If HR did dance movements…

Yes it is the carnival time once again, arribaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Excuse me but this is a carnival of HR if you don’t mind, so please calm down before we proceed. For this months theme we have been asked to think about how organisations or people are represented or influenced by different styles of dance.

('Carnival of what?!' I hear you cry - Carnival of HR. For more details check this out)

It made me think of how most dances are pretty structured in that there might be certain moves that you need to include, which seems to be especially the case in ballroom dancing (I never thought I would say it but thank you to Strictly Come Dancing for providing an education in this regard). On the other hand you have the likes of break dancing which are very abstract and much more off the cuff.

However, racking my brain for what to come up with for the carnival I felt that in the cases of the examples above they were either to restrictive or too abstract to be representative of the work HR professionals have to undertake. For example, one would not expect a dancer to win plaudits in a ballroom competition from ceasing a fox trot to start spinning on their head as it would not match up - though I am sure we would all love to see what Craig and Len made of that (US readers this is another Strictly reference - last one I promise).

Yet in HR you are expected to take on roles which create amusing contradictions and often put us in these difficult situations. We are the people employees turn to when they have a problem whilst at the same time acting as a wing of management and progressing the interests of the organisation. It is expected that we take on both a strategic and operational function.

We coach and help staff look for means of improvement and development opportunities, yet also get involved with representing/acting as an authority or adjudicator when people have not met the standards expected of them - such as instances of disciplinary and grievance, performance management cases and so on.

You might be reading this and thinking ‘What is he talking about? That is not my reality of HR!’ and you would be correct – I have no idea what your experience in the field is and how that contrasts with mine, either as a custome of HR or participant in the industry.

This, in some ways, proves my point – HR is, to go back to our carnival premise, a circus with a very big tent and one in which we all bring our own definitions and expectations of what the function should do and how its place in the organisation.

A combination of the abstract and the logical; a function that is able to provide an approachable and human element to what it does, whilst being a source of legislative, procedural and strategic information on which an organisation can depend.

How best to represent this in a dance? I think this guys version of the robot does it the most justice

Disagree that this is representative of HR? I would love to hear your thoughts – in the interim I hope you enjoy the video!

(NB – forget the two guys dancing at the beginning – it is when the orange jumper starts moving that the real fun starts)

Be funny about HR/L&D = you winning cake. That simple.



I tried convincing myself there is one of my five a day in here. It worked.



I over indulged at the weekend – I hammered through everything in the photo above (with a little help but not as much I would have liked!) and needless to say felt all the worse afterwards.



To try and avoid the temptation of such gluttony again I am going to use this image as motivation but need a suitable phrase/set of words to make it memorable.


If anyone can come up with a caption related to HR, Learning and Development, mentoring or personal development that is witty and relevant to this photo please post a comment or email with your suggestion. Best entry wins – yep, you guessed it – the cake/savoury snack of your choice from the photo delivered to your place of work.


(NB To avoid people meeting the same fate as myself the winning entry will only be allowed one of the three on display – trust me you will not feel better afterwards if you eat anything more than that)


Closing date for entries is 16.00 (GMT) on Wednesday 4th May. Look forward to some sweet entries!


A pun too far? Now that’s blogging gluttony in action for you

PANIC!

I love this sub heading.

I dunno - is it?

I was reading this in the Sunday Times Presentations Skills book recently and it just sprang out at me as something we all wish we could say to someone we are arguing with at least once a day - is this really necessary? Is all this aggravation really going to improve any thing?

 

The booklet comes up with a nice little abbreviation to remember when preparing your presentations but perhaps it might be of use to you over the course of the coming weeks who is (depressingly) convinced of the benefit of their action and cannot understand your intervention.

When in circumstances like this, I suggest your PANIC:

P - Purpose. What brought all parties to this situation in the first place? More to the point, what do you need to do and by when to move on from the stalemate you are currently in?

A - Audience. Well they are right in front of you, not listening, sounding off at what they see as tiresome HR with all their rules - I know what jokers us HR lot are. In instances like this perhaps bear in mind the opportunity you might have to build a relationship with a tricky customer and how beneficial it could be moving forward. Hard at the moment but if you are able  to illuminate the purpose driving your conversation with them this might give you move legitimacy in their eyes and suddenly it is less of an uphill battle.

N - Need. When does this need to be resolved by? Who needs to approve it? If you are not discussing it with the person who can then why not? Otherwise you are wasting energy talking to some sort of gate keeper who evidently does not see the value in what you are trying to achieve.

I - Information. If you can sense a battle coming make sure you have your information ready and at hand to justify what you want to say. No would listen to the answers Les Dennis gave on Family Fortunes if he was not able to justify them by saying 'our survey says'. Be thorough in your preparation when you can to  negate this problem.

C - Collate. Pull it together - you have motivation, a sense of purpose and the relevant third party information to back it up. Bring it together so you know what you need to present when you make  your case.

So next time you have an awkward conversation just go ahead and PANIC - I am sure you will feel a lot better when you do and those you are working with will respect you more for it. 

Well perhaps not always the second part but we can but dream. 

House of Cards

In what was either an attempt to expand upon personal brand or a large concession to my ego I have ordered a set of business cards for this blog.


At first I wondered if it was a bit old hat in this digital age but after having spoken to a few peers gave in and went for it. Suddenly I found myself sucked in to an American Psycho style process of designing – what font to use? Shall I go with a matt finish? Is grey scaling too 80s? Double or single sided? Include Linkedin information? Twitter? Star sign?!


Ironically I ended up with something relatively simple in plain black and white (see below) but thought I would go for a quote on the back to liven it up:


“Hell, there are no rules around here – we are trying to accomplish something”

Feeling hugely impressed with myself (“Funny quote from Edison coupled with contact information – better copyright this, I've cornered a niche market!”) I hit return on the keyboard and ordered 250 which will duly arrive in a few weeks time.


It was then that I reflected on the card. Followed then by the quote. And a feeling of quiet panic slowly fell over me.


Is HR not meant to provide some rules and, at times, some form of procedure to an organisation? There again, there seems to have been a concerted effort since the 1990s with changes in HRM and more recently in the new millennium the Business Partner approach for a less control and command model – or moves away from the ‘Policy Police’ image to something more flexible.

This being the case, was I projecting a schizophrenic representation of the kind of HR service I can provide and believe in?


I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle (in regards to HR I mean, as opposed to any split personality disorder I may or might not have). We are expected to provide some form of over arching structure and feed in to the business plan, whilst having to give King Solomon-esque advice and solutions to people problems.


At the same time we need to have a brand/image which stands for more than just keeping staff in line and making sure everyone follows procedure – we live in an age which dictates that flexibility in order to get the best from our people, not to mention to attract and retain them.


So where does this leave my card? Not sure really – surely half the success of these things is in the way it is received. As Jeff Bezos says, “your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”.

Fingers crossed mine prompts a smile in my absence.