Geoff Ramey’s Canadian HR Blog

I’ve had a lot of searches for “year end thoughts” recently end up on my site and in my blog, so I thought I would add some additional consolidated thoughts into a single post.

First and foremost, it is my opinion that the end of the year is not a time to save a whole array of activities for. However, if you must, or if it is just inevitable that cyclical events tie to a calendar or financial year - then the best scenario is to plan and prepare well in advance for that activities which will take place.

What sort of (HR) activities are we talking about? Annual (final) performance reviews, development planning, salary increases, bonus payouts, stock option allocations, profit sharing, benefits re-enrolments, commission payouts and/or adjustments, salary benchmarking & market pricing, budgeting & forecasting, program reviews, strategy building, succession planning, headcount/workforce planning, recruitment plans, vacation and accruals review, and of course, filing. I’m sure there are more items specific to your business that could be applicable.

With limited hours and resources, the best plan of attack is to make your list based on the types of above activities and set up a calendar of activities that you can prioritize against. You can set your priorities based on two factors - importance and level of effort. For example, your performance reviews may have critical timing to meet the needs of the business and requires moderate effort (assuming you are not adopting a new program or overhauling an old one) - so it may be something that is high up the list. Creating a recruitment plan for the year, which could be lower priority but require a fair bit of effort to meet with clients and work through their needs - may be prioritized to happen later in your calendar - once your urgencies and quick hits are out of the way.

To your benefit, calendar year ends tend to have the luxury of holiday schedules which may or may not help you find time to accomplish deliverables. I have found that leading up to and following the holidays, my internal clients have tended to focus on their own business deliverables that they mush accomplish before the year is out. This is both good and bad for me. The bad is that for any initiatives that require their input (workforce planning, performance management, etc), time can be scarce and in demand - thus making it difficult getting participation. The good is that for all other more internal HR projects, or phases of projects between those requiring client input (salary benchmarking, strategy building, budgeting & forecasting, etc) there is usually uninterrupted time to hunker down and get those projects done quickly. You can also take the time to finalize your year end reporting and documentation. Balancing the two, and effectively working your schedule and your own holiday time around that of your clients is both the art and the science.

Finally, new years are often new starts. An opportunity to set your new benchmarks, reset your metrics/scorecards, and set new strategy for new programs and policies to benefits your employees, clients and stakeholders. Budgets reset and you can now focus on initiatives you have been waiting to get going on since June of the prior year. You now have the energy, time and resources to focus on the new. Take hold and leverage all that can be had going into a new year. Set your group, team and individual goals (aligned to business needs/strategy) as early as possible before or in the new year. You wouldn’t set off on a road trip without a road map, so don’t set into a new year without clearly defined objectives, priorities and a detailed plan for success. Document the plan, assess it against resources and reality, publish it and share it with your stakeholders (clients, executive team) - as this will give your HR team transparency, respect, trust and well as the incentive to deliver on your promises. Update it as necessary - things change, it’s inevitable and important to be realistic.

Good luck in the new year with all that you will accomplish!

At the onset of writing this, I have no idea what it is going to be about. Aside from having let my writing here lapse over the past week due to unexpected work commitments and feeling the need to get a current post up, there was a deep nagging feeling that I needed to choose this as a topic/title.

I track my site stats on a periodic basis - out of interest, to see who is visiting, stalking, hotlinking, etc. Well, for the month of November, one of the most common search engine searches that resulted in visits to my site was ‘Cool HR Promotions’. Suffice to say, that beyond that, I have no idea of the context of the searches, or what the searchers may have been looking for. Some thoughts:

1) People in Hr who are cool and have been promoted

2) Cool ways to tell people they have been promoted

3) Things HR does in a workplace to promote themselves and their services in a ‘cool’ way

4) Cool things HR does to promote other aspects of work life and the business

5) How or organize an employee ice cream day if you are in HR

Well, all joking aside, I thought I may as well address the topic with some ideas. (BTW - the pic comes from a Google Image Search for ‘Cool HR Promotions’)

When I think of the concept of ‘Cool HR Promotions’, what comes to mind is things the HR people in a workplace can do to make worklife ‘cool’ or fun for employees. I am presuming that this is what the bulk of people searching for were driving at. Interestingly, I intentionally use the word ‘worklife’ versus work, as I feel the first step itself is recognizing that work is not separate from life, but is part of it. In fact, a large part of it. Many people often spend more time with co-workers at the office than with their spouse/partner or kids. More time commuting and at a desk or worksite than in the home or doing leisure activities. So, it holds true then, to be truly happy in life - it makes sense to be happy in all aspects of life, and to see them as equal “cool” parts of the same life.

