“HR as a Driver of Innovative Intelligence”

• innovation: applied creativity that achieves business value
• we need time to think to be innovative
• there is a shift from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy
• multiple intelligences: analytical (acquired in school), emotional (social), innovative
• the stronger the analytical intelligence, the less likely you are innovative
• ensure organizational levers (budgeting, HR practices, structure, rewards, etc.) do not make innovation more difficult
• it is not about innovative leaders, but rather about leaders of innovation

“Canadian Economy, Business and HR”

• create an environment where people ask “why” and “why not”
• we teach kids early that asking “why” is irritating…we shouldn’t
• Canadians are behind in innovation
• engagement = innovation = productivity
• the way people are going to be managed will change (social media effect) / the “why bother” generation
• the social network will be the greatest innovation of the century
• how do you get employees as passionate about their job as they are about their lives?

Sometimes you decide to let the year end and only worry about the new one when it comes. This was my choice this time…I have been exploring HR trends and things to be mindful of throughout 2011. However, at the dawn of the New Year I realized that most of the predicted trends are probably going to take second place in priority and only a handful will most likely prevail throughout 2012, a year that is expected to be rather difficult.

The shift comes from the fact that more than 80% of organizations have undergone a major restructuring effort, and it’s not over. (as per the Corporate Leadership Council).  Businesses are faced with a dilemmatic situation in which they have to pay attention to both the economic crisis and also their employees. This becomes the number one challenge in 2012 and the question is: will business leaders and HR manage to find solutions to address this? On the one hand, the economic crisis will impose its own risks and limitations and with that in mind, on the other hand, organizations need to find creative ways to maximize employee performance and to focus on retaining and supporting talent.

It might so be that in the next year organizations will hire less, the training and education budgets will be somewhat downsized or temporarily frozen, organizations will focus more on transformation, on how to manage effectively and basically how to do more with less. Although in any crisis situation, the sense of emergency and panic might persist at first, most likely, strategic organizations will find the right model to pull them through this transformation. And as we have seen in the last few years, most success comes from knowing how to blend human change and organization change in the same bowl, rather than one following the other.

Opening The Harvard Business Review (Nov Edition) and seeing pages filled with Sarah Morris’ paintings was refreshing….wait, no, confusing. What does art have to do with business? Well, HBR tackled a great topic in this edition: “How great companies think differently”.  The overall thought is that great companies, instead of being mere money generating machines, combine financial and social logic to build enduring success. These enterprises intend to accomplish societal purposes and also provide meaningful livelihoods  for those who work in them.
Connecting art with business could be ultimately a way of trying to be different. Art teaches us to find more meaning in what’s around us, to be more innovative. Sarah Morris’ busy imagery is  metaphor for the challenges that institutions and individuals face trying to find their spot in society.

Personal Leadership – Taking Charge of Your Career

Good reads are meant to be shared. Here is one of them: The Rules of Management by Richard Templar. When I go to people’s offices I like to quickly browse through their books on display. This particular book caught my attention right away, although the title is not quite a catcher. After the first few sentences I realized it is a must read. Richard Templar is a brilliant writer, direct, realistic and above all an experienced manager. Instead of rewording his thoughts, I have decided to list some of his rules.

Excerpts from The Rules of Management (Richard Templar)

As a manager you are expected to be a lot of things. A tower of strength, a leader, a innovator, a magician (conjuring up pay raises, resources, and extra staff at the drop of a hat), a kindly uncle/aunt, a shoulder to cry on, a dynamic motivator, a stern but fair judge, a diplomat, a politician, a financial wizard (no, this is quite different from being a magician), a protector, a savior and a saint.

The mistake a lot of managers make is to think they are managing people… Make the people successful and you have the successful manager… But unfortunately this is a myth and we need to see that the real role of the manager is to manage processes rather than people.

People can manage themselves if you let them. What you need to be concentrating on is the real job of management — the strategy. The team is merely a means to fulfilling that end.

The good manager is managing change, the process, strategy, progress and balance. In all of this we might well need our ‘people’, but we also may not. We can’t ignore the people of course, but we should be handing over as much self-management to them as we possibly can.

#1: Get them emotionally involved

“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”- Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic

You manage people. People who are paid to do a job. But if it is ‘just a job’ to them, you’ll never get their best… It isyou that has to inspire them, lead them, motivate them, challenge them, get them emotionally involved.You have to get them to see the relevance of what they are doing, how it makes an impact on people’s lives, how they provide for the needs of other human beings, how they can reach out and touch people by what they do at work. Get them convinced — because it is true of course — that what they do makes a difference.

