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Editor: Dr David Hall BSc (Hons), MA, FHEA, FCMI, FInstLM [email protected] Editorial Team: Stephen Pilbeam MSc, FHEA, Chartered FCIPD [email protected] Gary Rees MBA, FHEA, Chartered FCIPD [email protected] University of Portsmouth and CIPD Portsmouth Group HR Bulletin: Research and Practice A regular bullen for business-focused managers and HR professionals to learn about contemporary research and pracce Contribuons from managers, academic and students who wish to share their knowledge and interests Produced two mes a year by the University of Portsmouth Business School and the CIPD Portsmouth Group

Transcript of University of Portsmouth and CIPD Portsmouth Group · University of Portsmouth and CIPD Portsmouth...

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Editor: Dr David HallBSc(Hons),MA,FHEA,FCMI,FInstLM [email protected]

EditorialTeam: Stephen PilbeamMSc,FHEA,CharteredFCIPD [email protected]

Gary ReesMBA,FHEA,CharteredFCIPD [email protected]

UniversityofPortsmouthandCIPDPortsmouthGroup

HR Bulletin: Research and Practice

Aregularbulletinforbusiness-focusedmanagersandHRprofessionalstolearnaboutcontemporaryresearchandpractice

Contributionsfrommanagers,academicandstudentswhowishtosharetheirknowledgeandinterests

ProducedtwotimesayearbytheUniversityofPortsmouthBusinessSchoolandtheCIPDPortsmouthGroup

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The HR Bulletin: an introduction from the new editor

I am delighted to take on the role of editor for the HR Bulletin and, I hope I can continue the excellent work of Stephen Pilbeam and his editorial team. Fortunately, Stephen will be close at hand to provide guidance as he continues to be involved in the Bulletin as part of the editorial team. We are joined on the team by Gary Rees, Principal Lecturer and Program Director for Postgraduate HRM courses at the University of Portsmouth Business School. I am sure you will join me in thanking Marjorie Corbridge and Mark Power for their contribution as part of the editorial team over the past four years.

HR Bulletin – content of this edition This issue of the HR Bulletin has a truly international flavour to it, with a contribution from Dr Peter Cartwright on how Dow Corning, a US chemicals manufacturer and market leader, manages Health, Safety and the Environment on a global scale through effective people management. Vijay Pereira provides a fascinating insight into the World’s largest employer, Indian Railways, and some of the HR challenges in managing 1.7 million employees. Cara Tweedey-Smith and Dr Liza Howe-Walsh explore the role of the HR function in international mobility in their article. The findings from the RES Forum highlight some of the challenges facing HR practitioners who are responsible for international moves. Dr Cheryl Brook investigates the development of ‘action learning’ and based on research carried out on how it has been used within the NHS, considers the future direction for action learning. Sally Rumbles and Gary Rees describe the phenomenon of ‘Organisational Burn-out’ as organisations face of continuous change and the role of HR in this based on research they carried out. Thank you to all the contributors of articles for this issue.

Why not become a contributor – share your story and see your name in print If you would like to write an 1800 word article on a current HR initiative in your organisation then contact me by e-mail and I will send the HR Bulletin Contributor Guidelines. If you have something of interest, why not share it? We are happy to work on a draft with you and you do not have to deliver the finished product, only a draft which we will edit with you and put it into the house style of the Bulletin. HR Bulletin sponsorship The inside front and back covers are available to promote your organisation and its professional or educational services at £250 and £125, plus VAT, respectively. Please contact me if you are interested.

Dr David Hall

Email: [email protected] Tel: 023 92 844791

March 2011

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Insights into managing people in the world’s largest commercial employer –

the Indian Railways.

Vijay Pereira

Introduction and objective

The 21st century has witnessed India undergo sweeping economic changes. Riding on a host of factors, India today stands at the cusp of becoming one of the top four economies in the world (Capelli et al., 2010; Kumar et al., 2009). A growth rate of over 8%, prior to the slowdown, was despite the inadequacies of infrastructure. Yet, one organisation, which has shouldered the infrastructural burden of the transportation sector in India’s growth story, is the 158 year old Indian Railways (IR). IR’s profits – $5 billion over the last four years - are a far cry from its loss making days, which tempted the government of India to consider privatisation in 2001. The transformational turnaround would not have been possible but for IR’s employees who are its true assets. The objective, therefore, was to understand the ‘people side’ of IR - the world’s largest commercial employer1. The study, while looking to increase awareness of contemporary HR challenges in India (Budhwar and Bhatnagar, 2009), was attempting:

• To study the HR practices in the Indian Railways. • To compare and contrast HR practices geographically within Indian Railways. • To investigate changes if any in its HR practices over a period of time and the role of HR in

its turnaround strategies

Case study methodology

Indian Railways comprise 16 zones, which include 67 divisions spread across the nation. Additionally, they have several public sector undertakings (PSUs) and production units (PUs) under their control. Since approaching all zones for the purpose of the study would be an administrative inconvenience, it was decided to approach those zones that would represent different geographical areas of India. Accordingly, the following six zones were approached.

Zone Headquarter Western Railways Mumbai Central Railways Mumbai North-Eastern Railways Gorakhpur North-Central Railways Allahabad South-Western Railways Bangalore South-Central Railways Secunderabad

The above six zones include 30 of the 67 divisions under IR. It was also decided to include two Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) - Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) and Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) - both headquartered in Mumbai- to provide a holistic understanding of IR’s HR practices. It was also decided that the best way to achieve the aims of the study would be to focus on five key HR areas namely:

• Recruitment and Selection

• Training and Development

• Compensation and Benefits

• Employment Relations

• Welfare

62 interviews were conducted, covering the five areas mentioned above. These included interviews with Chief Personnel Officers (CPOs) in the respective zonal headquarters (including the two PSUs), Divisional Personnel Officers (DPOs) in the respective divisions and trade union officials.

1 Indian Railways (IR) has 1.7 million employees (of which 300,000 are casual workers) and 1 million

pensioners.

