CIPD

In this podcast Sandy Pepper, Professor of Management Practice at LSE, Deborah Hargreaves, Director of the High Pay Centre and Mark Childs, Managing Director of Total Reward Group, discuss the issues and questions about executive pay.

“At the heart of every business is people; how they create value is the key issue that CEOs are struggling with today” – Charles Tilley, CEO, CIMA “We’ve got to move beyond short-term financial metrics if we’re going to create growth and come out of the recession strongly” – Ann Francke, CEO, CMI “There’s a lot of art to HR. This is not about putting every dimension of people into some quantifiable figure” – Peter Cheese, CEO, CIPD Last year, a collaboration of organisations, including the CIPD, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), launched Valuing your Talent, with the aim of encouraging ‘more businesses to measure the impact that investing in people has on their organisational performance’. The multi-disciplinary project group and the open, collaborative approach were deliberate attempts to overcome obstacles that have foiled previous attempts to provide a framework for measuring human capital. The project has now been underway for several months, and, as the report and framework are published, we give the Chief Executives of the participating professional bodies a chance to address some of the issues that have been raised, and to clarify their vision for the project, and the part that each of their professions has to play. Philippa Lamb chairs the discussion between Peter Cheese of the CIPD, Charles Tilley of CIMA and Ann Francke of CMI.

While your business is small, the founder can personally interact with the employees and convey the core vision that they have for the organisation. As the organisation expands, this is increasingly difficult, and the founder has to rely on others to ‘sell the dream’. In this episode, we speak to Alex Saint, co-founder and CEO of Secret Escapes, about the process of ‘stepping back’ as his company has expanded and opened offices abroad. We also speak to Ksenia Zheltoukhova, Research Associate at the CIPD, who discusses recent CIPD research findings , which highlight the importance of finding a way to formalise your values as your business grows. To hear how DUO have formalised their values with the help of employees from across the business, we speak to Claire Alexander, HR and Talent Development Manager at DUO. We also speak to Ben Saunders, Head of HR at IMarEST, the professional body for marine professionals, about the vision and values challenges faced by a membership body, and

Leigh tells us about the closed talent system at Enterprise – 99% of promotions are from within the organisation – and explains that this means that the company needs to know a lot about its talent. The HR team ‘use the data to tell a story’ about why people are attracted to work at the company, and where they’ve come from, while being transparent about the collection and use of data in the organisation: ‘It’s about knowing what we’re doing, and what’s important to the business. It’s about telling people why the data is important, and what that means to the business.’

James tells us Unilever’s data story, starting around seven years ago when the HR function was globalised. With a new HR operating framework, and a single system in place for all 104 countries, it was important that they also had global definitions and people metrics. As James explains, doing this put them in a very strong position – it ‘opened up the power of information’. James tells us about the 78 core HR metrics that Unilever collects about every employee, and then about additional data such as talent management information, and people survey data. They’ve got to the stage where ‘doubting of the data is off the agenda’, and people no longer challenge HR figures and information: ‘To be able to know what’s happening where, anywhere in the world in Unilever, with three or four years of history on our systems, is quite amazing.

In this podcast we speak to Pensions Minister Steve Webb about how the pensions landscape has been changing, with the implementation of auto-enrolment, and recent changes to the state pension and to annuities.

In this podcast we explore the work of Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith, who researches and writes on insight, intuition and creativity.

In this podcast Gareth Jones visiting Professor at the IE Business School, Madrid, and a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School outlines the six point plan of an authentic organisation - arranged in an acronym DREAMS.

Most people have a story of a poor or badly-organised introduction to a workplace. As the beginning of an employee’s relationship with their new employer, however, getting the induction process right is really important, and an unmissable opportunity to explain what the company’s all about. On a mission to find out how to do induction differently, we spoke to three companies from a range of sectors who have all recently revolutionised their induction processes. Coffee company UCC send a ‘culture pack’ to new hires, and establish a strong connection with employees before they even begin. BBC Worldwide have worked with communication company One Fish Two Fish to develop a truly multimedia approach to induction that introduces employees to their content and brand. Meanwhile, global HR consultancy Mercer have worked with Big Picture Learning to create a visual representation of their company and strategy, which helps new starters to see where their roles fit in the context of the organisation. All of these companies have moved away from a traditional ‘broadcast’ approach, which sees lots of information transmitted to bewildered new starters, to a process that is far more two-way, and that involves interaction, discovery, and conversation. Author and academic Paul Turner discusses the importance of this, and of aligning the induction with the brand and values of the company. He also describes how companies can measure the success of a new approach. Share your induction experiences, or let us know what you thought of this episode, using the hashtag #CIPDpodcasts Paul Turner, author and academic Naomi Godwin, HR Advisor, UCC Anna Charleston, Head of HR Operations, BBC Worldwide Nicole Black, UK Market Manager, Mercer

David Rock, CEO of NeuroLeadership Group and Peter Cheese, CEO of the CIPD, discuss how neuroscience is changing the way we think about key areas of people development in the workplace, including how people learn, how leaders are developed, how performance is managed and how people are motivated

Towards the end of our recent Megatrends report, we discussed some of the future trends for the labour market and posed four key questions: Has job turnover slowed down? Have we seen the end of the pay rise? Are organisations losing the trust of their workers? and Are we working harder than ever? In this special edition podcast, Philippa Lamb chairs a lively round table discussion focussing on these four trends with insights from Annemie Ress, founder of PurpleBeach and former Global Head of People Innovation at eBay; Dan Heany, Head of OD and Development at Scope; and John Jackson, Group HR Director at Amdipharm. Take a listen to what they have to say and then join in the debate on #megatrends.

This month we’re looking at how organisations increasingly need to formulate a strategic response to an age-diverse workforce, as working lives get longer and the younger end of the workforce also becomes a focus. This is about going beyond the legal necessities in terms of age discrimination and equal opportunities, and looking at the issue strategically. The CIPD’s Dianah Worman gives us a picture of the age profile of UK workers, and also talks through some of the results from recent CIPD research. We speak to Judy Greevy from HMRC about the organisation’s award-winning approach to age diversity, including workshops that address common misconceptions about younger and older workers. We also speak to Marcus Lee from Santander about the bank’s impressive endeavours to offer opportunities to young people, and also their focus on ‘re-careerers’ who might consider a move into banking later in life.

Recent CIPD research has revealed that although £3.2 billion is annually invested in training for managers across the UK, 72% of organisations report a deficit of management and leadership skills. In this round table podcast recording, we’ll be discussing why this is the case, and what to do about it. What are the barriers to effective leadership in modern organisations, and how can we overcome them? We will discuss some of the findings from the research with CIPD’s Ksenia Zheltoukhova, while Kirstin Furber, People Director, BBC Worldwide, Louise Fisher, HR Director, Xerox and Andy Lancaster, formerly Learning and Development Manager, Hanover Housing and now Head of L&D at the CIPD, outline their personal experiences of organisational structures and leadership capability.

The CIPD’s Chief Economist kicks off the first CIPD podcast of 2014, with a cautiously optimistic note for the next 12 months. Mark Beatson tells us that employment growth may well continue, but that with average earnings still falling in real terms, it’s the productivity deficit that employers really need to tackle. We also look ahead with Peter Cheese, who discusses how he believes that the improved economic outlook gives HR professionals the space to think more strategically. Peter also rounds up some of the CIPD’s key priorities for 2014, including the ‘Valuing your Talent’ project, aiming to provide a framework for human capital measurement, and the CIPD’s commitment to providing clearer membership propositions for people management professionals at all stages of their career.

With new CIPD survey results showing prevailing uncertainty that social media has any role to play in the workplace, we discuss ways in which social and digital technologies can and increasingly will have a real impact on the world of work. We discuss how employers can exploit the potential of a more networked workforce, and talk about the altered power dynamics that can result from a more ‘social business’. HRD and prolific tweeter Gemma Reucroft (@HR_Gem) speaks about how she’s used social media to network and learn, and how her company is now building social technologies into its communications framework. DPG’s Head of Customer Experience Mike Collins (@MikeCollins007) talks about a networked approach to L&D. We also probe the findings with report author Jonny Gifford (@jonnygiff), who argues that the question is no longer ‘whether’ but ‘how’ you are going to use social media. The episode also includes the legal perspective from solicitor Ron Kane, including his suggestions for collaboratively developing a workable social media policy.