human capital magazine issue 11.03
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The magazine for people who manage people.TRANSCRIPT
HUMAN CAPITAL MAGAZINEHCAMAG.COM
EXCLUSIVE COVERAGEHR Summit Showguide P33
BUILDING ETHICAL LEADERSMBAs & CSR P46
PROFILEHR at Sodexo P50
ISSUE 11.03
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS
LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
Improving manager interactions
content?Happy&Your guide to easing staff turnover
REWARD & RECOGNITIONFocusing on
sustainable ROI
CORPORATE CULTURE
Enhancing values & symbols
ENGAGEMENTBuilding
‘top employer’ traits
Special Report – Retention
HCAMAG.COM
editor’s letter
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COPY & FEATURESEDITOR Iain Hopkins
JOURNALIST Stephanie Zillman
PRODUCTION EDITORS Roslyn Meredith, Moira Daniels
ART & PRODUCTIONSENIOR DESIGNER Rebecca Downing
DESIGNER Ginni Leonard, Jon Harding
TRAFFIC MANAGER Abby Cayanan
CONTRIBUTORSPeople + Culture Strategies, The Next Step, Kenexa
SALES & MARKETINGMARKETING EXECUTIVE Anna Keane
COMMUNICATIONS EXECUTIVE Lisa Narroway
NATIONAL COMMERCIAL MANAGER Sophie Knight
ONLINE COMMERCIAL MANAGER Sarah Wiseman
CORPORATECHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Mike Shipley
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER George Walmsley
MANAGING DIRECTOR – BUSINESS MEDIA Justin Kennedy
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Colin Chan
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER Julia Bookallil
Editorial enquiriesIain Hopkins tel: +61 2 8437 4703 [email protected]
Advertising enquiriesNational commercial manager, HR productsSophie Knight tel: +61 2 8437 [email protected]
Subscriptionstel: +61 2 8437 4731 • fax: +61 2 8437 [email protected]
Key Media keymedia.com.auKey Media Pty Ltd, regional head office, Level 10, 1–9 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australiatel: +61 2 8437 4700 fax: +61 2 9439 4599Offices in Singapore, Auckland, Torontohcamag.com
Copyright is reserved throughout. No part of this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the editor. Contributions are invited, but copies of work should be kept as HC can accept no responsibility for loss.
HUMAN CAPITAL MAGAZINEHCAMAG.COM
EXCLUSIVE COVERAGEHR Summit Showguide P33
BUILDING ETHICAL LEADERSMBAs & CSR P46
PROFILEHR at Sodexo P50
ISSUE 11.03
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS
LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
Improving manager interactions
content?Happy&Your guide to easing staff turnover
REWARD & RECOGNITIONFocusing on
sustainable ROI
CORPORATE CULTURE
Enhancing values& symbols
ENGAGEMENTBuilding
‘top employer’ traits
Special Report – Retention
Express yourself! Got a burning issue to get off your chest? Check out the readers’ forums at hcamag.com
With the push given to flexible working arrangements in the federal government-backed Telework Week in November last year, it was surprising to read that one of the most widely recognised ‘best employers’, Google, is not an advocate of teleworking. CFO Patrick Pichette told Fairfax that working at home is not the best environment for ideas to flourish.
“The surprising question we get is: ‘How many people telecommute at Google?’” Pichette said. “And our answer is: ‘As few as possible’.
“It’s somewhat counterintuitive. People think, ‘Well, because you’re at Google you can work from anywhere.’ Yes, you can work from anywhere, but many just commute to offices . . . Working from the office is
really important.”Pichette added there is “something magical about sharing meals” in an office
environment, “about spending the time together, about noodling on ideas, about asking at the computer ‘What do you think of this?’” These moments, he felt, were immensely important in the development of a company, in personal development, and for building stronger communities.
While cynics may snigger at just how magical staring at an office cubicle for eight hours every day can be, it was a reminder that employers need to carefully consider what they are offering to their employees, not just in terms of flexible work, but also in terms of the wider employer value proposition. Is what you have on offer getting cut-through? Is it actually what your employees want? Even more fundamentally, do you know why people leave your organisation? Our second annual special report on retention will hopefully provide some tips – while our HR Summit Showguide is a timely reminder to get along to an event that will provide a wealth of insights on creating a workplace that is truly a talent magnet.
Iain Hopkins, editor, HC Magazine
Human Capital wants to hear from you. Email us: [email protected]
While cynics may snigger at just how magical staring at an office cubicle for eight hours every day can be, it was a reminder that employers need to carefully consider what they are offering to their employees”
Talent magnet or talent repellent?
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HC MAGAZINE 11.03
contents Check out the HC archive online: hcamag.com
REGULARS04 | In brief: news06 | In brief: hr insight
FRONTLINE INTELLIGENCE 08 | In Step – HR career experts10 | Legal12 | HR consulting
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50 | Profile: Hit the ground runningThis month’s profiled HR professional stepped onto Australian shores for a company at the start of a significant transformation project, and has since found his global experience called into service on numerous fronts. Iain Hopkins talks to Sodexo’s Raj Verma
33 | HR Summit ShowguideYour guide to HR’s must-attend event of 2013: The HR Summit Sydney
46 | MBAsWhat impact has the post-GFC world had on MBAs?
Cover story:Special Report – RetentionWhat are the key drivers of staff turnover in your organisation? What are the key elements of retention? Find out in HC’s second annual Special Report on Retention
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IN BRIEF
news
The month in numbers32 Number of hours worked per week by Australian employees, the lowest figure in over 30 years. OCED data shows that Germans work an average of just 27.2 hours a week, while Americans worked 34.4 hours per week.*
72 Number of working days (or 15 weeks) it takes before candidates start to assume there’s something wrong with an unfilled employment position. The same poll found that 35 days was the ideal timeframe for filling a role^
50.2 Percentage of employees in Australia who wear uniforms to work. The main reason given by employers is to increase the professional look of the company#
Sources:*ABS^Randstad#Survey conducted by recruitment marketing firm Employment Office
CORPORATE WELLNESS
ARE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES BEING DISMISSED? Mental health in Australian companies continues to be a backburner issue, and is not being adequately addressed by organisations, according to a leading mental health charity.
Ignoring the issue comes in at an annual tab of $6.5bn, and top-tier executives continue to keep their heads in the sand about just how prevalent the issue is among their workforce. Executive director of SANE Australia, Jack Heath, said too many company heads are not serious about addressing it.
SANE has noted a growing awareness of mental health issues, but it’s coming from the bottom-up, and in order for change to really happen, it needs to be driven by the top.
A SANE survey of more than 500 workers recently found some 95% believe their employers are uneducated about the seriousness of mental illness and need additional training to manage ill workers.
RECRUITMENT
CANDIDATES WISE UP TO WASHING THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE Candidates may finally be wising up to ways they can ‘clean’ their online presence. A new application for Facebook called SimpleWash alerts users to red flags on their profiles. From swear words to references to alcohol and drugs, the program prompts users to think about what employers might be looking for.
“The internet never forgets,” the app’s homepage says. “You just lived your life and did your thing – and now, you’ve got the posts and pics to show it. But do you have the time and energy and robotic perfection to hunt down all those little details?”
By allowing access to their page, users get a list of posts that might be considered questionable to a professional image. Words like “beer”, “drunk” and “smoke” all get flagged, as well as swearing and other obscenities. So far 120,000 people have checked their profiles, and the program will launch for Twitter soon.
Last year, employment lawyer Stuart Rudner told Human Capital it would be “negligent” of recruiters to ignore social media and the information they could gain from checking profiles and feeds. However, there were legal complications around discovering information that could lead to accusations of discrimination.
REMOTE WORKERS
‘GOOD BEHAVIOUR PACTS’ FOR FIFO WORKERS?A Federal Government inquiry has recommended mining companies consider getting fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workers to sign ‘social contracts’ promising proper behaviour.
After an 18 month investigation into the impacts of FIFO on Australian life, the Federal parliamentary committee highlighted major areas which needed change, and identified an “us versus them” mentality that troubled communities and created divisions between locals and FIFO workers.
Communities in the north-west of Western Australia host some 90,000 FIFO workers, and these communities are desperately in need of improved social integration; the report suggested all FIFO workers sign social contracts, which would require workers commit to responsible behaviour when on and off duty.
WORKPLACE LEGISLATION
SHORTEN FLAGS CHANGE OF FWA Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten intends to introduce new laws governing the rights of pregnant women at work and increase flexibility with parental leave.
Under the proposal, pregnant women would be able to transfer to a so-called “safe” job if one is available.
Currently, the ability to legally request a job-switch is only available to those who have been with their employer for more than 12 months. “There’s a loophole which says if you’ve worked for an employer for less than 12 months, there’s no requirement for you to be provided with a safe job or in fact for a safe job to be sought after,” Minister Shorten said.
The changed laws would also ensure women who are forced to take early maternity leave due to illness are not penalised by having their overall parental leave reduced.
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IN BRIEF
Twenty per cent of workers say monetary incentives motivate them. However, there is always something beyond money that employers can tap into to keep staff engaged.
HR insight/employee motivators
SIMPLE STRATEGIES TO POWER UP YOUR PEOPLE
64%
65%
GREAT LEADERS EXTRACT AT LEAST TWO TIMES MORE CAPABILITY FROM THEIR PEOPLE THAN POOR LEADERS.
QUALITY TIMECELEBRATED
THE COST OF LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY
IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSES EACH YEAR
APPRECIATEDSUPPORTED
REWARDS THAT WORK
$42 BILLION
#1 AUTONOMY#2 MASTERY#3 PURPOSE
ENABLED EMPLOYEES ARE 50% MORE
PRODUCTIVE
WHAT WORKERS WANT
WHY BOTHER?
THE ABILITY TO EMPOWER EMPLOYEES IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SKILLS A LEADER CAN POSSESS. PEOPLE EXPECT THEIR LEADER TO PROVIDE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND UNDERSTANDING MORE THAN FUNCTIONAL BENEFITS.
POWERFUL PEOPLE=POWERFUL PROFILE
POWERFUL PROFILE=POWERFUL PROFITS
Sources:uqpower.com.auGallup Employee Engagement Index‘Multipliers. How the best leaders make everyone smarter’ by Liz Wiseman- www.inc.com & - www.worldblu.com
Source: Calling Brands survey of more than 4,000 employees in the UK, Germany and US
Did you know?Research indicates that working for an organisation with a clearly defined purpose – an underlying ethos that goes beyond commercial and operational goals – is the second most important factor employees look for in an employer, behind remuneration. It ranks ahead of other factors including level of responsibility and even career progression. • 65% of respondents said that working for an organisation with a clear sense of purpose would motivate them to go the ‘extra mile’ in their jobs • 64% claimed it would engender a greater sense of loyalty towards the organisation they work for
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So what will 2013 dish up for HR professionals?
No doubt about it... plenty of change!Individual industries’ circumstances will
vary, but there will be some broad trends that will impact HR professionals in 2013. So what are some of these trends?
TREND NO. 1 – TOP LINE GROWTH REQUIREDThe official reporting season has just been completed for most Australian listed companies. Almost half the companies that reported results, exceeded expectations. This is great news but may have been at a cost.
Tanya Branwhite from Macquarie Equities was quoted in the AFR on the 23rd of Feb as saying, “One thing that is still missing from companies is top-line growth. Costs and cost cutting have been a feature of this reporting season.”
With this renewed focus on costs felt across most sectors (even the boom Resources companies), the challenge for companies will be gearing up for growth to take advantage of improvements in consumer and business sentiment.
A good example of this is the Telco sector. The major players are focusing their attentions on Customer Centricity to provide strong future revenue growth. This is a business strategy that firmly sits within HR’s remit.
With this change of Business Drivers, HR’s ability to build both organisational and leadership capability to meet a different operating approach will be a key HR deliverable. This will be through HR understanding: • Business analytics;• Business insights;• Organisational Design;• Organistional Development based on data;
and• Workforce Planning.
FRONTLINE INTELLIGENCE
recruitment Craig Mason is the Managing Director of The Next Step, a specialist consulting practice in the human resources market. For more information call (02) 8256 2500 or email cmason@
thenextstep.com.au. Website: www.thenextstep.com.au
TREND NO. 2 – PRODUCTIVITY There is a clear focus on HR Operating Models being designed to ensure the best HR services are being delivered for the lowest cost available.
Large organisations particularly have been implementing revised HR operating models with an eye to cost minimisation as well as improved HR services.
The argument is that better HR service delivery ensures stronger alignment to business needs and a more consistent and professional customer experience from HR. Leading Australian companies such as Lend Lease and Qantas are certainly of this view.
The platform for productivity gains at Lend Lease relates to building synergies across their global operations. At Qantas, the productivity platform relates to improving performance to deal with a competitive landscape and also integrating new advanced technology in the form of aircraft, ticketing and check-in facilities.
Whilst Qantas and Lend Lease have different motivators for achieving productivity gains, they are similar to most companies in driving agendas for change through HR by:• Rollouts of HR Shared Service Centres to
manage operational HR functions;• Driving consistency of ‘people’ processes
across organisations as a means of delivering productivity gains; and
• Using technology to automate various people processes and aid the above ‘consistency of process’ objectives.One thing is clear: this trend in driving
productivity in HR will have a fundamental impact on the design and type of HR roles that exist.
TREND NO. 3 – HR BP’S BECOMING SOLE TRADERS As indicated in Trend No. 2, different models for roles in HR will continue to be driven in 2013. With shared services driving more
consistent daily HR services, this will provide generalists with the ‘passport to play’ and act as true Business Partners by:• Managing and analysing data to drive
better business decisions;• Driving workforce planning;• Implementing talent management
initiatives;• Evaluating organisational effectiveness;• Initiating and managing workforce cost
reviews; and• Driving career frameworks and measuring
improvements.In undertaking this work, senior HR
generalists are finding themselves losing direct team management responsibility. High-touch divisional HR generalist positions with a team of HRMs and HRC reporting directly into the role are becoming a thing of the past in large sophisticated organisations.
This trend means that HR generalists will need to develop a new skill set compared to that which was required in the past which links to the requirements in Trend No 1.
THE FINAL WORDAs everyone knows, change is constant but in 2013, the pace of change will only increase for HR functions just like all other professional areas within organisation. Therefore for HR practitioners, understanding the trends and staying relevant is really the only option.
HR trends to watch in 2013
In 2013, the pace of change will only increase for HR
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MARKET MOVES
radar
By supplying Market Moves, The Next Step is not implying placement involvement in any way.
AirServices Australia has a new Executive General Manager – People & Culture, in Andrew Boyd. Andrew has previously held the roles of Executive General Manager People & Performance for CSR and Group General Manager Human Resources for the Multiplex Group. Andrew has particular expertise in remuneration and benefits, performance management and change.
Greg Barnier has been appointed to the role of Chief Human Resources Officer for the Safety, Return to Work and Support Division - a Division of the NSW Public Service which incorporates various NSW government authorities and agencies. Greg has broad experience in the public sector, financial services sector, management consulting and career transition services with particular expertise in corporate services and HR shared services delivery.
Michelle Pombart has joined George Weston Foods as Group Manager People & Communication. Michelle has extensive experience as a senior HR leader across a range of industries. Most recently she was Head of HR for FlexiGroup, a diversified financial services company within the ASX top 200. As HR Business Partner and Internal Communications Manager with Vodafone Australia, Michelle managed a range of large scale change programs, as well as talent management and recognition programs to build the company’s capability and drive top quartile engagement. Michelle has also held a range of HR and Learning & Development roles with retail and hospitality businesses.
Ian Clubb is HCF Australia’s new General Manager Human Resources. Ian is a senior executive with extensive human resources experience across a wide range of industries including Retail, Government
and Information Technology. Prior to a period consulting to a variety of organisations and industries including the 2012 London Olympics, Ian held the role of Group General Manager at the Coles Group.
Steven Murphy is Tourism Australia’s new General Manager, People & Culture. Steven has over 25 years’ experience in the professional services, FMCG and mining industries. He has worked across emerging and mature markets including Asia, Europe and Africa in the area of human resources, general management and operations management. Steven’s most recent role was with global public relations agency, Text 100 as Regional Director APAC North.
In Queensland, Shannon Richards has accepted a new role as Employee Relations Manager for Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific. Shannon’s previous role was Group General Manager, People & Capability for WorkPac Group.
Australian Home Services has appointed Sharne Brennan as General Manager of Human Resources. Sharne brings considerable experience from the Transport and Logistics industry where she has achieved success with Transpacific Industries, Cleanaway and Brambles over the last 11 years.
Sally Beard has joined Murray Goulburn Cooperative as their Workplace Relations
Manager. A qualified lawyer, Sally brings a wealth of knowledge of the FMCG industry having previously worked with HJ Heinz and Fonterra. Sally’s experience also spans the financial services and government sectors.
Joining ABB Australia in the role of Head of Human Resources is Rebecca Roberts. Rebecca recently completed her assignment with Bluescope Steel where she spent just under two years as the VP for Organisational Development. Prior to this, Rebecca was the Group HR Manager for Wattyl Limited.
Gaye Haug has recently joined KPMG as the Head of Performance and Reward Services after a considerable career at ANZ where she led the HR teams for three different divisions before taking on the role of Global Head of Remuneration.
