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.

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.

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.

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…

Keeping levels of engagement up and the ‘war for talent’ will undoubtedly remain big challenges for HR professionals this year. But what else can we expect to top the agenda in 2012?

Leadership development appears to be a high priority. In some cases this is due to companies introducing fresh strategies and wanting to ensure they have the right leadership skills in place to implement effectively. More commonly though, it reflects a growing acknowledgement that good leadership is essential for long-term business success.

Leadership has a strong influence on engagement, morale and performance. This is why many organisations are investing in people managers through tools such as 360-degree feedback and subsequent leadership development programmes.

Employer branding is another high priority for 2012. In the age of the internet forum, blogs and the ‘twitterverse’ news travels fast (and far). More companies will invest resources here to attract the best and brightest talent and to manage the employer brand in social media channels.

With a flat economic forecast, companies will also focus on productivity and process efficiency. One way in which this will be achieved is through taking more HR processes on-line. Despite an initial investment up-front, this will afford companies huge time and cost savings later. And the ability to use powerful reporting tools to inform business decision-making is an added bonus.

We are all braced for a challenging year but it can also be a successful one for businesses. Whatever your HR priorities are, ensure that you invest budgets wisely and align plans to the wider business strategy in order to add real value.

Understanding the capability of your workforce is critical to the successful implementation of any HR or people strategy. It’s fair to assume that management know the capability of their employees. In reality though, many don’t. So how do we measure capability?

Typically, you should consider whether employees have the right knowledge, technical skills and behavioural traits to deliver their role. If they don’t possess the right attributes now, do they have the potential to in future?

The most effective way to get a sense of organisational capability is to carry out a comprehensive capability review – or capability audit as it is also known. This may evaluate some or all of employees’ technical skills, knowledge, behaviour and potential.

After implementing a capability review, you will: