Happy Christmas

Well it's nearly here, and we just want to say...

Have a great holiday and we hope a prosperous new year.

Best regards

Bob

Why does everyone think all business relationships have to be partnerships?

Referring to suppliers as ‘partners’ has been common practice within many organisations for a some time, but is that at all helpful?  Even the most well intended arrangements seem to begin operating in a ‘partnership style’ but quickly decline into ‘N.A.T.O. style’ that’s No Action Talk Only!  Many more decline even further, some into open warfare before the contract term is out. 

Wouldn’t it be better for organisations to at least ask the question; should this arrangement be a partnership?  The answer to that (by the way) is a resounding ‘yes’, simply because not every arrangement works best as a partnership.  This is the case with any buyer / supplier scenario, but is especially relevant in the sphere of commissioning and outsourcing where the de facto approach is to attempt partnership working.  

Part of the problem is that people don’t realise that  there are alternative ways to approach these big commercial arrangements.  We’ve identified at least four which we call, the colleague, the capitalist, the collector and the controller.  They each have distinct ways of working to bring about best value from the relationship; without too much thought you can probably decipher the intended focus just by considering their name.  Each approach has different visions, behaviours, structures, goal setting, systems, rewards and contracts.  So it makes a lot of difference which one you select and apply to your arrangement.  

In addition it is also really important to understand the differing market conditions which make these alternative approaches the most suitable.  You can be guided as to which is the correct approach by understanding the ease or difficulty of a market, alongside the level of expenditure you command in that market.  

It really is no wonder that some major commissioned services disappoint, when they are being managed with a style which encourages the wrong responses, practices and behaviours on both sides of the relationship.  Smart organisations are tuning into the fact that each major service provision needs to be managed via a different approach strategy.  When they start doing that, they start delivering real value. 

Are managers able to assess staff training needs? Sometimes an external view is needed.

Over the summer we have been involved in carrying out a number of training needs analysis for some of our clients.  It’s one of those activities that most organisations carry out, but then often realise that the results are not very satisfactory.  

Often when HR professionals are faced with summarising the training needs following around of appraisals or personal development plans, they can be left pulling out their hair  in frustration at some of the suggestions being made.  We have probably all seen it; lists of bespoke software training courses, the blandly generic comments like “This person needs assertion training”, and the obligatory “French classes” even if there’s no need for French!   Perhaps in a school teacher kind of way you may have looked at the suggestions, wanted to put a big red cross over it and write “Must try harder next time” before returning to the offending manager.  

Effective training needs analysis can be a challenge in any organisation especially if linked to the performance management cycle.  Learning solutions can easily be based on the wrong indicators of training needs.  We follow four simple training needs analysis steps to deliver assessments based on genuine organisational learning need.

Here they are for your own consideration:

First, define the competence menu.  Many organisations have a competence framework from which to build this assessment menu, but be careful that it is granular enough to gain the insight you need.  We have our own menu, and often find we merge this with client organisations own to create the right level of understanding.  

Second, select the target population.  In practice it is difficult to engage everyone in training needs analysis.  We recommend searching out a target population of people that are representative of the business, but also have a good understanding of the challenges and difficulties faced by them and their colleagues. 

Thirdly, we set up focus group sessions.  These have the purpose of completing the competence assessment, surfacing any areas of business challenge and begin identifying the potential learning needs.  

Fourthly, summarise findings and make recommendations.  You will need a quite room and a few hours to summarise your findings and make  your training recommendations.  You will be sure however, that they are based on genuine needs arising within the business.  

If you are tired of the results delivered from your traditional performance management cycle training needs analysis maybe it's time to do the bold thing and recommend something new? Feel free to ask us at iManage for any support in how to refresh your training needs analysis, if you like we’ll even have us carry it out for you with no cost or obligation. 

What happens if you stop tweeting for a whole month! A personal lesson in the benefits or otherwise of social media.

34 days ago I tweeted my last chirpy goodbyes to you all announcing that I’d be back in a couple of weeks and thereby my abstinence from social media began.  

My plan was always to start chirping again in a couple of weeks tweeting as good as before, but as that deadline drew to a close (along with my annual family holiday coming to an end), there was something in me that urged me to abstain yet further.  Why not extend it a tad longer and refrain from social media for the whole of August?  After all, across europe our whole L&D industry seems to go to sleep, there would likely be no one there to read my ramblings anyway I mused.  I needed little persuading, the truth was I had felt something of a burden lifted over the past two weeks, releasing my slavish attendance to various social media streams had proven to be a pleasurable thing.  So in a moment the remainder of August became not only twitter free, but FB and Blog free.  What would become of me?

