles in your business
• Ensuring that the leaders have the tools necessary to do their jobs effectively.

Whenever you start recruiting for a position (or are looking at how to increase an incumbents effectiveness in a role), particularly a leadership position, HR should be working with the manager to help them identify, not only the task list for the job, but more importantly, the competencies required to do the job.

All too often I see a great operative being promoted into a management position.  As a manager it is very useful to have a good understanding of what your team do, but, ultimately, the role of a manager is to quite different.  They are required to monitor everyone’s progress, identify where the collective effort should be focused, steer everyone in the right direction etc.  Unfortunately, this is out with the comfort zone of many operatives, and as a result they may have been a great operative, but are often only an average manager.

By working with the recruiting manager up front you will help them ‘define the right model’.  This will then enable you to develop competency based interview frameworks for them to use, and give them a point of reference to check their final decision against.  As opposed to appointing ‘Sam’ because it was easy/they were there/they liked them in the interview/etc.

This will also enable you to identify ‘Sam’s’ development needs (we all have them) to turn them from a new manager into an excellent leader.

2. Creating Productive Workplace Cultures

Bonus schemes to drive the right behaviour and Performance Appraisal system that are user-friendly and add perceptible value are major tools in creating productive workplace cultures.

Unfortunately bonus schemes are often not actually encouraging the behaviour which will create the desired outcome.  For example, a bonus scheme that focus’s purely on turnover, but ignores profitability will result in lots of sales, but often at discounted rates.  You need to clearly understand what actually generates the desired results, and reward that.  For example, customer service is rarely seen in bonus schemes, but more often than not excellent customer service is the key to retaining existing clients and getting their referred business.

I often hear managers describing Performance Appraisal systems as an onerous paperwork task, which just wastes their time.  It is our job in HR to:

• Critically review any systems and eliminate any negative connotations
• Provide an easy to use, clearly value add, system
• Understand any underlying reasons behind why a system is not being used, and take action accordingly.

Frequently the ‘problem’ with the system has more to do with a manager’s reluctance to have a ‘courageous conversation’.  Remove the fear through training and support, and you will often see a significant change in the outcomes.

A robust tailor-able Bonus scheme, easy to use Appraisal documentation, and 1 to 5 definitions of 20 different competencies are available to download from www.hrtoolkit.co.nz .

3. Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology

Though this may not be under the direct remit of HR we can certainly influence this by recruiting the right people and putting in place systems to encourage the right behaviour.

4. Investing in People and Skills

Supporting your managers in doing this effectively is the basic fundamental function of any HR team.

5. Organising Work

The purpose of an organisation structure is to enable communication flow and minimise cross-over between roles.  Everyone within an organisation needs clearly defined roles, and clear delineation around when tasks pass from one person to the next.  It is the role of HR to provide this definition and structure in conjunction with the managers.

Duplication of work has a significant impact on productivity.  Therefore, if the delineation between roles if not clear, you end up with two people repeating the same task which wastes time and decreases productivity.

The actual cost of such duplication can very quickly add up:

5 minutes per day X 5 days X 52 weeks = 1,300 minutes per year (21.7 hours)

6. Networking and Collaboration

Providing opportunities to network is not just the responsibility of the Social club, or the sales team.  Training days can be a great opportunity to get representatives from different departments working together.

HR is one of the few departments that works directly with all of the other departments, we are therefore in a great position to identify potential cross-departmental opportunities for networking and collaboration.

The opportunities for external networking and collaboration can also be influenced by HR through:

• Encouraging it through the appraisal systems,
• Defining jobs that include a requirement to for networking, and not just for sales jobs,
• Creating a culture where you pay for staff to attend networking events, as opposed to criticising them for ‘skiving off early’ to attend the latest HRINZ seminar.

7. Measuring What Matters

See comments above under section 2.  This is absolutely critical to the success of any business.

Get in the Driving Seat

As HR professionals, we need to get ourselves into the driving seat to increase productivity.  Together we can change the way we manage our most valuable asset, our staff.

Guest post by Lisa Mackay. Lisa is the Managing Director of HRtoolkit Ltd

Website www.hrtoolkit.co.nz