How Do You Test Competence?

The biggest challenge facing the UK economy is 'Skills Competence' and not 'Skills Shortage'. Everyone always looks at the glass as being half empty instead of half full. So focussing on 'Skills Competence' is better than focussing on 'Skills Shortage', don't you think? Competence is the holy grail, because assessing someone’s competence allows you to directly know whether they are equipped to do the job or not. We have a competence issue in organisations not a skills issue.

Competence: the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.

Appraisals, Annual reviews, Objective setting, 360 degree reviews or whatever your name is for reviewing someone’s performance doesn't assess competence. You can only test competence by asking the employee directly if they know the answer to a very specific set of questions that relate to ’what’ they need to know as an absolute minimum to do the job competently.

In every organisation things change. New products or services, new managers, changing procedures and processes, re-organisation which causes job changes, new sales and customer service processes, etc.

Job competency is always under pressure when change happens in an organisation and that's all the time.

To truly understand your employees’ competence you need to test them, regularly. Once you know their competence levels, you can do something about it.

Deploying learning materials in large silos (Learning Management Systems) or any other method of e-learning will allow you to teach skills but not competence. When you teach just skills, you have no idea if the learner has remembered the new skill and whether they've actually become competent in that skill. Indeed it takes time to become competent in any skill and usually it takes repetition of carrying out that skill before you become competent.

We all know the following 4 phases of learning something new, like learning to drive a car:

1. Unconscious incompetence 2. Conscious incompetence 3. Conscious competence 4. Unconscious competence

The 4th phase is where we want our employees to get to as soon as possible, whether it's with Onboarding (Induction) or learning new skills/knowledge.

Every minute, hour, day, week or month that we take to get them as competent as possible, means the organisation is potentially losing money or not growing as fast.

The Psychology of Study goes as far back as 1932, when Mace wrote his book 'Psychology of Study' and the idea of ’spaced repetition’ was first muted. Earlier still we had Ebbinghaus who told us about the forgetting curve. It tells us that for centuries we've been debating how we can get humans to remember more than how to walk.

Let's take learning languages. If you've ever tried to learn a new language, then you'll know that only by repetition will you become competent in that language. Using flash cards are an even better way of learning to remember a new language. Put the English on one side and the translation on the other. Start with 50 cards on day one and when you know you have mastered a few, take those out of the pack and repeat the others. Keep going until you've mastered them all. It's fairly basic but it works.

It's the only way to become competent in that language. Of course you may decide to repeat it in 3 weeks, because unless you are using these sentences regularly, the chances are that you will forget them.

Take this concept into any skill in any organisation where you require it to become a competence in the person who is performing it and you will rapidly and successfully increase competence throughout the organisation.

Deploying this method is now easier then ever, allowing employees to become more competent through the power of mobile. Not only can you test competence and teach new skills, you can report on the overall competence of a group, a department, a division or the overall organisation. It allows you to succession plan, recruit for competence gaps, evaluate competence levels for new projects. It even tests the individuals who took the course, at the point when they are deemed to be ready to be tested over the phone by a real person. A great motivator for the learner to get up to speed and learn properly.

What if such a tool was available today? What a difference it would make to UK "Skills Competence', to the UK economy, to UK competitiveness, to the Economy of Organisations and especially to the people that work in them.

If any of the concepts above touched a nerve with you and you can see an application inside your organisation, please get in touch with me in the first instance. We’ll get a proof of concept rolling out for you within hours and start your organisation’s journey towards 'Skills Competence' quickly.

Wishing you massive success always.

uk.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk/

@stayingaliveuk

Is your Social Media Policy liked?

I read with interest a recent newsletter with guidelines and policy on electronic communication and social media. Electronic communication has been around for a while and whilst it’s good to be reminded about what should and shouldn't be done, especially for new starters and young workers who may not be so used to email, in general it’s well established and most people know what is and isn't allowed. Social Media though is a different matter all together. The first question we have to ask ourselves is ’Why is Social Media so popular?’ Well because it releases dopamine in the brain, inside our pleasure/reward centre and that in turn makes it addictive. I wrote a paper on this last year, ’Do Social Networks Sell Drugs?’.

As it’s addictive, it means for many it's almost impossible to leave it alone. Think about it, whenever someone, likes, shares, retweets, follows, invites, accepts, pokes or any other social network activity that has become part of daily behaviour, we feel good about ourselves. We feel like someone approves of us, in a world where mostly we receive criticism, it means we feel like we are getting praise. And of course that feels good and if it feels good, it becomes addictive. Especially young people, who get criticised by parents and teachers alike day in day out. Therefore when they are on social media they (mostly) will get positive messages. I know it has its down side too.

So now we need to think this through, because if it’s addictive and people can't leave it alone, will we still be as harsh on them when we catch them accessing their personal social media networks, whilst at work? Or do we accept, actually this is part of the modern world now and very little we can do to fight it.

Research from 2012 suggests that smart phone owners check their devices 150 times per day, about once every 6 minutes. But we're now in 2014, so we can safely assume it has gone up significantly? Americans aged 18-64 who use social networks say they spend an average of 3.2 hours per day doing so, according to research conducted in November 2012 by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange (OTX). (http://styin.me/1b1O73t). I'm sure the UK is not far behind them and that figure will have gone up too.

One way to allow your employees to engage in social media activities is to supply them with an internal social media platform, which connects everyone inside the business, across geographical boundaries, allowing everyone to learn from each other and to collaborate on projects. Also allowing colleagues to like and comment on posts. This way you are distracting them from their personal networks, by allowing them to still engage in similar activities and satisfy their addiction. Actually personal Social Media, is allowing millions of workers to train themselves in order to assist their learning inside the workplace. Think about it, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have provided free online training. Make sense?

Of course there have to be some rules, but we have to recognise that there is a bigger picture and we need to be conscious of that too.

Wishing you success always.

Will You be an E-MENTOR?

Can you spare around an hour a week to be an E-MENTOR to help guide a 16-19 year old student on their path to a successful future?

I've been chatting with Diane Vernon,(http://www.linkedin.com/pub/diane-vernon/6/1a7/990), at Career Academies UK and she was telling me about their fantastic new programme called Career Ready. To work successfully they need to find willing volunteers to be E-MENTORS from the business world.

Mentoring is a crucial factor in helping a young person succeed in finding a job or place at University.

