Managing talent is key - Shifting control from employees to management

“You don’t go to hell if you throw your sick note away even if you disagree with it!” claimed Dr Lucy Wright, Atos Healthcare. “But it’s become the leading barrier to return to work.

”Dr Wright, a consultant occupational physician, was speaking at a breakfast briefing, Inspiring HR, at the New Connaught Rooms, London, on 29^th November 2007, organised by theHRDIRECTOR for Atos Origin and chaired by Murdoch Mactaggart.

“The person in charge of the sickness absence process is actually the employee” she said, “and it’s important to understand this because then you can work to bring control back to where you need it, to the organisation.

”According to her colleague Karen Davies, Client Training Services Manager, Atos Origin, it’s essential to keep accurate records as irrelevant factors too often colour and distort an organisation’s perceptions of sickness absences. Broadly there are three different kinds of sickness absence – occasional spells of sickness absence lasting a few days or weeks, the particularly disruptive patterns of regular single days off, and long-term absence, which all need to be treated differently. Further, it’s typically necessary to train managers to handle sickness absence effectively and to support both them and employees to find out why particular absences occurs and what processes might help to change things.

“Managers have got to take control but also work with HR and occupational health as necessary,” Davies explained. “They’ve got to be proactive rather than reactive around absence management. They need to reduce sickness absence but they also need to support employees by finding out the true cause of their absence and getting them back.”

The changing nature of HR BPO
Welcoming the delegates from a wide range of public and private organisations Sally Burnside, Head of People and Change in Atos Consulting, explained that between the Consulting, Healthcare and the main Atos Origin divisions the group was well placed to work with HR departments in various areas to ensure that their organisations’ workforces remained motivated, productive and loyal. “HR outsourcing is changing” explained John Wilmot, CEO of specialist BPO analyst company NelsonHall. “Initially it was primarily about reducing costs. Generation 2 still had cost objectives but it was more about operational improvements.” That change brought some benefits, said Wilmot, but didn’t address the consequences of an ageing population, globalisation and increased competition for talent.“The key problem is actually getting and retaining the right people” he explained. “In many cases this has become worldwide, particularly as companies are looking to move into emerging markets like China. Talent management has become critical in terms of making sure that the organisation can continue to operate effectively.”

Atos Consulting supports Resolution
Operating effectively was also the theme of the presentation from Steve Fawcett, Deputy HR director for Resolution plc, and Graeme Clarke, Principal Consultant for Atos Consulting. Resolution was formed in September 2005 as a merger of Resolution Life Group Limited and Britannic Group plc to form what became the UK’s largest specialist manager of in-force UK life funds with company invested assets of over £61 billion. Since then there’s been a dizzying pace of mergers, acquisitions and outsourcing and a team led by Clarke has worked full time with a Resolution team led by Fawcett to manage the change processes.

 “An important issue was how to help Resolution become an employer of choice, an organisation that people would be proud to work for,” explained Clarke. “We tried very hard in the formative stages to create the policies and procedures and practices that underlined the values that Resolution wanted to drive through its business.”

At the same time, acquired companies, sometimes even much larger than Resolution, had their own culture as well as particular processes and policies and it was often necessary to respect these or sometimes for pragmatic reasons, to ring-fence for the present issues such as complex T&Cs and move on.

“We didn’t do things from day one to everybody” said Clarke, “but made a point of cascading values to the management teams on board who then worked with those under them.”

“For us it’s been a real success,” explained Fawcett. “Although it’s always been a client-consultant relationship in a formal sense at a practical level we’ve absolutely been part of the same team, really close and intimate, and that’s been the key.”

Success
Questioning of the speakers was brisk and delegates and others felt the event was a great success.

“This briefing has explored a number of important issues facing Senior HR professionals and supports what we are seeing with our clients” said Sally Burnside, “and I’ve noticed a common theme around what John pointed out at the start, talent management. Keeping and supporting key employees is critical and after an acquisition, as Graeme pointed out, getting senior management behind process is important while in general, as Lucy and Karen explained, an organisation needs to understand and respond to employee needs and work out solutions when there are difficulties.”