In this podcast we take a controversial look at HR.
Far too many HR operations have scant insight into the organisation’s business goals. Chris Roebuck, visiting professor of transformational leadership at Cass Business School and Gill Rider, President of CIPD and former head Civil Service head of HR, agree, so does Ed Griffin, Development Partner at D3 Partners and Interim HR Direct at Chime Marketing. Listen to them all explain why and perhaps benchmark yourself against their list of requirements.
Gill offers some hints as to where to make a start on acquiring some of this knowledge and Ed explains how to make sense of it all.
“I don’t do numbers”. Gill has dire warnings for those who use this excuse. Translating what HR does into end results is core to the job.
Robert Booker is HR Director at BG Group plc, a global gas organisation, Robert trained in finance but switched to HR in sheer frustration with the HR departments in the companies he had worked for in his career. He calls them the ‘no, police’. Listen to the podcast to find out what he set about changing at BG when he arrived and where these changes got him. Events in the ‘Arab Spring’ meant taking some really hard moral decisions.
Next, Philippa talks to Michael Chivers, Corporate Vice President Human Resources at Sony Ericsson. Sony and Ericsson merged in 2001 but in 2007, when Michael joined, aligning the two cultures was still a big issue. Michael’s goal was to get everyone working to the same target and objectives. But first he needed to understand the business, its risks and everything about it, even its ‘toys’. For Michael its playing the game not sitting in the grandstand.
Listen to tips on how to progress in HR. Ed Griffin outlines the progression of increasing recognition and reputation. Chris Roebuck has more suggestions and Gill identifies what is held against HR and how to counter it.
So much of what the speakers have said can be measured and improved by using the CIPD’s HR Profession map from the link below and the forthcoming conference is geared to this topic.
Further information
You can see further information about our contributors and their careers by follwing the link
The HR Profession Map is a useful benchmarking tool to see if you are up to scratch in HR
The CIPD HR Business Partner Conference provides two days of seminars and workshops packed with practical help.
You may be interested to see some of the research from the Next Generation project
Next month we will find out about CIPD’s youth mentoring initiative and HR's vital role in getting young people into work.