I recently read a book called The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age. ( Available on Amazon HERE )
It raises the question over the type of relationships managers need to have with future generations of employees and suggests we form a new type of relationship called an alliance.
It talks of the notion of moving away from treating the people inside the organisation as a “family” but to one of an alliance, like allies on a Tour of Duty
Companies are not inherently a 'family'. The network structure and emotional relationship on which families are based are different. Yet, at the same time, companies can't innovate if everyone acts like a free agent.
This rang true to me as it related to a couple of scenario’s you may have witnessed as HR professionals or Managers.
Scenario 1
You work long and hard on a recruitment and selection process – you place an amazing candidate in the role and see them flourish over the next year. Then bam just before the two year mark they leave and go and work for your competitor on double the pay.
It’s not until the exit interview you realise that they were bored and ready for the next move.
Scenario 2
You have been in the job for over 10 years, your immediate boss moves on and you know the role is yours.
You go through the selection process to be overlooked for someone younger, less experienced and disliked by the whole of the wider team.
These examples outline communication breakdowns and incorrect assumptions.
A business without communication, trust and loyalty is a business without long-term thinking. And a business that isn't investing in tomorrow is a company already in the process of dying.
Which brings us back to thinking of relationships with your staff as alliances.
The rules for recruiting, managing and retaining amazing people have changed, because the world has changed.
Employers and employees need to develop a relationship based on how they add value to each other. If you like a shared destiny relationship where both partners have different investment in the outcome. Employees invest in the company's success, the company invests in the employees' market value. The result is a mutually beneficial alliance where the partners enter the relationship knowing full well the outcomes they want are different.
The underlying message is that if either party in the relationship get lazy and the outcome is not achieved there will be a parting of the ways.
In our view employers are often more guilty of this than their employees. If the investment is not made by providing good feedback and doing the little things to keep people energised in their job, engaged and feeling they are adding value to their careers they will leave. Employers taking their good people for granted should not be surprised when they up and leave.
Food for thought… We welcome yours.
Elements of this blog were first published on businessinsider.com.au
Hi-de-Hi Campers
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending my son’s school camp. I really enjoyed spending that time with my son and all his classmates and joining in with all the kid’s activities (the water slide was the most fun!).
When I returned from camp, I was telling another school mum how fascinating it was seeing all the interactions between the parents and children on camp and she commented that it was such a typical response to make from an HR person!
It got me thinking though; being on camp wasn't dissimilar to many working situations. There was a wide mix of children and parents with different backgrounds, experiences and family situations all thrown together in different situations which for some of them were completely outside of their comfort zones.
A lot of these activities required the children to work well together as a team and it was great to see children push themselves and try new things they haven’t tried before. The smiles on their face showed the sense of accomplishment they felt when they did something new. A bit of encouragement by their classmates and parents was all that was required. Those smiles are so rewarding and can easily be enjoyed when at work by encouraging your colleagues and employees to push themselves and try something new. We didn't encourage the children to do anything we weren't prepared to do even if it meant getting very wet and cold. Maybe you won’t have to get wet and cold at work, but leading by example is a sign of a great leader.
Sadly at the same camp I also saw the impact that unsupportive parents had on some of these children. There were the parents who only looked after their children and didn't help other children who were struggling. I had to step in when I saw a parent who completely embarrassed and made a small child cry (not their own) by refusing to help them and creating a scene in front of everyone. What a poor example these parents showed their own children when in comparison I certainly made a lasting and positive impression on my son and the child I helped. This situation reminded me that the way we support or not support (as in this situation) our colleagues and employees can have a lasting impact on their self-worth and confidence.
The next time you get the opportunity, encourage your colleagues and employees, those smiles are certainly worth it!
For those of you who have a long commute I am sure you will appreciate the time eaten up getting to work. Sitting in traffic for hours is standard practice in many large cities and can be very exhausting.
But it’s not only travel time that can cause fatigue, there may be other reasons occurring on the home front – new baby, caring for the elderly, gaming addiction, anxiety or depression, family issues – all of which may take their toll in your workplace.
Here are some of the impacts this may have on your business:
It’s really important to recognise the early signs of fatigue – here is how you can tell if someone is constantly tired:
People who are fatigued are not good at recognising their own level of impairment, and can be unaware that they are not functioning at their best. In the worst case scenario they can drop off to sleep in the middle of a task, which can have fatal consequences.
So what can you do as a business to ensure your workers are at their best?
And just to finish up here are some helpful tips you could work through with tired employees
Outside of work you can reduce your risk of fatigue by:
ACC has a very helpful page you can refer to in case you need more information on fatigue in the workplace.
But if you have any other ideas on how to combat fatigue in the workplace we would love to hear them – drop us a line below.
Over the last few weeks we have witnessed some wonderful examples of strong and considered leadership and conversely some very poor ones as well.