As an E-MENTOR you would communicate with a student via a new secure digital platform, as part of a structured programme. This eliminates the need to be located near your student or arrange meetings face-to-face. All E-MENTORS are DBS checked and trained by Career Academies UK.

You know the stats on unemployed young people in the UK, I don't need to remind you of that and if you've always thought of wanting to make a difference, you can do this now by contacting Diane Vernon at diane.vernon@careeracademies.org.uk or speak to her direct on 07786 170588.

You can read/download the full E-MENTOR pack by going to

http://styin.me/e-mentoringpack

Thank you for your support, I really appreciate it. I know this will be very rewarding for some of you.

I will be joining the programme myself!

Warmest regards and wishing you success always!

Michael 07866 471596

Have You Ever Studied Ants?

I was recently in Greece and with temperatures in the 30’s, it's best to take it easy lie by the pool and observe the world around you, OK maybe people watch sometimes!

However even people watching gets boring, so whilst resting on my sun bed in the shade, I started studying the floor beneath me and to my amazement saw this fast moving highway of very small ants. Now usually in hot countries ants are very big, but these weren't and that made them all the more interesting.

As I studied them, I noticed that although their movements appeared random, many were carrying food crumbs back to their colony, which had entrances along a short section of a raised plant border wall. One by one several of these very efficient creatures were collecting these crumbs from all around the pool and taking this very important food stuff back to their colony.

By the way none of them actually ate the food on their journey back, which if you saw how far they were travelling, you would not have blamed them if they had. Now if this was a human doing this, ’collecting free food’, the chances are that it would have been eaten by the time they had completed the journey back.

I also noticed to my amazement that with larger crumbs 2 or even 3 ants would work together to carry it, as it was too big for just one.

This gave me an idea, next time someone in my party came back with cake at tea-time, I would use one of the crumbs and give those hard working ants a challenge. A super large crumb to see how they would manage this.

Have a look and see what happened, I recorded it on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChZGj9BEQRk

What did I learn?

Ants are ’Team Players’, one ant who passes the crumb and checks it out, decides to start moving it and immediately another ant starts assisting, and then another and another until I counted 12 ants moving a massive crumb. Nobody said, ’that’s not my job’ or ’I’m busy doing something else, or ’its not in my job spec’. They just did it because they know that one ant will never manage it on their own and therefore they just started helping out. The ants who joined in just happened to be passing by, they weren't called from the colony, didn't get an email and nobody checked their calendar to see if they were available.

For me it was just the best possible demonstration of excellent team-work. Wow if business could learn just one lesson from ants and if employees and HR teams could stop their compartment thinking, what a different world we would have around us.

Each morning a few scouts would be up early looking for anything that they might have missed and as the day moved on and more holiday makers sat around the pool, eating and drinking, more ants came out scouting the neighbourhood. Obviously they had developed their knowledge that more crumbs would be available later in the day.

Accordingly more troops were scouting in the afternoon.

So here are 3 takeaways from this story:

1. Be open to helping out anyone in your wider community or organisation, without being asked for help, ’Just Do It’.
2. If there is a big task or project happening, go and ask if you can help out. They probably will say ’no thanks’ but make sure you insist, even if it is to make the coffee!
3. Teach your kids or colleagues the power of team work and share the story of ants. I found this great film on YouTube, which will explain and share the story of ants and their incredible behaviour. Watch it together with your kids or colleagues. Teach them how they can adopt the same approach in life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-gIx7LXcQM

Success!

What can The Workplace learn from Social Media?

For decades organisations across the globe, are searching for the holy grail, ’Employee Engagement’.

Engagement levels are on the rise globally but shifting across regions. Although the economic impact of the recession continues to rebound in some areas and recess further in others, engagement levels rose slightly to 60% in 2012, up 2 percentage points from 58% in 2011. We see the largest engagement increase in Europe (improving 5 percentage points) and Latin America (improving 3 percentage points). North America’s engagement decreased slightly by 1 percentage point—particularly in the U.S., where engagement dropped 3 percentage points—and Asia Pacific remained the same. [Source: AonHewitt: http://www.aon.com/attachments/human-capital-consulting/2013_Trends_in_Global_Employee_Engagement_Highlights.pdf]

So globally we've pretty much stayed about the same, which means 40% of employees are NOT engaged. But what does engagement actually mean?

Does it mean they show up but nobody is at work? They do the basics but nothing extra? They prefer not to get involved in those famous ’let’s be a team’ activities?

Or...people are busy with life, work is just a part of it and they carry their worries with them wherever they go including into the workplace? After all we have just one brain and leaving your troubles at home, just doesn't work, because our brain goes with us wherever we go.

But Social Networks have exploded and people are very engaged there! So what happened there?

I've been fascinated by Social Networks for the past 5 years, not only have I actively engaged with them, I've wanted to understand why everyone loves them so much.

That's when I decided to write ’Do Social Networks Sell Drugs?’

So here's the bombshell, we are not loving our workforce enough it’s as simple as that. Many years ago I was involved in the Health and Wellness industry and tried to alert organisations of the need to improve their wellness efforts at work. One of the ways that I suggested they did this was through an online survey called the ’Wellness Inventory’.

I remember presenting this to a major building society in the UK to the HR Director. One of the items on the ’Wellness Inventory’ that people had to answer questions for was an item called ’Love’. He saw this and immediately said; ’actually we don't think that is appropriate here’.

I realised in that instant that I was pushing water uphill with this inventory and getting organisations to adopt it and sure enough I had to change direction after a few months of getting nowhere.

I hear stories every day now from employees who work for small, medium and large organisations. Those stories confirm to me that people at work are not loved enough.

It's time to examine the success of Social Networks and take on board the tactics that these Social Network giants adopt to gain more members, more engagement and share the love.

It's not a bad 4 letter word, you must just try it!

Are You Collaborating yet?

Tech companies are investing heavily in ’Social’. You have to ask yourself one major question; Why?

You like most of us are already wired into ’Social’. And Tech companies know that the next big thing for corporates is ’Social Collaboration’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_collaboration

After TQM, Six Sigma, Lean and many other management process improvement practices, they have all tried to achieve one thing; ’Social Collaboration’ and never really succeeded, because they created too many meetings and actually reduced productivity, the very opposite of why these practices were actually invented.

