One of the biggest complaints we hear from businesses is that they cannot hire the skills they want in the UK market.  It’s called the talent war.

I want to show you a simple calculation I did for someone that might explain what is giving you a headache in your recruitment and selection.

Person specification

This little firm was looking for ‘partners’ to work in a role similar to agents or franchisees.  Their partners don’t have to have any particular qualification, so they should be easy to recruit.  After a little thinking and talking, this is what we came up with.

• The partners don’t have to be super-bright,  just normal bright and have finished high school .
• The partners should be energetic & persistent and are likely to have demonstrated this energy by excelling in competitive sport, the arts, or some activity that has required them to make a clearly great effort than their peers.
• The partners should be entrepreneurial.  They should have a history of trying things out and be just as happy when things don’t work out.  They are curious.
• The partners need to be honest.  I don’t mean financially meticulous – I mean wanting to deliver a good service.  They are likely to have done something well in the past even when people around them wanted to take shortcuts.

Running the numbers

Now we can add some figures to this model and here is where you might get a surprise.

Let me remind you of some figures.

• The midpoint on any characteristic divides the world 50:50.
• The next step up divides the world 83:17.
• And then next level up divides the world 97:3.

These splits correspond to 3 standard deviations on the right hand side of a normal curve.  You might recall that?  We could use finer divides but we will start with these to get a preliminary fix on where we are going.

Intelligence

The people we are looking for do not have to be super intelligent.  University and above is at the 83:17 divide.  We are happy at the 50:50 divide.  Below that, people may have trouble filling in commercial documents.

Energy & persistence

We are looking for someone who stood out in some way – played at the highest levels of school sport, for example, or raised a lot of money for charity, or even did well at academics.  Probably at the 97:3 split.  Someone who took a big prize at school.

Curiosity

These people don’t wait for someone to tell them what to do.  They work things out and find new opportunties.  They aren’t people for the sausage-machine of institutions. They are the people who make us think, “I wish I had done that”, or “How did you think of that?”  And they view setbacks as adventures.  97:3

Honesty

Unsual levels of integrity and sincerity.  At least once in their lives, they’ve done something properly when people around them were spinning, skiving or taking shortchuts.  97:3

How many people in the UK fit this description?

There are 30 million people in UK of working age.  How many of them fit this description and are candidates for our recruitment and selection drive?

Half of them have the intelligence required: 15 million

3% of the top half of intelligent people are very energetic and persistent : 450 000

3% of these have unusual levels of entrepreneurial spirit or curiosity:  13 500

3% of these have the commitment to integrity that we need: 405

And how many of the right people are looking for a job?

Well, first of all let’s look at turnover.  It is usually 14% a year in the UK and that includes the high churn sectors like hospitality and catering.  Even if we bump up the turnover rate arbitrarily to 20% for the recession, we have only (.2 x 400) =80 people in our group who are looking for a job.

And of course some of these are doctors and lawyers, and some people are in the wrong sectors or wrong part of UK.  They are not available to be recruited or selected by us.

Not many left are there?

Shocking isn’t it?

I am used to the process of selection and to these numbers, yet they still shock me.  So please find my error and dm me.  I am hoping you will find my mistake because the numbers are shocking.

My point – and it is a serious point -  is that you cannot have one demanding requirement after another.

There simply aren’t enough people in the UK to meet your demanding needs.

There aren’t enough exceptional people in the economy to run it if is based on exceptional talent.

Our businesses need to run with normal people.

• When we are selecting, it’s best to set the minimum requirements of the job, preferably from the candidate’s point of view, and begin there. Trim your list.  Ask, “Is this feature absolutely required,  and if so why?”
• Stop adding requirement after requirement!  No more than three requirements!
• After that, be ruthless in thinking about this recruitment assignment from the candidate’s point of view.

Ruthless in thinking about selection from the candidate’s point-of-view.

No one taught you that at uni, did they?  Yep, we like to keep some secrets to ourselves.

But now, it’s yours.

Review your HR specifications.  And keep it real.  Let your competitors be the ones to live in the world of make-believe.

Idiosyncracies that we love

I am a serial migrant and one thing you learn “on the road” is that every community has phrases and ideas that are deeply coded.  They simply don’t mean what they sound as if they mean.

When I first arrived in UK, I heard people saying “Bless”, quite a lot.  I even asked someone what they meant.

It was a dumb thing to do, of course. When he said “Bless”, he was saying “Oh sod off, I can’t be bothered with your troubles.”  He certainly wasn’t going to translate accurately.

He said he was commiserating.  And no, he did not follow through on what I was asking him to do and what I though he was obliged to do. Lol.

Legal systems differ

I remember someone returning from UK to Zimbabwe after studying for four years here and he told us seriously that he was going to study face recognition because it was important in jury trials.

I remember looking around the room and thinking, “Who is going to tell him?”   No one spoke up, so I said as gently as I could, “X, we don’t have juries in Zimbabwe.”

And we don’t have juries in Zimbabwe not because of the current troubles but because we have Roman-Dutch law.  So does South Africa, and oddly Sri Lanka.

On the look out for deep differences

Because of this difference, I am always on the look out for things that I just “don’t get” – where I might be jumping the wrong way because I grew up in another system.

Look at this quotation from a famous US lawyer, Newton Minow.

“After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.“^[9]

Which category does UK fit in to?

