HR Manager as Business partner (9)

1. HR Manager as Business partner (9) Yvette RAMOS

2. Agenda • Corporate culture • Core competencies • Total Quality • The British Telecom case

3. Corporate culture

4. Culture : what is it? VALUES BEHAVIOURS OBJECTIVES => THE QUESTION OF THE REFERENCE

5. Theories on cultural differences • Edwards T. Hall • Context : High/Low context culture • Space : Territoriality, Personal space, Proxemics, Multisensory space • Time : Monochronic / Polychronic • Geer Hofstede • Uncertainty Avoidance • Power - Distance • Femininity – Masculinity • Individualism – Collectivism • Confucian Dynamism

6. Managing Cultural Differenceson a company level

7. Difficulties for implementation • Virtual teamwork can generate frustation • Time difference between locations • Trust difficult to establish • More financial resources short-term • Hidden agendas

8. Factors that influence Corporate Culture • Work Group • Ambiance, history • Leadership Style • Consideration, Trust • Organizational Characteristics • Size, Complexity • Administrative Processes • Systems, Risk tolerance

9. Barriers to effective corporate culture • Political and Legal Factors • Economic Factors • Employees-Management Relations Factors • Language Barriers • Other country-to-country differences

10. Hot Issues considering Corporate Culture • Gender and race stereotypes • Discrimination and harassment • Exclusion and isolation • Work / family balance • Career development paths

11. Core competencies

12. Aligning HR to strategic management • Company's core competency is the one thing that it can do better than its competitors. A core competency can be anything from product development New Product Development • It is "an area of specialized expertise that is the result of harmonizing complex streams of technology and work activity."

13. Core competencies to End products

14. Three tests to identifying a core competence 1. It is a potential access to a wide variety of markets 2. It contributes significantly to the perceived customer benefits of the end product(s) 3. It should be difficult for competitors to imitate

15. How to do it? • Once top management, including HR as business partner and with the help of divisional and Strategic Business Unit managers, has identified an overarching core competences or core competences, it must ask businesses to identify the projects and the people closely connected with them. • Corporate auditors should direct an audit of the location, number, and quality of the people who embody the core competence. • Core competence carriers should be brought together frequently to trade notes and ideas.

16. Total quality and benchmarking

17. A bit of history.. 1900-1950 • Economy of demand • Look for the best quantity / price ratio • Technical quality search • Quality Control • Taylor & the OST (1910 – 1920) • Mayo & the Human Relations School (Western Électric from 1924 to 1927)

18. A bit of history..1950-1970 • Economy of offer • Look for the best result / objective ratio • Explicit needs satisfaction of the client is the main objective • Quality as a commercial means • Quality Control • Maslow « Motivation and personality » (1954) • Herzberg (publications from 1955 to 1975)

19. A bit of history..1970-1990 • Economy of sustained offer • Look for the best Quality/Price/Delivery ratio • Focus on the satisfaction of explicit needs and expectations of clients • Give trust • Write what we do, do what we wrote and prove it • Quality Assurance (AQ) • Mintzberg, Crozier & Friedberg

20. A bit of history..1990… • Economy of global offer • Master processes and procedures • Give coherence and meaning • Continuous improvement • Do the maximum with the minimum resources • Put the human as the actor of quality • Satisfy all stakeholders • Anticipate • Total Quality Management (TQM)

21. Towards benchmarking… Open to external world Comparison Progress Benchmarking Processes, products, services

22. What bench can permit.. Accelerate the progress Mobilise the individuals Overcome difficulties Identify original practises Mind opening Find new ideas Generalize learning Improve feed-back (weaknesses/ strengths)

23. Different forms of benchmarking • Internal/ External • Competitive / functional / generic • Practises / ideas • Products / services / processes / personnel • Individual / collective • Transposition

24. The British Telecom case

25. BT Human Resource strategies BT OUTSOURCING Business Strategies BT INTRANET BT CORPORATE CULTURE

26. BT Outsourcing • Outsourcing non-core operations : • Gives focus and add value to bottom line • Reduces BT debt burden • Opens up numerous revenue streams • Major restructuring, including transfers of staff to specialist partner • Access to world-class capabilities and share the risk

27. HR process outsourced • 1990’s : 26 sites, 14 500 employees, 26 separate HR systems, 30 different help lines : not coping with rapid changes in the business • E-HR portal reduced costs by 45%; increased staff efficiency by 5% • 1998 : strategic re-think : choice of a partner to create « e-peopleserve » for a shared-service in outsourcing the traditionnal transaction processes (pensions, sick leave and training) : 1000 BT people transferred and soon they got other clients (Visa, BP, Vodafone,Cable & Wireless,..)

28. BT strategy of outsourcing HR Services • 2002 : 650 HR « business partners » who concentrate on strategic HR input • Improved commercial focus • Internal HR staff delivers real value to the bottom line • BT sold its shares in « e-peopleserve » to Accenture

29. BT Intranet • Born out of a cost-saving initiative (internal corporate directories online) : saves 100M£ per yr in operational costs • 6,000 people in home offices and 40,000 « flexible » employees with no fixed place of workstaff members : saves 200 M£ per year in overheads • Cost benefits to BT’s HR Department and has proved a useful tool for knowledge building

30. Intranet for BT HR strategy • Integral part of BT’s business process re-engineering • Helps the organisation manage and produce the information that is more timely and accurate • Drives BT towards greater agility and operational efficiency • Mobile workers are given a mobile phone, a virtual number and a laptop : they spend most of time at the clients’ office and they do the support work from home. They are also given a printer, scanner, high speed link to the office

31. What’s at stake.. • Technology used to eliminate bureaucracy wherever possible • People to be empowered (more autonomous, more trust) • BT Academy Training Center with available on-line courses • BT’s Programme of Knowledge Management (KM) : gathering, sharing, recycling information • Simplifies networking for people and creates a place for teams to collaborate

32. BT’s Intranet..Results • Operational costs saved (paper, producing directories and manuals,..) • Flexible working programme • Intranet KM (award in 2002) • HR automates many of its functions • Cultural shift in BT’s business practises : a greater transparency…

33. BT Corporate culture • It is manifested in the way leaders behave, how well personal and organisational values align and the operating environment : culture is an output, the product of collective behaviour • Prefers « characteristics, personality, people engagement, behaviour » than « culture » (says HR director for HR strategy, policies and organisational development)

34. The three « cornerstones »of BT culture • Passion for customers • Need for financial discipline • Commitment to Broadband Senior management drives the debate : «retaining the best aspects of independence while ensuring the cohesion accross the group » ..getting back to one company, a challenge that will take another two to three years