Experts highlight the value of helpfulness to organisational success, and the need for leaders to set the right tone for their teams
Catch up on the best ideas from academics, thought leaders, and HR and L&D professionals at day one of the 2016 CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition in Manchester.
Helpfulness is more useful than intelligence
You can have as many highly intelligent people in a team or organisation as you like, but you won’t succeed without empathy and a strong ‘collective mind’, said entrepreneur and business author Margaret Heffernan in her opening keynote address. “What really matters is what happens between people – maybe even more than what those people are themselves,” she said. “Maybe it is the mortar, not the bricks, that really counts.”
‘Helpfulness’ is one of the most salient points of any business, Heffernan continued: “You have super-smart people who share their knowhow, and they create collective intelligence. Helpfulness is fast, efficient and safe; it gives people a higher level of confidence and expertise.
“Helpfulness is strengthened when people spend more time together – even through things as simple as coffee breaks. And the whole organisation becomes more productive. The productivity of the whole depends on the productivity of everyone – not just a few.”
Read our interview with Margaret Heffernan here
If you can’t say something nice, say nothing…
Setting the right tone as soon as you walk through the office door can make or break an entire day’s worth of work, said motivational speaker and coach Steve Head – which is why he tells leaders that it’s crucial they refrain from saying anything negative for the first four minutes they spend with their teams.
A leader who walks in and picks fault or complains about something negative puts an immediate downer on their team, said Head: “It’s so easy to go in and start offering criticism or telling people where they’ve gone wrong, but pressing that ‘pause button’ creates calm in an environment where you could be creating stress.”
Head advised leaders to “talk about the good stuff” and attempt to find positives in team performance, no matter how difficult that might seem. He related his experience with teams of NHS nurses; while they might have endured a “shift from hell” the previous day, if they could start afresh by talking about a patient they had helped, it offered an opportunity to reframe the narrative.
Diversity and inclusion need to be hardwired into organisations
Toby Mildon, diversity and inclusion manager at the BBC, said diversity and inclusion (D&I) need to get to a similar place that health and safety now is in workplaces – ie to be fully integrated into organisations’ daily routines. He told delegates that it is only when D&I principles are hardwired into businesses that the needle will start to shift. But it is important that it isn’t just something that is left to the HR department, he added; D&I commitments need to be woven into the fabric of the organisation.
Fortunately, Mildon offered several tips for achieving this integration. First, he said, it is important for companies to find their ‘hook’. “Find the thing that really matters to your organisation, whether that be improving your bottom line or creativity,” he said. “Then you can start having conversations about how diversity could improve it [that goal].” Mildon also recommended treating D&I just like any other business effectiveness project: “Everybody has a responsibility to make improvements; have a vision, and set goals and targets.”
Read our interview with Toby Mildon here
Performance rankings are damaging mental wellbeing
It’s “utterly mad” that we’re asking managers to rank their team members so pay can be tied to performance, said Professor Lord Richard Layard, director of the wellbeing programme at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance. Rankings “encourage paranoia”, he said, when what we actually want to achieve are teams that collaborate with and support each other. We need to shift to creating incentives that “appeal to the better side of people”, he added. “We’ve gone too far in appealing to the selfish desires of people.”
Professor Layard was joined in conversation by Professor Sir Cary Cooper, who was adamant that HR needed to step up to create cultures of wellbeing within organisations. Just half of delegates, when asked, said they would tell their line manager if they had a mental health problem. “How the bloody hell do we fix this?” he asked. Professor Cooper’s suggested remedies included annual wellbeing audits. “We have the psychometrics to identify problematic areas of organisations – those which, for example, have glass ceilings, bullying managers or long-hours’ cultures.” Not only should businesses be measuring workers’ wellbeing, he added, the results should be published on the first page of companies’ annual reports.
Barclays uses apprenticeships to boost social mobility
Shaun Meekins, head of apprenticeship operations at Barclays UK, explained how the high street bank is using apprenticeships to boost its diversity and social mobility rates. Combining the inclusion and apprenticeship agendas enables the organisation to emphasise the dual importance of offering opportunities to candidates from different backgrounds who are at varying stages in their careers, said Meekins, who was joined on stage by Mark Williamson, partner in KPMG’s People Powered Performance division. “Our apprenticeships should be available to everybody and inspire all generations,” said Meekins.
It was refreshing to hear from two of Barclays’ apprentices; one had recently graduated from the apprenticeship programme and had secured a permanent role at the bank. The other apprentice – a single mother of five children – told delegates how the apprenticeship had given her an opportunity to provide for her young family.
Meekins emphasised that apprenticeships should be considered part of organisations’ wider internal L&D and talent management strategies, and noted that senior buy-in, honest and open dialogue, and end-to-end support were vital to making programmes a success for all involved.