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This data formed the qualitative part of the case study. Questionnaires, both in English and in Hindi, were also administered to the 4086 personnel in these various zones, divisions and PSUs. A response rate of 37.08% was achieved. This formed the quantitative part of the case study.

Key findings of the research study:

IR is a self sufficient and self reliant organisation IR is often referred to as a ‘country within a country’ as they have their own schools, hospitals, housing and cooperative banks at the disposal of their employees. They also have their own federal ‘railway budget’ and maintain their own security force known as the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

IR provides an attractive employment proposition IR’s employees and their dependents avail of free passes and concessional tickets to travel on all routes. Other ‘motivational’ factors that excite people about a career in IR are that it gives its employees the opportunity to maintain a ‘work-life’ balance and a definite ‘career progression’. Even the low remuneration vis-à-vis the private sector is offset via ‘job security’ at all levels.

Recruitment and selection is highly formalised IR classifies its employees in four groups. The ‘gazetted staff’, comprising classes 1 and 2, are officers selected through a national selection board which is common for all civil services, namely the Union Public Service Commission. Class 3 officers are clerical and supervisory staff, while Class 4 constitute technical and other maintenance staff - both these groups are referred to as ‘non-gazetted staff.’ Selection to Class 3 is also on a national basis, through the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), which is run by existing railway officials. Class 4 employees are recruited through Railway Selection Boards (RSBs) with assistance of the local employment exchanges. Non-gazetted staff can advance to become Class 2, and in some cases to Class 1, gazetted officers. In the case of the two PSUs, staff were recruited from the existing zones and divisions on ‘deputation’ and had fixed tenures. At all zones and divisions, workforce planning was seen to be important. Interestingly MRVC recruited ex-railway staff that had relevant experience.

Training and development is available at all levels Training is paramount to IR as it concerns transportation and hence safety. All new recruits undergo training when they join. Gazetted officers train at seven ‘centralised training institutes’ (CTIs). The training needs of non-gazetted staff are being taken care of by 200 training centres located across IR. These training institutes and centres specialise in various functional training based on the different functions or departments. Railway personnel also receive periodic training in the form of refresher courses or when new methods or technology are introduced. Gazetted officers additionally, undergo management training courses at premier institutes, both in India and abroad.

Pay and conditions - a complex structure The structure of emoluments and conditions of service of railway employees are reviewed periodically by government ‘Pay Commissions’. All employees on the regular establishment of the railways are placed on scales of pay, in which they draw annual increments as a matter of course except on reaching an 'efficiency bar'. ‘Allowances’ are related to the cost of living index (as in the case of inflation linking known as ‘dearness allowance’). Employees are also compensated on account of unusual working hours or special nature of duties (such as night-duty allowance and running allowance) or inhospitable or expensive place of posting (such as bad climate allowance, hill allowance, house rent allowance, city compensatory allowance). Employees on deputation from different zones and divisions working in the PSUs were fixed in higher grades as an incentive.

Employment relations have been successfully managed for decades Employee representation in IR is in the form of recognised trade unions present in the zones, divisions and PSUs. Employment relations was generally seen to be congenial amongst the three main actors i.e. staff, management and trade unions, and interestingly was seen to be moving from a ‘pluralist2 perspective’ to a ‘unitarist3 perspective’ (Williams and Adam-Smith, 2010). As a result, there have been no major reported industrial conflicts since the 1974 historic strike, which attracted worldwide attention.

2 ‘Pluralist’ perspective: The general philosophy that an enterprise contains people with a variety of different interests, aims and aspirations. 3 ‘Unitarist’ perspective: The general philosophy that every workplace is an integrated and harmonious

entity that exists for a common purpose.

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Other findings:

• There were some cultural differences between the North, South and West/Central Railway zones. In the North, the national language was more in use than English. In comparison, South and West/Central zones were more comfortable with English language. To solicit responses, questionnaires had to be translated in Hindi for the North zone.

• The West/Central zones were also seen to be more technologically advanced –the evidence being West/Central zones are the first to use touch screen kiosks, where employees can check the status of their provident fund, loans, savings balance et al.

• The trade unions were more active in the North zone but their presence was uniform in all six zones.

• Recruitment and selection is now more transparent, leaving less scope for corruption and malpractices.

• The last two pay commissions have increased the pay levels of all employees substantially. They have also introduced several strategies to attract and retain key talent. Some of them include substantial pay hike, personal development initiatives which include a 2-year study leave and a 2-year child-care leave for female employees.

• More and more emphasis is being placed on quality training both nationally and internationally. Safety is paramount as the accident levels within the Indian Railways is one of the lowest globally. Also, the latest management practices such as benchmarking’ within its workforce management, supply chain management, operations management, logistics management to name few- are being encouraged in the railways.

• There is a growing realisation among the three main stakeholders - staff, management and trade unions that their goals are common. Hence, a movement was seen from being ‘pluralist’ to ‘unitarist’.

• They are shedding their image and culture of a typical PSU as the benefits of a global economy are seen to be trickling down. The respondents comprising officers and other staff said they want to be seen as a professional and transparent organisation (the ‘right to information’ (RTI) act is now been enforced in the Indian Railways) as they are now seen to be on the global stage with the world’s eyes on them.

Reflections and Conclusion

The case-study on HR practices in this very large organisation brought to light various challenges. The vastness and spread of IR’s operations, the intricacies and complexities of its working and operations, its unique culture etc were just a few. A great deal of data has been collected so far, but in many ways this is no more than the ‘tip of the iceberg’: the scope for further research is enormous.

Note: This study was sponsored by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), USA.

References

Budhwar, P. and Bhatnagar, J. (2009). The Changing Face of People Management in India. London: Routledge.

Cappelli, P. Singh, H., Singh, J. and Useem, M. (2010). ,The India Way: How India's Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management, Harvard Business School Press, McGraw-Hill USA.

