SOUTH AFRICA'S most widely distributed & read INDEPENDENT HUMAN RESOURCE PUBLICATION
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| Equity-Skills
News & Views SOUTH AFRICA'S most widely distributed & read INDEPENDENT HUMAN RESOURCE PUBLICATION
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| Equity Skills News & Views Volume 4, Issue 15, 15 August 2005 Registered as an electronic newspaper: ISSN 1684-5722 ------------------------------------ In This edition 1. Heading For The Fast Track? New Studies Examine Who Gets Promoted
And Why ------------------------------------ Is your company spending valuable time and resources handling disciplinary issues? Does your business contribute to the 130 000 cases at the CCMA each year? Is your share of the R14 000 000 000 in South African industrial relations costs affecting profitability? Take the next logical step in people management and protect your organisation. To find out more about "The IR Protector" visit www.workinfo.com/sponsors/irprotect.htm Brought to you by Workinfo.com and Camargue, Hollard's labour dispute specialists. ------------------------------------ NB: If your Internet service provider (ISP) or server administrator filters incoming e-mail, please add Equity Skills News & Views to your list of approved senders to ensure you receive this e-journal to which you are subscribed. Jeff Sacht: Publisher-editor www.equityskillsweb.com jeffs@worldonline.co.za 'A MUST TO PRINT & READ' 30,000+ AND STILL GROWING! ----------------------------------- SABPP HR REVIEW 2005 - book now! ----------------------------------- # How will the proposed HR Bill be implemented? # How will this affect Business, Industrial Psychologists, Labour Relations and other HR professions? # Where are we now in this process? # Should you be registering all your HR people? Date: 9 September 2005 Time: Register at 13h00, starting at 14h00 to cocktails and 17h30 Venue: SBL auditorium Sasol 3, Midrand (ask us for a map) Fee: R100.00 + VAT = R114.00 Bookings: Email membership@sabpp.co.za with all your details; Fax us at 011 773-6224; Telephone Barbara at: 011 773-6222 Details for payment: SABPP, Standard Bank Parktown, Account number 200468308 Fax proof of payment to 011 773-6224 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Heading For The Fast Track? New Studies Examine Who Gets Promoted And Why ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe Oprah Winfrey knew something about workplace dynamics that other people didn't. Winfrey, of course, is the multimillionaire founder of a media empire that includes not only her syndicated talk show but also O magazine, a members-only website, books and even weight-loss camps. By choosing self-employment over working for a TV station or network -- she began her career as a news anchor in Nashville -- Winfrey may have avoided a pitfall for many black women in the workplace, namely, being stuck in their jobs. Black women are less likely to be promoted than males and white women, according to a group of labor economists and human resource specialists who recently gathered at Wharton. Even as two big labor unions decided this week to defect from the AFL-CIO, claiming that it had failed to stop declining union membership or push hard enough for labor reform, participants in a conference entitled "Careers and Career Transitions: New Evidence for a New Economy" debated the alchemy of promotion -- who gets it, when and why. The conference was organized by Wharton's Center for Human Resources and sponsored by career transitions firm DBM. Scholars presented evidence from different places -- Fortune 500 companies, call centers, Canadian firms -- and parsed it in various ways. But two findings arose repeatedly: Minority females are less likely than others to win promotions, and white males are more likely to. Other studies probed the dynamics of promotion -- including the concept of the "fast track," the effect of corporate restructurings on professional advancement and the likelihood of promotion for insiders vs. recent outside hires, among other things. The goal of the conference was to understand how modern labor markets operate -- nearly everyone agreed that today's economy appears to allow for more employee mobility among firms -- and what this means for workers. "An overarching theme was thinking about what determines career ladders within firms," said Wharton professor of business and public policy Justin Wolfers. "There's room for a number of different views here. Some scholars believe managerial policies matter. Some think demographic differences do. And if you think about types of managerial policies, some firms have what academics call internal labor markets, and some regard employees as, in effect, being bought and sold on the spot market." The Fast Track and the "Peter Principle" Pablo Acosta, a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, presented research based on the personnel records of a single U.S. corporation. Like several of his colleagues, he found that whites, males and more educated workers had a higher probability of being promoted. Nothing radical there, but as he sifted through the data he was able to test two pieces of conventional workplace wisdom. The first was the "fast track," the idea that companies often have an accelerated evaluation and promotion path for people who have been designated as stars early in their careers. The second was the famed "Peter Principle," which says that workers rise to the level of their incompetence and then stall. It was formulated by Laurence J. Peter, an education professor who taught at the University of Southern California. In a paper titled, "Promotions, State Dependence and Intrafirm Job Mobility: Insiders vs. New Hires," Acosta found that fast tracks didn't seem to exist in any systematic