Recent HR Market Moves
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FRONTLINE INTELLIGENCE
legal Joydeep Hor, P: 8094 3101 E: [email protected] Cara Seymour, P: 8094 3104 E: [email protected]
People + Culture Strategies
With the increase in bullying claims and prosecutions many employers have responded positively and proactively with initiatives aimed at changing workplace behaviour. However, easy access to individual complaint-based mechanisms has also had some negative and unintended consequences for employers. Do we need another remedy or should we be focusing on broader preventative measures to eliminate bullying?
On 12 February 2013, Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten announced the Government’s proposal to create another avenue of complaint to the Fair Work Commission (“FWC”) for employees who are bullied at work. The proposal is in response to a recommendation from the Standing Committee on Education and Employment of the House of Representatives in its report “Workplace Bullying: We Just Want it to Stop” released in October last year, that the Government allow bullied employees to seek individual recourse through an adjudicative process.
The proposal has drawn a mixed, in some cases lukewarm, response from workplace relations experts not because the concern to eliminate bullying in the workplace has waned, but because there is a question mark around whether another legal remedy to address bullying is necessary, or likely to be effective in the form proposed.
Recommendation 1 of the report adopts a popular definition of “bullying” as “repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety”. It is the creation of this risk that has kept the focus on remedying workplace bullying within the work, health and safety and worker’s compensation jurisdictions over the past decade, with regulators developing significant expertise in this area. There has also been significant growth in the number of bullying claims under discrimination legislation, where it must be shown that the
bullying behaviour was based on a protected ground of discrimination.
More recently, the adverse action provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 have proved to be fertile ground for complaints of bullying in response to performance management that may or may not lead to termination or resignation. Where termination or resignation results, unfair dismissal also remains as a popular avenue of redress.
It is in the context of performance supervision and management, disciplinary action and allocations of work that the line between bullying behaviours and genuine performance management or reasonable administrative actions becomes blurred by subjective perceptions.
Unfortunately, the legal causes of action available for workplace bullying are so broad that fabricated complaints of bullying by employees have become a not uncommon tactic for impeding performance management, delaying or preventing
termination of employment and claiming reinstatement or compensation.
The Government’s proposal is to have applications from employees to the FWC alleging workplace bullying fast-tracked for consideration within 14 days. If the FWC is satisfied that a person has been subjected to workplace bullying it could make orders it considers appropriate to remedy or prevent the conduct recurring, including directing an employer’s action in a particular manner so as to resolve the particular complaint and to prevent further bullying. The FWC may also recommend that a matter be investigated by a Work Health Safety regulator under Work Health Safety legislation. Penalties of up to $33,000 for corporations may apply.
While the intent to make these provisions preventative rather than just remedial is positive in theory, the concern is that this broad, fast avenue of complaint may lead to an increase in unmeritorious claims of bullying in order to bring more systemic workplace disputes before the FWC at short notice. It would be unfortunate if the resources of the FWC were invested in a misuse of the proposed provisions to the detriment of genuine claims.
Another question to consider is whether the FWC is the most appropriate forum to deal with bullying given its relatively recent exposure to the work, health and safety aspects of bullying, when compared with the expertise of work, health and safety regulators and anti-discrimination tribunals.
When it comes to workplace bullying, changing workplace culture is key. Individual complaint-based mechanisms are never enough to engender cultural change. Training and awareness raising programs, mentoring and positive leadership also need to be considered. Perhaps it is time to focus more on the preventative measures proposed by the Standing Committee rather than an additional avenue for individual complaint.
Workplace Bullying – Do we need another remedy?
When it comes to workplace bullying, changing workplace culture is key. Individual complaint-based mechanisms are never enough to engender cultural change.
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FRONTLINE INTELLIGENCE
HR consulting
In a recent research exercise, Kenexa asked a group of HR practitioners to identify what they considered to be the biggest barriers to an effective employee survey. The top three barriers included the level of importance placed on the survey, execution of the survey program and allocated resources. Here are some typical responses from our HR practitioners around these top three barriers:
IMPORTANCE• “If senior leaders were more vocal about
the strategy and reason the survey is important, I think that would trickle down to the frontline.”
EXECUTION• “Leadership and management often
leverage the survey to identify areas for improvement, but don’t always follow through on the necessary actions.”
RESOURCES• “Limited time leaders can devote to it
given other priorities.”
The top three barriers effectively point towards senior management as the underlying reason organisations do not fully realise a survey’s potential. But we wonder if we’re not missing a rather important question – who is really responsible for these barriers in the first place?
We asked these same HR practitioners how they felt their survey addressed the most important concerns of their business leaders. Less than half agreed that it contributed to customer satisfaction or bottom-line financial performance. In other words, more than half did not view this supposedly strategic measurement program as addressing the most important concerns of top executives.
Executives and senior managers are going to regard as important, and execute and
provide resources for those organisational initiatives that help them achieve the greatest business success. Yet, as the table below shows, HR practitioners tend not to consider strategic metrics when evaluating the success of their survey program.
METRICS USED TO EVALUATE SURVEY SUCCESS
Who is the barrier to survey effectiveness –
senior leaders or HR?
Dr. Neal Knight-Turvey, Executive Consultant at Kenexa, and IBM Company, Australia Level 2, 451 Little Bourke St, Melbourne
Phone (03) 9602 3899 or email [email protected]
What is interesting is the finding that the least commonly relied upon metric to evaluate program success is the link to a business outcome, whether that be a link to an internal measure, such as employee attrition rates, or a link to an external measure, such as customer satisfaction or business unit performance. One has to wonder: If the most common metric used to evaluate survey program success was a clearly established link to a business outcome, would the top three barriers to survey follow-up success still be failures in execution, lack of perceived importance and inadequate resources?
CATEGORY CATEGORY DESCRIPTION
% OF COMMENTS
Response Rate Response rates 29
Score Improvement
Improvement on targeted survey areas
27
Change Perceptions
Employees’ perceptions of change
15
Action Planning
Tracking completion of action plans 10
Business Outcome Link
Internal and external performance metrics
7
Knowing the defensive-offensive nature of surveys helps focus attention on survey design
GET SENIOR LEADERS ONBOARD – LINK SURVEY CONTENT TO BUSINESS OUTCOMESIn terms of purpose, surveys fall on a continuum from defensive through to offensive. Defensive surveys look to identify warning signs of trouble within an organisation, such as turnover vulnerability. An offensive survey, on the other hand, seeks to predict and drive organisational outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and business performance.
Knowing the defensive-offensive nature of surveys helps focus attention on survey design. Employee survey content that best predicts staff retention is not the same as survey content that best predicts customer satisfaction with an organisation’s products and services. Many surveys tend to focus on the former, not the latter.
In the end, executives will be fully supportive of an employee survey if they can see how it aligns with business strategy and key business metrics. Of course, let’s not limit our thinking to the survey. When the HR function can show it has a tool strategically geared towards improving business performance, that’s when we can really expect executives to dedicate themselves and the right resources for effective survey follow-up. Strategic HR anyone?
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COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – Retention
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There are serious implications for organisations that don’t understand the causes of their employee turnover. In this special report, Human Capital looks at four key ingredients for retaining happy, productive employees
IS NOT BLISSIGNORANCE
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A famous quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, states that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.The same principle might apply to employers facing an ever-increasing turnover of staff. It’s not unusual to find them blindly going in with the same blanket retention strategies, expecting a miraculous turnaround.
More often than not, there’s a lack of knowledge about what drives staff turnover in the first place. Insync Surveys, via its exit survey database of over 11,000 employees and 40 Australian-based organisations, has identified five factors causing staff turnover. Three of these are considered to be within the employer’s direct control ( job enrichment, interpersonal and structural), and two are outside of the employer’s direct control (home life and external environment).
Put simply, when people leave their jobs, one or more of the following may be contributing factors:➊ Job enrichment: Their job is no longer
fulfilling or stimulating.➋ Structural: They lack resources to do their
job well and/or don’t feel fairly rewarded.➌ Interpersonal: They don’t feel strongly connected
to their colleagues, manager or organisation.➍ Home life: Their life circumstances change
(personal reasons, retirement, family, etc.).➎ Environmental: They are approached by other
employers with a better job offer.Let’s look at the top reason for leaving – job enrichment
(voted by 51% of respondents as being ‘extremely important’ in their decision to leave). The four elements of job enrichment are job satisfaction, level of challenge, career opportunities, and professional development. If a job is unfulfilling or unsatisfying, there is a high risk that employees will look elsewhere, no matter what enticements the employer puts in place.
“Job enrichment will always be a major driver of staff turnover because it’s the hardest to get right,” says Nicholas Barnett, CEO, Insync Surveys. “An employer can quite easily offer higher pay, more perks, better resources and infrastructure – albeit an expensive exercise – but to get the basics right takes time and effort on the organisation’s part. It often comes down to poor job fit. Either the employee didn’t suit the role and its expectations or the role didn’t suit their personality and skill set.”
Barnett adds that creating enriching and meaningful jobs is at the heart of the employee offer. Meaningful work is strongly related to mission attachment; it enables staff to make a noticeable difference and allows people to be matched to the right job for their skills and interests. Employees are more likely to stay if they can personally identify with the organisation’s mission, believe they are making a significant contribution, and feel that their skills and interests fit well with the specific requirements of the job. Increasingly, people want to feel part of
something larger than themselves; to be challenged, to sharpen their skills, and to give their dedication to an organisation that they believe is doing great things.
“Employees who express positive attitudes towards the organisation’s mission experience higher job satisfaction and indicate greater intention to stay,” Barnett says.
According to Insync Surveys, the following factors can make work more meaningful:• Measuring the impact of what employees do; for
example, call centre operators get a real sense of satisfaction when they have the capacity and authority to solve clients’ problems.
• Letting employees know how they are contributing to the organisation’s success; disappointingly, only 44% of employees can make this link.
• Understanding what outcomes and standards are expected; 71% of employees are confident that they understand their employer’s expectations.
• Getting the training needed to do the job well; less than half of employees believe they get the training they need.
• Having IT systems that enable employees to serve customers well; only 48% of employees believe that this is the case.
• Receiving performance feedback that helps improve effectiveness; 47% of employees feel that they get the feedback they need.
51% job enrichment factor – job satisfaction, level of challenge, career opportunities, professional development 41% structural factor – job security, pay and conditions, incentive plan, equipment, resources and infrastructure, work stress25% interpersonal factor – relationship with manager or supervisor, relationships with work team, fit with organisational culture46% home-life factor – location of job, balancing work and life demands, personal reasons34% environmental factor – approached with better job offer
Job enrichment and home life factors are key challenges*
51%
41%
25%
46%
34%
0 10 20 30 40 50
*Source: Insync Surveys
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COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – Retention
No longer a job for lifeThe last decade has seen a significant paradigm shift in the employer/employee relationship. It’s now a looser and more flexible relationship, a ‘meeting in the middle’ as the two parties circle around each other, trying to develop a win-win solution. The traditional employment relationship was based on a belief that if employees worked hard they were promoted, received a gold watch, and retired comfortably. Now employers are likely to say, “I can’t promise you a job for life, but I promise you skills and employability for life.”
Is that proposition attractive enough, and does it even matter in 2013 if employees switch jobs and employers regularly? Kerryn Fewster, co-founder and co-director of Change2020, believes short-term loyalty is the new trend – people are loyal to companies they love working for and will work long and hard while there but will move on to seek new experiences or try new things. “Loyalty today doesn’t mean 30 years of service like it used to,” she says.
As Fewster concedes, the marketplace is also very different – there are a lot more casual or contract jobs, it is okay to have career breaks, and Gen Y is more focused on a work-life balance.
But, she adds, the concept of being ‘loyal’, and showing integrity and commitment, remains firmly in place; the focus has just shifted to a win-win relationship.
Fewster explains the mentality: “I will work for you if it is beneficial to me in the long term, and while I am here I will be loyal and deliver for you.”
What is ‘optimal’?Optimal turnover rate is industry dependent. Barnett says alarm bells should certainly be ringing when high performers are walking out the door straight to your competitors – but it shouldn’t reach that point. Insync sees some clients with a turnover of just 5% – which is arguably too low – and other clients with a turnover well over 20%. Some parts of the hospitality industry suffer from a turnover exceeding 100% pa, while very few call centres can bring their turnover below 50%.
“If your turnover is significantly higher than competitors or industry norms, you should be worried and take immediate action,” he says. “If it’s lower, you’re doing well, but understanding why employees leave can still have a positive influence on your organisation’s performance.”
Fewster adds that some staff turnover can indeed be beneficial, as fresh ideas can be injected along with fresh team members. A lack of turnover could also indicate acceptance of a mediocre performance culture.
“Low staff turnover might be because people feel handcuffed to the business due to the very generous employment conditions making it unattractive to go elsewhere,” she says. “This can be challenging, as they may not be looking to excel and continually build their capability and deliverables for the business if they are being remunerated very generously already. This means paying at the top end of the market can be a double-edged sword.”
DID YOU KNOW? Staff turnover
costs an organisation with
100 employees around $1m pa,
assuming a staff turnover rate of
18%, an average salary of $75,000,
and a conservative turnover cost per employee of 75%
of annual salary (including the
cost of recruitment, selection, induction,
training, and lost productivity
while getting up to speed).
Organisations that reduce employee
turnover by 5% (eg from 18% to
13%) will save around $280,000
per year for every 100 people
they employ.Source: Insync
Surveys
Cost item Amount
Employee filling in while the position is vacant (eight weeks @ $1,400 pw) $11,200
Lost productivity of fill-in employee 2,800
Conducting an exit interview 500
Manager’s time for managing exit process, recruitment, on-boarding and training (two weeks @ $2,800 pw, spread over six months) 5,600
Training provided to departing employee during employment period 5,000
Lost departmental productivity (reduced by 5% in first two months) 2,800
Severance and benefits continuation (four weeks of salary) 5,600
Lost knowledge, skills and contacts (50% of annual salary) 35,000
Separation administrative functions (one week @ $700 pw) 700
Decreased employee productivity (25% lower in first six months) 9,100
Minus the savings in salary for departing employee (eight weeks @ $1,400 pw) -11,200
Total $67,100
The business case: Cost calculatorA staff turnover calculator is provided on the Equal Opportunities for Women Agency website (www.eowa.gov.au). Using the calculator to estimate the costs associated with replacing an administrative position with an annual salary of $70,000 pa resulted in the following:
The assumptions used in this calculation arrived at a total cost of $67,100 for turnover of one position on a salary of $70,000 (96%). Costs would be significantly higher than this if an external recruitment agency had been used and if the complexity of the role required more than six months to get up to speed.
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Yet getting that perfect tipping point right is a challenge. Barnett notes that even the slightest change in employee turnover can make a massive difference to an organisation’s bottom line (see table on opposite page).
Busting mythsInsync’s research busted three persistent myths about retention. ➊ The issue of bad management. In fact, only a small minority of people leave solely due to bad managers. Just 4% of respondents indicated that interpersonal issues were the only significant factor in their decision to leave. Typically, bad management only causes a person to leave their employer in conjunction with other things. About 25% indicated that interpersonal factors played an important role in their decision to leave, but this in itself was not the only reason. Of the five factors Insync measures, the interpersonal factor plays the least important role in the decision to leave. There are two caveats to this: firstly, the Insync database is made up of organisations that are actively tracking and managing employee turnover, and this would not be representative of all organisations; and secondly, there are undoubtedly toxic organisations where poor interpersonal dynamics do indeed play a crucial role in the decision to leave.
Reasons for leaving 2009/101. Lack of job satisfaction (38%)2. Career opportunities (37%)3. Better job offer (35%)4. Personal reasons (33%)5. Professional development (28%)
Turnover insights: 2011/12 vs 2009/10*The more things change…
60
40
20
0Job enrichment
factorStructural
factorInterpersonal
factorHome-life
factor
51%
41%
25%
46%
34%
53%
42%45%
26%35%
Environmental factor
2011/12 2009/10
Reasons for leaving 2011/121. Lack of job satisfaction (37%)2. Career opportunities (35%)3. Better job offer (34%)4. Personal reasons (33%)5. Professional development (30%)
*Source: Insync Surveys
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COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – RetentionCOVER STORY RETENTION
➋ Home-life issues relate primarily to women. While home-life circumstances play an important role in close to half of women’s decisions to leave an organisation, they also play a key role in the decisions of four out of 10 men. The need for flexibility does not only apply to women.➌ Gen Y is different. While technological and social trends no doubt shape the philosophies and mindsets of different generations, perhaps the differences between Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y are driven as much by their different stages in the career lifecycle as anything else. Gen Y’s, who are in the early phases of their careers, are quite rightly focusing on career opportunities and the potential for professional development. Insync believes that Baby Boomers and Gen X would have had a similar focus in the first decade of their careers.
Where to startIt may be risky to generalise (and there are subtle differences based on age, gender and work status), but there are some fundamentals that should not be ignored when it comes to retaining staff.
Fewster notes that, in terms of employee motivators, money helps but only in the short term. Employers should ensure hygiene factors, such as salary, conditions and promotional prospects, are taken into consideration.