Kumar, N, Mohapatra P. K., & Chandrasekhar, S. (2009). India's Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Williams, S. and Adam-Smith, D. (2010) Contemporary Employment Relations: a Critical Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2nd edition).

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Challenges facing International Assignment Managers

Cara Tweedy-Smith and Dr Liza Howe-Walsh

Introduction

International assignments are acknowledged as a high cost method of resourcing staff in overseas locations. On average the cost to the organisation is £250,000 to £750,000 per annum per assignment (Black & Gregersen, 2007). However the need for global mobility of employees continues to receive significant focus in many multinational organisations. Recent research undertaken by the RES Forum which is an independent community for In-House Global Mobility and HR professionals found that not one of the 53 organisations surveyed anticipated reducing the number of expatriates during 20104. It is clear that, irrespective of the prevailing financial climate, organisations cannot postpone the requirement to become ever-more global. Thus the issue of retention of international assignees is pertinent; the estimation by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC, 2006) that up to 50% of repatriates will leave the organisation within 2 years of return from assignment is all the more concerning as it is crucial to reduce rates of attrition. The role of the International HR function in managing the overseas experiences of staff and increasing retention forms part of the challenge of International Assignment Managers (IAM).

This article seeks to explore the role of the International HR function and the challenges facing HR practitioners involved with managing staff in overseas locations.

Role of International HR function

The International HR (IHR) function manages the lifecycle of employees assigned overseas including the different types of assignments:

• Short-term assignments (generally less than a year in duration) • Full international assignments (over a year in duration) • Commuter assignments (those with regular travel back to the home country) • Virtual assignments (where the employee manages a global team, involving extensive travel and

reliance on information technology) • Business travellers • Permanent overseas transfers • Localisation (where the employee remains in the host country and accepts a local contract)

Research by the RES Forum in 20105 showed that 76% of organisations surveyed send their employees on an international assignment for the following reasons: leadership development; career development and/or international experience to develop a global mindset.

The outcome of new research undertaken by the RES Forum highlights the major challenges facing the IHR Manager of balancing transactional and transformational HR activities which leaves us with questions around what the role of the IA Manager and the International HR Function should be.

What is an International Assignment Manager? The term International Assignment Manager means different things to different organisations and can range from a case manager that handles the entire life cycle of an assignment from selection to repatriation of individuals through to a strategic stakeholder within the HR function. To understand the differences we need to look at all that the IA Manager role potentially encompasses:

• Managing relocation – co-ordinating the transfer from the home to host country including pre-screening; internal approvals; briefing assignee and family; immigration clearance; calculation and payment of assignment allowances and expenses; organising home-finding, school search, shipment and settling-in arrangements; spousal support and international payroll arrangements

4 RES Forum Survey – 2010 Objectives Roadmap, 53 respondents, March 2010

5 RES Forum Survey - International Talent Management, 75 respondents, August 2010

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• Reviewing assignment calculations/paperwork (to assess cost of the assignment) • Tax calculations (to highlight tax equalisation costs etc) • Policy design and review • Management reporting including cost analysis/recharges to the different businesses • Stakeholder management and training including line managers, local HR, payroll and finance • Procurement activities such as engaging global and local service providers for immigration, tax

compliance, shipping, housing and education search, cultural and language training • Vendor management for those services detailed above • Talent management/succession planning.

How does the International Assignment Manager role fit into the HR function?

With increased globalisation, it becomes more pertinent to discuss the role of IHR in the overall HR function. Indeed, the traditional responsibilities of HR become unclear for international assignees since there is an immediate duplication in contacts: Home and host country HR Business Partner; Home and host country line manager as well as regional and global reporting lines that may not have existed in the pre-assignment location.

There is considerable debate surrounding the role of the HR business partner in an international context, but the role and responsibility of the line manager as a mediator of delivery of HRM is also much debated (see Brewster & Sparrow, 2007). While an HR Business Partner has a number of internal stakeholders to manage throughout the standard employee lifecycle, we can see from the IA Manager role that there is a range of stakeholders engaged throughout the assignment: some internal such as payroll and finance but mostly external including relocation and compliance service providers. The International Assignment Manager is the central communication point for the assignee however has to balance time spent liaising with the assignee with the requirement to co-ordinate these additional stakeholders.

The Research

The research, concluded in February 2011, sought to develop a greater understanding of the role of International Assignment Managers and was conducted via a survey of 84 organisations from a variety of sectors including banking & finance, hi-tech and FMCG. The sample is not trying to demonstrate generalisation but helps us in identifying key trends of in-house international HR functions at the moment. It would be interesting to find out how many administrators exist in the function, as well as the assignee population managed by each organisation as this can explain the variation between roles.

The Findings

Prior survey data6 highlighted that the major roles performed by the IAMs are: advising businesses in assignment-related matters; meeting and briefing assignees; producing assignment costs; supplier management and policy development. These roles could all be deemed to fall into transformational practices (see Ulrich et al, 2009).

The most recent survey concurs that the major roles remain the same. However, further emphasis was noted to demonstrate that 95% of organisations outsource at least one of the key compliance areas: tax preparation; immigration and social security. Risk minimisation could potentially be one of the reasons that organisations feel compelled to outsource these specialist activities however it could be argued that treating the value-add areas such as talent management; cultural training and satisfaction surveys as peripheral, as emerged from the findings, could also be a significant ‘risk’. These softer support areas are often considered transformational HR activities vital to both the success of the assignment and retention of an engaged employee.

6 RES Forum Survey – The role of the International Assignment (IA) Manager, 50 respondents, April

2009

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While just one organisation outsources talent management (TM) activities, only a quarter of IA Managers class TM as part of their role. Can we assume that this role falls to HR, the line manager or is not focused upon at all? It would indicate that the respondents consider the IAM has a more transactional than transformational role. This is further supported by the response that over 90% of IA Managers have an active caseload of expatriates to handle, with only one third confirming they work on the more challenging transfer types – senior assignees and those coming from or going to new locations – is this a sign of the times or does it confirm transaction over transformation? The assertion that 90% of IAMs focus on policy design and review further highlights the anomaly between the strategic and operational roles required of the IA Manager.

