Lifting the Lid

What comes first: good reputation, or good staff?

Graham White

This week we hand over the reigns of the HR Business Network blog to Graham White, Director of HR for Westminster Council, who poses the question: “What comes first: good reputation, or good staff?”

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With the media fixated on high-powered careers falling apart because of poor behaviour, phone hacking and super injunctions, I have been intrigued by a recent press release from the Reputation Institute in the US. It says findings from a new study into the world’s most reputable firms suggests that “the greater the reputation of a company the better its operating performance.”

I am not so sure that’s right.

A few years ago there was an excellent book “Corporate Reputations, Branding and Managing People” which investigated and considered how reputations are made or lost by the values, attitudes and behaviour of managers towards staff. This is a clear message for HR professionals: we must not fall into the trap of thinking that if we can somehow create an “employee reputation” we will then become a good employer.

Google, Apple, Disney, BMW and Lego aren’t liked, trusted or respected by their employees because they have a good employee reputation; it’s the other way round. These great icons of staff advocacy begin with a strong ethical expectation and good staff relationships follows.

While it is the goal of every HR director to create a positive employee reputation, it is not a holy grail. It is simply the natural by-product of dedicated HR professionals ensuring their organisation does the right thing and does it every day.

It is unfortunate that there is a growing tendency and belief that HR can manipulate what staff think and this will somehow deliver the same result.

Our reputation as a profession is currently under attack, our integrity is in doubt and too many of our esteemed peers are falling on their swords. With a “do what we say not what we do” HR attitude prevailing, the idea that we can stage-manage HR and organisational reputation is delusional. Our contribution to our organisation is made up almost entirely of the perception our staff and managers have of us, and this cannot be falsified.

Rather than seeking to manipulate what staff and managers say and think about us, we need to concentrate on ensuring we are doing the right things and treating staff the right way.

Those HR departments who seek to plaster over the corporate cracks by creating spin, or those who fail to challenge their own or other managers behaviour will have an inevitable crash.

My suggestion is simple. We need to get even with all those bad HR managers we have – by being good HR managers.

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Graham White is speaking at HR In Line With Business Conference 2011 on 29 September at the Telegraph Media Group in central London. The exclusive event will examine the current challenges being faced, particularly surrounding leadership, succession planning, and why HR is vital to any senior management team that wants to innovate in a competitive market. Graham will be taking part in a debate about the biggest question of all: ‘Is HR dead?’

Book now: click here.

Inspirational HR or what?

Graham White

This week we hand over the reigns of the HR Business Network blog to Graham White, Director of HR for Westminster Council, who poses the question: ‘How do you inspire apprentices who are about to launch into a career in HR?”

Inspirational HR or what?

I recently had the privilege to speak to two new HR apprentices joining my team.  The challenge for me was: “How does this boring old HR guy inspire two energetic apprentices launching into their new HR careers?”

I wanted to assure them that the HR work ethic is real – it is more than just a devious ruse promoted enthusiastically by the evil HR director to exploit pathetic workaholics.

But what if I’m wrong and all we have become in HR is a bunch of storm chasers, forever working hard hoping one day to receive recognition. The reality being that managers see a visit to HR as similar to their annual flu jab; a painful event but the alternative has the potential to be worse.

I nearly fell into the trap of saying ‘hard work never killed anyone’ until I recalled the now infamous 2002 BMJ study that confirmed employees with stressful jobs are twice as likely to die from heart disease.

I guess the answer lies in the now famous George Carlin quote when he said “If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it?”.

I finally resolved to tell my new colleagues that the secret to having a satisfying HR career is much simpler than it sounds. True job satisfaction felt by HR professionals is not short term and dependent on the occasional management accolade. It comes from the fact we have the opportunity in our jobs to extol the true work virtues of integrity, tenacity and pride, which makes any job thrilling.

Mind you, by working faithfully eight hours a day for many years, I have eventually got to be an HR Director working twelve hours a day…

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Graham is the Director of HR for Westminster City Council, which is the local authority serving the heart of London. Prior to Joining Westminster Graham was Head of HR at Surrey County Council where he most notably undertook a fundamental review of HR service that reduced the HR team from 400 to 40 and took nine million out of the budget. Graham is openly anti ‘the business partner’ model and regularly speaks on the benefits of being in a business not just partnering it.

His breadth of experience in HR covers both the public and private sectors including manufacturing, service, banking, policing and both central and local government.

Read his personal blog at www.grahamwhitehr.blogspot.com

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Staff behaving badly

Is there room for bad behaviour in successful organisations?

I’m not asking if there should be a position for Charlie Sheen as head of Leadership and OD for Boots, though I’m sure he’d be keen if he was allowed access to the pharmacy cabinets.

What I mean is, can controversial people gain a reputation so strong that when they inevitably get sacked, they become strangely attractive to other organisations who are looking for someone to dramatically shake up their business?

We’ve seen disgraced football pundits Andy Gray and Richard Keys booted out by Sky, then immediately get job offers from other TV and radio stations.

Then there’s John Galliano, currently facing dismissal by Christian Dior, for allegedly ranting anti-Semitic views. Something tells me he’ll keep making party frocks for someone, though perhaps only in colours that suit blond hair and blue eyes.