OK, so now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s speak about some ideas. And, I have seen it all. From the traditional Holiday/Christmas parties and summer picnics to 18-hole adhoc office minigolf courses and arm-wrestling competitions. Every workplace will be different, and what works in one, may not work in another. For example, in my last entry, I wrote baout Friday (video) gaming nights at my current company.

Sure, all this is fun and games, and more event related than promotions, but it all ties in. HR can embrace these activities, support them, promote them and use them to make working life more fun. At a past employer, our anniversary program was based on awarding the company product to employees on an annual basis - and was very well received. We used the same rewards for the recruitment referral program as well. At other companies, we’ve held raffles to give away company product or donated product from suppliers with the proceeds going to charity - a win/win for employees and the charities. Even little things like personalized welcome kits for new employees goes a long way to winning the hearts of new employees while showing tenured employees that you still care.

From events, to promotions, to formal reconition and rewards programs - the only limits are imagination and knowing your culture (oh, well, except for that issue of taxable benefits in the eyes of the CRA - but, that’s a discussion for anothre day). The sky’s the limit. So, if you are on of those people looking for some ‘cool hr promotions’ fell free to post a comment, or send me a note, and I’ll be happy to share some more thoughts and ideas with you.

When I started at my present company, I walked around one Friday night just after business hours shortly after my first week to the sounds of gunfire and echoed screams. While this would be startling in some of the places I have worked in the past, it is apparently quite normal in the software development industry.

Oh, let me qualify the above statement as well by clarifying that the screams were mere virtualizations of employees as they butchered one another over the network on a connected edition of Unreal Tournament (there was no actual carnage taking place). Yes, that’s right - it was ritual around here, for many years prior to my arrival, to order in some pizza on a Friday night after work and let loose with some online gaming. And while I had some initial reservations about the nature of the violence in the games, it was always quite amazing to see just how passionate people were about these Friday nights and how the death and destruction in the game took a back seat to the team building and socialization that emerged. Try as they might to get UT loaded on my machine and have me stay for a game, I never could bring myself to getting pulverized by 10-15 experienced gamers - you see, the last game console I owned (and finally got rid of about 2 years ago) was a Nintendo 64.

Now, even more recently, my young son of just over 3 years has shown an interest in educational games for the PC. He has access to computers at school and can navigate is way around a laptop at home. In fact, he is ambidextrous with a mouse and can out-manoeuvre and out-click me with either hand! This got me thinking more and more about looking into full gaming consoles - Xbox, Playstation and Wii.

The more I looked at consoles, the more I focused on the Wii. While it lacks top end graphics, has no hard drive and the dvd-player only loads games of of dvd’s (will not even play movies!), it seems to be the systems that is most interactive and physically involved. In fact, I read somewhere that the Wii is the system you bring out when you have your friends over and you’re all a little “tippy” (shall we say). Meaning… That it is the fun system, the one not to take seriously, the one that brings people together.

This got me thinking. Why not a Wii for the office? There are sports games that might be able to invigorate some healthy competition, with the Wii Fit you could start some yoga classes on the lunch hour, and there’s other activities like dancing or snowboarding that are activity based and get people moving. Did I mention that the Wii is also the cheapest of the 3 consoles?

While I am not trying to make this a Wii ad, through my research of a gaming console for personal use, it gave me some great ideas for an interactive system that could be brought to any office to support and enhance healthy lifestyles and inject some fun and excitement at the same time. So, if you are looking for some inexpensive ways to excite and motivate employees, look no further than gaming - an activity once thought only to numb the mind and stagnate the body.

