Newsletter February 2006
Inside:
- Upfront - Comment by Maureen Scholefield
- Adding Value in HR: Chris Ball reviews Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank’s latest work.
- Conversation with the Guru Part 2 of our Ulrich special – we talk to the man himself.
- PAC and Certificate Awards – we interview our successes – a sort of fishbowl 360-degree appraisal!
- Selected News
- Minimum Wage Enforcement
- Changing Families – Living Apart Together
- Population Growth Steady
- New Chair for EOC
- News Analysis
- TUPE or not TUPE?
- Work and Families Bill
- ‘Demand for Flexible Working Not Satisfied’ Says TUC
The old adage about cobblers’ children going shoeless, often comes to mind in the world of business. How many electrical goods wholesalers do you see with wonky fuse boxes hanging off walls, or vehicle maintenance firms with patched up old bangers for staff transport? Let’s face it, survival often depends on the art of the short cut, and eking out the iron rations, but exercises in self denial are far from the best approach.
At this time of the year when we are busy firming up on good intentions, perhaps it is time for HR people to take their own development seriously. ‘But I never get time to read,’ I hear you wail! Can I be hard with you? Find it! Each of us must find the time to ‘sit and stare,’ particularly if sitting and staring is shorthand for thinking. And we need time too, to stare at the printed page or (increasingly) the printed screen. After all, which of us doesn’t need a new idea to stimulate and inspire us from time to time? Ideas and new knowledge come about because we have taken the time to read, look and listen. Sorry!
I believe that exposing your mind to leading edge developments, is a duty as a professional, not a luxury to be indulged when the opportunity arises. If your in-tray is so full of vital things that this does not make sense, do something about it. For a start, what is the point of slavishly sticking to demanding routines around the provision of figures and reports if the really crucial condition for you to optimise your contribution is not being met as a result? What about finding out whether some of this can be eliminated or provided less frequently, in the interests of more strategic interventions?
As a second suggestion, let me suggest the artifice of the pragmatic compromise. Sure, there are occasions when we need perfection or when care and diligence is the ingredient on which the lives of others depend. I don’t advocate cutting corners on such essentials – it would be more than my professional indemnity insurance is worth – your’s too if you followed suit! But there are tasks when ‘good enough’ has to be better than ‘not at all’. Learning how to discriminate is one of the necessities of working life.
I suspect that in all jobs, certainly in all organisations, there are things that don’t get touched because no-one had the time. Personal updating sometimes falls into this category, even though it is important to know what is going on and what is about to happen - particularly in HR.
We have to learn to skim. Read the digest of the digest of the digest. (You can always come back and fill in the gaps when you need to do so.) Grab the headlines, even if you don’t get it all. But get the right papers anyway and you will at least have the most informative headlines! Know a little about a lot, as well as a lot about a little. The all dancing, all singing multi-skilled practitioner as well as the highly focussed, specialised professional, is what you need to be.
Enough of the lecture! On another note, I have to say how proud I was of all our successful candidates last year. Your performances were truly excellent and with the wealth of experience of so many of our PAC candidates meriting upgrading to Fellowship of the CIPD, we are really impressed by the talent around us. This issue of the Newsletter reports interviews with some of our successful candidates, taken at our awards ceremony in December. ‘Read all about it!’ as the newspaper vendors sometimes shout. You can too, this time.
Maureen Scholefield
Candidates – Your Shout!
‘Experience, that most brutal of teachers, but you learn, my God do you learn,’ (CS Lewis). Wouldn’t you like to share your experience with a wider network? Start with Cullen Scholefield people, both past and current candidates. Tell us what you know at least.
‘Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.’ (Barbara Tuchman) We can’t afford to make the same mistake, can we? Telling it as it was for you, can help everyone to benefit from your experience. Please help us to develop this interactive aspect of the Newsletter.
In the last issue we had a fascinating insight into the recruitment process by Dave West. The depth and range of experience of all our candidates (past and present) is something really special to us and we don’t want to lose it. Send us an email with your ideas on cs@csgconsult.com
