Articles – Page 2 – Paskpartnership

Paskpartnership Ltd welcomes interesting and relevant articles on issues facing today’s business leaders. Alice Young has had a career that has spanned commercial, social enterprise and non-profit organisations where she has shared and developed best-practice talent acquisition and HR models to enable businesses to perform optimally. Currently at Apple, she provides governance, HR and talent acquisition support on a pro bono basis to a number of charities based in Sydney.

How to keep learning “on the job”

During economic down-turns and hard times lots of companies put the brakes on the Learning and Development department and before you know it, that Project Management course that your boss told you was essential for you to be considered for that next level role is no more than a pipe dream.

So in these constantly changing times how can you take ownership of your own personal development whilst at work?

1) Formal courses

Of course the stereotypical way that we think of “developing” ourselves is by attending a course. And as long as these are the “right” courses, and delivered in a way that plays to your personal “learning style” (we’re all different on this – some like lectures, others prefer a team focussed approach, others learn visually, others through activity based learning), then this will be a productive use of your time, and you might even get a professional accreditation from it that you can add to your CV. But do your homework before you sign up. Ask the course organizer why this course is being run (i.e. how and why this course was selected), how they’d describe the facilitator style, what are the intended learning outcomes, how many other people are on the course, and of those, how many are from your company. Then make a call as to whether you feel this is the right course for you, and if not, research one that you feel is more appropriate and ask your manager if you can attend that instead.

2) Stretch or inter-department projects

A lot of people view projects as “additional” work. I view them a) as great learning opportunities, b) as great networking opportunities, and c) as an opportunity to raise your profile in the business, particularly if you’re on a cross-cutting or inter-departmental project. In order to formally gain the most from the experience (and make sure you’re not just doing extra work), make sure the project and it’s outcomes are entered into your performance appraisal, with success measures and learning outcomes (if your organization has a performance appraisal process).

Worried about signing up for a stretch project? Don’t be. Just agree with the project “owner” at the outset that whilst you bring a,b and c to the table, ultimately this is a developmental experience for you (and way cheaper than going on a course). Then breathe. And enjoy. You know what they say – you learn more from your mistakes, and sometimes not having all the answers is good for you, even if it feels uncomfortable.

3) Innovate and problem solve

You know that issue that everyone works around? (eg the HR database doesn’t talk to the Finance database and 7 people spend 2 days at month-end inputting and verifying data in order to get staff paid). Well instead of working around it, work it out!

This is a key example of 2, except that the organization might not be acknowledging that it’s an issue (because to do that means that resources should be allocated into resolving the problem). So don’t just complain about it, put together a business case to resolve it, gain buy-in from your manager and key stakeholders and go for it. Never managed a project team before? Well now is the time to learn 🙂 And anything’s got to be better than 7 people spending 2 days verifying data – yawn. Your team and those around you will love you once it’s all resolved.

4) Find a mentor

Does your company have a formal mentoring program? If not, that’s ok, you can still find a mentor yourself, internally, or externally. Have a think about what you feel you would gain from a mentoring relationship and what sort of mentor would suit you, and set some goals accordingly. Then speak with your manager and your HR team about whether they can help source a mentor for you. If not, look through Linkedin at your own connections, and the connections of your connections. If approached appropriately, many people are delighted to be mentors. If you’re not comfortable with this approach you could try one of the many mentoring services that are now in place i.e. Propellher (indeed there’s some good tips on their site about mentoring relationships, how to set goals etc) www.propellher.com

5) Shadow someone in a different department

A great way to get to know your organization in a deeper way is to shadow someone who does a completely different job from you. You can have been working at a company for years and still get a new perspective on the organization, what it does and how, by spending a few days walking in another team member’s shoes. Make sure you share your experience by talking about what you’ve learnt at a team meeting afterwards.

6) Sign up for a volunteering opportunity

Does your organization have a community or CSR program? Have you ever signed up on it? If not – you should! A recent study by the UK based HR body, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has found that volunteering programs deliver many benefits for participants, not least: enhancing professional knowledge, workload management, internal networking, community understanding, team work, creativity, self awareness, personal confidence, communication, coaching and mentoring. That’s a lot of courses you’d have to attend to gain all those skills, and they’re all rolled into one experience!

So quite simply the message is, if you want to be at the forefront of your career, you need to keep learning, no matter how much of a technical expert you are. And the best way to do this? Don’t sit back and wait for permission to attend a course. Instead, create your own learning plan based on what you want to be doing in your career in 5 or 10 year’s time and strategically start placing the building blocks of increasing your skill-set so that you can get there. Of course, you still have to perform in your day job, but if you’re prepared to go the extra mile you’ll find that constantly learning will leapfrog you ahead of the crowd over your next few career moves.

Angela Williams tells Paskpartnership about her new role as HRD UK & Ireland at Sodexo.

HR at Sodexo

My greatest career achievements have come when, as a company, we have created a new operational reality from defining a clear vision and strategy with the board, engaging with the workforce to ensure they are aligned to the business and people agenda. I delivered this at British Gas, Land Securities and Blackwell’s.

I joined Sodexo to help create a global, customeraligned organisation that improves clients’, employees’ and shareholders’ quality of life. My greatest career achievements have come when, as a company, we have created a new operational reality from defining a clear vision and strategy with the board, engaging with the workforce to ensure they are aligned to the business and people agenda. I delivered this at British Gas, Land Securities and Blackwell’s. I joined Sodexo to help create a global, customeraligned organisation that improves clients’, employees’ and shareholders’ quality of life.

In July we announced a new HR structure to help us become fully integrated into the business. Historically, each segment ran its HR service alongside a small central resource of L&D, talent, resourcing and reward support. We have created a central people centre which houses all HR shared service and runs centres of excellence in organisation design and development, engagement, client mobilisation and senior talent management. The segment HRDs retain HR responsibility and accountability for their business areas and deliver through teams of HR business partners. Some of the HRDs also have HR functional responsibility for a Centre of Excellence such as employee relations, reward or mobilisation with others aligned to executives in functional teams.

Driving the diversity agenda

Together with another executive director who chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Council, I lead activities that champion diversity and inclusion, bring talented people into employment to provide a high quality, affordable service for our clients.

A key area of focus is gender and generational diversity – we want women to make up at least 25%-30% of our senior positions, to reflect our client base and the communities in which we work. We are also looking at how to increase the range of ethnicity and develop greater understanding of the different age demographics in the organisation – this includes creating more opportunities for older people as well as school leavers.

I love that the customer is at the heart of our business and the decisions we make. The culture is positive and constructive and there is a genuine desire to ‘do the right thing’. I also love the diversity and the opportunity to share best practice internationally.

Creating an agile workforce

From an HR perspective, the biggest challenge we face as a business is ensuring staff are engaged and motivated to deliver our service proposition at an affordable cost for the client in a tough economy. Our focus is on developing the capabilities of all our employees as the business moves from what was historically a food services provider to partnering with clients to deliver integrated facilities management services.

The business needs to be dynamic and agile to scale up and down according to client demand, which can peak during the high-end catering events we manage such as Ascot, RHS Chelsea and the Open Golf Championship. We also need a multiskilled, mobile workforce that can operate across segments. As well as our sports and leisure services we also deliver to a diverse client base across defence, healthcare, justice services, schools and universities and corporates such as HSBC and GSK. To address the diversity of our customers, we are creating a central point of learning with a curriculum mapped against the business priorities.

Upskilling through training

Not all employees have access to PCs, so we deliver our training modules via local managers and training teams as well as online. At leadership level, we run face-to-face, tailored training and development programmes.

We also have a solution centre where our employees can reach a multiskilled and knowledgeable person – online or via a live telephone helpdesk – who can help them to support our clients quickly and efficiently.

I’ve devised a people plan that is integrated into the overall business plan. It has clear, measurable targets and associated costs across five key areas: engagement and D&I, employee capability, organisational readiness, reward and recognition, and employer brand – which were mapped out during group discussions across the business. The executive team has contributed to and approved the approach with the aim that it will show ROI by August 2014.

Angela Williams is an experienced, global HR executive with expertise in creating customer-focused businesses and teams in changing environments.

Learning On The Job – Alice Young

Getting to the heart of business

Angela Williams tells Paskpartnership about her new role as HRD UK & Ireland at Sodexo.

HR at Sodexo

Driving the diversity agenda

Creating an agile workforce

Upskilling through training