OK, I’ll maybe focus on death in a later post, but I wanted to take a moment to share the content of a posting from a fellow blogger. His posting comes from an e-mail that has been circulating that helps to demystify how taxation works within the U.S. system. I believe this model also speaks quite well to the Canadian tax system, and given that the U.S. Presidential elections are today, I thought I would take the opportunity to add this to my blog space.

Hopefully, if nothing else, it will get you thinking financially and hone those lateral thinking skills. I know this is a stretch from typical HR matters, but I do that every now and again. Although, we all get paid for working… when we get paid, taxes are deducted… Voila - a connection, albeit a weak one. The source of the original composition, by the way, is David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, University of Georgia.

There’s a lot of really great people in this world, then there are some who are so full of self interest, that it completely turns me off.

This post is really just more of a rant to get something off my mind, but if it leaves you in the mood to do what you can to help others, then it has also accomplished something great. This story is relevent to HR.

Recently, I was asked by a friend and freely offered my time to help fill a permanent paid position for a not-for-profit foundation that supports a wonderful cause. The administrative and overhead part of the foundation basically runs on corporate sponsorships and such, so that every dollar donated to the cause makes it to the cause. I was happy to help them keep this mandate.

Among other sourcing tactics (all of which need to be free to eliminate overhead costs to the foundation), I posted an update on my LinkedIn profile to solicit referrals. While, out of the blue I got a note from a recruiting agency vendor (headhunter) who I had not had contact with in some time, who offered in her email to assist to help with the position. As this point, my short dstatus update on the LinkedIn site had not indicated the situation around the not-for-profit. So, I returned an email indicating that I would love the help, explaining the situation, and indicating that if she could provide referrals of candidates (free of charge) who perhaps they have not been able to place at paid clients, I would likely be able to get her a tax receipt for the value a placement if the foundation was able to hire one of her people. I figured this would be a win-win. A client of theirs gets a job placement, they place a candidate that they otherwise had no paying clients for, they get a receipt for the value of the placement as a business expense, and the foundation gets a quality hire quickly.

Well, guess what? It’s been over a week now, and not only did that vendor not send me an email indicating that they were not willing to help, but has not even responded by email or phone, period. The response to help came within hours of my posting, I responded back immediately, then this person has just broken off contact. Next question… Guess who will not be getting any more paid placements from me? And no, not because she would not work on the search, but because when asked, she just disappeared because no fee would be attached.

My point today is to think about what you do, who you are, and why you do what you do. Think about how you live with youself based on how you respond to certain situations. Obviously this person I am writing about has no scruples about turning a blind eye to a great cause. I could not bring myself to do that. As it turns out, I’ve found some other great sources, and we’re well on our way to hiring a great candidate.

Those of us in HR got here various ways and for various reasons, but I think one of the core foundations of this profession, whether an initial driving principle for you or not, is helping others - and there are so many different ways we do it. I am just simply appalled that someone who makes a profession out of finding work for others can place a small amount of personal profit above the well being of so many other people who could have been impacted by a simple act of kindness on her part.

Wow! I continue to be amazed at how much less “HR” I do these days, and how much more “business” I am involved in. Any really, the line is blurred anyways - but, what I mean is less of the academic HR that I spent years of my young adulthood extracting from textbooks and now more of the value-add HR stuff. Or at least in a more recent case, jumping feet first into the mystic wonderland of where HR and Finance collide.

Some insight… The past couple days has been spent working through stock plans and tax law to determine the applicable rules and regulations governing the reporting of employee stock Options. I’ve been working on the ins and outs of treatment of Options when they are disposed to shares, then again on the impact of those shares liquidating into cash. Furthermore, as an organization that qualifies as a CCPC (Canadian Controlled Private Corporation), there are additional rules and treatments that affect how reporting happens. The net result? Well, if you are run a payroll department at a public company, then you probably already know. For those who don’t - it’s been alterations to the payroll system to allow functionality for new reporting within the system itself and to reflect on employee T4’s. Specifically, additions to earnings related to Security Options and deductions related to Stock Option and Share Deductions. I won’t go into the gory details, but I have pages of notes, formulas, tax law and examples as proof to my relentless hours of research.

