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Equity Skills News & Views
Volume 5, Issue 10, 31 May 2006
Registered as an electronic newspaper: ISSN 1684-5722
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In This edition:

1. Proving Things Work In Business - It's Not That Hard 
2. Engagement Responding To Talent Challenges
3. Great Expectations
4. Book Review: Distraction – Being Human In The Digital Age
5. Case Law & Legislation Review: Trade Unions Registration, Cancellation or Change of Name
6. Downloads: March Edition of The Leadership Excellence Magazine
7. Unsubscribe & Moving Soon

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Jeff Sacht: Publisher-editor
www.equityskillsweb.com
jeffs@worldonline.co.za

'A MUST TO PRINT & READ'
>32,000 & still growing!

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1. Proving Things Work In Business - It's Not That Hard*

By Dr. John Sullivan who can be contacted at www.drjohnsullivan.com  

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Many managers fall into the habit of making statements about how their programs work without any real tangible proof that they do.  Others have proof that their programs work but cannot explain why (the factors that "cause" success). This article is designed to provide you with a variety of approaches from strong to weak that can be used to prove cause and effect related to HR programs. 

Before we begin, it is essential that you adopt a production mindset, a mindset in which all HR programs have a purpose, and one where they exist to accomplish something predefined.  If we adopt this mindset and clearly specify what we expect, then proving cause and effect is not nearly as difficult as most make it seem.  We can barrow methodologies from other professions that have been documented and perfected for ages.  The pharmaceutical industry is a good starting point; they have had to prove cause and effect related to new drug therapies for more than 80 years.  Their approaches have been refined to provide “dead bang” proof and account for such irregularities as the placebo effect.  To prove something actually “causes a phenomena” you need to think and act like a scientist!

Start out by …

• Realizing most business managers didn’t get to where they are on “feelings and thinking.” They are numbers people. If you provide them with “ideas” without proof that your ideas will produce measurable results, they will not listen to you. Although they might say they are risk takers (actions speak louder than words) they want to take calculated risks. That need proof that what you propose has worked, or that something similar (each of the individual components) has worked in the past. 
• Knowing the difference between a simple correlation (good) and proving cause and effect (better) 
• Defining your terms in painful detail (using numbers) to ensure we are all talking about and comparing precisely the same thing 
• Knowing that no matter how much work you put in to benchmarking if what you propose isn’t much different from the competitor it doesn’t provide competitive advantage 
• Knowing when you provide any number without other numbers to compare it to you are not providing anything of value 
• Understanding that if you can’t show the process used is logical (in a process map)…you can’t prove anything

Dumb things commonly put forward as proof (don’t fall into the trap)

• Common usage (or everyone uses it). 
• Anything that uses only “words” and presents no data 
• Articles that say it has worked elsewhere 
• Experts that say something works without data to show their accuracy or track record 
• Any statement that begins with “I believe, I feel, or I think” 
• Opinions are not facts. Opinions not gathered in a scientific manner from experts with a proven track record are worthless 
• Surveys of people that use it (and say it works) are generally useless because few will acknowledge what they do is dumb. Results (data) from a cross section of users may be proof but responses to a survey are to be considered opinions from unproven amateurs 
• Vendors who say it works (with or without data) are suspect, even with data, if the data is from less than 10% of the users 
• Textbooks or professors who say it works are likely to be out of date 
• Anecdotal evidence (a story or single incident) is still only a single incident and it is only as good as the accuracy of the person’s memory 
• Asking people if they “think” it worked…or asking why without looking at the data to back it up are questionable 

A good start

• Prove a correlation between the utilization of the program and a change in productivity, output or profit etc. Prove there is a high correlation (above .6) between the factor and success/ performance/ profit 
• Benchmark to see if research (with data) show it works at other firms. Identify the program characteristics, the measures used, and the methodology to collect the data 
• Compare this year's performance to last years. Look at industry comparisons to show how much performance has changed as a result of the implementation…relative to the change in the rest of the industry 
• Conduct a split sample by implementing the solution in a fraction of the business, then collects metrics across the enterprise to show a performance differential between groups that did and did not receive the solution 
• Implement the program on a trial basis, then see what percentage of managers would pay for it on a fee for service basis 
• Internal experts that have been accurate in similar recent predictions (accurate more than 75% of the time) say it will work 
• Outside expert's (consultants or practitioners) can estimate the impact using a repeatable and proven model 
• Look for academic laboratory studies (or controlled environments) that use data to show it generally works 
• The very top performing firms in our industry use it and have proof (data) that it works 
• Rank of program in a forced ranking survey of managers when they are asked what factors (among miscellaneous programs) contributed most to productivity/ profitability improvement.

