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Wishing everyone a very happy and joyous holiday

William G. Stevens
Blog Publisher

Human Capital Institute Picks Human Resources Strategy for the 21st Century as a Top Blog to Read

The Human Capital Institute, the global association for strategic talent management has chosen "Human Resources for the 21st Century" as one of the top 100 human resources blogs to read. I am delighted that the institute has recognized the importance and influence this blog has on human resources and the on-going development of HR strategy.

HCI's Center for Human Capital Excellence (CHCE) is the global clearinghouse for thought leadership, best practices and innovation in strategic talent management and new economy leadership.

Five Minute Management Course

Lesson #3

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.



They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'


'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.' Puff! She's gone.


'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.'


Puff! He's gone.


'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after Lunch.'

Moral of the story:



Always let your boss have the first say.

Talking Heads- Ten Principles for Social Media Marketing Success #2

Today it is the norm to communicate, consort and associate with each other over social networks – it’s almost weird not to.  So much so, that the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin have become household names and collectively generate millions of dollars in revenue.  Many other businesses use social media and social networks to gain a competitive advantage in the world of business, which requires them to be up-to-date with the advancements and changes of technology that they are using. 

MeetTheBoss.tv has interviewed some of the most influential C-level executives within the industry including: Julian Persuad- MD of Google, Ken Mandell-VP Advertising Sales of Yahoo! and Ji Hee Nam-VP Digital Media MTV.   In this program these executives explain the difficulties of having to adapt constantly to an ever-changing sector and the advantages of being part of a new generation of business.

A very engaging interview from MeetTheBoss.tv on the new way in which marketing and brand organisations have to work with today’s technology and digitalisation.  Chuck Brymer, who was elected President & CEO of DDB Worldwide in 2006 gives his insight to the ever-advancing nature of marketing which runs parallel and works hand-in-hand with the new types of social networking and telecommunications.  In this interview he highlights the importance of keeping people engaged with the product and acknowledge their feedback and authorise their participation to improve it: “You no longer own that property.  It’s owned by your customers.”  Brymer explains, in this way brand managing is not invasive and is a 2-way dialogue solely between the customer and the company, B2C.

Learn from the experts, sign up and watch for FREE at MeetTheBoss.tv

From the Front

In the past month, Joel Koblenz had conversations with three highly reputed CEOs of mid cap public companies where the specific topic was their expectations for their CHRO leader and where that leader could truly create value. While a sample of three is certainly not scientific, the themes we heard were remarkably similar.


Here is what we learned;

First, while all three CEOs sought the contribution of their CHROs, none, when we inquired, could really delineate tangible strategic benefit and accordingly, none really understood the full breadth and value of the function. All admitted that the impact of human resources was the least understood and appreciated. This is interesting as every successful CEO know that talent and how it is acquired, managed and motivated is the backbone of any successful enterprise.  What flummoxed the CEOs was how to make their company’s talent more effective.

Secondly, the CEOs spoke about investing in leadership and their development and strategically aligning their talent with flexibility to take advantage of opportunities and/or meet critical challenges. They viewed this as the direct responsibility of their CHRO as the leader of this effort and the manager of human/executive capital. All three felt that their CHRO’s were too structural and bureaucratic with little knowledge the basic tenets of change management and none, in their view, truly appreciated the operating levers of their business units. One commented that their CHRO was the culture keeper of,”what was/is and not what will be.”

Even with a small sample, it is clear that CEOs are seeking CHROs that will act as a strategic human resource advisor. This creates a great opportunity for HR executives to play a pivotal role linking strategy and operating models with the necessary executive talent to execute “the plan.” Talent management centered on a,” just in time” focus.

Plans are plans and rarely do they unfold overtime as anticipated.  CEOs are all under pressure to deliver results regardless of market and competitive conditions. In the CHRO, progressive CEOs are seeking a “partner” who is willing to accept the risk of recruiting/ developing leaders to meet the requirements of the unknown. The CEOs all pointed out that while today’s environment is uncertain, the honing of leadership depth is an “investment” that all three CEOs were ready to make and their boards were willing to support.

Koblenz's  advice is to show commitment, courage, and great care at tuning up your approach to developing and retaining leadership. This is a perfect storm opportunity to work closely and build a new level of trust with your CEO, executive team colleagues, and perhaps with your board of directors on a critical front of mind strategic challenge .. leadership depth and succession.

By Joel Koblentz on October 5, 2010

Thinking With No Boundaries - Red & Green Lights

I attended an HR conference last week in Atlanta and was  amazed at the number of senior HR practitioners who were so set in their thinking. The topics ranged from how to acquire talent to how to organize the HR department. Most of the participants had at least 10+ years in HR with a minimum of 6 in a senior management role. 