The good news is, I’m still here - astonishingly you can see this change had no detrimental impact on my well being.  Neither did the world come to an end, although it has to be recorded for purposes of accuracy that my longstanding cat Figaro did kick the bucket in circumstances too unpleasant to write of here.  

On the positive side I managed instead to go about some things that were if nothing else of personal therapeutic worth.  In the past few weeks I’ve read more books than the last 7 months put together.  I’ve really enjoyed some long dog walks on some of the UK’s finest beaches, to-boot generating some pleasure fiddling about with the B&W setting on my little camera.  Then perhaps my crowning glory (although family members aren’t in total accord) was to purchase a little Ukelele and learn a bundle of hits from decades now referred to only in history books!  If nothing else I’ve had fun filling my time without feeling the need to draught a single witty or profound tweet, not even during more than a few hours of BBC Olympics coverage.  

But what of my presence on the web?  A google search for “iManage” now returns us in third place when it had been first place all year, and my blog views are only down 90%!  Yes down 90%!!!  

Ho hum, I suppose as September dawns in the name of marketing I do need to get back to it then, but in so doing I’m introducing a handful of simple rules to help calibrate my social media fix:

1. Stop doing social media when involved in other things like walking the dogs or spending time with loved ones. 
2. Limit the frequency of tweets, for me a few a day is fine.  
3. Use social media just as much for my personal pleasure as for business marketing (I may follow a few Ukelele feeds!).

If you haven't already you really should try a little SM abstinence sometime soon, at least so long as you don’t have a cat.

Does someones nappy need changing? Will HR rise to the challenge of babies in the work place.

The BBC series Babies in the Work Place has been an interesting insight into the prospect of parents bringing their babies and toddlers right into their workspace.  As an experiment the program is brilliant, but for me the long term potential of this concept seems limited.  

I suppose that they chose a call centre setting to maximise the difficulty of coping with screaming children while large teams of people were on the phone to customers.  The result was far from ideal but it wasn't only the customers that I felt concerned for, it was more so for the toddlers themselves.  Even if you place these little tots in a room full of exciting amusement and interesting stuff to distract them, they are inevitably going to get tired and grouchy.  How much more so when you are expecting them to be quiet and well behaved within a workspace where there isn't enough to distract them beyond thirty minutes?  

If I were two years old I don't think I would relish the monotony of my mum or dads office space 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.  My propensity for mischief would kick in very quickly!  If companies are genuinely serious about supporting parents in the workplace, wouldn't it be far better for them to supply purpose built crèche facilities?  This is of course what many companies choose to do. Many of the parents interviewed in the program expressed sadness at having to leave their children at a crèche somewhere across town, but equally their concern was in the significant (sometimes prohibitive) costs associated with child care.  

Being realistic about this we know most business are not charities, setting up a crèche facility has significant cost associated with it.  There does need to be some offset here for the employer, which is likely to come in the shape of reduced recruitment and the training costs associated with replacing workers that have failed to return and stay post maternity leave.  The model of a subsidised crèche at the workplace rather than in the workspace is already well tested and valued by employees who have such facilities made available.  It would be good for organisations to share the economics of this more openly to help other employers make informed decisions.  We would love to hear from you if you have such insights. 

Child Care facilities are still only one part of the solution. Forward thinking organisations are putting effort into assisting parents in the workplace not only in the practical areas, but also in the emotional challenges that are faced. Tangible benefits are being realised by organisations who are supporting parents in the way they approach and carry out starting families.  

In fact there is such a lot more that organisations are able to do for expectant or new mums and dads at work.  Have a look at this post for a starter.  It’s great that the BBC are raising the discussion with Babies in the Work Place. but it will be over to those in HR to pick up the challenge and take practical solutions forward.  Here’s hoping they rise to the challenge.  

Mummy, where is my Daddy? Do businesses care about fathers at work?

Research also  shows many fathers are dissatisfied with the amount of time they spend at work and the amount of time they spend with their children. Some 54% of fathers with children under one feel they are not devoting enough time to them, while 42% of fathers feel they are not able to spend enough time with their children. Additionally, 62% of fathers think that, in general, fathers should spend more time caring for their children: fathers are working long hours too, with six out of 10 working more than 40 hours a week.

All this makes the topic of work-life balance for dads a major social significance. Here in the UK family policy emphasises the need for fathers to be more involved with children, in the pre-school and infant years which are crucial in relation to later child development, and especially in relation to families with limited incomes. The economic situation has changed, and labour market participation in the UK among women with pre-school and infant children has risen sharply over the past 30 years since the advent of equal pay acts and anti-discrimination policies. Divorce rates and rates of family breakdown have also risen, meaning that fathers may be less able to rely on mothers to manage the father/child relationship on men’s behalf but must work to establish meaningful father/child relationships on their own behalf. This affects not only divorced and separated fathers, but also men within intact relationships.

