Dear Venkatesh,
Please read the following which are gobal thoughts. In between we get the lessons where want to go.. HR has got to be more broad based than it is now....
Innovative Strategies are the need of the hour...
The thinking of Michael Porter and Gary Hamel has transformed that way organisations strive for competitive advantage. Their ideas on competitive strategy and management innovation are now seen as essential transformational tools for businesses looking to deliver profitable growth for its stakeholders.
A number of EFMD members have taken the advantage to participate on March 10th in the one-day seminar on Innovative strategies, which EFMD supported.
In his intervention "Creating and growing a competitive strategy" Michael Porter focused on the economic foundations of competition, principles of strategy, creating and growing a strategy, organising for strategy and strategy and social responsibility.
For achieving superior performance, Michel Porter underlined to the audience how operational effectiveness is different from strategic positioning. And he worked through the five tests of a good strategy.
Gary Hamel focused on "The why, what and how of management innovation".
Gary Hamel explored how companies can become management innovators, because few companies have been able to come up with a formal process for fostering management innovation.
Gary Hamel identified in his enlightening intervention several key leadership challenges as well as innovation myths and guided participants through the learning process of challenging management orthodoxy.
A management innovation, Gary Hamel says, creates long-lasting advantage when it meets at least one of three conditions: It is based on a novel principle that challenges the orthodoxy; it is systemic, involving a range of processes and methods; or it is part of a programme of invention, where progress compounds over time.
Effective and efficient learning is key in today's organisations
No doubt, corporations will continue to strengthen and reinforce the applied side of learning to make sure that investments in learning are effective and efficient. Because of the immense pressures on managers only a few "appropriate" learning periods occur during the year and the current trend is de-contenting learning interventions whilst contextualizing learning to the maximum. Both corporate learning centers and business school providers face major challenges for aligning and blending learning.
In an ideal organizational setting, learning processes; communities of practice or knowledge management initiatives will all seamlessly operate in an innovative entrepreneurial culture where the people involved flourish and contribute to a constantly renewing organization, an organization that astonishes its customers and the community to which is belongs. EFMD has conducted an in-depth fact finding mission to better understand what it takes to build such an organization and the results are now published in a unique report "from the field".
Challenges for learning: Understanding the art and the science
Whilst providing a framework for learning, this chapter of the book explores the evolution of the HRD function in an organization. Its activities now focus on being a catalyst and innovator for organisational design and talent pool management. In parallel the report documents how executive development approaches have come a long way and an integrated learning process is in place in the leading organizations.
Partnering for organizational learning
One way to provide solutions for developing and supporting the ideal manager is through partnerships. Increasingly blended learning interventions are provided by corporate learning centers and business schools in a partnership arrangement. This EFMD publication provides a rich list of examples. And moving beyond the examples, the top success factors for tapping the power of collaboration are explored for instance flexibility, top management commitment, complementarity, multi-level links, …
Corporate learning centres: accelerating strategic change
Implementing a strategically viable learning strategy needs clearly defined targets. Is the focus primarily on increasing performance, on enhancing the organizational culture, on top level management? Corporate learning centers can be categorized amongst others according to focus, or target audience or governance structures and obviously there is no `one size fits all'. `Innovative Corporate Learning' covers the profiles of 24 corporate learning centres – listed below – and represents a vital knowledge base to develop an excellent management development approach.
Furthermore, boundaries and life cycles of corporate learning are explored in this new publication. The corporate university profiles provide factual information to compare business models and approaches to career management, leadership programmes, training services and how to structure organization wide learning interventions.
With cases on: ABB, ABN-AMRO, ALCATEL, ALLIANZ, ALSTOM, BARCLAYS, BP, DAIMLERCHRYSLER, DEUTSCHE BANK, EADS, GENERAL ELECTRIC, GENERAL MOTORS, ISVOR-FIAT, HEINEKEN, LUFTHANSA, LVMH, NOVARTIS, SIEMENS, ST NIVERSITY, TRILOGY, UBS, VOLKWAGEN, UNION FENOSA, LLOYDS TSB GROUP.
Nurturing innovation: learning renaissance
Corporate learning will be restrained unless there is an innovative environment to foster creativity and entrepreneurship. Wider research provides insights in the tools available to assess an innovative organizational climate, the core of such climate is learning in the broadest sense and it is expected that the importance of learning will continue to increase both for individuals and for organizations. Increasingly, new approaches are used to liberate creativity and innovation and this book illustrates how entrepreneurial creativity is enhanced by idea and knowledge management processes.