Career opportunities are also an important factor. “The ‘show me the future and I will stick with you’ approach works well as long as the business and the individual are both committed to the career plan – this may include promotion, secondment, rotational opportunities, sabbaticals,” says Fewster.
There are many ways to track the implementation of a retention strategy. These include tracking staff turnover statistics, getting informal feedback from managers and employees, conducting staff surveys and entry and exit surveys. This feedback will enable the retention strategy
Gallup consultancy works from a list of top tips which they claim
are the key to increasing loyalty and decreasing turnover:
✔ At least bi-annually, ensure someone at work has talked to
your employees about their individual progress.
✔ Ensure employees know what is expected of them at work.
✔ Ensure employees have the materials and equipment to
perform their job descriptions.
✔ Encourage employee development.
✔ Genuinely care about employees’ opinions and make them
count when they are given.
✔ Make sure your company’s mission or purpose is clearly
communicated while making employees feel their job
is important.
✔ Create an environment where the workforce is committed to
quality work.
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to be fine-tuned, with increased or decreased emphasis on various elements of the strategy, as necessary. It is also helpful to track the return on investment from a retention strategy. This will keep the focus on initiatives with lower cost or effort and higher impact on the organisation’s success.
Here is Insync Surveys’ five-step guide to kick things off:
➊ Measure, analyse and road map.Some turnover is okay, even necessary. However, when high-performing employees are the ones leaving, you must be on top of understanding the unique causes of staff turnover in your organisation and industry. From this, a clear retention road map can be developed to set relevant and achievable retention targets.
➋ Create enriching and meaningful jobs.This is at the heart of the employee offer. Meaningful work is strongly related to mission alignment, enables staff to make a noticeable difference, and allows people to be matched with the right job for their skills and interests.
➌ Accommodate changing life circumstances.This is the second biggest contributor to staff turnover. It involves matching job requirements with personal interests and circumstances, as well as being creative in the use of both short- and long-term flexible work arrangements.
➍ Nurture an inclusive and positive workplace culture.Employers must help new employees make a strong connection with the organisation, keep the attention of leaders and line managers on maintaining good relationships with their people, and invest in building constructive norms and behaviours across the organisation. This should all be underpinned by a strong employee value proposition for both existing and potential employees.
➎ Enable and recognise performance.Employers must not lose sight of the traditional importance of remuneration, incentives, reward and recognition to show employees that their contribution is recognised and valued. Employers must also regularly review and provide employees with the resources they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.
The benefits of implementing the above actions extend far beyond simply reducing staff turnover. They will increase employee engagement, productivity and ultimately customer satisfaction. The rationale is that if people and happy, in the right jobs, highly experienced and appropriately skilled, then they will continue refining the way they do things (improving productivity) and will also deliver better value to customers and build long-term customer relationships.
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and we feed this information back into retention strategies.
HC: Some staff turnover is, of course, beneficial. Do you think there’s an optimal turnover rate or are there danger signs you look out for? AH: You can’t keep everyone, as an influx of new ideas, skills and fresh perspectives is vitally important. We don’t think there should be one standard ‘optimum’ turnover level, although the type of departure is important so we focus on all undesirable turnover. We do this by actively managing underperformers out of the business, ensuring high performers remain. Recruitment is the best retention tool – if you get it right at the start, you will have high-performing employees with a strong value alignment, and have more chance to keep them long term. So, by closely watching our turnover in probation, and tenure of departing employees, we tailor recruitment strategies that help maximise retention.
HC: Is there one particular area of staff retention you concentrate your efforts on? AH: Everyone has different motivators and drivers, so focusing on just one retention strategy can be dangerous. The areas we prioritise include creating an open, flexible and trusting culture; employee benefits; and reward and recognition. We also ask managers to take the time to understand the unique
motivators of each individual and, where possible, provide those. Again, recruitment can be the most effective retention strategy by ensuring every new employee is a culture and value fit, so we spend a lot of time getting recruitment right, which has flow-on effects to making retention a lot easier.
HC: You’ve mentioned everyone is driven by different motivations. What effort do you put into having knowledge of what motivates your employees? AH: There are many reasons for varying levels of engagement and performance, such as values alignment, a sense of trust, autonomy and support, feeling your voice is heard, and having challenging and innovative work. Our managers create close relationships with each individual to understand what gets them out of bed in the morning and what frustrates or demotivates them, to ensure we cater to individual needs. The relationship with your manager is one of the key decision-making factors in staying with or leaving an organisation, so we focus on our leaders creating and fostering open and trusting relationships with each individual. On top of the standard KPIs for each role, we tailor objectives for each individual that allow them to focus on areas they want to grow in or areas of interest. We also have a very open environment with several avenues for feedback to managers, HR, or the senior management team.
Human Capital talks to Alice Hanna, people and performance manager at acknowledged ‘Great Place to Work’ IT firm OBS, about what her company does to retain its key employees
HC: Do you believe the concept of employee loyalty is dead? AH: The concept of loyalty has certainly evolved over time but isn’t dead. No longer can you expect an employee to stay with one company for their whole career. We believe employee loyalty is fostered for the duration of their journey with an organisation. Generally speaking, if people are highly engaged, they truly want to be involved in the long-term success of the company. They become passionate about the company’s vision, they go out of their way to innovate, and become outspoken brand ambassadors. Whilst tenure is important, we measure loyalty by the quality of the day-to-day relationships that are kept and people’s contribution, not just the length time people stay with you.
HC: How do you keep track of staff turnover rates and, related to that, how do you assess how successful your retention strategies are? AH: As the first few months of employment is critical in establishing a successful long-term relationship, we thoroughly assess satisfaction with various aspects of the working environment at four key points during the probationary period, which correlates strongly to retention and tenure. We also assess ongoing satisfaction with our culture and benefits through an annual culture and benefits survey; this always yields insightful information. Our staff turnover rates are collected through our exit interviews, where we analyse key aspects of retention, such as leadership effectiveness, work-life balance, career development and teamwork. We collate turnover rates, along with undesirable turnover, rates of departures to competitors, and reasons for leaving,
Case study – Retention snapshot: OBS
Everyone has different motivators and drivers, so focusing on just one retention strategy can be dangerous
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COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – Engagement
Research suggests that highly engaged staff have a clearer understanding of what their customers truly value, and provide a more positive customer experience. It stands to reason that businesses with highly engaged staff are more productive and profitable; they also have a significantly lower staff turnover and find it easier to attract new employees.
It’s no surprise then that an annual staff engagement survey is often the first tool an employer relies on to measure how they’re tracking. Whilst I believe engagement results are important, and remain a critical indicator of staff motivation levels, I’d emphasise a slightly broader and more holistic approach to determining how ‘employee friendly’ you are; or, as we refer to it in HR, whether you’re a ‘Top Employer’.
#1 Do you have the right leadership?Firstly, take a look at the quality, style and commitment of leadership within the organisation. Do your leaders walk the talk? Do they act and
communicate like their people are their key assets? More than once I’ve experienced organisations where there is a strong disconnect between what organisations want to be and how key leaders behave on a daily basis.
David Jones, managing director of Robert Half in Asia Pacific, adds that high level employee feedback, obtained by any number of techniques, needs to then be backed up by manager/leader one-on-one conversations to determine what motivates each staff member. “It can be achieved provided you’ve got an appropriate level of management infrastructure, and by management infrastructure, it should operate on a 7-10 direct report per manager basis. On that basis, if you’re a manager you should have the ability to get pretty close to people. It’s worth having regular ‘where are you at’ checks, because what could be someone’s motivation today could be quite different based on other changes in their life.”
Rob Hendriks, HR director at ING DIRECT, believes that being a ‘Top Employer’ comes down to more than just engagement
THE PERFECT MIX
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#2 Make a connectionTop Employers also make a clear connection between company strategy and individual contribution. We know ‘why we do what we do’. It’s important to show how teams and individuals add value to business success and how this contributes to the benefits of our customers. Top employers find in their staff proud ambassadors who take pride in their organisation and are passionate advocates, sharing common values and goals.
Jones feels this comes back to the employer brand and obtaining meaning from work, but also the fact that people like to feel proud of the company they work for. “People genuinely like to say, ‘I work for company X and they are really good because we do this’. It may not be what that company actually does. It may be that they held a charity based event, or whatever the case may be. Some of those things can be based around principles you’re trying to get across to all employees as opposed to something specific to an individual.”
#3 Set goals and recognise successIt’s equally important to set ambitious and concrete goals and to recognise and reward people fairly both on the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of their contribution. People need to know what success will look like and what you need to do, to excel in the organisation!
Jones notes that often there’s only so much money to go round. Recognition often doesn’t have to be financial – it can be cinema tickets, a bottle of champagne, just a thank you. “For some people it could be thank you in front of a group; others will loathe that, so a simple one-on-one thank you is preferred. The clear thing is when someone is being recognised, why are they being recognised? The communication of the why is very important.”
Jones adds that, in terms of financial recognition it’s vital to be within the ‘noise’ of the market. “There are countless surveys that say money is not the most important factor for people but that assumes they’re in the noise. If someone is 25% under category they will leave. Beyond that, I always look at rewards in addition to salary. Some companies are fortunate enough to have gym facilities and so forth. Others can’t afford it. But everyone can say thank you.”
#4 What’s on offer?Furthermore you need to be absolutely clear what you can offer employees (career development, training, recognition), but also what employees can offer the organisation (drive and skills to meet our business goals). This is what I would call the ‘unwritten’ part of the employment deal. How successful are we as an organisation to connect these two elements to achieve the best outcome for business and individual?
Jones adds that many people are motivated by career so it’s important to know what people’s career aspirations are.
It’s also important, Jones says, to look at other elements of corporate life, such as CSR and corporate citizenship, and
the impact these can have on employer appeal. However, be wary of going down this path simply because you think you should. “Where we’ve seen corporate citizenship programs work best is where there’s been very vocal buy in from people all through the food chain of the organisation, meaning they will verbalise why they feel what they’re doing is important to them personally. There’s some emotion attached to what people are actually doing, as opposed to just going through the motions.”
#5 Create alignmentLast but not least, Top Employers have the right tools, support and knowledge available to ensure that people processes are aligned with the overall strategy of the organisation. The people agenda should be an important topic in every management meeting and it should be clear that people are essential in what we try to achieve.
In the short term the pressure on business performance couldn’t be more intense than it is today, and for a business to succeed it is imperative that staff are engaged. The real challenge is to embed good people practices every day and measure your efforts and output using more than just an annual engagement survey.
Only if you are successful in embedding good practice in your systems, processes, symbols and everyday leadership, will you be able to stand out and sustain business performance, not only today but also for the future!
Jones adds that HR’s role here is critical. How is HR engaged with the business with regard to employee engagement? To what extent are HR involved internally within the definition of the employer brand? What does the company stand for and how is that being communicated internally? What are the internal comms like in the company? “Finally,” he adds, “to what extent are HR coaching line managers about all these engagement issues, and/or being another channel for employees to go to, that is not seen as a complaint channel?”
“It’s important to show how teams and individuals add value to business success and how this contributes to
the benefits of our customers” – ROB HENDRIKS
COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – Reward & Recognition
ACT BIGWhen executed well, an effective reward & recognition strategy can have a significant impact on retention. Why do so many fizzle and die?
Think small,
need. Where’s the gap? The gap is the reality of the business world, where you’ve got a lot of competing priorities, not enough resources, constant restructures. Things get lost in the mix.”
MISSING THE MARKJackson adds that R&R “isn’t rocket science” and “it shouldn’t cost the earth”, but it does require serious investment and commitment to do something that is meaningful to employees.
Thompson says ‘big bang’ team events may sound impressive and be fun for a few hours but they only provide short-term motivation. Similarly, sales incentives (such as international travel) for a few top achievers can motivate the top 10% of performers but alienate the remaining 90% of the team. It’s much more effective to shift the middle of the bell curve away from just the top performing 10%, he says. Achieving this requires a consistent long-term strategy that engages all employees. The same applies to cash bonuses; they become expected as a standard and are also never guaranteed to be used for rewards once handed over – it’s more likely it will be used to pay bills.
Jackson believes there’s a capability gap in many organisations. “It’s not enough to just say to line
Oh, to be small and nimble. To be able to know each and every employee on an intimate basis, to know what motivates them – and what turns them off. It might be a sigh of defeat heard at countless large businesses – perhaps they were once smaller players themselves. And yet… just because a company grows to a certain size, does this mean it’s impossible to tailor effective reward & recognition strategies?
Ben Thompson, CEO of Power2Motivate APAC, says regardless of size, the best employers take the time to know what motivates their employees and then build this into their business culture. As employers grow larger this becomes more difficult and requires an R&R system to ensure it happens consistently and pervasively across the entire business.
“Systems like this can use advanced tools to determine what drives employees and keeps them motivated. However, the best ones will allow the choice to lie with the employees, for example, by using points based systems, enabling employees to select rewards of their own choosing,” he says.
For David Jackson, executive director at Solterbeck, the problem is not so much a lack of knowledge about what motivates employees; it’s a failure to execute. “Everyone is talking the same language – these are smart execs who can pretty well articulate what their people
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managers, ‘you need to be doing more recognition’, and think that’s going to solve things. Communication and development about the importance of recognition, and then providing them with tools to facilitate and make it easier to give recognition is the key.”
Part of this is to aggregate the experience – after all some managers are good at R&R and others aren’t. “If you have too much standardisation it becomes meaningless and it loses any sense of humanity. But if you don’t standardise it at all you’ll get a huge variety of experiences. You’ll get managers who do this naturally and instinctively, and others that don’t,” Jackson says.
MISSION CRITICALSo what goes wrong? The biggest problem with R&R is failing to implement an underlying system. “If your R&R strategy is driven by one person, or even a small team, then it is only a matter of time until it fails because that person or team is distracted or redirected. Turning R&R into a system makes it sustainable, measurable and fairer. The best systems come with customer support, to keep the program running smoothly and ensure participation rates don’t begin to slump,” Thompson says.
Another failure is an overreliance on financial reward. Thompson warns to “never confuse recognition and rewards with compensation. They are entirely separate and should never be used as alternatives”.
Yet while far from being the ‘silver bullet’ that resolves all motivation and retention issues, remuneration must be addressed. David Jones, managing director of Robert Half Asia Pacific, says remuneration must always be ‘in the ballpark’ of what’s expected in the industry and for the type of role undertaken.
“When you pay people below market value, it suggests that you don’t truly value them or their work. If you withheld raises and bonuses during the downturn and have yet to implement any positive changes, you’re at real risk of losing staff,” he says.
He suggests employers take the time to re-evaluate salaries by reading the latest association reports, salary guides and government statistics. The job market is changing quickly in many fields, he adds, so be sure you’re doing this at least annually so that you’re aware of trends.
Jones urges employers to reassess the little extras offered to staff that round out the remuneration package. “This can include everything from free healthy snacks in the break room to on-site exercise facilities and tuition reimbursement for professional growth. Perks can help you to not only retain staff but also attract new employees when it’s time to hire,” he says.
When building R&R strategies from scratch, Solterbeck advocates using three simple building blocks – not ABC but rather PCR. The R is for reward, which means finding the things that employees find rewarding, not just the things the company can sell or offload. The C is communication, the bridge between what the employer
is offering and what the employee is receiving. As in most areas, communication cannot be underestimated – evidence suggests over 50% of employees are unaware their company has a recognition program! The P is for performance – ultimately, the program has to deliver a business result.
As a final tip, Jackson says it’s time to shift values-based R&R programs towards something wider. “I think we’re getting a little richer now and asking people to draw on the stories behind the accolade. If it’s about customer centricity that’s great but what is the specific example of customer centric behaviour here and what can we all learn from that and share across the organisation? It’s integrating it into the business, not as a standalone thing off to the side.”
“Never confuse recognition and rewards with compensation”
– BEN THOMPSON
The five essential elements to every successful reward &
recognition program are:
✔ Make recognition permanent. Your R&R program should be
run on a platform that makes it sustainable and measurable
over the long term, regardless of who is running it.
✔ Make recognition fair and consistent. For example tie
recognition back to clear core values and behaviours or
measurable achievements. All participants need to have
confidence in the program and know what they can and
should do to be recognised.
✔ Provide the widest possible choice of rewards.
Remember no two people are alike so don’t think the same
reward will appeal to everybody. Research shows that the
wider the range of choices the higher the engagement with
the program.
✔ Make recognition frequent and timely. This frequency
and timeliness of recognition is much more important than
the size of the reward. The more frequently you can let
people know that their efforts are appreciated the better.
✔ Make recognition a constant improvement process. Like
everything else in your business you should be constantly
measuring and improving your recognition results. Track
data such as the number of employees engaged in the
program, the number of employees awarded, the most and
least recognised teams, and then find innovative ways to
improve these results.