Real proof

Start with multi-year baseline performance data (with credible numbers). Then show other variables that may impact any cause and effect relationship and prove that they are being isolated or controlled. Show that the underlying “assumptions” are not changing and that they will not impact the past or current cause and effect relationship. Then use some of these “tools”

• Triangulation (using three different measurement methodologies each with independent data that results in the same outcome 
• Use of a pilot (small trial) where a clearly defined subject and control group exists 
• Out-In-Out.  Establish metrics and collect them for a set period of time, then introduce the new program for the same period of time.  One the program is removed, continue to collect the metrics for the specified time period.  The impact should be clearly discernable as a spike when the data is graphed. 

Note: Even if it does produce results make sure it does not have unintended consequences (negative “side” effects that were not expected… for example gaining weight after you stop smoking) that might outweigh the benefits from the original program. Continually check the environment to ensure that the basic conditions are not changing.

NOT EVERYTHING CORRELATES TO PROFIT -AND WHEN IT DOES, PROVING IT CAN BE DIFFICULT

When you are trying to prove that any individual tool or strategy actually "works" in business there is a natural tendency to assume that all good things "cause" profit to occur.  It’s a nice notion, but a flawed one!

Profit is a big thing

The number of factors that influence profit is immense.  As a result, it is often hard to prove that any particular tool or strategy had a direct impact on it. This doesn't mean that these tools don't impact profits, just that the way most corporations collect data and attribute performance make it difficult to directly link any particular tool or action to an increase in profit. 

For example, research and development may do a phenomenal job at modeling a next generation category-killing product only to have that lead eroded by a delay in the migration from design to production to sales and delivery.  This delay could result in a competitor getting to market more quickly, thereby complicating the picture of what could have, would have, and should have been attributed as a correlation between R&D actions and profit.  Another complication is that because so many other unrelated things can increase corporate costs, any impact of a new product may be overridden or mitigated by increased costs from other totally unrelated business areas.

Relationships are hard to prove

Proving that something you do in business (like monitoring the environment effectively) "causes" profits to increase is it difficult task.  That doesn't mean that monitoring the environment doesn't save money or increase revenue it just means the relationship is complex and hard to prove. The fact that something correlates with profits does not mean that the activity caused profits to increase.  There are many things that correlate with each other but that do not guarantee an effect on one another.  A high positive correlation above .6 certainly indicates a high possibility of something that might cause profit but there too many other factors involved to say that any correlation directly proves something cause profit to increase.

An example where correlations fail

One area where a strong correlation tends to exist is executive compensation and corporate performance.  With a few exceptions (Disney for one), increases in executive compensation correlate with increases in corporate performance.  The mere relationship does not prove that increases in executive compensation will cause an increase in profits, or that an increase in profits will cause an increase in executive compensation, although the latter is certainly feasible!

The solution

The secret to proving a profit impact starts with breaking down the different impacts or outputs of the tool you're using to increase profits. 

For example, monitoring and forecasting the environment can only be proven to increase profits if:

• The environmental monitoring and forecasting are accurate; and 
• Managers actually use the data from the forecasts to change the way they manage; and 
• Increases in profit correlate to increases in frequency of change attributed to environmental monitoring and forecasting. 

Conclusion

Be careful when you try to prove an impact on profit, because many managers are skeptical and the reasons to be so are numerous.  The use of the approaches outlined here can work to reduce suspicion, but only if all of the common errors are avoided.  Remember that correlations don't prove anything by themselves. You must show that (using the example of forecasting) the forecast was first accurate and second that it was actually used by management.  Only after proving the first two does demonstrating a correlation between forecasting and profitability take on any worthwhile meaning.  Proving something impacts profit is a desirable thing to do, it's just a very difficult thing to do!

