Tag: CIPD

People and Places : Senses and Spaces

Some initial thoughts on the recently announced collaboration between BIFM and CIPD

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. Winston Churchill

This week I learned of a collaboration between BIFM and the CIPD. Although in its very early days, the potential in this match up interests me. The plan is for the two organisations to collaborate on ‘a number of research and insight projects that will investigate how both communities of professionals are evolving and adapting to the changing workplace.’ So long as that work feeds quickly through into action and doesn’t become just another talking shop (lest we forget I still wear the scars of being heavily involved in Engage for Success, I know how underwhelming these well meaning get togethers can be), then I look forward to being of some use to this initiative. Here are a couple of interactions I was involved with on Twitter as the news emerged.

BIFM CIPD Collaboration Tweets Two BIFM CIPD Collaboration Tweets One

Good architecture is often invisible, but it allows whatever is happening in that space to be the best experience possible. Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Peter Cheese said he’d like my thoughts on this matter, so I’d like to follow up on his tweeted observation about making good practice common practice, by sharing a few examples of where I believe these connections are already being made. I’d also be really interested to learn of other examples you’ve seen too, please? Feel free to drop me a line via the comments on the blog.

Neil Usher

Neil is for me, a great example of people and place personified. I don’t mean he looks like an office block, but he gets this important connection. I first met Neil at ConnectingHR a few years ago and he is regularly blogging, thinking and working at the crossroads between people and places : senses and spaces. Neil twists the two marshmallow strands of people and place together into an almost perfectly formed Flump. Here’s a recent, excellent post of his about how to help people and places work better.

Social Capital in the Workplace

In january 2014 I was fortunate to be asked by Mark Catchlove (another great example of someone who ‘gets’ this and is doing good work in the people and places space) of Herman Miller, to facilitate a consultation on Social Capital in the Workplace at St George’s House within the walls of Windsor Castle. This was a fascinating conversation among a mix of people across a wide range of industries and disciplines. We talked about people and places, senses and spaces. A detailed report of the conversation has been published here. The same group is reconvening again very soon to share our experiences since the initial conversation in January. What have we learned, what have we done? Doubtless more to follow.

In a city the atmosphere is all around you and is ever changing. New things will become old things…Time is a great architect. Alvaro Siza

People Property and CSR

I previously worked with a client in a financial services firm. She was the Director of People, Property and CSR and did a great job of coordinating these important, related activities. This person would always consider the people aspects of property moves and changes, and vice versa. Breaking down silos was a hobby of hers, and walls would regularly be knocked down and moved as attempts were made to foster a more collaborative way of working. And she would regularly invite contributions and criticism from colleagues around the business related to planned work. Why wouldn’t she – after all, getting this stuff right was the responsibility of her and her team!

Sensing Spaces

In February I wrote a blog post titled Mood Lighting. It was about a trip I took with Mervyn Dinnen to visit the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy. After our visit, as we spoke about the exhibition, Mervyn told me that one of the biggest impacts he observed while walking around, was how the mood of our conversation altered depending on the space we occupied. This exhibition was an enjoyable and interesting look at the impact space has on your senses. If the art world can explore the possibilities, then why can’t more of us in business do likewise?

Allowing room for the visitor’s imagination is essential if a space is to become a satisfying physical experience. Li Xiaodong

I’d like to wish good luck to the bridge builders at BIFM and CIPD. I have a slight reservation about building bridges, and that is that when we do this, the bridges typically connect one place to another. For this collaboration to work, I expect it will need to connect many people to many people, and many spaces to many spaces. For me, these connections already exist. They may not yet be strong enough, and there may not be enough of them, but they are out there.

People and Places : Sensing Spaces.

Here’s a related post about next steps, just published by Simon Heath.

How Are You Inspiring The Future?

A review of my first volunteering work with Inspiring the Future

How are you inspiring the future? Pretty big question huh? Well the answer doesn’t need to be.

What is Inspiring The Future?

Inspiring the Future (ItF) is a free service with volunteers from all sectors and professions going into state schools and colleges to talk about their jobs and sectors. Anyone can volunteer with Inspiring the Future – you can be a young Apprentice, graduate recruit or a seasoned Chief Executive – young people will benefit from hearing about your experiences.  You offer to visit a local state school or college for ‘one hour, once a year’.

That is how ItF positions themselves. I found out about them through my membership of the CIPD, and because I think the worlds of education and work are currently not as well joined up as they should be, I joined the scheme to see if I could be of use. After spotting a few opportunities I couldn’t fit into the diary, a chance arose to take part in some CV skills development at a local school.

I registered to take part and as part of my preparation, I asked Twitter a question:

Twitter CV question

As you might expect – I got some great answers which I curated over at Storify if you’d like to take a look.

I headed on over to the school where I got a friendly welcome from school staff and Annie from the CIPD. Our first group of students were introduced, plenty of them already had a CV, but no one had brought a hard copy along. A few students had theirs on usb sticks but for IT security reasons the school wasn’t willing to load the sticks into their system to get printouts. Most people said ‘We weren’t told to bring them’. Our involvement was only part of a wider careers fair so I don’t know how things were positioned before hand, but given there were employers to be met and other opportunities to engage with, I was a little surprised at the lack of CVs. Would I have been any better prepared at that age? Probably not.

Small Steps on Long Journeys

I had an interesting conversation with three people. One wanted a Saturday job in retail to develop her people skills en route to a job in teaching, another wanted a job in teaching, and the third wanted a career in law. The person looking for retail work has dropped off plenty of CVs but not heard anything back yet. Why is that? Here are a few things we discussed.

Tailor Your Work

We spoke about framing what you have to offer from the employer’s perspective. I asked, ‘what does people skills look like to a retail employer?’ After a pause, ‘commitment and turning up on time?’ was put forward. ‘OK then,’ I asked, ‘and how might you demonstrate that in your CV?’ ‘I have a great attendance record at school.’ One said. ‘And is that clear on your CV?’ I asked. ‘Not yet’ came the reply. We talked more and suggested that using a phrase like ‘building on my customer service skills’ might hit the mark for a retailer a little more than ‘improve my people skills.’ We agreed a key point was to tailor your offer to the market place and the job, don’t just fire off a one size fits all CV.

Social Media

We chatted very briefly about social media and I showed everyone some of the Twitter help I’d received earlier. This led to a discussion about other ways to present a CV. None of the group knew about LinkedIn so I suggested they might want to check it out, filling in the profile could be a helpful challenge for them as they begin to think more about what they have to offer.

Developing an Edge

We talked a little about a career in law. ‘What characteristics do you need for that?” I asked. ‘You need to be argumentative!’ came a reply and we all had a good laugh, before settling on persuasive instead. ‘How could you demonstrate persuasiveness?’ ‘Do you have a debate club at school?’ Turns out they did and from there our aspiring lawyer suggested she would check the club out and see if she could put forward a debate on a relevant legal matter.

All too soon our time was up and off they went to explore other possibilities. I couldn’t stay for long but I enjoyed my short visit and I hope the people I talked with took something useful from our time together.

Inspiring the Future – Getting Involved

Taking part in ItF is easy. You just fill out a simple form and wait for opportunities to find you. Then when an opportunity fits with your diary, you simply go along and be useful. I recently spotted that Neil Morrison had spent a day in a school as part of ItF and afterwards had this to say, ‘I was HUGELY impressed by the teachers, the principals and the students. There was passion, enthusiasm, pride and energy. I think they’re destined for great things.’ 

That sounds like a worthwhile way to spend a few hours to me, how about you?

Creating Greater Value for CIPD Members

Back in August 2013 I shared some thoughts with the CIPD on how they could move the relationship with their members from something that currently feels quite transactional to something of greater shared value. I mapped out a few things, not including fees and qualifications, which I’ve been meaning to share with you ever since. Yesterday evening I received an email from the CIPD asking me to complete a survey about some of this stuff in my capacity as an affiliate member:

I’d like to get your help and views about some changes we want to make to how we structure CIPD membership and the services we offer to members. We want to ensure we’re evolving membership to meet the changing needs of the profession. So, through this important consultation survey, we’d like to understand the specific professional and personal needs which led you to become an Affiliate Member of CIPD.

I have completed the survey, and because I think this stuff is important and has relevance to people beyond the current membership of the CIPD, here’s what I previously shared with the CIPD:

Creating Greater Value for CIPD Members

This map is more about questions than answers, and I’ll now try and explain a little more of what I was thinking when I drew it up. I’d be really interested in your questions and comments too, whether you’re a member or not.

Participation

An important of feeling a part of a community is participation, whether that is attending local branch events, using the thriving online communities space, taking advantage of membership offers or any number of other things. What does participation mean for CIPD members and how, if they want it, can it happen most effectively?

Events

What opportunities are there for interaction at events? There are plenty, and even though the CIPD has worked hard at the online side of things in recent years, I think that went up another few notches at the annual conference in November. Live streaming some sessions meant that plenty of people who weren’t there were able to get a feel for what is important to the profession. What else could be done to include people unable to be there in person? The HRUnscrambled fringe session Meg Peppin and I facilitated went well and I hope that side of things can be developed in future. How about the way in which speakers are engaged? Could members have a say on some of the content, and who is asked to deliver it? Could you use technology to gather live feedback to inform the dialogue during an event and to get event feedback in the moment?

Communications

I’ve already mention the CIPD online communities which serve members here in the UK well. How can the CIPD reach out and engage with other HR professionals internationally? There have been improvements in the quality of content in People Management magazine – what else could be done to help the flow of information, in all directions?

Consultation

What are the best ways of keeping in touch, of finding out what’s hot and what’s not? There are a number of different methods the CIPD could use to source opinions from members, and importantly, from other interested parties too. Involving people beyond your core community is often overlooked or undervalued when looking to do things differently. With the technology available, reach should not be a problem and for what it’s worth, I think that wide online reach is well supplemented with some more in depth conversational stuff too. As a member or not, what might you expect? Maybe some of the best known HR blogs (People Management published a recommended reading list recently) could form a part of that consultative web?

Broadening Membership

There are a number of professions and organisations the CIPD might work with in order to increase reach and relevance. I wonder what ex members would have to say about the CIPD, and I wonder what might encourage some of them to rejoin? How about the Learning and Development profession? There seems to be a groundswell of interest around L&D again lately, how might that be developed? And what of the many managers out there who are responsible for teams of people and just need some advice and help from time to time. What opportunities could be created to give those people access to important and useful research and more?

Hopefully this will give you some food for thought. This map is not exhaustive, it’s bound to have gaps and as you spot them perhaps you’d like to fill them in?