Suffice to say, many of my perceptions of the old traditional HR continue to be shattered. The new world sees me spending my days in the Finance office or executive boardrooms. Reviewing contracts, share plans, options agreements and schedule after schedule has become the norm recently. And guess what. I love it! A whole new section in the mental filing cabinet - as they say… nothing ventured, nothing gained. Well, I’ve ventured to the other side, and gained a lot!

You should probably belong to Facebook and LinkedIn HR groups by now, and be actively network and sharing with your peers. Yes, not just collecting a list of names, but actively sharing and exchanging knowledge.

Here’s a new group that is national, but based out of Toronto and concentrates primarity in the Canadian marketplace - it’s got articles, blogs and forums for you to interact with your peers or to ask questions of others. It is the Human Resources Networking Group and it just launched this week. Membership is free (the site generates revenue through ads, sponsorships and events) and you can get there by going to www.hrng.ca

Once again, happy networing!

I had the pleasure just recently of hearing Eric Meerkamper of DECODE speak about some of their research from a recent study conducted across college and university students about to enter the workforce. There was a lot of great information, but one idea really resonated with me.

The over-hyped concept of work-life balance is now dead. In my days, I have been part of organizations that offered all sorts of work-life balance workshops, seminars, lunch-n-learns and so on. Although popular at the time, like all good things, the idea has come to an end - RIP work-life balance.

Enter “work-life blend”. I don’t think DECODE coined the term, but they are definitely one of the few organizations with the empirical research to talk about and demonstrate the trend. Yup. Gone are the days where one part of life competes for the other - where we flip the proverbial switch as we pass through the door at the office or at home. (On a side note, I’m not quite sure what commute time is considered - whether it’s more work or more personal?) In any case, the lines are becoming more and more blurred as technologies advance, expectations & demands increase and priorities change.

Why is this important?

Well - think about this. Do you work in an environment where employees are blocked from certain websites or technologies (Facebook, MySPace, LinkedIn, instant messengers, personal e-mail, etc)? Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Making sure that employees are productive on the job? Perfect solution as a company isn’t it, let’s keep aspects of personal time sucking aspects of life out of the workplace. Expect, no wait… mandate that employees be at the office on time, and stay at least until the end of the 8 hour work day.

OK, not so fast though, are there occasions where you or your employees are expected to log on at home to check e-mail, or to get a report done. Perhaps to catch up on some reading, complete a performance appraisal or even use the phone to follow up with a client? Imagine walking up to your employer and saying “I’m sorry, my spouse has blocked all access to work applications at home”. Employers often expect us to stay at work late often, but is staying “home” late in the mornings on a regular basis acceptable - probably an offence subject to a write up in your permanent file. I think you get my point by now - that work is entering the home more and more, and where allowed by employers, that the home is entering the workplace. What about encouraging it? Do you do anything to promote this behaviour as acceptable to employees?

This is not such a bad thing. According to Eric and DECODE, this is what those now entering the workforce want. They don’t want to choose between a personal life and a home life. They don’t want to sacrifice a great job for a family or vice versa. They want to balance both, to blend them, to be happy at all levels. It may be through flex time or technology or other means.

It’s not going to work for every employer though. Perhaps there are privacy or regulatory issues in opening up applications a work, or perhaps your client base requires certain hours to be worked. Point is, the new idea of work-life blend is something to look at in context of your overall recruitment and retention strategy. How you treat your employees is going to continue to become increasingly important in the minds of those choosing to work for you - yes, choosing to work for you! (remember that “war for talent” that you keep hearing about?)

We are definitely at a crossroad ripe for a paradigm shift. Are you in an environment ready to make the leap? Or, as Sarah Palin might put it, “are you ready to be a cultural maverick”?

Last week I attended the annual (or, I think maybe even semi-annual) HRPAH and Sheridan College (or is it now Sheridan Institute of Advanced Learning and Technology?) joint networking event. Basically, an informal evening event that takes place over wine, cheese and crackers to allow local Halton chapter members to network with each other and with students. It’s hosted at Sheridan and sponsored mainly by the Halton HRPA chapter. As always, IMHO, this event was a huge success.

