Development centres
August 14, 2008
The other day I was discussing how development centres can be used to identify potential future leaders for succession planning exercises. Development centres and assessment centres can be quite expensive and complicated to implement, but can bring excellent benefits to organisations using them, as well as the individuals involved. Assessment and development centres are basically a number of tests and tasks, some individual and some in groups, that are carried out by a number of people and observed by ‘assessors’ or ‘observers’. An assessment or development centre is not a place, it is an event, and activities used include presentations, group exercises, psychometric testing and interviews.
Assessment centres and development centres are similar in structure and form, but have different purposes for organisations. Whilst an assessment centre is used as an extensive way of selecting candidate(s) for a particular role, a development centre is used to evaluate existing employees’ skills and knowledge against those needed for their role, and identify gaps to then establish a development plan. Development centres have become a sophisticated method of diagnosing and facilitating development solutions, and can be effective for a number of reasons:
- The development centre can link to organisational and HR strategy. Participants are normally measured against competencies that are relevant for their role, or perhaps the role they are looking to progress into, and these should be drawn directly from the future needs of the business. This also means the development centre can link well to other HR practices such as recruitment and selection or performance management, for a holistic approach to HRM. If this link doesn’t happen, or the development centre is simply used as a one of ‘fad’, then the outcomes are likely to be much less effective.
- A key feature of the development centre is that participants are encouraged to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses, through understanding the process and receiving clear and constructive feedback from the observers. This means that employees who have been through a development centre will develop a habit of planning and managing their own development.
- The development centre is a more valid and reliable way of measuring an employee’s progress against the competencies required for their job or future jobs than, for example, a straightforward performance appraisal from their line manager. This is because each competency can be measured more than once, by different assessors or observers, in different exercises. This is not to say that the development centre should replace the performance appraisal, however the data gathered can provide a useful base for discussion alongside assessment of job specific objectives in the review meeting.
Of course, all of these benefits can only be realised with a well planned and executed development centre, and there are a number of steps that need to be taken to ensure the validity of the data gathered in the process. In the next article I’ll look at how to design a successful development centre and some of the pitfalls to be avoided.
Succession planning (2)
August 8, 2008
Yesterday I was discussing the definition of succession planning and the fact that traditional models of this practice are no longer relevant in today’s business environment. So how can succession planning be effectively implemented within the constraints facing companies today?
As I said yesterday, identifying the roles that the company will need to fill in the future may be difficult due to the rapid changes that take place, in some industries more than others. Where I work the current management team looks completely different now than it did only a year ago, because the needs of the industry have changed, and because innovative thinking within the company has led to whole new departments that have required management structures being implemented. Therefore I think that in succession planning activities, it will be more relevant and useful to identify the likely skills and competencies of future leaders rather than specific jobs that will need to be carried out. Many companies use competency frameworks for their selection and performance management processes, and these can be developed to be used in succession planning. Information from performance management activities can be used to identify potential, or for a more in depth way of identifying talent, development centres provide a way to measure individuals and encourage them to contribute to/manage their own development.
Skills and competencies of potential leaders may be quite different to the skills and competencies they need in their current role. It is common to promote people into leadership roles within a team because they are exceptional at the role that they will in future be managing, but this does not necessarily lead to success. Many excellent leaders are in fact better at facilitating others’ success in a particular practice than actually doing it themselves. Skills such as motivating others, coordinating workloads, listening and coaching are more important than operational skills – there’s no point being great at something if you can’t get your staff to do it effectively as well. Moving into a leadership or management role can be challenging as it’s quite hard to stop ‘doing’ when you should be ‘managing’. Effective succession planning needs to allow the time and space for future leaders to practice ‘letting go’ and coordinating activities instead of doing them all themselves.
Progression can no longer always be about promotion to more senior positions within a company, due to the changing shape of organisations as I discussed yesterday. However this doesn’t mean that individuals cannot grow and develop themselves, and this needs to be recognised, highlighted and rewarded where appropriate. Traditional succession planning might concentrate on management development, probably involving formal training courses and focussing the development in the one area where the individual would eventually end up. As we know, in the new business climate, leaders need to be aware of wider strategic issues and understand where their particular function contributes to the strategy. Therefore more appropriate succession planning activities may involve ‘lateral moves’ such as secondments to different parts of the business, different challenges such as new projects or initiatives, or simply more autonomy or responsibility within their role. A lot of candidates ask me about ‘progression opportunities’ within the organisation and I tend to explain that while the traditional routes to senior positions are not necessarily available for everyone who would wish this, there is a great deal of personal progression within the role, for example working with more complex projects or with higher profile clients. It is really important to make sure employees understand how they are progressing and measure this realistically instead of benchmarking against traditional career paths that are not completely realistic in the current business environment.
Succession planning, to me, is about managing expectations and understanding aspirations as much as it is about planning for the future of the business. It’s no good setting long term plans in motion that will make the organisation a huge success if the employees involved don’t see where they’re going or understand their place in the plan. The last thing you need is employees who are gaining all the good skills you’ll need in the future to leave because they didn’t see the potential in the career they had in the company.
What is succession planning?
August 7, 2008
With all the talk about ‘the war for talent’ and the lack of leadership and management skills in the UK labour force, there’s quite an emphasis within the HR community on succession planning at the moment. I’ve done a little bit of digging into what this exactly means as it’s a phrase that’s used a lot but the exact purpose and meaning isn’t always completely clear, and I think this is because career development as an idea has evolved and developed in recent decades. This is due to many things including the changing nature of business in a now global environment and the increase in women on the ‘career ladder’ instead of working up to the time when family commitments take over and then dropping out of the labour market.
The CIPD describes succession planning as ‘identifying future potential leaders to fill key positions’. Three key problems with this idea come immediately to mind:
- Firstly, with the rapid pace of change in today’s business environment, it’s sometimes impossible to predict what senior positions will be available in the future, so it’s difficult to identify potential and then nurture it.
- Secondly, the idea of a ‘career’ as a succession of jobs in the one company or even one industry is completely outdated. A few weeks ago I was talking about ‘career changers’ going into the teaching profession and there’s a lot more movement between different industries and jobs now than in the past. Now you hear about ‘protean careers’ – i.e. people having more than one different career in their lives, and ‘portfolio careers’ – i.e. the people who manage a number of different roles within the one career (consultancy and teaching together, for example). And these types of careers are now more of a life choice rather than a need. So with these ideas in mind, there are fewer employees willing to stay in a company for the long term awaiting a succession of promotions as there would have been a number of years ago.
- Thirdly, the structure of organisations has changed in many places, and we now see flatter, or sometimes ‘matrix’ structures where the opportunities for progression in the traditional sense are few and far between.
So succession planning has become more of a two-way relationship. As well as attempting to consider the business needs of the future, employers need to ensure they are meeting the career expectations of those they are intending to develop into the leaders of the future, at a quick enough pace, otherwise all their good work may be wasted when the employees go off to succeed a leader in another company. Another area to be aware of is the growing acceptance that employees have family lives, and will assert their rights to these lives more now than ever. So succession planning needs to be flexible to individuals’ needs for a work-life balance and a family-friendly career.
So, after thinking about the definition of succession planning, it seems that the practice is much more complicated than you would think, and there seems to be a lot than can go wrong. However it is an important practice to think about. Whilst the labour market looks set to grow due to increasing unemployment, this doesn’t mean that the employees left behind deserve less attention and development, nor that companies should start recruiting all their leaders from outside of the company just because there is more availability of candidates. However on the other hand, some companies tend to promote from within simply because an individual has been with the organisation a long time or has shown favourable traits such as commitment and loyalty, but if this is the case across the board there is a danger of ending up with a senior team that has not had enough developmental attention or that has been poorly selected for the positions.
Tomorrow I’ll look at how companies can carry out effective succession planning within the constraints and difficulties of today’s business environment.
New business initiative to encourage more to join the teaching profession
July 9, 2008
A new scheme called Transition to Teaching is set to make positive links between the business community and the teaching profession. This scheme will hopefully increase the number of new teachers in a time when the profession is struggling to recruit in some subjects, as well as raise the profile of businesses in order to increase the numbers of skilled candidates available in the future. A number of large organisations have already pledged support to the scheme including BT and IBM.
This is a fantastic scheme. Having had quite a lot of academic experience as a pupil/student, I’ve always thought that the best teachers are the ones that have had some ‘life’ experience i.e. those that haven’t gone from their own education straight back into educating others. The teaching profession is now seeing many new applications from ‘career changers’, i.e. those who have worked in an industry for many years and feel the need for a new direction. With this scheme, those people will find this route easier with the support of their employers, and more career changers will be able to follow their dreams of changing their career later on. Companies involved will be able to enhance their reputation as employers of choice within their own workforce and within the labour market of the future.
Train staff in data protection!
July 1, 2008
It has been found that ‘cultural’ failures at HM Revenue and Customs caused last year’s fiasco over the loss of millions of child benefit records. An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found that because junior staff were not effectively trained in data protection issues, they did not know how to properly look after the information they held, and sent CDs containing the information through the post, which was then lost.
This is a major embarrassment for the Government. When the incident happened last year, a junior civil servant was blamed, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor said that the individual had failed to follow HMRC security procedures. This has now proved to be incorrect by the IPCC, who say that junior staff could not be held accountable for something they had not been properly trained in, and the inquiry has also found that a junior member of staff actually asked if it was ok to send personal information in the post but was ignored! Oh dear…
If there was ever any doubt over the need for effective processes and staff training in relation to data protection issues, this incident should crush it straight away. When I first heard this story my first thought was ‘isn’t it just common sense to keep that sort of information safe?’ However as the incident where the junior member of staff was ignored shows, the processes and training can sometimes be more about senior management leading the way and actually showing junior members of staff the correct way to manage systems (and not cut corners), than simply giving staff the skills and knowledge they need in their roles.
Time management training activity (2)
June 26, 2008
Yesterday I was describing the time management training I recently delivered in my organisation. This is another technique to help organise your time that I came across in my search for better time management tools:
The urgent/important matrix
Even people who use a diary or task list find that their time is too stretched or that they cannot manage it effectively. These are common ways of organisation and time management, but they don’t necessarily distinguish what is important, urgent or what is ‘nice to do if you have time’. One way to classify tasks in this way is to use an urgent/important matrix, as shown in the diagram below:
We all probably spend a lot of time on tasks that are (seemingly) urgent, but this means that we are sometimes failing to focus on those that are important as well. At work we need to be efficient, but we also need to be effective – and the important tasks will make us effective contributors to the business. Another good way to think about this is to consider the tasks you have in relation to your performance reviews and any objectives that have been set (if you have them). If you analyse the tasks in this way you should be prioritising activities that contribute to your performance outcomes.
Box 1 will contain tasks that need doing immediately, such as dealing with emergencies and fire fighting. You need to evaluate each task and decide on its urgency in relation to others, discussing this with the person who asked you to do it if needed. In this box should also be projects that were previously in box 2 – that you have planned in time to complete and on which the deadline is now closing.
Box 2 has the important tasks that need to be done to make you an effective contributor to the company. A lot of the time these tasks get neglected because of ad hoc requests or emergencies, so they need to be planned carefully and time scheduled to complete them – when this time arrives they become a box 1 task. These sorts of tasks will include research, strategic thinking, planning, large projects (which can be broken down into manageable chunks that can be scheduled).
Box 3 has tasks that really don’t need to be completed by you, are unnecessary requests from others, or are pointless tasks that just get done because you have always done it that way. This is probably the hardest box to manage because it requires being diplomatic and sensitively rejecting requests from others (who may be your boss!). The best way to do this is to have a visible plan for your time and showing this to the requester, then probing them as to what really needs to be done and why. It’s up to them to negotiate with you for your time! Good time managers recognise unnecessary routines and make changes to them.
Box 4 does not contain tasks that you would consider need doing, but you need to recognise that you do these things so that you can work out how to stop them. Things like daydreaming, excessive cigarette breaks, net surfing and email conversations will go into this box. The best way to avoid these activities is to have a detailed plan/schedule for each day so that you know what you are supposed to be doing and won’t be tempted to drift off, which could be discussed in another section of the training session.
A good idea for a workshop session would be to ask attendees in groups to discuss and note different daily activities they do in each box. Then they can discuss how to drop the activities in boxes 3 and 4 and effectively manage to achieve those in box 2 as well as the day to day urgent tasks.
Tackling the time bandits!
June 25, 2008
In my role as a HR professional, I have many different demands on my time, as I’m sure all people in the profession have. Recently I’ve been having a think about my time management skills, which I realised needed to be brushed up as I was often struggling to complete all my daily tasks, despite using a diary and my email system to organise my workload. I came across a few good hints and tips in my search for self improvement, and recently turned this into a workshop for employees in the business. If you’re responsible for these kinds of responsibilities for your company, the activities I carried out might help you.
I started by asking who thought they were good at time management, and why they thought so. I then asked who thought they were poor at it, and why. Most people were in the middle somewhere, i.e. they thought they were ok but could improve. We discussed the point that people tend to be very good at time management on the day before they go on holiday, and why this is so. The main reasons are of course that you are more focused, you have no choice but to do what needs to be done and you manage to turn the pressure into a positive thing rather than panicking over it. We discussed how this approach can be turned into a positive thing in every day working life rather than just before a holiday.
Time bandits
The first activity I did was called time bandits. It was basically a brainstorming session where every attendee at the training was asked what was their main time ‘bandit’ – i.e. the thing that steals their time. The main culprits included poor systems, clients and other members of staff. We then all gave ideas about how these things could be reduced – i.e. the time ‘sheriffs’. The session was good as it highlighted some important issues that need to be addressed within the company, which can now be taken forward as ‘projects’ or further discussions within teams or in management meetings.
Tomorrow I’ll go over another useful exercise for time management workshops.
