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Sep
16

How to sell your HR concept to your stakeholders by first “getting your foot in the door”

Category: Communication, HR Tags: decision-making, influence

Can’t sell your ideas to the management?

Foot in the door - by novishari

Foot in the door – by novishari

You have been with your company for quite a few years. You believe you can see the issues clearly. And you – being an experienced HR professional – have a pretty good idea how to overcome these issues. So you develop a concept, a great one at that. If the company were to implement your new system in the way you propose, it would have a huge positive impact on the company.

You present your proposal to the management. You tell them all your arguments and…

They just don’t get it. In spite of all the evidence in front of them, they still say no.

This is so frustrating. You do everything in your power to get things moving in this company, but the management is so unsupportive of any new HR initiatives.

Does this story strike a chord with you?

How to make people say yes – the story of the ugly billboard Read More

Aug
29

Working with those damned foreigners… How to improve your own cultural intelligence and that of your colleagues

Category: Communication, Leadership, Skill Development Tags: cultural differences, Hofstede, national culture Leave a Comment

Do you work or have you ever worked in an international environment? Do you do business with people of different nationalities from yours? If you do, you might have suffered the embarrassment of cracking a joke and none of the “foreigners” even feigning a smile. Or a time when you have offended someone, in spite of your best intentions, only because you were unaware of the unwritten rules of another culture. In theory, we all know that cultural differences exist. But if we are not aware of the exact nature of those differences, we can drop ourselves in some awkward and sometimes humiliating situations. Read More

Aug
8

Boosting employee motivation on a small budget – “show them that you care”

Category: Best of HR Project, HR Tags: employee engagement, motivation Leave a Comment

How can I increase employee engagement when budgets are getting tighter? How can I maintain staff motivation with minimal resources? These are questions many leaders and HR professionals ask themselves.

One of the HR directors participating in the Best of HR Project shared with us what methods they use to keep employees spirits high in a period of budget cuts. This is what she said:

“Motivate with small but meaningful gestures”

We are a big multicultural company. We employ 80,000 people worldwide and 170 people in our Eastern European subsidiary. Ours is not a small organisation, but it is very important to us that employees feel “at home” in our company. We are always on the lookout for creative solutions to reinforce the family-like atmosphere, which is a key element of our organisational culture.

Jun
27

A company health program that marries business interest and employees’ interest

Category: Best of HR Project, HR Tags: employee engagement, employee health, motivation Leave a Comment

Should employees’ general health be the concern of the company, or is it a private matter altogether? How can a big organisation help its employees look after their own health, and make them more conscious of their lifestyle?

One of the participants in the Best of HR project shared with us his story of introducing an All-Employee Health Program into his organisation. This is what the manager responsible for the program said:

“Well-being – one of the three major factors in job performance”

There are three main factors that determine an individual’s job performance:

their professional competences and skills
their motivation
the employee’s general health and well-being

May
30

What does the CEO really want from the HR function in his or her company?

Category: HR Tags: CEO, HR partner Leave a Comment

This question is one that concerns HR managers around the world (and if it doesn’t, then it should do!). So, it was no surprise that the CEO Panel Discussion was among the most popular events of last week’s American Chamber of Commerce’s HR Dream Day in Budapest.

Five country CEOs from five multinational companies took part in the discussion. Even though panel discussions are often a hit-or-miss affair – it is sometimes very difficult to facilitate a meaningful conversation between five people on a stage in just 40 minutes – this discussion did bring up some thought-provoking issues, especially about what CEOs find important and what they expect of HR.

Below are some of the key messages addressed to HR practitioners by the five CEOs, and added to them are some of my own thoughts.

Apr
29

How NOT to start a change process if you are new manager

Category: Leadership, Organisational Development & Change Management, Team Tags: change management, new manager, organisational culture Leave a Comment

The New Manager’s Big Change Initiative is failing

Go-ahead manager Bob Newcomer begins his position in the well-established company, Slo-Gro products. He is full of ambition and eager to prove himself as the new head of the team.