Personally, I caught up with some old acquaintances, connected with some new peers, and shared experiences with a large number of students in their second or final year. Additionally, although I am not hiring at my present company, it is a great opportunity for me to start connecting with up and coming HR talent for future entry level positions - especially those now in their second year!

And, I must say, that this years “crop” of students is very well spoken, well education, well dressed and genuinely interested in the HR profession. Almost every single student I spoke with was eager to hear about “real life” experiences and was seeking advice about how to best approach that first job, where to specialize or what skills they will really use in the workplace - or as I think I read it… “which classes do I really need to pay attention in, and which ones can I coast through”. But, I may have misinterpreted that notion. Either way, I told them to avoid John Hardisty like the plague! (Just kidding John - I told them they probably wouldn’t make it out alive if they didn’t keep up in your classes)

So, a couple of observations. My first is a bit of a pet peeve as it relates to modern networking events and a complete lack of effort - not just this one, but other recent events as well. Although I believe many of the students at this particular event are intelligent and appeared enthusiastic, they seemed to fall short when the rubber hit the road. To any student I spoke with, I left business cards and an open invite to connect and offered to be an ear or a resource even for classroom assignments and projects. I stressed the importance of building relationships NOW and fostering them for the future - not just pulling that business card out of a dark drawer in two years and making contact to only ask for a job. So, why a peeve? Well… how many e-mails or LinkedIn and Facebook invites do you think I got the next day, or even in the past couple days now that it has been almost a week?

Two!

Yes, that’s right. Two. Now, it could be me. I may have offended them, or left a bad impression. Honestly, maybe I did completely alienate on one or two of the very impressionable young students. But for the others, I’m not sure what’s up. Whether it’s apathy, laziness, busy-ness or something else going on in their lives. My advice for any up and coming HR professionals out there looking to connect and network - my door is always open and there’s always a coffee shop on the corner (at least in Southern Ontario anyways - I can see 3 from my office window right now). Take the opportunity to connect early and continue sharing knowledge and experiences.

And, until the next event - don’t disappoint. Maximize your effectiveness and build valuable relationships. Oh, and I will give honourable mention to John Freeman of Sheridan. Not only did he impress me with his honestly, intelligence, eagerness and a clear grasp on his goals in life - but he is also one of the few who took the time to connect with me last week! It was also great hearing from John about current course content and how cirriculum has changed since I took the program.

It’s amazing when different aspects of our lives collide. Not always major events, but sometimes just the little ones that make your stop and wonder if there is a bigger plan at play. And no, I’m not overly religous, so I don’t becessarily mean a plan by some supreme being, but maybe some big plan governed by the stars, the universe, time, little green men - whatever works for you.

I say this, because it is top of mind this morning. I subscribe to a daily e-mail that delivers inspirational quotes and messages. Sometimes they are actually quite uplifting and motivational, sometimes they are just heartwarming stories that remind me that I am human, and sometimes reading them just helps pass the time on my commute. Well, today there was a quote from an gentleman named Eric Hoffer (an American social writer, 1902-1983) - “In times of change, the learner will inherit the earth, while the learned are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists”.

A terribly simple statement. One that when you read it, you stop and think - well… yeah. But, as we go about our busy lives, how often do we ACTUALLY think about enriching ourselves. How often do we put aside the mundane and day to day activities at home or at work to do something that will better our futures and help make a difference for others?

I started out this post by mentioning how a couple of events have dovetailed. While, one was receiving the e-mail with the quote, one is simply the amount of change going on at work right now that directly affects my job, and the other is related to the professional certification process I am going through right now. I simply had one of those “a-ha” moments that made me think that I really do get it. That I am in fact being the learner and not the learned. That I am taking hold and making my future and helping guide the future of others, not just letting the world happen around me. The expertise I am gaining and applying is not simply going to benefit me in the near future, but will better the lives of employees around me. That feels good.