Get managers involved with new employees!
May 26, 2008
Sharing the responsibility for learning and development of employees between line managers and HR is a great idea!
When a new employee starts, we give them a set induction plan for the week. At the end of the week we hold an evaluation meeting where we can ask how the induction has been and if they feel they need to go over any areas they feel they are not 100% sure on.
We then hold a meeting at the end of week 2 and week 3 and then do a 1 month, 3 month and 6 month review.
In the past, this has all been down to the HR department when in fact it should be the responsibility of the line manager to liaise with the new employee.
After the 1 month review, the employee doesnt really meet with the HR department again so its crucial that the manager gives the employee time to speak to them about how they are settling in and if they need more help in certain areas.
We have also decided to involve managers in the interviewing process so that they can decide exactly who they would like to join their team.
If managers are not involved with the recruitment of employees or the learning and development in your company, then i definitely think that you should start this now!
The right to request time off to train
May 16, 2008
This week Gordon Brown released plans to give UK employees the right to request time off to participate in training activities or complete qualifications, in the same way that some parents have the right to request flexible working. This right will be part of an educational bill to come into force next April.
This is a curious development. The skills agenda seems to be quite a big issue at the moment and the Government is making a lot of plans to try to increase skills within the labour force, but I’m not sure that people not having time off to carry out qualifications is such a big problem. I’ve recently talked about the benefits (or lack of) of formal qualifications in relation to skill development, and so I’m not sure that this is necessarily the answer to the regularly reported ‘skills gap’. But perhaps the new right isn’t really to do with that, it may be more to do with the rights of people to develop themselves and to achieve their personal educational and career goals. However as John McGurk of the CIPD says in the news report I’ve read, training opportunities should contribute to the business needs of the employer, and if the request is for training that is not going to help these needs, then the employer should be able to refuse the request. This would mean employees could not take time off to train for a career that was different to the job they were currently carrying out.
I’ve been training outside of my full time job for four years, half of which I did in the evenings outside of work time, and half I was able to take time off work to attend. Of course it was better for me to attend in work hours so I wasn’t studying until late, but to be honest if I couldn’t have done that I would have still done the course in the evenings as I was committed to it and wanted to complete it. Completing a qualification is hard when you work as well, and I think that many of the people who are really committed to this option would do so somehow without this right. Also, I’m not sure giving the right to request time off to train will increase the amount of people doing courses; what if you couldn’t afford to take the pay cut to have the time off? On the other hand maybe a positive thing about the right is that it would probably receive a lot of publicity (if the right to request flexible working is anything to go by) and would therefore maybe advertise the possibilities of gaining new skills and qualifications to people who had not really thought about it before
Developing management competence
May 2, 2008
Not long after I had written my comments yesterday about learning from qualifications and experience, I was browsing the latest HR stories and found one about ‘skills guru’ Lord Leitch’s comments on the lack of management skills in the UK. He thinks that the lack of these skills will mean UK will fall behind on competitiveness in the global economy, losing out to newer international players such as China and India. One of his key points was that academic qualifications do not necessarily equal skills, which mirrors my concerns about my qualification.
This is a critical consideration for organisations. As I reported a few days ago with relation to football managers, there isn’t a lot of time afforded to senior management in today’s organisations to get up to scratch and perform to the high standards required in a competitive environment, yet many new (and some old) managers will not have the necessary skills to carry out the role effectively, even if they come with a degree or management qualification – as this only teaches the theory. Many new managers do not even have a qualification but are given the opportunity due to their proven abilities within the role they now have to manage. The problem here is competence in an operational capacity does not necessarily mean competence in management.
So what’s the answer? Well, as I’ve talked about in the past, formal training methods such as lecture-style sessions are not the most effective way for people to learn skills. To master a skill you need to carry out your learning as close to the activity as possible. This can mean simply experiencing the role, i.e. the ‘practice makes perfect’ method, but what will improve the learning experience is adding reflection into the routine; so that each time you practice something, you can review your performance and discuss what can be done differently. Coaching and action learning are good examples of learning methods that would be very effective for management development, as they both involve carrying an activity out and then reviewing what was done. Another benefit of these methods is that the learning is directly relevant to what is happening at work rather than on theoretical models or case studies.
Many large companies have management training programmes, most of which I imagine will offer a blended learning approach, using a combination of theoretical and practical methods to help the learner develop in their role. Most smaller companies will not normally be able to afford this level of development for their managers, but nonetheless need to ensure this vital group of people are well prepared and competent in their roles. Management teams can develop informal versions of development methods to support each other, work through issues together and give advice where appropriate. This way the variety of experience can be used to its full potential, as all the managers will have different approaches, different past experiences to draw on, and different ideas for the future.