The Black Caps’ captain Brendon McCallum exemplified all the qualities of great leadership. By leading from the front, taking bold decisions, being humble in victory and dignified in defeat he created a team culture that brought the best out in everyone. He was able to galvanise the “Will and Skill” of the team to take them collectively and individually to the edge of their potential. More importantly he galvanised the nation behind them and had previously non- followers of the game converted to an exciting brand of cricket.
Contrast that with the leadership shown by the coaches and senior players in the Australian cricket team and along with the behaviour of some of the parents of the St Bedes’ rowing team. The respective 'win at all cost' tactics deployed by both manifested in arrogance, bully boy behaviours, brashness and seemingly a complete ignorance or disregard to the consequences to their sports and the example it set as leaders and parents. It will be argued by the “get hard or go home” advocates that this is what is necessary to win. History shows the result of this sort of behaviour in business and sport is usually short lived and unsustainable. Indeed the public reaction to both events suggested both were the losers in the way they behaved and undermined the credibility of both sporting codes and particularly in the latter case the role of parents to be role models and set good examples for others.
There is a great quote by Jim Rohn which I believe sums up the difference of the leadership displayed by Brendon and his team and the others mentioned.
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud but not arrogant, have humour, but without folly.”
The Australian cricket team and St Bede’s parents may have thought they won the battle but I think they lost the war. The Principal of St Bedes and The Captain and Coach of the Black Caps are to be commended in their response.
by Paul Bell
Your answer to some of these questions might have something to do with the generation you have come from and how we negotiate the generational differences is becoming an increasing hot topic of discussion.
So what is all the fuss is about?
Individuals with different values, different ideas, different ways of getting things done and different ways of communicating in the workplace have always existed but the differences between the generations are becoming more pronounced than ever before.
As employees stay working longer the likelihood of having four different generations in your organisation is increasing.
Arghhh what does this mean for organisations??? -It is my firm belief that this diversity in the workplace is a good thing.
Good business is based on understanding others. Being aware of these differences can help individuals tailor their message for maximum effect, regardless of the task, or the relationship with family, friends, or workplace peers.
The majority of us think the correct way, and the only way, is our way. - In business, as well as in personal life, that is just not true.
To work effectively and efficiently, to increase productivity and quality, one needs to understand differences and characteristics and learn how to use them effectively in dealing with each individual.
So as a starting point lets all try to understand and embrace generational differences and see if it can add some value in our organisation!!
By Emily Coe
You are either sick of hearing about it or you have had enough arguing about what colour is the dress? Not since Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress has a dress had this much publicity!
At least we could see it was indeed blue!!
It is quite a strange state of affairs to have a person right next to you seeing something completely different than what you can see with a total belief that you are wrong. I started off seeing black and gold but like any good illusion, I can now focus my eyes and convince my brain to see the blue and black as well, however my work mates and family are completely divided on this with many seeing gold and white.
There is a scienfitic reason as to why we see different colours, but a simple explanation is that this is all about our perception of reality.
This is very timely reminder that people’s realities can differ greatly even when provided with the same message.
We all have different genetics, backgrounds, education, experiences, emotional and intellectual intelligence which all work together in how we process information and messages. We need to factor these differences in to our communication style to ensure the correct message is being heard. This is particularly critical as a manager when managing a team.
If you think, this is an isolated difference of ‘perception versus reality’ then you may want to test your eyes on a few of these other optical illusions ….
This blog is for those who think that Christian Grey and Anatasia Steele are the only ones who get hot and heavy in the office – don’t be fooled - it can happen in real life too.
It’s amazing how many couples have been caught in the “act” in the workplace. To name a few I know of:
Or how about this couple that got caught in the window across the street from a bar in Christchurch a few weeks ago.
What about people in other workplaces watching the video of the Marsh people actions in the workplace? Would it contravene a company’s IT and Internet policies?
All this activity makes life interesting for HR Professionals and the Managers who have to deal with the fall out.
Obviously the investigation can have some awkward moments. !
The biggest consideration to take into account must be whether the couple has bought the company into disrepute. This is usually outlined by a clause in a policy or in employment agreements around professional behaviour such as below:
CODE OF CONDUCT
In any organisation it is necessary to set down rules governing conduct and procedures to ensure to smooth running of the company.
Conduct which threatens personal health, well-being or security of staff or which endangers reputation, plant, property or product is outside the accepted behaviour at our company.
The rules are subject to the provisions of your Employment Agreement.
It is critical to have this clause at it can relate to more than just sex in the workplace. It can also relate to:
It will make your life a lot easier when coming to a recommendation once the investigation has taken place.
You may also need to take into account the values of the organisation involved. Not only the employment brand but the marketing brand can be affected by these incidents if they make the press.
If you know of some awkward situations share them with our community so we can all be ready when it happens again!
It was interesting to see that Worklife Balance has just tipped Salary as the number 1 factor that New Zealand professionals look for in a job. I saw this in a Stuff article about the findings of a 2014 Hudson survey.
For those of us in the ‘keeping people motivated area’ this is important stuff. We have traditionally been pushed by salary as the top motivator when negotiating with professionals. It is interesting to see the pendulum start to swing towards worklife balance.