*Reprinted by permission of Dr. John Sullivan.  

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2. Engagement Responding To Talent Challenges* 

By Robert Gandossy who can be contacted at www.wpsmag.com  

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Over the past several years, complacency around talent management has run rampant. When the economy was booming and stocks were soaring in the 1990s, companies were searching for and developing top talent. Innovative approaches to finding talent were being applied as the talent war raged. But with the economic downturn, programs and initiatives for talent disappeared in many places, and the consequences were significant.

Inside many companies, employee morale sits at a record low. Hewitt Associates’ studies on employee engagement with data on more than 4 million employees worldwide show that one out of every two employees is disengaged at work. This kind of disengagement—especially among top performers—has a direct impact on business in the form of high turnover and lost productivity. This widespread feeling among employees may be hard to change after years of neglect. With a more robust economy and more hiring on the horizon, some companies could face a flood of exiting employees.

According to a recent Conference Board report on changing workforce demographics, “the fierce competition for talent during the 1990s will return with a vengeance once the economy recovers.” Many organizations will not be ready to meet the immense talent needs of the future. At most major corporations around the world, 40 percent to 70 percent of all senior executives will be eligible for retirement within the next five years. As these aging baby boomers leave the workforce, there simply will not be enough people to replace them. Most developed nations will see at least a 15 percent drop in the number of men and women of “key leader age”—those in the 35-to-44-year-old range. What’s more, we won’t be able to rely on an increasing number of women entering the workplace to take their place. Female leaders have been leaving Fortune 500 companies at twice the rate of their male counterparts.

As the economy rebounds and baby boomers continue to exit the workforce, companies need to attract and build top talent more than ever. But just where are the people going to come from to fuel growing enterprises?

Not all organizations will be caught unprepared, of course. In spite of the slow economy, top companies always have known better than to drop the ball on talent. With less fanfare and more focus, they continue to wage the war, aggressively investing in targeted talent initiatives that promise the biggest return on investment. By doing so, they are redefining the war for talent and preparing themselves for the talent needs of tomorrow.

Re-Engage the Workforce

Of course, re-engaging the workforce is easier said than done. And in many places, disengagement is so pervasive that it may be irreversible with the existing workforces and current leadership group. Significant churn in the leadership ranks may be necessary before dramatic improvement can be seen. After all, it is hard to imagine a scenario where the leaders that got you into such a state will get you out.

The first step to re-engaging the workforce is to understand the level of employee engagement and the key drivers of disengagement. It is critical to understand engagement from the perspective of key employee populations—leaders, high-performers, high-potentials, new hires and employees with diverse backgrounds. Once the drivers of disengagement are understood, specific strategies for turning it around should be designed.

This is where a number of companies drop the ball. Strategies and tactics should be tested with key managers and leaders to determine whether and to what extent they will make a difference. Too many companies understand engagement but design superficial interventions that miss the mark and actually fuel disengagement when employees feel that they just don’t get it.

The second area that requires attention is who leads the change. A turnaround in employee engagement must unequivocally be led by leaders, not by the human resources department. Leaders must buy in, passionately and visibly model the behaviors they are looking for. If they don’t pay attention to their key people in sincere ways, no one else will either.

Start With Leaders

There are many things that fuel disengagement. Blocked career paths, the lack of opportunity to do meaningful work, recognition and rewards for strong performance, and poor communications are often areas of concern. However, if one thing can make an immediate difference, it is the area of leadership.

Leaders can make a difference in how work gets done, who gets rewarded, what is communicated, and how and when that communication takes place. They can inspire hope and confidence in the enterprise by their clarity of focus, establishing priorities and building momentum for sustained business success. Addressing the leadership challenge takes courage, and the leadership group that is responsible for getting you where you are is not likely to recognize that they are part of the problem.

Build a Global Talent Supply Chain

The movement of work from high-cost to lower-cost labor markets—sometimes known as global sourcing or offshoring—is changing the way business gets done. It is a global talent supply chain managed much the same way that successful companies run the supply chain for the rest of the business. It is a profound, irreversible and often controversial trend, shaping the agendas of governments, unions, work councils and execution throughout the world. One prediction is that by 2015, the total offshoring of jobs by U.S. companies will represent $135 billion in wages and 3.3 million professional jobs.

If labor shortages do loom on the horizon, tapping into the world’s labor supply becomes increasingly important—something many leading companies recognized long ago. Well ahead of others, General Electric has had an ambitious sourcing strategy for some time. Former CEO Jack Welch used a simple guideline to convey his vision for offshoring: 70:70:70. He urged GE leaders to consider outsourcing 70 percent of business processes, offshoring 70 percent of the outsourcing work and setting up 70 percent of the offshore operations in India. Currently GE employs about 25,000 people in India. The company also has global processing centers in China and Mexico and is establishing operations in Eastern Europe, where workers will provide IT support, accounting services and call-center support around the clock. “The real advantage,” said one GE executive, “is that we can tap into the world’s best talent.”

But tapping into the world’s best talent is fraught with significant challenges. Moving work around the world has many unanticipated costs and can create a high degree of nervousness—and disengagement—for vulnerable employees. In addition, building the global talent supply chain requires an infrastructure to identify, manage and develop this diverse pool. While the difficulties are great, the modern enterprise that fails to tap these talent pools does so at its own peril.

Create a Rigorous Talent Review Process

Over the past decade, a number of leading companies have created systemic processes for evaluating and developing talent. These processes have their roots in structured ranking systems of the past.

Many of these company-wide systems are modeled after GE’s famed Session C. The process at GE begins every year when hundreds of thousands of GE employees complete an online self-assessment of their accomplishments, adherence to GE’s values, their developmental goals and their career aspirations. At the same time, they update their internal résumés—jobs they’ve held and educational experiences—used for GE’s global internal posting systems. Supervisors and managers complete a similar evaluation on each employee and then meet for an open discussion.

These individual evaluations flow upward, in a reverse cascade, through every department, function, geography and business unit. Unit by unit, managers and leaders of departments meet and discuss the talent they have and the talent they need. In May of each year, CEO Jeff Immelt visits each of GE’s 13 business units for full-day Session C meetings, starting in the early morning and progressing late into the night. The dialogue is rich and open. Talent discussions on GE’s top 500 positions are intertwined with business challenges, needs and key initiatives like Six Sigma or digitalization. These strategic priorities are inseparable from the discussion of talent.

Of course, there are differences across companies. Many do not rank, as GE does, but the core elements are the same. Through self-assessments by employees, open discussions with managers, calibration of performance and potential with other managers and the reverse cascade, discussions bubble up through the organization. These discussions are closely linked to business imperatives and needs and are clearly led by leaders, not HR. 

Robert Gandossey is global practice leader for talent and organization consulting at Hewitt Associates. He can be reached at rgandossy@wpsmag.com.

Critical Challenges

With all of the rigor around talent management in many companies, there are several emerging challenges for leadership teams to consider:

The Danger of Narrowing the Gene Pool and the Risk of Homogeneity

The disciplines of finding and growing talent can pose several problems. Often, talent selection and promotion are based on the capabilities needed today, not in the future. By narrowing the gene pool, companies develop strength for the past, but do not prepare themselves for future needs. An organization can have strong operational capabilities—and even can be considered one of the best at execution. But as the company strategy has shifted to more top-line growth, it may not have the people needed to drive the business.

A strategic leadership matrix (SLM) helps identify the few vital capabilities needed by their leaders. (See Figure 1.) The matrix combines two critical dimensions—the amount of change facing the business and the degree of growth or return in a company’s strategy—to understand the type of leaders and leadership systems needed in a business. Using tools like this provides the opportunity to select leaders for the right roles, given their experiences and capabilities. For instance, a leader who is strong in operational excellence is not a strong candidate for an entrepreneurial role in a dynamic environment. At the same time, the matrix allows leadership teams to plot existing strengths and capabilities against future needs and then develop strategies to close critical gaps.

The second concern is that, ironically, as companies become more rigorous and systemic in their approach to talent management, they may become more homogeneous, not more diverse. Managers and leaders often look for mirror images of themselves. Despite good intentions, the company may inadvertently become less diverse as managers systematically select people more like themselves.

