The Black Coffee Series

Black Coffee.JPG

By Jose Varghese

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-varghese-6a87537/

The Black Coffee Series is a new hard hitting, impactful HR Blog written by my good friend and colleague Jose. It is going to be fresh and enlightening so take a look now, like, share and follow so that you don’t miss the next one!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/black-coffee-series-jose-varghese/

The Black Coffee Series

· Published on March 16, 2020

A recent turn of event gave me an opportunity to go back to basics (Learn, Unlearn & Relearn – not in any particular order) and most importantly ‘SHARE’ .

An Idea ‘Black Coffee’ Series came into the mind.So, what’s a Black Coffee series and why the name in particular.

Black Coffee in layman terms is a Coffee served without cream or milk. It’s as simple as that but at the same time its strong , rejuvenating , powerhouse of antioxidants and most importantly lean now if we add these qualities in the world of HR what can we get …..

The Black Coffee Series aims to meet some people experts (ONLY over a cup of coffee) and get you the 10 Black Coffee principles (people oriented) for the future.

The actual dilemma started when i thought whom should i start the series with as i had lots of friends in the world of HR holding positions of importance. Then a name struck my mind here is a lady who i respect not only for her knowledge but for the heart of gold she has. A complete people's person.

Meet Ms. Gillian Cramb

She started her career as a Language Teacher and soon after completing her MBA she realized her real passion lies in Strategic Mgmt and OD; so much so that her final assignment before she relocated to France from Dubai was as a Director - Learning & OD. Currently she has turned entrepreneur with her own agency (www.candehrconsultancy.com) from her new base in the South of France.

Here’s what she has to say:

1. Be Strategic – Stop doing everyone’s admin and get involved in long term, business aligned strategic planning. Write a good Human Capital Strategy and align it with the needs of the entire business. Don’t just facilitate – participate!

2. Balance Hard & Soft HR i.e People vs. Process. Get the balance right – where do your priorities lie? If you are fully supporting the needs of the business, you should be supporting the employees AND representing Senior Management. Process should follow!

3. Be an Internal Change Agent – Again, don’t just do the admin and clean up after the transformational changes in the business! You should be proactively creating and managing change efforts across the business – this will ensure that all new practices align with strategy, are lawful and helps to reduce panic in the workforce.

4. Best Fit not Best Practice – Every workplace and every working environment is different. You can’t stick to your best practice rule books and expect it to work for everyone. You must adopt a best fit approach which meets the standards of HR Practice but also adapts to the needs of your business.

5. Not sure where to start? Strip it back to the Employee Life-cycle – Take it back to the employee life-cycle, brainstorm the requirements of the business/ employees, short, medium and long term. Design everything you need to work on People vs Process and become the internal change agent for HR.

6. Lead by Example – Demonstrate the culture you wish to create and be consistent. Managers often need to be able to follow a lead in terms of human capital management.

7. Shared Responsibility – Leading on from the previous point – it is your responsibility to ensure that managers can share the responsibility of leading your employee base. Don’t trust them? Coach them, mentor them, train them, show them! You must lead the efforts towards leadership and management development and assure increased involvement of the management team.

8. Focus on the Wider Audience – Using your team of ‘Business Partners’ you must get away from focusing on particular individuals and move towards focusing on teams and groups of employees. This will create a cascade effect. You cannot perform your role effectively if you are not reaching a wide enough audience.

9. Create a Coaching Culture – Advise and Counsel – desist from Dictatorial and Autocratic leadership. Tactically create a culture to initiate a programme of coaching and mentoring throughout the company which will ensure a shared set of beliefs, behaviours, vision and values are cascaded throughout the workforce.

10. People Analytics – Senior Management understand numbers. They want hard facts. HR often fail to produce statistics which prove their worth. Find a way! Find a way of reporting everything you do in a way that is meaningful and accurate! i.e People vs. Process. Get the balance right – where do your priorities lie? If you are fully supporting the needs of

the business, you should be supporting the employees and representing Senior Management.

Feel free to get in touch with either myself or Jose if you would like to get involved.

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