Think about what you are doing right now, personally or professionally, to make “you 2.0″, to reinvent yourself, or to reach a goal just one logical step at a time. I love the humour in the above quote - beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists - it brings any number of visual situations to mind to paint that picture in my head and bring it to life. However, none of which I want to be in. Think about the learner in you, and what you can do to better yourself and enrich the lives of others. And, if you are an HR person reading this - all you have to do is look around you, and there will be an endless wealth of possibilties to bring about impactful change through informed action.

It’s a great day, isn’t it? It’s sunny out, the family is healthy, and the work day is just beginning. I’m a glass three quarters full kinda guy.

I just read an article about how Canadians are among some of the happiest people in the world. Believe it or not, there is a “World Database of Happiness” and we are somewhere up there in the top 15 countries. Makes you proud to be a Canadian, doesn’t it? Hmmm, I wonder if there is a “World Database of Nice-ness”? I’m sure we’d be up there too.

Check this out though. There’s a country called Bhutan, and they actually measure GHP - yes, thats right, Gross Happiness Product.

The remote Himalayan kingdom uses Gross Happiness Product, or GHP, as a measuring index. For example, the country has very little advertising because its government decided it wouldn’t make people any happier.

That’s pretty cool. Think about this in terms of your workplace or organization. How many of us measure all sorts of other things - pretending to get at the heart of the matter, of how wwe are performing as an organization to the expectations of our employees, our customers and our shareholders. In fact, I wrote some past comments on such metrics. Think instead about measuring your Organization GHP. Sure, keep tabs on those other things - but, wouldn’t it me great to have a measure that focusses specifically on your organizations Gross Happiness Product.

As you’re setting corporate strategy or putting in place policies and programs, right there in front of you is a balance and checkpoint to drive not only results for results sake, but for happiness of your employees, customers and shareholders. But, it gets more complex, because as we look at each of those groups - what incents a shareholder and makes him/her “happy” may be different from that of an employee. Or, what about an employee that is a shareholder?

Point is folks, as the world sometime seems to spiral down around us (with one of the biggest market declines in US history taking place this week after the demise of Wall Street staples Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch being announced), there are opportunities to build environments and cultures that are realistic, but that are positive experiences for employees. So, go back, take heed and think about how happy you are at work. How happy are your employees? And, how do you know? Perhaps its time that you start measuring your GHP.

In my travels recently, I have come across a couple of recent legal decisions that affect considerations of employment law in Ontario and more broadly, in Canada.

The first is the concept of terminating for “near cause”. Essentially, this is a situation where an employer many not choose to or may not be able to justify a clear “with cause” dismissal or termination under the law, but feels that there are some circumstances which may exist to justify the dismissal. It is usually the case in these circumstances that an employer will want to reduce notice periods or pay in lieu of notice. Recent court decisions rejecting the concept of “near cause” include Ditchburn vs Landis & Gyr Powers Ltd. and the Supreme Court of Canada decision involving Dowling vs Halifax as well as more recently (Ontario Superior Court) Laszczewski vs Aluminart Products Ltd.. Ultimately, the courts have decided that an employers use of “near cause” may result in trumped up accusations and stretching of the truth to support unreasonably low notice entitlements. So, for the time being, employers are best to continue documenting incidents and using progressive discipline models which may lead up to a just cause dismissal. In all other cases, it appears the courts have decided that notice periods remain as dictated by the appropriate contractual agreements, Employment Standards legislation, common law, or a combination of the appropriate sources.

The second look at recent legal decisions affecting how HR professionals approach employment law (specific to dismissals) has evolved around the concept of reasonable notice given to employees when changing the terms of an employment contract. Specific and relevant to this topic is an April 29, 2008 Ontario Court of Appeals decision, reversing a prior lower courts decision in the Wronko vs Western Inventory Service Ltd. case. The details of the case are quite lengthy, but ultimately, the new president at an employer tried to change a 2 year notice period in an employment contract to 30 weeks. Critical facts include how the changes were communicated to the employee, but more importantly, the fact that even though the employee rejected the changes, the employer allowed the employment relationship to continue for two years, until it attempted to end the employment as a result of the employees failure to sign the new contract - and indicating that failure to sign the contract would mean that “the company would no longer have a job for the employee. The employee then launch a wrongful dismissal claim - which resulted in an initial decision in favour of the emloyer, but was later overruled in appelate court as a result of review of additional details relating to how and when the employer communicated its messages and conducted itself. The important lesson here is that employment contracts cannot be unilaterally changed, and IF changes are required, it is very important to follow an adequate series of steps to protect the validity and legal defnesability of the changes, including, but not limited to adequate notice and proper communications and actions if an employee does not accept the changes.

