Providing a bad experience to job applicants can irreparably damage your employer brand. Richard MacKinnon of Talent Q claims that good practice can be gleaned from the four mistakes typically made by organisations.

A generic ‘thanks but no thanks’ email is all that many candidates receive after an unsuccessful job application. Some companies don’t even bother to send that. It’s ironic how an organisation can strive to become an employer of choice – by building a strong brand and creating a friendly culture, great working conditions and good opportunities for training and progression – only to throw its values and reputation out of the window, when it comes to recruitment, by providing such a bad experience to job applicants.

At last, organisations are waking up to the impact of the ‘candidate experience’ – the end-to-end process which begins when a candidate applies for a job and finishes with them getting feedback on whether or not they were successful in their application.

One way to create a great candidate experience is to understand what most annoys or confuses candidates and why they drop out of the application process. Here’s where many organisations fall down:

1.They don’t explain the reason for assessments.
Psychometric tests are increasingly used to sift and select candidates. However, recruiters often fail to explain why candidates are being asked to undertake these tests; why the information is needed; how this is relevant to the job; what the organisation will do with the data and who will actually see it.

Before tests moved online, candidates would physically go into organisations to complete paper-based versions. Recruiters would invariably take this opportunity to explain in detail the objectives of the assessment and how the data would be used. It was seen as a ‘sales opportunity’, a chance to positively impress the candidates. With the advent of technology – and the increase in the number of candidates applying for positions – the concept of pre-assessment communication has slipped through the net in many organisations.

Good practice is to very clearly explain why you are using assessments as part of your selection process. For example, if you are using a personality questionnaire, you could explain how certain personalities lend themselves to certain roles in the organisation and that you’re looking to gain an insight into aspects such as how the candidate likes to approach the world of work, how they’ll interact with people in the work environment and how they’ll manage tasks and projects. You could also state that the results would be used to inform an interview with the candidate.

2.They don’t offer any feedback after conducting assessments.
Everyone who uses psychometric assessments has to take part in accredited training that meets the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS). Among other things, these requirements stipulate that organisations must treat data with confidentiality and they should provide feedback to candidates.

However, with the pressure that today’s recruiters are under, feedback has become an expensive luxury rather than an intrinsic element of the recruitment process. Some recruiters will question whether it is practical to provide feedback to large numbers of applicants. However, our experience is that offering detailed feedback is not the same thing as providing it. Only a very small proportion of applicants will actually take you up on the offer.

Good practice is to utilise the ‘automatic reporting’ functionality that some assessment companies provide. Without cost or inconvenience to you, this allows each candidate to access their own feedback report containing the results of each psychometric assessment they have completed, such as ability tests or personality questionnaires. You can then ‘offer’ to supplement this with more detailed feedback, if it is required.

3.They don’t tell the candidate why he or she was unsuccessful.
In the absence of any information from the organisation, candidates will often form their own opinions about why they were unsuccessful in their application. Their conclusions are often wrong. For example, candidates might assume that a personality questionnaire cost them the job, when in fact it was something else, such as their performance at an interview.

Personality questionnaires have been shown to be a valid way of assessing a candidate’s approach to tasks and projects, their relationships with others, their drivers and their emotions. However if they are deployed in the recruitment process without context or instruction – and no feedback is given afterwards – it is understandable that candidates may treat them with suspicion and distrust.

Good practice is to provide specific feedback to candidates on why their application was unsuccessful. Ideally this should include details of where they were strong against the required competencies and where they were weak. Suggested development points may even be offered. This is particularly important for a business-to-consumer organisation, as any candidates are also likely to be your customers.

4.They don’t centralise the data from the selection process.
Some organisations don’t use the data they collect from assessments at all. Others do but they don’t keep a centralised record of the candidate’s information. As a result, candidates can be asked the same questions by different interviewers. Overlapping the selection process not only causes duplicated results, it also irritates the candidates. If the application process isn’t seen as valid, some candidates will drop out of it. The hiring organisation therefore risks losing talented people through inefficiency.

Good practice is to be clear about what information you want from candidates; to proactively plan the process from their point of view; to use relevant assessments; to communicate clearly; to offer feedback to candidates throughout and to use – and share – the resultant information.

At the interview stage, you should conduct a verification test to check the candidate’s results in the assessments used earlier in the process. It is also worth thanking the candidates for undertaking the initial assessments and explaining that the time they spent on them was worthwhile because the data gained will be used to support the interview and the subsequent stages of the process. At all times, you want candidates to feel valued and engaged, even if they will not be appointed.

What would happen if your customers experienced a lack of response, a lack of information or lack of feedback? Ultimately, good practice – and the real way to deliver a great candidate experience that enhances your employer brand – is to treat your job applicants with the same care and consideration as you would treat your customers.

Richard MacKinnon is head of learning & development solutions at Talent Q.

Richard Nott, Website Director, CWJobs.co.uk

The recruitment market has been impacted by social trends, the economy and changes in policy this year. Looking forward to 2012, CWJobs.co.uk has picked out the most significant trends from this year and made predictions on how the market will respond over the next 12 months.

Industry comparison
CWJobs is the leading specialist IT recruitment website – attracting 322,000 unique users and 340,000 job applications every month. The subsequent data produced from these exchanges allows us to provide insight and comment on trends in the market.

Pre-recession, market data indicates that IT vacancies in the finance sector were booming, with more than 30,000 postings registered in Q2 of 2008. By Q3 of the following year, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which had a dramatic effect on the financial services sector as a whole, these postings dropped dramatically by 68% to just over 11,000.

While there have been some minor fluctuations, Q3 2011 results indicate the numbers of vacancies in the financial sector are still under peak at 14,873. Despite this, a recent special report from the Financial Times suggests that investment in technology may be key to financial sector growth. The shake up three years ago led to a number of mergers and acquisitions in the sector and having a solid IT framework to integrate data is fundamental to the success of any such union. Recruiting competent IT professionals to help facilitate this seems likely over the next 12 months.

Interestingly, and despite a downturn in 2009, opportunities in the retail sector have steadily increased since 2010, with an uplift of 35% in the last year. The recession has driven consumers online in their millions in a quest for cheaper deals and as a result, retailers not set up to meet this demand are finding themselves left behind. Today, 37 million people in the UK shop online, making e-tail purchases responsible for nearly 10% of all retail sales. The e-tail market is set to grow 18% year-on-year according IMRG, so we would expect demand for IT professionals in this sector to continue to increase as a direct result of this trend.

AWR
In May 2008, the Government announced plans to pursue a deal on the introduction of Agency Worker Regulation – a policy that standardises the benefits, pay and conditions of temp and contract workers, with permanent staff, after a 12-week period. Despite much debate about the value of the regulation, the Government pushed ahead and in April 2011 released a first draft of the regulation.

The plans received mixed response from the industry, with many questioning whether the new legislation would cause companies to reduce the number of contract workers they employ.

The recession has underlined the fact that businesses that do well in this climate are also likely to be the most adaptable. This in turn means our views on resourcing must also change to become more sustainable. Employees who solve today’s problems might not be the right people to solve the problems of tomorrow.

As an example, in the summer HSBC announced that it was making 30,000 people redundant, mainly in back-office and support roles. But at the same time, they also announced that they are going to recruit in other areas. Increasingly, we hear similar stories as employers axe staff when times are tough only to recruit again for skills and experience needed into the future.

What challenges are employers currently facing in this recruitment merry-go-round market and how can they best address the issues of “sustainable recruitment” so that they can build flexible businesses that are fit for the future?

The first question HR professionals need to ask themselves is whether they really need to recruit at all – especially if the role may no longer exist in two years time. It’s very easy to respond to a perceived need by throwing people at the problem. A new project comes up, so recruit someone. An employee leaves, recruit someone else. If they don’t work out, find yet more staff. This is not a good long-term sustainable approach, nor does it project the brand of a company as a good employer if people are viewed as nothing more than commodities.

The problem here is that more people is not always the answer – and HR departments and recruiters are often not the best people to assess how to meet business needs. What they should be asking is whether there are any other ways to resolve the resourcing issue. Could the task be automated or could a proprietary or third-party “could-based” technology solution provide the answer?

If the answer is that recruitment is unavoidable, can the need be met with contractors or temporary staff? Or what about “crowdsourcing”, where work is outsourced to a large community on a pay-as-you-go basis – ideal for project-based requirements. Amazon is a good example of a company that is taking full advantage of this model, enabling it to complete specific projects in days rather than weeks.

If conventional recruitment is the only choice, then it is vital that organisations look beyond their immediate needs and ensure that the people they recruit are equipped with the skills to deal with a fast-changing business environment. That means individuals who are flexible and adaptable, who have the skills they need today but also the ability to learn new skills for tomorrow.

At the same time, one of the key roles for HR is to be sufficiently plugged into the business to stay on top of its on-going skills and development requirements and also to be aware of potential lateral career development opportunities so that when business requirements change there is the flexibility on tap to meet new resourcing needs.

For example, a business might currently have a 30 percent customer-facing requirement. But this is growing fast and is likely to hit 70 percent in 18 months. So rather than recruiting more customer-facing staff in 18 months, the organisation ought to be looking for staff now who have customer-facing skills – or the potential to develop them – alongside other skills.

Of course, training and development plays an important role in equipping staff with a flexible portfolio of skills and the temptation to cut these budgets too deeply needs to be resisted. But it is also worth remembering that something like 40 percent of what people learn on a training program today will be obsolete within five years, so it’s the receptiveness to learning new skills and ways of doing things that really matters.

Ultimately, then, having the right people in place depends on focusing on longer term business objectives and ensuring that those people are sufficiently flexible to meet them. That’s what I mean by taking a sustainable approach to recruitment, and that’s how to put in place building blocks for the future.

Hilary Backwell, Global HR Director at software security company Clearswift, discusses the challenge of Web 2.0 and social media in today’s workplace and provides advice on how HR professionals can help companies overcome this challenge.

Web 2.0 and other social media technologies are not new; in fact it’s now over nine years since the phrase ‘Web 2.0’ was first coined in 1999. But 2011 has been a significant year for the technology. Facebook now claims to have over 800 million users, a startling amount, and making it the equivalent of the third largest country in the world in terms of population. Twitter has also recently reached a major milestone with 100 million active users, 50% of whom log on daily. If evidence were needed that social media has gone truly mainstream, these facts alone put forward a pretty strong case.

It’s now hard for businesses to ignore social media, even if they wanted to, and increasingly, they do so at the expense of some significant business benefits.

Social media brings with it many advantages from a corporate perspective. At a fundamental level, it is a useful additional way of communicating, with customers, business prospects and colleagues. From a HR point of view it is not only useful for communication but also as a network for recruitment and knowledge. Employees also want to be able to access their personal accounts at work, with more employees than even demanding greater flexibility in their roles, not just through working more flexible hours and from home, but also a rising trend for ‘home-ing from work’- where staff are looking to be able to perform personal tasks at work.