Building a robust measurement system is key to ensuring that regularly sourced talent is from global talent pools and that key ratios around gender, race and ethnicity are monitored. Fostering distinctions in talent review sessions and being explicit about developing talent is another critical step.

Pygmalion Revisited: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A Harvard Business Review article, “Pygmalion in Management,” by J. Sterling Livingston, pointed out the dangers of focusing too much too soon and too subjectively on certain people. Early impressions can shape what we observe, and employees carry a halo effect so that areas where they excel spill over into manager’s perceptions about areas where they do not. “Performance” or “potential” becomes self-fulfilling, and reputation, rather than contribution, paves the way.

As human resource systems attempt to identify strong talent earlier and earlier in a career, the self-fulfilling tendency is a real danger. Some individuals are tagged as high-potentials when they haven’t done anything.

Being aware of this tendency is the first defense. Careful attention to performance plans and actual contributions—not how they are represented—is another key. Using some form of 360-degree feedback to obtain a balanced perspective and talent review discussions like GE’s Session C will provide a well-rounded view. Finally, follow P&G’s lead by focusing emerging leaders to spend more time in their jobs before taking the next promotion. P&G calls this “living with your own mess” and believes the practice provides more insight into actual performance and potential.

To Rank, or Not to Rank

There are few topics around managing talent that engender fiercer debate than forced ranking. Many companies rank their employees either explicitly or implicitly, behind closed doors. GE is the most notable and visible company that ranks employees, but surveys show about 20 percent of companies rank, and the percentage appears to be growing.

Proponents argue there is no better way to truly calibrate performance across business units and function. Ranking reduces the rating inflation that characterizes so many performance management systems and does a better job of differentiating the best—and the worst—from the rest.

Those who oppose these processes say they are nothing more than systems to identify the weak—not vehicles to promote high-performance. The yearly spasm substitutes for a process that should be ongoing, regular and more consistent. Ranking disrupts teamwork and pits employees against one another. It penalizes high-performing groups as managers are forced to identify the worst of the best. Critics further argue that it’s stressful for managers and employees and causes managers to under-invest in the development and coaching of average or mediocre performers. Furthermore, ranking may lead to legal exposure, as Ford Motor Company discovered when it had to abandon its forced ranking process when it was hounded by lawyers from the AARP, who claimed the process discriminated against older workers.

As with many things in talent management, there is no right answer. Ranking can and does work for some companies. Where there is rigor and regular and consistent performance discussions and employees know the rules of the road, it can be quite effective. Sometimes it’s a matter of timing. To those who need forced discipline around performance and where there is some time urgency, ranking may be an appropriate intervention until business conditions change or performance discussions become more normative. In these situations, managers need a lot of training and support, facilitated talent review discussions by consultants or HR professionals and strong communications with all employees.

However, there are many situations where ranking simply is not appropriate. It may be countercultural, inconsistent with established values and beliefs or the disruption may not be worth the pain. Even here, however, the question remains—how to differentiate levels of contribution? Many companies take the approach that performance should be evaluated against established goals and job responsibilities. This allows managers to keep motivation high by assessing people against agreed-upon goals and objectives. These companies may then stipulate some differentiation on pay, but not the performance rating.

*Reprinted by permission of 

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3. Great Expectations

From Hewitt Associates; Hewitt Online Magazine who can be contacted at www.hewitt.com 

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When it comes to HR delivery, employees expect the same level of access and convenience they experience as consumers, especially on the Internet. With a thoughtful design, employers can provide these kinds of customer experiences—via the Web, printed materials, and service center—and this can lead to better business results.

The on-boarding process is crucial. 

For new hires, the first days at work can validate their choice of an employer—or dampen their enthusiasm for the job. The typical on-boarding process may not always make a good first impression, according to Christi Rager Wise, the Global Service Leader for Customer Experience at Hewitt Associates. "I think most HR managers would agree that the process often seems disjointed from the employee's perspective," she says. "Employees eager to get to work must focus instead on filling out forms and navigating a number of systems to get the information they need to get started." 

Inefficient on-boarding hurts employers, too. "There's a lot of synchronization of HR data required to process a new hire," says Wise. "The more steps and paper involved, the more costly the process." 