So what was so amazing? Let me tell you my observations and what I see as an outcome from them:

• managers were not interested, for the most part, to use social networking as a recruitment tool, not even Linkedin - my outcome from that is they are missing key passive job seekers and not utilizing the latest technology to get to talent. 
• Many were not even beginning the process of looking at the changes in health care and how it would affect their current plan designs - outcome is they will miss out on savings and current tax advantages. But with the changes in the mid-term elections they may have saved a lot of time of the Obama health care agenda is repealed. 
• Most still have a traditional HR department designed organization - outcome to me is the HR managers reporting to these people are not on the line and cannot get to problems and solutions until the issues become full blown fires. Where are these people and how can they be at the table with the CEO recommending solutions.
• Some, more than some, do not have a clear reporting relationship  with their CEO - outcome is they do not have the CEOs ear and the issues are softened by the reporting relationship (IE: reporting to a CFO, COO, or CLO)
• Most have not challenged their organization with employee self-service - outcome is this will keep the HR department in a more administrative role than a strategic role.
• Most of these HR practitioners do not know the full scope of their product lines - outcome is how can you be a business partner if you do not know the business?
• and finally, most are still doing the managers job in performance appraisals, compensation and salary administration - outcome to me is they are doing the managers job and he/she should be doing these things with HR as the final gatekeeper. 

I would be interested in what you think about these issues and how you would resolve them in your organization. 

Meet the Boss - Warren Gatland, Coach of Wales National Rugby Team on Success

MeetTheBoss.tv has an exclusive video interview with Warren Gatland, the recently re-signed Head Coach of the Wales National Rugby Club.  The New Zealand-born coach gives an insight to his emphasis on leadership and successful coaching skills for the national side. Gatland explains to MeetTheBoss.tv that the most important way to measure success in any circumstance, is to “over achieve.”  Moreover, he adds that as a coach in Rugby Union, his role as leader is not about dominating and overpowering the team but empowering them and building trust, loyalty and honesty.

Check this video out on http://www.meettheboss.tv/

Which Key Human Resource Function Has The Greatest Influence On Management’s Opinion Of HR?

If one could list the five major functions of a quality HR department, what would those five functions be and which of those have the greatest impact on management’s opinion of HR?


This question was asked in a number of human resource groups on the professional networking site Linked In. There were approximately 41 individuals who responded to the question and provided a broad range of thoughtful, intelligent answers. This article is a summary of the thoughts and comments provided by human resource professionals and consultants. The purpose is to make the information available to all and allow additional comment and debate.

“I don’t think it’s about which HR function has the greatest influence but rather which HR person. That person most assuredly will be the one who builds credibility as being a business person first and an HR professional second.”



In reviewing all of the comments and responses, a few general themes became clear. A major theme that seems to be important is the idea of human resources as a strategic, business-focused function. Many respondents used language that implied a strategic value to the functions and capabilities of HR. Clearly, respondents felt it was very important for HR to demonstrate commercial sense, knowledge of the business, the competitive landscape and a strategic understanding of how the business needs to develop.
“I think these are all great answers. But the one I have found to have the biggest impact of an HR professional on upper management is to have an understanding of the business. By truly understanding what the company does, who they are, what services they provide and where they want to go, uppemanagement will be more likely to see HR as a business partner, and not an administrative function."

Therefore, it is perhaps reasonable to assume that there are HR functions that are clearly focused on the commercial and strategic aspects of the business. Additionally, it might follow that most HR professionals would include those in one of the top five or six functions of a quality human resource department.



As a follow up to this, many people made comments about human resource functions and the importance of those functions connecting together in support of the business.



“We have to connect the delivery of our activities with their business impact. We’re delivering talent so that clients are served by smarter people. We’re delivering motivation so that we generate better solutions for customers. We deliver employee relations so that we retain a stable and knowledgeable workforce our customer’s value. We deliver all these things so that our company’s people create superior value for stockholders.”

These comments imply a relationship between the delivery of talent and the achievement of strategic objectives. This might mean that talent acquisition and recruitment would be very important.

“I would like to say that recruiting the right person for the right place, keeping in mind business requirements and retaining him as per organization requirement is so important that he or she should be kept by any mean, i.e. motivational or tools.”
This would also imply that talent management is very important.

“I really believe talent management will have the biggest impact on the perception of HR.”



Respondents also commented on the importance of being trusted by those managers they support. The issue of trust with respect to HR is one that Quorum has seen come up in a number of ways.



Yet the negative perception of human resources by management continued to surface and some comments seem to express a deeply felt frustration.

“Unfortunately HR is yet widely considered as a support function and not an initiative (innovative) one. And the fact of the matter is that when HR tries to be initiative (innovative), the management would shoo them off by saying, "You don’t understand the market. Please do what you are asked to." Unfortunately, this is the fact! But if we don’t understand the market, then how do we provide them the best of the available human resource to do the business?”


Given the breadth and range of responses, the individual functions that were listed by respondents, were organized in their order of importance. These were then grouped into nine major categories. Only those respondents who gave a list of important functions were included. Some respondents seemed to agree with a particular list, but did not provide their own. In this case, that particular list was not included twice.


As an example of how functions were categorized, functions like change/transformation management, leadership succession, organization design, organization development and succession planning were all grouped in the category organizational development. Functions like delivering HR information, HR metrics, HRIS (human resource information systems) and HR reports for decision making, were all put in the category of analytics.



The top two issues of importance from the survey were: Talent Acquisition 83%, Business Knowledge & Strategy 72% .

For more information please go to the Quorum website at: http://quorumassociates.com/thoughtleadership/five-functions-of-a-quality-human-resource-department

If you are not in the top two categories you are really not a true HR leader.