CIPD

HR across the pond

Posted on by Blog

One of the things that we often forget as British people, is how small our country is in relation to many in the world.  Even most of our near neighbours are bigger than us, despite our unwillingness to accept this.  We also have somewhat of a split personality –  we are Europeans but perhaps our closest neighbour and friend is America, a country that sits several thousand miles away from our shores.  As a quick confession, I should throw in that when I travelled to the US last Friday it was for the first time.  I’ve never really had any inclination to go there in the past, but the difference this time was the attendance at HRevolution.

Now the fug and haze has gone away from the event, now that I’ve had time to reflect, what do I take away? I’m not going to be able to compete with the many wonderful posts being written on the event itself, but there are some things that struck me when I look at my US colleagues compared to those in the UK.

– Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was that we are having many of the same conversations.  There is a huge amount of management literature coming out of the US (as I write this I’m sitting in a dorm room at HBS, one of the major culprits) and I guess I wrongly assumed that US practitioners would be streets ahead of the UK in the way that they practiced. They’re not.  US HR pros are dealing with the same struggles, the same frustrations and the same obstacles as practitioners in the UK.  Whether I’m relieved or disheartened by this I’m yet to work out.

– On the plus side, I think there is an absolute belief from everyone that I met that HR and HR professionals CAN make a difference and regardless of which side of the pond we work, there is an absolute business benefit to be achieved from great, aligned, focussed and down to earth people interventions.  How far people are down that path is more dependent on the quality of that individual and the appetite of their business than it is the country, state or county that they come from.

– We all have frustrations with our professional bodies, but we’re all working to improve them.  One of the great things that I took away was that SHRM were actively involved in supporting and sponsoring HRevolution.  Could the CIPD play such a role in the future? I would certainly like to think so.  Not only would it add to their credibility, but it would show that they are willing to open up their doors (and wallets) to non-CIPD events that helped to grow the profession.

– We lack a bit of cool and swagger.  I know that I was with a select group of HR pros and that those that attend Hrevolution are smarter than the average bear, but there was a confidence in the HR people who I don’t see in similar events in the UK.  Is this a general US vs UK factor? I don’t know, I’ll have to work that one out over time.  But if we could get it to rub off on us a little then I don’t think it would be a bad thing.

 What else did I take away? Well a whole load of great new friends and contacts.  A sense of energy and excitement and a real curiosity to learn and cooperate more with my friends and colleagues across the pond, to see how we can continue to make progress in our practice and in the profession as a whole.  And for that I am truly grateful.  I can’t list the people who I want to thank as there would be far too many and no-one would get to the end of the list (think the movies). Without exception everyone I met was exceptional. The organisers were amazing and the entertainment…..unusual.

Given the chance I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Professional bodies are out of touch

Posted on by Blog

In the last of the themes from the Strategic HR Network Annual Congress which were mentioned on the Employment Intelligence blog, I wanted to touch on perhaps the thorniest of issues, the view that was expressed that our professional bodies are out of touch.  Specifically this was in reference to the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Now it would be easy for me to set about the CIPD here, but only a loud mouthed idiot with a small brain and too much time on their hands would do that…. But I do want to address what I think is an issue with the Institute and in, what I hope, will be a balanced way.

First and foremost I’m going to say that the CIPD are NOT intellectually bankrupt, far from it.  The question here is the perceived relevance. There was a show of hands at the conference asking who was a member and I would say about 80% were.  The next question was whether those members thought the CIPD was adding value to the profession, the response was significantly underwhelming.

To put this in context, this was a relatively small sample size and most people there were HRDs or Heads of functions. I’m sure that if you were to canvas a similar group at a different level of seniority, the response would be quite different. So what’s happening?

I think the CIPD are failing to connect.

What we are talking about here is a lack of customer insight.  As someone who has spent a large part of their career in retail, customer segmentation and differentiation of offering was something that was core to our way of being.  We understood the various groups, we understood what was important to them and we understood how to target our offering to them in a way that was meaningful and valuable to them. As a side note, I should add that we also knew that some people would never engage – as will be the case for the CIPD.

You could argue that the content and services are there and if members don’t wish to engage then what can the CIPD do? If you took that view as a business, you’d be closing down pretty quickly.  One of the biggest mistakes that organisations make in seeking feedback is that they inadvertently speak to the converted – the “fans”.  If you send out a questionnaire, or you speak to people “in store” (read at a CIPD event for comparison) then you are already speaking to people who are engaged.  Therefore the information that you get back won’t help you one iota. But nonetheless you use it to justify what you’re doing, “80% of respondents said we were doing a good job” etc.

The problem is disengaged people don’t respond.  And in the group of disengaged members there will be again different segments, the passively disengaged, the actively disengaged and the vehemently disengaged.  The last segment isn’t worth engaging with, they have no intention of engaging, probably have membership because their employers pay for it and use it only for perceived employability.

What should be of interest are the other two groups and how they can be “brought back into the fold”.  Clearly this isn’t easy as the fact that they aren’t engaged means that you need to go and seek them out.  But with a membership database cross referenced with attendees at conferences, networking events and branch meetings you would have thought that it would be possible. And then they need to really listen and understand WHY these groups aren’t engaged.

My guess is there will be a myriad of reasons, some reasonable, some unreasonable. Some based on fact and some based on misinformation.  But if we want an institute that is truly representative of our profession then it needs to ACTIVELY embrace as wide a population as possible and to try a meet the needs of as many as possible.

This isn’t rocket science and I would love to be told that the CIPD are all over this and that I am teaching the proverbial sucking of eggs.  Personally, I’ve been party to a lot of interaction and communication, at least in an online space, but from the views that I heard at the conference a lot of others don’t seem to feel that way.