To make on-boarding as smooth as possible, Hewitt's employee Web site, myHR®, pulls data from a variety of back-end systems and guides the new hire through the process via an integrated checklist. "Having an integrated checklist on our site gives new hires a single place to go for all the HR-related information and tools they need in their first days on the job," says Wise. 

From the checklist, new hires can access data about pay and benefits, complete an orientation session, and perform routine tasks such as documenting beneficiaries. They can also set up retirement savings accounts and authorize direct deposit of their paycheck. The service center is always available for those who need further assistance. 

By making the on-boarding process easy and accessible, Hewitt is helping employers to harness the enthusiasm of new hires and free them to be productive from the start. It's one example of Hewitt's focus on creating customer experiences that lead to better business results. 

Creating the Customer Experience

Today's employees have great expectations, based on their experiences as consumers, especially on the Web. "Employees can go to the Web for instant insurance quotes, create a customized Yahoo page, get personalized recommendations from Amazon.com, and have any number of other easy, intuitive experiences online," says Wise. "They expect their employers to deliver the same level of access and convenience when it comes to HR." 

In addition to the Web, delivering a great experience requires a service center where employees can go for assistance, and print and email communications that can educate employees about the services and options available to them. "The customer will access your services and brand through a variety of touch points," says Wise. "How well those channels work together will determine the quality of the overall experience." 

To enable channels to work together smoothly, systems integration is essential, and a key reason why Hewitt invests as much as 20% of revenues each year on HR technology. The right technology platform can provide consistent data across channels and the ability to move easily between channels—two more attributes of a good customer experience. That might mean, for instance, that an employee reviewing retirement plan options online can phone the service center with a question, and a customer service representative can provide assistance while viewing the same screen. 

Where to Focus 

Hewitt incorporates these fundamentals in designing solutions for clients, and builds on lessons learned from more than 60 years of HR experience, as well as current service delivery to more than 18 million employees and retirees worldwide. Based on the knowledge gained through delivery and experimentation, Hewitt has identified four areas of focus that are essential to creating customer experiences that satisfy employees while achieving business objectives. 

1. Focus on the customer. That means understanding customers' needs and designing solutions to meet them. To do that, Hewitt's solutions team worked with the Seybold Group to implement a rigorous process of segmenting employees and mapping the needs of each segment. 

The first lesson the team learned from this process is that the most frequent activity of "savers" in the United States is checking their 401(k) balances, which requires three clicks from the benefits home page. So the team made the 401(k) page the first page you see. 

Then, the team focused on promoting better decisions by employees who visit the site to check their balances. To help employees achieve their retirement goals, the team added personalized action tips for different employee segments. Wise explains, "If you're not participating up to the company match, you get a personalized message encouraging you to increase your contribution. If you're not contributing at all, you get a different message prompting you to get started. You're able to see an account projection of what your balance could be by the time you're 65. You can click on the Start Saving button to immediately begin saving." 

The team also developed a targeted print and email strategy to reach the "non-savers," who are less likely to visit the Web site since they don't have a balance to check. 

This multichannel approach helped to raise the retirement savings rate of "non-savers" at one company by 13%. "What customers experience is precisely relevant to them and easy for them to act on," Wise points out. 

2. Focus on critical moments in the customer interaction. These typically are defined by an important event, such as on-boarding; a frequent activity, such as balance checking; a milestone event, such as going on leave; or a decision that can't be modified for a defined period of time, such as annual enrollment in the United States. Delivering a great experience during critical moments is crucial, since that's when employees make decisions or take actions that make an impact, on themselves and their employers. 

For a client that had a 25% Spanish-speaking population, in addition to the already-in-place bilingual service center, the solutions team translated the Web site in an attempt to provide an enrollment alternative for this important and growing segment. Despite predictions that a good portion of the Spanish-speaking employees in the pilot would use the Web, only 4% went online, and those who did hardly strayed from the enrollment path. The majority of Spanish speakers chose to use the service center. "These results will help us to create the right customer experience for this segment. When it comes to choosing channels, it's the customers who decide what's right for them," says Wise. 

3. Focus on mutual objectives to achieve business results. The best HR solutions achieve outcomes that matter to employers and employees alike. "A solution has to benefit employees, or you won't get the desired behavior needed to achieve your business goals," says Wise. 