It is my understanding that Roman law fits into the German camp.  Unless I am allowed to do it, I can’t.

And it is my understanding, that English law (I am not sure about Scots law) is in the French category.  Do whatever you like.  We will say if you can’t.

An example of how these differences create confusion

This is how confusion arises in practice.

When I read a sign that says “Parking is Permitted with a Permit from 10-11 and 2-3″, my first reaction is puzzlement – followed by a eh? Why would I want to park here from 10-11 and 2-3?

No, it doesn’t mean that at all.  It means you can park here whenever you want, but you must

a) move your car between 10-11 and 2-3

or

b) buy a ticket.

I bet you thought that was obvious.  I am still confused every time I see that sign but as it only costs 40p to park there all day it is a confusion I will put up with.

Does this difference account for the nanny state and other British wonders?

When I heard the Unions negotiating for workers to go to work in shorts during this past very hot week, I got into a Twitter conversation about the nanny state and I started to wonder if this difference accounts for differences in management style as well.

The differences between Germanic and Anglo meetings

Meetings in Germanic countries are brisk.  You go in armed with facts and figures and MAKE DECISIONS, quickly and definitively.

Anglo meetings swirl around this way and that with no agenda and no outcome.  As an American-trained, Indian-born manager used to say in NZ (nudging me with his elbow and whispering out the side of his mouth):  “Sit back and wait. We will be here for the next hour discussing process and there will be no goal”.  Sure enough, for the next hour we discuss who wants what.  What we are trying to achieve collectively is not mentioned at all.  Who knows whate we were there for but we’ve had a spirited discussion about individual preferences.

What does it mean to ‘manage’ in the two systems?

I think I prefer a system where everything is allowed unless it is prohibited.

But possibly when you grow up in  system like that you aren’t used to designing systems or spaces where things happen.

And then you get a profileration of crazy rules.  10 signs per 100 yards, or whatever the figure is for British roads.

And it also means that one of your choices in life is to sit and do nothing.  Though some people are trying to prohibit that too.  This illustrates my point.  Designing and organizing for action is quite different from banning the few things that we may not do. Banning someone from doing X will not get them to do Y.

Alternatives

This thought process is starting to feel like ‘reaching’ to me.  But to try to illustrate my point.

What if you simply told people to drive safely and they will be accountable for what they smash into?

What if you told people to pay their taxes but that we would display online how much they paid?

Life can be made very simple if we choose.

And we shouldn’t have to tell people what to wear to work.  Really. If it is hot, wear shorts.  If it is cold, wear a jumper.

Of course, if you cannot afford a change of clothes, that would be my concern.  I’ve been brought up in system where managers are supposed to make things possible.  We are certainly accountable if people cannot see the way forward and don’t have the resources to get there.

Have a great weekend!

Posted in British Tagged: Britain, culture, culture shock, England, jurisprudence, law, management style, nanny state, UK ]]> http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/is-uk-drifting-towards-a-nothing-allowed-culture/feed/ 0 Jo Jordan http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/5-lame-excuses-in-hr-for-bad-job-descriptions/ http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/5-lame-excuses-in-hr-for-bad-job-descriptions/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:02:13 +0000 Jo Jordan http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/?p=1787 ]]>

I’ve been in UK for two years now and frankly, I find the HR documentation here well. . . what euphemism shall I use  .  . . undeveloped.

From time to time, I’ve been sufficiently unwise to comment – and these are the excuses I get, sometimes concurrently, a dazzling tightrope of logic.

Excuse 1 : We are too chaotic

Turnover is so high that we cannot keep up with the documentation.  So we issue poor documentation or none at all.

Excuse 2: We are learning

Nobody knows what will be done in the job.

Excuse 3 : Not made here

This is the system we have worked out.  That must count for something.

Excuse 4 : We can fudge it

Well, we will put in a clause “And any other task required by the Head of Department”.  90% of work comes under that clause.

Excuse 5 : If we are sufficiently muddled, we can shift the blame

I know I didn’t mention it but it is on page 56 or in the middle paragraph of an email addressed to someone else and copied to you.

Beginner’s dilemma

I remember years ago, one of my former students asked to see me at my house on a Saturday morning.  He had been given a rough talking to be a line manager at work and he didn’t really understand what he was doing wrong.  “I just took him some forms to fill in,” he said,”and the the guy laid in to me”.

My reply was to ask whether he was a high-paid messenger boy.  Did the organization need a graduate to move forms from one point in the organization to another?

What he needed to do was to ask the line manager questions in the line manager’s language, translate into HR-speak, fill in the form and return it to the line manager for signing.

And the line manager should look at it and look up with a shine in his eyes, and say: “Oh, that’s what this is for!”

And they should feel that scales have fallen from their eyes and they see the work they do as clearly as if someone wiped the mist off the mirror and they see themselves for the first time.

Example of good work

This morning I stumbled over this excellent example of a job description, and given the quality of job descriptions that I am seeing daily, I thought it would be good to flag it up and link to it.

Job description of a website owner

It says clearly

• what the person’s day looks like
• what the job holder does
• the decisions they make

It says clearly how each task contributes to

• Work for the day

• Long term planning

Get the organization organized

And now you might say, I would like to but this place is just not that organized -  the work changes from day-to-day.

Then that is your first job. To get it organized.

