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New In-Company Courses

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  November 28, 2011
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We are pleased to announce the development of 3 new in-company courses.

Theses courses have been designed as a direct result of our client wishing to have “bite-sized” training directly linked to their leadership & management capabilities framework.

The courses are 4 hours in duration. We’ll publish details of them over the next few days. The first to be outlined is:

“Employee Engagement”

At the end of this workshop you will be able to

  • Define employee engagement
  • Understand the 15 factors that
    affect employee engagement
  • Understand how their leadership
    impacts on employee empowerment
  • Review their own employee
    engagement priorities
  • Develop an action plan to
    improve their own team’s engagement

Content

- Employee engagement capabilities

- Employee engagement defined

- What helps employee engagement

-  What hinders employee engagemen

-  Peparing to engage

- Leadership competencies vital to success

- How do I empower my team?

- Employee engagement action plan

For more details, contact us at info@profilehrd.com

Current work on a Team Leader development strategy – Part 3

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  September 5, 2011
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Following on fom my last post on the 3rd August 2011, I’m now completing the last two components of the Team Leader Development Strategy.

In my last article you will know we had developed the strategic components of Positioning & Accreditaton, Business needs analysis and Concern for Individuality. We have now considered the final two strategic issues: Sponsorship & Design.

Strategic Issue – Sponsorship

Components:

1. The Sponsors and what is the process for sponsorship

2. Nominations and how to we stream/arrange nominations

3. Integration with other management development activities

4. Sponsorship validation & evaluation of impact of programme

Strategic Issue – Design

Components:

1. Matching impact with business success factors – especially impact on local budgets/costs

2. Determine units, hours and outcomes

3. Integrate units, hours and outcomes with other development activities – create building block approach

4. Possible accreditation of own programme

The strategy is now in place, so we start with evaluation criteria across the business!

 

 

Appraisal Systems – Searching for the Holy Grail

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  September 1, 2011
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THE CONTEXT
We had been delivering a range of training courses to our client over the last 4 years. The programmes
were:
- time management
- train the trainer
- supervisory skills
- middle management
- appraisal skills
Our success in delivering these programmes to managers and staff in the organisation had led the HR Manager to enquire about whether we would be able to assist them with their
performance management process.
Feedback from a recent all-staff survey had identified that the current process was not “fit for purpose” and was not being applied either consistently or equally across the organisation i.e. there was, for example, no opportunities to review casual staff.
Casual staff had a significant impact on the performance of the organisation especially when in contact with the public. However, some casual staff may only be working for a
short period, say once a year.
What the HR Manager  really wanted something “fresh and innovative” which would appeal to their managers and staff.
THE SEARCH
The client was asked to provide a copy of their organisation structure, their strategic plan 2010-2012 and feedback on both the values consultation sessions they’d had recently and
the information from the recent staff survey.
All of these would provide data to help identify the best method for measuring performance i.e. a combinationof values, behaviours, key performance indicators and strategic outputs for 2012.
There was also littleevidence from the training with some of the managers that objectives/measures were commonly understood or used.
The start point therefore had to be to create a link between their mission, their organisational “aims” and individual performance.
We also requested copies of job descriptions for two of the key departments involved to see the nature ofthe work and the contributions they make. This would also provide us with a “language/relevance” check to some roles.
At an initial meeting with the HR Manager & the Finance Director we discussed the proposal, but more importantly the rationale behind the approach we would take.
Certain challenges were discussed:
  • Searching for the Holy Grail
  • Complexity of the process
  • Lack of senior management buy-in
  • Negative organisational culture
  • Management unwillingness
We also discussed a range of potential components
  • · Performance appraisal.
  • · Setting and reviewing objectives
  • · Personal Development Plans
  • · Self and peer appraisal
  • · 180 and 360 degree feedback
  • · Competency based assessment
  • · Balanced scorecard
  • · Performance ratings
  • · Performance-Related Pay
We reviewed the previous and current appraisal process in an attempt to identify any measures.
The existing process, whilst requiring objectives to be written, did not contain any measures of performance. It was anticipated that managers would be able to develop and
write SMART objectives. These had been covered during some of the training withsome of the managers, but it was not a universally understood approach.
Our previous experience with over 30 organisations in 15 years enabled us to provide some useful examples of other organisations in similar service environments.
We used the existing job descriptions from two key roles to identify key outputs, but also to establish a level of output i.e. “what did and would good look like?”
Following our first meeting we established that the key performance indicators needed to be:
-  simple tounderstand
-  the same for everyone
- applicable also to casual staff
- applicable to every role
- capable of being self-reviewed
- able to provide for development
- linkable to mission, values and be relevant to an individual
- measurable, including management performance
THE SOLUTION
The key measures of performance were agreed as:
SERVICE
ACHIEVEMENT
TEAMWORK
DEVELOPING YOURSELF
LEADERSHIP
Each element would contain:
- A definition of that element
- A statement as to why that element is important to the organisation
- 4 levels of performance with definitions
- “Warning signs” were potential performance problems might occur
- “Positive indicators” so that people could identify with what good looks like.
Everyone would be measured
using the 1st 4 elements, with the additional element of leadership if you were in that position.
Casual staff would have their own form, designed to be completed in 15 minutes. This would contain two
questions in the form of self review:
a)    Contribution to the business
b)    Contribution to teamwork
Access to Learning and development opportunities via a PDP were contained in both sets of forms.
In order to evaluate the Performance Management process and to seek the involvement of both managers and staff, we then put together a presentation to an all staff representative
group.
We shared our ideas on the process and then opened it up to their inputs.
We repeated the same session with a group of selected managers (essentially those who would have the keenest
interest in its implementation).
We took the feedback and amended the process accordingly.
The Finance Director then also offered the process at the next Senior Management Team meeting for their comments and contributions
We took the feedback and amended the process accordingly.
We again mapped the 4 performance levels across the 5 elements to the job descriptions to ensure that there were also no “language” barriers. Some changes in language were then
made.
We also published a broad outline of the learning & development programme and levels of support that would be available to meet any emerging needs.
We then decided that we should have a trial period within which key departments & their managers could ratify and evaluate the effectiveness of the performance criteria.
We chose the two keydepartments, Customer Service & Technical. These contained the largest amount of people. They also represented a wide variation in respective
contributions and would therefore test the levels in each performance element.
We will then be able to feedback on:
- the format
- performance elements and their reporting to the team/organisation
- how planned learning& development may/may not fit the emerging needs
- what have we learnt, what can we improve.
We also knew that the search would need to go on for improvements …………………………………….

Current work on a Team Leader development strategy – Part 2

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  August 3, 2011
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At my last post, we were at the point of developing the components under the 5 strategic considerations – see post 20th July 2011.

I’ve now been able to move the project on to a point where those components have now been identified as follows:

Strategic Issue – Positioning & Accreditation

Components:

1. UK skills agenda drivers*

2. Institute of Leadership & Management accreditation

3. Intenal alignment to Employer of Choice strategies, particularly reward and recognition, leadership behaviours & management style

4. Investment & funding support*

Strategic Issue – Business Needs analysis

Components:

1. Values driven

2. Review of current Performance Management outcomes

3. Integration with other management development activities

4. Return on investment*

Strategic Issue – Individuality

Components:

1. The delegate’s perceived skills agenda

2. Ownership of performance management outcomes

3. Understanding & integration with current management development

4. Varying start points

My next post will deal with the two reamining issues of Sponsorship & Design.

Want to know more, please e-mail info@profilehrd.com

SusWorking Model on Self-Development

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  July 26, 2011
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We have been asked by one of our current Investors in People clients to put together a model which they might use to align organisational development and individual development. This is in the context of their journey to become recognised as an “employer of choice” (using the Investors in People framework).
Firstly, it was necessary to define for everyone what we meant by self development (with IiP in mind) and so we used the following:
“Individuals improving their knowledge, skills and behaviours through their own, self-directed efforts”
With this definition in mind we then decided that there were 4 questions for individuals to consider and these 4 questions gave us the stages and potential content for organisational & individual activities in support of self development.
The 4 questions were: 1) Who am I? 2) How am I viewed? 3) What are my options? 4) How do I monitor my progress?
We added a 1st stage which we called ”orientation”. This gave us a model as follows:
Stage 1 - ORIENTATION
Stage 2 – WHO AM I?
Stage 3 - HOW AM I VIEWED?
Stage 4 – WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?
Stage 5 – HOW DO I MONITOR MY PROGRESS?
Each Stage included organisational and individual activities, workshops and questionnaires.
Like to know more? E-mail us at info@profilehrd.com

Current work on a Team Leader development strategy – Part 1

Posted by: Alex    Tags:      Posted date:  July 20, 2011
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One of our Specialisms

I’ve been beavering away with some commissioned work on developing a strategy for the development of team leaders within an organisation that has ambitions to become an “employer of choice”. It’s been interesting trying to identify the strategic issues that affect the design of such a programme for the client.

I have to admit that this was quite a challenge to meet. However, I came up with the following “strategic considerations” :

1. How to position and accredit the development programme

2. How to conduct a business needs analysis for such a development programme, to include ultimate evaluation

3. How to consider individuality and the various diffferent start points of the potential candidates

4. How would candidates be sponsored, who owns what in terms of development?

5. How should the programme itself be designed to fit with the above drivers

I’m now at the point of developing the components under those considerations and its beginning to take shape.

Will keep updating as I’d like to share other peoples’ experiences and feedback