Singapore Human Resource Congress sponsored by PsyAsia International

PsyAsia International is pleased to once again be supporting Singapore’s Human Resource professionals as a sponsor of the Singapore Human Resources Institute’s Annual Human Resource Congress.

The Singapore HR Congress and Business-Connect Exposition 2010 will address the newly derived term of HR TransmutationTM and explore the topic in deeper context.  The current economic churning has made it explicitly clear that industry is not just facing another downturn but it is accompanied by impactful structural, demographic and mindset changes across industry and top management cannot afford to respond with anything less than a complete overhaul of the system to survive and sustain. Renowned speakers and leaders from the HR fraternity will share their experiences and provide useful insights on the know-how of managing paradoxes in a turbulent world.

PsyAsia’s clients are entitled to a 35% discount on the price of conference tickets.  Please contact us in the first instance to avail of this special offer.
“A strong and capable HR community can be the catalyst and change agents to initiate and implement people development efforts in organisations, and help build stronger capabilities amongst our business leaders and managers.”
 
PM Lee Hsien Loong
11th World HR Congress 2006 organised by SHRI

PsyAsia International is Asia’s leading independent distributor of Psychometric Tests of Personality and Aptitude. From offices across Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong, our psychologists assist the world’s top organisations and local governments to recruit, select, assess and retain the best employees. Our services are only offered by fully registered organisational psychologists with years of experience in their field. PsyAsia also offers world-class training in Psychometric Testing in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Online.

Assessment Centre & Development Centre Training in Singapore

Assessment Centre and Development Centre Training in Singapore

Register for the above course

View full course outline and previous delegate feedback

To avail of the 10% early-bird discount, simply enter code ACDCEARLY on page 3 of the course registration form – ensure you register by 18 March and pay within 14 days!

To avail of the 40% discount for the Behavior-Based Interview Course, simply click the additional option of this course on the final page of the booking form for the Assessment and Development Centre Course. 40% Discount only open to those who register for the Assessment & Development Centre training and may be used in conjunction with the early-bird discount.

PsyAsia’s three-day Assessment and Development Centre Course provides delegates with a grounding in the assessment centre methodology and ensures that by the end of the course delegates are able to:

• Evaluate whether or not their organisation is ready to implement assessment/development centres as a tool for effective selection and development.
• Assess and prepare the resources required to successfully run an assessment/development centre.
• Design and implement an effective assessment process within their organisation.
• Understand the role of the assessor and the skills necessary to be effective in this position and have a full appreciation of reliability and validity within the centre.
• Conduct an assessment/development centre – from logistics to design of exercises matched to job requirements, through to the proper and ethical use of information collected, writing reports and validating the centre.

Survey: Developing Successful Global Leaders

The American Management Association (AMA), in conjunction with the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), is conducting a study to examine leadership initiatives that organizations have taken to coordinate actions across global locations. We’re looking for your input on the topic. In return, you’ll receive the preliminary results report once available. Please take this survey now.

Estimated survey length: 5 minutes

You’ll receive: Preliminary results report

Survey closes: Wednesday, March 17

Receive a complimentary results report

In exchange for completing the survey, you’ll receive a copy of these valuable results, which otherwise are exclusive to i4cp members. Thank you for your participation.
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 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Will HR Become More Effective?

HR has the unfortunate tendency to be inward focused; rather than collaboratively engaging cross functional colleagues in HR project design and implementation, they garner sources of information from other HR practitioners to inform their project process. Successful HR projects that drive business goals require the expertise, input and engagement of the rest of the organization. Therefore the CHRP should include a significant requirement to develop a high level of competency in cross functional collaboration, project management and systems thinking. Business acumen is all well and good but of little value if you are unable to discern the need to engage others appropriately.

Of all members of an organization, the HR practitioner should be the role model of collaborative effort and show leadership in the practice of engaging others in business oriented projects. Yet too often, HR is seen as a department that is somewhat isolated and out of touch from the rest of the organization.