For example, an early version of Hewitt's health care Web site made it easy for employees to find doctors near home or work. Then, the solutions team learned that 30% of all health care outlays result from poor-quality care, which translates to $420 billion a year in the United States alone.1 

Armed with the research data, the team began testing a new design for the provider search tool. The new tool encourages employees to use quality rather than proximity to home or office as the key criterion when seeking care. 

Both sides benefit from the redesign. Employees spend less time in the hospital, return to work sooner, and stay healthier. This reduces health care expenses for employers and for employees, who are being asked to share more of the cost burden. 

4. Focus on the system as a whole. Focusing on one channel in isolation can be misleading, as Hewitt learned from a pilot to boost Web enrollment. The solutions team was pleased that 77% of employees enrolled online—until they learned of the high volume of calls to the service center from employees wanting to verify that their Web enrollment was complete. A simple solution—emailing confirmation statements—reduced the call volume by 56%. 

Ongoing Experimentation 

"In many organizations, development ends when a product is rolled out," says Wise. "We're committed to seeking out the customers' point of view and responding to their feedback, before and after deployment." 

The team meets with customers throughout the year, to observe firsthand how deployed solutions work. "Sometimes we're testing new concepts or prototypes. Other times we're refining solutions that have already been deployed. Our lab is in the field, where the customers are," says Wise. "We visit at least 15 different employers in a year, and we sit down with 10 to 12 employees during each visit. We watch how employees respond to print communication, navigate the Web site, and use the automated voice response system. We listen to what they say about their experience—What's easy? Where do they get stuck? Then we go back and make changes. The insights gained from working directly with customers help us to develop solutions that work in the real world." 

One recent insight emerged from a pilot to test a new retirement savings Web page. "Our initial approach focused on making people aware that they may not be prepared to retire," says Wise. When that generated negative feedback, the team tried a more positive approach that showed the impact of small increases in monthly contributions. A button that had read "Are you saving enough?" was changed to "See how your savings can grow." When employees click on the new link, a graph shows how small savings can add up to substantial retirement income. "We got a much better response with messages that focused on what they could accomplish, rather than on the gap between their current savings and their retirement needs," says Wise. 

Once a solution has been deployed and refined, Hewitt measures customer satisfaction on a regular basis. (Measuring the success of HR service delivery is a broad topic that will be the focus of a feature in the next issue of Hewitt magazine.) Eventually, by mining data from 13 million calls to Hewitt's service center annually and more than a billion Web interactions each year, it may be possible to predict the outcomes of alternative approaches to service delivery, and provide for even better customer experiences. 

In the meantime, Hewitt continues to combine experience and experimentation to create great customer experiences that lead to better business results. "In addition to solutions that we're developing for broad deployment, and others that are being piloted, we have some solutions in the concept-testing phase," says Wise. That includes a total benefits decision-making model that's designed to encourage employees to consider all of their benefits in the context of their present and their future. "We'll always have a portfolio of solutions strategies in various stages of development," says Wise. "We'll always be experimenting."  

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4. Book Review: Distraction – Being Human In The Digital Age

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# Distraction – Being Human In The Digital Age

By Mark Curtis, Futuretext, 2005

Buy this book at http://www.kalahari.net/e-trader/referral.asp?toolbar=mweb&linkid=5&partnerid=293&sku=28382095 

Is it possible for individual humans to deal elegantly with the abundant communication possibilities of the modern world? Are we in danger of paying more attention to the potential of a text message than the here and now around us? 

Obsessed with what we can do with our mobile phones and the web, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, because so much is changing and so fast. We are distracted by it. 

This book steps back to look at our use of new technology and draws some uncomfortable and challenging conclusions about what society may need to do to get the best, not the worst, out of the digital era.

As we seek to find ways to incorporate the web, e-mail and mobile phones into our lives, it is clear that the boundaries between private and public space are breaking down.

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5. Case Law & Legislation Review: Trade Unions Registration, Cancellation or Change of Name

By Gary Watkins who can be contacted at www.worknfo.com 

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 Western Cape Workers Association VS Minister of Labour

Judgment date  11 March 2005, Labour Court, Judge Pillay J

Subject Trade Unions and Employer Organisations

Registration, Cancellation or Change of Name

Issue:  This case was an appeal in terms of section 111 of the Labour Relations Act against the decision of the registrar of labour to deregister the applicant as a Trade Union.  The applicant submits that the appeal should be dealt with in terms of the promotion of administrative justice act 3 of 2000 (PAJA).  The court held that PAJA does not apply to labour disputes and the application failed.

Summary of facts:  The applicant was registered as a Trade Union in 1997. Since its registration, it had failed to comply with numerous requirements which were imposed on Trade Unions and in particular it’s audited financial statements.  The registrar called upon the applicant to make representations within 60 days as to why the Unions registration should not be cancelled.  This invitation was published in the Government Gazette and sent to the applicant by letter.

The Registrar of trade unions informed the applicant that he was not persuaded by the representations he had received from the union and cancelled the registration of the applicant on 18 November 2004.  It was also common cause that the applicant failed to comply with the various requests from the Registrar.  The non compliance of these requests persisted for more than seven years and the applicant had been provided with the opportunity to comply and make representations in order to prevent the cancellation of its registration.  After the deregistration of the Union by the registrar, the Union complied with the requests.  When the decision was taken to deregister the Union, the registrar was well within the bounds of exercising a reasonable discretion as the Union had not complied with the law for a period of seven years.

Summary of Judgment:  The registrar’s discretion was unassailable in all the circumstances.  The applicant was entrusted with public funds and had to account for these funds properly in terms of the legislation.  The applicant brought the appeal in terms of section 111 of the LRA 1995, however, submitted that the appeal should have been dealt with in terms of the PAJA and in support thereof referred to section 33(3) of the Constitution pertaining to just administrative action.

It was held that the LRA is national legislation designed for labour disputes, including administrative law type disputes arising in labour law.  The PAJA is also national legislation but does not apply to labour disputes.  Section 210 of the LRA makes it clear that if there is any conflict relating to matters dealt with in the LRA between the LRA and the provisions of any other law except the constitution, then the provisions of the LRA must prevail.  The procedures, time limits and requirements of the PAJA and the LRA differ substantially from each other and it was held that the PAJA does not apply to this dispute.  

The application was dismissed on the facts as well as on the law and the Union organizer was directed to pay the costs of the application.

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6. Downloads: March Edition of The Leadership Excellence Magazine 

From Human Capital Institute; www.humancapitalinstitute.org

Please note the file size: 5.23 MB

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 Mission

The Human Capital Institute is a rapidly growing professional organization, thinktank and clearinghouse for the newest ideas and most innovative strategies in human capital management. We are an association of over 10,000 human capital and business leaders who share a belief that talented people will become the most powerful competitive differentiators in the first decades of the knowledge age. The future is here; and as traditional HR and command-and-control management structures are commoditized, outsourced and offshored, the next generation of leaders must know how to attract game-changing high performers, then engage, empower and unleash their creativity. Leadership Excellence HCI?s Journal of Human Capital Leadership provides a monthly digest of creative, value-centered ideas and strategies for talent management, organizational and leadership development. Each issue features up to 20 of the world?s most recognized thought leaders and practitioners who share innovative new strategies and next-practices for acquiring, developing and leading top talent.  

Our Publisher 

Executive Excellence Publishing was founded by Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard to help professionals find wiser, better ways to live life and lead their organizations. Today it is a publisher of timely and timeless articles authored by an elite group of academic, consulting and corporate leaders.  

Content and Contributors 

Leadership Excellence is full of cutting-edge content from an unprecedented range of regular contributors and new voices. Features regularly focus on Learning, Competencies, Ethics, Vision, Performance, Innovation and Change Management.  Below is a partial list of contributors to Leadership Excellence.

Download a copy of the journal at http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/HCI_LE_0306.pdf 

>> Gary Hamel 

>> Dave Ulrich 

>> Peter F. Drucker 

>> Warren Bennis 

>> Tom Peters 

>> Peter Senge 

>> Marcus Buckingham 

>> Rosabeth Kanter 

>> Ken Blanchard 

>> Harvey MacKay 

>> Stephen R. Covey 

>> Ram Charan 

>> Jim Collins 

>>  Wheatley

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