True North's Blog

Strengths of key execs balanced with psychometrics

truenorthhr — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:23:05 +0000

We’ve been working on the latest generation of psychometric software – our Dimensions System. It allows HR depts to compare and contrast the core behaviours of teams and groups of senior managers within businesses. With this innovation the whole concept of ‘Talent Management’ has taken a major leap forward – away from perception and gut feel – into the realms of scientific decision making.

Psychometric testing isn’t new. It was used during the Ming Dynasty in China to help identify whether the sons of nobles were best suited for a role in the military or as a bureaucrat. It was the US Marine Corp who rediscovered its powers in modern times. Commanders wanted to understand more about why officers educated at the same military schools, trained in the same techniques and briefed in the same way reacted so differently when under fire.

What they all found was that the answer is in our psyche. Our decision making is heavily influenced by three things: intelligence; values and motivations. It is easy to forget how important these factors are. Companies may recruit against them but do they always develop their teams and balance the strengths of their top talent well? Are the key executives in a company balanced in psyche type so that they can deal with all eventualities? Are key players being balanced against each other as many of them face unprecedented pressures in today’s marketplace?

Most importantly, are top teams being drawn from a variety of types, backgrounds, values and competencies? Or is the old mantra of “we need people like us” still being played out in many sectors, not least banking for starters?

Norman Burden, CEO

Britain’s missing talent

truenorthhr — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:11:01 +0000

In recent years, the focus on services in the UK economy has led to an explosion in the number of graduates who leave university with a degree in a subject such as Media Studies, Leisure Management or even ‘Golf Course Management’ and (reportedly) The Beetles (University of Liverpool).

Little wonder then that British industry can find home grown marketers but finds it difficult to fill roles for technical engineers, research technicians or developers. Such roles are often recruited overseas.

Yet Britain remains the hotbed of innovation and ideas. We still see amazing ideas come from graduates at recruitment times yet find that many entered their ‘technical’ degrees expecting to go into a career in finance and now that is not happening they are looking further afield (online gaming for one – a massive growth area).

The key for finding our ‘missing’ talent is to conduct searches for candidates based on behaviours rather than degree topic or experience. As with all talent issues at present, flexibility is key.

Jo Dalton, Director

Construct or contract today’s top talent?

truenorthhr — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:59:58 +0000

The established, McKinsey-led therory about fighting a war for talent is being widely reported as being bogged down in the recessionary trenches at present.

The pressure is now on CEO’s to cut costs and headcount. Yet there is evidence that they are holding their nerve and that they and their HR advisors are avoiding the frenzied headcount culls of the recessions of the 80s and 90s that led to huge talent shortages in key industries.

But how are companies balancing the need to contract top talent to gear up for better times ahead versus the reality of nurturing existing talent and filling immediate skills gaps internally?

Flexibility is the watchword. Smart CEOs and HR directors are ensuring that they do not cut back employees to the point where there are gaps that they do not have the financial or personnel resources to fill quickly. They are also mindful of engaging their existing talent in order to retain them at a time when pay rises and bonus payments may be frozen.

This new and creative mix in the human capital management marketplace involves such steps as transferring talent from departments or locations and attracting new talent in a more cost-effective and positive way than ever before.

Norman Burden, CEO

Getting the right candidate for senior roles is crucial

truenorthhr — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:36:51 +0000

It has always been important for Board Directors to have the skills necessary to hire the correct people for senior roles but never more so than today because:
1. The wrong candidate can create a sick division with good staff leaving and average staff keeping their head down in the sure knowledge that this one will not last either
2. With de-layering the ability to “fill in” for an inadequate leader is diminishing. Where at one time three or four layers of management might be able to contribute to a project, now there is often only two or three people working on even very major initiatives
3. Poor people in senior roles means less mentoring and guidance of junior staff at a time when training budgets have never been under more stress
4. As a Board Director if you hire the wrong person at present and then have to remove them, there is a real risk that instead of being able to replace them you will be asked to make do with less people reporting to you or have to combine departments – often in dysfunctional ways.
Wanda Goldwag, Non Executive Chair

Nameless references are becoming ever more common

truenorthhr — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:55:03 +0000

Referencing used to be a be straight forward matter of providing factual and background information on a former employee but now that every hiring decision is so crucial we are all being asked to ‘secret reference’ both those we worked with and those we reported to and that brings up a whole new series of issues.

What is the right thing to do when the reference agency rings and says as you worked at x company you must know John Smith who was there at the same time as you.

It is fine if you knew and admired him but what if you know he was a weak leader who took credit for the work of others and is entirely unsuited for the role he is being considered for.

This is my checklist:

1. Refuse to give feedback unless you really knew the person well, it is very unfair to give a reference on someone you saw occasionally or only in unusual circumstances like the annual company conference.

2. Insist on understanding exactly what the role on offer is, your ex-colleague may have been a success or failure but if this is say an international role and you only worked with them in a UK setting you don’t have enough information to really comment.

3. Be clear about who will see this reference and how anonymous it will be – if it will become obvious that you are the source of the reference ensure that you can justify what you say.

4. Remember people change, so be clear about how long ago and in what context you knew the person.

5. Lastly remember that if you are the source of an incorrect reference be it too positive or negative you damage your own credibility.

Wanda Goldwag, Non Executive Chair

Winners and losers in the recession recruitment race

truenorthhr — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:54:20 +0000

We recently posted a vacancy for an intern (paid) and have received hundreds of replies from great graduates. It seems that reports in the news regarding the lack of suitable employment opportunities for today’s new brains is true.