Enterprise learning 2006
According to Bersin & Associates, the major changes in 2005 were:
e-learning has matured into a tool for training and informational resources
training budgets increased, especially in leadership and management education
e-learning has changed the economics of training
training organisations are changing dramatically, and turning into learning services organisations
e-learning expands well beyond courseware
the learning management systems (LMS) market grows rapidly and starts to consolidate
Predictions for the future include:
consolidation of Learning Management Systems will continue
content management and integration will become a major focus
the market for online books and reference materials will continue to grow
reorganisation of corporate training will continue and evolve towards learning services
learning outsourcing will grow, especially outsourced on-demand hosted learning management systems
implementation and integration of online performance management systems will gain in importance
talent management will require HR and training aligment
Analysing corporate learning organisations
A survey covering 350 global companies by Bersin & Associates concludes that 12 factors significantly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of a learning organization.
Factors promoting effectiveness and efficiency include: centralized budget management, investment in e-learning and related technologies, enterprise-wide learning management systems.
Negatively impacting factors include:
Inadequately staffed centralized training organizations, lack of focus of the company-wide standards and templates, insufficient focus on assessment and measurement.
Other factors evaluated in the survey include: resource allocation, designation of a CLO, organizational structure, use of shared services for technology, content development, outsourcing, partnering with HR, impact of steering committees.
What works
Business focused CLO
Focus on learning management systems
Centralized budget control
Focus on operational measurement
Business focused e-learning strategy
Strong alignment but independent from HR
Two models: centralized and federated
Critical role of performance consulting
Use of shared services
What does not work
Centralization with inadequate resources or leadership
HR `taking over'
Lack of measurement
Areas of frustration – as highlighted in the survey – include the ability to
measure training and providing analysis and reports
deliver innovative and high impact e-learning
partner and align with HR
share best practices
Areas of strength – revealed in the report – include:
Providing cost-effective training
Making most of the resources
Meeting regulatory compliance
Organisational Learning
Key HR competencies for the future
595 HR specialists were surveyed by SHL and the Italian Association of Human Resources (AIDP).
From the survey, the following key areas emerge : working with other people, change and evolution, the role of HR within the organization, coping with stress.
All countries give teamwork fairly high ratings, emphasing a more horizontal approach
All competencies related to change are highly rated.
Innovation has the first position in the German ranking.
The top ten competencies (ranked in order of importance are : Personal development; Credibility; Development of others; Adaptability; Teamwork; Innovation; Leadership; Organizational learning; Planning and contol; Strategic vision.
More info is available at SHL People Performance.
Integrating KM and Organizational Learning
This APQC report studies seven best-practice organizations and identifies 17 overarching patterns and insights from organizations that have integrated knowledge management and organizational learning. Findings include:
Individual learning is not enough, team learning through collaboration and experience sharing is considered a higher order learning
Learning is any knowledge acquisition and transfer at any time
Access is expertise is highy valued as well as informal "teachable moment" learning opportunities
The KM/OL infrastructure should own the process, but not the content
There is a trend towards placing KM and OL under strategic senior vice president's of HR in organizations.
Strong senior leadership is required for success.
Partnering with other internal functions such as IT, HR, leadership development is important.
More info is available at APQC.
What keeps executives awake at night?
More than 500 executives responded to this Ken Blanchard survey. For the last 3 years years, the top five concerns in the development area all relate to soft skills, while the bottom three relate to job function or more technical skills.
58% of those responding list developing potential leaders as a top management challenge, with selecting and retaining key talent being frequently cited as well (53%).
Developing managerial and supervisory skills is a major concern for 61 percent of those participating.
When it comes to business challenges, competitive pressure tops the rankings.
A shortage of skilled labor is the number two concern relative to business challenges.
Respondents also point to organizational change and growth as key goals and key challenges.
Understanding learning and development
This Corporate University Xchange sixth annual benchmarking report is based on a survey of 170 corporate universities. Its findings include amongst others:
97% of respondents agree or strongly agree that their organization's "strategy, goals and major initiatives" drive learning.
55% of CUs report through HR; 14% of CUs report directly to the president or CEO
The CU top executive or Chief Learning Officer has to balance the following responsibilities:
Visionary 78%
Internal alliance builder 73%
Leadership developer 66%
Marketer 55%
External alliance builder 55%
Corporate universities and HR work closely together to drive employee and organizational performance:
65% use input from competency management system in learning needs analysis
48% rewards or recognizes employees for attaining personal learning and development goals
46% use input from succession planning process in learning needs analysis
The top five priorities for learning executives are:
Implementing programmes to develop executives or high potential managers 65%
Broadening the reach of the CU within the organization 57%
Measure effectiveness of learning 55%
Implementing & improving learning management system 50%
Reducing fragmentation of learning within the organization 47%
Leadership development
The importance of the HR and Development functions, as well as the extent to which leadership development is blended in with the critical business development function : almost 30 percent of survey respondents stated that these two functions are "extremely" integrated
The level of commitment at the CEO, Board, and Senior Management team is quite strong (54% cite the CEO's commitment to leadership development as "extremely" strong).