But along with the many benefits that social media can bring, it can also raise concerns within a business environment. For all businesses, information security is a key concern. To some, social media channels serve as yet another route along which data can escape from the business, whether accidentally or maliciously. On top of this, senior management may be concerned about the amount of time employees spend on social networks.

Despite these reservations, there is no denying that social media is an unstoppable force, and it was against this backdrop that our recent Work, Life, Web research, revealed some interesting findings.

Perhaps the most surprising finding of all is that the blocking of social media is on the rise this year compared to 2010. In 2010 just 9% of companies globally engaged in blocking employee access to social media sites, yet in the latest research this figure has increased to 19%.

One of the most obvious potential reasons behind the growing concern and resultant blocking is the high profile data breaches we have seen over the past year. Instances such as the Sony data breach, which saw the company sustain the largest cyber intrusion since the Heartland Payment Systems breach in 2008 when its network was hacked to steal sensitive information belonging to users. These types of high profile data losses have more than likely led to an increased fear of technology adoption within companies. Alongside this, businesses have to deal with an ever increasing amount of regulation and legislation when it comes to data.

The result is that a ‘Directors Dilemma’ is emerging in the boardroom. On the one hand senior executives are aware of the benefits that social media and Web 2.0 technologies bring (41% of companies globally agree that the benefits of social media outweigh the drawbacks and one in four companies planning to invest more in social media this year than last), yet a fear-driven paralysis has set in that prevents them from taking full (or in some instances, any) advantage of these technologies.

Of course, it is not just those in the boardroom who have opinions on the use of social media in the workplace. Employees are also key stakeholders in this debate, and in some instances there is real evidence of a ‘social media stalemate’ which has evolved in businesses. Characterised by a locking of horns between employer and employee, our research very much supports this idea, showing that whilst 48% of managers state that social media use is encouraged or allowed, only 25% of employees agree. Today’s employees tend to take it as a given that they should access social media at work, and with perhaps the starkest reminder of just how ingrained this sentiment is, 26% of employees said they would become demotivated if access was restricted, 14% would work around the policy, and 3% would consider leaving.

So how can the HR department help find an acceptable compromise? The answer is simpler than it might seem, and at its heart is policy. Working with other relevant business departments, HR professionals can help to implement relevant and workable social media and Web 2.0 policies that satisfy both sides of the argument.

Alongside this it is also important for companies to educate and inform employees of this policy, and again, HR professionals are the key to this being conducted effectively. By doing so this will not only encourage a change in behaviour in the workplace but also provide staff with the knowledge and understanding they need to apply sensible and practical information security good practice in all aspects of their business lives, whilst on the move and using mobile devices for example. Good security technology will support these guidelines, allowing businesses to deal with specific concerns such as preventing the accidental (or malicious) distribution of a confidential file via Facebook or Skype, yet allowing moderate and appropriate use by the majority of employees. With such a widespread adoption of social media it is difficult for HR professionals to ignore its power for engaging with audiences. By embracing social media, and having the right tools in place to safeguard a corporate reputation, businesses will reap the benefits.

Biography – Hilary Backwell has been an HR professional for more than 20 years, the last 11 of which she’s spent as Global HR Director at Clearswift. She gained her CIPD qualification at Oxford Brookes University and is particularly interested in golf.

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in September, UK retail sales rose by 0.6%.

For me, this begs the question… are we now buying again because we had put ourselves on such a big spend diet? Obviously these statistics refer to consumer shopping, although, it did get me thinking about how a spend diet would affect the workplace.

The great money diet
When we (or the business) decides to cut our budget. We know the procedure, we are tasked with the job of reducing costs by X%. When this is departmental we tend to look at headcount. When it is companywide, we may look at headcount and our additional expenditure. We might look at stationery, Christmas parties, evening jollies, training, employee benefits, changes to new employee contracts and so the list goes on.

When working at Goldman Sachs several years ago, the daily fruit boxes stopped appearing, in fact, overnight they just ceased! Of course in that environment there was also the annual headcount cull which occurred in the good times as well as the bad times… a hazard of working in that sector. Whilst going through the cost cutting exercise of the fruit boxes or the stationery cuts we believe or hope this will save some heads. And it probably does, however what are the true costs of our diet?

The Fallout
As we cut costs and more probably headcount; what does this mean to our business? Demoralised staff, less productivity, staff churn, in-house squabbling, managers upset that the staff are not grateful for having a job and again the list goes on.

What does this mean to our customers
Regardless of our Managers call of ‘business as usual’. It isn’t going to happen. Why not? Because when we have demoralised staff this impacts the customer. Our customers start to receive a less than expected service. A lot of our staff will have disengaged with the company emotionally and in some cases physically, calling in sick, turning up late. A lot will have started to look elsewhere for a new job believing the grass is greener.

This is to be expected, and of course you can ride it out and hope for the best. And at the end of day, we have made our X% savings.

However did we take into account the true cost of our diet, our lost customers who have gone elsewhere for a better service, the costs of recruitment (even when not using agencies), the dip in productivity etc. And so our bottom line takes an additional negative hit.

However “it’s ok, we met our quota of reducing our budget by X%.” Is it? There has to be easier ways of carrying out this whole budget cut and preparing for the fallout, surely? Looking at better communication within the company can be a simple and yet a great solution. A Change Management plan that has clear objectives and clear communication channels can help with some many business issues, even the whole process of budget savings.

Here are my 5 top ‘change management’ tips to help your business when looking to make budget savings:

1. Consider the hidden costs of budget savings.
2. Treat your staff like adults and engage them in the process from the start.
3. Have a clear and transparent process.
4. Consider future changes; a clear aim should be to minimise the fallout from budget cuts and only carry this out when necessary and not often or as an on-going process.
5. Think outside of the box.

Margo Manning is Managing Director of Bute Coaching providing coaching specific development and support. Margo Manning has been in the development arena for 20 years and more specifically in coaching for nine of those. Margo has worked with companies such as Lovells, UBS, Abbey, HBOS to name a few.

Using new research, Jack Wiley of the Kenexa High Performance Institute explains how HR can help organisations make the cultural transformation to become more dynamic.

HR practitioners are always looking for ways to increase employee engagement, encourage innovation, drive individual performance and enhance the bottom-line. One way to achieve all of these things is to shift the organisational culture and practices from the bureaucratic to the dynamic.

Bureaucratic organisations are well-suited to a stable business environment. With centralised decision-making and standardised procedures, they can scale quickly, reduce costs, generate profits and satisfy mass needs. A key characteristic is that problems aren’t solved on the front lines where they actually occur, but in the executive suite. A few smart people make all the important decisions. Silos exist and these bring with them complex territorial issues whereby one unit’s success might be at the expense of another. Turf wars are not uncommon. The manager’s job tends to be focused on implementation, monitoring, motivation and control over others.

Given that a stable business environment is a thing of the past, this type of organisation has to change to become more dynamic.

Dynamic organisations offer a more flexible workplace. Employees typically work in cross-functional teams and they are empowered to innovate, to solve problems and to work where they are most efficient (which may be at home or during non-traditional work hours). Our research shows that this way of working makes employees more committed to their jobs because they are typically given more challenging and complex assignments. The manager’s job is to facilitate smart, creative solutions and to make sure employees are contributing at their highest level and living up to their potential.

Making the shift

So what can HR practitioners do to bring about the cultural transformation from bureaucratic to dynamic? Our research, conducted over the past 30 years, suggests that there are seven realms on which to concentrate. Taking our cue from Aretha Franklin, we’ve grouped these realms under the acronym R.E.S.P.E.C.T. This stands for:

• Recognition – In dynamic organisations, employees are given ‘a pat on the back’ and their views count. Essentially, each individual wants to be recognised and appreciated as a valued team member – particularly by the person who should be most familiar with their work: their line manager. HR practitioners can help by encouraging managers to recognise and appreciate people for the work they do. Managers need to close the gap between employee actions and when those actions are recognised. They shouldn’t ignore employee performance until the annual review – and they should never focus solely on criticism.

• Exciting work – In dynamic organisations, the jobs are challenging, interesting and fun. Every employee wants a sense of accomplishment and they want to feel the time they’ve spent at work has been worthwhile. According to our research, employees are significantly more likely to feel excited about their work if they are learning something new, or if they’re involved in a pioneering project or if they are empowered to operate with autonomy. HR practitioners should encourage managers to discuss with employees what they like and don’t like about their jobs. Managers should aim to provide variety where possible.

• Security of employment – All employees want job security. They want to feel confident about their organisation’s future and they want stability and steady work so they can meet their financial obligations. HR practitioners must ensure that managers understand this fundamental need. Managers should be persuaded to consider the morale, welfare and well-being of their teams. If they can empower employees and give them a say in how they work, it will create trust and provide a greater sense that employees are expanding their skill sets and controlling their own destiny.

• Pay – In dynamic organisations, employees are compensated fairly for the work they do and the contribution they make (through base pay, bonuses and benefits). The important word here is ‘fair’. We all want to feel that we are being treated fairly and that our performance is evaluated on merit. HR practitioners can provide an annual compensation and benefits review, to underline how much the organisation is investing in each individual. Allowing employees time off can compensate for lower pay.

• Education and career growth – In dynamic organisations, employees are given opportunities to develop their skills and to advance their career. HR practitioners can help by ensuring that resources are available for the necessary training and by encouraging managers to offer employees ‘stretch assignments’ in which they’ll learn new skills, thereby increasing their engagement and job security. HR should also facilitate formal and (at least) annual career discussions with employees to determine their goals and aspirations. Managers should be encouraged to give people the autonomy, authority and encouragement to use their skills and to do their jobs in their own way.

• Conditions – We don’t work in a vacuum; what happens around us matters. All employees want a well-equipped environment that is comfortable, healthy and safe. For most, the social working conditions are even more important than the physical conditions. HR practitioners should encourage managers to arrange team social interactions that will promote goal alignment and teamwork. Managers should also be encouraged to listen and respond to employee complaints and to help individuals achieve their own work-life balance.

• Truth – Finally, employees want to be told the truth. They want to work for honest and transparent managers who act with integrity and who communicate openly and directly. HR practitioners should encourage managers to provide honest feedback and set clear goals. Regardless of how bad things are, employees should always be told the full story. They’ll know if things are bad. Managers need to understand that lying will only undermine their credibility.

By concentrating on these seven realms – Recognition; Exciting work; Security of employment; Pay; Education and career growth; Conditions and Truth – HR practitioners can help to bring about fundamental cultural change.

The good news is these things don’t cost a lot, if anything, to implement. For example, providing recognition and telling the truth cost nothing. Finding exciting work just requires managers to be in touch with what motivates each individual. It’s simply a case of encouraging managers to make the necessary effort.

Is it worth it?

Our research shows that organisations that embrace these principles outperform those that don’t. On average, their employee engagement level is 117 percent higher; their operational performance is 64 percent higher; their customer satisfaction level is significantly greater and their ‘return on assets’ is up to ten times higher.

Isn’t it time your organisation made the cultural transformation to become more dynamic?