I can remember working on implementing a massive flexible work project into a major bank. We did all the research on best practise, talked to senior managers and the executive team etc etc and came up with the following options:
We did a fantastic comms job on the options and launched them into the organisation.
Results were mixed.
Hence when we came to measure the success of the project - feedback was mediocre at best.
In hindsight the organisation was not ready for that kind of flexibility. The culture at that time was not one of total trust and confidence.
Key learning – Is your whole organisation ready to embrace worklife policies??? Does your culture really support them???
And even though you now by law have to have a genuine business reason not to consider worklife balance requests - you would be surprised at how many companies are not really ready to embrace this type of work environment.
On the positive side - if your business is truly able to offer flexible work practices then you have a great tool in your arsenal to hire (and keep) really fabulous people.
In other words - if your organisation has worklife balance as a recognised part of its Employee Value Proposition (EVP) then you have a great offering to market the heck out of – so go for it.
We would love to hear about your experiences implementing worklife balance initiatives – drop us some comments below and let our client community know what has or has not worked for you.
Having a recruitment business can have its challenges. One of the most difficult is convincing a client to take a punt on a candidate that you know from their background and experience are going to add real value to that company, possibly in ways even the client may not have even contemplated despite them not always fitting 100% the job spec.
We are not conventional recruiters who always tend to take a rear vision mirror approach and back candidates solely on past experience and skills. We tend to suggest ‘a look through the windscreen’ or more forward thinking approach to clients for certain roles and encourage them to be more open minded and hire candidates with the potential and promise to offer so much more than the job at hand. This approach will often give new vitality and fresh energy and enable the company’s performance to leap frog the ‘present’ and provide future transformational opportunities in both company performance and culture.
I read with interest this article below which, in a nutshell, typifies the scenario we occasionally face particularly with companies who have operated only in the local market, possibly do not realise how good their company could be, are simply trapped in not knowing what they don’t know or just happy with their lot.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/8657198/Returned-Kiwis-want-brain-gain-acclaim
Often we encounter similar situations to these that returning Kiwis are experiencing… some employers not wanting to hire someone smarter or more capable than themselves for fear of being shown up, possibly perceiving candidates like this to be too big for the role or too high maintenance, a belief they may bore easily and leave after a short time, or presuming these people are coming back for an easy life. These assumptions generally underestimate the desire and motivation of individuals with such global experience moving into the region.
Whilst living and working in the corporate world is undoubtedly very different to working in heartland kiwi companies, the experience and learnings offered through such individuals are usually gold and provide amazing power to confront future issues. There is little doubt in our mind that the ‘brain gain’ should be leveraged and harnessed. Experience has shown when this power is unleashed new and exciting opportunities open up.
Brain gain is a no brainer in our view and for a country that has suffered massive amounts of brain drain over the last few decades a chance to get one or two back!
by Paul Bell
I read with horror an article from Thomson Brookers that quoted the Chief Technology Officer of MYOB predicting that in 25 years the work colleague you chat to at the water cooler (if those things exist and human beings haven’t been fitted with automatic hydration devices) might be a hologram, our daily coffee fix maybe delivered by drones and that the plumber (if there needs to be such a person then) that turns up to fix your leak maybe a robot!
WTF? Now, I am a tech convert having spent most of 25 of my 35 years in the workforce avoiding typewriters, telexes, emails and computers by skilfully outsourcing that to very able executive assistants. Indeed I admit that in my corporate life the screen on my desk was for show, to occasionally check on my stock prices and act as a mirror to comb my hair (Yes! Yes! in the days I did have some). But the thought of this plain terrifies me in terms of the impact it will have in the workplace.
This prediction may well be accurate. If you cast your mind back 25 years to 1990 we had just emerged out of the telex age, the internet was in its infancy with fairly low uptake, cell phones were as big as a brick, duplicating machines were out and photocopiers were coming in and people actually talked in the workplace. Fast forward those years and think how communication in the workplace changed.
Observe the way even our children socially interact. If we were in an emotional relationship and were going to be ‘dropped’ or planning to ‘drop’ a partner this was normally done face to face or by a real conversation over the phone. Now it is often done by slightly less courageous ways such as by text, email, or change of relationship status on FB.
I have been an avid fan of ensuring good healthy work relationships in the work place being best affected through face to face. It encourages openness, honesty and integrity. I have also encouraged companies to adopt email protocols that avoid the proliferation of ‘CCing’ and ban ‘BCCing’. That practice avoids someone outsourcing responsibility and accountability to someone else and, lets be honest, can be just lazy.
The introduction of new technology has definitely seen some amazing advantages creating shared and collaborative workplaces but the down side is that the art of conversation conducted by face to face relationships is dying and with parts of the unique team culture that existed in workplaces 25 years ago.
In my view we need to keep all this in balance and whilst encouraging human touch elements in our communication channels still be open to virtual mechanisms to interact.
I guess the advantage is that there would be no room for the ‘Sutton’ effect ….you can’t hug a hologram!!
by Paul Bell