If HR associations took a different approach to the surveys they send out regarding the value of services offered by association to practitioners, they would gather radically different input. Send out a survey regarding the effectiveness of HR in their organization, to the non-HR employees and you will gather a very different perception of what needs to be done if HR is ever to begin to garner the respect they claim to want. To get the ‘seat at the table’, a stated desire that gets tossed out there so often will be attained by radical change. Is HR up to that challenge?

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Podcast: Multi-Generational Workforce

A couple of weeks ago, my buddy Chris Ferdinandi over at Renegade HR and I talked about multi-generational workforces and what they mean to employers for his podcast (one of the few I actually listen to). Want to have a listen? Of course you do:

Listen Here

So what are always my main points about generations?

• There are differences between various generations.
• Sometimes these differences are blown out of proportion to their importance.
• Often these differences relate to career level rather than generations.
• Truly skilled managers rarely have issues dealing with a multi-generational workforce.
• Problems with managing certain generations often point to greater leadership issues.
• Generation Y can talk about whatever they want but businesses speak the language of action.

Read More…

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming

Ten years ago – heck, five years ago – few people worked on teams with geographically dispersed members. Today, this is very common. Every manager needs or will need to learn how to manage and inspire team members they regularly see “live.”

Pal and witty guy Wayne Turmel (a.k.a. The Crank Middle Manager) has written this helpful white paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming. You can down load it for free by clicking on the link. A couple interesting quotes from the paper:

• “70% of managers above 1st-level supervisor now have at least one team member who is not co-located with them.”
• “Technology and online tools are great but they are effective only if they are used to create context and human connections. Mere data transfer will result in short-term time savings and long term communication problems of the project.”
• “A good project requires a mix of synchronous (people can talk at the same time) and asynchronous (people use them at different times) tools to be truly effective.”

Read More…

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Just-in-time Talent

Technology has made it so that I can email you much more easily than I can call you. We can communicate virtually just as well as we can connect face-to-face. With the recession cut-backs, many companies have taken advantage of that. Workers have been treated as disposable. Cost-containment is important. It’s the most important part, in fact, if your business is struggling financially. But what is creating disposable workers doing to your company?

Temps, freelancers, contractors, and interim executives are easy to get rid of. What kind of culture is having temporary workers creating? First, the bright side…

You get better talent.
The more ’stable’ jobs are the ones that are sought after by high potentials seeking the executive track. Since there are fewer of these positions available, competition is increased, and you can be more selective. Yet, the temps, the contractors and consultants feel the competition as well, because you are their ‘client.’ You can hire experts when experts are needed and generalists where generalists are needed. Consequentially, the bar is increased and you have your pick.

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 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

The Five Domains of High Performance

Pick a leader – any successful leader. Then search Amazon and see how many books and other publications come up on that person. Abraham Lincoln? 83,642. Gandhi? 61,923. Even Barack Obama, who was widely introduced to the world just five years ago, has 8,670. People love studying successful people.

In the same way that many people have an insatiable appetite to study successful leaders, we in the business world tend to be fascinated with high-performance organizations. What are they like? What do they do differently? Is there a secret recipe that allows them to outperform their competition?

Of course, many books have been dedicated to this subject. From Tom Peters’s and Bob Waterman’s early 80’s best seller In Search of Excellence to Jim Collins’ Built to Last and Good to Great, there has been a succession of books that leaders and managers across the globe have devoured. Programs such as GE’s Six Sigma have trained countless people in how to achieve top performance and consultants have built entire practices around elements of high-performing companies.

While business professionals want to learn more about high-performance organizations in the hopes that they can apply some of the secret sauce to their own organization, many of the companies profiled within the pages of the aforementioned books were unable to sustain high performance. In fact, the number is about half. While much has been written on the subject, the truth is that the ingredients to high performance remain something of a mystery.