And of course, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and a host of others have all turned bad behaviour into a plus-point on their CV.

But does it only work for celebrities?

Or do self-styled trouble-makers who pride themselves on being controversial and tough in the workplace carry a certain allure?

I know of one senior manager who had an interesting technique for dealing with people in his team who weren’t performing. He’d send them to the head of department’s office, and tell them to stand with their forehead touching the door for an hour. If the boss opened the door, they had to explain why they were there. If not, they had a lucky escape. I don’t think many people crossed him after that.

Admittedly it was a while ago, and in these days of glass-walled offices, it’d never work. More importantly, he’d never get away with it now, and rightly so.

But if I’d heard that he wanted a job at my organisation, I must admit I’d be intrigued. I’d almost definitely not hire him, but I’d be interested in asking him why he thought that was appropriate behaviour.

And maybe that’s what we can take away from this. Without celebrity, you can’t use bad behaviour as a selling point. Nobody wants a ticking time bomb in their organisation.

But on the flip-side, these renegades are nothing if not risk-takers, and that’s something I do believe in. I definitely don’t advocate breaking the law, and of course the actions of everyone I’ve mentioned here cannot be condoned. After all, we’re talking about sexism, racism, and degrading staff. That’s never acceptable

But I do think we need to take risks in order to innovate, so there must be a balance somewhere. Do you know of leaders who push things to the limits? Does your organisation have a wild child who walks a very fine line?

Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget, you can keep it anonymous if you like.

An introduction

Welcome to some good old-fashioned honesty.

Today, HR Business Network launches our new blog, called ‘Lifting the Lid’.

And at the heart of it will be truth. In fact, just to make sure we don’t pull our punches, we’ve decided to let somebody else write this blog anonymously. So even though they’ll be drawing on years of HR experience, we’re not going to say where they work. That way, if they want to say something a bit controversial, they won’t have to worry about their bosses finding out.

Of course, the same goes for you, the reader. If you’ve got something you want to raise, but can’t go public for fear of getting into trouble, just get in touch, and this blog will do it for you. So without further ado, may we introduce H Arthur…

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Well, you’ve read this far, so that means you’re at least a little intrigued.

As that rather dramatic introduction says, I want to keep this a little hush-hush. Or at least as hush-hush as a website with 2,500 members can be. The hope is that over the coming months, we can talk about the real issues in HR, whether it be about the etiquette of dismissals, the most badly behaved employees, or who does (and doesn’t) deserve their bonuses.

As Tony Williams said in this month’s feature, we need more honesty and trust in the profession, because that’s the only way to breed enthusiasm, passion and innovation.

He’s right. But as far as I’m concerned, we need more honesty for another valuable reason. We need it so we realise we’re all in this together. As a director, it’s often very hard to get a real sense of how your peers are doing, because we all have professional reputations to protect.

Unfortunately, pride is still a hugely powerful emotion in every office and boardroom, so it’s safer to pretend that everything is ok, when we really should be talking openly about our challenges and learning from each other.

And if nothing else, it’ll make us feel better. If I find out that you too have an extremely difficult CEO who thinks HR is nothing more than collecting CVs, it may inspire me to do something about it. Well, maybe that’s a bit optimistic, but at least I’ll know I’m not alone.

So with the introductions out of the way, I wanted to kick things off by talking about the Oscars that were on earlier this week. Yes, Natalie Portman’s speech was a bit rambling, but was it any worse than the nonsense some directors launch into when they get a long-service award? Those excruciating speeches where there are so many ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ that you have to crush your plastic cup of pinot grigio just to stop from screaming?

And at least Portman took the time to thank all the people she’d worked with. How many times have I had to listen to someone list all their achievements, and proudly state how they single-handedly made this the organisation it is today?

Perhaps we need to have some enforced protocol where anyone who wins anything or retires is obliged to admit that actually, it was their team that did all the hard work. It could be the perfect way of making sure employees feel valued for what they do, if those at the top were gracious enough to give credit where it was due.

We could even write it into their contracts: ‘by signing this, you agree that all acceptance and leaving speeches must be delivered clearly, without stuttering, and must include  thanks to at least five colleagues if they’ve worked harder than you have.”

And talking of stuttering, The King’s Speech was one of the big winners. Now I’ve not seen the film, but judging by the trailers, it’s about how King George VI was deemed unfit to be king because he couldn’t talk proper.

Which raises the obvious question (it doesn’t, but I need to link this back into HR) of how you deal with speech impediments in the workplace. I’ve never come across it myself, but presumably there have been situations where someone with a stutter applies for a job that includes a lot of public speaking. Of course, nobody should be discriminated against because of a disability, so how do you handle the matter?

Perhaps the film has the answer, so I’ll go and watch it before writing my next blog. But just in case The King’s Speech doesn’t tackle the big HR debates, why don’t you tell me about your experiences in the comments?

And with that, I’ll leave it there, so thanks for reading. Oh, and thank you too to my make-up artist, my costume department, my voice coach, my dear mother, and of course father I never knew…