or firm-wide way. If they did, previous promotions should lead to a higher probability of future promotion, but that wasn't the case. In contrast, his analysis suggested that the Peter Principle did exist. He discovered that outsiders had an advantage over insiders when competing for a higher position. In theory, if an insider had risen to his or her level of incompetence, he or she would then be less likely to get promoted. Of course, an equally likely explanation would be "the grass is always greener" phenomenon -- or, put in the corporate context, companies like newer hires not because their longtime employees are incompetent but because people have a tendency to overvalue unfamiliar candidates and undervalue known ones. That might explain the tendency of companies to seek out savior CEOs from the outside, as, for example, Hewlett-Packard did -- with little success -- when it hired Carly Fiorina, or as IBM did, with much better results, when it brought in Lou Gerstner. Like Acosta, John Dencker of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigated promotions within a single large U.S. firm. His research was aimed at determining what happened to employees after restructurings. The company he examined, a manufacturer, experienced major layoffs in the mid-1980s, reworked its means of employee evaluation in the late '80s and underwent another round of layoffs in the early '90s. Dencker, in a paper titled, "Organizational Structure, Gender, and the Influence of Corporate Reorganization on Employee Promotion Patterns," focused on white-collar employees because he says that they were disproportionately targeted in layoffs in the '90s. During that time, middle managers accounted for 20% of job losses but only 10% of the workforce. The first round of layoffs at the firm studied by Dencker appeared to turbocharge the careers of managers who survived it: Their promotion rates increased. And that makes sense. A firm would want to try to keep its best people, and thus it effectively signals that layoff survivors are top performers. But promotion rates decreased after the firm reformed its means of employee evaluation. Specifically, the firm moved from a system based mainly on seniority to one based mainly on performance. Interestingly, though, the promotion rate for female employees rose after the change. Dencker couldn't explain this. Despite doing follow-up interviews with executives, he could find little evidence of a concerted effort to advance women. What's more, "a search for legal rulings failed to uncover any evidence that the firm had engaged in blatant discriminatory practices in the past," he says. After the second layoff, promotion rates also dipped. This drop suggests that the firm may have moved from a closed employment relationship, where it relied on promotions to reward good performance, to an open one, where, for example, it might rely on "short-term, market-driven rewards such as bonuses," Dencker says. The Influence of Race and Gender A pair of papers presented at the conference took direct aim at the influence of race and gender on promotions. In one, Margaret Yap, a professor at Ryerson University in Canada, explored promotions at a large Canadian company. In the second, Nancy DiTomaso, a professor at Rutgers University, and four co-authors investigated the same issues among scientists and engineers at multiple firms. Before digging into any statistical analysis, Yap examined simple percentages and found that, in her selected company, whites were more likely to be promoted than nonwhites, men were more likely than women, and white males were more likely than white females or minorities of either gender. "This simple comparison of gross promotion rates indicates . . . that minority females seem to suffer a double whammy in their prospect for career advancement," she writes. White males also earned more on average -- $68,000 -- compared with $64,000 for minority men and $54,300 for women. Yap then split the firm's employees, looking separately at lower-level employees and senior managers. At the lower level, white males had the highest promotion rate. But at the senior level, white and minority females beat them, while minority males still lagged. Yap applied a variety of statistical tests to her findings, and the results held: White men were the most likely to receive promotions, even when other workers appeared equally or even more qualified. This led her to conclude that "systemic barriers must have existed in the company's policies, programs and practices." Many would feel that Yap's conclusion is tentative: After all, she examined a single firm. And one doesn't need to look far to find examples of individual firms that have discriminated against one group of employees or another -- or at least have been accused of it. Earlier this month, a male violinist sued the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, accusing it of favoring female violinists. And an arbitration panel ruled that Merrill Lynch had to rehire a female financial consultant against whom it had discriminated. Last year, the panel ruled that Merrill had exhibited a pattern of gender discrimination. Another New York investment bank and brokerage, Morgan Stanley, paid $54 million last year to settle accusations that it, too, had discriminated against women. DiTomaso and her co-authors tried to overcome what researchers call the "small-sample problem" by examining promotions of scientists and engineers at 24 firms. Like Yap, they found an advantage for white males. White male scientists had greater control over the content of their work, which the authors regard as a key driver of professional satisfaction among scientists and engineers, and received higher performance ratings. Interestingly, "[white males] receive greater access to favorable work experiences and higher performance ratings no matter who is rating them," the authors note. In other words, they are well rated by fellow white males and by minority females. The authors found no evidence that firms knew they were favoring white males. In fact, interviews and focus groups revealed that white males themselves tended to feel "disadvantaged vis-a-vis other groups, owing to what they perceive as their employers' emphasis on workplace diversity." The only group whom the authors found to be consistently disadvantaged was U.S.