The investment in leadership development remains strong – 40 percent of companies experienced greater than 10 percent annual budget growth since year 2000. Moreover, 53 percent of respondents expect budget increases; 38 percent forecast steady investments. Companies also plan to leverage internal resources more frequently in delivering leadership development,
Companies covered in this survey are not measuring the return on impact of leadership as much as one might expect. Despite utilising a variety of metrics to track the effectiveness of leadership development solutions, a full 63 percent reported that they "never" measure leadership development ROI.
Companies covered in this survey are not using technology to a great extent, neither on the delivery side nor for programmed evaluations
Additional marketplace trends:
Development professionals are primarily developing leaders to achieve business results.
Globalisation is a key aspect of all training programmes
Organisations are committing their own senior management's time and effort to ensure that leadership development delivers.
Talent Management : From competencies to organizational performance
This item explores how best-practice organizations design competencies, tap into the talent pool, engage senior leadership to shepherd talent, use technology, and tie the critical aspects of talent management together. The APQC study focuses on four scope areas:
1. Senior Leadership's Role in Talent Management
2. Finding Talent
3. Driving Talent to Performance
4. Gauging the Results of Talent Management
Many organizations indicate that their attempts to integrate recruiting, hiring, staffing, development, and retention into a holistic, systematic process have failed to adequately prepare for the impending brain drain. The best organizations link together the critical owners of talent—senior leadership, HR, and line management.
This APQC benchmarking report examines how best-practice organizations design competencies, tap into the talent pool, engage senior leadership to shepherd talent, use technology, and tie the critical aspects of talent management together.
The study focuses on four scope areas:
1. Senior Leadership's Role in Talent Management
2. Finding Talent
3. Driving Talent to Performance
4. Gauging the Results of Talent Management
The APQC study team discovered a number of overarching patterns, insights and findings. Great detail is available in the full report on how best-practice organizations:
Define `talent management' broadly
Integrate the various elements of talent management into a comprehensive system
Focus talent management processes on their most highly valued talent
Have CEOs and senior executives who are committed to and invest their time in talent management work
Build competency models to create a shared understanding of the skills and behaviours that the organization needs and values in employees
Monitor talent system wide to identify current or potential future talent gaps
Excel at recruiting, identifying, developing, and retaining talent, as well as managing performance
Regularly evaluate the results of talent management
More info:
APQC best practice report
Talent Management: From competencies to organizational performance
APQC Publications
www.apqc.org
2004 World-Class Talent Management Practices Survey
Talent Management practices of most interest to HR practitioners:
Employee retention
Talent development
Candidate screening & selection
Work-life balance
Compensation
Emerging issues in talent management for HR practitioners:
Workforce planning ability
Unknown
Impact of globalization
Employee retention
Candidate sourcing ability
More info on this survey: Dr.John Sullivan -
www.drjohnsullivan.com
Key areas of interest for senior HR executives:
Performance Management 65%
Leadership Development 63%
Career & succession Planning 59%
Change Management 55%
More info on this survey:
www.hr.com/events
More than half of Britain 's business leaders fail to demonstrate trust or show respect for their teams.
60% felt their managing director of CEO was effectively locked away in an ivory tower
79% of managers were desperate for their leaders to share their vision of where the organization was heading, but fewer than 40% claimed this actually happened
93% of managers want leaders who inspire fun and excitement
90% of managers claim their bosses did not appear to trust them
These research findings come from the UK's Department of Trade & Industry and the Chartered Management Institute, covering 668 people
More info:
www.management-issues.com
Women's networks are more than a `superficial add-on'. The establishment of women's networks by 12 of the UK largest employers has brought real commercial benefits as well as being good for the organisations' image.
For example Ford's women's marketing panel suggested colour coding the oil dipstick in cars to make them easier to see; Barclays' network reviews possible products and services for women customers, whilst Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs both use their networks to build better client relationships and reputation.
These are some of the findings of a recent study by Cranfield School of management.
http://www.efmd.org
HR and organizational effectiveness 
Linear Mode
