HR business partners have been tasked with leading HR practitioners to think and act more strategically and to develop a deeper understanding of business issues. This approach was questioned at a recent CIPD event . It was suggested that there should there be more of an onus though on HR practitioners themselves to be proactive. What do you think?

HR as a function is broadly in agreement that this remains a big and necessary challenge to tackle. In order for HR to be taken more seriously and get a seat at the table alongside finance, sales et al HR needs to be more attuned to the commercial agenda, to fully grasp the business strategy and challenges. And to do this, HR practitioners should seize the initiative for their learning.

A more knowledgeable, ‘business savvy’ HR team is a huge asset for any company. HR is uniquely well positioned to harness the power of their people and drive forward performance, thus creating a competitive advantage for the business.

Roll up, roll up and read the latest HR Carnival, hosted by Jon Ingham. It features a really interesting and diverse collection of blog posts from the world of HR...

There's a focus on leadership and individual effectiveness including the requirements to be an effective HR practitioner. Another recurring theme is the need for people to keep themselves fed with new knowledge.

Meanwhile other posts look at what the HR function actually needs to do to be effective, including learning, talent management, and the use of employee surveys and metrics.

Happy reading.

The survey landscape is evolving as businesses need to get employee feedback more regularly and throughout the employee lifecycle. We polled companies and found that 25% are already using ‘pulse surveys.’ A growing number are also introducing joiners’ and leavers’ surveys. What advantage does this give companies though and are there any drawbacks?

One company we work with, insurance firm LV=, provides a great example as highlighted in a recent article. It has experienced sustained growth and executives wanted to assess the recruitment and induction experience. This is a formative time for employees, so getting data here can help inform strategy. LV= has been able to strengthen its employer value proposition and boost staff retention and engagement by doing so.

However, be aware of pitfalls when surveying more frequently – most obviously survey fatigue. If the same employees are repeatedly being asked for their views, they are likely to become disengaged. Think about who you want to survey and why. Communicate clearly with employees to let them know what the survey is for and how data will be used.

The evolution of the employee survey model is part of a wider trend of companies having metrics to assess everything. The limitations of only getting feedback from employees once a year, or even frequently may mean companies get an inaccurate picture of how employees are feeling. It’s time to bring your survey cycle full circle to glean the data that will help give your company a competitive advantage.

I talked in a recent post about the need for management to lead by example, to live organisational values. This has since led me to consider how values come to exist in the first place. How do you define and embed meaningful values that are lived by leadership, engage employees and, ultimately, drive business performance?

Values should be a reflection of what a company stands for. How its people should conduct themselves and what image they are projecting. Values drive the behaviour of both leadership and employees. So it is important that they reflect the underlying attitudes of employees.

Defining organisational values should be an organic process – they must fit the organisation. If they aren’t a true reflection of the culture and how the company works, it inevitably becomes a tick box exercise. It will be meaningless for employees and for the organisation. This is why consultation with employee groups is needed before setting and embedding values.

Companies often have different reasons for introducing organisational values. Some choose to do it when they are starting out to establish their identity, some when they grow significantly in order to ensure consistency and understanding across the business and others to respond to their competitors or clients.

Whatever the drivers though, there are two critical components to the success of values. The first is leadership buy-in and sponsorship. The second is having values aligned with business strategy that employees fully understand and believe in.

The reward is simple: Companies with an established value base that is lived by leadership and employees alike achieve a strong employee value proposition, increased levels of engagement and, ultimately, increased business performance.

Good leadership and business success are inextricably linked. It’s fanciful to think that a company can enjoy sustained success without good leadership.

Leaders must lead by example. If employees don’t trust or respect a leader, they won’t be motivated to do their best. Our research, featuring 400,000 employees, shows that one third don’t think that their senior leaders are trusted or respected. A further 27 per cent don’t think senior leaders are leading by example.

This can have major implications for organisational performance. If a leader lacks integrity or isn’t living an organisation’s values, how can they expect their employees to do so?

Employees want to be inspired by leaders but let’s face it, not every CEO is Richard Branson. That doesn’t necessarily matter though. There are different leadership styles – what works for the culture of one organisation, may not fit others.

Good leaders need to be genuine, honest, passionate and ethical. Authenticity is everything – employees will spot a fake. If they are likeable too, that’s great, but it isn’t as important.

How companies act has never been more transparent. Cultural values, social responsibility, ethics and giving back to the community are important for employees. And they are equally important to prospective employees and customers. As the figurehead, a leader must embody the values in order to engage employees and earn trust.