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COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – L&D
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The level of development attention mid-level managers receive is in indirect proportion to the significant impact
they wield on the employee experience. In short, they don’t get nearly enough support. Here’s one way to build high
quality manager/employee interactions
LINKS IN THE CHAIN
25HCAMAG.COM
IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME DDI’s research of 5,000 Australian business leaders found: ➸ 55% rely on their own ideas, missing the opportunity to expand the range of options and importantly buy-in and commitment of the other party
➸ 45% of leaders don’t clarify assumptions or check their understanding of a situation before addressing an issue, risking ‘operating on flawed or unresolved assumptions’
➸ Half of leaders failed to listen effectively and respond to interpersonal cues, meaning these leaders often don’t get to the heart of an issue and/or appropriately respond to the underlying feelings of another party
➸ 48% of leaders leave meetings without clear agreement on next steps, meaning issues will often be left unresolved or not actioned
While there are myriad circumstantial, contextual and macro issues that impact whether employees stay with an employer or hightail it out the door, it’s hard not to overstate the key role managers play. Fortunately, this is one area that can be improved.
For Bruce Watt, managing director of DDI, it’s a no brainer: “Leaders and managers who are better at interacting with their direct reports and have more trusting relationships and focus on the development of their direct reports, who are able to convey the intrinsic meaning of the work their direct reports are doing, generally have better retention in their teams.”
DDI’s recently released report, Driving Workplace Productivity Through High Quality Interactions, draws on observations from DDI’s ‘Day-in-the-Life’ assessment process, which places executives in a variety of real-life work environments and evaluates their interaction skills against a set of skills everyone needs to master to build relationships and be productive. DDI refers to these as ‘Interaction Essentials’. The results provide fascinating insights into the key role managers play in not just productivity but engagement and retention – and what typically holds these managers back.
“The intuitive gap in leadership development is we tend to promote on non-leadership skills – technical excellence and performance within individual contributor roles – and then all too often the career path forward is into a leadership role, which requires a whole new range of capabilities,” Watt says.
A critical element of these ‘new range of capabilities’ is the way in which a manager interacts with direct reports. DDI’s research (see box) speaks for itself. Among the more disturbing findings were that 60% of workers feel their manager always or most of the time damages their self-esteem, whilst a third of respondents said their manager doesn’t remain calm and constructive when discussing a problem.
“As obvious as that may sound – because you can read those things in books which say things like ‘ask more than tell’, and so on – it actually isn’t knowing what to do; it’s the practice of the skills,” Watt says.
INTERACTION ESSENTIALSIn practical terms, ‘Interaction Essentials’ come down to the efficiency of a discussion: how it’s opened, the extent to which issues are clarified, how issues are developed and agreed upon, and then how the discussion is closed.
“But of course,” says Watt “when you’re having a discussion it’s with a person so it’s about making sure you maintain or enhance the other person’s self-esteem, give empathy, ensure you seek their involvement in the discussion, and provide support without removing the accountability or responsibility from the other person – we call those the personal needs.”
Everyone comes to a leadership role with different natural strengths – some of us are more naturally empathic,
some of us are more naturally attuned to how someone is feeling and will calibrate statements to ensure their self-esteem is protected. A lot don’t bother – but direct reports don’t care about what natural strengths a manager holds. The purpose of leadership development and training, Watt says, is to equalise those differentials.
“The self-esteem issue is so critical because it doesn’t matter what discussion you’re having, if you diminish someone’s self-worth you’ve lost them before you even start,” he says.
Trust, cited as being so critical in personal relationships, is just as important in the business world. Watt explains: “Trust isn’t about always leaving people with a glow and the warm and fuzzy stuff. It’s actually about consistent and transparent behaviour. We know ourselves, when we trust someone in any context in life, we trust them if there’s consistent direction around what that person is doing, and consistent receptivity to us as a person.”
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENTTo move the dial on the interaction capability of managers, DDI recommends organisations use a three-step process:➊ Access to frameworks and tools that support effective interactions: ensuring structures are in place to facilitate effective interactions, techniques to manage the personal needs of a conversation and core listening and questioning skills.➋ Self-awareness – understanding the impact of personality patterns/derailing tendencies on approach to interactions: leaders need to heighten self-awareness and maintain improved managing of common interaction mistakes by creating an open environment, and ensuring the use of feedback skills.➌ Importance of practice: leadership must be viewed as a practice, and how often it is performed effectively comes down to the quality and frequency of practice.“I don’t think leadership is just executing a process; it’s a journey of self-discovery as well,” Watt adds. “But actually self-insight changes nothing. It’s a bit like assessment – we assess a lot but the assessment provides the potential to change and doesn’t actually change anything. That’s why that third step is so critical.”
This can be done through behaviour modelling – providing a model for how an interaction should occur – be it a coaching discussion, a performance management discussion, a conflict discussion. “Set those discussions up and do skill practice work against positive models, so it becomes something you do on a number of occasions,” Watt says.
Leaders, like anyone else, will only do things differently if they see the benefit day-to-day. “As a manager your job is to protect and ideally grow the asset, which is the intangible in organisations, the goodwill, the brand. People enable that,” Watt says. “Therefore, if you don’t have successful interactions to get productivity, engagement, retention outcomes, and use these skills, it’s commercially negligent.”
COVER STORY RETENTION
Special Report – Culture
Cultural symbols are often misunderstood and underestimated as a retention driver. Here’s how to capitalise more decisively on these signposts – no matter how subtle
All about appearances
26 HCAMAG.COM
MYOB’s Sydney office
What makes a person come to work and keep coming, day in, day out? It’s a question many may ask as global economic uncertainty continues, when work-life balance is a quaint concept of the past and leadership vision is reduced to “what’s happening this week?”
It’s perhaps time to revisit your employer value proposition (EVP) to determine why exactly people like working at your company, what you do well, and what you should be presenting and emphasising to employees – current and future. From the obvious – the physical environment in which people work – to the subtle, such as the values that underpin your culture, here’s what might be influencing ‘the way things are done’ in your workplace.
The power of valuesOften misunderstood and underestimated, values are preferences and priorities that reflect what’s most important to an individual. They make meaning possible and provide us with the motivation to act. Research has shown that there are over 100 values that we may draw upon to live our lives by.
Adrianna Loveday, the organisational psychologist of Randstad’s specialist HR consulting division, says those who are conscious of their highest-priority values are more fulfilled in their personal and professional spheres.
“In the workplace, values are ubiquitous,” she notes. “They indicate what is most important to each employee and form the basis of the organisational culture. They are closely reflected in all our behaviours at work and, according to research, provide the basis for our decisions, more so than rational analysis.”
According to the 2012 Randstad Award employer branding research, out of the top five most important factors for an individual when choosing to work for an organisation, four – job security, employee benefits, strong workplace culture, along with interesting role content and job satisfaction – are inextricably linked to one’s value framework. Therefore, it would be remiss of any organisation to ignore the importance of values as a critical part of their employer branding strategy: they are one of the strongest ways to reach out to their potential existing workforce individually.
Why values alignment is in vogueIt’s a compelling fact that organisations that do not have core values will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain talent. But having these values alone is not enough: for an organisation to reap the benefits of a strong set of core values, these values must truly resonate with each individual, which requires the organisation to be expert at articulating and communicating them efficiently in their EVP.
“What organisations often fail to realise is that personal values such as safety, security and honesty will always override organisational values. Thus, the alignment of
personal and organisational values is key to any organisation achieving their desired outcomes,” Loveday says.
Hiring for ‘values fit’To align personal and organisational values, it might be useful to simply go back to basics. Business leaders should regularly ask themselves these simple questions: As an individual, when did I last evaluate my own priority values? As a leader, when did I last consider the values of my existing people and those that predict success in my team?
Values are deep-rooted feelings about what is important to someone; they are mostly submerged below the surface and not as visible as personality characteristics, technical skills or experience. It is thus not unusual for a hiring manager to overlook values as an important predictor of the potential ‘fit’ of a candidate during the selection process. Yet values are also more stable, enduring and difficult to change than behaviours. The implication of this is simple, Loveday states: if you hire someone whose values are mismatched to those of the organisation, it will be hard to shift their thinking and will prove difficult to retain them beyond the honeymoon period.
Yes, we can measure valuesRegardless of how advanced an organisation’s HR practices are, organisations that are serious about looking beyond behaviour for clues as to individual/culture fit need to master the art of values identification. On the one hand, this can be a complex process that requires measurement to be robust, objective, universally applicable, and capable of distinguishing values from emotions, morals, behaviours, virtues and ethics. On the other hand, it can be a simple process of asking value-based questions in addition to behaviour-based ones during the interview process – “describe your values in action” type probing could be a simple and cost-effective way to take your selection process to the next level.
✔ Identify where you are now – what are the characteristics,
current values and behaviours of your organisation?
✔ Develop and clarify the vision for the kind of organisation
you need to create (and why)
✔ Define the kind of culture that is needed. Be clear on the
values, principles and behaviours of the desired culture
✔ Engage others and involve at all levels to shape the cultural
values and behaviours that are critical for success
✔ Communicate the vision widely, and constantly reinforce
– consider overt signs (such as organisational and financial
performance, quality, health and safety, absenteeism,
turnover, employee engagement survey scores) in
conjunction with the ‘hidden symbols’ (stories, rituals and
routines, power structure, etc.)
✔ Ensure senior management have worked through their own
values, actions and practices that they want to inculcate
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In practice: Industrie ITOne company that has taken steps to ensure its people and culture are its most important asset – and that this concept is more than just a statement from a manual or a poster – is specialist IT firm Industrie IT.
“It’s a core belief and behaviour strongly held by our leadership team and across the organisation,” says Janaire Reese, VP people, Industrie IT.
Central to this is the concept of ‘True Democracy’. This is the term used by Industrie IT to describe the mutual respect, freedom and autonomy that is genuinely afforded to the leadership team, and the way in which this enables the leadership team to manage the organisation with these same values. “We encourage our leaders to contribute to business growth, strategy, and knowledge growth, and we encourage them to participate in forums on these matters. We also encourage sharing, and respect amongst the team,” Reese says.
At its core, this management approach creates a culture that is open and positive, and welcoming of ideas and suggestions. “The leadership team and employees find their suggestions are valued and encouraged, and their ideas are considered and implemented. Our people realise their full potential – and they are engaged. They want to contribute – and we really want them to as well.”
Would True Democracy work in other organisations? Reese believes it could, provided the key factors underpinning its success are the same.
“Our success is due possibly to culture, but also to the closeness of the people involved and their similarities in leadership style – that is, their shared views and mutually held values and their shared drive and belief in the company. If another organisation had a really positive relationship between all in their leadership team and the same shared values, which enable the creation of a real and genuine culture, then this could work for them, too.”
It’s not you; it’s the officeThink of engagement and retention and it’s unlikely the first thing to spring to mind is the physical work environment. Yet this physical space can be a powerful strategic contributor to any business. Most often it’s underutilised; a missed opportunity for organisations to be more deliberate about what the physical environment is doing for them and why.
Steve Coster, head of knowledge and sustainability at architecture firm Hassell, says it’s commonplace to think of the workplace as a functional space intended merely for ‘work’. “The complexity of the role that it plays is not acknowledged or understood well enough. Also, it’s easy to see it as an overhead cost to be minimised, when in
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fact a different mindset might say it’s a strategic opportunity to create value,” he says.
Hassell has recently commissioned research into the role the workplace environment plays in staff retention. Although results won’t be known until later this year, Coster says the goal is to determine how people prioritise the factors which influence job choices.
The survey will ask candidates what they consider to be a good working environment, and why. Is it about your individual space, or is it about the whole of the office, or is it particular amenities like a shower or gym? What makes one better than the other? The data will compare different industries, age groups and cities.
When it comes to workplace design, one company’s Holy Grail may be another’s poisoned chalice – in short, the same design elements don’t appeal to all employers.
“What’s attractive to an advertising agency is obviously not as attractive to a corporate law firm,” Coster says. However, he adds that it may not be the buildings themselves so much as how these facilities are aligned with the identity or culture of the organisation. “If you have an organisation that says it’s trying to be highly creative or collaborative, and the workplace is at odds with that in the messages it conveys to people, that’s where you get a problem. Or the other way round, when your workspace
Our success is due possibly to culture, but also to the closeness
of the people involved and their similarities in leadership style – JANAIRE REESE
reinforces what you’re saying you want to be, that’s when you start to get a resonant effect. People say, ‘Yes, I can feel this place is walking the talk’.”
In short, it’s the relationship between space and culture that is linked to attraction and retention. The physical space is a powerful means of communicating cultural symbols in a more authentic way. “Your workplace is sending powerful
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messages about your culture, whether you are deliberate about it or not. Rather than sending inadvertent messages in an unconsidered way, why not be deliberate about what it says about you?” Coster says.
Still, Coster concedes that it is difficult to isolate the impact of the workplace because of the complex, diverse range of other factors that affect business performance. “Even if you’re just trying to link workplace to employee engagement, you might have improved the workplace out of sight but the manager might be terrible. Or there’s no investment in professional development. You just don’t know how it’s interplaying with those other factors.”
For now, Coster and others in his profession can point to individual clients and the positive impacts a revamped working environment has had.
Coster cites SA Water as a case study. A new building was conceived and built as part of a broader cultural change. “It wasn’t one of these cases where they say, ‘We’re doing the building; what should it be like?’ It was, ‘We’re trying to change our culture and our performance; we think one thing that might help is a new building. Let’s design a building that is specifically targeted to those ends’.”
Key to the final design was the consultation that took place. All staff were involved in a five-year planning period, from starting the talk about it, to design and the
details of how it would be built and furnished, to the relocation process. The design was innovative – it was very open and flexible to change. “It gave people better access and visibility to their colleagues, particularly the leaders. The exec team noticed they were making better decisions, faster, in this more communicative environment than they used to in the more traditional separated, hierarchical environment,” Coster says.
What made the project interesting, Coster says, was that the client was not property or finance, it was people and culture – they drove the property project to create a new workplace. This provided an opportunity to assess data on staff attitudes, such as pride, towards the organisation before and after the move to the new environment.
Quantitative data around absenteeism was obtained – SA Water measured a reduction in sick days by one full day per year per person. For an organisation of 900 people, that equated to 900 additional days per year of productivity. Staff turnover also decreased by several per cent.
Whether subtle or obvious, employees and candidates make snap decisions based on their ‘feel’ of an organisation. Ultimately, Loveday says, organisations that operate with their values and other symbols in a deliberate and organised manner and can effectively communicate them to staff have a distinct advantage over their competitors.
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drive performance and work hard to achieve our goals, and we also have fun. It’s also in our tagline ‘Love your work’, which we do. The Human Synergistics Cultural Transformation award is something that we value highly. We’re really proud to have evolved our culture considerably, to a place where teams are happier, more collaborative and more engaged.
HC: You’re investing heavily in shaking up the physical workspace, trying to make it a fun and creative atmosphere for workers. Can you outline what you’ve done? CD: The last two years have seen major change on this front, starting with our New Zealand and Sydney offices. Our head office in Melbourne is next on the list. By the end of May, all team members will have fantastic new office spaces to work from. We spent a lot of time and effort, and significant investment in fitting out these spaces to ensure they support our culture and overall business operations. They’re bright and contemporary, with design elements to promote innovation, collaboration and
performance. And they’re fantastic places to work in – just ask the team. The feedback has been phenomenal. Happier, more engaged team members has tremendous productivity benefits and enhances the quality of products and services we provide clients and partners.
HC: Do you think employers in general fail to recognise that work can, in fact, be an enjoyable place?CD: With all the business pressures that employers encounter, I think it’s very easy to forget that work can be an enjoyable place. Very often, the absolute focus is on the bottom line and those factors that have a clear, direct impact on it, such as revenue and costs. The research is clear, however. There are multiple benefits of creating and nurturing an engaged workforce, including a positive impact on the bottom line. At MYOB, we encourage our team to have fun. It’s talked about in our Team Charter; our leaders walk the talk, and we have events like our annual short film festival where the team can really let their hair down and be creative.
Human Capital talks to Catherine Davis, organisational development manager at MYOB – a company synonymous with accounting – about the role culture plays in retaining key staff
HC: How important is retention of staff at MYOB? Is there an ‘ideal’ turnover rate you aim for?CD: We take a pragmatic view when it comes to retention and staff turnover. Our goal is to continually maintain a high-performing team, so we focus on recruiting really well and offering plenty of development opportunities to allow team members to grow with us. We do understand that at some point a team member’s growth may well take them outside of MYOB, and that’s OK. We certainly keep an eye on turnover to make sure that it’s within parameters that we’re comfortable with, but retention rates are a lag indicator and we put much more focus into the lead indicators of engagement and culture.
HC: Are there key retention drivers you concentrate on?CD: We focus on both culture and engagement as key retention drivers, and we regularly measure both to understand our biggest levers to pull – then we pull them and see what happens. It’s an ongoing iterative process as the world and our business continue to evolve. We’ve seen a significant increase in team engagement levels over the past three years, achieved double-digit annual revenue growth, and almost the doubling of profit. More so, we were awarded the coveted Human Synergistics Cultural Transformation award last year for the constructive workplace culture we have successfully created.
HC: Can you outline the type of culture MYOB currently has?CD: ‘MYOB and You’ is our Team Charter, and the one line from that which I think best sums up our culture is, “We take our work seriously but not ourselves”. We
Case study: MYOB
With all the business pressures that employers encounter, I think it’s very easy to forget that work can be an enjoyable place
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process, most hiring managers are diligent in testing for skills and experience to match to the role; however, less attention is often given to culture fit. Poor fit to culture is usually recognised within the probation period. It is difficult for a person to hide their true nature, and if their values and drive are mismatched to the organisation, it is apparent very early in their tenure.