Part of the reason is the definition – what exactly do we mean by high performance? Is there a difference between simply surviving (which was the fate of some of the companies profiled in Built to Last, for example) and performing well over a long period? Do we mean companies which outperform others in their own industry or across industries? Over how long a time period does an organization need to perform exceptionally well in order to be considered a “high performer”? And which measures, financial or otherwise, are the best ones to use?

Over the last three decades, i4cp researchers have looked at various ways to define high performance and the traits that separate the consistently top organizations from the rest. Through that time, we have come to recognize high-performing organizations as ones that consistently outperform most of their competitors in four primary areas:

• Revenue growth
• Market share
• Profitability
• Customer satisfaction

And, over the years, our research team has examined well over 100 different core human capital areas and tried to determine the differences between high-performing and low-performing organizations. The research has clearly shown that no single ingredient guarantees organizational success. Rather, high performance is like a delicate entrée – based on a staple of core ingredients any one of which, if left out or of inferior quality, will ruin the entire item.

The Five Domains of High Performance

Our research has shown that there are five basic ingredients which separate higher performers from their lower-performing counterparts:

1. Their strategies are more consistent, clearly communicated and well thought out. They are more likely than other companies to say that their philosophies are consistent with their strategies and their performance measurements mirror their strategies.
2. Leadership is clear, fair and talent-oriented. Those leaders are more likely to promote the best people for the job, to make sure performance expectations are well known and consistent with the strategy, and to be committed to developing their people.
3. There is a commitment to the right talent within the organization, and while employees are treated as unique individuals, the organization takes a holistic approach to managing and making decisions based on data-driven information. This begins with a strategic approach to workforce planning. It entails looking at the organization from an outside-in perspective that identifies the business model components and areas that drive value and then determines what the organization needs.
4. The culture is strong in all the right ways, and employees are more likely to think the organization is a good place to work. Employees not only adapt well to change, they embrace it. High performers also emphasize a readiness to meet new challenges and are committed to innovation.
5. They are more likely to have a strong market focus and go above and beyond for their customers. They are organized internally around what’s best for the customer, they think hard about customers’ future and long-term needs, and their strategy is based on customer data. And they are more likely to see customer information as the most important factor for developing new products and services.

While these five domains – Strategy, Leadership, Talent, Culture and Market – may seem a bit broad or even obvious, the separation our research has shown between high and low performers in these domains is startling. For example, in a just-released study on high performance by i4cp, the following graph depicts this separation:

These findings, along with previous studies, have convinced us to target our research on discovering the best ways for companies to boost their performance in these five domains and the numerous sub-domains within. We’re convinced that companies that focus on excelling in these areas are cooking up a surefire recipe for long-term success.

i4cp’s 4-Part Recommendation:

1. Take stock to determine where your organization stands in these five areas, and be honest – even the best performing companies aren’t always superb in each area. To get an objective view, survey the workforce on these domains as well as use other assessment tools.
2. Once you’ve determined your areas of strength and weakness, make sure senior management is involved in improving on the weak areas while not taking the eye off of the strengths; in tough economies it can be easy to stop focusing on core areas that the company has excelled in. Don’t forget to investigate the practices of other organizations that are excelling in your areas of weakness; it’s amazing how some very simple and inexpensive ideas can make a huge difference in closing the gap.
3. Although companies should focus on the specific tactics for boosting their performance in each of these five areas, it’s important to align the five areas as a whole. Each domain feeds off the others, and ignoring one is like leaving a key ingredient out of a culinary masterpiece.
4. Although these efforts should continue indefinitely to sustain performance over time, organizations should also do regular reevaluations of their progress so they can make course corrections as needed.