HR Implications

The added value of the IHR function lies in succession planning and talent management. If IHR is not involved in managing talent while individuals are on assignment; monitoring and feeding back into the line managers and HR business partners then a crucial gap in information arises. Key factors in the employee’s retention will not be understood and repatriation issues can be anticipated.

Global mobility is an important requirement for the development of global managers and future leaders and there is a clear direct cost associated high attrition rates of such key employees. The indirect costs could be said to be more damaging to the organisation: loss of knowledge, loss of employee to a competitor, destruction of the psychological contract and of the self-esteem of the individual.

Above all, with the inevitable current focus on cost, it makes financial sense to fully harness the return on investment in the international assignee. The sharing of information between IHR and HR is crucial to ensuring the risk of losing the employee is minimised.

References

Black, J.S. & Gregersen, H. B. (2007). The right way to manage expats. In Mendenhall, M, E., Oddou, G. R., & Stahl, G.R. (Ed.), Readings and cases in International Human Resource Management (119-128) 4th Ed. New York: Routledge.

Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P.R. (2007). Globalising HR: Roles and challenges for the International HRM function. Lancaster University Management School Centre for Performance-led HR Working Paper, Number 2007-04, available: http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/ research/centres/hr

PricewaterhouseCoopers (2006) International Mobility. http://www.pwc.co.uk/pdf/pwc_hourglass_int-mobility.pdf

Ulrich, D., Allen, J., Brockbank, W., Younger, J., & Nyman, M. (2009). HR transformation. McGraw-Hill: USA

N.B. The RES Forum is an independent community for In-House Global Mobility and HR professionals. It is not influenced by any external parties or third party vendors and is characterised by the high level of participation, trust and collaboration amongst members.

This research was undertaken as part of the ongoing work of the RES Forum, www.theresforum.com. For further details, please contact [email protected]

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The Role of Effective Human Resources in Dow Corning’s Safety Performance

Dr Peter Cartwright

Dow Corning Corporation

Dow Corning is a U.S. multi-national chemical company, employing more than 10,000 people and serving about 25,000 customers worldwide. More than half of Dow Corning’s annual sales are outside the United States. Dow Corning’s global operations adhere to the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care initiative, a stringent set of standards designed to advance the safe and secure management of chemical products and processes.

Between 2005 and 2009, Dow Corning reduced the rate of injuries and manufacturing accidents by more than half. Recently, Dow Corning designed, built and commissioned a large chemical facility near Shanghai, China, with an unparalleled safety record during construction involving more than 20 million hours of construction work without a single lost time injury. Dow Corning recently won EHS Today’s ‘America’s safest company award‘, and a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents gold award for its UK operation. One of the foundational elements allowing Dow Corning to achieve this is a strong HR management system underpinning improvement programmes.

Safety in a Chemical Company

Over the past 40 years, there have been several industrial and chemical events that have served to highlight the responsibility of companies with high risk operations to ensure safe operations. These catastrophic events - Seveso, Bhopal, Texas City, Piper Alpha, Buncefield or Longford resulted in either multiple fatalities, significant property damage or both. A common message to senior managers is “If you think safety is expensive, try having an accident” (anon.)

Maintaining and continuously improving safety performance in a large chemical company is a complicated and challenging task for which effective HR systems and processes are crucial.

There are many aspects of safety in such an operation which include;

• Dealing with hazardous chemicals which can corrode, catch fire, or explode under certain

conditions;

• Dealing with manufacturing operations which present significant hazards that have the

potential to injure or kill workers -- activities such as working at heights, in confined spaces

with little oxygen, or machinery with potential to maim or amputate; and,

• Dealing with the general risks that are common to society, including manual activity such as

lifting, twisting for shop-floor workers, driving for salespeople, keyboard ergonomics and

walking up and down stairs for administrative employees.

Within the chemical industry, strong corporate values, an advanced safety culture, well trained

employees, and the active involvement of executive leadership are all critical factors in maintaining

safe operations and continuously improving performance. Appropriate Human Resource

Management policies, processes and practices provide the foundations for/underpin the success of

those factors.

Safety at Dow Corning

Dow Corning has had safety as one of the 7 corporate values for many years, which provides a long-

term company commitment. It divides safety into 2 areas which have some common requirements

but are very different in how they are managed:

© 2011 Dow Corning Corporation

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• Occupational Health and Safety – which deals mainly with preventing injuries and illnesses

for all employees and contractors working within our facilities;

• Process safety – which deals with the prevention of spills, emissions, fires, and explosions at

manufacturing sites.

Vision for Safety – for each ‘human resource’ whether experienced or new, fitter or CEO

In 2006, Dow Corning developed a vision for safety which aimed to refocus and apply safety as a

part of every employee’s activity and thought process. This vision and associated branding, which is

simply entitled ‘Safe Work IS our Job,’ is used in all communication materials internally.

Practical Application – What Good Safety Looks Like

Before the launch of the vision, Dow Corning carried out 2 benchmarking exercises to develop a

system which leaders and managers could use as a framework for practical application to

improvement:

• A 6 month process of analysing those elements that were a common part of Dow Corning’s

best performing sites – to determine what had worked within the company culture; and,

• Discussion with other leading companies seen in safety – to identify further opportunities.

Dow Corning then communicated the 4 critical elements which each site, laboratory or office would

be required to carry out excellently to produce the 5th element, which was a sustained long term trend

for reduction of injuries or incidents – known as ‘What Good Safety Looks Like!’ See Table 1 below.

Table 1: What Good safety Looks Like!

Element Examples Demonstrated Leadership

- Leaders are communicating vision and spending time observing, praising, coaching, disciplining as appropriate

- There are safety plans based on the list of risks of the manufacturing location, sales team, office, or laboratory.

Clarity of Expectations

- People know exactly the procedures and practices they have to follow to ensure safety

- Procedures are up to date and reflect reality. Operational Discipline

- People follow procedures 100% of the time - Housekeeping is always excellent and people

wear necessary protective equipment 100% of the time.

Learning from incidents and near-misses

- There is an open culture which encourages accurate and timely incident and near-miss reporting

- Incidents have investigations which identify the real root cause, which can be fixed long-term.

- Accidents with global application are openly shared, and improvements from these events are applied using a preventive action process.

Sustainable long-term reduction in injuries and incidents

- The focus is primarily on leading and measuring the first 4 elements rather than applying pressure on individuals to suppress information to improve safety statistics

- There is a 3-5 year downward trend in injury and incident rates.

© 2011 Dow Corning Corporation

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Human Resources and its Role in Achieving the Success

Each of the 5 elements can provide some illustrative examples of where HR becomes a critical partner in safety improvement.

1. Demonstrated Leadership – people management and senior leader active interest

This begins at the executive level and cascades through to all supervisors – the expectation is written in objectives as part of Dow Corning’s performance management process.

‘Balance of Consequences’ is a programme used throughout the company for supervisors to fairly praise and reward employees showing excellent safety behaviour – following procedures, reporting near misses and incidents, spotting hazards and resolving issues before they lead to an accident. The balance is provided by coaching for those who are not and don’t have an understanding of the expectations. in rare cases, this can lead to discipline or termination of employment for those wilfully not following standards or procedures. The company aim is to have approximately a 9:1 ratio of praise/coaching or discipline. At the corporate level, a portion of the annual bonus relies on a balance between training attendance, and corporate safety results.

Active engagement is a critical role of executive and all senior management. In several instances of chemical industry events, incident investigations have revealed executives stating the importance of safety but not actively probing and welcoming information on where weaknesses or resources are needed. In a recessionary environment, mixed messaging is often a cause of reduced spending on critical safety infrastructure as outlined by Professor Andrew Hopkins (2008.) Dow Corning’s senior executive team receive training in safety from the VP of EHS and the Corporate Safety Director 2-3 times per year.

2. Clarity of Expectations – involving training

This starts with a commitment from leadership to invest the appropriate resources to ensure that engineering standards, procedures and practices are clear, current, and reflect the best way to do something safely. It is followed by an equal commitment to provide the time and methods to train all employees on exactly what they need to do to be as safe as possible in their roles and the consequences of doing it or not. This applies whether employees are running a hazardous manufacturing plant, taking a sample in a laboratory, or driving safely. Dow Corning recently installed a driving simulator at our corporate headquarters site to allow hands-on driver training in a variety of high risk driving scenarios.

As Dow Corning designed and built its newest large-scale facility in China, it made a considerable investment in supervisory training and high ratios of supervisors to local contractors. Coupled with the presence of a large number of skilled and committed expats, facilitated by excellent, flexible HR relocation assignments, this contributed to an extremely low injury rate for contractors (in the top 10% performance for all such projects globally).

3. Operational Discipline

Human nature often works against this element of being safe – whether this is obeying speed limits, or wearing safety helmets when riding a bicycle. In a large chemical company like Dow Corning, this is no different. For an innovative company with different cultures in many plants, laboratories and offices throughout the world, and a large influx of new people each year, educating and maintaining a consistent, safety culture remains a constant challenge. Training, communication, leadership inspections and the Balance of Consequences system forms the backbone of Dow Corning’s commitment to ensuring a good environment for continual compliance.

The Balance of Consequence checklists used by all supervisors can provide leadership with ‘dashboard data’ to show where there are weaknesses. For example, the site manager in the UK facility regularly does a safety walk-around with the results of inspections allowing him to congratulate an area on their diligence in certain tasks yet focus on a couple of other areas which have seen some issues with compliance.

© 2011 Dow Corning Corporation

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Not only can he/she ask questions about whether procedures are appropriate or why there isn’t 100% compliance, but the workforce recognizes the manager is engaged in displaying a specific focus on fixing what’s wrong in their area, in addition to engaging in general safety discussion.

4. Learning from incidents and near misses

Probably the most critical element is having a corporate culture which is open, fair and valued and wants to find any defects in processes before larger accidents occur. One of the major reasons for large safety incidents is a culture where the final safety numbers are the basis for financial benefit and an implied pressure on workers and managers not to report small deviations (Hopkins, 2009.) The results of such hidden defects (which always occur in systems involving humans) can be that the ‘process or behaviour-break’ is only seen when the final consequence cannot be hidden such as a serious injury, fatality or major catastrophe. Often, the presence of a knee-jerk blame culture of blaming the front-line worker unfairly can result in suppression of reporting.

Dow Corning encourages and rewards near-miss reporting with Manufacturing and Research and Development laboratories having targets for openly recording ‘close-calls’, and using the data collected to drive future safety improvement plans.

5. Sustainable long-term reduction in injuries and incidents

The word ‘sustainable’ and phrase ‘long-term’ is critical to avoid a short-term focus on reducing incident rates and a pressure to hide incidents. In Dow Corning’s experience an effective combination of the 4 ‘leading elements’ described in points 1 to 4 above will result in consistent improvement and a safer and more productive workplace. HR leadership practices, culture, policies and performance management processes have been shown to be essential contributors to this.

References

Hopkins, A. (2008) Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City refinery disaster, CCH, Australia

Hopkins, A. (2009) Learning from High Reliability Organizations, CCH, Australia.

© 2011 Dow Corning Corporation

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What are “Next Generation” action learners doing in practice?

Dr Cheryl Brook Background and introduction

What might be the current state of play regarding the use of action learning in organisations? What form is action learning taking and to what uses is action learning being put? Marquardt, quoted by Pedler, has observed that 73 per cent of US corporations now claim to use action learning in their leadership development programmes “and, indeed they would be ashamed to admit to relying on non-action learning designs such as lectures and case studies” (2010:117). Recent research indicates that action learning is thriving in the public sector, especially the NHS, where it appears to be being put to a wide range of uses, some of which this article will describe. However, the picture in other sectors is less clear.