If you have read this far, and have been unfamiliar with the above noted cases prior to reading this blog, I would suggest you do some further research and familiarize yourself with the details of the decisions and the cases. It really is not that uncommon for an employer of any size to run into issues related to employee behavious which may result in dismissal, or related to the second point of law discussed, for an employer to want to alter the terms of an employment contract. Of course, the above is by no means legal advice or an extensive look at the case law discussed. It would be in the best interest of any proactive practicing HR professional to become familiar with current case law as it happens. Happy research!

Cartoon sourced from : National Business Employment Weekly, May 26 1991 : Eli Stein

In keeping with the helicopter theme, I was introduced today for the first time to the concept of Helicopter Quality. At first I kind of had an idea what it might mean, but was lost as to an exact definition and expanded practical application of the concept - so, off I went to look it up.

Not a lot out there. I did find enough information to satisfy my intellect, but suffice to say, it was sparse. In a nutshell and from what I can gather, the concept of Helicopter Quality (as a trait or behaviour) originates, at least in the mainstream, in the early 1980’s. One of the first big promoters, or even originators, of the concept seems to be Shell. The intellectual concept of Helicopter Quality formed a component of their broader CEP program, CEP standing for Currently Estimated Potential - a controversial concept itself. Interesting, in doing some further research, it appears that the CEP model is often applied within Civil Services, and specifically to much criticism and opinion, poorly implemented (applied from the Shell model) in the Singapore Civil Service.

The CEP, essentially, is a ranking based on perceived potential as a result in the Singapore case of educational credentials at the start of employment, or in some other cases on the perceived potential of an individual based on a combination of academics, tests, performance and a number of other factors. A person’s CEP ranking, in extreme cases, will then dictate how many promotions a person will get in a set number of years, often right uo to retirement - sometimes regardless of actual performance (unless the CEP is a model that goes beyond the pure academic rankings). Interesting concept, and obvious correlations to concepts in talent management, workforce planning and succession planning - but it’s all in the application and follow through, and from my readings, the CEP programs have received widespread criticisms for their lack of assessing all contributing factors to potential and doing so on an ongoing basis.

The point, however, is that the concept of Helicopter Quality or as it is often applied ideologically as Helicopter Strategy or Helicopter Leadership - provides an intellectual focus on capabilities not unlike that of electronic radar devices. As a desirable quality, organizations look to visionaries and strong leaders to have Helicopter Quality - to be able to rise above the everyday and see the full lay of the land, everything going on around them. Helicopter Quality refers to the person’s ability to identify problems within the larger context and solve them accordingly. Basically, a person with high Helicopter Quality has a broad overview of things, and this is more suited to a higher level position where a broad oversight is required.

Why do I think this is important? Aside from the nomenclature simply grabbing my attention and sparking interest and further research - once I understood the true meaning, I recognized that Helicopter Quality is becoming a lost attribute among many leaders in today’s work culture. It is often difficult to rise above, and without conscious effort to do so, many leaders often get caught down in the weeds focusing on the day to day activities that their managers should be empowered to do. Or, when some leaders do manage to rise above, they often swoop back down regularly to participate in decisions or business matters where they don’t have full insight or awareness - spawning what many refer to as Seagull Management (perhaps more on that later).

It’s not easy being a leader in 2008. However, often the best thing a great leader can do is suround himself or herself with great people. People who are competent, consistently push that leader up, and are empowered by that great leader to run the day to day aspects of the business - while that great leader with Helicopter Quality is able to pull together the big picture of the present, learn from the past, and rally the troops with vision and strategy for the future.