Dr Jack Wiley is executive director of the Kenexa High Performance Institute and co-author of ‘RESPECT: Delivering results by giving employees what they really want’. More information on the book is available at www.respectthebook.com

There’s a lot of it around. Redundancy, that is.

It can be a shock and can leave people feeling useless, hopeless and isolated.

If you’re over fifty it can feel even worse. But there is a big opportunity for those who want to grasp it.

Coaching is one of the few industries still growing. Now, more than ever, there is a need for developing quality and capacity in people retained by organisations, and coaching is helping to do this.

Outside of organisations, there’s also a growing demand for coaching in all aspects of life. People are faced with more choice, more troubles, more aspirations and more confusion than ever before. Coaching is helping people achieve change and happiness and the word is spreading.

So what’s that got to do with being fifty plus?

There are a number of things that can help a coach become successful and they are usually possessed in abundance by people who have passed their fifties.

1) Your collection of influential contacts. Coaching is often a contacts game at first. Being the greatest coach in the world is no good if you have no clients. And for many coaches this will come from looking at who you already have relationships with and building a springboard to future clients and opportunities.

2) Your experience. Coaching is about everything you bring to the table. Experience brings with it understanding of the challenges being faced, the specialist vocabulary to discuss it, an ability to connect with people at their organisational or emotional level, a framework for where the solutions lie and much more.

3) Credibility. Experience and achievement add huge credibility to your status as a coach and help clients gain confidence that you understand their issues and that you can help them achieve their outcomes. And with credibility comes hugely increased potential to secure clients and contracts.

4) You’ve lived life. This is a much overlooked aspect of coming into coaching later in your career. You’ve learned life’s lessons and have a richer sense of life. Experience brings expertise but it also brings humility. Oscar Wilde said, “I’m too old to know everything” and these wise word reverberate down the century to coaching. Age brings wisdom but also acceptance that we don’t have all the answers.

In other words, people who enter coaching later in life often have the very qualities that make coaching so successful and coaches so sought after.

At the Smart School of Coaching, we’re seeing this at first hand. There’s an increasing number of people joining the Smart School who have taken early retirement or voluntary redundancy and are now seeking to start a new life in an area they are passionate about.

Jeremy is a great example of this. A senior civil servant who had worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for over thirty years, he joined the Smart School earlier this year with the aim of becoming a business coach.

Very soon after finishing his career in Japan, Jeremy suffered a stroke. Not to be beaten he regained his motor movement and married his Japanese wife. It was Jeremy’s passion for Japan mixed with his determination to build a new career as a coach that led him to his business idea.

Jeremy realised that he was fascinated by the idea of coaching and supporting UK entrepreneurs to enter the Japanese market.

Building a business presented some initial challenges around skills that had not been necessary in his previous career, such as marketing and selling. But for Jeremy this was also a fun, exciting part of the challenge.

With encouragement from his peer group of coaches, Jeremy is now writing a book in which he is interviewing leading UK entrepreneurs in Japan and has his eyes set on his first major client. And all within six months.

Interviewed recently, Jeremy was asked what advice he would have for anyone recently made redundant or retiring who wanted to start again. His words were simple but profound, “It’s not over”.

And he is right. The market is opening up for people with experience, credibility, people skills and contacts to enter the market. And the market itself is changing. The days of training to be strictly a coach and nothing else are over and coaches who want to start their own business in a field which they are passionate about are looking for more ways to attract and work with their clients.

What’s really clear when working with these coaches is the sheer excitement and exuberance they feel because they are finally in control of their destiny.

Starting a coaching business is not easy – but then what business is? The journey to create one though is filled with experiences that many of these coaches have never had before. And they are rediscovering the fun and buzz of learning new skills which are directly relevant to the progress they want to make.

There’s no doubt about it. For a person with determination and the will to learn, coaching presents an exciting new opportunity to build a business as unique as the coach themselves. And for someone over fifty, recently made redundant and wondering what’s next, it presents new possibilities and a new, exciting, autonomous life.

The author is Nick Bolton founder of the Smart School of Coaching and the web link is www.thesmartschool.co.uk

A strong organisational culture is a business advantage that helps generate and maintain top-level performance. This is an obvious, intuitive statement that all business leaders understand and discuss. Yet, while many try to create a high-performing culture, few succeed. Why? Is it really that difficult? Not really. The key to culture is understanding that the perceptions of the workforce are as significant in shaping behaviors as the formal mechanisms.

Given the importance of getting corporate culture right, many organisations invest heavily in shaping their cultures and influencing the behaviors of their workforces—but how many organisations derive maximum value from this investment? Does the money spent on developing and communicating mission statements and corporate values really change employee behavior? Or, are there hidden, more powerful forces at work that make this investment ineffective? And if the investment in shaping culture does bring about change, is it promoting behaviors that support performance and strategy delivery, or is it inadvertently encouraging sabotage behaviors?

The key to developing corporate culture, particularly one that becomes a source of competitive advantage, requires gaining insight into how culture is formed, including the important role that employees’ attitudes and perceptions play in the process. Organisations that take time to understand the process and develop a highly engaged workforce can expect to see significant performance improvements. For those that create a culture aligned with their business strategy, the rewards are greater still: a workforce acting in unison as a dedicated powerhouse, moving the organisation toward its strategic goals.

Getting Culture Right: Why It Matters

Numerous studies and organisational examples highlight the relationship between a highly engaged workforce and company performance. We know intuitively that highly engaged staff improve customer service, generate more innovation, advocate more for their organisation deliver higher quality, have lower rates of absenteeism and stay with employers longer. Studies by leading researchers, such as the Corporate Leadership Council and Gallup Group, support this thinking. We also know that an engaged workforce generates better financial results. The Employee Engagement Report by Towers Watson-ISR found that among companies with high levels of employee engagement, operating income improved by 19.2 percent, while companies with low levels of engagement saw their operating incomes decline by 32.7 percent over the same 12-month period.[1] Essentially, companies with engaged workforces had 50 percent higher levels of operating income. Numerous other studies reveal similar results, and the experience of many organizations further reinforces this causal relationship. The MacLeod Report, developed for the U.K. government, for example, is replete with examples of the benefits of widespread workforce engagement.[2]

Aligning Strategy and Culture: Closing the “Culture Lag”

Having a highly engaged workforce is not enough, however. It is equally important that organisational culture and strategy are aligned. A workforce that is pulling in the wrong direction—one that operates with enthusiasm but contrary to strategic intent—is detrimental to performance. A workforce that operates with enthusiasm and pulls in the right direction delivers improved performance and makes a significant impact on an organisation’s ability to achieve its strategic goals.

Indeed, getting the right mix of strategy and culture creates a formula for business success. Pursuing a strategy of innovation in a dynamic market can only succeed within an inquisitive culture where the workforce pushes boundaries and management encourages new ideas and constructive risk-taking. Similarly, pursuing a strategy of high-volume, low-cost processes can only succeed within a disciplined culture where the workforce operates in an efficient, repeatable production environment with a mindset for continual cost improvement.

Many combinations of strategy and culture fit are broadly intuitive. What is less obvious is the “culture lag” that occurs when the culture fails to shift in line with strategy and the performance risk that arises as a result.

Keeping culture aligned with strategy is a significant challenge given the constantly changing dynamics of markets and the need to adjust and re-direct strategy as a result. Cultures cannot change immediately. Culture change, especially across large and complex organisations, is often a slow, gradual process.

Culture misalignment is inevitable with any significant shift in strategic intent and direction. Organisations that understand the resulting lag and actively work to reduce the time before culture and strategy are realigned are in the best position to succeed. The speed with which this lag is closed improves with an intimate understanding of what drives culture.

Procter & Gamble is a good example. When A.G. Lafley was appointed CEO in 2000, he inherited a global business with a large product range across a diverse consumer population; but the company had only a 15 to 20 percent commercial success rate of new brands and products. At the time, most employees viewed their roles broadly in terms of development and delivery. Brand and product innovation was left to 12,000 R&D people and engineers and was considered a core in-house competency that gave P&G market advantage. That year, only 10 percent of innovation ideas came from external sources.[3]

Lafley recognised a need to change. He put customers at the front of all innovation decisions (prioritising customer experience over technical advancements), and he made innovation integral to the company’s strategy. To succeed, P&G needed to ensure that innovation reflected deep understanding of customer needs and perceptions, and top executives needed to accelerate the pace of innovation dramatically. This could not be done internally only, and it could not be done at all unless the entire organisation embraced new ways of working. P&G introduced its Connect + Develop strategy, where innovation is developed collaboratively across the organisation and with external partners.

The strategy required a culture of trust and open exchange across the organisation and with key external players. It required the workforce to make fundamental changes: increased focus on the end customer, greater curiosity and openness to new ideas, and significantly more internal and external collaboration. The prevailing culture of “not invented here” was changed to “proudly found elsewhere.” Organisation structures, systems, communications and even recruitment reinforced the new culture and the desired behaviors. The result was a closing of the gap between the old thinking and the new innovation-driven strategy and an organisation that was well aligned for success. Today, P&G’s Connect + Develop strategy has resulted in more than 1,000 active agreements with external parties. During Lafley’s tenure, sales doubled, profits quadrupled, and the company’s market value increased by more than $100 billion.

The ability to connect emotionally with the workforce and redirect attitudes is a key factor in closing a culture gap, thus changing commitments and behaviors. Steve Jobs did just that when he rejoined Apple in the late 1990s as Apple was struggling with competition, troubled products, manufacturing backlogs, lost market share, shrinking revenues and loss of employee talent. In 1996, Apple failed to make a profit. With frequent changes at the executive level, Apple lacked a clear strategy. Customers grew uncertain about what the brand stood for. The company’s culture became equally unclear. Leadership, management and the workforce were not aligned. A number of products seemed out of touch with customer interests. By 1997, with losses mounting, people began to speak of Apple having lost its way.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he immediately set out to transform the business. In addition to trimming product lines, investing in product design, terminating licensing agreements and entering into agreements with Microsoft, he also created a powerful narrative for the workforce around the journey they were taking and the importance of the mission. He re-energized the innovative culture where the company had its roots and engaged all employees in an emotional commitment to drive and deliver the new strategy of innovation and trend setting. As part of that, he launched Apple’s first major ad campaign in a decade—“Think Different”—a slogan that captured what Jobs wanted both customers and employees to do with the Apple brand. In 1998, the company regained profitability.

The journeys P&G and Apple took are not unusual. Markets change, organisations must realign their strategies to accelerate or recover performance, and cultures must be adjusted to help realise new strategies. Getting this right leads to improved performance. Getting this wrong, including failing to move swiftly to close the culture lag, saps performance. Leaders understand and, even better, predict the possible misalignments that occur at points in their organisational journey and act quickly to correct them.

The triggers that make strategic change and therefore cultural change necessary can be external or internal. A typical external trigger might be new regulations on pricing that prompts an increased focus on value-added services and competition and forces a shift from mid-market products to low-cost leadership. Internal triggers that disrupt organisations and cultures include mergers, corporate carve-outs and new product and market entries.

