SoMe, So Far, So What?

Posted on by Blog

Wednesday sees the hosting of the CIPD’s Social Media conference. Cue lot’s of posts about “what social means to me”, “what I’ve gained from social” and of course, “why social makes me a sparklier and better human being than you will ever be”. There is something about the dumb smugness of the Social HR community that sticks in the back of the throat. I’ve written about it before and whilst things got slightly out of hand, the arguments are pertinent and remain.

The fact is, that there are as many malingerers, as many sops and as many charlatans on social channels as there are in any other walk of life. If social was all shiny, then there wouldn’t be trolls. Social channels don’t have a selection process, they don’t discriminate. The democratisation of media places it in the hands of the dull, feckless and boring as often as the interesting and informed. You want evidence? Just look at your Facebook timeline.

In HR we need to be taking the debate beyond the, “I’ve met so many interesting people”, or “we’re a real community” nonsense and start talking about how social tools can be used to better engage with employees, better engage with job seekers and create value within the organisation. We need to be innovating, piloting, experimenting and seeing how we can best harness the technology that is freely being placed in our hands.

Social media policies are potentially limiting and dangerous. Been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. Yet 80% of HR professionals are still busily enforcing theirs within the organisation. Are we there yet? I think not.

If Social HR doesn’t want to eat itself, then it needs to step up and demonstrate value, not talk about social in such whimsical and, frankly eye wateringly nauseating terms. It is time to start to use the technology to transform your organisations, not just tweet cupcakes. It is time to engage internally, not blabber externally. It is time to come of age.

My question is, does Social HR really want to? Or is it just another pink and fluffy example of the profession slowly losing credibility. Only time will tell.

Sack the HR department?

Posted on by Blog

Scanning the social media airwaves this weekend, a title immediately grabbed my attention, “Sack the HR department!” the title of a white paper from the “Great Place to Work Institute”. You can read the entire paper here but the summary highlighted a number of reasons why staff don’t have high opinions of the HR department.

HR function outsourced so more remote

HR staff seen as ‘whistleblowers’

HR staff not following their own rules about recruitment and promotion

HR turning a blind eye to managers likewise who don’t play by the rules

Line managers expected to carry out HR role with little or no training

HR seen as out of touch with the rest of staff

I’m not a great fan of “research” papers that are essentially there to sell a service. But the summary points resonated with a number of arguments I’ve made in the past.

I struggle to think of an example of an outsourced HR solution that has added long term value to the organisation and improved the service for employees. I’ve heard the arguments, sure, but the evidence? Last April I wrote a piece about the “Sausage Machine”. The outsourcing process, however, is the sausage machine on steroids, supposed efficiency drives and incentivises the dehumanisation process. It is as simple as that.

Trust is a theme that I’ve come back to time and time again. Most HR departments aren’t trusted and this makes any sort of intervention or improvement in the employee experience almost impossible. If you’re not trusted, your work won’t be trusted. If you can’t deal with confidentiality, you won’t be confided in.

And a lot of this is underpinned by the relentless desire by HR to be seen as “commercial”. Which so many read as, “doing whatever I’m told by the big bosses” and which, of course, in many cases is exactly the opposite. Sometimes saying “no” well is the most commercial thing you can do. If you want evidence just look at the role of HR in most of the corporate failures in the last ten years.

But perhaps the biggest warning light to the profession, is being out of touch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Most HR departments don’t have a clue what is going on in their organisations. And sadly, most think they’ll solve this by learning to read a P&L. In the same way that there are no answers at the bottom of an empty glass, nor is their organisational insight at the bottom of a balance sheet. Well, certainly not the sort we’re looking for.

So does this tell us anything new? Not really. Does it tell us anything we don’t know? Probably not? Will we pay attention? I guess the good will but the bad won’t.

And that is the fundamental problem with the profession.

Two magic things

Posted on by Blog

I want to introduce you to two magic things that will make your work easier.

Two things that will make you a better leader.

Make you a better a manager.

In your darkest hours there are two things that you can look to hold on to.

The only things you’ll need to move onwards.

If you want to be a better person, be a better you.

Take the two things, “Thank” and “You” and combine them together.

Rejoice in them, use them, spread them liberally.

Live them, be them, make them your own.

Every day, you can let people know that you’re grateful.

The big, the small and the middle.

Because the magic can exist for everyone.

If only we’d let it flow.

Four decades of connection

Posted on by Blog

I was born in Cardiff on November 11, 1973. It was the same year that Motorola showcased the first mobile phone, although I was ten by the time the first handset was commercially available. I’m not sure either of these things really concerned me, but for the record it was also the year that Ethernet was developed, in case you’d care to know?

By that time, I’d moved to the Isle of Wight. I moved there in 1979, the year the Commodore PET was released here in the UK. For a (then) astronomic £914 you could get yourself a whole 32KB of RAM. It was also the year that the compact disk was invented, but I don’t really think I cared. I was settling in to a new school and making new friends. Life is tough when you’re six, you know?

I was still there in 1990, when Microsoft released Windows 3.0 to take on the dominance of Macintosh and IBM. In 1991 when the first website was made publicly accessible by the clever chaps at CERN. And 1992 when IBM introduced the ThinkPad. But I was more interested in sex, drugs and rock and roll. I was a six former god dammit and I was ready to shape the world.

In 1993 I was living in France. That was the year that the IBM Simon was launched, arguably the world’s first smart phone it combined a phone with a pager AND a fax. It was also the year that the first Pentium processor was released by Intel. I’m not sure I noticed. I was too busy falling in love and reading poetry. These things take time to do properly.

I got married in 1995. The first Playstation was launched that year. I had other things on my mind. Hutchinson communications were launching this brand called, “Orange” and Sun Microsystems announces this thing called Java. I was more interested in coffee. It is important to get your priorities right.

When I was making friends, we hung out, we played, we talked. When we partied, we arranged things by phone, or letter, so we had to plan things well in advance. When I was falling in love, we braved the cold winter evenings to find a phone box at an allotted time. We hand wrote letters and we accepted silence.

On Saturday night, I got to spend an evening with friends and family to celebrate my birthday. It was a collection of the old and new. People there that had been with me throughout my life, people who I had grown up with, played with, drunk with, fallen in love with, cried with and married. And people who I’ve met more recently, that I’ve felt a connection to, that are close to my heart. We’ve got to know each other through so many different ways.

Whilst I’ve been growing up, technology has been too. And in the same way that it has become more consumer focused, I’d like to think I’m also a more sophisticated, more complicated, but ultimately more user-friendly version of my former self.

Yet still some basic facts remain.

The thing that connects my school friends, to my professional friends, to my social friends, to my family is mutual respect, love, understanding. It is true connection. It isn’t about the means or the reason, it isn’t about the timing or the technology. It is about the people.

I’m incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends, family and colleagues. People who interest, challenge and care for each other. And people who care for me.

So as I start my 41st year, as I write this blog on my MacBook Pro, using WordPress on broadband, before publicising it on Twitter and LinkedIn, I want to say an old-fashioned thank you. Thank you for being you, for those that were there and those that weren’t, for those that I speak to once a day and those that I speak to once a year. Life is nothing without people, life is nothing without connection. Both old and new.