Now that you and I are wired into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more social networks, corporates are delighted that those networks have managed to train you and me in the art of being virtually social. You and I have become comfortable in using these networks, happy to share personal and professional information publicly, plus sharing what we learn in our day to day lives, including recommendations for goods and services.

So now that we have been trained to do this, the natural extension of this is to bring ’Social’ into the organisation. Some have already started with patchy success, but the smarter executives realise that in order to capture the knowledge contained in employees heads and get true collaboration started, they will have to, without fail, invest in a corporate social network. By the way women understand this instinctively and men have to work at it much harder.

A Corporate Social Network, doesn't only connect employees with each other across departments, countries and continents, it will save them billions in travel costs, training programs and on-boarding (induction).

Corporates are a bit slow in the execution of this, because all they have been focussed on was things like, ’if we open Facebook and Twitter to employees, then no work will get done’, instead of saying how can we get those type of networks replicated inside of our business?

So major global tech companies, like Microsoft, IBM, Google etc., have all invested in social network start-ups to add to their portfolio of products allowing corporates to implement these networks seamlessly with existing software.

You might be a small business reading this and thinking, that's great for larger corporates, but what about me as a start-up, a home office or a group of entrepreneurs, how do we do this?

Well the time has come for small business to collaborate with others. In order to compete with the larger corporates it's absolutely essential that we embrace ’social’ as well.

You are already ’wired-in’ to LinkedIn, so now it's time for you to maximise your activity there and start collaborating in order to grow your business footprint.

Ask me how and I will be delighted to collaborate on something with you.

Success!

Have you Embraced 'Social Learning'?

The term 'Social Learning' in current days, doesn't mean the same as it did when Bandura did his experiments in the 60's. It encompasses a theory that individuals enjoy learning in a social context, when our learning is discussed and debated.

After all 'everyone has an opinion', and this means that we actually learn more about a topic, news story, event, training intervention, when we can reflect on it and interact with it.

Learning & Development (or training) at school and at work has and will continue to be the holy grail for all education professionals. We're always looking for better ways to engage students and drive a change in human behaviour.

Trouble is millions of $'s & £'s are spent every year to achieve these objectives. And it's so painful to see when the results don't match the spend.

Think about it. The world is at War somewhere in the world and always has been. Consider the economic conditions in most countries currently. If education, training and development works, we would not be in this state of flux. But really think about it. We as humans haven't evolved as much as we like to think. Our nature is closer to animal instinct then we give ourselves credit for.

If we are truly sophisticated and used more of our frontal lobe, which is the part that separates us from animals, then surely we wouldn't be carrying out wars, we wouldn't have an issue with CO2 emissions and global warming, the economies would be running smoothly.

Surely it would? Am I mad? I don't think so, I believe I am quite a rational kind of person, who can usually see both sides of the argument and yes I do see the best in most humans, because after all they should be educated, rational, intelligent and loving beings. And you also know that this isn't always true, but we have to start somewhere and I start with everyone's good until proven otherwise.

Anyway where is this leading us towards?

Oh yes, 'Social Learning'.

Consider the success of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and the latest kid on the block Pinterest.

What do they all have in common? Any idea?

Humans connecting with humans, that's the common thread through all of it. So why is this so important at this time in the world? It has allowed millions of us to have a voice, to discuss, comment and debate on news stories on major world events and on individual stories and their life events.

My theory and its only my theory and it makes perfect sense to me is as follows.

Remember the war? Which one you will say, because there have been so many.

Well let's just talk about World War II.

The War brought people closer, they looked out for each other and they knew more about each other's lives compared to any time in history. Well it's nearly 70 years since the ending of that major war and ever since then we as humans have drifted apart and have become more unconnected.

Social Networking is not an accident or a happy coincidence, it isn't either the creation of a Harvard University graduate or silicon valley's entrepreneurs. Their invention would never have worked if there wasn't the appetite for it.

The old saying ’people buy people first’ applies in social networks too, not just in business. We like to connect to like minded individuals or people that interest us and maybe we can learn something from them!

And yes we do like to learn, we are always learning, the brain collects millions of impressions every day, without us even realising it. If we don't learn we will die. As humans we have an inherent need to grow. But when we think about learning we think about, classrooms, teachers, exams, pressure, stress and recall many unpleasant memories.

We don't perceive consciously that reading tweets, Facebook posts, articles, blogs, watching YouTube videos as learning and of course it is, you are learning all the time.

The learning methodology of 70-20-10, is showing us that actually we learn 70% on the job or in our daily lives, 20% from our colleagues or family members or friends and 10% formally, so that's when we sit in a classroom, either at school or in the workplace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtdHZQ2VXhE

The development of social networks, will and is changing the world of learning forever. Millions of teachers and trainers are having to adopt these new technologies as part of their delivery methods.

This requires the teacher / trainer to become proficient in these new tools and get their own knowledge of these networks up to scratch. After all their students are using these to learn, so now we better embrace these too and make use of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4RkudFzlc#!

Those that do, will succeed in helping to change the landscape of learning for themselves and students alike. A more engaged student will mean a more connected world and a more connected world will mean a world with more compassion and understanding for our fellow human.

Success!

Has your 17-year old got 'Working Knowledge'?

Working Knowledge is a brilliant Social Enterprise, who invited me to join their 'Splash' event in Bromsgrove on the 15th March 2012.

My role?  An Expert!

I have never been an ’Expert’ before, so it was a real treat.

I was an Expert from the business community together with other business experts, who were all there to support 17 / 18 year olds from Northeast Worcestershire College, to become enlightened about business through the vehicle of a one-day experiential event, allowing them to innovate, create and visualise their own entrepreneurial spirit.

I had never done anything like it before and so did not know what to expect.

What was it like?  In one word...OUTSTANDING!

Basically the event is a cross between Dragons Den and the Apprentice and as a local business I played the role of ‘expert’ advising students from the local College on their new business ideas.  Working Knowledge is a Social Enterprise and Nationally Award Winning educational training company founded by Dr James Lott.

The events Working Knowledge run have been shown to have a profound impact on the students and tutors in colleges throughout UK, bridging the gap between education and the workplace.  As a business expert volunteer I played an integral role in the success of the event and thereby raise the aspirations of young people in my region.

Here's my testimonial MindMap and Video, which was the best way for me to articulate what I thought of the whole day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcQmefmSKCc

And why does Working Knowledge exist?