It is one thing to anticipate and recognise the triggers likely to cause a culture lag, but how does an organisation measure and evaluate a force as abstract as culture? The answer resides in understanding how corporate culture is created and how it shapes workforce behaviors.

Dissecting Corporate Culture

At a visible level, corporate culture is defined by a range of formal mechanisms used to set direction, tone and pace. These mechanisms, which include the strategy, organisation structure, rules, mission statements, values and role model descriptions, are designed and framed to encourage desired behaviors. Yet the link between formal mechanisms and desired behaviors is not a direct one. There is a complex set of interpretation and emotional filters that stand between them. Presented with the visible components of corporate culture, employees will first interpret them and then formulate an emotional response before consciously or subconsciously deciding if and how to act on them.

Organisational rules provide a good example of how formal mechanisms pass through the filters of interpretation and emotion in a business setting. In every organization, every rule introduced is assessed by the workforce in terms of how serious management is in enforcing compliance, the benefits of compliance, the effort to comply and the costs of non-compliance. That interpretation is influenced by observation and experience of the way rules are or are not monitored and how lack of compliance is addressed. Everyone has a story about how they managed to operate around the rules. In many cases, management purposely ignores non-compliance. Stories about “the way things get done here” get shared and quickly become the unwritten rules by which people operate.

The challenge in defining and developing a culture is to understand that the perceptions, judgments, attitudes and feelings of the workforce are as significant in shaping actual behaviors as the formal mechanisms. Any change to formal mechanisms must acknowledge the filtering layers that shape actual behavior. Companies often get this wrong. Leadership and management form a top-down view of changes required and invest in changing the formal mechanisms and identities without first establishing an intimate understanding of workforce perceptions and attitudes. Some fail to consider the unintended reactions likely to result from their actions and neglect to ensure that formal and informal mechanisms are correctly aligned.

Yet the alignment of formal and informal mechanisms—a consistent golden thread running through messages and actions—is crucial. Despite best intentions, changes to formal policies will always be distorted by employees’ experience of what actually happens in the workplace. A mission statement may be framed to encourage innovation; but if employees observe that, in reality, they are penalized for risk-taking, no amount of corporate coffee mugs or mouse pads emblazoned with the new mission statement will deliver the desired result.

Moving From Insight to Action

Shaping corporate culture is as much about understanding the emotional and interpretive activity that takes place among employees as it is about ensuring that formal mechanisms are correctly framed to encourage desired behaviors. Assumptions, unwritten rules, rituals, personal goals and feelings that develop over time may be more difficult to grasp than the formal, visible components of corporate culture. Nevertheless, it is possible to analyze these less tangible components and target the formal mechanisms of corporate culture to make positive change happen.

Armed with an understanding of how corporate culture is formed, the path to aligning culture and strategy becomes clear. Leaders can invest with confidence—demystifying the concept of culture and bringing the full weight of their workforce behind improving organisational performance.

In this article, Geoff Moore, Professor of Business Ethics at Durham Business School suggests a more philosophical take on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and focuses instead on what he describes as `organisational virtue.`

I want to suggest that there are two dimensions along which we can make a judgement about organisational virtue and that we can make some sort of assessment of where any organisation is on those two dimensions, quite possibly doing that over time so that we then have a map. And I want to suggest that we can then see not only where we would like the organisation to move to if it is to become ‘better’ (which does not necessarily mean more successful in conventional terms), but also how it might get there.

I will illustrate this with a practical and real-life example based on some of my research, although I will keep the organisation itself hidden to preserve confidentiality. But you have my word that there is such an organisation and that the results I provide derive from the research I did within it, mostly through a series of interviews with managers at many different levels and in a variety of functions.

Two dimensions for organisational virtue

The first dimension for organisational virtue is to do with the purpose of the organisation. Why are we here? What difference do our goods or services really make in contributing to a society that is a better place to live and in which the natural environment on which we all depend is not compromised? I am not aware that these kinds of discussion take place with any regularity (or at all?) within corporate boardrooms. Nor does the conventional approach to CSR put such issues on the agenda because CSR has become increasingly a strategic matter – aligning the CSR strategy with corporate strategy and seeing that CSR makes its contribution to the bottom line.

This is because conventional corporate governance and the kind of CSR that goes with it – shareholder-oriented corporate governance – assumes that this kind of debate is already decided. The ends of business are already given and it’s all about shareholder value. But the way of thinking about business that I am advocating raises questions on precisely this point. It suggests that the ends, or purpose, are never about shareholder value or, more generally, success, but are always about the contribution a business makes to society. Success is absent, but it enters the picture in the second dimension.

So the two questions that ought to be going on inside a business (and on which we could form some kind of judgment even if not easily a quantitative one) are these: to what extent do the goods and / or services that the business produces contribute to the overriding good of the community, and to what extent is there a continuing debate within the business as to what the community’s good is and how the business contributes to it? This is obviously challenging for tobacco companies, armaments manufacturers, those businesses involved in pornography and so on (some of which, of course, do rather well in CSR terms). But even for other businesses – manufacturers, distributors and retailers alike – these are serious and significant questions which ought to demand Board time on a regular basis.

The second dimension is to do with excellence and success. The idea is this. It is possible (and I’ve done it in my research) to ask a business, through its managers, what it means to be an excellent x, y or z type of business. Managers seem to have no difficulty in giving a whole series of terms about the excellence of their products, their customer service, the way they treat their staff, about being socially and environmentally responsible and so on. It is also possible (and, again, I’ve done it in a real-life situation) to ask how the business measures success. This leads to another list, which is likely to be financially oriented but also to have other measures like customer satisfaction which feed in to success. Then I’ve asked the managers to score where the business is now on excellence versus success out of 10 (so 10-0, 5-5, 0-10 would all be possible scores but 7-5 wouldn’t). I’ve also asked them where the organisation has been in the past (to get the time dimension) and what they think the ideal score is.

We can then map this on a simple grid, as shown in diagram to the right – and this uses the data from the research I’ve done to map an actual business organisation to illustrate how it works in practice.

A case study: mapping organisational virtue

It seems clear that the virtuous organisation has a good purpose and places the emphasis just on the excellence side of success-excellence. The interviewees on average scored the ideal organisation as focusing on excellence over success by 5.15 to 4.85 – so they recognised the need for some kind of balance but that excellence should be prioritised over success. The vicious organisation (to use the technical term since the opposite of virtue is vice) occupies bottom left – a bad purpose and entirely success oriented.

The business organisation in which I did the research had an interesting history – it had come about as a result of a recent merger of two separate organisations A and B. So in this case I was able to get a sense of the position of the two organisations before they merged. Hence A had the success-excellence balance about right but did not have such a good purpose as B. B was clearly much more success oriented. The merger caused moderation on both dimensions, so AB was less success oriented than B but had a better purpose than A. In terms of where the organisation was going (the merger having happened relatively recently), the interviewees thought it was moving in the right direction as far as purpose was concerned (the dotted arrow pointing vertically up from AB) but also moving in a more success-oriented direction (the horizontal dotted arrow) as the achievement of financial results became more pressing. Combine those two and it can be seen that the organisation was moving away from the virtuous position – at roughly 90o to where it should be going if it wanted to be virtuous. One other interesting finding that emerged from the interviews was a definite sense that excellence was a pre-requisite for success, though didn’t guarantee it. Hence, the interviewees themselves acknowledged that the organisation was not moving in the right direction on both dimensions.

In one sense it is a fairly easy task to map your own organisation onto a grid like this although, as so often, it is the process (and wide engagement in it) that is important as well as the results that emerge. But this should also lead to a discussion about which direction the organisation is headed in, whether that is the desired direction and, if not, what might be done about it. And all of that ought to be a lot more profound than discussions of (strategic) CSR.

So how virtuous is your business?

The current and continuing economic market challenges will inevitably mean that a tighter leash will be kept on training budgets for some time to come. This presents HR managers with the ongoing challenge of attempting to implement tailored personal development plans and ensuring they dovetail and align properly with departmental goals and with organisational objectives, often on a restricted budget. However, recent advances in technology could provide a solution to staff training needs through remote delivery.

The remote delivery of training using a variety of different methods including: e-learning courses over the internet, live webinars, live face-to-face internet training and pre-prepared, tailored podcasts are all now reasonably straight forward to supply, given the improvements in technology on offer. Forward thinking training organisations are now providing bespoke content through web based platforms and companies are beginning to include these methods of delivery as part of a blended learning offering to staff, or as a complete solution. As most people are familiar with using the internet, they are comfortable with receiving information in this way, much more than they would have been a few years ago.

The benefits of remote delivery of training in terms of potential cost savings and the increased flexibility relating to session timing and content are also becoming apparent. This is because the internet allows the facility for both one-to-one and groups, where participants and the trainer can be geographically separated, to receive training at the same time. Staff can work in breakout groups and individual or group feedback can be provided at the touch of a button, all as if they were in the same location. This is particularly advantageous with teams whose members work in different offices around the globe and where it would be difficult to bring them together for traditional classroom based training.

Online training also provides easy access to the very best trainers – regardless of their location – as it removes the need for trainers to travel. This means trainers and sessions can also be more flexible with respect to availability, which can be at a premium for leading trainers in any field. Similarly, geographically dispersed employees can access the same training programme as other more centrally based staff and smaller businesses can gain access to the same calibre of quality training that may have only been previously available to large corporates with bigger budgets.

Similarly, due to the widespread use of Wi-Fi, it is possible to undertake training wherever there is access to a computer – this could be at home, in the office, or taking advantage of downtime during a stay at a hotel for example.

The other growth area is the provision of training using a podcast format. This allows employees to access training in specific modules in their own time, review the learning as many times as they need and a small on-line, self –assessed questionnaire can be built in to modules or at the end of the series to test knowledge retention.

Podcasts allow organisations to deliver the same training message to a large number of staff, across a variety of platforms, such as i-phone, Blackberry or memory sticks – where personnel may not have easy access to internet connectivity. For example, Farnham Castle recently produced a tailored podcast series for staff on an oil rig, ensuring everyone could benefit from the intercultural programme created. Podcasts can also be accessed through company intranets allowing employees to receive valuable information and advice at a time to suit their own schedule.

Due to reduced need to travel and elimination of the cost of venue hire, hotel and staff expenses, remote training will have far less impact on budgets, allowing larger numbers of staff to receive essential training. With higher employee churn rates than ever before, constant, on-the-job training can help companies remain competitive. However, using technology in this way not only eliminates the cost of travel and associated expenses of attending a residential, intensive, on-site study programmes, but it also reduces the environmental impact related to unnecessary travel which should also be a concern for every member of society in today’s world.

The Author

Jeff Toms
Director of Marketing & Client Services Farnham Castle

Jeff is responsible for the management and development of the intercultural training business and is also head of Marketing and Client Services for Farnham Castle International Briefing and Conference Centre, which offers meeting, training as well as corporate and private event facilities in the historic 12th century castle.

