Blog entries

Engaging Managers and Professional Skills in Client Organisation

Ruwayne Kock — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:54:44 +0100

Our client organisation adopted a talent management framework to deal with competitive reality in this raging war for talent. In spite of these efforts, the organisation had experienced high turnover amongst their management cadre. Consequently, the client commissioned an independent study to understand these turnover reasons and to generate action plans to mitigate this human capital risk.

Our locally validated employee e...

The Case for Managing Performance Part 3

Marion Stone — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:04:07 +0100

Reward and development are often overlooked as reasons to have a performance management process because they don’t solve immediate problems. The impact on motivation is even more neglected as a reason to manage performance because it is a ‘down the road’ consequence and it is not visible (unless you measure it). If we were all highly concerned about ‘down the road’ consequences, more people would stop smoking and drive more carefully! I touched on the subject in ...

Do Unlimited Vacation Days Mean Happier Employees?

Mags Shapiro — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:52:02 +0100

From 'In Good Company: Vault's CSR blog'

http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/blogs/entry-detail/?blog_id=1462&entry_id=11721

The Case for Managing Performance - Part 2

Marion Stone — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:48:20 +0100

Reward and development are often overlooked as reasons to have a performance management process because they don’t solve immediate problems. If you set goals and direction for your employees you immediately have something that you can use to benchmark someone’s progress. It is an instant solution of sorts. Reward and development are more long-term reasons for performance management. If you have a process, then it will make your life easier in the long term with respect to iden...

The Case for Managing Performance - Part 1

Marion Stone — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:21:04 +0100

So why should you have some form of process for managing performance. The picture that is generated in everyone’s head when the words ‘system’ or ‘process’ is used is that of a bureaucratic administrative burden. It also conjures up images of conflict and not many people enjoy that! Business owners, managers and employees do not understand the benefit of having a process so everyone sees it as a ...

What Happens When Employees Work Whenever and Wherever They Want?

Mags Shapiro — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:53:27 +0100

Author of "The 4-Hour Work Week" Tim Ferriss has a blog is chock full of mindboggling stats, check out http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/the-truth/

He asks, "So, what happens when smart companies realize that work isn't a place where you go, but something that you do? That performance should be based on output and not hours?

Average Rise In Worker Productivity Since 2005: 35%

Average Change in Voluntary Turnover (Quitting) Across Divisions: ...

Designing the Human Capital Architecture

Gerhard Badenhorst — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:02:30 +0100

The work of the HR Architect starts with the analysis and mapping of all the components present in the current HR organisation, and the dynamics inherent to their interrelationships. This work is essential to establish a clear and detailed picture of the HR organisation as it exists.

The impact by entities such as customers, partners, suppliers, people, stakeholders, advisors, geographical locations, processes, delivery model, data & information, applications and technologies ...

Investment in employees

Mags Shapiro — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:49:07 +0100

Fabulous tweet today from @DoLectures:
"Ask your boss to invest in you. Knowledge is better than a pay rise."

Go to http://www.dolectures.com/ for some insipiration.

"The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about."

Can managers actually manage people?

Marion Stone — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:12:12 +0100

Broadly, the role of a manager broadly is to draw the best from the people and their resources to get things done. The nature of most successful managers is that they enjoy coordinating people and resources and typically they are naturally good at controlling processes, projects and outcomes. What about the people; who actually do the work, can they be managed too?

The questions raised in workshops where we discuss managing difficult conversations suggest that many managers would dearl...

What is Human Capital Architecture?

Gerhard Badenhorst — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:27:50 +0100

A warm welcome to you, Human Resources colleague and Member of the Human Capital Institute! In this blog I am looking forward to discuss with you the subject of HR Transformation and specifically the subject of The Human Capital Architecture within the above-mentioned context.

As this is the introductory post, I thought it would be productive to start off with Questions and Answers to assist you to gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter and to preempt certain questions ...

Creating a Learning Organisation Model

Mags Shapiro — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Learning used to be seen as the cause of disruptive change. Today, innovation is seen as the only way to stay ahead.

I'm in the process of developing a Strategy for Creating a Learning Organisation for one of my clients and the following model is emerging:

The model is based on 4 inter-related phases:

Ensuring data is identified, gathered and stor...

Get Immediate Value from Your New Hire

Mags Shapiro — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Harvard Business Review blog

There are many theories on how to correctly "onboard" someone to an organization or a team. Most focus on how to provide the new hire with the information and skills she needs to succeed. But that can only take her so far. She will need connections and an understanding of the inner workings and culture of your company to be truly successful. Whether she is transitioning from another part of the organization or is brand new, you can get her up to speed more q...

Leading up

Mags Shapiro — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:42:24 +0100

Taiga Company, Sustainability Consultants based in Texas, say leadership commitment to change is important, but it's nothing without employee engagement. The "act of employees working with the company leaders to define value and implement change is referred to as leading up. "

Improving the bottom line through Employee Engagement

Ruwayne Kock — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

With economists predicting fierce trading conditions and longer recovery than originally anticipated means that South African companies will need to seek out ways to sustain their business performance. After all, retrenching more people, or slashing other expenses, will mean that they will be left with skeleton resources. Or that those who remain will have no means, nor the will, to produce the necessary results.

Last year's national employee engagement research showed a sta...

Managing Today's Younger People

Mags Shapiro — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

http://www.connectioneconomy.com/2010/03/04/managing-today’s-younger-people/

Barrie Bramley on TomorrowToday

Cost of Disengagement

Ruwayne Kock — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study (2008) looked at 50 global companies over a one-year period, correlating their employee engagement levels with financial results. They found that companies with high employee engagement had a 19% increase in operating income and almost a 28% growth in earnings per share. Conversely, companies with low levels of engagement saw operating income drop more than 32% and earnings per share decline over 11%.

In a similar study ...

Engaging Leaders

Ruwayne Kock — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Economists are predicting a slow economic recovery. This means managers will need to work harder to improve the performance of their teams and retain key talent.

Research conducted by The Human Resource Practice in 2009, illustrated that employees seek a shift from an organisational-focused to a more individual-based management approach. The latter resembles Gary Hamel and renegade brigades' management innovation, called Management 2.0. This moots a shift from the company orient...

Engaging and managing recovering & traumatised employees - the plan

Mags Shapiro — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Step 1: Define clear boundaries

Organisational structure & broad areas of responsibilty
Job profiles
Set of policies to define 'basic rules'
Set of policies & procedures around consequences and objections

Step 2: Build engagement

Performance management system
Communication system

Step 3: Develop capabilities

Training and dev...

Engaging and managing recovering and traumatised employees

Mags Shapiro — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

A recent assignment really got my brain ticking!

In the end, the proposed solution really isn't that unique if one looks at its individual components, but a specific emphasis and the combination of parts provides a whole solution to support the employees of a very valuable organisation in today's crazy world, where the priviledged few thrive and the vulnerable are marginalised.

My client is a Non-Profit who provides therapeutic and social services to a particul...

You can say pretty much anything on a placard

Mags Shapiro — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:00:00 +0100

theTrade Tatler reports:

SACCAWU have come out guns blazing in a nasty legal strike in which they’re accusing Pick n Pay – in fairly general terms, it must be said – of racist employment practices. These include an alleged tendency to rehire retired white staff, discrepancies between what black and white staff are earning, particularly among junior management, and the perceived fast tracking of white ‘casual’ staff over experienced black employees. More n...