They believe that for the UK economy to grow and for communities to thrive, young people need to be inspired by, and better prepared for, the world of work. We need young people that are more confident, purposeful and responsible and can therefore provide a sustained flow of talent and energy into the local economy. Their vision cannot be achieved by educators alone, the business community HAS to be involved in the education process.

What a great vision!

There is a website http://www.workingknowledge.org.uk/business-experts/overview/ where you can find out more about the expert role.  If you are interested in becoming involved then please register here http://events.workingknowledge.org.uk/profile/new?type=expert and Working Knowledge will contact you when a suitable event comes up in your area.

If you have any questions then contact Ollie Collard on 0117 304 8000 or email ollie.collard@workingknowledge.org.uk

I hope you do take up the opportunity.  It really is one worth doing.

Success!

Do you really make assumptions all the time?

I read a fascinating article in Wired magazine by Jonathan Lehrer, where he discusses the phenomena of our brains making assumptions on how things work, based on a set of data that we have collected.  In fact we collect data in our brains all the time.  And when we analyse data we start making all sorts of assumptions and conclusions based on that data.

And of course we can never have enough data to make our decisions on and at some stage we have to decide that we have enough of it to base our decisions on.

And this happens all the time in the most dangerous industry in the world, pharmaceuticals.  This article highlights some lessons for us all on how we make assumptions all the time in our private, business and social lives.

I have extracted what I believe to be the important constituents from his article:

On November 30, 2006 executives at Pfizer - the largest pharmaceutical company in the world held a meeting with investors at the firm's research centre in Groton, Connecticut.  Jeff Kindler, the then CEO began the presentation with an upbeat assessment of the company's efforts to bring new drugs to market.   He cited "exciting approaches" to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, fibromyalgia and arthritis.  But Kindler was most excited about a new drug called torcetrapib, which had recently entered Phase III clinical trials, the last step before filing for approval.  He confidently declared that it would be "one of the most important compounds of our generation".  Kindler told investors that, by the second half of 2008, Pfizer would begin applying for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The success of the drug seemed a sure thing.  And then, just two days later, on December 2, 2006, Pfizer issued a stunning announcement: the torcetrapib Phase III clinical trial was being terminated.  Although the compound was supposed to prevent heart disease, it was actually triggering higher rates of chest pain and heart failure and a 60% increase in overall mortality.  The drug appeared to be killing people.  That week, Pfizer's value plummeted by $21 billion (£14 billion).

The story of torcetrapib is one of mistaken causation.  Pfizer was operating on the assumption that raising levels of HDL cholesterol and lowering LDL would lead to predictable outcome: improved cardiovascular health.  Less arterial plaque.  Cleaner pipes.  But that didn't happen. (According to a recent analysis, more that 40% of drugs fail Phase III clinical trials).

The problem was, it's this assumption that causes a strange kind of knowledge.  This was first pointed out by David Hume, a Scottish 18th-century philosopher.  

He realised that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts - tangible things that can be discovered - they're actually not at all factual.  Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a "lively conception produced by habit".  When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity.  Hume's sceptical insight was that we don't see gravity - we see only an object tugged towards earth.  We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between.  We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact - it's fiction that helps us make sense of facts.

The truth is, our stories about causation are shadowed by all sorts of mental short cuts.  Most of the time, these work well enough.  They allow us to discover the law of gravity, and design wondrous technologies.  However when it comes to reasoning about highly complex systems - say the human body - these short cuts go from being slickly efficient to outright misleading.

Consider a set of classic experiments designed by Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte, first conducted in the 40's.

His research featured a series of short films about a blue ball and a red ball.  In the first  film, the red ball races across the screen, touches the blue ball and then stops.  The blue ball, meanwhile, begins moving in the shame basic direction as the red ball.  When Michotte asked people to describe the film, they automatically lapsed in the language of causation.  The red ball hit the blue ball, which caused it to move.  This is known as the launching effect, and it's a universal property of visual perception.  Although there was nothing in the two-second film - it was just a montage of animated images - people couldn't help but tell a story about what had happened.  They had translated their perceptions into causal beliefs.  Michotte would go on to conduct more than 100 of these studies manipulating the films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jKNlC2YKo

There are two lessons learned from these experiments.  The first is that our theories about a particular cause and effect are inherently perceptual, infected by all the sensory cheats of vision.  Hume was right that causes are never seen, only inferred, but the truth is we can't tell the difference.  And so we look at moving balls and see causes, melodrama of taps and collisions, chasing and fleeing.  The second lesson is that causal explanations are oversimplifications.  This is what makes them useful - they help us grasp the world at a glance.  

The article is far too long for me to include everything in it and I have not been able to find it online either.  However I think I have got the main message from it.

And the question I pose to you, is:  What assumptions are you making today, that are based on incorrect date or not enough data or just that you have perceived the information  in a certain way?  Is the red ball chasing the blue ball instead of them just moving independently of each other?

And then there is the other old saying: "Perception is Reality"

Success!

Ready for an ethical planet?

You may have noticed recently that autocratic and dishonest behaviour is being rewarded by resentment and demands for justice. And everyone on the planet is involved. The human drama continues to unfold in front of our eyes on a daily basis. And what has grabbed the news headlines for over 12 months are the battles, whether physical in terms of fighting or verbal against the regimes, journalists, police, banks, senior individuals in charge and many more institutions and individuals that have been allowed to get away with thinking of just themselves and their own personal interest.

Actually we are selfish race, we don't really like other fellow human beings unless they are our own off-spring and then even we struggle to get on with them.

We are all aware of the family feuds that happen between siblings and not to speak of the arguments during family gatherings.

So why can't we be more unselfish and decide to support others? Why can't we put the importance of our own happiness and satisfaction on hold for a bit and instead think of others?

'But we do!' I hear you say, we support charities, we give money to them every time there is an appeal and true the UK are one of the most charitable nations in the world. But we do this out of guilt, because we feel we may not have done enough during the past 12 months, so giving some money to 'children in need' or comic relief' or one of the other 'telethons' makes us feel better, like we have given something and that means we have done our 'bit'.

Genuinely do you feel better or does your conscious actually know that you only did something because you have a condition, which I like to call 'spontaneous guilt'?

So how do we change our behaviour to become more ethical, more community focussed, more charitable, display more integrity, be less greedy, supporting of our fellow human beings, inspired to volunteer?