Actually, the organization is probably more organized than you think.  Wipe the mist from the mirror and let them see themselves.

Just write down what they do all day and sort it out.  It may take you a few hours but everything else in HR flows from there.

When the job description is clear, it is easy to

• communicate with job applicants
• select people who can and want to do the work (without discriminating)
• pay equitably
• train & develop
• coach & manage performance.

In short, you cannot do your job until you have worked out what people do on the job.

And writing it down allows us to check that we have a common understanding.

That is our job.  To be the mirror of the organization so that we develop a common understanding and confidence in each other.

Collective efficacy, believing that the next person is competent, adds 10% to the value of an organization – and a 10% that cannot be copied by your competitor.  No money in the world can buy collective efficacy.  It comes from the continual work of developing  confidence in each other.

And we cannot be confident of each other when we each have a different idea about what we are supposed to be doing.

It’s as simple as that.

How did the story end?

Well, my former student’s eyes lit up as the penny dropped.  He went back to work and started delivering value to his line managers.

The firm did fold eventually (but not because of him).  Indeed, they kept him on to manage the redundancies.   When he was done, he joined Ernst & Young as a Consultant.  Then he moved to a bank and after that he started his own firm of consultants.

I hope you enjoy the job description. It is a fine example of good work.

PS I’ll tell you where the 10% comes from if you want.

Do you used Google Adwords? And does it bring you the traffic you want?

I think all ‘noobes’ to the internet struggle with Google keywords and experienced geeks around us don’t want to come clean and say simply how the system works.

Well there is a chicken-and-egg system here.  You don’t know which keywords to use until you know!  Maybe you may learn something from my this little experiment of mine.

My 24 hour Google Adword Experiment

On Monday afternoon, I found a Googles Voucher in my ‘maybe sometime’ box and it was about to expire on Tuesday.  So I decided to run a Googles Ad and see what 30 pounds could buy me in 24 hours.

Seven steps to running your first Google Adword

• Log on to Google Adwords and set up your account
• Write your ad and link it back to your website (they have a handy system on screen)
• On the basis of your website, Google will suggest some key words
• Edit your keywords
• Put in your bank details & your promo code if you have one.  They will charge you 5 pounds for this entertainment.
• Set your monthly budget at 30 pounds.
• Sit back and watch comfortably knowing you can switch all this off at anytime at the cost of whatever bill you have run up – capped at 30 pounds.

My entertainment

• What I am going to sell.  I wrote a special blog post for this game: I offered to set up interview questions to match a job description and let someone practice with me over Skype (with webcams).  The nature of my product didn’t really matter. What mattered was that it was offered on the landing page of my blog.  Google does limit the length of url that goes in the advert so I couldn’t direct to any post or page.
• My ad.  I wrote a simple ad saying “Practice for your job interview over the internet with webcam with an experienced coach”.  (The word Skype was disallowed).
• First impressions.  There was an immediate flurry of activity with impressions from Search (that is the keywords I had chosen) and 3 Click Throughs.  My CTR or CTR was well above 0.5% at that stage.  As we only pay for the Click Throughs and Google is setting the price on a rolling auction, the price varies.  I paid 133p for 3 clicks on my blog.  No one contacted me so I had 0 conversions but I had set my prices rather high.  I was interested in the Google-end of this experiment.
• Frills. I had left the ‘Content Network’ on.  Google puts the ad on Content partners too.  It advises to leave that option on.  The impressions from Content Partners were slow at first but rose dramatically on the second day.  The CTR was rubbish though.  After 36 hours, my ad was delivered (impressions) to just under 1500 partners with 1 click through.
• Results.
  • From search traffic, “interview questions” drew 350 or so impressions with 3 click throughs – just under 1% and above the 0.5% which makes Google frown and say you are wasting our time.
  • “Interview tips” drew around 100 impressions and 3 impressions – so 3% click through.
  • “practice your interview” drew no impressions and of course, no click throughs.
  • All my ads appeared on the first page of Google search, but rarely at No 1.  The exception was “behavioral interview”.  (Remember these are ads we are talking about not the list of websites on the left.)
• Cost.
  • This all came to 313p for 7 click throughs and an average price of 21p per person who arrived at my blog.
  • That might be meangingful in an advertising world.  Can you imagine though attracting 50 000 people a month at that price?  That would be 10 000 pounds a month.  I would need to be selling an awful lot.
  • The real issue though is the conversion rate.  Obviously of the 7 people who arrived – I had made one sale with a profit exceeding 313p, I would be ahead.

What did I learn?

• Advertise in 10 minutes. Now, at any time, I can log in, write an ad,d and spend down the 30 pounds in my Google Account.  I know I can do it in 10 minutes. I recommend giving it whirl just for the pleasure of being clearer about how Google works.
• Writing Ads is hard.  Do you remember all those Marketing types at Uni who we wrote off for being flibbety-gidgets?  Start buying them a lot of drinks.  And get them to write a whole lot of boiler plate ads to keep in a notebook when you need them fast!
• Start early. Google is a chicken-and-egg system but you can break that vicious cycle by beginning.  I learned two important things from this experiment which had no purpose but to spend a Googles Voucher.
  • People are out there looking for interview questons and tips.  The click through rate was better on tips.  There is a market there.
  • No one is looking to practice their interviews.  No market.  Or is it a market waiting to be made!

• Marketing.  How many of us have an explicit marketing budget?  How many of us have costed how many people we have to wave our product at (impressisons).  How many of us know our CTR (how many people we meet and how that translates into meaningful contacts?).  How many of us know how much each CT has cost us?  How many of us check the check our conversion rate to sales?  Have we budgeted adequately the time we need to spend, the time we need to wait and the money we must spend to achieve the conversions we want and need?

Good luck with your experiment.  Buzz me if you need help.

And sorry about the ad yesterday.  I wasn’t trying to sell you anything.  If you are a friend of mine, I helped you practice your interview for free!

Arrgh!  Interview preparation!

The worst thing about preparing for a job interview is the time it takes.  Google “job interview preparation” and it will take you a good half-an-hour just to pick out some good resources.

Then, you have to wade your way through the article.  And you are no better off! It’s like learning to drive from a manual.

Down the right hand side of the screen, Google helpfully lists adverts for career coaches who help you practice for job interviews.  They may save you some time.

Practice your interview over the internet

Hmm, but no coaches who practice over the internet.   I’ll do it for you, if you like.

• Email me your job description and the “person specification“.
• I’ll email you back 5 questions to prepare.
• And I will ask you another 3 questions that you must answer without preparation.
• We’ll connect at an pre-arranged time through Skype.
• And I will give you feedback.

Fees?

EXECUTIVE : 100 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback)

PROFESSIONAL: 50 pounds (for preparation, interview & feeback)

SCHOOL-LEAVER or OPERATIONAL:  33 pounds (for preparation, interview & feedback).

Contact Me

• Email me with suggested times and your questions on jo dot working2.0 at gmail dot com.
• I’ll confirm a time and answer your questions.
• If you are happy, you can send me your job description.
• I’ll need around 24 hours notice.

Look Me Up

My professional profile is at Jo Jordan on Linkedin.

Let’s get this done!

I think Michael Sandel’s Reith lectures may be relevant to management

Have you been listening to Michael Sandel’s Reith lectures?  These are my favourite quotations from Lecture 2 on morality & politics that seem to have an intuitive bearing on the task of management.

Sandel’s thesis

“A politics of moral engagement is also a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance .  .  . that our debates about justice are inescapably arguments about the good life then a politics of moral engagement is also a more promising basis for a just society.”

Core idea

To determine rights we need to determine the essential nature of the activity – and “virtues worth honouring.”

Aristole

Artistotle: Justice means giving people what they deserve.

“The best flutes should go to the best flute players because that’s what flutes are for.”

Refereeing contemporary disputes

Can we reason about social practices in the face of disagreement?

What was the conflict really about? The reasons given in a dispute may not be the real reasons.

“Debates about the rights .  .  . are about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honour and reward.”

We cannot make decisions on neutral grounds.  .  . we have to look at the version of morality that we advocate.  When we referee, we are clarifying the moral purpose of an institution.

What is the sine qua non of the institution?  Which interpretation of the purpose or essence “celebrates virtues worth honouring”?

“Contested moral terrain” .   .    . “we cannot remain neutral toward competing conceptions of the  good life”.

[How do we clarify the various arguments about the 'good life' that are being put forward?  Do we aid the organization by clarifying the alternative arguments and the agreement that we will enact?]

Revitalizing our pubic discourse in democratic life

Is it possible to conduct our politics on the basis of mutual respect?

Does respect mean ignoring the opinions of others? [e.g., what most people call PC]

Robust public engagement with more moral disagreements could provide a stronger not weaker.  .  .  basis for mutual respect.

Attend to the views of others – sometimes contesting and sometimes listening & learning.

A politics of moral engagement is also a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance .  .  . that our debates about justice are inescapably arguments about the good life then a politics of moral engagement is also a more promising basis for a just society.

Notes from the questions

Offer reasons and listen to the reasons given in reply [Isan answer invited? Do we expect to learn?]

There are dogmatic secularists just as there are dogmatic secularists

Re: Barack Obama.  Hunger for spiritual discourse and bring it to bear on public life.  [Is it so repulsive to bring spirituality into discussions of work? Presumably only if no answer is invited - which is why CCTV cameras are offensive and why it is so satsifying when the security apparatus is filmed committing misdeeds.]

We don’t know in advance what the moral argument will be.  Hence we need to open the discussion to all sectors of the community. [Diversity = talking to people who are unfamiliar and scary.]

Change takes place when people are persuaded by circumstances and the debates taking place around them  .  .  . ambitious engagement with what the good life is .  . .

[Can we ask people at work about the good life? I think David Cooperrider does in Appreciative Inquiry.  But the answers may change our strategy as we clarify the essential activity of our institution, as we resolve tensions about the 'goods we allocate', and under stand the 'virtues we celebrate honour and reward.'  And this discussion is ongoing because we don't know what the next discussion will reveal.  So we need an organizational design - itself subject to debate - which allows us to clarify and act - clarify and act.  That is consistent with Weick's work, is it not?]

My own questions

Does the general argument apply to workplaces?  Why does Sandel think this is soooo important?  There may be issues to resolve but a high level change to politics is separate argument that might require a large problem to justify engagement.  Phrased alternatively – who might argue against Sandel and what would their argument  be?

Where do we debate the ‘essential activity’ of work, the ‘goods we allocate’ and the virtues we celebrate, honour and reward?  Are the virtues we honour and reward still worth celebrating?  I think many authors would say not and that many if not most of us feel a deep weariness about the social insitution of work.  We would dearly love to have the notion of work revitalised.