Research at the University of Salford indicated that although it was apparent from published accounts and personal experience, that some substantial initiatives involving action learning were taking place in large businesses and consultancies (such as, for example, the John Lewis Partnership and Astra Zeneca), such businesses were scarcely represented in the sample (Pedler, Burgoyne and Brook, 2005).

A 2004 CIPD Management Development Practices Survey placed take-up of action learning in organisations across the UK at only 17 per cent (as against 51 per cent for coaching) but action learning has always gone in and out of fashion since it first became a feature of development practice over 45 years ago. Rigg and Richards (2006) have noted that “internationally there is a wealth of examples of the use of action learning approaches in public as well as private and voluntary / community sector development” (2006:7). Only a few years ago, O’Neil and Marsick (2007) were able to say that action learning has become “a preferred approach to developing leaders in many organisations” (1997:1). Nonetheless, action learning has always attracted controversy amongst development experts and academics because of its’ overt championing of the ideas of practitioners over and above those of experts.

What is Action Learning?

Reginald Revans, the founding father of action learning (and, incidentally, Portsmouth born; he was the son of a marine surveyor) knew that it (and indeed he himself) would not always find ready acceptance for this reason. He resigned from his Chair at the University of Manchester in 1965 just as the new business school was being developed – appalled, as he saw it, at the triumph of the “book” culture of Owen’s College over the “tool” culture of the Manchester College of Technology, as it then was. Revans dedicated his life to promoting the idea of action learning, and pioneered its use in the NHS in the 1960’s in a project involving ten London hospitals.

For those unfamiliar with action learning, one of the most straightforward definitions of action learning comes from Pedler (1996). He wrote:

“Action learning is a method for individual and organisational development. Working in small groups, people tackle important organisational issues or problems and learn from their attempts to change things” (1996:13).

Revans left no single definition of action learning, preferring instead to talk about what action learning is not – it is not, he argued, job rotation, case studies, business games, group dynamics or other task free exercises – for Revans learning was “cradled in the very task itself” (Revans,1998:5). Revans’ Classical Principles (RCP) is a shorthand for the consistencies in Revans’ writings over his long and active life. RCP included, amongst other things:

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• The requirement for action as the basis for learning • Profound personal development resulting from reflection on action • Working with problems - to which there are no “right” answers • Problems being sponsored and aimed at organisational as well as personal development • Action learners working in a set of peers • The search for fresh questions and questioning insight taking primacy over expert knowledge

(2005:59).

Some varieties of action learning now being practised would appear to depart quite radically from these classical principles - so radical are some of these departures that some academics, such as Willis (2004) have argued for the promotion of a Revans’ “gold standard” and a return to these fundamental principles because, in her view, so much that is going on in the name of action learning is not, in fact, action learning.

‘Next Generation’ action learning

Critical action learning: One example of these “new varieties” of action learning is critical action learning. This form, which has arisen in some universities, is an attempt to inject some criticality into the practice of action learning. McLaughlin and Thorpe (1993) criticised conventional action learning because of its apparent lack of attention to the primacy of politics and power in decision-making (and non decision-making) in organisations. Rigg and Trehan’s (2004) seminal article on their own practice of critical action learning has shown how critical action learning can be done and how critical theory can be “mobilized and applied in the process of understanding and changing interpersonal and institutional practices” (2004:149). One example they give from their own practice is how indirect racism is tackled in a set meeting. Critical action learning, however, requires considerable expert knowledge and facilitation.

Business-driven action learning: Another example of the development of action learning, which is primarily, though not exclusively practised in the US is business-driven action learning. This approach, which has been pioneered by academics such as Boshyk (1999, 2000) involves groups working on projects which are usually identified by senior managers. This form of action learning is organisation-focused and places an emphasis upon problem solving. Boshyk has worked with such companies as Siemens, DuPont, Shell and IBM in developing this approach, working on such themes as (amongst others) changing organisational direction, helping with the development of new products and new services and clarifying investment decisions (Boshyk, 2010:83-4).

Recent research findings

It would appear that in the NHS, action learning is, to a great extent, being practised in a way that Revans would recognise, however there is some evidence of departures from some of his principles. In particular, an overwhelming majority of action learning sets examined in recent research were using a facilitator on a regular and on-going basis, and that nearly a quarter of the sample included formally taught elements in their action learning programmes (Brook, 2009). Writing of the public sector context, Rigg (2006) has argued that having a permanent set facilitator schooled in both the language and practice of public policy and learning and development is now probably a necessity.

Recent research examines the uses to which action learning was being put in the NHS and from this it is evident that action learning had become more focused on personal development and less centred on organisational problems (Brook, 2009). This finding built upon findings from an earlier research project (Pedler, Burgoyne and Brook, 2005) which also saw evidence of a shift from organisational to personal development issues. Rigg (2006) has also commented upon this phenomenon in the context of the public sector. In both research projects, the research is limited to the conduct of action learning in the UK.

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However, as is evidenced by the work of academics and practitioners such as Boshyk, action learning focused squarely on organisational and business concerns appears to be thriving in business contexts in the US and elsewhere.

Having said this, there is evidence of a focus on organisational projects. Examples given by respondents included the creation of inter-agency improvement plans, developing patient advocacy services, re-designing a new dental service, building effective partnerships with agencies, patients and carers, creating new roles in the service and implementing changes in work practices. The “personal” projects included coping with role changes, developing interpersonal skills and dealing more effectively with conflicts in the workplace (Brook, 2009).

Revans was not averse to what he termed “the work of the self”. Indeed he saw it as being of some importance, and was acutely conscious of what might be seen as the necessity of re-asserting the moral dimension in the management of people, something some business schools, in the aftermath of scandals such as Enron, are catching up on with their inclusion in the curriculum of courses on business ethics.