I don't intend to answer this question for you, it's for you to answer this for yourself.

I challenge you to look into your soul and decide whether you are doing enough for your fellow human.

Oh and I nearly forgot happy Valentine's day!

Success!

Steve Dineen | 'The Future is Social' | 11.11.11

Steve Dineen, Executive Chairman of Fusion Universal, talks at the 'The Future is Social" event at Mahiki London on 11.11.11. Explains why workplace learning has to adopt a new way of learning and demonstrates how 'Fuse' has been developed to facilitate this.  It's 25 minutes long, but well worth listening to.  Steve has an amazing vision.  He talks about and introduces some videos, and as it is just an audio recording, they have obviously been left out.  Enjoy!

Steve Dineen | 'The Future is Social' | 11.11.11 by Stayingaliveuk on Mixcloud

Leadership in Troubled Times?

Are you a leader? In case you need some help with the answer...yes you are! We are all leaders in some way, whether it is at work, in the home, at your sports club, in your charity or community. We all have a leadership role to play in our lives.

But...

We don't all recognise the leader inside of us, do you?

And...

We do recognise who the leaders are in our governments and in the corporate world. And we do love to judge, blame and call them from time to time a silly name. Well someone needs to be the leader, the one who leads the way, the person that sets her/himself up to be shouted at. Actually I pity them, because they have a thankless task and often we do not really appreciate them.

So why do they decide to become a leader and seeing as you ARE a leader in your life, what makes you decide to be one too? Have a think about it and when you can answer this question for yourself, you will have a better idea why the leaders in our world have chosen to become one. Exclude the dictators, but even so, we all have a small dictator inside of us!

And now comes the 'trillion dollar' question. Do you believe our leaders will lead us out of these troubled times? And if you don't believe they can, why don't you think they can? Answers on a postcard please!

Well if you do decide to answer this question, feel free to make your comments on this blog post.

The current unprecedented economic downturn has never been experienced by our leaders, so they don't have all the answers. I remember from my days in corporate management, being a board director, that many employees complained about the directors, but were never willing to offer any alternative opinions or solutions.

So here's my advice to you. Time to be a leader, whether it's in your private life or work life, start if you have not already done so by offering alternative opinions and solutions. You have a voice and make sure it's heard, make sure it's constructive and share it with others to get a consensus view before submitting your ideas.

Leaders need other leaders to step forward and assist them with new ideas. They haven't got all the answers and if handled properly and providing they are a good leader, they will take your ideas on board and develop them further.

Go on do it today, be brave, be bold, be a LEADER!

Scott Watson on Female Unemployment

Shock statistics have painted a grim picture of retail unemployment particularly among female workers.  A recent study undertaken by analysts Ssentif has shown that unemployment among female retail workers has risen by an astonishing 27% in the last 12 months.

With high street retail giants such as Habitat and Jane Norman entering into administration, 126,000 former retail workers are now claiming job seekers allowance up from 94,000 one year ago.

Human Resources expert Scott Watson says that companies should be legally obliged have a duty to their redundant staff to up skill their job hunting skills in a proactive effort to help them exit unemployment more quickly.

'Of course companies needing to make job cuts or entering administration need to rein in costs.  This does though need to be balanced with corporate social responsibility for those staff who are affected.  He continues, 'This will not only help the economy to regenerate but also help skills transference in to other more buoyant sectors'.

'During the 1980's the mass closure of coal mines throughout the North resulted in the emergence of new service centre economies such as the call centre industry. Even with the current economic climate, this skills transference can be replicated in today's challenging job's market, ' Watson added.

Scott and his team have started a ground breaking online service for job hunters, called MyOnlineJobCoach, which provides expert advice on how to prepare and secure your next career move.  Fascinating concept and at a fraction of the cost (Normally £87 but via here Just £47 for 12 months) of what outplacement companies charge you for that advice.

A must for corporates who are making redundancies or putting people in the "at risk" category.

Although corporates may not be able to do anything about the economic issues, they could provide their redundant employees with a 'feel-good factor', by providing access to a site where they have over 40 videos with practical and sound advice.

Scott Watson is an international human resources expert who advises organisations including DHL, GE, AXA amongst many others.  He is author of the book 'Win Every Time - Essential Lessons For Existing and Emerging Leaders'.  Scott has personally trained over 10,000 individuals across the globe to enhance their effectiveness.

UK Unemployed?

It could be the worst crisis the world has ever seen.  Millions of unemployed people in the Western World.  It's all being blamed on the bankers and their greed, but actually were they merely responding to our demands?  Our demand to have more and maybe even feeding our empty feelings and our need to satisfy our competitive nature. So why is it that the Western World is still attempting to get back to business as usual. Do we not realise that business will never get back to where it use to be?  Big business, governments and us need to look at living a different life, doing more with less and looking at giving more rather then taking more.

As I started writing this blog post I heard news reports of threatened strikes all over the UK and suggestions that it will be the worst since 1929?  (The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression. It was the largest and most profound economic depression of the 20th century for the United Kingdom).  You may be fooled for believing that it's over pension reforms, but underneath it all it's because people are dissatisfied, in fear and just generally annoyed with the speed of the suggested cuts across the UK, the depth of which we have probably never seen in our lifetimes.

To fully understand why this has happened, you have to look closer to home.  You have to take a serious look at your own spending habits.  By the way I am not blaming you, I am blaming companies who have brainwashed us for years through advertising and the media in believing that we need things, that actually we can do without.

As early as 1896, experimental psychologists began studying the mental processes involved in advertising.  The first psychological theory of advertising maintained, in effect, that the consumer was a non-rational, suggestible creature under the hypnotic influence of the advertising copywriter.  Walter Dill Scott was the major proponent of this theory, and it was largely through his writings that advertising men learned about the psychology of suggestion.  Scott's theory was consistent with a growing trend in the advertising profession toward viewing consumer behaviour as irrational.

So what will happen to all of these unemployed people, how will they survive and will they ever get another job?

These are all worrying questions for anyone who finds themselves without a job from one day to the next.  How is it possible that we can survive with less people in employment, when those people at one time were needed?  Anyone who has ever been made redundant, will feel demotivated, a failure and will find it hard to get going again.

Most of us need some way to get motivated again and get some support.  Visiting the job centre won't do that for anyone, that will just get you more demotivated.