How sad. We need to feed this new talent into the pipeline for future success so let’s all make a concerted effort to create roles, even for short periods, where our grads get paid work experience before they all go off on voluntary service overseas or get used to subsisting on allowances.

I would point many of them to the new boom areas of pharma, e-commerce, and online retail. Indeed any retailers lacking transactional sites are really missing out now.

One global pharma company I work with has a newly created role for a head of resourcing. New areas are opening up all the time in this area as UK biotech companies are innovative and moving into new areas such as health economics. Smaller companies are getting products near to launch and this industry for one is reinventing itself and needs a supply of talent to meet expansion plans. Similarly, technology and telecomms growth is strong in geographical areas such as the Thames Valley corridor.

Gaming is also booming too and attracting the graduate brains that may have traditionally chosen banking or finance as career options.

Jo Dalton, Director

Work needs an infusion of joy

truenorthhr — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:29:38 +0000

Recently, Richard Donkin wrote about a French ‘Beepeuse’ (check out operator or literally ‘woman who beeps’). This was as part of his examination of the joys and sorrows of work.

I cannot help but question what joy at work today’s dedicated HR professionals have? Especially now that they need to conform to endless process, much of which is enforced by legislation, that blunts any real opportunity to do anything that is insightful or challenging. There is an irony between the efforts exerted by employers to attract the best and most ‘individual’ talent compared with that given to making employees feel ‘special’ once they are on the payroll.

Employees become headcount because of the risk of treating them as individuals in a litigious world. To single an employee out for special attention may be appropriate from time to time, for example if they are having problems unrelated to the workplace. A few kind words from a manager can go a long way but can HR professionals afford to indulge in such behaviour lest it be interpreted as prejudicial? Where can they add some joy?

For starters if a proliferation of process prevents an in-house HR function from ‘doing the right thing’ then one solution is to get someone else to do it for them. Outsource it. This may then influence positively the work experience from all those from beepeuse to boardroom once again.

Norman Burden, CEO

New Neds needed

truenorthhr — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:39:56 +0000

A recent Higgs Review says that boards should recruit more widely for Non-Executive Directors (Neds) with the right skills and integrity to enhance their businesses.

The days of Neds looking the other way whilst boards head for crisis have to be over. As a Ned I think it is time we took this issue more seriously. If PLC’s are still making the excuse that they can’t find good women and people from ethnic minorities then perhaps they are not trying very hard or clearly looking in the wrong places. If you only look at and recruit from current PLC boards you miss the opportunities to see some remarkable candidates.
People who run for example London & Quadrant Housing Association with a budget of over £240 million and more than 1000 staff or Chief Executives of major London Councils like Westminster with 4500 staff. Or people who can juggle this challenging role and have the experience and attitude to run multi-million business which are owned by venture capitalists.

It’s time to raise the bar on this market and use people management skills to the utmost in searching for, developing and monitoring the performance of the next generation of Neds whoever they may be.

Wanda Goldwag

Non-Executive Chair

Talented managers are key for innovation

truenorthhr — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:29:27 +0000

There was a opinion piece in Management Today recently by Ian Smith. It is a timely reminder that whilst innovation is crucial in recessionary times, talented managers are key to its implementation.

The crux of the challenge ahead is undersold by Smith’s ‘three- pronged’ approach of taking a forensic approach to your business, focusing on existing customers and innovating as a company. This approach merely touches on engagement. I suggest that this latter element is key in any equation about business, regardless of economic climate.

The successful companies of tomorrow need to do more than ‘involve’ their employees. It takes a brave leader at present to resist the urge to cut corporate headcount. Yet they must resist this path, as a positive people policy is key to strengthening corporate competitiveness and preparing to seize opportunities when the upturn comes.
Those companies that do more than survive today need top talent and leaders bold enough to make strategic investments in their entire talent pool. This means not only hiring the stars of tomorrow, but also retaining and engaging the talent already in your organisation.

Currently, there is a myopic view of the workforce in which management focuses on the top 10 per cent and their aggrandisement and also on the bottom 10 per cent and how to remove them. This view is fundamentally flawed, as the key to success is the management of the middle 80 per cent of your workforce. A failure of strategy to address this powerhouse will lead to fall out at every level.

Human capital management and the development of talent is key to the quality of our companies and our country. To make it work, those around the board table must recognise that they need to develop their workforce at every level and that they are only as strong as the weakest point of this spread. Management must also involve others in this process. The starting point is to engage with their HR function, be it internal or external, treat those in it with respect and collectively be held accountable for far more than payroll processing.

Norman Burden, CEO

Is recruitment a way out of recession?

truenorthhr — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:47:49 +0000

We’ve read recently that ‘Recruitment’ has become, if not a dirty word, then certainly an outdated one. The criticism is that recruitment agencies are now seen as lower end personnel providers who rely on online search to fill positions quickly and focus on making their next commission.

The market now needs to be led by a new breed of talent search executives – Human Capital Managers who bring the professionalism, long-term consultancy mindset, contacts and experience to raise the search for talent to a new level. People who understand talent acquisition, deployment, development and retention.

But is talent acquisition (or whatever a company chooses to call it) right in today’s market? Well, the answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. With growing evidence that many CEOs are holding their nerve in the recession and still investing in talent then there may be a natural temptation for those sourcing this talent to offer a quick fix.

Keep your nerve. It is a question of understanding business strategy first and foremost. Many companies have a vision of where they want to be but fail to assess properly where they already are. For example, if sales are down then a company will often determine that they need a new sales director and look to a human capital company to fill the brief. But the first question that needs to be answered is: ‘Why are sales down?’

Only if the answer is that it’s a talent issue should this business need be translated into a recruitment requirement.

Norman Burden CEO