We can’t cope with being ‘out of control’
As managers we tend to work on the basis that everything is within our control – we suffer a poor weekend’s retail sales due to appalling weather and we feel like it’s our fault; we lose market share as a competitor launches a brilliant new product and we beat ourselves up.

Yet all these things are outside our control; in fact it’s hard to come up with anything that IS directly in our control, apart from of course, our employees…….

Controlling our employees – the ultimate challenge?
We can’t control the weather, the competition or Acts of God, but surely we can control our employees, can’t we? After all, they are contracted to us and we give them money every month in return for very specific activities and performance. So if we can control our employees, why is it so difficult to get them to change? The answer is simple –most of our employees are Control Freaks too!

Creating genuine change – the five step plan
We human beings are simple creatures, and when change is imposed upon us we go through a five stage process before we come to own that change. Not only will people go through these five stages, they have to go through them and there is no skipping a stage on the way.

The five stages are:
1. Uncertainty
2. Denial
3. Negotiation
4. Reflection
5. Action

1. Uncertainty
Most of us live our lives according to a plan, even if it’s not conscious. Happiness is achieving something we’ve planned for – we love it when a plan comes together. Receiving news that change is to be imposed upon us creates uncertainty and we become 100% focussed on how it will affect us.

A thousand unanswered questions go through our heads – “will we still be able to book that holiday we’ve been planning? Will I have a new boss and what will they be like? What new jobs will I have to take on, and how will I know what to do? Where will I sit? Who will I be working with? Is this change it or is there stuff they’re not telling us yet? What will I tell my partner when I get home so that they are not worried?”

All human beings fear the unknown and may panic when it is clear other people are now in control of their lives.

To see just how close people are to insecurity, try this simple test (actually, please don’t as it’s abusive!) – walk up to one of your employees, tap them on the shoulder and utter the chilling words “Can I just have a minute……” Watch the blood drain from their face and notice how they think they’ve done something wrong immediately.

Organisations today are pressure cookers of ludicrous expectations. Scratch the surface and most employees are a heartbeat away from a state of insecurity and stress. It’s no wonder they expend huge amounts of emotional, physical and intellectual energy seeking to be (well, to feel at least) in control, and why the descent into insecurity is rapid and predictable.

Communicate change clearly, directly and simply
For these reasons, any communication about change needs to be crystal clear, brutally simple and direct. Remember, once you have announced the change, people stop listening as the brain chatter of insecurity takes over. But there must be no ambiguity and saving peoples’ feelings, as this simply serves up future trouble. It’s why the change message has to be given as non-negotiable. Since fear is going to be an issue anyway, we need people to be more fearful of the status quo than of the change. It’s called the ‘Burning Platform’. Exciting visions and symbolic goals are crucial to any change plan, but unless the Burning Platform is established, getting people to accept the inevitable discomfort involved in change is almost impossible.

Next, leaders must acknowledge the inevitable feelings of insecurity by enabling people to talk openly about their personal concerns, and accept these emotional reactions, without shirking from the change or retracting it. And, it is vital to start the process of painting an exciting future. Getting the change message right is equally as important as getting the change decision itself right.

2. Denial
Once people have absorbed the news, they go into denial. It’s not that they choose to be disruptive or resistant or difficult it’s an inevitable process, because the change has not been accepted psychologically.

Rationality kicks in and people start to think about past changes and realise that not everything they’ve been told has actually happened. They start second guessing our leaders’ motivations and endowing them with Machiavellian strategising. They decide to lie low, (to hide) and wait and see what happens.

This is disappointing for our leaders– they after all are very excited about the change. They’ve been living it for some months, agonising over it, creating the vision and now they’ve announced these exciting plans to the employees they can’t understand why people aren’t excited.

But the bad news has just started. What happens next is that people start talking to each other. They ask each other what they think about the change and share their insecurities so they feel better and reassured.

They conspire against the change because they want to feel safe again. And what makes them feel safe is agreeing with people around them that the change either won’t happen or that it won’t be as bad as it sounds. And since they cannot actively fight or run away, they must hide which means they will hold my conspiratorial conversations out of earshot of my leaders.

The denial phase is thus characterised by people sounding as though they are in agreement, using political language and ‘management speak’ and avoiding anything that sounds like a specific commitment.

Whilst it is still ok for people to be inactive and not openly committing in this phase, they need to be challenged by the leaders to expose the truth of their position, and to move them towards the next stage as quickly as possible. Whereas in the first phase leaders should ask people how they feel, and what concerns and anxieties the change brings up for people, in this phase people should be asked what they think, and what obstacles and barriers people can see that might stop the change happening.

3. Negotiation
Once people accept that change is going to happen whether they like it or not, they quickly move to negotiating, to wrestle back some element of control.

Click image for related training information

Why? Because the negotiation phase is coming, and when we get there we need to be able to genuinely negotiate with our employees, not simply try and manipulate them into coming up with the right answer. Leaders need to be aware of this and be clear over any non-negotiable elements otherwise this stage will be mis-handled, and either too much ground, or indeed not enough, will be given to those expected to follow.

4. Reflection
Once employees have exhausted their negotiations and won some ‘concessions,’ or better still become inspired by the opportunities afforded by the change, we enter phase four – reflection. Before they can truly get on board, they must accept the change.

This is a private process. It involves them looking in the mirror and deciding they will accept and embrace the change and make it successful. They may need to talk to their partner and friends to ask them to validate their decision to accept the change. This reflection stage is vital and why we often ask or advise people to ‘sleep on it’. Isn’t it amazing how we feel differently about things when we’ve had a chance to ‘sleep on it’.

Of course back in our modern organisation, the compliance and even enthusiasm of employees during and at the end of the negotiation phase is often mistaken by the leader for total acceptance of the plan. This is a key mistake made many times for the reality is that the reflection phase must be navigated.

The leader must allow, even facilitate, a short period of quiet calm reflection, even if this is as simple as telling people to ‘take the weekend’ to think it over.

5. Action
There is no change without action. Ownership has to mean commitment and commitment is evidenced by action. It’s no good asking someone if they’re committed; as leaders we need to observe the actions of our people in performance, and then we know just how committed they are.

As human beings we feel back in control when we start living our life again according to some pre-determined plan that we feel is ours and no one else’s. So our actions might be small and even mundane, but they are the everyday actions of employees who are working again towards a common purpose and goals.

And so finally we move through to ownership, defined as follows………….that we believe in and evangelise the change as if it had been all our idea in the first place. This is the Holy Grail for most leaders – getting their people, their teams, their departments, their companies to ‘buy into’; to ‘own’ the change.

People will go through the five stages outlined above on their own, ‘naturally’, but it will take a long time and there will be much cost, risk and stress along the way. The biggest risk of all is that we will need to launch the next ‘generational’ change before our employees have come to a place of acceptance of the last one! Sound familiar?

Authentic leadership will take people through change
The job of the leader is to move (lead) people through these five stages as fast as possible – arguably the definition of leadership is to get people through these stages quicker than on their own.

So how long does it take? For a big change with huge potential impact on the lives of individuals, some organisations never complete the cycle, indeed some never get out of denial! But with authentic leadership, a big change might only take a matter of weeks to gain total acceptance and maximum commitment.

Authentic leadership means creating an emotional journey towards an inspirational vision of the future – creating a compelling Mission or Purpose – and then communicating this in such a way as the people who want to believe get on the bus, and those who do not get off.

It means asking the right questions of people at each stage. It means holding people and listening to their answers without shirking from the discomfort of the resistance that will naturally come.

It means being disciplined and applying sanctions – not allowing people to go back a stage once we have all moved on. It means ensuring that all conversations are authentic not superficial. It means noticing and acknowledging the emotions that will, indeed MUST be felt through the stages and celebrating them when they arrive on the scene – fear, uncertainty, guilt, sadness, grief, disappointment, denial, defensiveness, anger, frustration, jealousy, envy, betrayal, anxiety, depression, resignation, excitement, challenge, joy, happiness, calm, security, comfort, love, rejection, anticipation, elation, enthusiasm, energy, creativity, pride, honour, fulfilment.

We’re all Control Freaks, so resisting changes imposed upon us is in our DNA. So leaders need to know the Cycle of Ownership.

According to Gareth, a horrible boss has eight distinct personality traits and there are four strategies that can help employees cope.

The 8 Traits of Horrible Bosses

1. They believe in a 4th Law of Thermodynamics
The three principle Laws of Thermodynamics explain how the physical universe works. Some physicists think there is a 4th ‘Zeroth’ Law, however, Horrible Bosses are certain a 4th law exists. It is the law that states that nothing happens unless they are physically there to witness it. The hard pressed employee may have been putting in 12 hour days, but if the Boss doesn’t see it, it will count for nothing.

2. They are skilled and habitual liars
Horrible Bosses lie. They have to, since they are continually constructing reasons (excuses) for why their results are so poor. Many times the lies are not blatant, since they could be caught out, so a typical example will be a massive generalisation, or when the Boss states a ‘fact’ that is in reality only their opinion. If they are challenged, they will counter it with a well rehearsed and vigorous defence of the ‘truth’. When coupled with their habit of ‘conveniently’ forgetting things (things they have said or committed to), this trait is almost impossible to navigate.

3. They belittle people
It would be wrong to assume that Horrible Bosses are mere unconscious organisms thrashing through the day with no strategy in place. They are in fact capable of some very proactive behaviour. One of these is to motivate their employees with humour, personal favour and familiarity. This manifests in for example, hugely inappropriate use of sexual innuendo, sarcasm, devising nicknames etc. Since Toxic Bosses often have to recover situations when even they realise they have gone too far with their employees, they also tend to use inappropriate rewards as bribes or to salve their own conscience. They will even apologise but only if they fear that some 3rd party authority could be called in.

4. They actively promote ‘Them and Us’
‘Them and Us’ cultures are perhaps the most pernicious type within organisations. Horrible Bosses are great promoters of ‘them and us’, since it helps their cause in two ways. First of all it means they can ‘divide and conquer’ their subordinates – if their employees are fighting amongst themselves, then they can’t notice how bad their Boss is. Secondly it means they can avoid accountability for real results such as sales and profits, since they have to ‘waste’ so much time because of their dysfunctional organisation – a fact which they infer to be the fault of their own superiors.

5. They vacillate
One of the hardest things about working for a Horrible Boss is that they vacillate so much. One day they will passionately believe position X, and the next they will lambast an Employee for the utter stupidity of believing position X to be right. Horrible Bosses are often rather perversely trusted by their employees, but this is only possible if their behaviour is relatively predictable. Truly Horrible Bosses are tough to endure since their vacillation makes it almost impossible for the Employee to take predict their response, thus any sort of proactive action is simply too risky.

6. They sulk
Horrible Bosses are often just spoiled children. They are needy and self absorbed. When things don’t go their way, when they don’t get the recognition or praise they so clearly deserve, they sulk. Since Horrible Bosses can also hold a grudge with a superhuman intensity so it is best not to upset them. In fact their employees often are the ones to tell their Boss how brilliant they are and how the team simply could not do without their leadership and their ideas.