Companies won't always support your exit from the company, only those with deep pockets.  But after all they have to pay redundancy costs and usually there won't be much left after that.  So you are on your own, you need to do it yourself, so how do you get started?

There are a few recruitment organisation out there, who promise a tailored service from end to end, getting you to part with huge amounts of money, with a promise to help you to re-draft your CV, practice interviews with you and find you some jobs to go for.  There is no guarantee, there never is and with most job vacancies heavily oversubscribed, your chances are slim.

What you do need is to stand out from the crowd, some way of being noticed, becoming excellent at presenting yourself and knowing that you only have one chance to get it right.

Step in MyJobCoachOnline, probably the first of it's kind in the UK.  At last someone has had the insight to provide something very affordable and still get all the great tips and techniques that is needed to land the dream job.  A training company based in Yorkshire that I have used and highly recommend, has developed a very comprehensive online learning portal, where job seekers can develop themselves and learn about the do's and don'ts in getting themselves ready and applying for jobs.

It's even more impressive that this is done through the medium of video and therefore easy for everyone to get to grips with.  It also means you can play it over and over again.

I wish I had thought of it, but more importantly they have provided a great public service to people worried about how to prepare for getting the next job.

And because its so affordable (11 pence per day), it also means that organisations can provide this service to their leavers, by way of a thank you and goodbye.  A gift for them to allow them to feel appreciated even when they are leaving the organisation.  A great idea!

I can wax lyrical and talk about all the benefits etc., but if you want to learn more and find out how you can get hold of this, just go and visit www.MyOnlineJobCoach/stayingaliveuk

I had a chat with Scott and Dirk and they very kindly gave me a preferred offer (46% discount) for my friends, business contacts and in fact my entire social network, including anyone that subscribes to my blog.

I applaud Scott and Dirk for what they have created and can see how this will grow over the next few years to being a very successful project.

Wishing you success with your job search and do let me know what you think of it.

Yammer Social Learning

I copied this thread from Jane Hart’s Social Learning Community http://c4lpt.co.uk/community and I felt it made such interesting reading and illustrates the debate that is taking place in organisations today about Social Media, Social Learning and how to embrace and engage these technologies.

Elliot R

My organization is just entering the informal learning and social media discussion. My position is that both topics should be addressed in the same conversation. This statement says it for me: "Social learning/media is simply informal learning facilitated by technology." Does anyone have data to support this? I have lots of excellent articles, and Jane's reference to this

http://www.danpontefract.com/?p=847 really helped. I am familiar with the 70/30/10 model as well. Anything else?

Charles J: Elliot, not to be pedantic, but social media, social learning and informal learning do describe different things. Unfortunately it's not black-and-white.

Social media is just that. Media that supports social interaction. In it's raw state in our market-driven world social media is usually as much focused on advertising as on learning.

Social learning is what I'd term 'learning through others'. Where interaction with others (colleagues, like-minded folk, our boss, people we meet on the street or in virtual environments like this) leads to new ideas and new behaviours. There is a school of thought that ALL learning is social. My view is that quite a lot is, and it's increasing with the proliferation of technologies, but there is some learning that is deeply personal and self-directed.

The 'informal' term is rather a catch-all. It's also slightly misleading as it can be taken as 'haphazard' and serendipitous. Some informal learning may be that, but a lot isn't. Informal learning is all learning that is not directed in a structured way. It can be social or it can be isolated learning (where you learn through practice, for instance). It may be accidental, but it's more likely to be highly directed.

Harold Jarche separates learning into a set of categories: directed/self-directed/undirected with learners (or workers) being dependent learners, independent learners or interdependent learners depending upon particular context. Jane has pulled this into a structure here http://bit.ly/eOQwyX that you may find useful. It's not something to show business managers, but it may help clarify for people who have some experience and expertise with how people learn.

The 70:20:10 model is another framework for categorising learning - with the '70' describing learning through experience and practice, the '20' describing learning through others, and the '10' describing formal, directed learning. Again, unfortunately, some specific learning experiences are likely to 'bleed' across categories.... nothing is black-and-white.

Charles J: I should have said that informal learning is 'more likely to be highly directed BY THE LEARNER' ....

Charles J: Good catch, Nic! I shouldn't have used 'unfortunately', or should at least have qualified it with "unfortunately for people who want to put things in nice neat rows"..... I can't count the number of times I've been challenged on the 70:20:10 split by people saying that 'it won't work that way in my organisation, we need to do 'x' amount of formal development... etc'.

The point is that all of these frameworks and categories are intended to act as useful tools, not recipes.

Nic L: Charles. Thanks for a very helpful differentiation of the terms. There is currently lots of confusion and overlap of use of them even amongst those who truly "get" the learning revolution.

I would take issue with a single word in your post! "Unfortunately" in your description of the 70:20:10 model suggests that we ought to be able to categorise every element of learning and behaviour. You then go on to say nothing is black and white! I think we have to understand that as scientists and analysts and conceptualisers of one type or another there are no hard line differentiations in human behaviour - it is a continuum.

One of the difficulties we face as the L&D fraternity is to explain clearly to those with whom we seek to collaborate what we are all about. Using hard definitions and differentiations provides some insight but also again confuses the reality. There is a huge diversity to the way we learn and that the way forward is to recognise the centrality of the "learner" and to meet his/her needs by fostering whatever media, mechanisms and structures that will make the process effective. Drawing lines on the continuum invites the taking up of standpoints that mask the incredible breadth of the field in which we work. In doing so this risks the promotion of inappropriate or sub-optimal ways forward for the learner.

Jane H: Exactly! As Harold has articulated clearly here, there are no cookie-cutter solutions http://internettime.posterous.com/

David S: Charles, your explanation of the differences in definitions is very helpful, thank you.

Is there is a distinction to be made between the private and public sectors in terms of both mindset and investment?

I work a lot in the public sector and many in L&D are still coming to terms with facilitating learning rather than instructing, never mind the use of technology. E-learning is in there but with its detractors. Initiating and integrating online CoPs are rare in my experience as most rely on intranets which are not the same thing.

Charles J: I don't see any difference between the needs and outputs in terms of mindset and investment for public and private sectors, David.