Reflections

These shifts in emphasis (from temporary to permanent facilitator, from conventional to critical action learning and other forms of action learning, from organisational emphases to personal development) perhaps invite us to consider what action learning is for, and what the “action” in action learning means or perhaps should mean. Revans was most concerned that learning be rooted in action; that action learners made real changes and had real impact in the workplace. Revans called upon ancient sources for his inspiration (he was a very well read polymath). From Sophocles’ Trachiniae he liked to quote the following:

“One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it you have no certainty, until you try.”

References

Brook, C (2009) Action Learning in the NHS: An Inquiry into its development and practice (Unpublished PhD thesis, Lancaster University).

Dilworth, RL and Boshyk, Y (Eds) (2010) Action Learning: History, Evolution and Applications (2 Volumes) Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke, UK. Pedler, M (1996) Action Learning for Managers Lemos & Crane Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J and Brook, C (2005) What has action learning learned to become? In Action Learning: Research and Practice, 2:1, 49-68. Revans R. W. (1998) ABC of Action Learning, London. Lemos and Crane. Rigg C & Trehan K (2004) “Reflections on Working with Critical Action Learning” Action Learning : Research & Practice 1(2), pp 149–165.

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Continuous change, Organizational Burnout and HR’s role Gary Rees and Sally Rumbles Stressful times! Within the last three years, the global economic crisis has prompted unprecedented change, with organizations traditionally considered as “solid”, crumbling and liquidating in front of incredulous stock brokers and global audiences. Within the UK, unprecedented numbers of job redundancies have rocketed and expanded the unemployment pool. Financial institutions in Europe are now undergoing “stress tests” in order to establish which financial institutions are “dangerously vulnerable and need to be strengthened, or even taken over” (BBC website, 2010). The essence of these stress tests is to assess whether banks are able to survive future economic shocks. There is no such equivalent “test” for organizations when it comes to ‘organizational burnout.’ The concept of burnout may associate itself more readily with stressful occupations, such as nursing, fire and rescue, etc., and sometimes associated with individuals and personality types (e.g. Friedman’s Type A and Type B personality). If we consider a definition of burnout hinging around emotional exhaustion resulting in the inability to carry out specific tasks or functions, then how can organizational burnout be defined? Perhaps the point at which an organization has reached saturation (Marks 2003), or at the point of inflection, and where performance, output, efficiency etc. plunges dramatically, equating to organizational exhaustion. Change is certainly not a new topic of debate. Results from a survey of over 1500 executives involved in a wide variety of change initiatives indicated that only 38% thought these initiatives were successful, and only 30% thought they contributed to the sustained improvement of their organizations (Erwin and Garman 2010). To what extent are organizations changing for change sake? Added to this is an organization’s inability to cope with change, which can then lead to individual and organizational burnout. One important question to address is whether corporate decision-makers really care about employees and are content with pushing performance to its maximum point, to the detriment of the health and wellbeing of its workforce. The role of HR To what extent do organizations “care” about the amount of stress occurs during change and whether there can be an assessment of how much the organizational stress thermometer is rising? Coupled to this is the extent to which HR acknowledges and actually takes active intervention when the ‘temperature’ is rising. Marks (2003) argues that multiple waves of change lead to a “saturation effect” within organizations, resulting in a deterioration of performance that emerges from dealing with stress and uncertainty. Abrahamson (2004) posits that there has been negative, not neutral impact upon employee spirit, work team performance and organizational effectiveness resulting from continuous changes and transitions in the workplace. Marris (1986), quoted in French et.al. (2008:562) equates change with bereavement, hence employees need time to recover from changes, and a period of acceptance of the changes. Implicit to this argument is the principle that organizations should not go through continuous changes. To what extent do issues such as Duty of Care, maximum performance measures and reported levels of excess stress fall within the remit and scope of HR professionals? Investigating Organizational Burnout A random sample of 100 medium to large companies (100 plus employees) were chosen within a 50km radius of Portsmouth University in Hampshire, to take part in a survey to assess a range of questions surrounding organizational responses to employee engagement and wellbeing.

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The research questions probed the following key issues: • The extent to which the organization was aware of their level of organizational stress

and potential burnout • The extent to which the organization cared about the level of organizational stress

and potential burnout • To consider what actions the organization would take if they were concerned with the

threat of organizational burnout • To explore whether the “duty of care” considerations entered into decisions on

Change. The email survey questionnaire consisted of a combination of both closed and open questions which were sent to Human Resource Managers and Directors. Research findings: Disappointingly, a response rate of only 14% was achieved. The range of responses collected from the various industry sectors, were: 48% Private sector, 40% Public sector and 12% Not-for profit sector. Whilst there were no consistent trends revealed within the findings, some interesting points can be considered. The key findings were: • 78% of companies reported that they had gone through major or drastic change in

the last few years • 71% of the sample reported that these changes were planned changes • Just over one third of companies reported that they had enough time to implement

changes effectively • About two thirds of companies monitor individuals who report suffering from stress,

which contrasts with only a fifth of companies that actually carry out assessments of organizational level stress

• 71% of companies reported that they operate a Duty of Care Policy, but nearly two thirds of companies argued that Duty of Care is not associated with organizational change

• Half of the companies reported that burnout had occurred in their organization • 57% of companies believed that continuous changes can lead to organizational

burnout • 28% of companies believed that the Health and Safety at Work Act sufficiently covers

employees during organizational change • 42% of companies reported that they would significantly change or cease a particular

change intervention if it had an adverse effect upon employees wellbeing • When it comes to HR intervening when organizational stress levels are high, 100% of

the HR Professionals who responded reported that they would intervene. Discussion Some organizations reported having a Duty of Care Policy, but don’t do anything with it, and not caring if change affected wellbeing or undermined trust and confidence in employees. This lack of follow through is known as the “Empty Shell Syndrome”, a term first defined by Hoque and Noon (2004) with regard to Equality Management, which has relevance for all HR practices that are governed by policies, but organizations do very little in practice. Stress management falls with HR’s remit, but HR may do little to act upon it. Another analogy that emerged is the “boiled frog response”. The responses from a few companies revealed that whilst they have a Duty of Care Policy, it is not linked to change, and the company would not change its actions if it affected employee wellbeing or undermined trust and confidence. The “Boiled Frog Syndrome” is a metaphorical analogy.

