Latest Synopsis
theHRDIRECTOR – August 2012 – Issue 94
PLEASE SEND IN YOUR TENDERS BY Tuesday, 29th May 2012
Please send via email to editor@thehrdirector.com and include in the Subject line:
Month of Issue, Issue Number and Feature Heading ie Aug 2012, Issue 94, HR team training
Independence is our strength – covering the issues that directly impact on those with the duty of directing human resources
HR team training
Every HR team needs its specialists, all areas of expertise covered, those that are good at offering a shoulder to cry on, others that can look at the business piece of the strategy with a cold hard eye. So, as you’re recruiting and spotting your BA Baracus, your Face and your Murdoch, in the bid to have the optimum A Team around you, how do you proposition the training of the HR team in 2012? Above all other sectors, HR and people management has proved constantly changeable, what with new employer/employee relations, rafts of legislation change and review, flexible working bending and stretching the boundaries and parameters of employment, to name but a few. Equal to having an up-to-date and intimate knowledge of today’s challenges is to develop the environment-changing capabilities of the chameleon, enabling HR to perform, almost unnoticed, on a constantly changing backdrop. Can this be taught? You tell us, plus we are seeking informative insight and guidance on today’s training for HR practitioners, and what every HR director must know now.
Learning through technology
We are still in a mess, and any “people spend” has to be physical, visible, impactful and above all popular - like the new yukka plants in the canteen! The problem with IT stuff is, it’s kind of expensive, takes ages to set up, takes even longer for people to take onboard and use properly - if at all - and isn’t very tactile or pretty. And so it is that learning through technology splits opinion like, who’s the best singer in Take That, Robbie or Gary? On the face of it, it all makes perfect sense to pipe learning through modern means of communication, it should be cheaper, convenient and empowering, and so right up there with the most obvious and natural IT applications. But learning through technology, well into the 21st century, epitomises the proverbial little girl with the proverbial little curl – when it’s good, it’s hugely enabling and when its bad, it stinks. There’s certainly no lack of options and partnerships out there, but how do HR directors avoid a potentially devastating blind-taste, guessing game?
Performance management
This double dip could lead to a triple dip and the effect on the transfer market are obvious, people staying put in their jobs and a decreasing available jobs market. In turn this alters things somewhat in the engagement of staff and particularly how performance is managed. The biggest shift has been to depersonalise performance, to change cultures and well and truly take the “I” out of team. This will have been more effective in some sectors and job types than others. The best sales people are usually self-obsessed and singularly focused on self-reward for example. This is based on the actual fact that the best sales managers are invariably not the best sales performers. Therefore, in this tough and unforgiving environment, PM has to be crystal clear analytic, agile and quick to react and above all, inclusive. The clouds on huge personal reward, particularly when rewarded in the face of poor performance, are growing darker.
Developing leaders
Vive la revolution? From the collapse of the financial sector, to the MPs expenses scandal to the Leveson Enquiry, recent current affairs has raised some poignant and salient issues about the responsibilities or leadership and the sonorous implications of abusing the power of governance. So much so that you wonder who on earth would want to take on the mantle of leader. Whether that be the Prime Minister, President or Premiership football team manager. Yet leadership remains central, integral and pivotal to the foundations, fabric and framework of every organisation, institution and indeed human existence. Future prosperity or at the very least, some slow and ponderous road to recovery is in the hands of tomorrow’s champions, but who are they and do they even know that they have what it takes to lead? As with all the subjects for this issue, we seek your learned guidance and smartest strategy to assist our readers with the big challenges facing us all today and tomorrow.
We're talking about your marketplace - be in it.
Created on: 07-Apr-11 14:09
© theHRDirector.com