HC: How important is that cultural fit at executive level – is it just the same as at lower levels of the organisation?RW: Cultural fit is important for all positions within a business; however, poor cultural fit at executive level can do greater damage to an organisation. Management are required to set the tone and act as an example for more junior staff. The executive’s impact is more greatly felt due to visibility, responsibility of direct reports, involvement in decision-making and strategy.
The effect of a successful executive who fits well into company culture can lead a company to growth; however, a poor cultural fit can have far-reaching detrimental effects.
HC: How can hiring managers do it better? Are there steps they should take at recruitment stage to include cultural fit elements?RW: There are many ways to improve a recruitment process to minimise the chance of mis-hire and to ensure the company is attracting the best candidate in the market for the executive role. However, specific tips for measuring best cultural fit include:• Multiple senior-level decision-makers
should be involved in the hiring decision.• Ensure experienced and trained
interviewers are part of the hiring team.• Meet the candidate on five or more
occasions.• Use psychometric testing to supplement
the interview process.• Undertake 360-degree reference
checking – ie references from managers, subordinates and clients.
HC: Obviously, the recruiter needs an acute understanding of the employer they are hiring for. How important is it to be aware of the culture of an organisation in the first place?RW: An in-depth understanding of your client’s culture is valuable beyond price. Engage a supplier with a proven track record of successful long-term relationships with their customers and an interest in partnering with clients for growth. Invest in this relationship as your supplier will pipeline candidates suitable for your business culture. If the supply relationship is new, the recruitment brief should include an exploration of client company culture. Topics should include company mission; vision and values; EVP [employee value proposition]; organisational structure; benefits and rewards; internal communication; learning and development; on-boarding processes; customer satisfaction measures; long- and short-term company goals; and topics specific to your products or service.
Human Capital talks to Rebecca Wallace, managing director of Launch Recruitment, about the importance of culture fit in all recruiting projects, but especially executive recruitment
HC: Finding the right candidate the first time round has far-reaching consequences in terms of retention of that individual down the track. What role does cultural fit play?RW: As a personality is unique to an individual, company culture is unique to a business and is built on a broad range of experience, such as the product or service you provide; how you deliver the product or service; the company mission; core values and ethics; your relationship with the customer; learning and development; company events and celebrations; internal communication; and the recruitment process. All of these aspects and more come together to form company culture. No matter how skilled the candidate, an employment relationship will be unsuccessful if culture fit is misaligned.
Throughout the recruitment process a candidate should be assessed for culture fit. This can be achieved in asking situational questions that demonstrate behaviour. It is also important that more than one person in your organisation is involved in the recruitment process. The cost of staff turnover is high, so investment in a thorough recruitment process is vital in minimising the chance of mis-hire.
HC: Do you find that a key reason for staff turnover is that lack of cultural alignment? At what stage does that realisation typically occur?RW: The overwhelming majority of reasons for mis-hire relate to poor cultural alignment. Throughout the recruitment
The effect of a successful executive who fits well into company culture can lead a company to growth; however, a poor cultural fit can have far-reaching detrimental effects
Peas in a pod
Special Report – Culture
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LUNA PARK SYDNEY
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WEDNESDAY 10 APRIL 2013Day One
The National HR Summit 2013 will provide solutions and strategies that impact the bottom line performance in a sustainable manner by adding a strategic and authentic focus on people.
8:00am Registration opens
9:00am WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIRTalent in a tight economy: Where is HR headed in 2013?
Tim Legge, CEO, Learning Seat
9:15am TRUE NORTH: ALIGNING LEADERSHIP STRATEGY WITH BUSINESS STRATEGYDeloitte has built a solid and highly-respected business culture around the core value of leadership and a focused strategy on the recruitment and retention of great people.
Learn more about Deloitte’s HR leadership initiatives to help employees reach their full potential, invest in a recognition framework, and align their HR practices toward the core business strategy.
This case study spotlights a holistic approach to alignment and leadership. Learn how to:
• Develop leadership capability• Proactively manage the talent pipeline • Fast-track high performers• Promote and support diversity • Strengthen benefit platforms • Deliver operational excellence
Alec Bashinsky, national partner, people & performance, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
10:00am VALUE ADD: HOW TO PROVE HR INITIATIVES ARE PAYING DIVIDENDS The challenge for many HR professionals is being able to demonstrate value as a strategic partner to the business. In this session, learn to build the capability of your team to deliver the strategic insights the business requires more effectively, and help drive organisational effectiveness in a competitive environment. This session demonstrates the strong case for HR initiatives for bottom line ROI for the CEO and Board.
Amanda Revis, group executive, human resources, Suncorp Group
10:45am Refreshments & networking break
11:30am CASE STUDY: BUILDING A DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE CULTURE: THE IAG JOURNEY • Making the business case• Integration with the broader People & Culture Strategy • Moving from demographic diversity to diversity of thinking• Integrate your EVP throughout the talent management process• Tackling unconscious bias
Steve Rowe, group general manager, people & culture, IAG
12:15pm NAVIGATING THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT MINEFIELD Regardless of economic circumstances, employers and managers continue to struggle both with the introduction of a high performance culture and addressing employee underperformance in a best practice way. In this session, Joydeep will share his legal and strategic insights on this subject with concrete actions for you to implement in your organisation.
• The importance of performance management in the current economic climate
• Introducing effective performance management strategies• Avoiding bullying and stress claims when performance managing• Strategies for obtaining manager buy-in
Joydeep Hor, managing principal, People+Culture Strategies
1:00pm Networking lunch in the Expo Hall
Attendees are encouraged to visit exhibitor booths and get their Expo Passports stamped. Passports completed by 1pm on Day 2 are eligible to be included in our grand prize. The prize will be awarded at 1:30pm on Day 2. The winner must be present to collect their prize.
2:00pm TALENT MANAGEMENT (R)EVOLUTION 2013It is critical to not only know how to find the right talent, but how to keep top talent in this new economy. Innovative companies need to think outside of the square and develop new attraction and recruitment strategies to appeal to top talent.
Refocus your talent management strategies by learning to:• Leverage social media to recruit and retain top talent• Increase engagement levels in your organization• Use innovative assessment tools to help you make the best hiring
decisions• Use ROI metrics to build a business case for your strategies
Joris Luijke, HR director, Atlassian
2:45pm PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION STRATEGIES • Maintaining high levels of engagement year after year• Understanding the strategies used for talent retention, engagement and
capability development• Reaching targets for talent retention during tough times • How to keep your high fliers from straying
3:30pm Refreshments & networking break
4:00pm STRATEGICALLY MANAGING WORKPLACE CULTUREEmployees operate according to a series of UGRs - unwritten ground rules - a sort of folklore about how the business operates and how things get done. All too often these are negative and work at cross-purposes to what management is trying to achieve. Furthermore, business leaders and senior managers are oftentimes unaware UGR’s even exist, and consequently have a rose-tinted view of the company's culture. The UGR’s will be formed by staff observing managers' words and actions, and whether they live up to the precepts they have laid down. This session will show you how to identify the ground rules at work in your organisation and change negative perceptions into positives that the whole team can endorse and follow.
Steve Simpson, director, Keystone Management Services
5:00pm Networking reception all attendees
Attendees are encouraged to visit exhibitor booths and get their Expo Passports stamped.
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LEGAL UPDATE
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• Developing and implementing innovative talent acquisition strategies• Recruitment strategy development• Achieving recruitment objectives• Implementing systems and processes• Graduate recruitment campaigns: finding a pipeline of leaders • Retaining the highest quality talent in the market
Sonya Hughes, HR director, talent & strategy, Campbell Arnott's
1:00pm Networking lunch in the Expo Hall
Attendees are encouraged to visit exhibitor booths and get their Expo Passports stamped. Passports completed by 1pm on Day 2 are eligible to be included in our grand prize. The prize will be awarded at 1:30pm on Day 2. The winner must be present to collect their prize.
1:30pm GRAND PRIZE ANNOUNCED IN EXPO HALL
2:00pm EFFECTIVE HIRING SKILLS - CANDIDATE BACKGROUND VERIFICATION CHECKS & PSYCHOMETRIC ASSESSMENTNegligent hiring continues to make news headlines, increasingly putting organisations at risk. Learn why in-depth candidate background checking has become mission critical for employers.
• Understand the real impact of poor recruitment on business performance• Learn how to spot fraudulent employment, licence and education
credentials• Explore the breadth of background checks you can put in place today• Interpret online career profiles and understand their place in candidate
assessment • Understand the steps you can take immediately to avoid a bad hire• Implement a legally compliant program to hire the best employees
Greg Newton, general manager, Verify
2:45pm INCLUSION DEFINED: SUPPORTING EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE A DISABILITY OR HAVE A CHILD OR DEPENDENT WITH SPECIAL NEEDS Businesses today clearly understand the demands placed on their employees when they are caring for an elderly parent or in the throes of long-term care issues. What about when the demands are due to caring for a child or other dependent with special needs?
This session will provide valuable insights to understanding the needs of this large employee population. You will learn how to successfully apply those insights into every element of your diversity, employee benefits, and work life initiatives and by doing so substantially benefiting in terms of the retention and loyalty of these employees.
Andrew McGregor, senior director, Springboard Consulting with Karen McFadzen, vice president, Cisco Systems
3:30pm Conference concludes & close of Expo Hall
8:00am Registration opens
9:00am OPENING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIR
Tim Legge, CEO, Learning Seat
9:15 am IMPACT LEADERSHIP: THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY IN TRANSLATING HR STRATEGY TO EXECUTIONAn essential success factor in implementing HR strategies is to have a high degree of leadership capability that can turn abstract concepts into real and actionable outcomes. The effectiveness of leaders, their alignment with business strategy and their ability to grow and develop internal talent are critical in today’s competitive telecom industry. In this valuable session, learn the Microsoft strategic approach to leadership development. Focus on:
• Engaging leaders to reinforce corporate values and culture• Aligning business objectives with talent management
Rose Clements, HR director, Microsoft
10:00am DRIVING HIGH PERFORMANCE AND ENGAGEMENT THROUGH CHANGING TIMES As Australia’s first bank, Westpac Group has continued to prosper throughout periods of significant change. A key driver of Westpac’s success is its unwavering focus on building a high performing, engaged workforce. In this session, learn about best practice techniques used at Westpac to bring out the best in their people and achieve continuous improvement in employee engagement. .
This session reveals best practices including: • What does a high performance culture look like? • What is the role of leaders in creating a high performance culture?• Key drivers of employee engagement • Case studies of employee engagement best practice within Westpac • Leading through changing times • Measuring success
Shenaz Khan, general manager HR, group services, Westpac
10:45am Refreshments & networking break
11:30am EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES TO SUCCEED THROUGH ONLINE LEARNING In the first decade of this new millennium the world market for e-learning grew over 2600% and if anything, growth today is accelerating. Moreover, e-learning is developing and changing as fast as it is growing. As we enter the new decade we see many new technologies emerging; we see changes in the way e-learning is delivered; we see changes in how, when and where people learn. This session will examine the key factors behind the rise of e-learning and provide a futuristic perspective on new technologies that will shape e-learning over the coming decade. Explore:
• Mobile learning – What does it mean and how will we use it?• Social learning – What is it and how might it form part of a learning
strategy?• The emergence of serious gaming
Tim Legge, CEO, Learning Seat
12:15pm BEST IN CLASS: TALENT ACQUISITION & ONBOARDING STRATEGIES• Understanding how talented is our talent: Promoting from within and
acquiring new talent skills
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BYTHURSDAY 11 APRIL 2013Day Two
MAIN CONFERENCE AGENDA
WEDNESDAY 10 APRIL 2013Day One
DIRECTORS FORUM AGENDADirectors Forum delegates are invited to attend the opening keynote sessions in the Ted Hopkins Room with the Main Conference delegates and will then be escorted by HR Summit staff to the Sonar Room.
8:00am Registration & Expo Hall opens
9:00am WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIRTim Legge, CEO, Learning Seat
9:15am TRUE NORTH: ALIGNING LEADERSHIP STRATEGY WITH BUSINESS STRATEGYDeloitte has built a solid and highly-respected business culture around the core value of leadership and a focused strategy on the recruitment and retention of great people.
Alec Bashinsky, national partner, people & performance, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
10:00am VALUE ADD: HOW TO PROVE HR INITIATIVES ARE PAYING DIVIDENDS The challenge for many HR professionals is being able to demonstrate value as a strategic partner to the business. In this session, learn to build the capability of your team to deliver the strategic insights the business requires more effectively, and help drive organisational effectiveness in a competitive environment. This session demonstrates the strong case for HR initiatives for bottom line ROI for the CEO and Board.
Amanda Revis, group executive, human resources, Suncorp Group
10:45am Refreshments & networking break Directors Forum delegates will be escorted by HR Summit staff from the Expo Hall to the Sonar Room.
11:00am KEYNOTE ADDRESS, 2013 INSIGHTS, THE MDs PERSPECTIVE The focus for HR Directors in 2013 will be coupling their HR Skills with a much deeper understanding of the business. This session will provide direct insights from the MD on future trends in business strategy for 2013: • Understanding business trends for 2013• How HR can add value to the business • Building trust between the MD and HR Director • Measuring and reporting performance
Kim Garner, managing director, FedEx
11:30am STRATEGICALLY BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMANCE CULTURE AT IBMIBM is helping to change the way the world works. The company understands that in order for to help make the world a smarter place, they need a constant flow of new and diverse ideas. It’s an integral part of IBM’s make-up, and from the very top down, considered essential to future success. This case study presentation will provide insight into how HR at IBM is taking an holistic approach to shaping culture through the alignment of all people management touch-points with the wider IBM brand strategy. • The drivers for alignment of culture and employee experience with our
customer value proposition• Establishing solid gender diversity programs• Understanding how corporate culture drives performance • Creating a working environment that breeds success
Megan Dalla Camina, director of strategy, organisational culture & change, and gender diversity, IBM
12:15pm MANAGING INSURANCE COST AND ENHANCING EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY Employers are faced with a myriad of workforce challenges in today’s environment. Workplace safety regulations are constantly changing and becoming more complex, workers’ compensation premiums continue to rise, there is increasing business pressure on employee performance and productivity, and competition for talented individuals has never been stronger. Marsh will discuss the relationship between occupational health and safety, workers’ compensation, employee benefits and wellbeing programs as a means of growing value in your workforce whilst reducing your insurance spend.
Travis Kemp, general manager – employee benefits, Marsh
1:00pm Private luncheon reception for Directors Forum delegates – The Deck Restaurant, Luna Park Sydney
2:00pm THE ROI OF EFFECTIVELY LINKING LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT & CULTURAL INTEGRATION PROGRAMS: HILTON WORLDWIDEStrong customer relationships are what fuel direct business strategy and market share. As service industries continue to develop, they face a tougher job standing out from the crowd. Customer satisfaction expectations are heightened. With the rise of the internet and social media, both positive and negative customer feedback are accelerated through many channels. Hilton embarked on an ambitious learning & development plan aimed at imbedding costumer service into its culture by using internal technology as the catalyst to share and recognise exceptional guest service. In this case study, hear how this L&D program unleashed the power of Hilton’s people.
Richard Todd, regional director, human resources, Hilton Australasia
2:45pm CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN ACTION: HR’S IMPACT ON ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND CHANGE In this session, hear how this bold organisational restructuring was implemented and the Luxottica culture, values and brand reinforced. Learn how Luxottica decided to communicate and manage change during the integration process and the role of people issues had on decision making. Explore: • Achieving buy-in and commitment• Developing the brand further• Maintaining core standards of leadership and collaboration• Creating a values definition for the new organisation• Maximising team member engagement • Optimising communications to manage and lead the change • Status report on the restructure: How far have we come?
Sharyn Schultz, vice president human resources, Luxottica
3:30pm Refreshments & networking break
4:15pm THE SECRETS OF GREAT INTERNAL BRANDS: HOW EMPLOYEES CAN CONVEY BRAND PROMISE Does your company’s internal brand work in synergy with its external brand? Do your employees convey brand promise to your customers and stakeholders they interface with? Understand how employees think, feel and behave reflect a company’s culture, reputation and success.
Barbara Palframan Smith, managing director, BPS Communications
5:00pm Networking drinks function for all attendees in the Expo Hall
CASE STUDYCASE STUDYCASE STUDY
CASE STUDY
WORKSHOP
EXPERT COM
MENTARY
EXPERT COM
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INDUSTRY UPDATE
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DIRECTORS FORUM AGENDA
DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE NEEDS OF HR DIRECTORS AND SENIOR DECISION MAKERS
THURSDAY 11 APRIL 2013Day Two
HUMAN CAPITAL RISK EXPOSURE The impact that people related risks can have on a company’s bottom line, market value, and future growth is becoming a critical issue for HR Directors. Given the strategic importance of people related risks many organisations are looking to HR to help businesses take a proactive and preventative approach to managing risk.