After a few weeks, Bob can already clearly see that the processes, methods and traditions in the company are totally dysfunctional and in desperate need of change.

Therefore, after less than two months in office, Bob announces his Big Change Initiative. He introduces several radical transformations. He changes the organisational structure; he starts re-engineering processes; he demands new attitudes and new behaviours from his subordinates

Not surprisingly, Bob Newcomer faces huge resistance. Things are just not happening the way he planned. His orders are not being carried out. People don’t follow his new procedures.

He replaces several of his managers, but improvement is still not forthcoming.

He doesn’t understand what is wrong. Read More

Apr
16

Your colleagues silently disagree with you. How can you make them speak up? (Part 2)

Category: Communication, Leadership, Team Tags: conformity, team pressure Leave a Comment

Tips and tricks for leaders to reduce conformity in their team.

The old saying goes: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” True enough: on one level, conformity – people’s natural tendency to do as the others do – is a great thing. It helps us to be in harmony with our environment. It helps us to form cooperative groups by harmonising our behaviour with others.

On the other hand – as we saw in last week’s article – a high level of conformity can be a great burden in a workplace. It can cause team membersto stay quiet at meetings even when they disagree which can result in catastrophic decisions.

Conformity can also be the killer of innovation. People’s desire to stick to the mainstream opinion instead of challenging it will prevent innovative ideas from surfacing and being implemented.

Therefore leadership techniques that reduce conformity and make people speak up are worthy of any manager’s attention. Read More

Apr
7

Your colleagues silently disagree with you. But why don’t they speak up? (Part 1)

Category: Communication, Leadership, Team Tags: conformity, decision-making Leave a Comment

Quiet disagreeement at a team meeting

At the Monday morning meeting there is a loud, energetic discussion about the new plan. However, Sally, one of your most talented colleagues, is quietly sitting there. She has quite a few doubts about the feasibility of the plan itself. She doesn’t really believe in the whole thing. But she doesn’t say anything. “It’s just not worth speaking up,” Sally might say to herself.

Tom, in the other corner of the room, has very similar thoughts. Yet he doesn’t really feel like contradicting the others. Taking the role of the annoying person who slows down a discussion that seems to be going so smoothly – well, it is not very appealing to him. So Tom just sits there quietly, waiting for the meeting to finish.

Sally and Tom stayed quiet at the meeting. But it doesn’t mean they agreed. Far from it. Read More

Mar
20

From the bottom to the top – radical increase in HR team’s engagement in just a year

Category: Best of HR Project, HR, Organisational Development & Change Management Tags: change management, HR team, roles and responsibilities Leave a Comment

What is the first step on the journey to becoming an outstandingly supportive and valued internal HR service provider?

You need a high-performing, motivated HR team.

A HR director participating in our Best of HR Project faced a big challenge two years ago: employee engagement within the HR team was one of the lowest within all the teams in the whole company.

However, through some radical changes – both within the HR team and in his own leadership style – he managed to improve things so dramatically that, just one year later, HR had become the most engaged team in the organisation.

In the interview with him he shared with us the key elements of their success. Read More

Mar
5

4 stress-reducing techniques that take only five minutes

Category: Leadership, Skill Development Tags: energy management, stress Leave a Comment

Relaxing at work - by novishari

Relaxing at work – by novishari

Are you stressed at work? Quite probably – even if sometimes you are not aware of it. And it is equally likely that you have heard or been told that you should change your lifestyle in order to relieve this stress. Maybe you should work less. Sleep more. Do more exercise. Or drink less coffee, eat better, and so on.

It seems like a big project. Perhaps this is why you haven’t started yet.

While I strongly believe that long-term fundamental changes to our lifestyles is the ultimate answer to the problem of stress, I also believe that any small step that can reduce stress levels is very useful. In fact, such simple techniques can be the first steps towards some more fundamental lifestyle changes.