7. They bully and manipulate
The Horrible Boss bullies people. This can be overt, in the form of swearing, shouting or generally being physically intimidating. The truly Horrible Boss knows how to bully under the radar – belittling, criticising and undermining their Employees. They are also skilled manipulators, knowing how to play on their Employees’ fears and emotions of guilt.

8. They disappear
T S Eliot plaintively cried “Macavity’s not there” in his famous poem. Macavity the Mystery Cat defied Scotland Yard, because whenever they were about to catch him in the act, the cry would go up “Macavity’s not there”. The Horrible Boss has the supreme ability to disappear when problems arise – literally to go missing, returning with some plausible excuse (of which they have a never ending litany), incredulous that the crisis arose, yet delighted that the world has proven once more that bad things happen when they are not around. Truly they are indispensible.

The four strategies for Handling Horrible Bosses
The greatest single remedy for employees is awareness – to know that it is not them. Horrible bosses are dangerous because they cause employees to come to believe they are at fault, not their Boss. So being aware you do in fact work for a horrible boss is a massive relief and can in itself keep the employee in relatively good mental health.

The Four Strategies to cope with a Horrible Boss:

Click image for related training information

A) Coping
Anyone can handle being managed by a Horrible Boss for a short period of time. It is simply a matter of adopting, either individually or collectively, some coping mechanisms. This might include huge amounts of communication about activities, making sure the Boss gets the recognition, smiling inanely at their embarrassing humour, or covering for them when they go AWOL.

B) Outliving
Whereas a coping strategy is by definition not trying to change the Boss, but merely survive and endure until something changes, a strategy of outliving the Boss is more proactive and is designed to contribute to bringing about the Boss’s demise. This is more likely to be a conspiratorial strategy with similarly beleaguered colleagues.

This strategy may include the covert fostering of relationships with 3rd parties, particularly the Horrible Boss’s own superiors, and making sure that it is the employees who are recognised for any successes.

C) Whistle Blowing
The scariest of all strategies is to be the one who exposes the Horrible Boss. A failed attempt at a coup will leave the employee in a worse position, where leaving is probably inevitable. Many employees, even if they have the personal strength and integrity to be a whistle-blower, refrain because they cannot see a good end result for the organisation or themselves. So why take the risk?

D) Leaving
All the research shows that employees leave Bosses, not companies. Ultimately any employee has the choice of leaving, and often this is the only course of action that resolves an insidious situation. However, this is a very tough call for the employee to make. Firstly, they have to find themselves another job, and risk jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, and secondly, they have to deal with the anger and frustration of being made to leave a job and a company that they may love but for one Horrible Boss.

About the Author
Gareth Chick, Director of UK business consultancy, Spring Partnerships

Spring Partnerships is a UK business consultancy specialising in leadership and marketing communications. It was founded early in 2003 by Stephen Archer Gareth Chick.

Each has specialist experience in the areas of sales, marketing, communications, leadership development and event management; each complementing the other to create an all encompassing consultancy.

From 6 April, UK businesses can no longer give notice to employees of their retirement under a default retirement age (DRA). Whilst Employment Minster Ed Davey hailed this reform as ‘great news for older people, businesses and the economy’, not everyone agrees. Several business leaders and lobby groups have voiced concerns that businesses may be saddled with an ageing and incompetent workforce, incapable of performing their jobs, but unwilling to leave the workforce. The CBI stated that companies will face “huge uncertainty and greater risk of tribunal claims if the government does not tackle the unintended consequences of the decision”. Others argue that if companies have expensive older workers on their payroll, it will harm the job prospects of younger workers which will exacerbate the current youth unemployment problems.

Whilst some of the concerns may be valid, it overlooks the fact that older workers can deliver significant benefits to companies, not least in terms of the knowledge, experience and ideas they bring. Let’s not forget too, in engineering and manufacturing where there is a shortage of talent, one of the big concerns of business leaders is the impact of baby boomer generation retiring. Companies in these sectors are desperate to retain the knowledge of these ‘older’ workers and ensure it is passed on to successors to avoid a ‘brain drain’.

Today, there are around 850,000 workers in the UK who are over 65 years old and there has been no evidence that their performance has had any negative effect on company performance. In fact, it has been demonstrated by companies such as B&Q who employ many older workers that they can have a very positive impact on a company’s performance and culture, particularly where older workers mentor and train new recruits. I would argue also that age is irrespective in a business if the right processes are established to ensure that employees are developed in the right way and their skills and talent is used effectively.

However, there are some barriers that businesses need to overcome in terms of how they manage older workers. New research out this month from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development showed that older workers are rather worryingly at the bottom of the priority list for companies when it comes to training and performance management.

The report, ’Employee Outlook: Focus on an Ageing Workforce’ which surveyed 2,000 employees found less than half of workers (46%) aged 65 and above claim to have had a formal performance appraisal either once a year or more frequently, compared to 65% of all employees.

It also found that 44% of employees aged 65 and above have not had a formal performance appraisal in the last two years or never, compared to a survey average of 27%. Older workers are also much less likely than younger workers to have received training, with 51% of those aged over 65 saying they had received no training in the last three years or never, compared to 32% across all age groups.

These statistics are worrying. UK companies are neglecting the development of their older workers in the mistaken belief that they don’t need to invest in their employees who are near the end of their careers. However, with the law changing in October, this situation needs to be addressed and there needs to be a mindset change in certain companies.

Managers need to ensure that they truly understand the training needs of each individual at all levels so they can deliver targeted training that will have a genuine impact on performance.The only way that companies can gain this insight is through the delivery of regular employee assessments that test the skills, knowledge and performance of employees.Using assessments, employees can also be benchmarked against performance criteria, enabling managers to understand where skills gaps lie in the organisation and the training interventions that are needed for each individual that will improve their performance and productivity. It will also ensure they maintain and improve the skills of all workers, whatever their age or stage in their careers.

From October, when employers will no longer be able to require employees to retire at a certain age, they will need to ensure that they give the same focus and attention to the training and development of older workers. They need to ensure they have the right performance management systems and practices in place that will equally look all their workers whatever their age. By using assessments, companies can gain insight immediately into the development needs of each individual, and this knowledge can help managers make the best decisions about getting the most out of their staff no matter how old they are.

About the Author

Mary J Clarke has served as Chief Executive of Cognisco since January 2004. Under her leadership the company has achieved sustained profitability and implemented a new operating model, developed a more customer and market driven culture and expanded the role and reach of Cognisco.

My name is Claire Arnold and I am a management consultant. Are these words that should be spoken with a sense of pride or are they a source of embarrassment – a confession to be muttered at that guilty morning croissant or the trust-circle at workaholics anonymous amid the bankers and politicians?

The world of management consulting has come under a good deal of considered attack in recent months. For example, Francis Maude at the Cabinet Office singled out consultancy as one of the simplest savings open to the Civil Service in its efforts to reduce overspending in the Public Sector. How has a profession that positions itself as a thought leader dedicated to making organisations effective become such an easy hunting ground for negative press and generalised opprobrium?

The answer lays in the economics and culture of global businesses – the drivers of scale and the roots of power. Initially, many consulting businesses were advisory offshoots of big accounting firms; with their access to and relationships with the board members of client companies, they sought to extend the management letter that accompanied the accounts into an advisory service. When this practice was outlawed and firms divided, they sought a new annuity income as a platform on which they could afford to offer advice. The platform was IT. This is a capacity rather than a capability play – one supported by an invading army of systems specialists and fraught with danger for the client. IT system implementations are billed as platforms on which massive change can be achieved in businesses, whereas in truth they are a huge burden on organisations, not to mention a comfort-blanket for executives who would rather not grasp the nettle of leadership.

Click image for related training information

So, is there a future for consulting or will more organisations ‘do a Maude’ and ask the legions of technologists to move their applications off the lawn and reconsider their contract arrangements? The answer will depend on leadership and honesty at the top of both consulting firms and businesses. A new model for consulting is emerging, one based on valuing capability over brute capacity and automation – capability developed on the firm foundations of expertise and research. At its heart is the knowledge that there are only three things in any organisation: the product or service that you sell or provide, the processes by which you make decisions, and your people. Between these three elements there lies the essential truth that if you don’t pay real respect to your people no amount of systematisation will make the place work any better or cheaper.

Respect grows from the top. “Employee engagement” will not be achieved just because you’ve put in the best software, but because the leadership has made it clear what the goals of the organisation are, that these goals are supported by firm principles and that these principles guide decision making. So, if cost cutting is a driver, it is much more powerful to ask what we will and what we will not do in the future than it is to pass the buck down and suggest that it’s possible to do it all minus a third of the workforce. That isn’t to say that once the initial question is addressed your team won’t tell you, when asked, that they could easily make things work with fewer people – but it would be their decision.

As a result the New Consultancies are smaller, and staffed by people of experience both in running businesses and in working on projects through which they have developed deep insight and innovative approaches to provide clients with educated choices. At the heart of these consultancies is expertise and intellectual property combined with a deep and abiding drive to get to the heart of the matter. Above all, there is a new reliance upon personal integrity and honest, straight talking relationships. At Maxxim we are proud of an individual approach to organisational challenges that resolves strategic issues and that looks to connect systems and data to the real people in an organisation – its own employees.

Consulting armies march on their stomachs. Our aim is to swap carbs for protein, and show that at Agincourt, ‘the fewer men, the greater share of honour’.

About the author:
Claire Arnold is a founding partner of Maxxim Consulting. She specialises in organisational strategy, change management and leadership development with significant experience in supporting leadership teams pre and post merger. Having been involved in a number of significant transformation projects in both public and private sectors, Claire has worked intensely with CEOs and their boards to develop and communicate business vision and strategy.

www.maxximconsulting.com

Bindi Bhullar, director of HCL Technologies, explores why the current draconian approach of UK businesses to social media in the workplace must be discarded to ensure employee empowerment and retention

Recent research carried out by Goldsmith College claims that firms are losing around £4billion a year as a result of a social-networking ban, leading to employees being demoralised while at work. It is my view that a more lenient policy to social media is required across UK businesses. Placing draconian restrictions on channels, that bring benefits to businesses, such Facebook or Twitter, is short sighted and dangerous to corporate morale, effectiveness and productivity.

Facebook has existed since 2004 and I find it remarkable that many businesses have not yet made a decision on what role social networks should play in the workplace. By not addressing the issue, many employers are putting their employees’ interests as a low priority.

The problem is that many companies attempt to stifle the use of social networking sites within their organisations, when in fact they should be actively promoting their use. Banning social networks completely will negatively impact an employee’s approach to work and have a detrimental effect on the business as a whole. Many employers still have fears that some staff will abuse social networks if they are allowed to access them during the working day, but businesses need to treat employees responsibly, as they are then more likely to reciprocate.

Traditionally, the use of social media in the workplace has been associated with potential threats to corporate reputation. However the vast majority of employees will never write anything detrimental about their company on such a site.