When it's boiled down everyone is focused on helping people do their best and work to their potential using the most effective and most efficient approaches available. I think it's irrelevant whether there's a profit motive behind the organisation's raison d'etre or not. For-profit and NFP organisations all want to get the best outcomes from their people.

However some of the levers that L&D and others in organisations can pull may be very different. For instance, for-profit organisations will respond to levers that are couched in terms of productivity and profitability. NFP and Govt. organisations will want the semantics to be presented differently - in terms of best value for the end user/customer/client/taxpayer and efficiencies.

So the routes to the end goal may be different, but the goal - helping to maximise workforce capability in the best way possible - will be the same.

Social and informal learning have a very important role to play in getting to the goal in every organisation whether it's a multinational for-profit, a small or medium-sized enterprise, a government department or a charitable trust.

David S: I absolutely agree that the goal is the same and on the importance of social and informal learning. I sense sometimes in public sector environments that there is a mystique about the methods and 'that's what others do'. It's a cultural resignation attitude.

Elliot R in reply to Charles J: Agreed. My recommendation to my team would be to use the term "social learning" v "social media" as the latter implies more of a marketing strategy via social technology.

However, I don't believe you can have social learning without technology. But, IMHO, you can have informal learning without technology. Would you agree that the potential use of technology is one factor that distinguishes social learning from informal learning?

Nic L: Elliot - I have to disagree with you! Social learning happens all the time - whenever people meet together to discuss and share. it is totally ubiquitous and at the root of our humanity. If we try to limit it to any kind of structured context we deny its power.

Elliot R: I think we are talking past each other as you are correct. I am referring to technology only as a potential enabler. My organization is trying to force informal learning into a formal learning category and measure it via social learning which I do not believe is a good use of time.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Just curious, then is the learning different from the delivery method or are we in need of a different term that incorporates a larger more encompassing term - process -method?

Jane B: Hi Elliot (and how are you, by the way?) . I think your last comment here sums it up well. The idea that L&D can own, direct, and manage informal and social learning (and get credit for it) is causing lots of problems. They didn't own, direct, or manage that before, after all. We're just finally at a time when others are recognizing social learning as legitimate learning, and learners have tools and capabilities at their disposal to help them better get what they need, not just the content that is pushed to them. Agreed: Trying to force it into old paradigms is not a good use of anyone's time.

Nic L in reply to Gary B: Gary - for me the learning is the outcome which becomes visible in changed or improved performance at individual or organisation level. There are countless delivery methods - which are ways people address their needs and arrive at their learning.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Nic, I agree with you that the "learning" is really the outcome that manifests in a variety of ways, but I'll extend your phrasing a bit further and suggest that the delivery is separate from the processing of the information that was delivered and maybe the whole "social media" "social learning" etc could multiple steps -- such as we use social media as the tool that results in social learning (I have no idea if we should name whatever intermediate processing takes place - probably not).

Elliot R: Gary, your comments echo my thoughts...social media as a POTENTIAL enabler towards social learning.

Nic L: Elliot and Gary - I agree with you both that the social media are potential enablers of learning - amongst many others. Social means when people talk to one another - so there are almost countless ways in which that happens. The social media present the L&D community with a fantastic new way to foster social interaction with a global reach which is focussed on learning. But the SoMe are not something we own in L&D - we just harness the vehicle to help people collaborate and learn. In situations where SoMe are not familiar it is an inappropriate way of pursuing our aims - and getting to a point where learning communities and CoP's will get involved via the SoMe requires sensitivity and a lot of energy to create an ambience that is confortable for learners.

Michael de Groot in reply to Nic L: Wow what a great discussion here. All really great stuff. The conversation here would make an excellent blog post. I will just add one small thing if I may. The days that organisations are carving up SoMe are numbered. See for me Social means it's owned by everyone and not just one department or one individual. I know it will take time for the penny to drop and we all like boundaries, which is the old military way of doing things. Over the next 12 -24 months (hopefully) it will be a battle for organisations to become more social, holistic and transparent. Those who get it will flourish. Others who don't will have frustrated employees. Am I making sense?

There is an Elephant in the Room!

There is some amazing research out confirming that Elephants appreciate that they need to co-operate to achieve a result. Here is a brief exert from the report.

The Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) involved in the study had already been taught that pulling on a rope brought a platform towards them, and a food reward on that platform within reach.

But this apparatus, set up at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang province, presented them with a new twist on that simple task.

One rope was threaded all the way around a platform - like a belt through belt loops - so if one end was tugged, the rope simply slipped out and the platform did not budge.

But if two elephants each took an end of the rope and pulled, the platform moved and that could claim their treats.

"When we released one elephant before the other, they quickly learned to wait for their partner before they pulled the rope," Dr Plotnik told BBC News.

So here is the largest animal on the planet, who is already known for their social abilities, showing us how co-operation and working together as one, will get the job done.

Why is it then that our human nature favours the single endeavour and reward the single executive for their efforts, when clearly they could never have achieved it on their own. I am of course talking about the obscene pay rewards for bankers and indeed senior executives of global companies, who are being rewarded, as if they delivered the profits single handedly.

Now I appreciate that somewhere along the way, someone decided what a reasonable pay package should be for a senior executive and that set the standard, which continued to escalate to ridiculous amounts of money that do not make any real sense at all in this current new Millenium.

Who says that a senior executive has to earn a huge salary to compensate him or her for the stress and pressure of having the top job or even those who are one or two levels below the top job.

People at the very bottom of the organisation have exactly the same emotional stress as someone at the top of the organisation. In fact the higher up you get in an organisation it's not about what you know but more about how you manage people, because your stardom success is totally dependent on how the people below you perform. I would even go as far as saying that someone at the top of the organisation should get paid less and instead receive a performance related modest bonus based on results of the team he/she manages.

I think you get my point. Let's reward people who are truly responsible for delivering results on the frontline and motivate the executives by encouraging great leadership and management through a modest bonus incentive scheme.

The largest animal walking the planet realises how to share his/her success, let's learn from the natural world and take some tips from the Elephant!

Email in praise of faggots cooks up an offal storm!

My Father-in-Law got involved with the 'Internet Law' and consequently managed to get on page 3 of the Daily Telegraph. His name is John Sanders. Below is the article by Martin Evans of the 23rd February. When Dudley councillor Pat Martin used her official email to chat to a friend about favourite childhood foods, she assumed no one would mind. But within hours of sending her innocent message, she was being warned by her bosses about using offensive language that could contravene the council’s code of conduct.