So then how does Sandel’s work fit in with the work of David Whyte, Otto Scharmer?  I suspect they would like it.  Do they quote each other?

Are you listening to the Reith lectures?

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have any. Sandel’s Reith lectures are available on BBC as podcasts – about 45 minutes each with question time.  The next one is on Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 9am BST. That’s around midday in Washington, DC where he will be speaking.

Have you heard of Elliot Jaques?

I was on Brunel University campus on Monday and glimpsed the Elliot Jaques building.  Elliot Jaques was blazoned in large letters across the side.  Of course in the grand tradition of prophets not being respected in their own land, Jaques’ work is barely know to British HR managers and occupational psychologists.

Jaques on organizations

Jaques wrote about large organizations and the role of each level of the hierarchy.  What does the Colonel do that is different from the Captain and what does the Captain do that is different from the Lieutenant?  And more to the point, are these differences also found in a hospital?  What does the Consultant do that is different from the Registrar and is that different from the Houseman does (what do they call housemen these days?).

Jaques in practice

Understanding these differences is useful to organization practitioners for three reasons.

1.  To design jobs so that we aren’t tripping over each other or talking over each other’s heads.

2.  For designing pay systems (I did say that British organizational gurus seem to have skipped Jacques).

3. For designing training & development programmes and by implication assessing where people are on their development path.

The system was modified slightly by a fellow called Patterson to take into account very large organizations like the Royal Mail and Tesco’s who train their staff from absolutely basic level jobs.  Let me explain the expanded Patterson system because when I looked for a good link on the internet, nothing much came up in the first three pages.

Patterson job levels

1. Unskilled work.  I can show you how to do the works in a few minutes and I can see “from the outside” whether you have done it.  British pay rates are about 6 pounds an hour – the minimum wage.
2. Semi-skilled work.  You need to be trained, much like learning to drive, but once you can do the work, you do it without thinking.  Your work is checked more by quantity and usually checked at the end of an shift.  Much of work in the British public service seems to be in this category.  Check the box.  Unless the equivalent of a car-crash has happened, it is counted as done.  That’s not to say it is not important.  It’s very important.  It’s simply done at this level of complexity and is the big difference between the work done in a Japanese factory and an Anglo-American factory.  British pay rates are about 7 pounds an hour which you will notice is 1.16 or 16% more than the first level.
3. Semi-skilled work with responsibility.  In this category, you may have slightly more complicated skills, like driving a long-distance goods truck.  You are on your own and the damage you can do if you don’t achieve minimum levels of performance is fairly considerable.  Alternatively, you might supervise people at levels 1 & 2.  You will dole out their work and check they have done it.  But you are unlikely to train them or be able to vary the system.   I’ve just looked up a driver who carries cash and the pay rate seems to be 9.50 an hour.  This is about 36% higher than the last level.  Interesting as it was the same organization as the first.  I’ll comment on that in another post.
4. Skilled work.  All skilled workers fall in this group be they nurses or doctors, mechanics or engineers, accountants or teachers.  Generally, it takes 3-5 years training to acquire the skill and in each and every situation we encounter, we have to work out logically what we have to do.  So the mechanic has to look at your car and decide how to service it (does this still apply?). The hairdresser looks at your hair and decides how to cut it.  The GP finds out your story and takes some readings and dispenses some advice.  British pay rates at the entry level are about 11.50 which is about 25% more than the last rate.
5. Skilled work with responsibility. Yes, skilled work is responsible.  All work is responsible.  At this level, we have enough experience to work on our own and enough experience to supervise people at level 4.  Note well, there might be trainers and supervisors at level 4.  Lieutenants and sergeants fit into level 4 this category because their basic skill is supervising.  Lieutenants are trained to do this from the outset and sergeants have come up through the ranks.  At level 5, we include the trial balance bookkeeper who runs everything efficiently, the CEO’s PA, the ward sister, the Registrar who has ‘been there and done that’, and the Captains and Majors in the Army.  Pay rates in the UK are about 15 pounds an hour which is about 30% more than the previous level. (Note the Army pays more.)
6. Middle management.  The middle manager coordinates the work of several skilled people.  Each person is experienced and used to reading the situation and applying their professional know-how.  And they are quite capable of supervising the novices at level 4.   The big question is how does the jigsaw puzzle of these jobs fit together and as this is not a jigsaw puzzle but more like air traffic control at Heathrow, what do the skilled controllers need to do their job well and what degrees of freedom do you have for altering circumstances under which they work?  Some factors like flights coming in are not under your control, for example.  Which factors vary and are under your control?
7. And the roles after this include middle management with responsibility, senior management (2 levels) and top management (3 levels).  Another day, another post.

Why is it important to get these levels right?

Let’s take something we look out for in assessment centres.

What level are you communicating at and what level have you assumed the other person to be?

When a skilled person becomes competent, they are able to explain what they do.  When they work with a novice, they point out the features of the situation that are important, ask the novice for a plan to check they are using the right professional know-how and to relieve the novice’s anxiety that they have undertood, and then set a time to review when the novice has had a chance to try out their plan and to see if their efforts work.

Let’s be clear.  If you haven’t had similar training, you will not understand what is being said.  If you have been around a while, like a pilot, you may understand what is said but you are unlikely to handle a hands-on air traffic control assignment at Heathrow very well just as the air traffic controller cannot fly your plane.

Difficulty 1.

The 1st difficulty comes in when the senior person simply doesn’t have the experience themselves to communicate clearly how situational details and professional know-how comes together.  Hence the rules to young lieutenants – listen to you sergeants, listen to your sergeants, listen to your sergeants.   An air traffic controller who is not totally fluent shouldn’t be supervising someone who is in their first 1 to 2 years service.

Difficulty 2.

The 2nd difficulty comes when the senior person tries to communicate with someone who is not trained in their area.  They are in for a shock, aren’t they?  That is a whole new experience set and takes time to learn.  Imagine an air traffic controller talking to the cleaner.  It takes a little work to understand that, no, it is not obvious to the cleaner why they shouldn’t put the paper strips in the waste.

Difficulty 3.

The 3rd difficulty comes in when the skilled person is promoted to the next level up and they haven’t understood their new role.

They are now supervising skilled people who know what they are doing.  Contingent leadership theory covers this well.  Don’t give detailed instructions!  Don’t try to motivate!  Delegate!  Just indicate what needs to be done and how it fits in with other work going on in other sections. Your skilled staff will take it from there.  If you’ve explained the overall situation well (and believe you me, we all mess up from time-to-time), your staff will deliver.

The sign of the inexperienced manager is that they forget there are many different situations and they assume their interpretation of the situaton is relevant and start instructing their staff as if they are novices.  First, interpreting the situation is the skilled person’s job.  Second, the skilled person is on the spot and has immediate information about the circumstances that you don’t have and you are likely to be the one who is wrong.  Third, your job is to provide the resources for your skilled staff to respond to situations as they arise.  That’s your job.  Don’t wander off the job and start doing someone else’s because it is in your comfort zone!

Imagine an air traffic controller who hears a traffic controllers voice become more urgent.  The worst thing in the world would be to take over.  If, to take an extreme example, it was clear the air traffic controller was having a heart attack, you would get another controller to take over the station.  To take over yourself takes you off your job – which is monitor the overall situation and the interconnections between the jobs. It there was some tension at a station, you might walk over, but not to interfere – to be immediately available to receive requests for more resources.  The picture from Zemanta illustrates beautifully – two senior people are standing-by to take instructions from the skilled person on the job. They haven’t taken over and the next scene will be them turning away to organize what the air traffic controller and the pilot needs to resolve this crisis successfully.

In business settings, the relationships may not be so clear.  If you walk past someone who is doing something you don’t like, don’t interfere and don’t start to comment. To keep yourself oriented, ask yourself these questions.

• How does this job fit into other jobs?
• Does the person doing the work understand how the jobs fit together – or rather, have we forgotten to tell him or her something?
• Ask yourself what you are reacting to – your inexperience or a real danger that the jobs won’t fit together at the end of the day?

Can you maintain your role?

This is a tough one for people moving into management, especially if they haven’t had good role models in their own managers.  To judge where you are on the learning curve,  psychologists get quite sneaky in assessment/development centres.  They’ll drip feed you ‘rumours’ that a skilled person is not working in a skilled way, and then see if you can maintain your role.

• Can you maintain your focus on how the outputs of all your level 4 people fit together and work together to achieve a good collective result?
• If not, why do you think that the situation is so alarming that you have to do the equivalent of interfering with an air traffic controller as they speak to an aircraft?
• Is your reaction based on professional information at this level 7.  Or, is it based on panic because the skilled person has a different style from you?

I remember one superb candidate in an assessment centre who disregarded the ‘dripfeed’ and began a performance review of a senior salesperson “how is the market, John?”

Brilliant question: how are you finding the situations that you were appointed to manage.

Once she had a full report from her ’subordinate’, then she attended to rumours that he had been using a company car for personal purposes.  She didn’t muddle the issues and she didn’t let him off either.  She made it clear in a cheerful but implacable way that the car was not to be used in that way and she didn’t get into the excuses.  When one of the excuses was dissatisfaction with pay, she put that aside to discuss that later.  That was important and very much her job.  But it had nothing to do with cars and cars had nothing to do (really) with how much work it was taking to achieve sales in that sector.

Rehearsing for your middle management job

Finding the right question is quite hard though.  I wonder how many psychologists serving assessment centres and HRManagers interviewing could phrase them.

So figure out your question.

Let’s imagine an air traffic control manager was following up a complaint about a skilled air traffic controller.  Yes, it is tempting to jump to the complaint.

• Begin with the responsibility of the job.  How is sector ABC?  Find out what is going through the air traffic controller’s mind.
• Then it is easy to begin with – I’ve had a complaint about this.  And wait to see how it all fits in.
• It’s very likely you will learn a lot.  Keep the conversation at the level of managing sector ABC and how ABC fits in with DEF and GHI (and of course, with finance, marketing and HR).

Sometimes there is no issue except panic.  So deal with it.  And thank your stars you have a light day today!

Going back to Brunel and Jaques

Yes, I am surprised that local HR gurus don’t know their Jacques. He’s handy for structuring thinking about big organizations in all three areas – job design, pay and development.  We can take it as said the pay scandals wouldn’t have happened if HR had been reviewing their handiwork with his principles and those of his decendants.

I have another question though.