• Identify people risks before they become problems • Mitigate risk and measure HR response effectiveness • Embed formal risk management and benchmarking into processes and
strategies • Understand the link between incentive compensation and risk • Make the most of existing data in exit interviews and employee surveys to
address problems before they spiral out of control
Juliet Bourke, partner, human capital, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
1:00pm Networking lunch in the Expo Hall
1:30pm Grand Prize in the Expo Hall
2:00pm SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES: IMPROVING SUCCESSION PLANNING CAPABILITIESWhen your CEO asks “who’s next” will your answer be surefooted? Succession management is about continually developing and moving talent over time. It’s a delicate balance of meeting both the business needs and the design of high performers to develop and take on different and higher value assignments.
• The science of succession planning – insights from 45 years of executive assessment
• How to create the right senior leadership success profile for your organisation
• An evidenced based process for identifying leadership passion, potential and readiness
• How to accelerate the development of senior leaders
Bruce Watt, managing director, DDI Australia
2:45pm WHY CHANGE IS HARD! UNDERSTANDING THE NEUROSCIENCE OF CHANGEChange is hard but it is also inherent in everyday life. How we cope or respond to change has a lot to do with our brain. The way the brain responds during change has a huge impact on us as individuals, leaders and within our teams.
Having an understanding of how the brain forces us to reach emotionally during change will assist organisations to manage responses more effectively. Being able to plan strategies to ensure that the threat response is not activated gives leaders the chance to motivate people appropriately to meet the challenges of change.
Sonia McDonald, owner and principal consultant, LeadershipHQ
3:30pm Conference concludes & close of Expo Hall
Directors Forum delegates are again invited to attend the opening keynote sessions in the Ted Hopkins Room with the Main Conference delegates and will then be escorted by HR Summit staff to the Sonar Room.
8:00am Registration & Expo Hall opens
9:00am OPENING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIR
Tim Legge, CEO, Learning Seat
9:15am LEADERSHIP: THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY IN TRANSLATING HR STRATEGY TO EXECUTIONAn essential success factor in implementing HR strategies is to have a high degree of leadership capability that can turn abstract concepts into real and actionable outcomes. The effectiveness of leaders, their alignment with business strategy and their ability to grow and develop internal talent are critical in today’s competitive telecom industry. In this valuable session, learn the Microsoft strategic approach to leadership development. Focus on:
• Engaging leaders to reinforce corporate values and culture• Aligning business objectives with talent management
Rose Clements, HR director, Microsoft
10:00am DRIVING HIGH PERFORMANCE AND ENGAGEMENT THROUGH CHANGING TIMESAs Australia’s first bank, Westpac Group has continued to prosper throughout periods of significant change. A key driver of Westpac’s success is its unwavering focus on building a high performing, engaged workforce. In this session, learn about best practice techniques used at Westpac to bring out the best in their people and achieve continuous improvement in employee engagement.
This session reveals best practices including:
• What does a high performance culture look like? • What is the role of leaders in creating a high performance culture?• Key drivers of employee engagement • Case studies of employee engagement best practice within Westpac • Leading through changing times • Measuring success
Shenaz Khan, general manager HR, group services, Westpac
10:45am Refreshments & networking break Directors Forum delegates will be escorted by HR Summit staff from the Expo Hall to the Sonar Room.
11:15am Opening remarks from the Directors Forum Chair
11:30am HOW TO KEEP THE SPARK ALIVE THROUGH ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION STRATEGIES • Maintaining high levels of engagement year after year• Understanding the strategies used for talent retention, engagement and
capability development• Reaching targets for talent retention during tough times • How to keep your high fliers from straying
Tracy Mellor, managing director, Asperity Employee Benefits
12:15pm RISKY BUSINESS: HOW HR CAN TAKE THE LEAD AND MANAGE
CASE STUDYEXPERT COM
MENTARY
WORKSHOP
HAVE A QUESTION FOR AN HR SUMMIT SPEAKER?Email your questions in advance to [email protected] and we will make sure your question is addressed at the conference.
INDUSTRY UPDATE
INDUSTRY UPDATE
EXPO PASSPORT
2013
ALEC BASHINSKY,national partner, people & performance, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Alec is a partner of people & performance for Deloitte Australia. He leads a team of 70 people and is responsible for the people strategy for more than 2,800 employees in 13 offices across Australia. Alec’s mandate is to drive inspirational performance throughout the business. He has established leadership development, talent assessment, employee engagement and learning teams and strategies across the business to achieve these goals. Immediately prior to joining Deloitte, Alec implemented a variety of change management programs and successfully managed the people aspect of a merger for the second largest software solutions provider in the world.
MARSHA BASSILY,principal solicitor & registered migration agent, MB LawyersMarsha Bassily is the Managing
Partner of MB Lawyers, an Immigration Law Firm. Marsha is Solicitor and Registered Migration Agent with the MARA. Marsha is a professional member of the Law Council of Australia, the Immigration Lawyers’ Association of Australasia (ILAA), Migration Institute of Australia, NSW Law Society, and Migration Agents Registration Authority. Marsha frequently provides CPD training to other migration agents and lawyers in the area of corporate visas – Subclass 457 and ENS visas. Marsha specialises and is passionate about assisting HR, corporations and businesses as to advising and arranging work visas, visa choices, visa planning and monitoring/compliance.
JULIET BOURKE,partner, human capital, Deloitte Touche TohmatsuJuliet leads the national diversity
and inclusion practice as a Human Capital partner at Deloitte, helping organisations to develop and implement organisational change strategies which enable diversity, inclusion and flexibility. She regularly works with global executive teams to deliver Deloitte’s inclusive leadership program. For the twelve years prior to February 2011 Juliet was one of two founding partners of Aequus Partners, a boutique diversity consulting firm combining her experience in employment law and human capital. Prior to this Juliet held a number of government legal/policy roles for the Federal and NSW Governments.
CARL BUIK,workplace health management consultant, BupaCarl Buik has a key role in
supporting Australian workplaces to find a healthier workforce. Carl works with a large cross-section of Australian organisations to establish market-leading employee health, wellness and benefits strategies to proactively improve workforce health,
and organisational effectiveness. Carl has significant experience in the design of innovative health and wellness solutions for workplaces around the world, especially workplaces in Australia and North America. In Carl’s new role as a Workplace Health Management Consultant with Bupa Australia, he works with some of Australia’s largest employers and their Human Resource and Safety departments to design, implement and evaluate proactive workplace health and wellness solutions.
ROSE CLEMENTS,HR director Australia New Zealand, Microsoft Rose partners with the Microsoft
business to develop and deploy HR strategies and culture development programmes within Microsoft and leads the Australian HR team across areas such as recruitment, talent management, performance optimisation, organisational development and compensation and benefits. In the past six years, Rose has lead Microsoft Australia to receive numerous awards including Hewitt’s “Best of the Best” Employer in 2009 & 2011; Diversity@Work national awards for Work/Life Balance and Women in Leadership a and to be named an EOWA Employer of Choice in successive years. Rose was recently named “2012 Australian HR Director of the Year” at the Human Capital awards.
MEGAN DALLA CAMINA,director of strategy, organisational culture &
change & gender diversity, IBMMegan is the Director of Strategy for IBM in Australia and New Zealand, where she is also responsible for Organisational Culture and Change, and Gender Diversity. For more than 16 years she has driven strategies for multi-billion dollar corporations in Australia, Asia and the US, in the areas of business strategy, marketing, communications, gender diversity, leadership development, organisational culture and change management. With Masters Degrees in both Business Management, and in Wellness (Positive Psychology), Megan currently works at the intersection of business strategy and organisational culture to drive positive change and revenue growth for IBM.
SILVIA DAMIANO,MGSM associate and director, About My Brain Institute Silvia Damiano is a speaker,
master facilitator, leadership consultant, coach and author of the bestselling book ‘Engage Me.’ She is the Founder and Director of the About my Brain Institute and the Brain Art Project. Silvia’s clients have described her as a passionate, dynamic and highly experienced facilitator on the topics of Emotional Intelligence, Neuroleadership and Engagement. In 2013 in partnership with Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM), Silvia launched a series of executive education programs
focusing on neuroscience in the areas of leadership, female leadership and marketing/communications.
KIM GARNER,managing director, FedExKim Garner is responsible for FedEx operations in Australia,
New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. Kim has worked in the transport industry since 1974 and has held management roles in a variety of fleet management, information technology, logistics and operations roles with major transport companies. Kim joined FedEx in 1999 as Senior Manager, Operations. From 2007 until 2010 he was responsible for business improvement initiatives in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
MARK HESSE,health and wellness operations manager, BupaMark Hesse is the Health &
Wellness Operations Manager for Bupa Australia and is assisting the company transformation to a healthcare partner by delivering the award winning ‘Employee Wellbeing Program’ internally to bring to life Bupa’s “find a healthier you” brand promise for our employees. Mark has held national and internationally roles in Project Management, Quality, Strategy and Wellbeing across Insurance, Aviation, Finance and Gas industries. Mark is passionate about new innovations and strategies to effectively engage and enable employees to be healthier.
JOYDEEP HOR,managing principal, People+Culture StrategiesJoydeep Hor is a fellow of AHRI
and holds a Master of Laws from University of Sydney. He has over 14 years’ continuous experience in advising employers on all aspects of law and strategy in workplace relations. Joydeep appears on Sky Business Channel reguarly, conducts a monthly education program for lawyers on the internet (cle.tv) and is a regular presenter at HR and industry briefings. He has authored numerous books, including: Inside Employee Screening, Managing Termination of Employment, Work Choices FAQs, Fair Work Act FAQs and Finders Keepers: How to Attract and Retain Great Employees.
SONYA HUGHES,HR director, talent & strategy, Campbell Arnott’sSonya is the Director of Talent
Management & Strategy for Arnott’s Biscuits Ltd and Campbell Soup Company for the Asia Pacific region. She is responsible for building organisation effectiveness through Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Performance and Engagement, Succession Planning and Talent Planning. Sonya has a strong background spanning 18 years working with large, multi-national organisations in FMCG and media industries. She has a broad range of generalist and specialist
skills supporting organisations to enhance performance through change leadership and talent strategies that support the commercial agenda.
TRAVIS KEMP,general manager - employee benefits, MarshTravis Kemp is general manager
of employee benefits at Marsh, the world’s leading insurance broker and strategic risk advisor. Marsh in Australia comprises over 1,000 employees, providing risk management, insurance broking and risk consulting services to a range of businesses, government entities, individuals and professional associations. In 2011, Marsh in Australia was named Large Broker of the Year for the fourth year running by the Australia New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance. Globally, Marsh is the world’s largest insurance broker and risk advisor, with over 24,000 employees, and provides advice and transactional capabilities to clients in more than 100 countries.
SHENAZ KHAN,general manager, HR, WestpacShenaz Khan has 18 years business experience across
the wealth and life insurance businesses, and over 10 years’ experience leading HR teams. Shenaz joined Westpac Group five years ago as the Head of Corporate Core HR. In February 2008, Shenaz was appointed General Manager HR for BT Financial Group, the wealth management arm of Westpac Group. In August 2010, Shenaz commenced in the role of General Manager HR for Westpac Retail & Business Banking, which is the largest Division of Westpac Group. As the General Manager HR, Shenaz is responsible for driving the HR Strategy, including culture, employee engagement, talent management, training and development, remuneration and performance management across all the divisions she supports.
TIM LEGGE,CEO, Learning Seat Tim Legge joined Learning Seat in 2008 as director of strategic
partnership and alliances, in this role Mr Legge was successful in securing many high-profile clients. In 2010, Mr Legge was elevated to general manager of the company responsible for the day-to-day management of Learning Seat and is instrumental in driving best practice industry standards in the space of compliance, professional development and accredited training. After leading Learning Seat to record growth, Tim was promoted to chief executive of the company in 2011.
JORIS LUIJKE,vice president of talent & HR, AtlassianJoris Luijke is the VP of
talent & HR at Altassian, an Australian software company specialising in software development and collaboration tools. This
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year Atlassian was awarded top rankings in the Great Places to Work surveys in both Australia and the US. They also won the global HCI Award for HR innovation. Atlassian’s recruitment methods have been praised through HR Leaders Award for Innovation in Recruitment and Retention and the Fairfax FEMA Recruitment Award for Best On-Site HR. The company also received Highly Commended Awards for Australian Employer of the Decade and Australia’s Employer of Choice in 2010. In 2009, they were awarded a Hewitt Best Employer Highly Commended Award.
SONIA MCDONALD,director, Leadership HQSonia has over 20 years’ human resource management
and organisational development experience. She has held senior roles in organisational development, learning and development, strategic recruitment and talent management fields. She is actively involved in the Human Resources industry where she was the vice president for professional development at QLD AHRI State Council and Gold Coast HR Forum group and she is currently studying the neuroscience of leadership. She is a regular speaker at HR and OD events and forums.
KAREN MCFADZEN,vice president, Cisco SystemsKaren joined Cisco in 2000 and has held a number of
executive positions, her current role being, Vice President of Cisco Technical Services for the Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China region. Since 2006 she has been an active Board Member of Cisco Foundation which supports Cisco’s efforts to team with NPO/NGO organisations around the world to develop public investment programs in education and health. One of her key contributions has been engendering a greater global perspective at the Board level. Her strength is leading transformational change in complex organisations and building sustainable talent for the future.
ANDREW MCGREGOR,senior director, Springboard ConsultingFormerly a senior director in
PepsiCo, Andrew McGregor is a seasoned “internationalist” having lived in six cities, across four countries. Well versed in navigating multi-cultural and matrixed environments, Andrew is able to leverage executive experience in talent & leadership development, diversity & inclusion, organisation capability and specifically in global disability issues, to develop strategies and interventions that improve business performance and engagement while mitigating risk.
TRACEY MELLOR,managing director, Asperity Employee BenefitsTracy spent 20 years in the
pharmaceutical industry before moving into training and development and then HR at a director level when she became Executive General Manager People and Development at Rebel Group. Tracy’s pragmatic, hands on approach and experience working as a consultant, coaching and delivering training at all levels, led her to Asperity, where improving the bottom line by working with managers is her focus.
GREG NEWTON,managing director, VerifyFollowing an early career in corporate human resources and
marketing, Greg established his own leading national human resource consulting firm in the early 1990’s and founded Verify in 2005. Following the outstanding growth of Verify and the reputation that it quickly developed as industry leader in technology, innovation and customer service, it was acquired by Veda, Asia Pacific’s leading data intelligence and insights company, in 2011. Today Greg heads up the Verify business and is regularly called upon to provide expert advice and assistance on the critical subject of identity to companies recruiting human resources from across the globe.
BARBARA PALFRAMAN SMITH,managing director, BPS Communications
Barbara Palframan Smith has had extensive corporate and consulting experience in financial, investor relations and organisational change communication. She has worked as a senior communicator across a wide range of business, industry and educational sectors in Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa, Bahrain, with spells in the UK and the US. In addition to her consulting work in 2011, Barbara held the role of Convenor and Lecturer in Public Relations Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney and in 2012 was guest lecturer to international post-graduate communications students.
AMANDA REVIS,group executive, human resources, Suncorp GroupAmanda Revis joined Suncorp
in August 2010 as the Group Executive, Human Resources. Before joining Suncorp, Amanda worked with Lloyds Banking Group leading the people aspects of the sale of BankWest to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the separation of the retained businesses from BankWest and the integration of Lloyds International into the Lloyds Banking Group. From 2006, Amanda held the role of Chief Executive Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at HBOS Australia. Prior to this she spent eight years at Westpac in Human Resources General Manager roles at the Institutional Bank and Westpac Trust (NZ) and Westpac Business and Consumer Bank.
STEVE ROWE,group general manager, people & culture, IAG Steve joined IAG in October
2011, and brings with him more than 25-years’ experience in people and culture strategies within pharmaceutical, financial services and high tech industries. Prior to his appointment, Steve was Senior Director, Human Resources – Asia Pacific at Pfizer serving 30,000 employees, a position he held since 2009. He initially joined Pfizer in 2006 as HR director for Australia/New Zealand. During his time at Pfizer, Steve led a team of more than 400 human resources colleagues covering 20-countries. Steve is a regular presenter and panellist on HR strategy at a wide variety of conferences in the Asia Pacific region.
SHARYN SCHULTZ,vice president human resources, Luxottica Sharyn Schultz is a leading HR
executive with a passion for organisational behaviour, culture and change management. Sharyn joined Luxottica as VP Human Resources and Communications in September 2010, where she heads up the team of around 40 people. Prior to joining Luxottica, Sharyn was at ING DIRECT for 5 years and had HR responsibility for the company’s 850 employees. Having spent more than 16 years in the HR profession, her extensive experience spans the strategic and operational elements of HR, as well as organisational development and learning and development.
STEVE SIMPSON,director, Keystone Management Services Steve Simpson is an
international speaker, consultant and author. Described by e-Customer Service World as ‘Australia’s leading corporate culture authority’, Steve has created the concept of UGRs (Unwritten Ground Rules) which is receiving global acclaim as a tool to understand and improve organisational culture. Steve has recently spoken at UK Consumer Management Conference, the Regional Conference for the Academy of Chief Executives and the International Leadership Symposium. He is the author of two books and a contributing author to a further two books.
RICHARD TODD,regional director, human resources, Hilton AustralasiaRichard Todd joined Hilton
as the key business partner in the delivery of local and corporate HR services in the Australasian region. In his role at Hilton he manages the HR strategy for the region including the growth of the human capital capability and a high performance culture that emphasises empowerment, quality, productivity and standards, goal attainment, and the recruitment and
ongoing development of a values based workforce. Richard joined Hilton Worldwide from Toga Hospitality Group where he serves as director for human resources for Australia and New Zealand.