In this post we will look at four quick and simple 5-minute techniques that you can try TODAY; four simple methods to give you some relief here and now. Doing them several times a day can help you keep your stress levels down. Read More

Feb
18

CSR – a tool to increase employee engagement?

Category: Best of HR Project, HR, Team Tags: CSR, employee engagement, motivation

For some companies their CSR commitment simply involves giving money to a couple of non-profit organisations a few times a year. Others regard CSR as a great marketing opportunity: let’s show the world and our customers that we care, that we give back to society.

But I rarely come across a company that regards CSR as a way to boost employee engagement, to motivate staff and to increase loyalty.

One of the HR directors participating in our Best of HR Project shared with us how CSR and employee motivation are strongly linked in their organisation. She also gave us some hints as to how a system like this can be built up until the CSR buzz spreads among employees like a virus.

Let me share some of the things she said.

CSR is a joint effort between individuals and the company

“We are very proud of our CSR programme. Whenever the company gives to charity we always make sure that our employees are part of it. Read More

Feb
5

7 elements that bring your organisation’s core values to life

Category: Communication, Leadership, Organisational Development & Change Management Tags: feedback, organisational behavour, values

Forcefeeding values - by novishari

Forcefeeding values – by novishari

One of my clients asked me the other day: “I know why having a vision is important. I get that. But what is the point of a value statement?”

I could see where he is coming from. There are so many companies whose value statements are only a list of mundane expressions such as “customer focus”, “excellence”, “cooperation” etc., which are posted on the walls of the corridors and on the company website.

Regarding these “value statements”, I fully agree with my client – there is absolutely no point to them. Read More

Jan
24

CC, BCC, Reply to All – the deadly trio, Part 2.

Category: Communication, Leadership Tags: e-mail, roles and responsibilities, trust

How to spare each other from the overuse of these three simple e-mail functions

In last week’s article I discussed typical ways in which the “CC”, “BCC” and the “Reply to all” functions get misused at workplaces. This week I will focus on possible solutions to those problems.

How can we change our e-mailing habits?

Have we got a problem with our e-mailing habits? Let’s change them. Let’s agree on some simple rules and then stick to them.

This approach often works. It helps people understand each other’s preferences. It helps to harmonise people’s communication habits. In this article I will give you some examples of such rules that can simplify e-mailing and reduce e-mail burden.

But there is a deeper layer to the CC-BCC issue that we shouldn’t ignore. Without fully understanding the root cause that makes people overuse or misuse the CC function, we will only be able to scratch the surface using our new guiding rules for e-mail use. The real problem won’t be solved.

It will just be another incident of bear-shaving: a superficial treatment of a much deeper problem.

Useful guiding rules to make e-mailing more efficient: Read More

Jan
17

CC, BCC, Reply to All – the deadly trio, Part 1.

Category: Communication, Leadership Tags: e-mail, roles and responsibilities, trust

How to drive each other crazy using three simple e-mail functions

Show me your e-mail habits, I will see your corporate culture

The way employees in an organisation use their e-mail can tell us a lot about the organisation’s culture. Is e-mail the main form of communication, or do people prefer calling each other or talking in person? How quickly do people reply to an e-mail they receive? Does the answer arrive promptly or does it take a week to get a reply? Are e-mails typically short and informal, or long, elaborate and very polite?

There are many aspects of e-mailing that would be worth looking at; however, in this article we focus on only one aspect: colleagues’ use of three related functions: CC, BCC and Reply all. Read More

Jan
7

I have almost written a post about procrastination

Category: Skill Development Tags: procrastination

After almost a year of nearly starting, stopping, thinking again and then finally getting round to launching this blog, I thought it would be appropriate to write a post about procrastination. With all this experience behind me, I think I have a lot to share.