How do hierarchies fit into social media?

We know the old dinosaurs of large mechanistic companies have to change their ways.  GM is on life support.  The banks in Britain are alive mainly because of the massive ‘blood transfusion’ from the rest of economy that may kill us instead.  The organizations of the future will be smaller and networked but there aren’t enough around yet to see patterns – or are there?

Yes, in a sophisticated networked organisation, most students join us around levels 2 and 3.   Graduates should be trained for level 4 (skilled) with the idea they will be at level 5 in 3-4 years (skilled and able to supervise novices). So, I think we can expect the development function to operate in much the same way.

Thereafter, do we have hierarchies?  Maybe – it’s possibe to conceive managing networks the same way as managing hierarchies.  Or are we going to have to understand the complexity of organizational life differently? Is the Elliot Jaques sign at Brunel University just a curiosity like the lace buildings in my town?  What do you think?

How’s your pension scheme?  Do you even know?

I just read a post about the closing of “defined benefit” pension schemes that we hear about in the news, and the rather old news that public pensions are not funded – meaning – we are expecting today’s children to grow into adults and pay us out of their NI contributions – to put it starkly.

Do you understand how your pension works?

I started writing a tutorial on pensions and what you should know about your own fund. In my experience, people pay 6% of their own money in and their employer pays as much, if not more.

But few people, including white collar professionals have any idea where the money goes, or whether they will ever get it back.

I’ve deleted the tutorial, though, because I felt as if I was spreading alarm & despondency and though I know more than most people, I am not an actuary.  So I’ll make this deal.

If you want to contact me, I’ll walk you through the questions you should be asking.

Grab your pension handbook, scan the contents, and I’ll walk your through the sections you should be looking for.  You can read the whole thing when you understand the framework.

Five questions we should be asking about pensions

What I wanted to say on the post but got blocked by blogspot’s sign in (give us the option of typing in our blog name would you – open id often crashes), is that we should get over our personal screaming heeby-jeebies and start structuring the debate about pensions as a wider issue.

1 How many people have benefited from pensions?

It is great to think that a pension will give us a fabulous old age, and some people are living royally, but how many people have benefited?  In UK and world wide?

2 What are commitments to the aged?

What are we deeply committed to doing for older people?  And how widespread is that agreement?  Are we honouring that commitment?

For a start, why do we assume that we should stop work at 65.  It was notworthy that in The Economist debate this week, 80% of people voted to raise or abolish the retirement age.  .

3 What political commitments do we need to honour these commitments?

Most people don’t understand that public pensions are unfunded.  For the most part, the NI contributions of today pay for the pensions for tomorrow.

Has the younger generation, whom we outnumber, agreed to pay us?  Are we increasing the likelihood that they will want to and/or will the economic ability to deliver?

4 What makes us think we can think predict the economy 40-80 years ahead?

When we pay into a pension fund we are agreeing to something that will happen in 40, 50, 60, 70 years ahead.  Can we predict that far?

Perhaps we need another way of thinking about funding old age?

5 What happened to the money we have paid into our pension funds?

In crude terms, it has gone to people who have already retired and a lot has been lost in the credit crunch.

What interests me though, is where our pension funds were/are invested.  When I put in 6% of my salary and my employer puts in another 8% say, I am actually paying a ‘tax’ of 14%.

The money goes into a fund and, because of its size, becomes capital. It is available to companies as capital to grow and expand.

And it is available to governments to borrow (gilts) to fund roads, schools, etc.  They promise to pay it back out of future taxes – hopefully from an economy that is bigger and healthier, but of course, may not be.

And best of all, the goverment borrows from its citizens rather than from sovereign funds in other countries (government surpluses in other countries.)

What interests me is where do my pension funds go?

Who is using them to invest?  Who was investing banks involved in derivatives, etc?

If you were an employer, would you offer a pension fund.  I am not sure I would.  I would invest in employees’ education.  My greatest concern would that they are very flexible with multiple skills and multiple languages followed by the ability to run their own businesses. That’s the most ethical solution that I can think of.

But if there were no pension funds, who will supply investment capital?  Who does have access to large dollops of money that we call capital?

Right locals -fill me in.  Tell me how it works here!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Employers ditch final salary pensions (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘Threat’ to final-salary pensions (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Pension fund deficit eases in May (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Governments ease pension rules (thestar.com)

Are our markets efficient?

Gee, I have been so buried in writing proposals, I no longer have any idea of which day or week it is.  Rather literally.  But it is in writing proposals that we realise just how inefficient the market economy is.  All these people marketing, selling, bidding, cajoling.  Do we really increase the value of the economy this way?  Isn’t this time wasting much like the perennial security guard at every doorway in a third world country.  Doing nothing, going nowhere?  Don’t you get incensed at the waste of your time?  Let me explain further why it affects everyone.  You, me.  Our sons. Our daughters.

Flexible labour markets

You all know the concept of a “flexible labour market“, don’t you?  If not follow the link to a clearly written A level crib sheet.

Good markets

Flexible labour markets are based on the idea that a good market  “clears”.  A market is good if I can bring my tomatoes and customers come and buy them.

The price is not determined in advance. The price is allowed to change with supply (number of people selling) and demand (number of people buying).  And as we all know, at the end of the day, the price can drop significantly as sellers contemplate no sale.  Equally, the best stuff will sell at a higher price early in the morning.