BRUCE WATT,managing director, DDIBruce Watt is the managing director of DDI Australia.
Bruce is responsible for the creation and implementation of the region’s business strategy. He also consults closely with DDI clients, identifying needs and proposing solutions specifically in the areas of talent and succession management, leadership development and selection. An expert on a broad range of leadership and talent management practices as they relate to the Australian marketplace, Bruce has provided business relevant solutions to a diverse range of both private and Government sector organisations in areas such as job analysis, cultural assessment, organisational change, performance management, workplace learning and development and online assessment and selection systems.
JEREMY WILLIAMS,director, Asia Pacific Management CentreJeremy is a pioneer and
specialist in the field of online education, having publishing widely in this area, and acted as a keynote speaker at numerous international seminars and conferences. Jeremy's main research focus is authentic learning environments and the ways in which learning experiences might be better contextualised to promote greater student engagement and deeper learning. This has been of particular interest to educational institutions in both the tertiary and secondary sectors, and to businesses looking to optimise their expenditure on corporate education and training.
JAMES WRIGHT,corporate engagement specialist, RedBalloonJames is totally committed
to raising employee engagement and he has been supporting organisations with Reward, Recognition, Incentive and Events programs at RedBalloon for over five years; current clients including Westpac Banking Corporation, Telstra, Coca-Cola Amatil, TAL and St Vincents and Mater Health Sydney. With a background in training, development and marketing James believes that the relationships an organisation creates with its’ employees is the most important factor in driving its performance. James leads RedBalloon’s research into engagement capability with partners AltusQ; these insights drive the design and delivery of successful client programs across Australia and New Zealand.
SPEAKERS PROUDLY SUPPORTED
BY
INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS
Free Activities
Day OneWEDNESDAY APRIL 10, 201310:00am–10:45am EASY AS ABC - HOW TO DESIGN A REWARD & RECOGNITION PROGRAM IN 45 MINUTES• RedBalloon will need a volunteer from the floor - there will be a prize for
participating worth up to $4995• In 45 minutes RedBalloon will demonstrate how to use the principles of best
practice and insights from highly engaged businesses to design a reward and recognition program that delights the CEO, CFO and every employee
• Walk away with the tools to create an awesome program in your organisation
James Wright, corporate engagement specialist, RedBalloon
11:30am–12:15pm WORKPLACE WELLNESS: FIND A HEALTHIER WORKFORCEBupa is one of Australia’s largest and most innovative healthcare providers, and we’re committed to helping you find a healthier you. Did you know that we’re also committed to helping you find a healthier workforce?This workshop is dedicated to wellness, and will explore the benefits of engaging your employees in workplace wellness initiatives. How do we know? Not only do we design, develop and deliver totally integrated solutions for our corporate clients, we have implemented a best-in-class wellbeing program for our own people. Join us at this interactive session to get the insights to take back to your organisation.
Carl Buik, workplace health management consultant & Mark Hesse, health and wellness operations manager, Bupa
2:45pm–3:30pm BEYOND SELF-AWARENESS: A BRAIN APPROACH TO KNOWING SELF
This workshop is about getting to know our brains and reactions and how that knowledge can help redirect our efforts to achieve better performance and relationships. In this session, Silvia Damiano will share her own recent brain scan and discuss some of the latest neuroscience research from international universities. This research has improved our understanding about the different functions of the brain and how these functions impact our business and everyday life. This understanding is invaluable for everyone but has critical importance in highlighting that for those in leadership roles the performance of their brain is crucial to their success.
Silvia Damiano, MGSM associate and director, About My Brain Institute
THURSDAY APRIL 11, 201310:00am–10:45am WORK VISAS – RISK, COMPLIANCE AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT This workshop will take you through your Business Sponsorship Obligations which a business signs up to on approval of a Business Sponsorship Application with the Department of Immigration. It will cover the obligations that a business has and those obligations that continue post sponsorship of a 457 visa. Marsha will recommend best practices to maintain compliance and how to reduce your risk of non-compliance. She will also draw your attention to “what comes next” after sponsoring a 457 visa holder and how to handle that situation when you are approached to support an ENS – permanent residence application. Is it a sponsorship? How does it affect your business from a risk perspective? Can it help with employee engagement? • Risk Management and Compliance
What happens after you Sponsor that 457 visa holder?• Employee Engagement
Why you should offer to support a permanent residence application
Marsha Bassily, principal solicitor & registered migration agent, MB Lawyers
11:30am-12:15pm
THE DIGITALLY CONNECTED WORKER: DEVELOPING AND SUPPORTING SOCIAL LEARNING IN THE WORKPLACESocial media is having a dramatic effect on the way people learn, and yet this is not taken seriously because it is routinely treated as 'informal' learning and, therefore, somehow not as important as formal, scheduled training sessions. People go to company professional development events because they have to. They access their personal learning networks because they want to ... here, learning is flexible, participatory, and contextualised in an authentic setting. This workshop explores how organisations might 'manage' informal learning, so that learning becomes a natural process rather than a series of events. Come and join us and bring the personal learning device (laptop, tablet, handset) of your choice.
Professor Jeremy Williams, director, Asia Pacific Management Centre
Day Two
The free interactive workshops are open to all HR industry professionals. Places are limited for each workshop session so don’t be late!
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Contact: Travis Kemp, general manager, employee benefits
P: 03 9603 2299E: [email protected]: www.marsh.com.au/cps
Contact: Joydeep Hor, managing principal
P: 02 8094 3101E: [email protected]: www.peopleculture.com.au
Contact: Samantha York, sales & marketing associate
P: 02 9466 0324E: [email protected]: www.ddiworld.com
Contact: Peden Bhutia, sales and marketing support co-ordinator
P: 02 9278 7990E: [email protected]: www.verifycv.com.au
MARSHMarsh in Australia comprises over 1,000 employees, providing risk management, insurance broking and risk consulting services to a range of businesses, government entities, individuals and professional associations.
In 2011, Marsh in Australia was named Large Broker of the Year for the fourth year running by the Australia New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance.
Globally, Marsh is the world’s largest insurance broker and risk advisor, with over 24,000 employees, and provides advice and transactional capabilities to clients in more than 100 countries.
PEOPLE + CULTURE STRATEGIESPeople + Culture Strategies (PCS) is an Australian workplace and HR law firm that services Australian and international employers in all aspects of workplace relations.
PCS offers a unique value proposition: we focus on partnering with clients through approachable and pragmatic advice, provide flexible pricing models to suit organisations large and small (including monthly retainer arrangements) and deliver a comprehensive program of education events, webinars and other value-add activities. In addition, our expertise extends to non-traditional services to our clients’ HR/Legal functions including investigations, coaching and mentoring programs, strategic planning, industry-leading training and facilitation.
DDI AUSTRALIAFor over 40 years, DDI has helped the most successful companies around the world close the gap between where their businesses need to go and the talent required to take them there. Our areas of expertise span every level, from individual contributors to the executive suite:• Success Profile Management • Selection & Assessment• Leadership & Workforce Development • Succession Management• Performance Management
DDI’s comprehensive, yet practical approach to talent management starts by ensuring a close connection of our solutions to your business strategies.
You’ll find that DDI is an essential partner wherever you are on your journey to build-ing extraordinary talent.
VERIFYVerify, a division of Veda, Asia-Pacific’s leading data intelligence and insights company, is the fastest growing and most innovative provider of candidate background services in Australia today. With leading edge technology and an extensive range of services ranging from identity, criminal history, licences and qualifications through to pre-employment medicals and online psychometric assessment services, Verify is able to provide organisations of every size with an outstanding verification service confirming that their candidates are who they purport to be and that they have the necessary skills, experience and qualifications.
Contact: Jason Bailey, commercial director
P: 1300 133 151E: [email protected]: www.learningseat.com
LEARNING SEATLearning Seat is Australia’s leading supplier of online compliance management solutions for corporate and government entities. As the trusted provider and partner to Australia’s major industry bodies, Learning Seat supports over 700,000 users across Australia and New Zealand. By creating and delivering exceptional content, Learning Seat has helped organisations of all sizes to properly and effectively deliver and manage staff and contrac-tor training to reduce risk and executive liability.The Learning Seat solution represents a unique combination of advanced technology with a strong foundation in compliance management, training and instructional design to provide powerful yet simple turnkey solutions for every organisation.
LEGAL SPONSOR
GOLD SPONSOR
SPONSORS PROUDLY SUPPORTED
BY
STRATEGIC SPONSOR
STRATEGIC SPONSOREVENT PARTNER
STRATEGIC SPONSOR
Contact: Scott Sampson, Head of Business Development – ANZ
P: 02 9112 0100E: [email protected]: www.asperity.com.au
ASPERITY EMPLOYEE BENEFITSWith Asperity’s Reward Gateway, your staff will have access to a huge range of genuine discounts at retailers that they already shop at, on your own bespoke website. This is backed by ongoing communications to guarantee engagement and a comprehensive management system to measure usage of the program. Over 650 companies globally, representing more than 1.5 million employees, have chosen Asperity to deliver this exceptional, cutting-edge benefits program.
MARQUÉ CONSULTINGEnsuring that you have the right employees in the right position – maximising each and every one to their full potential – requires a degree of skill, strategy and experience, which few can offer. Marqué Recruitment & Consulting provides expert Recruitment, Psychometric & Talent Assessment and HR solutions to any type and size of business, nationally.
SPONSORS PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
Contact: Stuart Whitbread, general manager – benefit solutions
P: 02 9290 8023 E: [email protected] W: www.jlta.com.au/employee.aspx
Contact: Rita Haitas, director
P: 1300 758 226E: [email protected]: www.marqueconsult.com.au
JARDINE LLOYD THOMPSONJLT Benefit Solutions provides consultancy and administration services to corporate and private clients across a wide range of company paid and voluntary employee benefits.
Contact: Kerryn Wood, human capital consultant
P: 03 9869 8880E: [email protected]: www.peoplestreme.com
PEOPLESTREMEPeopleStreme provides the largest human capital software Technology Roadmap globally.
PeopleStreme’s mission is to unlock the full potential of your workforce through providing the best human capital management software and deployment services in the world.
Recognised by Gartner Research as a “cool vendor” in human capital management in 2011, PeopleStreme must be doing something right.
BRONZE SPONSORS
REDBALLOONWorking with organisations of 20 to 20,000+ RedBalloon for Corporate is Australia and New Zealand’s leading provider of experiential gifts and employee engagement programs; fuelled by thousands of experiences and gifts RedBalloon creates recognition, reward and incentive solutions that contribute to having happy and extraordinarily productive employees. Programs are meaningful, commercially focused and most importantly FUN! For the latest in Reward and Recognition research visit http://corp.redballoon.com.au/rewardandrecognitionreport and download the 2012 Report for free.
MB LAWYERSMB Lawyers is an Australian law firm specialising in Australian immigration law, with a particular focus on corporate immigration. We assist the HR function to arrange for the relevant Australian work visa for their new employees or current key staff to transfer to Australia. Particular expertise in the Subclass 457 (temporary work visa), permanent residence via employer nomination, business sponsorship, monitoring and compliance, other work visas, and liaising with the Department of Immigration.
MGSMMacquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) is a leading management school in Australia. Our mission is to develop leaders with a global mindset who create sustainable value for their organisations and are good corporate citizens. MGSM Executive Education offers open, tailored and customised programs which ‘move the needle’ both for our individual participants and for our client organisations. MGSM’s world class faculty and extensive network of practical facilitators enables us to offer leading edge development programs in the open, tailored and custom domains.
SPEAKER GIFT SPONSOR
Contact: John Miles, director,
market development
P: 07 5552 7267E: [email protected] W: www.griffith.edu.au/gbs
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OPEN UNIVERSITIES AUSTRALIAOUA is the national leader in providing open and flexible access to quality tertiary edu-cation. OUA provides opportunities for anyone, no matter their age, location or previous education to study towards the same qualifications as on-campus students. Helping students undertaking online higher education or professional development to transform their lives, OUA offers over 1700 units and 180 qualifications online, all taught by more than 20 leading universities. The flexibility, choice, support and freedom that online education provides, makes OUA is the smarter way to study.
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Our Master of Human Research Management is AHRI accredited and along with our MBA is highly regarding in the public and private sectors.
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MBAsEXECUTIVE EDUCATION
Seeing the forest for the trees
Is ‘doing good’ really good for business? The content of MBAs has evolved over time, but in this day and age it may be worthwhile taking the time to consider how your shortlisted MBA programs measure up in terms of ethics and CSR
1. CSR is not green/recycling/double-sided printing (that’s called resource conservation).
2. CSR is not charity (wrong again – that’s called philanthropy).
3. CSR has everything to do with your personal values of trust, ethics, accountability and responsibility.
What’s it all about?
No matter the circumstance, when things go wrong human beings like to pass the hot potato of blame from one innocent-looking face to the next. Such was the case following the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), when the fingers of blame quickly began pointing at business schools, suggesting that their curriculums did not insist enough on the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that they were more content with producing technically brilliant executives who would drive their companies forward at any cost.
Pressure was placed on that shiny jewel of postgraduate qualifications, the Master of Business Administration (MBA), and questions were asked whether education could have a positive impact on the business.
Is it possible for MBA course conveners to groom ‘principled leaders’? Or is there too big a chasm between the classroom and the corporate world? Should anyone care?
Will McDonald, European director of academic programs at Thunderbird School of Management, explained to Top MBA (who produce the annual QS Global 200 Business Schools Report) the value of CSR to business: “The game has changed – it is essential that all managers consider full stakeholder value over the long term. Customers seek it, communities in which we operate insist on it, and your clients, business partners and even employees will hold you accountable for making a positive contribution.”
With such importance being placed on how companies
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Sydney University has also adjusted content. Alongside compulsory units on people and employment, another on HR strategies and a third on talent management, its MHRM&IR now includes a fourth compulsory capstone unit on organisational sustainability.
“It builds into it issues of CSR and ethical practice in engaging human beings in paid employment, coupled with a broader understanding of organisations and the environment,” Shields says. “It’s people that pollute through organisations, so there are significant HR implications there.”
This, Shields believes, is part of a post-GFC imperative for business schools to “get serious about the long term, not just how we can manage the numbers so we look good next year so the CEO gets the bonus”.
It’s a shift away from the traditional Western, somewhat myopic orientation that one year is all anyone needs to worry about. “What are we doing now that will set us up for success five years down the track? That isn’t just about the financial settings; it’s also about the human capital settings, CSR, ethical practice and the like,” he explains.
Burton adds that business schools tackle myopia not only by educating future leaders but also by sharing research findings and expertise within the media, politicians and policy development and broader business communities, and by driving the topics for discussion and debate and ultimately changing practice.
As graduates of programs that tackle this myopic view continue to progress through their careers and come to dominate the leadership roles within business, such a myopic approach will become the exception rather than the norm, Burton feels. Yet there is still plenty of work to be done: “There are structural challenges to the division between ownership and management in business around the world that will continue to reward positive short-term results over short-term pain for long-term gain.”
PRESSURE POINTSProfessor Alison Sheridan, head of school, faculty of the professions, at UNE Business School (another signatory to
Businesses need to be able to balance the different dimensions of their performance –
economic, environmental and social – in their decision-making
– ALISON SHERIDAN
and organisations add to the world they exist in, there is strong argument for general MBA rankings (of which the QS rankings are just one) to incorporate measurements of CSR into their methodologies.
McDonald continued: “Our school’s president, Dr Angel Cabrera, often challenges the industry, saying that even the business school rankings will eventually also have to change, to put more weight in measuring the global impact of a school or program, and not focus as heavily on individuals’ post-MBA salaries… The scale of the world’s challenges are simply too big for focusing so heavily on individual success.”
The 2012 QS Global 200 Business School Report’s CSR rating showed a dominance of schools in North America and Europe excelling, through the eyes of MBA employers, in producing graduates who take into account aspects of CSR in their day-to-day business operations. However, business schools in the Asia-Pacific region are showing significant promise, with eight in this year’s rating.
MEETING IN THE MIDDLEJohn Shields, associate dean (postgraduate coursework) at the University of Sydney, which offers MBAs and a range of specialist Master’s programs – such as a Master of Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations (MHRM&IR) – believes there is no chasm. He says that all Master’s programs offered by his institution, as well as undergraduate programs in the business school, “are on a course that simply demolishes the barriers between the classroom and the workplace”.
Shields is a strong advocate of any learning experience being contextualised, and this is no different at Master’s level. Sydney University’s MHRM&IR now has a strong emphasis on CSR and ethical practice – and this mindset has crept into just about every highly regarded MBA on offer in Australia. For example, the UTS Business School aims to ensure students develop the knowledge and critical thinking skills to apply to a future workplace increasingly shaped by resource constraints and a corresponding need for innovation and flexibility.
Led by Professor Suzanne Benn, professor of sustainable enterprise in the Business School (one of only two such professorial chairs in Australia), a Sustainability Working Party is currently mapping the teaching offerings against sustainability benchmarks, identifying different approaches that may enable students to embed sustainability in their working and personal lives.