Then one day while I was wasting my time doing the usual gloomy “Right, I really am going to write something today” business (which in my case usually means browsing the internet, daydreaming about writing great posts, having a coffee, making a phone call, browsing a bit more and then… oh my god, I am running late and I need to pick up the kids), I bumped into this article:

Why procrastinators procrastinate

Dec
14

Three new technologies to make the most of human capital

Category: HR Tags: creativity, e-learning, innovation, knowledge management, technology

How do you tap into employees’ creativity and quickly turn innovative ideas into product development projects?
How do you save and share the kind of tacit knowledge which can’t be explained, only shown?
How do you collect employees’ experiences in the form of ready to use cases and apply them to actual problem solving situations?

Last week I was invited to an event that promised to answer these three questions, by introducing participants to the latest technological innovations that might be ways of solving these commonly met dilemmas.

I have to admit that I have never been a tech guy. And I have always been a bit suspicious when it comes to technology in the HR field. When we try to replace human relationships with technology, I think we are on the wrong track.

However, the presentations showed that technology in HR can work the other way round: it can actually be the facilitator of more sharing and more open discussion, and help create more inspiration between colleagues.

I am happy to share what I learned about these three very interesting technological solutions.

Dec
1

How to build a successful regional HR team

Category: Best of HR Project, HR, Leadership, Team Tags: HR team, regional manager, virtual team

As part of the Best of HR Project I recently had a very inspiring conversation with the regional HR manager (CEE) of a big international company, who told me about his experience of building a highly effective regional HR team. I am happy to share his story with you here.

When I received the regional HR manager’s position…

I was promoted into the regional HR manager’s position almost two years ago. These two years have been hard, but we have managed to build a regional HR team which is not only performing outstandingly, but is also fun to work in. I am sure it is possible to push a team to exceptional performance by putting a lot of pressure on them, but in the long run that isn’t sustainable. Instead, I wanted to create a culture of trust and openness. Read More

Nov
15

Turn your phone off, don’t let the magic go

Category: Communication, Leadership Tags: listening, susana, telephone

The other day I heard a song on the radio which I haven’t heard for about 25 years.

The thing is, when I last heard this song as a kid, I didn’t speak much English, so all I could understand was “Susana, Susana”. Now, however, I can follow the lyrics and my first thought is:

Why the hell did he pick up the phone?

(For those of you who don’t know the song, or are too professional to listen to it during working hours, here is the short summary of the story: The guy is having the perfect romantic moment with Susana. Just then the phone rings. He picks up only to find out that it was a wrong call. By the time he returns to the girl the “magic is gone, it is a disaster”. In fact, she soon gets up to leave.)

No wonder the magic is gone! You picked up the stupid phone! What did you expect?

I feel like saying the same thing to many managers who keep multitasking, picking up phones, sending texts and trying to hold a conversation simultaneously. Read More

Nov
11

Chaos during change – don’t try to avoid it, manage it

Category: Organisational Development & Change Management Tags: change management, resistance Leave a Comment

„We are in the middle of a big transformation and it is an absolute chaos.”

This is not a quote from one particular person. Rather it is something almost everybody has said, or could have said at some point during an organisational change process, irrespective of what kind of change we are talking about. Whether it is a change of organisational structure, the introduction of the new SAP or a big cultural change project, the phenomenon of “nobody knows what they are doing” is always there at some point.

This chaos causes employees to despair and managers to panic. So, you might ask, how can we plan and implement a smooth and chaos-free change process? The answer is: we can’t.

Nov
4

Bear shaving in organisations

Category: Organisational Development & Change Management Tags: bear shaving, organisational development, root cause, superficial solution

“Global warming a problem? Just shave the bears.”

An old joke Seth Godin quotes in my all-time favourite blogpost.

Ever since I first read the post in 2009 I have been looking out for signs of organisational “bear shaving”, in other words, offering a superficial solution to an organisational problem instead of addressing the root cause. Read More