The fact is, that when implemented properly, the benefits of open access to social networks will bring more positives to an organisation than negatives. Allowing staff to use these sites makes for a much more interactive and sociable working environment. More than ever before, employees are now open to becoming Facebook friends with their colleagues, which plays an important role in maintaining a positive workplace atmosphere and culture.

Furthermore, a lenient approach to social networking in the workplace is an important aid for businesses in rectifying trust issues that occur between employers and employees. Through actively embracing the use of social sites in the workplace, bosses are able to empower their staff through demonstrating trust and recognition. This idea corresponds to a new enterprise philosophy, which encourages management to actively engage with staff issues, in order to help build a basis of trust in the company.

Click image for training related information

However in addition to promoting a positive attitude to social media in the workplace, it is also worth remembering is that there are sometimes constraints on social media access for employees based at customer sites. In these situations, policy needs to be flexible to both employees and customers, which will hopefully prompt less social-savvy companies to address how they can most effectively harness the power of the web 2.0.

For too long now, companies have overlooked the effects a positive social media policy can have on staff motivation and retention. With millions of users using Facebook and Twitter on a personal level, the idea of using social networking sites in the workplace should appeal to employers not scare them, as these are communications channels staff are already familiar and comfortable with.

However, despite the need for employers to have a more relaxed approach towards social networking, orgnaisations still have to be aware of the impact on productivity in the workplace? By setting clear guidelines, any misuse of social media can be dealt with appropriately within an organisation. Guidelines will also prevent staff from wasting their working days browsing Facebook and other such sites.

Once these guidelines are in place, social networking sites can become a vital communications tool for Generation Y, the next wave of digitally competent business leaders. This generation is used to communicating in an open and collaborative environment, with social websites allowing them to share content and use the chat and messaging functions for quick communication with friends and colleagues. If employers ban sites such as Facebook or Twitter outright, they are in danger of making their companies less desirable to future employees.

As a counterpoint, it is good to see many businesses now tailoring their social media policies to cater for professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. At HCL, we have an internal platform MEME which allows us to meet staff expectations and demand for these channels. I predict there will be a sharp rise in popularity of enterprise social networks such as Yammer to cope with employee demand for different communications channels within their organisations.

In summary, if an organisation fails to make any effort to embrace social networking, chances are they will be being left behind. However, by implementing an appropriate social media policy, companies can educate staff on the importance of social media and the increasingly important role it plays in the corporate world. This knowledge can in turn help employees become more actively involved with their company brand and working culture and feel more committed to it. At the same time, being actively engaged in the social media debate gives bosses and managers an important opportunity to display trust in and recognition of their employees, which has a positive impact on company work ethic, culture and infrastructure, thus benefiting the business as a whole.

About the Author
Bindi is the HCL head director in EMEA. Bindi also has a strong technical background with an engineering graduate with a management degree from the world renowned Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

He started his career with HCL as a Senior Management Trainee in 1995 and was one of the first members of the team that started the global operations of HCL ISD (in Connecticut, USA) in 1998-99. Since 2003, Bindi has been spearheading HCL CIO Operations in Europe. He reports into the CEO.

For anyone taking on a new role, the first hundred days are seen as a rite of passage. In terms of how the organisation perceives you, this period is also a significant milestone.

For the senior manager or executive concerned it is a time for making careful assessments about the task ahead, and winning the trust and confidence of those around them before implementing any changes.

In a senior role you are ultimately measured by your ability to resolve issues, set strategy, grow the business and achieve objectives. One hundred days gives you time to barely scratch the surface, but this crucial period will help to establish a base for the longer term when you will be scrutinised and judged by what you can really deliver.

How do you prepare for this critical early phase of a new career? What can you do to make the transition from your previous role as smooth and seamless as possible?

The key thing to remember is that your new job, whether it is an internal promotion or an external appointment, is not just an extension of the one you have just left. It will be something very different.

There are specific challenges and pressures that apply to a senior management or board level role, and you will be expected to get it all right; the systems, the business strategy, the team building, and the people development.

You cannot hope to successfully meet these new challenges without understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, it is essential to know how and where you can get support for some of your weaker areas, possibly through executive or leadership coaching or mentoring.

Click image for related training information

Unless there are urgent issues to deal with, it helps to take some time to acquire the information you need, to gain a real sense of the organisational culture, identify what is important and to differentiate between the signals and the noise.

Good communication is vital. Every conversation that you have will be of value in providing insight into the company and its culture. You should be able to define the prevalent management style; and identify the individuals who you need to build relationships with. Additionally, to ascertain what the organisation expects of you.

Early on, a new senior manager should be making his or her presence felt but in a subtle way, by engaging with the organisation, being visible, and communicating and enquiring among those you have identified as key stakeholders.

New leaders will benefit from proactive support in deciding how they form effective relationships at this level and what behavioural changes they may need to make to ensure that they are effective in their new role.

The people around you, or in the case of a CEO, the people you surround yourself with, will play a key role in determining the success of your first few months with the company.

A new CEO has to understand the dynamics of the board members, spend time observing them and seeing how they work individually and together. Only then should top team coaching be arranged or additions made to the team.

During the first hundred days it is important to meet regularly with those who report directly to you, as well as their own direct reports. This will help you understand what each person does, what their skills are, and where they are coming from more generally. Keep the meeting groups small in order to build rapport and trust with those who will be working closest to you.

Often, the expectations of a new CEO are that he or she will make an early announcement of a change of strategy, but a new leader should resist the urge to act immediately, and instead spend time listening to colleagues and customers to gain insights about the business. Only announce any strategic changes after intense reflection and analysis, ¬and also ensure that your team are fully supportive.

Getting the right balance between analysis and action is crucial. Some senior executives make change for the sake of being seen to be doing something and make decisions without thinking things through properly. Unless the situation calls for urgent action, use your first few weeks to listen and observe. Having said that, there is nothing like an early ”win” to establish credibility and to buy you the time to build trust in the longer term. Try to discover if there is a small issue that you can fix immediately and thus show that you are emotionally and intellectually on board as well as physically. This is particularly important for the HR executive who will always need to prove his or her value to the business to a greater degree than leaders of some other functions.

Be aware of the signals you send out during this early phase as these can help to establish your credibility. The first hundred days will set the tone for the rest of your tenure in the organisation, so be clear about the values you aspire to and ensure that these are in line with the values of the business. Above all your aim will be to win the trust and confidence of your colleagues and the CEO as early as possible.

If there are problems or issues that cannot wait, be inclusive. Identify the key issues and feed them back to your immediate team to make sure they agree and feel part of the solution.

Finally, the first one hundred days in the job are always a challenge, so allow yourself time to step back and look at what you have achieved before moving on. Also, take time out to reflect on any unexpected issues that have arisen, so that this learning can be incorporated into your personal success plan for the role.

By Chris Seabourne of global search firm – CTPartners

It is a common experience to be listening to a conference speech and hear the phrase ‘people hate change’, often accompanied by nodding of heads and murmuring of agreement. This claim has always struck me as being rather odd. Most human beings are restless individuals, who do not like repetitive tasks or being stuck in the same place, and who enjoy sampling different environments on holiday. We adapt readily to new types of communications technology – and by no means only younger people. With a bit of amateur anthropology, you could easily form the opposite conclusion: that people love change. I actually think this would be equally misleading, however. The truer picture is that people display a mixture of adaptation to and wariness of a changing environment, depending on personality and on context.

Where the phrase ‘people hate change’ comes from is unquestionably the many organisational change programmes that go wrong, and meet resistance. Sometimes they go wrong because of resistance; sometimes they meet resistance because they are wrong; sometimes it’s a mixture. One observation I would make, based on experience of many different change programmes, is that the difference between the best and the worst initiatives is considerable, in terms of people adapting to the new environment and helping it work. A related observation is that the style of leadership is the key factor that makes the difference.

Leaders who involve their staff in a genuine dialogue about the present and future challenges are more likely to succeed for two principal reasons. The obvious one is that they are more likely to explain the rationale for a new strategy or way of working, and engage and equip their workforces to make it work. The other is less obvious: a leadership team never has a monopoly on wisdom, and a genuine dialogue opens up new ways to make change more effective. It may be a new, junior member of staff who spots a new business opening, for example by developing apps for mobile phones. No leader can control the change that they want: the most that they can hope for is to create deep conversations on the subject of the direction that they judge the organisation needs to go.

There can be few sectors that haven’t had to make radical changes in recent years. Internet retailing, other forms of online business transactions, and mobile technology have completely altered the revenue flows and business models of a range of industries, from publishing to telephony to the music industry. Political upheavals and rapid development of emerging economies represent other forces that are transforming certain markets.

Successful organizations, and leaders, see change as a daily, continual challenge, not a discrete ‘change programme’ that has to be applied to reluctant people. Being able to stand in the midst of uncertainty and change, and take multiple perspectives and change things, taking people with you, is the leadership challenge. For many leaders, this is a complete change in their way of working: away from plotting strategy in a central office, changing the structure and issuing communiqués, towards a culture of constant adaptation to outside events and deep conversations internally. This may require a radical change in personal style, assisted by advanced training and coaching.  The role of communications department is very important: they need very skilled individuals, not just those who push a message out, but those who can facilitate conversations, elicit ideas from the workforce, and engage.

Click image for related training information

Obviously, it is not possible to talk to everyone, other than in the smallest organizations, but a leader who needs to make change effective does need to engage seriously with staff, so that they feel they have a valid input into the change. Sometimes, I have seen change work really well, because people who have led the change have involved people.

This is challenging enough where the change is largely about new opportunities. But what about the many cases where change involves cutbacks, including redundancies? Even here, there is a choice between handling it sensitively, in consultation, and handling it poorly. Key to the challenge is for leaders to be very straight with people, and communicate face-face, treating them with respect. People may not like the news, but they are much more likely to accept it if you have been honest and have informed them fully. In the past there have been examples of people sacked by email, and you do wonder how such a decision could come to pass, and how managers could have been surprised by the inevitable outrage and press coverage.

But it can be handled well. For example, one of my coaching clients was a manager with a major retailer that had to go through an almost complete restructuring. The market they were serving was going through huge changes as a result of the rise of internet purchasing and the decline in shop visits. Large-scale redundancies were absolutely inevitable, but the company got many things right: they explained the changes fully, and everyone made redundant had the most extensive outplacement help. We helped the manager gain a new job, and he ended up in a really good place. He actually feels quite positive about the company that he left. When hundreds of people are leaving your organization, it does much for the employer brand if they are saying good things – or at least not saying so many bad things.

Another major shift in recent years is towards sustainability: a better deal for suppliers from developing countries, and more care for environmental protection. A misconception if you go down this route, however, is to think it is all about a nicer way of business without tough choices. Sustainability may mean ending a contract with a certain supplier, which can mean redundancies. It involves some very hard decisions. That’s where communication is even more important.

