Rising to a 'Seat at the Table' for HR Practitioners: Continuous Learning Leadership A Senior Executive Opens up About What it Took to Get There and Stay There
Dave Crisp, Crisp Leadership Strategies
Dave Crisp
Today many vice presidents and other senior executives in human resources (HR) have earned a seat at the executive table by showing their organization's senior teams that HR operations contribute at least as much as Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, IT or any other department. The key to this is continuous learning. Jack Welch, former 20-year CEO of world class GE, now an itinerant management guru, is often quoted: "An organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage." Executives who aspire to lead organizations have to spearhead that learning first by learning steadily themselves and that is nowhere truer than for HR.
Welch also says point blank in his book Winning (Welch, 2005) and frequently on the speaker circuit, that HR is the second most important job (after CEO of course), and the only other role impacting every part of an organization. It combines the most complex set of tasks of any position. You need to know HR inside and out, but like a CEO, you also need to know a good deal about every other function.
Since it is impossible to know everything, the key becomes developing the ability to learn rapidly. The only way to learn this is by practicing for it constantly. In so doing, you accumulate a wide knowledge as well as a respect for the complexity of other positions, and an ability to talk to people in their language.
Creating a Strategy for Workplace Investigations DynaLIFEDx's Experience Mastering the Fact-Finding and Investigation Process
Cathy Rendek, Human Resources Manager, DynaLIFEDx
Workplace investigations – where to begin? Like many organizations DynaLIFEDx conducts internal investigations for a variety of different reasons.
In 2011, new to the world of Human Resources and Employee Relations, I was challenged to evaluate our internal processes for workplace investigations, identify risks and opportunities, and make recommendations on a move forward strategy. What clearly became evident was a strong desire to do the right thing, but a lack of consistency and clarity in how workplace investigations were handled. This lack of consistency and clarity did have the potential to lead to inaccurate findings and create at times, a lack of confidence in the process.
Queen's IRC Marketing Survey Results and Winners
Stephanie Noel, Queen's IRC Business Development Manager
Stephanie Noel
With over 850 responses to our Queen's IRC Marketing survey, I am pleased to announce the winners of the $50 coffee cards, and share some of the results with you.
Eighty-seven percent of our respondents have five or more years of experience in the human resources, labour relations or organizational development professions. The majority of our respondents (69%) are in the 40 to 59 age group. About 23% of the respondents are unionized, and 47% identified HR as their primary role within their organization. Additionally, 41% of respondents indicated that they have attended a Queen's IRC program.
The insights about professional development are very exciting – 85% of respondents have a budget at their organization allocated specifically for training, learning, and professional development, while 10% do not, and 5% were unsure. When searching for professional development programs, respondents indicated that the most important factor is reputation and quality of the program, with 99% of the respondents ranking this as important or very important.
Not surprisingly, 90% of the people we surveyed prefer to receive communications electronically, citing monthly and bi-weekly as the preferred frequency for communication.
At 49%, the Canadian HR Reporter was cited as the most popular resource or publication that our respondents rely on for career-related purposes. In addition, more than 75% of the respondents use social networking sites for career-related purposes, with LinkedIn ranked as the most popular.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in this survey. Congratulations to the winners of the $50 gift card for either Tim Hortons or Starbucks:
Adrien Amirault of Yellowknife, NT
Heather Dezan of Winnipeg, MB
Rick Hamilton of Elliot Lake, ON
Brian Macauley of Lethbridge, AB
Rory Mauricio of Edmonton, AB
Carina Roberts of Fort McMurray, AB
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Tip of the Week videos
At the start of September, Queen's IRC began releasing a video "Tip of the Week" and sharing them via our social media sites. These tips come from our expert facilitators and speakers, and offer a one minute tip for Labour Relations, Human Resources, and Organization Development professionals.
To review the Tip of the Week videos, please click below
