Commercial acumen key to HR’s future
HR professionals need to hone their business acumen skills if they are going to contend with the changing nature of work, the CIPD warns in its latest HR Outlook survey. The institute said practitioners were failing to develop ‘business savvy and commercial expertise’ which would enable them to become a strategic contributor to their organisations.
When more than 600 HR professionals were quizzed about the current state of the profession and how employers are reacting to emerging trends, just 16 per cent of junior HR practitioners felt they needed to combine commercial and HR expertise to bring value to the organisation, compared to 27 per cent of more senior HR professionals.
Dr Jill Miller, research adviser at the CIPD and author of the report, said professionals weren’t developing the necessary skills early enough: “Action around HR analytics is an essential way in which [HR professionals] can develop this commercial mindset, inform the people agenda and increase visibility of HR’s impact on the business’s KPIs. Similarly, an awareness of the evolution of the profession is vital.”
Less than half of survey respondents said their HR function uses analytics effectively to draw insight from people data. Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, said ‘agility’ had become the watchword for the profession.
30 per cent is success for women on boards
Women on boards can increase a company’s market valuation when they account for 30 per cent of the directors, a study from Henley Business School has found. This finding remains consistent regardless of educational and professional characteristics.
Carol Padgett, who conducted the research, analysed the constitution of boards from 2007-11, meaning her findings cover the beginning of the financial crisis and into the crisis itself.
The research seems to support the government’s target for women to account for 25 per cent of FTSE100 directors. But Padgett notes that research from Norway, which has a quota for women to make up 40 per cent of boards, suggests that introducing rigid quotas can actually result in a drop in company performance.
“There is some evidence which suggests that, in a rush to meet the quota, companies have just picked a few women,” says Padgett. “These women tend to be younger than the men they’re working alongside, so they have less experience and their qualifications could be different.
“This means they are there as women rather than as good businesspeople,” she adds.
Padgett found the proportion of female directors on UK boards rose during the recession, from 7.2 per cent in 2007 to 10.6 per cent in 2011 – although the number of boards with the critical mass of 30 per cent of women was less than one in 10 in 2011.
Guilty co-workers are the best teammates
People who are prone to feeling guilty are unlikely to team up with a partner who they perceive as ‘better’ than them because they fear letting them down, a study by USC Marshall School of Business has discovered.
This holds true even when teaming with somebody who is better would result in generating more money. Scott Wiltermuth, assistant professor of management and organisation at the USC Marshall School of Business and report co-author Taya R Cohen, from Carnegie Mellon University, tested the theory by teaching people to make origami hearts and then telling them to team up with a partner, with the partnership that created the best hearts earning the most money from their activity.
Wiltermuth and Cohen found that guilty people are likely to complete at least, if not more than, their fair share of work when working as part of a team. Guilt-ridden people were also more likely to opt out of an equal profit split deal, instead choosing to be paid on the basis of their own performance, even if that ultimately meant receiving less money.
“It’s basically a good thing that these people are not being free-riders in their partnerships,” says Wiltermuth.
Participants’ level of guilt was assessed using a questionnaire that included statements such as: ‘You strongly defend a point of view in a discussion, and though nobody was aware of it, you realise that you were wrong. What is the likelihood this would make you think more carefully before you speak?’