I’ve been doing some reading recently on different generations - and how they are tagged by society, and more specifically the implications on employers and work. There is of course the baby boomers, which are the largest group and span a great number of years. Following that group, the initially dubbed “baby bust” now known as Gen Xer’s spans roughly ‘65 to ‘80 (the grouping, of course, that I fall in to). Then it gets interesting - we have Millennials, or Gen Y (”echo boomers”) born from 1980 to the late 90’s, and most recently Generation Z (apparently sometimes also called the 9/11 generation).

The one I find most interesting as an HR professional, and specifically when it comes to recruiting and engaging a workforce, is Gen Y - quickly taking on a whole new moniker as the “Helicopter Generation”. Here’s some recent stats from a U.S. poll of Millennials:

Even more interestingly, as a side bar and not necessarily directed towards Gen Y, is another news story I saw published recently. The author surveyed text messagers to find out how distracting the technology is to every day life. Of those surveyed, 1 in 10 admitted to walking into people or things on a daily basis while texting on their mobile devices. Even more admitted to bumping into objects on a slightly less frequent basis. They even conducted a test, much like those one’s you see where they take drivers in cars through pilons to test their maneuvering skills - where texters bumped into pilons on the course while trying to walk and text at the same time. I can’t recall if I saw any of them chewing gum or not at the same time. As I said, a sidebar, but just thought it worth sharing to illustrate a culture that embraces technology, lives in the moment, and is far different from those which came before it.

Here’s where it gets interesting. In the workplace, we typically have the boomers in senior management and leadership positions, Gen Xer’s following not far behind in their footsteps, and more and more Millennials entering the workforce. Expectations from one group to the next vary, and while some organizations are able to embrace the differences and leverage unique aspects of each - many struggle with programs and policies that can cater to all. The result? Often environments that try to satisfy all while catering to none. Organizations that do it well? You need not go much further than some of those players that you often see recognized in publications such as Canada’s Top 50 employers.

So, what’s this about helicopters? The Helicopter Generation - Generation Y, the Millennials. Warning, I’m going to stereotype and conjecture here a little. This was a generation raised with praise, never being allowed to fail, playing sports at school where players were interchanged across teams and no scores were kept. There was no winning or losing - everyone got a trophy just for coming out. As our beloved Y’s went through school, we saw greater involvement from parents stepping up to challenge teachers on failed assignments and meet with admissions departments of colleges and universities when their kids did not get accepted to their top choices. Now, we see these same kids enter the workforce - and these same parents doing everything from attending interviews and orientations, to negotiating salaries (and why not, a bigger salary means maybe little Billy might be more likely to move back out of the basement), to calling in sick on behalf of their kids or challenging a poor performance review with a phone call directly to the line manager.

Enter our role as HR in the 21st century. We can either keep our heads in the sand, or recognize the existing needs of our current generations in the workplace and welcome the new, and what seems like eccentric, needy and demanding helicopter kids. I’ve read articles about companies outright refusing to let parents into its processes to others that embrace the opportunity to extend its culture to the entire family and actually send welcome kits to parents, brothers and sisters - figuring that if the family wants to be involved in a tightening labour market, then the extra publicity and support might not hurt.

When it comes to managing expectations and leveraging talents beyond the stereotypes joked about above, I believe that it is individual recognition and support that is going to bring the greatest success. New generations want to be connected to the companies they work for, value relationships, personal development and new skills. There is a huge opportunity to pair generations and share expertise from Boomers who house a wealth of knowledge and Millennials who are knowledge starved and looking to soak up as much data as quickly as possible - Or, in the immortal words of Johnny 5 - “need input”. Why not put recruiting and mentorship programs in place that bridge these traditional gaps? So, while the rotor wash from the hovering parents may be overwhelming at first and your experienced workforce are looking at you and your and senior management with puzzled faces - if you move beyond the initial lack of understanding of different expectations, needs and just how much closer these new workers continue to be to their parents than we ever were, there are opportunities to be had in recognizing, understanding, leveraging these valuable successors.