One company, after 50 years of flying people all over the place to meetings, decided to just have video-conferences: a decision that is going to have big implications. The obvious benefits to business and the environment are lower business costs, lower carbon emissions, and a better work-life balance. But there may be difficulties for certain key business relationships, deprived of the richness of face-face meetings; and there may be a negative impact on employee engagement, if not handled well.

No change initiative is all good, nor all bad; but change is inevitable. The key to better change management is the same as the key to all management: honest dialogue and wise decisions, communicated fully.

By Neela Bettridge, executive coach and co-founder of Article 13

Leading Human Resources and payroll software specialist Cascade HR is set to launch a mobile app at this year’s CIPD HR Software Show (HRSS).

Dedicated to making day-to-day HR processes ever quicker and more efficient, this latest technology release from Cascade is designed to offer utmost ease of use when it comes to self-service functionality.

The app – which has been successfully piloted and will now be available for clients from June onwards – will be unveiled on Cascade’s all new exhibition stand.  The Cascade team will be on hand to guide delegates through the new technology using smart devices and via large plasma screens.

Cascade’s software development director Dan Edwards explains: “Having successfully promoted version 4.0 of our award-winning .NET HR and HMRC-accredited payroll software at the 2010 HRSS, it made perfect sense to use the 2011 event as a platform to launch this current innovation.

“We’ve been discussing the idea of a mobile app for many years but our in-house development team began to turn the concept into a reality in Autumn 2010. The technology has been developed in alignment with the Windows Communication Foundation – a recognised Microsoft programming model for service-orientated applications – and the software’s architecture has been adapted to suit a mobile app.”

Traditionally the Cascade solution would have been sold to desk-based clients, but in today’s world of evermore flexible working the standard office format rarely applies. With many Cascade clients, numerous employees work outside of the office environment, whilst some are even located off-shore. In the past clients have set up internet cafes or staffroom kiosks to promote employee access but now the new mobile app should encourage an even greater level of employee engagement.

But by its very nature the Cascade technology lends itself to being used in a mobile fashion. Now users can book holidays, check their payslips or monitor outstanding HR tasks wherever they may be, therefore making the most efficient use of their time.

Keen to ‘futureproof’ clients from technological advances, this new release represents the first of a stream of developments in mobile technology for Cascade, not just for smart phones but for ipads, tablets and laptops with ever-varying screen sizes.

Dan concludes: “I read recently that talent management firm SHL found only 7% of HR professionals in EMEA (surveyed as part of their Global Assessment Trends Report) can access their HR information systems via a mobile device. Our development team is dedicated to providing clients with the best possible innovations, so we’ve many more ideas in the pipeline that will enable customers to utilise their HR technology in ways they perhaps never thought possible.”

The people in your business will make the difference between success and failure. They are the ones that add value, drive growth and create innovation. Successful companies know how to unlock this human potential – they know that identifying, nurturing and developing great people are the keys to long-term success.

Effective talent management will lead to improved employee engagement, positively impacting retention, performance, productivity, innovation and learning.

Do you know what talent your organisation will need over the coming years? How will you reward high performers? Where are your upcoming talent gaps? How will you measure the effectiveness of your performance and compensation strategies globally? Do your employees know where their careers are heading?

Research Bulletin 2010 – Measuring the Business Impact of Talent Strategies

For the last few years, business leaders have been asking HR and talent leaders to provide data that can help them make critical decisions about their most valuable and costly resources – employees.

Based on Bersin & Associates research, more than 70 percent of global organisations are still facing the same challenges with talent management measurement. More than 87 percent of these global organisations feel that the data needed to conduct any form of workforce analysis is only somewhat accessible or not accessible at all.

Today, those HR leaders who have invested in integrated talent management strategies, process improvement and integrated systems are beginning to answer business leaders’ requests.

Key talent metrics inform the organisation of important data and trends. Talent measures focus on effectiveness, alignment and productivity – and can support an organisation’s ability to make sound business decisions concerning its resources. A strategy is required to ensure a company’s most critical talent needs and highest business priorities are aligned. It also develops a clear vision of where and when your business expects to utilise data for business decisions.

A talent management measurement strategy includes:

• Goals for your measurement strategy;
• Framework for your measurement efforts;
• Required culture and change efforts needed to implement the strategy;
• Processes and tools required to execute the strategy;
• Critical metrics and key performance indicators;
• Timing, format and location of measurement outputs; and,
• Plans for regionalising and addressing various cultural needs.

Read the full report

Succession Management: Planning for a brighter future

Succession Management is a structured approach to ensure continuity in key positions including management, technical and specialists roles ensuring retention and development of intellectual capital for future organisational success. Assessing the business impact of the Career and Succession Management process in your organisation is the first step towards achieving this success.

According to Bersin & Associates more than a third of businesses lack succession management of any kind. Their research showed that 21% of companies have no process in place and 15% have a list of high potentials but no type of development process. Furthermore, many of the businesses that have some kind of succession management in place treat it only as an administrative exercise and not a collaborative process between HR and senior management.

Read the full report

Performance Management: Turning good talent into great talent

As businesses begin to emerge from the economic downturn that has been underway since the end of 2007, many are recognising and appreciating the benefits of effective performance management. During the recession, organisations with robust performance management processes have been able to make much-needed cuts with precision, whilst nurturing superior performance from their remaining employees. However, HR shouldn’t expect business leaders to be 100% satisfied with this. If anything, senior executives want to see an even greater business impact from performance management practices.

This vision of what could be was best articulated by HR thought leader Dr. John Sullivan earlier this year when he wrote, “Superior talent management can have a higher impact on company success than any other single business function.” And this vision isn’t wishful thinking, it’s fact.

Read the full report

Social Media: The next opportunity for talent-seekers

Ambitious recruiters leverage social media to deliver results.

It’s no surprise that social media has become an essential tool for employers and employees alike. For organisations it’s one of the most effective mediums for promoting their employer brand to potential recruits. It’s even how many build internal communities for their people to spread news, share expertise and celebrate success.

For candidates, social media provides a unique opportunity to gather intelligence about employers through interaction with potential peers. People they might otherwise never meet until after an exhaustive interview process are instantly available online. Crucially, social media provides opportunities to reach out to people who may not be active in the job market – but who might be tempted by the right opportunity.

Read the full report

Your fast-track to success

It’s not always easy to know whether your talent programmes are on the right track. Our HR insight tools are a really great way of assessing your current position and how this compares with other organisations.

Complete the assessment

Get the facts

Read the reports

Follow Lumesse:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Lumesse_uk
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/company/764805?trk=tyah
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lumesse/146453778755966
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Lumessedotcom

Advertisement:

StepStone Solutions, one of the world’s leading talent management companies, has rebranded as ‘Lumesse.’ (www.lumesse.com) With rapid growth in its ‘Software-as-Service’ solutions over recent periods, and an active user base well in excess of a million people in 70 countries, the new brand is the first step in making Lumesse an increasingly high-profile, global player in the fast-growth talent management sector.

Lumesse is positioned in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant in Gartner, Inc’s 2011 “Magic Quadrant for Employee Performance Management Software. Leaders have strong product functionality and, often, provide superior customer experience. In addition, these vendors have strong direct sales and/or channel sales capabilities. Leading vendors also have strong or emerging multinational solutions (with corresponding service and support).

“As Lumesse we are building a new kind of company, a high technology talent management business that doesn’t talk about technology, but about people and their potential,” said Lumesse CEO, Matthew Parker. “Our rebrand is a watershed in our company development, but it’s much more than a change of name. We’re building a global talent management business that acts like a local company – a company that can help both employers and employees have better jobs and better results. And our ‘Inspiring Talent’ survey shows that many companies have a long way to go in getting the best from their people and in giving them careers that really inspire them.” (make ‘Inspiring Talent’ a link to the press release about this on the .com website)

Formed in 2003, StepStone Solutions separated from its parent company in a management buyout backed by HgCapital in April 2010. With over 1,700 customers, including major brands such as Bank of China International, Deutsche Telekom, Heineken, Merck, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Virgin Atlantic, and employees in 17 countries, Lumesse is a high-growth global success story in the talent management market. Lumesse provides ‘Software-as-a-Service’ solutions in both talent acquisition and talent management, with well over a million active users of its technology, served from global data centres.

“Many companies seem to be doing a great job in providing inspiring, supportive workplaces for their people,” adds Matthew Parker, Lumesse CEO. “But the report card for many others has to be ‘could do better,’ especially in areas like training, career development, performance appraisals and job recognition. As Lumesse we’ve set out a clear statement of our company values, based on what our people said they wanted the company to be, with a strong emphasis on our ability to provide a working environment and culture that inspires people – in Lumesse and in our customers – to do better and have more fun.”

“The talent management software market continues to grow in size and importance, yet it appears crowded, noisy and undifferentiated to buyers,” said Josh Bersin, President and CEO of Bersin & Associates, a leading analyst firm in human resources and talent management. “Lumesse’s focus on creating a global brand which focuses on the ‘people benefits’ of talent management gives the company a clear and differentiated vision which goes far beyond the features and capabilities of software itself.”

“Our rebrand to Lumesse is the end of a long project and the start of a new chapter in our history,” said Michelle Martin, Global Head of Marketing. “The brand reflects the kind of company our people said they want to work for – vibrant, human, fun but focused, global in scale but local in execution and, above all, a business that generates fantastic outcomes for its customers and inspiring careers for their people.”

About Lumesse

Lumesse is the only global company making talent management solutions work locally. We help customers around the world to implement successful local talent management initiatives that identify, nurture and develop the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Our multi-cultural background and presence means we understand how to deliver talent solutions that work the way our customers work, as individuals and as teams, because no two people, organisations or cultures are the same. We regard differences as strengths, not as obstacles.

1,700 customers work with us in over 70 countries because they recognise that commitment, innovation and value only come from people. We help customers to unlock and inspire that human potential in their businesses. Our integrated talent management solutions are comprehensive, intuitive, secure and fully internationalised into over 50 languages.

We are exhibiting at this year’s HR Software Show on 15th & 16th June, so join us on stand number H350 to meet the Lumesse team. We’re really excited about our new brand and we can’t wait to celebrate with you!

Top 10 reasons why you should join us:

1. This is the first time we are showcasing Lumesse in the UK.
2. It’s FREE to attend!
3. Meet our experts – Email amy.short@lumesse.com if you would like to book a one to one meeting.
4. Gather information on the latest products and services.
5. See our customer Ruth Mundy from Mouchel present at 9.45am – 10.15am on 16th June: “Case Study: using technology to manage talent in a downturn”
6. Lumesse Talent Management and Lumesse Talent Acquisition demos on the stand.
7. Exciting competitions will be running throughout the show.
8. A great networking opportunity.
9. We’ve had an amazing exhibition stand designed that really illuminates us from the rest of the crowd! You’ve just got to see it!
10. It’s going to be a celebration of Lumesse – Cocktails and balloons galore!

Register here

Follow Lumesse:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Lumesse_uk
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/company/764805?trk=tyah
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lumesse/146453778755966
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Lumessedotcom