This commitment is further demonstrated by UTS Business School being a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education. “These principles are embedded within all of our teaching and learning and our research,” says Dr Chris Burton, associate dean (postgraduate programs), UTS. “The school is also the first in Australia to develop a specific postgraduate subject to focus on ethical decision-making in finance: Ethics and Professional Standards in Finance”.
for the trees
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MBAsEXECUTIVE EDUCATION
HC: Can you briefly outline where you are at in your career and why you opted to return to postgrad study?MS: I’m currently the executive general manager of human resources at Echo Entertainment Group, working directly with CEO John Redmond. Prior to joining Echo Entertainment Group, I was the executive general manager of HR at Ausgrid.
Before undertaking my MBA I had completed degrees in psychology, industrial relations, education and human resource management; however, I was interested in undertaking a broader-scoping business degree.
HC: Can you outline what postgrad course you undertook and why you opted for that particular course? MS: I chose to study an MBA to gain a greater understanding of business generally. In the first instance,
I was studying an MBA at another educational institution; however, I found that the course wasn’t as flexible, case-study driven or practical as I had hoped. At this point I ran into a former professor of mine who recommended I study at the University of New England for its commercially driven, flexible and practical approach.
The great thing about the University of New England’s MBA course is that the case studies taught can be practically applied in the company you are working in – something I found incredibly useful.
The distance learning experience also made it much easier to manage my work and family commitments, and the personal approach employed by the university demonstrated a key value taught in the MBA – one of the most important facets of HR.
HC: Is there any particular aspect of a career in HR that you are uncertain about?MS: I chose to study the MBA to gain a greater understanding of business generally, incorporating a range of elements from marketing and accounting to strategic thinking and decision-making. It reinforced my value proposition to employers as a fully rounded, strategic and commercially focused business person. It made me think differently and constantly consider all aspects of a business.
One of my lecturers, Richard, particularly changed my view of HR. It seems that too often HR practitioners will roll out HR programs without really considering whether they are actually right for the company or situation. The MBA enhanced my ability to look at a situation, analyse what was wrong and help predict the outcomes.
I believe my degree in psychology and MBA are two of the most useful things I’ve done for my career. I use them every day.
HC: Any advice to other HR professionals looking to return to study?MS: I would recommend that HR professionals – and line managers for that matter – have some appreciation of psychology to assist in understanding the way people behave in organisations, as well as the advantages of an MBA to gain the skills needed to understand, build and communicate a strategic long-term vision to meet key business objectives. HR practitioners are responsible for raising the profile and credibility of the profession. I would suggest that they broaden their networks outside HR by engaging with all those involved in decision-making in external organisations, including CEOs and the finance and marketing people.
Student case studyHuman Capital talks to Maree Slater, executive general manager, human resources, Echo Entertainment Group, about her MBA study experience
the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education), believes there is pressure coming from both sides: tertiary education providers need to reflect what’s happening in the business world, where a focus on triple bottom line reporting has been in place for some time; and the students themselves are asking for more context around their learning.
“We know that businesses need to be able to balance the different dimensions of their performance – economic, environmental and social – in their decision-making. To do this they need staff who are able to keep abreast of
the latest developments and critically engage with these to assess what will be most beneficial to their own businesses. Many of our students are employed in SMEs [small and medium enterprises], and they are seeking a deeper understanding of how they can manage these pressures within a context that is not big business,” she says.
Burton takes a slightly different view, commenting that the shift is occurring not so much through responding to student or corporate needs, but rather because of a desire to design the future of business “by creating the expectation
that business graduates think and act responsibly instinctively, and have the skills and knowledge to act on those instincts”.
In undertaking this approach, UTS Business School has called on the collective input and experience of the School’s Advisory Board, an elite panel of entrepreneurs, company directors and executives who sit at the helm of some of the world’s most powerful and respected organisations.
Shields is convinced HR plays a crucial role in larger businesses. He says that, “as a matter of professional obligation and responsibility”, it falls to the HR professional to champion sustainable practice in an organisational life.
The question is whether education can assist in this shift in mindset. Sheridan believes it can. “If a business is to survive, it must be looking beyond the next quarter’s results. It is incumbent on business education to prepare graduates who are able to balance the short, medium and longer term issues to make decisions that enable their business to remain competitive across each of the timeframes. The MBA, in particular, in the breadth of business disciplines it exposes students to, prepares them for this challenge.”
Perhaps even more pressing societal issues can also be addressed at tertiary education level. For example, the hot diversity topic of the past 24 months, female representation in senior leadership roles, could be challenged.
The percentage of female students enrolled in
postgraduate qualifications in business and management across Australia has grown from 40% in 2001 to 48% in 2011*, so equality is being approached in terms of gender intake across Australia in managerial education.
Yet Burton notes that what education equality may not be able to overcome directly is the persistence of a male-dominated culture within the upper echelons of many major corporations and organisations. “While there are some industries and individual organisations where this has been reduced, they remain the exception rather than the norm, and this will take a generation to overcome, even after we have established parity within intake into postgraduate managerial education,” he says.
This area, which Sheridan has adopted as a research topic, still has some way to travel. Postgraduate qualifications are a step in the right direction.
“There is still evidence that women’s knowledge and skills in business are not assumed in the same way their male counterparts may be,” Sheridan comments. “Women have found that they need to be more highly qualified to be considered for more senior roles. So, pragmatically, postgraduate qualifications can be a strategic investment in establishing a woman’s credibility to take on senior roles, as well as the benefits she gains from the enhanced problem-solving skills we know come with an MBA.” *highereducationstatistics.deewr.gov.au
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HR at SodexoPROFILE RAJ VERMA
HCAMAG.COM
This month’s profiled HR professional stepped onto Australian shores for a company at the start of a significant transformation project, and has since found his global experience called into service on numerous fronts. Iain Hopkins talks to Sodexo’s Raj Verma
Taking some risks or charting the unexpected course in life is where the greatest learning opportunities arise. Such is the case with Raj Verma, who has carved a path from the UK to Australia and is now HR director of the Australian operations of Sodexo. As he admits, along the way he’s made some mistakes, “but you take those and learn from them”.
He concedes that taking some career risks early on, having leaders who believed in his ability to step up, and putting his hand up for assignments that others didn’t want, have resulted in his greatest learning experiences. “It’s where you make your biggest strides,” he says.
It’s paid off in spades and has positioned him well to tackle significant HR challenges in his current role.
HR-ASSISTED JOURNEY TO AUSTRALIAVerma studied law at university in the UK, but was torn between a career in law and taking on a business role in the corporate world. When he was at the point of making a decision, he received a scholarship to do a Master’s in Management Science. It was the focus on organisational behaviour and change that really captured his imagination.
Still, the uncertainty lingered. After the course he joined a general management development program. “The tipping point for me was working on the people front on several projects, so I decided to make that call and specialise in HR.”
In time he moved to what was considered to be one of the best HR schools in the UK, the Ford Motor Co. His career stems from that first role at a manufacturing plant. “Fast forward a decade and some years, and I’m in an organisation that is pretty people orientated and is committed to growing its leadership capability,” he says. “I’m now on international assignment in Australia and have
been here for three years, heading up the HR function in one of the group’s fastest growing countries.”
A NEW HOMESodexo provides over 100 services, from on-site corporate benefits and rewards, to safety, maintenance and cleaning services, to facilities and equipment management, to personal and home services. The key to these disparate services is to enhance ‘quality of life’, an essential factor in individual and organisational performance.
Sodexo operates in 80 countries worldwide and employs some 6,000 people in the Australian region. Fifty team members make up the HR function, and Verma, who has full end-to-end HR responsibilities, reports to the CEO. The company is in the midst of major organisational transformation, implementing a new shared services model.
“We’re into the third year of that transformation, and we’re now focusing on the shared service centre itself,” Verma says. “We’ve moved towards a business partnering approach where we’ve got functional specialists, related to the design of the various projects and initiatives we roll out to the organisation; we have business partners who work in the business, who are client facing and are as commercial as they need to be to ensure everything we design is deliverable. The final part of our shared service model structure is to have an end-to-end administration approach through which all the transactional activity is managed – be it for HR or any of our other support functions...”
Verma says the transformation was sparked by the knowledge that things could be done differently. Verma worked closely with the CEO, who had also spent time abroad, on the design of the new look. “Both of us came into the organisation with different mindsets, because we’d
HIT THE GROUNDrunning
Family: Married to Kamal, who is a teacher, with two young children, Rhea (aged 9) and Akaash (aged 7).
Favourite sports: It’s golf – attempting to play it; it’s soccer – watching it; and it’s AFL – trying to understand it.
Favourite movie/TV show: I got quite addicted to the latest Underbelly series.
Best advice ever received: From the day I walked into the world of HR: Be commercial in your decision-making but compassionate in your delivery.
Self-described: Values driven, commercially aware, a collaborator with a passion for our people, and innovative with processes and practices.
Hobbies: Finding and keeping that family time.
First job and/or worst job: First job was at age 15, working in hospitality.
If not in HR: Property development.
Personal file:Raj Verma
running
worked with Sodexo abroad and we knew how things could be done differently. So we took a different approach. We knew we needed to grow our business, and to improve our processes and practices, as well as ensure we had the most engaged teams in play.”
Those three strategic objectives formed the genesis of the transformation. The question was whether the Australian operations were being run in the smartest way possible. Verma explains: “It was through those conversations that we realised there was a lot of opportunity in operating differently. We needed to get that validated so we worked with others to pull together a case for change. That case for change led us down the path we’re going down today.”
‘GROW WITH US’Central to Sodexo’s employee value proposition (EVP) is the commitment to employees that they will be able to grow with the company. This commitment to professional development has resulted in a unique partnership with Sunshine Coast TAFE to deliver a Management Development Program (MDP). The 12-month program, which includes content developed in-house by functional experts and is delivered by the external partner, has been customised to the company’s core values and is
52 HCAMAG.COM
underpinned by a strong culture of safety leadership. Desired outcomes include consistency in operations and promotion of an inclusive team-based culture across the business. “With our partners we’re able to leverage their expertise in e-learning, innovative delivery, and how they assess people. It has also enabled employees to get a nationally recognised qualification,” Verma says.
He adds that the Sodexo EVP is strong on growing and rewarding employees. “The growing component comes about because we’re developing the fundamental skills of management; the rewarding piece is employees gaining a nationally recognised Diploma of Management.”
The key was to make the course highly interactive, with strong networking opportunities for colleagues across the country. To date, all of Sodexo’s managers who have been taking the course have provided enthusiastic reviews on the benefits it has already brought them in their jobs.
Verma says the program has been a success for one critical reason: they took the time to scope the project and understand what the business actually needed, rather than utilising an ‘off the shelf’ program. “It would have been easy for us to get something off the shelf, but we spent a lot of time with our org development team and with Sunshine Coast TAFE to design it together.”
HR at SodexoPROFILE RAJ VERMA
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advancement of women in the workplace, recognised Sodexo with its 2012 award.
BRAND RECOGNITIONThere are more immediate challenges facing Verma and his team. With a large fly-in, fly-out workforce, but not a particularly widely known brand, attracting talent has been a challenge. This is slowly changing. While social media outlets such as LinkedIn have helped to improve brand recognition, it was an appearance by Sodexo’s CEO on popular television show Undercover Boss in 2012 that really got people talking.
To find qualified, experienced candidates, Sodexo is also leveraging its international presence. “We’re in 80 countries, so that’s a large pipeline from which we can identify the talent we need. … We’re also focusing on mature age workers, indigenous communities and regional communities.”
In short, the stepping stones are in place to ensure sustainable HR practices. “For me, it’s all about continuous improvement,” Verma concludes. “If I haven’t got a baseline, if I haven’t got KPIs, I can’t sit down with the business to make those decisions that need to be driven by data.”
COMMITMENT TO A BETTER WORLDSodexo has won plaudits for its corporate social responsibility initiatives. The ‘Better Tomorrow Plan’ is a sustainable road map for a better future, with four clear priorities: nutrition, health and wellness; local communities; the environment; and developing employees and promoting diversity. As just one example, the STOP Hunger initiative was initiated in 1996 to fight hunger and malnutrition in the countries in which Sodexo operates. This involves:• Volunteering: encouraging and supporting Sodexo
employees’ spirit of service to support hunger relief initiatives in their local communities.
• Sharing Sodexo expertise: sharing technical knowledge in information and services with hunger relief workers and those in need – providing nutrition, food safety, food waste education, and job and life skills training.
• Food donations: donating perishable and non-perishable food to hunger relief organisations.
• Financial donations: sponsoring and supporting programs that combat hunger and malnutrition.In 2012, for the eighth straight year, Sodexo was named
‘Global Sustainability Industry Leader’ for its industry sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In addition, Catalyst, an international organisation dedicated to the
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The Lighter Side
Our people are our greatest asses.
I’ve been made an escaped goat.
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SIGN OFF
the lighter side
If you want to know the potential of a company in a certain CEO’s hands, take special note of their signature. A recent study revealed that the bigger the size of a CEO’s signature, the more likely it is that the firm will not do well.
The report showed a positive relationship between a large signature and lower revenue forecasts and sales growth. Narcissistic CEOs tend to splurge on unnecessary capital and acquisitions, leading to poor performance during times of uncertainty. Especially for new firms that need a lot of strategic direction from the CEO, the signature size is negatively associated with current return on assets. Yet one factor remains stable: narcissistic CEOs enjoy higher absolute and relative compensation regardless of the firm’s performance.
The authors noted that signatures were an implicit measure of ego and dominance, and larger ones were associated with high self-esteem.
The research, conducted by business professors at the University of Maryland and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, analysed 605 CEO signatures on annual Securities and Exchange Commission filings to measure CEO narcissism.
written by Stephanie Zillman
FANTASTICAL EXCUSES FOR TURNING UP LATE Citing problems with traffic is the most common excuse trotted out for arriving late at work, according to a CareerBuilder survey. This lame excuse is followed by lack of sleep, childcare arrangements, the weather, and public transport.
While most employers will forgive an employee for relying on one of these excuses sporadically, repeated lateness can be problematic. Over one third of hiring managers have fired someone for persistent tardiness, according to Rosemary Haefner, vice president of HR at CareerBuilder.
However, if someone came to you with one of the following excuses, you’d be hard pressed to respond with anything but a hearty chuckle.
Most memorable excuses for arriving late at work:• An employee accidentally dropped
her purse into a coin-operated newspaper dispenser and couldn’t retrieve it, since her change was in her purse.
• An employee left home with his flatmate’s girlfriend’s shoes on and had to return in order to change them.
• One employee’s vengeful wife froze his truck keys in a glass of water in the freezer.
• An employee was delayed because she had to dress her cement duck in a raincoat since rain was expected later in the day.
• One employee couldn’t start his car because his breathalyser indicated that he was drunk.
• An employee’s hair clippers died in the middle of his attempt to cut his own hair before work so he had to wait for a barber to open.
• Another employee’s car was attacked by a bear.
• One employee drove to her ex-employer’s by mistake.
• Another employee claimed to have been delayed by delivering a stranger’s baby on the side of the motorway.
Signature size matters
NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH A new recruitment trend in the US involves companies luring potential job candidates with the offer of a free lunch in exchange for their business cards.
The recruiting company rents a food truck, parks it near a stream of foot traffic, and has HR people or senior management meet the flood of hungry workers face to face. Lunch is offered for the price of the worker’s business card. Hiring companies can be quite bold about the tactic, even parking their food trucks right outside the doors of those competitors whose employees they’d like to steal.
Microsoft was an early pioneer, recruiting engineers for its Kinect for Windows team in 2001 by parking ‘The Swinery’ food truck near Adobe and Google offices, Talent Management reported.
A second example involved online PR software company Vocus. Unable to find the 300 employees they needed in order to
expand, they offered pizza and soda to workers in Washington, DC, the Washington Post reported. As in the Microsoft example, the truck was staffed by recruiters who talked to each customer and invited them to an open house event at Vocus’s headquarters.
How successful are these ventures? Cal Shilling, vice president of HR at Vocus, called the event – which garnered 130 business cards (and 87 potential recruits) – a ‘steal’ at $1,500. He told the Washington Post that he planned to run similar future events.
DON'T BLAME THE AUTOCORRECT: WORST HR TYPOS Typing blunders are as ubiquitous as keyboards, but some are definitely funnier than others – especially when other people make them. With this in mind, we present a list of 10 of the funniest HR typos other people made.
The first three of these were drawn from a People Management discussion group on LinkedIn instigated by Ken Allison, HR consultant at Paradigm Partners. The last five come from Allison’s blog on Executive HR.
Peter Houston: “I recall drafting a job advert which asked for ‘previous experience of pubic service’.” Ellen McKenzie: “Recruitment advert in newspaper with additional ‘Cost of Loving’ Allowance!” Anne Allen: “Time off in loo – from an HR colleague too – unbelievable!” “Our people are our greatest asses.” From an employee’s letter appealing against his dismissal: “I’ve been made an escaped goat.” “Your role demeans the need for excellent working relationships with your team.” A self-certification form listed ‘genealogical problems’ as the reason for absence. Staff were offered an ‘exiting opportunity’ when they were meant to be offered something ‘exciting’!
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