Archive for the ‘CIPD’ Category

HR: Where’s the passion..?

Posted: 04/05/2012 in Business, CIPD, Engagement, HR, Human Resources, Leadership
9

This is one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite movies – Serendipity - I know, I know, but what can I say? Im a sucker for a love story ;) The quote is from the scene when Dean reads out a make believe Obituary:

 “The Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: Did he have passion?”

I was reminded of this word twice today, firstly by my 12 year old daughter. To say she is passionate about the environment is an understatement. She constantly follows us around the house, turning off the lights as she goes, or bursting into tears if I leave the car running for a nanosecond more than is absolutely necessary! Today, without any thought about the risk, she remonstrated with a man in his car because he threw his litter out of the window. Passion in overdrive! You can’t knock it though, we need more like her if we are going to really save the planet. But I digress…

The second was when I read this excellent post from Sukh Pabial, @naturalgrump on twitter. It was his review of the CIPD’s #hrd12 conference and is an excellent read. He makes some great observations and also gives credit where it’s due. The comment stream is also great which is a testament to the value of the post. I could feel the passion coming through from Sukh. Yes, the conference fell short of his expectations in some ways, but he cares, and genuinely want’s it to get better.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have invested his personal time in writing about it.

However, the more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that the HR profession lacks some of this passion. That’s not to say there are not any passionate people in HR – the people I have met through ConnectingHR and twitter are great examples, and there are too many to list here. But the list is small overall. When I consider the profession as a whole, the picture looks very different. I see process, detail, procedure, caution, data, metrics, jargon and a good dose of angst. Plenty of other things, very little passion. I can also say that in my 8 years at Courtenay HR, meeting HR folk as a day job, I didnt see much of it then either. And I met a lot of HR folk during that period.

When I studied for my CIPD – back in the 80′s – yes I know I don’t look old enough ;) – One of the course leaders had a mantra:

“If you are interested in Personnel because you are interested in people, you had best get out of it.”

At the time I convinced myself he was right, but I have since come to believe he was totally wrong. Perhaps the overall direction of HR in the last 20 years has been influenced by this view – keep it scientific, focus on the process, not the person. Do everything to increase our commercial credentials. Maybe so, but in doing so we have, in my view, ripped the passion for people – for relationships, emotion, conversation, collaboration – from the profession and ultimately, from organisations.

We face a global financial crises of proportions not seen in most of our lifetimes which doesn’t say much for the quality of leadership in organisations does it? Or politicians for that matter. Perhaps if we could get the passion back into business, get closer to the people, each other, we might just find the answers. The leadership of Kodak didn’t seem to have a grasp of what ailed their business, but I bet the people standing around the watercooler did.

So what say you folks? How do we put passion back on the agenda for HR? How did we lose it in the first place? Did we lose it along the way or did we have it kicked out of us?

#CIPDSocial11: The Stats…

Posted: 08/12/2011 in CIPD, Community, Engagement, Social Media, Twitter
0

A quick post from me following the excellent CIPD Social Media Conference that took place yesterday. Great to see so many of the #connectingHR folk there too.

The initial stats and wordcloud

Key stats I ran off this morning:

1,000 tweets generated 4,026,401 impressions, reaching an audience of 353,689 followers within the past 24 hours

The wordcloud created from tweets dring the day – I only took them from the duration of the conference, not the aftermath!

More from me later but a HUGE thank you to the CIPD Events team for putting on the event and for letting me be part of it.  A watershed moment methinks.

HR: Your community needs you…

Posted: 28/11/2011 in CIPD, Communication, Community, Engagement
6

Since qualifying 23 years ago, my involvement with the CIPD throughout the duration of my career could be detailed on the back of a postage stamp with room to spare. I was completely indifferent to the Institute, paying my dues (or rather my employer did) and getting on with my career.  A familiar story amongst my professional colleagues too.  This changed in 2005 when I wrote a “Disappointed member from Amersham” letter to People Management over something or other, and Duncan Brown called me out on it.

He asked me to come in, tried to understand my frustrations and talked to me about what the CIPD was trying to do.  We shared a lot of views, and it changed my mind.  Duncan eventually left and it all went quiet until Jackie Orme took the helm.  During a catch up in July last year we discussed challenged business models and the potential future shape of the HR community – the word community being key here.

The CIPD, like most membership organisations faces significant challenges in delivering to the future needs of the profession, notwithstanding the 98-year heritage and the conflicts of a charitable structure. But change takes time and more importantly, input.  Specifically, input from the membership.

For the last few months I have been working with the CIPD on a number of initiatives, membership engagement strategy being a central theme.  Along the way we have facilitated conversations and introductions between my HR peers, in particular my fellow HR bloggers, and the CIPD and I know all individuals involved are better off for it.  Indeed, reflecting back on the last 8 months with some of the digital team including Natalie White, Natalia Thomson and Johanna Ratcliffe last week, attitudes and approaches have changed dramatically.  A good example of this was the participation of a good number of these individuals in the Annual Conference this year.

But not everyone is convinced.  There are many who are indifferent to the institute and its journey.  Worse, there are others who stand on the sidelines throwing rocks, doing little to influence the body that represents the future of the HR community.  Yet this is their membership body, their community and change requires objective input from everyone.

So, here is my challenge to members.  If you are an indifferent member like I was – paying your annual dues but largely indifferent to the institute in general – I would encourage you to get involved.  The CIPD represents a massive network of people who can add a lot of value to each other – including you.

If you are one of those members who spends a lot of time actively complaining about and criticising the CIPD then perhaps it is decision time.  Standing on the side-lines, throwing rocks but not being prepared to get involved changes nothing.  Either cancel your membership and move on, or jump in and get involved.  Speaking from personal experience I can wholeheartedly recommend the latter.

Sure, as a member I can see that there is still a way to go on the journey, but I got involved and shared my views.  And the level of openness and genuine commitment to change has been inspiring.

If membership bodies didn’t exist and were being created today, they would be communities with a purpose.  Conversation, participation and input are central to the success of a community and ultimately a membership body needs involvement from those community members to secure its long term future.