#2: Know what a team is and how it works

“Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ‘em to play together is the hard part.” – Casey Stengel, former manager, New York Yankees

A team isn’t a collection of people. It is an organization with its own dynamics, qualities and conventions. Without knowing these things you will flounder. Knowing them, you can work your team to achieve greatness…a team is a group where all the members focus on a collective target.A team doesn’t pull together well when each individual member focuses on their own target.

#3: Set realistic targets — no, really realistic

“Let’s make a dent in the universe.” — Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

When I say realistic, I don’t say lower or easy-to-achieve targets. I say realistic. That might mean taxing. It might mean a struggle. It might mean your team has to redouble its efforts, work harder, longer, brighter. But Rule 3 says realistic and that means achievable, within your grasp. And yes, you might have to stretch a bit. Realistic means you know what your team is capable of and what is expected of it by your bosses.

#4: Hold effective meetings — no, really effective

“The ideas that come out of most brainstorming sessions are usually superficial, trivial, and not very original. They are rarely useful. The process, however, seems to make uncreative people feel that they are making innovative contributions and that others are

#13: Be very, very good at finding the right people

“The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from medddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt, US President (1901-9)

#18: Keep track of everything you do and say

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

#33: Be ready to say yes

“Silicon Valley has developed a ‘genius’ business model. You find a genius. You build a business around them.” — Gordon Bell and Heidi Mason, ‘The Care and Feeding of ”Intrapreneurs”‘

#34: Train them to bring you solutions, not problems

“Bring me solutions, not problems.” — Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister (1979-90)

#62: Adopt minimalism as a management style

Minimalism means not issuing lengthy reports. It means not issuing memos every 20 minutes. It means keeping rules to the minimum and letting people get on with their jobs.

It means mission statements that make sense, are clear and easy to understand and are simple. It means management where managers use professionals and let them get on with their tasks in peace and quiet. It means managers who are secure in themselves and don’t need to score points, bully or interfere. Minimalist management is all about getting more by doing less. Yes, sure you have to be the boss, but it’s more like steering a big ship — the tiniest touch of the wheel is enough.

There is an old Chinese saying: ‘Govern a country the same way you cook small fish,’ ie. don’t keep fiddling with them or they fall apart. Manage a department, team or company in pretty much the same way — gently, discreetly, unobtrusively. Better to be understated than too obvious.

#66: Be creative

The good manager keeps a store cupboard full of creative techniques so that when they get stuck, when the team gets stuck — and you and they will from time to time — you have something to fall back on.

#71: Go home

“Many managers follow the notion of busy fools and confuse hard work with long hours. They think they work 15-hour days and forget their children’s names, they must be bloody good managers. The best sales managers I worked with never once worked beyond 5.30pm.” — Caspian Woods,From Acorns — How to build your brilliant business from scratch.

ANDREA BARTOLO is a University of Toronto graduate with 5 years working in the Recruitment field, with a focus on Information Technology.  Andrea started out her career working in an agency environment at TEKsystems, where she had a focus on Telecommunications and Infrastructure recruiting.  She then moved to CIBC, where she gained experience in the recruitment side of Wholesale Banking as well as Finance and Administration while still keeping an IT portfolio.  Andrea currently works at Loblaw Companies Ltd as an IT recruiter, focusing on staffing for the SAP COE national rollout.  She has had the opportunity to participate on several Diversity initiatives during her time with CIBC and she looks forward to making that a priority for her at Loblaw as well.

Last year, Microsoft saved $88,000 in recruitment fees by using LinkedIn, while brewer SAB Miller saved $1.7 million employing 120 people directly from the site. KPMG found recruits through Second Life by holding a 48-hour virtual world job fair in September 2008, with more than 10,000 applicants registering for the event through KPMGs global website. So what are the advantages of utilizing social media in terms of recruitment?

Understanding that in this day and age, social media is a primary focus for a lot of the up and coming professionals that many companies are seeking to employ, using social media such as LinkedIn allow employers access to professionals who may be passively looking for career opportunities but would not be likely to apply directly to roles.  For recruiters, social media allows us the opportunity to network with potential candidates in a way that was never possible before.  Tools such as LinkedIn, enable a recruiter to obtain somewhat of an initial reference on a candidate, helping to validate for the role in which they are being considered.  The use of social media by corporate recruiters has also proven to be a successful way of being able to more effectively recruit without the aid of external agencies, saving large corporations thousands and in the case of larger corporations, sometimes millions of dollars agency costs over the course of a year.