View a recording of Thursday’s webinar, The Five Domains of High-Performance Organizations.
Read More…

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

The effect of mentoring on the job performance and social status of mentors in China

In this study, we examine how mentoring benefits mentors as well as how team cohesiveness affects mentoring relationships and resulting benefits. We followed 512 formal mentors in a Chinese manufacturing firm for six months and collected data in three phases and from three sources. The findings reveal that the amount of mentoring provided is positively related to mentors’ in-role job performance and social status. These relationships were fully mediated by mentors’ personal learning and social interaction quality, respectively. Team cohesiveness, however, did not moderate these relationships. Our empirical findings have implications for understanding how mentors’ careers can benefit from being a mentor.

 Sourced from: Latest Issue of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

Learner Style & 5 HR Learning Cartoons

AS A TRAINER, I have always used various approaches to help get people engaged. We all know that this can be a difficult feet. For those of us that have been doing it for years we don’t see the big deal. It’s simple isn’t it? Ultimately you use what best fits your personality, meshes with the audience that you are presenting to, and what can ultimately reflect the message and learning you are trying to reinforce. Am I right? Media, should reinforce and appeal to the content you are presenting and ultimately to your audiences senses. In order to do this it helps to be aware of the types of learners. Before I present a few of the cartoons I love and use, here are some of the typical types of learners.

VISUAL LEARNERS: They learn primarily through the written word and tend to be readers who diligently take down every word. These people often get carpal tunnel.

AUDITORY LEARNERS: They learn primarily through listening. They focus their ears and attention on your words, listening carefully to everything you say. They like to talk rather than write and relish the opportunity to discuss what they’ve heard. Funny how an auditory learner who needs to learn through listening often talks more than listens!

KINESTHETIC LEARNERS: These learners learn better by doing. This group learns best when they can practice what they’re learning. They want to have their hands on the keyboard, the hammer, or the test tube because they think in terms of physical action. So for those of you who don’t like role-plays, shut up, watch and listen

So for all you learners, here are the cartoons that I like to use that can also prove a point for HR and Learning (dependent upon your audience, interpretation and content):

Catbert – Drug Test (left): Pretty pointed but I have used this in training to prove a point to my fellow colleagues on how confusing messages are being presented. Like some marriages, we say we love you but first, let’s get a prenuptial agreement. Definitely conditional.

Farside – Damned if You Do/Don’t (right): This one has dual meaning for any piece of content, class or organization/department. We have all been in situations where, regardless of the choice we make, the choice may not be a good one. Sometimes it is just about choosing the better of the two evils. Outside of what the cartoon states, it’s not “easy.” Do you know anyone that has never been in this situation? I don’t.

Dilbert – Ahhh motivation (left): In this economy it is difficult to keep a positive attitude. Instead of just trying to SAY that everyone needs to keep a positive attitude, why not just call it like we see it! You are in a cube, there are many times you feel undervalued and underpaid. OK, we got it out, now what do you do? Clear the air, accept it and take actions to change and improve the situation. People give you a lot of current attitudes in a classroom. The key is to call it the way it is and then move on to something productive.

Farside – What we say, What we hear (right): I think this is great for any communication, conflict resolution, or emotional intelligence type class. There can often times be a disconnect between what we say, how it is translated and what we hear. In my opinion, the key is more about identifying this insufficiency to understand others rather than just outlining the challenges that are faced in communication.

The Traditional Approach to Employee Motivation (left): One of my favorite of all time. I found this one years back and have used it in a variety of programs and presentations. The key for companies and those of us in HR and Training is that this is the traditional approach. Some individuals and brands are stuck in this mindset. We need to move away from the mindset as well change our actions toward the people we interact with.

Farside – Interaction (final): This one has some duality to it. You could use this to convey ideas on interactions between departments and people. It can help reinforce how others may not know how their actions are affecting the environment they are in. I would say that within learning sometimes we get angry at the other parts of the business and rage war. We will only interact with those that share the same perspective and if they don’t follow suit then we, subconsciously attack them for not wanting to answer our questions. You must remember that we provide value. That while we contribute to that value we do not own the value. But that’s my opinion.

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts