HR

Why are you here?

Posted on by Blog

Hey, happy Monday? Good weekend? Enjoy the sun? Ready to make a difference this week?

Why the hesitation?

If you’re not waking up this morning wanting to make a difference for your employees, then ask yourself a simple question, “Why are you here?”

To make money? There are better paying jobs than HR.

To make history? Go marry an emu, it’s a quicker route.

To make whoopee? No-one wants to screw the HR guy….well not in that way, anyway….

So why are you here and who are you here for?

Let me fast track the answer for you, I know it has been a sunny indulgent weekend.

Your employees.

You are here for your employees.

If you don’t understand that, if you can’t comprehend that, then let me know? I’ll be there to help you through.

If you don’t agree, if you can’t agree. Then tell me, who else do you serve?

The shareholders? Leave that to the Finance guys.

The customers? Marketing are all over it.

If in any way you’re convinced by this….and you really should be. Then, go make a difference for your people, today.

They and I will thank you for it.

Raising the bar

Posted on by Blog

I want to talk a little bit about performance, about achievement, about success. I want to talk a little bit about work, about education, about life. The reality is, that if I hit 0.0001% of the issues that I want to talk about, I’ll have done a good job. Because these things are complex, they are interlinked and intrinsically entwined with a myriad of other issues.

But everything starts somewhere.  So let us consider this the somewhere of starts.

We constantly talk about “raising the bar”. The phrase in itself, so well accepted that we seldom consider its meaning. We all need to raise the bar and then we ail have sorted all of the issues that we have in society. Once the bar is raised all will be well.

Children will be educated, the unemployed will become employed, families will become more functional and businesses more community  minded. The bar has been raised and thus we will respond with vim and vigour and our collective efforts will see us prevail.

The other day they raised the bar on childbirth, they also raised it on disco dancing, knitting and sky diving.  Overnight, I suddenly became so much better at all of these things.

It is amazing what a bar can do. Suddenly, my learning preferences, my intellectual capability, the source of information and the quality of my education increased exponentially. They were directly connected to the bar.

But, as you know, this is bullshit.

We can focus on outputs as much as we like, but unless we focus on the inputs as well, we’re just deluding ourselves. Success is measured by outputs, but is created by inputs. And yet bizarrely we so often want to drive the former by reducing the latter.

Performance isn’t driven by hard targets. Success isn’t created by defining KPIs. Raising the bar will deliver success as quickly as increasing the tempo will help me to dance better. Or a population target will help me to give birth.

Performance, success, organisational alignment are all complex issues. If you want a better organisation, if you want a better society, if we want a better world, we need to understand the systemic nature of our existence and ignore the simplicity of readily acceptable statements.

So as our educational system will not be redefined by measuring it in another way, your organisation will not improve because you’ve set a new bunch of KPIs. And you won’t lose weight just because you’ve bought a smaller pair of jeans.

And as for me….I think my birthing days are beyond me. But maybe….if we just raise that bar. Hell…..well, you never know……

Tell me more, tell me more…..

Posted on by Blog

I’m interested in who you are.

Not how you come across.

I think that takes a lot.

To look beyond the presentation and understand the person beneath. So much of our lives work on the superficial and we create the back story in our minds that justifies our initial perspectives.

You’re…

He is…

She is…

I am…

With our 1% of perspective we create 100% of knowledge.

Judgmental?

Or searching for understanding?

What would happen if we gave a little more of ourselves? If we invested a little more in helping people to understand us rather than complaining that they don’t?

What would happen if you risked a little more? If you expressed a little more? If you lived a little more?

How much do the people about you know about you? What makes you laugh? Where you’re ticklish? What makes you sad? What gets you up in the morning?

Would that make you a lesser person?

If people knowing more about you makes you more vulnerable, doesn’t it also make you more likeable?

Would you rather be liked for something you aren’t.

Or disliked for something you are?

Open up your door

Posted on by Blog

If I promise not to rant, will you bear with me a minute? Because I need to get serious, just for a while.

Back in 1992 I left my state school. I didn’t come from a particularly privileged family, but by no means was I disadvantaged. My dad was a civil servant and my mum was a lecturer at the local FE college. I didn’t get particularly good A-levels, in fact they were poor….the letters, C, D and E were involved. More than once.

As a result, I didn’t get in to any of my first choice universities. I went in to clearing and eventually got a place at the University of Sunderland (Polytechnic) and went there to study Psychology. I graduated in 1995.

What is he talking about? I can hear you say it. Where is he going?

But, if I told you…..you might not keep reading. And you need to read on.

1995 wasn’t a great time to be graduating, jobs weren’t abundant, businesses were on their knees. I applied for graduate schemes but I didn’t have the university, the school or the polish to pull it off. I was directionless.

Not being able to get a job, someone suggested I study for the IPM (Institute of Personnel Management). Given I had nothing else to do, I did. Working nights to fund the fees and moving back in with my parents with my newly married wife. It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t horrific.

Even then, with my shiny postgraduate, I still couldn’t get a job. I have hundreds, HUNDREDS of rejection letters in a file at home. Everything asked for experience, but no-one wanted to give you experience. It was a classic Catch 22.

Then something special happened to me. I applied for a job at a crappy old hospital in a crappy part of the world. But, I didn’t know it then, there was someone willing to take a chance. The interview was a blur, but I remember cracking a joke about my wedding being in French and unsuspectingly marrying the wrong woman…..it wasn’t my greatest joke.

I left and walked back to the bus that would take me to the train, that would take me to the other train, that would take me to the ferry, that would eventually take me home.

And then I heard a voice behind me. It was a guy called Colin Moore. And Colin offered me a job. A chance. An opportunity.

That moment took place nearly 17 years ago.

The work wasn’t brilliant, the job wasn’t amazing, the location was frankly shite. I spent Sunday to Friday in a bedsit, before travelling for four hours back home for Friday and Saturday nights. But it was a chance. It was an opportunity. It was proper experience and it gave me a chance to start my career.

Nearly two decades later, I’m not doing too badly. I’m doing ok. I think I’ve grown a bit, I’ve learnt a bit. But it was all down to that one person that was willing to take a punt on a snotty nosed idiot with no experience.

And that’s why I’m so proud today to be supporting the launch of the Open Doors Campaign and particularly through the Talent Tour taking place. I don’t care what your politics are, the issue of social mobility and talent management are intrinsically linked. And Open Doors is trying to change the way that we, in business, do things to open up opportunities for young people regardless of their backgrounds.

I’m proud that my company was an early signatory to the Business Compact on Social Mobility. I’m proud of the work that my team do to increase transparency of opportunity.

If you work in HR or you are a business owner, no matter how big, no matter how small, I’d urge you to get involved. If you are on social media I would BEG you, today to publicise the campaign by following @dpmoffice & @JamesCaan or the hashtag #MissionOpeningDoors. And if you have a personal story to share about your own career break then please use the hashtag #MyBigBreak.

This is an opportunity for the HR community online to show their power, their influence and to raise awareness of an issue that many of us have debated time and time again. So go tweet, go Retweet, put political boundaries aside for today and be the people that really make change happen.

Thank you. This means so much to me, both personally and professionally. Maybe together we can really make a difference.