How do we pass the social media recruitment test? The problem of today completely flipped from the one of yesterday. In the past, searching for candidates took more time and the recruiter had limited information on them initially. Nowadays, there is an overabundance of candidates and even more information available on each one.

This requires more effort on the part of the Recruiter to sort through the abundance of information and determine what is significant and what is not.  The rise in popularity of social media as a tool for recruiting professionals further validates the need for internal recruitment departments to focus on sorting through the mass of information that is available on each candidate the organization is considering and to sift through it and compile a strong argument either way as to whether or not each candidate is a viable one for the role in which they are being considered.

How do you evaluate a candidate’s social media footprint to determine which candidates you would contact?

In focusing specifically on LinkedIn, an easy way is to view a person’s “Recommendations” and cross-reference them with the places in which they stated they have worked.  A recruiter can then work through his/her network and back check the validity of these recommendations to determine whether they are genuine or contrived.  Using this tool also allows recruiters to make their search as accurate as they need it to be, allowing them for example, to focus on candidates from specific industry or in some cases even in a specific company.

What benefits does social media/networking add to the job seekers?

Social media gives the job seeker a link to accessing the individuals and making connections which can significantly increase their ability to be considered for their desired role.  It is no secret that in this day and age competition is fierce and everyone is looking for a way to potentially increase their exposure and access to the decision-makers when it comes to being hired.  Social media gives the job seeker the opportunity to more aggressively seek out the people they need to get in front of in order to get the job, but more importantly, it gives them the opportunity to leverage existing relationships in order to get in front of the people who can get that person the job.  If used correctly and to its full capacity, it can contribute significantly to the job seeker obtaining the career opportunity that he or she desires.

Would a recruiter be able to identify if the job seeker would fit the company’s culture based on the overall image they have spread across the social media sites?

I believe that social media should only be used for an initial screen of the individual and not as an overall judgment of his/her ability to perform a given role.  Thankfully for the recruiter, I feel that their role will be justified for years to come as the assessment of the right candidate is still heavily dependent on human interaction and in this sense, social media should only be used as a screening tool when sourcing for candidates, but a traditional interview approach should be taken when looking to further screen a candidate for competency.

If you are thinking of tackling this subject with your boss, this is the time to schedule a meeting in their calendar. Typically, June and July are the best months to speak to him/her about a promo (January as well) according to LinkedIn.

Also LinkedIn found that the following fields are most likely to receive a bump in the summer months: accounting, education management, non profit management and research, military, higher education, defense and space.

This is Deloitte’s 2011 report on 12 significant trends that are shifting the HR landscape.

Evolution

• Talent in the upturn: Recovery brings its own challenges
• COOs for HR: Operations take a seat at the table
• Leading in a regulated world: All risk all the time
• Collective leadership: Getting organizations to work as one
• Contingent workforce: A critical talent segment
• Employer health care reform: Moving beyond compliance

- prefers flexible work arrangements: does not need an office necessarily or a landline
- opts for content that is always available online and tools that are automated
- doesn’t like reading newspapers or magazines (like I do), prefers them over the internet
- prefers on-demand content; don’t waste their time with fluff
- the internet is seen as the new hangout place (Facebook  & Twitter)

So this is great, it sounds very good and it works hand in hand with what technology is offering us nowadays. However, how do you manage the Employee 2.0?  We are still trying to figure out how to manage the ‘traditional’ employee…so this would be quite a jump.

It is a new breed: an active, educated, informed and super motivated person.  The smart thing to do, as an employer, would be to truly get what this type of person is all about and empower them in the right way to obtain the best outcomes of their work. Probably the word ‘manage’ might not even be part of the game anymore as partnering and excelling at what you do will most likely take over.

Just some thoughts…I’ll go enjoy my Easter now.

Happy Easter everyone!

1. We don’t ask… therefore we don’t get

2. We procrastinate

3. We say “I’m sorry”

4. We say “I’ll try”

5. We’re not selective with whom we spend our time

6. We use non-verbals that don’t work

7. We criticize ourselves

8. We over-communicate

9. We over-commit

10. We don’t provide 3-step positive feedback

11. We don’t toot our own horn

Read the entire article here, it’s good.