Having said all of this, for whatever reasons the facts tell us that men are less likely to access work-life balance policies than woman.

Working Families and Lancaster University Management School are currently researching men’s levels of stress and engagement at work, with a particular interest in men’s participation in family life, and how their working life affects (and is affected by) their efforts to reconcile work and home life. This research indicates that for the fathers surveyed engagement with work is low, and lower than that of other groups of employees than is generally found. It is accompanied by high levels of stress and self-reported physical and mental ill-health. In particular, motivation amongst these fathers is low.

The reasons for this are being sighted as lack of control over work alongside work interfering with home life. Fathers questioned so far also seem less committed to their jobs than would be expected, which is interesting in light of many of the perceptions about workers’ commitment levels and what constitutes an ideal worker (especially in relation to working patterns) which are often dominant in organisations.

Maybe it’s time for organisations to wake up to potential benefits that can be obtained through caring parental policies. This support could take on many forms, but most definitely it would do well to include a new dads workshop giving ‘expectant’ and new dads the recognition and support they need to help them navigate the early stages of being a new dad at work. Our own sessions cover the facts, the practicalities but also helps them identify the values which drive a happier work-life balance.

Is yours a family friendly organisation?

Any organisation with more than a few employees will have staff that are having children.  It’s a big deal, not only for them, but for the employer too.  Even though this is the case many organisations provide little in the way of learning support for these staff.   Interestingly those employers that do assist there staff plan and prepare for this major exciting life change can sight multiple benefits as a result.  Real measurable benefits. 

In one example where a comprehensive evaluation exercise for a client’s Maternity coaching programme was undertaken, it revealed the following results: 

• Return rates (of women returning from mat leave) increased by 4%
• Retention rates (of women staying after maternity leave) increased by 15%
• In a telephone evaluation exercise, 25% of the ladies voluntarily said that they would not have returned to work following maternity if they hadn't attended the workshops

So what types of training can be given in this area?  

Workshops to provide pregnant employees with confidence through change, a supportive network and practical ways to increase their productivity and professionalism.  Covering topics such as:

• ‘professional to parent’ – managing your change of image at work,
• maintaining your confidence and assertiveness through change,
• strengthening your relationships at work,
• creating and communicating a handover plan,
• setting up a support network and communication plan,
• preparing for the maternity leave ‘culture shock’.

Workshops to encourage new mothers to reconnect with work and colleagues in a safe, supportive environment and to begin to plan their return.  Covering topics such as:

• ‘reconnecting’ – sharing of experiences, highs and lows and key learns,
• assessing options for returning to work,
• preparing your first ‘return to work’ meeting with your line manager,
• preparing for the return to work – the practical considerations,
• managing your change of image from ‘parent’ back to ‘professional’.

Workshops to support those employees who have recently returned from maternity leave to be able to confidently and quickly reintegrate into the workplace.  Covering topics such as:

• benefits of working parents to the family, 
• banish the guilty feelings,
• managing separation anxiety positively,
• the affects of childcare on the family,
• time management for managing work/family balance,
• agreeing roles and responsibilities with your family at home and your team at work,
• managing your own stress levels,
• managing your image and your relationships,
• reviewing your career plan.  

Or how about learning for line managers to support those employees who have recently returned from maternity/adoption leave, to be able to confidently and quickly reintegrate into the workplace.  Covering topics such as:

• the importance of managing an employee well through a period of maternity,
• the company and policy-based requirements of managing an employee through maternity,
• additional support that can be offered to boost confidence levels of employees and assist in retaining talent.  

A National Childbirth Trust (NCT) survey of over 1500 working mums confirmed that 33% of respondents reported concern about the attitude of their boss and/or colleagues as being one of the main worries about returning to work.  Clearly there is so much more that can be done to help employees and employers manage this whole area.  Duncan Fraser in Personnel Today 2008  said “The cost to a company of a badly managed maternity leave is not purely financial...it also negatively affects client relationships, performance, organisational knowledge and goodwill”.  

By providing specialist professional training for your employees you can see tangible measurable benefits within your own organisation, which has got to equal genuine value from an L&D budget.  If you would like to know more about these and other courses such as a ‘new dads workshop’ do get in contact with us.  I think this is an area that warrants greater attention in the workplace and I’d love to hear what you think.