Good labour markets

When we come to labour markets, the idea is that you and I, sellers of labour can go to the market and sell our goods, that is, our time and expertise.  If there is a good market, we will be bought, when we want to be bought; and buyers will find someone to buy, when they want someone to buy.

Labour markets that you and I know

Of course, labour markets are not 100% flexible.  We are blocked in by contracts.  The employer guarantees to give you work and to pay you on time.  You guarantee to do work and have to give notice if you want to change employers.

Rigid labour markets

Some labour markets are very inflexible.  I believe in the UK, 30 years ago, I we wanted to move a telephone in a student dormitory, it would be a nightmare.  Why? A telephone technician wasn’t be allowed to screw the device onto the wall.  That was the carpenter’s job.  If this story is not 100% accurate, then it was similar.

Not everything has changed

The “defined benefit” pension scheme also adds rigidity to the markets.

A defined benefit (DB) scheme means we pay in a fixed % of a our salary today for the right to draw a pension at a given age (usually 65) at 66% of our average of last three year’s salary (or similar calculation).

The importance to this calculation to what I am saying today is not the pension, much as it is on everyone’s minds, but that the 66% was based on an assumption of working for 40 years out of 60 for one employer (starting in your early twenties).

Here you can see the legacy of rigid labour markets that we haven’t sorted out, even in theory.

Why do systems like defined benefit pensions distort the labour market?

Implicit in your monthly donation of a fixed %, is that you will stay for 40 years.  If you leave before then, you will pay a heavy financial penalty.

So most people stay.  Every year, some people retire and we can replace those with 20 year olds while everyone moves up a notch.  Neat?

Yes it is, BUT

.  .  . this model doesn’t allow for radical changes in skill.  And it only works when people do retire – which they haven’t been the case with the bulge of the baby boomers.  Of course now the boomers are approaching retirement, organizations running this model will suddenly need to take on a lot of young people, some of whom will not be able to get the experience they need quickly enough to replace people who are leaving.

Equally, if you have to take people on for 40 years, as an employer you may think twice.   It is much more convenient to be able to ask someone to leave when you have no work for them or cannot afford to may them.

Why employers like a flexible labour market?

So employers like a “flexible” labour market.  They want it to be easy to ask people to leave.

What is the payoff for us?

And the payoff for us is that

• young people are more likely to get “starter” jobs
• we should be able to move employers more easily
• the economy should be more vibrant with a better match of skills to changing conditions.

But what a muddle

The downside is that we haven’t thought this through.

Pensions and in the States, health insurance, are tied to employement.  So employees are unable to move.

If employers don’t provide these benefits, an underclass of employees develops.  In the trade this is aptly called the secondary labour market – cheap and disposable.

And where does this leave employees – people of working age

My biggest concern is that when a labour market is massively flexible, how do employees – that is you and me – the sellers of labour, see far enough ahead to know what to invest in?

Of course this is an issue in all business.  How do farmers know how many tomatoes to plant?  How does Warren Buffet know what stocks & shares to buy on the stock market?

They do it in three ways:

• They form institutions – trade associations or their own firms – to do research on markets and to influence markets through lobbying and marketing.
• They make long term contracts – e.g., agree to sell to TESCO’s at a pre-determined price
• They get better real time information on markets.

Think of third world farmers contracting with FairTrade to sell you coffee.  They are doing it less for the price and more the stability of the contract.

Think of third world farmers who adopt mobile phones at the speed of light because they can find out prices readily in local and international markets.

What the theorists haven’t delivered

So why then do we assume

• Employees (you and me) don’t need information on future prices to decide how much to invest in skills today?
• Employees don’t need sane coherent contracts that allow us to complete a season.  A season may be 6 months to a year for a farmer.  Our investment in a 3 year degree is repayable over what period with what certainty?
• Employees (you and me) shouldn’t band together to form trade associations to research and influence markets.  I know that is what unions do, sort of. I know that is what good professional associations do.

My question to you

My question today, and I hope some people can answer it, as I am a noobe in this part of the world, is

which politiccal parties have an explicit agenda to make sure each and every person has sufficient information to make informed decisions about the investment in skill.

I don’t think governement has to make decisions about our investments for us.  But it does need to make sure there is an environment in which institutions who repesent us emerge (and do their job well).

Where does a young person in the UK and the USA find out this information?

Rounding up Week 4 at Xoozya

Event manager supremo in London

Squeezed in between writing tenders, I was able to attend a most excellent reception in London hosted by the Blur Group and event-managed by the inimitable, Julius Solaris.

Cafe Phillies

On a blowy, summer evening, we converged on Cafe Philles, just off Kensington High Street, in Italian Cafe with elegant, contemporary snacks, light wines and Belgium beer.

Getting down-and-dirty with social media

We were a small gathering of startups in the social media space.  Everyone was articulate about what they do – and they are doing.  Julius had carefully selected the guests and conversation was relaxed but focused on the economy and the in-depth discussions of business models, be they the economics of on-demand printing, databases for the assiduous management of  backroom cooperation between real estate portals, or communication systems for disaster management.  Everyone worked for startups and comfortable in their own skins.

Time to call in the professionals

It was a pleasure to be there.  I am not an event manager at all – I abdicate my events (!), but they are expensive affairs, even for the guests.  I would like to go to more events that are focused and smooth.