Senior leaders now have a bigger remit and greater responsibility. They need to master all trades being part executive, part politician and part public relations guru. Most of all though, they need to keep it real and lead by example.

Nobody said it was an easy job, but that’s now part of what senior leaders are paid for.

This week brings a timely reminder that as well the debt crisis, there is also the savings crisis to contend with. The problem with savings is that people aren’t saving. Or, in many cases, aren’t able to save due to rising living costs not matched by salaries. I read an article saying that just 33% of private sector employees are paying into a pension. Pensions have become passé.

It is hardly surprising that people have quit pensions given the weak economy and lack of confidence in the reliability of pension products and other savings schemes. It is a nonetheless worrying trend though. So what’s the solution?

The government hopes that new legislation – to take effect in October – will reverse this trend. This will see all employees being auto-enrolled onto pension schemes, unless they ask to opt out. The consensus among pension experts – of which I am not one – is that this is a positive move. Certainly decisive action was needed.

However, if building the number of employees in pensions back up is seen as a big challenge, an arguably bigger one is to rebuild public confidence in pensions and savings schemes.

Sales and marketing professionals often talk of putting the customer first. As HR professionals, we must ensure that we are putting employees first.

Yes, it is another post about engagement. There’s a reason that so much is written about engagement though; a company cannot experience sustained commercial success without having engaged employees.

Nita Clarke and David MacLeod, authors of the ‘Engaging for success’ report, are doing a great job of keeping engagement high on the business agenda. And business leaders are now clearer than ever on what engagement is and why it’s important.

It’s now time for action though with engagement scores reportedly falling. Companies must do more to engage employees. This could include:

Employees are, ultimately, a company’s biggest potential competitive advantage. They are a genuine point of difference. Make sure that it is an advantage that your company is harnessing.

It takes a lot to really surprise me. The latest statistics from the Employer Skills Survey did though. One revelation was particularly shocking; 13 million staff in the UK received no training whatsoever in 2011. That equates to almost half of the working population. Worrying, don’t you think?

In research of private sector employers, we found that learning and development was a top priority for HR in 2012. Clearly this is at odds with the aforementioned research from 2011 but hopefully this will change this year.

My fear though is that companies focus the lion’s share of training budget on leaders and ‘high potential’ workers. At first glance this may appear to make commercial sense – you invest in those most likely to produce a significant return. It is however missing the bigger picture.

If companies invest equally in developing ALL workers, they may actually benefit more. That’s because the incremental value of getting low performers up to average performers or average performers up to high performers could quite feasibly produce better ROI.

Allied to this, investing in developing people will have a positive impact on things like engagement, motivation and retention. This approach will undoubtedly give companies a much needed competitive advantage.

David Cameron last week warned that the lack of women in board roles is undermining the economic recovery. He pointed to “evidence” that promoting more women to executive roles would boost business performance. What can be done, then, to remedy this and strike a better gender balance in UK boardrooms?

The government has taken a relatively gentle approach to this issue to date. Early in 2011, businesses in the UK were set a voluntary target to increase the number of women on boards by at least 25%.

I mentioned in a post last year that there had been signs of encouragement. In truth, progress looks to have been slow. At last count there was a modest increase of just over 1.5% year on year. This means that women make up just 14% of the boards at FTSE 100 companies. It is clear that the target will not be met at this rate.

The big question really is; should the government take a more hard line stance on this? Other EU countries including Spain, Iceland and Norway have introduced compulsory quotas for businesses.

I’m not sure this is the right solution for UK business though. It seems too simplistic. We need more understanding as to why there is such an imbalance before we can find a solution. The proportion of women working in mid-manager level is far higher. So this is perhaps where we need to focus in order to reform working practices and career progression in search of better balance…

I often hear about employee complaints of not feeling well supported or ‘managed’ by managers. This made me wonder, has the art of management been lost? Did it never really exist? Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

A simplistic answer to why this is a problem, is time. Or lack of time, specifically.

Another reason is that managers aren’t rewarded for managing. There’s nothing in it for them.

In some cases, managers simply don’t know how to manage. Many lack basic people management skills and competencies. This can happen when high potential employees are promoted into managerial positions based purely on technical skills.

The importance of good management goes without saying. As such, companies are acting to develop managers and leadership teams. In an earlier post this year I highlighted that this was a top priority for HR professionals in 2012.

Our latest benchmark data suggests that companies are making progress. Employees are becoming more satisfied with how they are managed. There’s still work to do though.

Much of what makes a good manager is, in truth, pretty straightforward. You need to take the time to listen to and coach your team, to make yourself available to employees, to communicate well and to be supportive. This would at least be a good start…