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When a frog is placed in a pot of boiling water, it will instinctively jump out. However, when a frog is placed in a pot of cool water, which is then heated slowly, it will remain in the water and then be boiled alive. In terms of organizational changes, there is a state of denial that things are “hotting up”. To what extent are organizations still struggling to cope with the pace of change? One respondent argued that “Communication is not good and changes happen last minute with no clear project plan or time scales or even a project team to manage the change effectively”. Another respondent referred to “survivor syndrome”, whereby the need to keep one’s head down and avoid the radar is paramount to survival within the organization. This respondent adds “it is not just the change or any perceived lack of consultation that impacts upon stress levels, it is often also the lack of ongoing communication on the next steps and how the issues that created the need for the change will be fixed/managed that creates additional stress and uncertainty”.

Pines (1993) argues that the root cause of burnout lie’s in people’s need to believe that their lives are meaningful, and what they do has importance and significance, all key aspects of employee engagement. Communication is inextricably linked to change management, and poor communication can lead to increased levels of stress during organizational change. The theme of organizational resilience is one that is now being linked to how organizations can better cope with change and resist organizational burnout. This is a theme we wish to explore in further research. Resilience is quite difficult to define, but research in this area conducted by Liisa Valikangas of the Woodside Institute in the USA suggests that taking steps towards innovative management practices is important in building resilience to organizational change, particularly when this manifests itself as an unexpected threat. This can be achieved in 4 ways: 1. Building organizational resilience by adapting quickly to rapidly changing circumstances and not avoiding it until it becomes inevitable. 2. Regularly harnessing innovative ideas at every level by encouraging “rule-breaking” innovation from all employees and providing all employees with the “tools” to achieve this. 3. Devising an environment that provides the opportunity for employees to harness their talents and creativity and raise the return on human capital by developing systems that enable people to take the initiative. 4. Measure current capabilities and develop metrics to track improvement activities. (source: Warner 2006.) The role of HR in change remains a key topic for debate. Adopting an ostrich approach by burying one’s head in the sand remains a dangerous option for HR Professionals, but who is challenging both the rate of change in organizations and the temperature rise as a result of change in organizations? Health and Safety at Work and Duty of Care may not prove sufficient enough when dealing with a hard-nosed managerial culture at work. Conclusions Economic pressures and uncertain times provide opportunities for senior managers to take “Harder” decisions regarding carrying out changes in the organization. Survivor syndrome can overtake the usual professional expectations that employees have with regard to protecting employee wellbeing at work. If change is to remain constant, and in some cases, increasingly drastic and severe, then how can HR provide the voice of reason to a determined executive? There are practical steps that HR can take. Firstly, to what extent are individual, group and organisational stress levels monitored and measured? Secondly, what happens if these stress levels become high and threaten to result in individual and ultimately organizational burnout? HR, like a good doctor, may have to relieve the unstable Commanding Officer of their post!

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References: Abrahamson, E. (2004). Change without pain: How managers can overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout. Boston: Harvard Business School Press BBC website Q & A: What are the European Bank stress tests for? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10711590, accessed 7th March 2011. Erwin, D.G. and Garman, A.N. (2010) Resistance to organisational change: linking research and practice. Leadership and Organisation Development Journal Vol.31 No. 1 2010

French, R., Rayner, C., Rees, G. and Rumbles, S. (2008) Organizational Behaviour, John Wiley and Sons: Chichester.

Friedman, M. (1996). Type A Behavior: Its Diagnosis and Treatment. New York, Plenum Press (Kluwer Academic Press).

Hoque, K. and Noon, M. (2004). Equal Opportunities Policy and Practice in Britain: Evaluating the ‘Empty Shell’ Hypothesis, Work Employment & Society September 2004 vol. 18 no. 3 481-506

Marks, M.L. (2003) Charging back up the hill: workplace recovery after mergers, acquisitions, and downsizings. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pines, A.M. (1993)”Burnout: An existential Perspective,” in Schaufeli, W. ,Maslach, C. And Marek, T. (Eds) Professional Burnout. Taylor and Francis: Washington D.C.

Warner, J (2006) “Innovation Management to Ensure Organisational Resilience” Competency and Emotional Intelligence Issue 4: vol. 13

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HR Bulletin 2011 – Volume 6 Issue 1

The articles and contributors

Insights into managing people in the world’s largest commercial employer - the Indian Railways Vijay Pereira, B'Com, L.LB, PGDLS, (India); MSc IHRM, MCMI (UK) Senior Lecturer in HRM, University of Portsmouth Challenges facing International Assignment Managers Cara Tweedy-Smith BA (Hons), MCIPD Res Forum Co-ordinator. Res Forum

Dr Liza Howe-Walsh BA (Hons), MSc, DBA, MCIPD, FHEA Senior Lecturer, University of Portsmouth The Role of Effective Human Resources in Dow Corning’s Safety Performance Dr Peter Cartwright, BSc (Hons), PhD Global Executive Director - Environment, Health and Safety

What are ‘Next Generation’ action learners doing in practice? Dr Cheryl Brook, Chartered MCIPD, BA (Hons), MSc, PhD

Lecturer in HRM, University of Portsmouth Continuous changes, Organizational Burn-out and HR’s role Sally Rumbles, MSc HRM, MCIPD, FHEA Senior Lecturer, University of Portsmouth

Gary Rees, BSc(Hons), MBA, Chartered FCIPD, MCMI. FRSA, FHEA Principal Lecturer, University of Portsmouth

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