Confused, Mrs Martin, who served as Dudley’s mayor between 2009 and 2010, investigated further and discovered that, in discussing the famous Black Country dish of faggots, she had set alarm bells ringing. While in Dudley the term is universally used to describe a traditional meatball delicacy made from offal, the word has a wholly different connotation in other parts of the world. In the United States, where Dudley Council’s internet security software is designed, it is a derogatory term for homosexuals.

Mrs Martin immediately contacted the council’s IT department to assure them her conversation had been entirely innocent. But she said it highlighted how political correctness was being applied to the most mundane of situations.

Problems began when Mrs Martin received an email from a friend, John Sanders, prompted by a letter he had recently had published in The Daily Telegraph. Mrs Martin said: “I emailed him to congratulate him. The letter was about the availability of Gentleman’s Relish and we began discussing traditional foods from our childhood. “John mentioned his father’s hot-cross buns and his mother’s faggots. I didn’t even use the word, but when I replied the email was picked up by the Sophos internet security software. “I received a warning about using profanities, I was very puzzled, I had no idea what it was referring to.” The council’s IT department explained that the Sophos software was an American system and faggots was on its list of profane words.

Fortunately, they saw the funny side and accepted that the system was not necessarily tailored for the Black Country dialect and its local delicacies. Mrs Martin said: “It was quite funny in the end but it does highlight how innocent things can get blown out of all proportion.” Mr Sanders, 76, a retired solicitor whose original reference to faggots sparked the confusion, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I heard. My mother’s faggots were a real speciality. I think if she was alive now she would find it hilarious to think of her recipe causing all this fuss. I think it is a case of common sense not being applied. Something that is becoming more and more apparent these days.”

Human Capital Checklist for UK plc

From the Ninth Annual People Management and Development Barometer Report Highlights of recent CIPD surveys

Resourcing strategies and objectives Fifty-six per cent of survey participants reported having a formal resourcing strategy. The top three resourcing objectives were attracting and recruiting key staff (79%), enabling the achievement of the organisation’s strategic plan (59%) and meeting the future skills requirements of the organisation (47%). However over half of the organisations surveyed said the recession was having a negative impact on their resourcing budget for 2010/11. More organisations said that they would be focusing on developing talent in-house and retaining rather than recruiting talent this year compared with last year. There are some indications that efforts to reduce recruitment costs will be made as more report they are reducing reliance on recruitment agencies.

The good news is fewer organisations said they would be implementing a recruitment freeze in (22%). More (65%) expected to continue to recruit key talent/niche areas (53%). Nevertheless the outlook appeared much bleaker for the public sector, where particularly large proportions are anticipating recruitment freezes (51%) and reducing the number of recruits they hire (68%).

The volume of applicants for vacancies has increased. Seventy-six per cent of employers have noticed an increase in the number of unsuitable applicants and 32% reported that there were too many suitable candidates to choose from. At the same time, 41% reported that competition for talent was greater as the pool of available talent to hire had fallen sharply. As in previous years, the majority of turnover is attributed to employees leaving voluntarily. The voluntary turnover rate reduced substantially in the manufacturing and production sector (2010 survey: 2.7%; 2009 survey: 7.7%).

Employee attitudes and the recession In all, 19% of respondents say it is likely or very likely they could lose their job as a result of the recession, a slight increase from the previous quarters figure of 18%. There is no change in employees’ attitudes towards the labour market, with just 10% believing it would be easy or very easy to get a new job if they lost their current job. The proportion of employees saying their employer has made redundancies as a result of the economic downturn has fallen very slightly to 30%. There has also been a continuing trend by employers to cut back on training. Pay freezes also continue to be more widely reported, with 43% of respondents saying their organisation has introduced a pay freeze, up from 40% last quarter. Only 21% of respondents are currently looking for a new job with a different employer. However, over a third (37%) would ideally like to change jobs within the next year.

Key findings Senior HR people identify the top three organisational priorities to be managing costs (73%), growing the current business (65%) and focusing on customer need (54%). The proportion of employers that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease improved to +12 in the three months to December 2010 from –3 in the three months to December 2009. However, employers are less optimistic about the medium-term outlook. The proportion of staff that expected staff levels to increase against those that expected them to decrease is +1 in the 12 months to September 2011.

A year ago the CIPD forecast that 2010 would be a better year for jobs than either 2008 or 2009 as the UK economy gradually began to emerge from the deepest and longest recession since the Second World War. By this they meant a relative improvement, with employment falling by less and unemployment rising by less than during the recession. In the event, however, 2010 turned out to be a much better year for jobs with the number of people in work increasing and unemployment starting to fall. Despite this they expect 2011 to see a return to falling employment and rising unemployment though we do not envisage the deterioration in labour market conditions being anything like as severe as during the recession. At the same time they expect that, as in 2010, average earnings will increase by less than price inflation resulting in a squeeze in workers’ real incomes. Our longer-term forecast in turn indicates that labour market conditions will remain weak in 2012 before starting to recover more robustly in 2013.

The most frequently cited causes of recruitment difficulties were lack of specialist skills (67%). Between 2009 and 2010, the proportion of organisations reporting retention difficulties decreased from 69% to 55%. Labour turnover for all UK employees averaged 14%, down from 16% in 2009.

Types of jobs and pay prospects for 2011 They feel that even if 2011 turns out to be a ‘jobs-light’ rather than a ‘jobs-loss’ or ‘jobs standstill’ year, the chances are that the bulk of any new private sector jobs will continue to reflect the experience of 2010, with part-time and temporary jobs in the majority. Moreover, the bulk of workers will feel a squeeze in their living standards, with pay rises still relatively modest against a backdrop of higher prices for many essential products and services, higher taxes, the availability of credit still tight and the likelihood of falling house prices.

Even on the relatively more optimistic OBR jobs forecast, unemployment will act as a tough constraint on pay rises which are unlikely to outstrip price inflation. 2011 will, like 2010, be a year of real pay squeeze for most workers, especially those in the public sector. A ‘jobs-light/pay-tight’ year is probably the best we can hope for, which will make for another challenging

Key human capital benchmarks (UK averages) Recruitment and staffing Labour turnover 16% Organisations making 10 or more staff redundant 33% Organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties 68% Organisations experiencing retention problems 55%