-born black females. All other groups experienced what the authors call "the absence of advantage," that is, no special advantage or, for that matter, disadvantage. "The process by which U.S.-born white men accrue advantage -- by receiving favorable treatment in the workplace that then helps them become more competent and worthy which then reinforces the belief that people like them are competent in these kinds of jobs -- has important consequences," the authors conclude. "Since no one is ostensibly guilty of discrimination, ill will or intentional unfairness, without attention to favoritism as well as discrimination, there is no remedy for those who either lack favor or suffer disfavor." *Reprinted under license agreement with Wharton Business School, University Of Pennsylvania. ------------------------------------ THE IR PROTECTOR ------------------------------------ Is your company spending valuable time and resources handling disciplinary issues? Does your business contribute to the 130 000 cases at the CCMA each year? Is your share of the R14 000 000 000 in South African industrial relations costs affecting profitability? Take the next logical step in people management and protect your organisation. To find out more about "The IR Protector" visit www.workinfo.com/sponsors/irprotect.htm Brought to you by Workinfo.com and Camargue, Hollard's labour dispute specialists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Accenture Study: Recruiting, Retention Top Priority for Senior Execs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Attracting and retaining skilled staff ranks highest on executive agendas for 2005, according to a global study released by Accenture. The study, which Accenture conducts annually, comprised interviews with 425 senior executives at leading organizations in North America, Europe and Asia to identify and prioritize the issues of greatest concern to senior management, understand how their priorities shift over time and identify key forces behind the issues. Workforce improvement-issues dominated the top priorities, comprising four of the 10 most-selected concerns, including the top two. For instance, the greatest number of respondents, 35 percent, selected "attracting and retaining skilled staff," followed by 33 percent who selected "changing organizational cultural and employee attitudes." Other workforce issues in the top 10 are "improving workforce performance" (selected by 28 percent to rank 7th) and "developing employees into capable leaders" (selected by 26 percent to rank 10th). "The most powerful theme emerging this year is a strong and consistent focus on people," said Peter Cheese, global managing partner of Accenture's Human Performance practice. "Even though the business conversations have centered on global competition and the need for execution, business leaders are increasingly aware that nothing happens unless people-talent is engaged in the right way." Customer-retention issues also occupy top spots on executive agendas. Both "acquiring new customers" (32 percent) and "increasing customer loyalty and retention" (29 percent) were popular responses across all countries surveyed. Innovation also rose on the executive agenda, ranking relatively higher and making it back into the list of top 10 issues on executives' list. "Developing new processes and products to stay ahead of the competition" is the fourth-highest-ranked executive concern, selected by 29 percent of respondents. Another top 10 issue is "being flexible and adaptable to rapidly changing market conditions," selected by 26 percent. "Innovation, like expansion, seems to be an issue that rises in importance when the economy improves. That may be natural, but it is also short-sighted," said Cheese. "Innovation should never be out of mind - possibly even more so in tough times." The only IT issue in the top 10 is "using IT to reduce costs and create value," selected by 27 percent of respondents to rank 8th, a sharp decline from its number two ranking in each of the past two years. "Although ranked relatively lower, the use of IT continues to be a major focus, as businesses are becoming more demanding in driving value from IT in the form of improving employees' productivity, engagement and capabilities," said Cheese. As part of an annual study to identify senior executives' top concerns, Accenture conducted a survey of 425 senior executives at many of the world's largest organizations across all major industries and the public sector in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and Canada. Respondents included executives at the highest levels of senior management ("C-suite" executives) as well as heads of key functional areas, such as human resources. Fieldwork was conducted from October 2004 through January 2005. Top 10 Current Business Issues For Senior Executives 1. Attracting and retaining skilled staff. (35%) 2. Changing organizational culture and employee attitudes. (33%) 3. Acquiring new customers. (32%) 4. Developing new processes and products to stay ahead of the competition. (29%) 5. Increasing customer loyalty and retention. (29%) 6. Managing risks. (29%) 7. Improving workforce performance. (28%) 8. Increasing shareholder value. (27%) 8. Using IT to reduce costs and create value. (27%) 10. Being flexible and adaptable to rapidly changing market conditions. (26%) 10. Developing employees into capable leaders. (26%) For more information: http://www.accenture.com/ ------------------------------------ IN-COMPANY WORKSHOP: MANAGING FOR DIVERSITY (NOW UPDATED & ENLARGED) ------------------------------------ An Intensive and Practical 2- DAY MANAGEMENT/ SUPERVISOR WORKSHOP to develop insight and self-knowledge about intercultural competence and enhance your capacity to work with a diverse workforce. Contact Jeff Sacht to request a workshop flyer and to arrange an in-company workshop customised to your requirements. Facilitation is charged on a realistic daily rate and not a per person cost. Also available as a web download for self-delivery/in-house use under license agreement. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Talent: A Breed Apart? By Alison Coleman who can be contacted at www.brassring.com/en/html/index.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Are people still seen as an organisation's most valuable asset? Business leaders are quick to say that they are, but when it comes to that other pet sound bite - the war for talent - they may not be referring to all of their supposedly most prized assets. Talent management, by definition, means nurturing and developing those people identified as having ability and potential, and it should form part of any organisation's recruitment and retention strategy. Many organisations are only really worried about retaining and developing their top talent and 'hi-pos' But increasingly, when organisation talk about talent and its management, many are only really worried about retaining and developing their top talent and 'hi-pos' - individuals with the highest potential. It's an issue that rankles with many HR and business experts, including Chris Bones, the Principal of Henley Management College. He says, "There is a world of difference between talent and the potential to lead an organisation. Ascribing the label 'talent' to the very limited number of people who could actually run an organisation is a perfect example of the way organisations are actually failing to see people as a valuable asset." So how should organisations define talent? One web dictionary definition describes talent as a 'special aptitude, faculty or gift' of a person. Is it aligned with great intelligence? Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, 'I have no particular talents. I am merely inquisitive.' So maybe not, although some might argue that an inquisitive mind and a thirst for knowledge are qualities associated with talented people. In their book 'Managing Talented People', authors Alan Robertson and Graham Abbey depict highly talented people as a breed apart, with very different values and levels of motivation from the majority of people. They described an elite band of high-impact, but high-maintenance individuals who think differently - and faster - and get bored more readily; need different kinds of challenges, and can deal with more complexity, but are more complex in themselves. They get frustrated more readily and express themselves readily. In short, they are a different kind of person, and they need a different kind of management. While no one would argue that managing talent at a senior level has an integral role to play in meeting the strategic challenges of an organisation, it can overshadow the wealth of talent waiting to be developed elsewhere, and which in some ways, can be more important to the organisation. Tom Crawford, director of solutions consulting at Bernard Hodes says: "As we continue move towards a service-based economy the biggest impact on the consumer comes from those people working at ground level. "It is their performance that determines whether or not a customer decides to come back to the business. That talent also needs to be nurtured and developed." The definition of talent also varies enormously between sectors - the talent exhibited by an individual in a supermarket will be different to those of someone who works in an airport. He also points out that talented people are not necessarily ambitious, but deserve the same amount of investment in their development as those who are. Crawford says, "In a values-led, worklife balance-conscious society, many of those individuals who would once have doggedly pursued ambitious career paths, are quite content to reach a certain level in their career and stay there. "They are no less committed to their job, and therefore no less important to an organisation than the high fliers chasing the top positions." The Institute of Management, meanwhile, defines talent management as a means of identifying, releasing, and guiding untapped potential in people. This implies not only being able to manage those bright high flyers that are hungry for success, but also adopting a flexible and developmental approach to all members of staff. But talent management is more than just another HR process. It requires a holistic and integrated approach, because in spite of the idea that talent is a natural ability, left undeveloped, it could remain dormant and hidden forever. Henley's Chris Bones is inclined to agree. A talent management strategy, he says, should be one hundred per cent inclusive, and not focused purely on leadership development. "There are only three things that can bring competitive advantage to a company," says Bones. "Its brand, the technology it uses to produce a patented product - which is becoming increasingly rare these days - and its people. "It is the people who work for you and no one else who leverage the strengths of your brand and your technology to achieve that competitive advantage." *Reprinted by permission of the author ------------------------------------ Does Your Company Culture Block The Implementation Of Equity Initiatives ------------------------------------ Renewal Resources provide a family of client proven instruments and change processes to assess organization effectiveness. Each is designed to develop the effectiveness of individuals, teams, sales professionals, the organisation and its performance management systems and processes. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za for a brochure of the survey assessment tools available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Upgrade Your OD and Project Management Staff to Change Strategy Consultants By Dean Anderson & Linda Ackerman ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction Are your internal change support staffs equipped to ensure that you get the full ROI you need from your change efforts? Do you invite them to the table as full players at the very beginning of the change? Our 30 plus years of action research suggests the answer to both questions is a change-crippling "NO." Most large organizations today have an internal Project Management Office, Organization Development function, and perhaps a separate Change Management group. Senior change leaders likely view these departments as having different skills and services, and ask them to participate in major change efforts at some point downstream. These groups may add value to your change efforts with their current skill sets, but it is our experience that they are generally ill-equipped (lacking the necessary skills, experience, political capital, methods & tools) to support the magnitude and complexity of transformational change at a strategic level. And rarely are they asked in at the early planning stages of major change. Why is this? Typically, all three functions work at too tactical a level, and even if the people are very skilled at what they do, their services are applied in piecemeal fashion. The requirement for the strategic oversight of the change process and people dynamics gets neglected. The value of integration and leverage is missed. All parties have not recognized the leverage of creating a change strategy for large scale change efforts at the very beginning of the change, nor what skills and work is required to do so. The absence of a change strategy at start-up produces problems that these services cannot remedy downstream. The services and competencies of each of these functions need to be upgraded to become more strategic, and to help facilitate and produce an integrated change strategy that will set up your major changes for success-from the beginning. Senior leaders need to understand the importance of such a strategy, and rethink how and when these functions are used to support the success of major changes. In this article, we will address how to upgrade your in-house change consulting support to ensure that you get the maximum results from your change efforts. Three Distant Cousins In current reality, as a generalization, OD consultants offer services in team building, meeting design and facilitation, and engagement strategies. Some offer executive coaching, assessments and management development training. PMO offices provide planning and tactical oversight. Project Management staff are engaged in change when the future state has been selected and the detailed implementation plan and measurement tools are needed. Change Management specialists are asked to identify training needs and build communication plans, also typically after the desired outcome of the change effort has been designed. All of these services are useful during change, yet rarely do they work together -- rarer still, are they called to the executive table at the onset of change to influence how the change is set up, governed, designed and implemented. There is something missing from this picture: the strategic oversight of change. This oversight can come from any of these functions, but it requires developing staff so they understand what it takes to build a change strategy. It will also require executives to understand the need for this strategy and how to use these functions more strategically. Developing these specialists into change strategy consultants who know how to use each other, and when to be used, can bring exponential help to your organization's changes. Building this resource in-house can save untold resources and time over the life of a change effort. What is Change Strategy Consulting? Change Strategists are brought in at the beginning of major change discussions to assist in the creation of a change strategy that guides how you will produce the results you need from your change. They assist in framing decisions about what the case for change is, identifying an accurate scope, and clarifying desired outcomes in both compelling and specific terms. They don't make these decisions themselves; rather, they facilitate the senior leaders through them to ensure that the change is set up with the highest likelihood of success. These consultants can also help to represent the company's interests in the use and coordination of external expert consultants who may be needed to assess needs and build the best solutions. They are particularly useful in helping to coordinate and orchestrate the use of multiple externals that may be working on different initiatives in different parts of the business, and ensuring that the externals work effectively with appropriate internal resources. Change strategy consultants can offer services in any of the following areas: >> Develop the overall change strategy, or facilitate the leaders to do so. This entails identifying the full scope of content and people initiatives required by the transformation, clarifying the governance of the change, building the integration strategy for interdependent initiatives, and establishing the change infrastructure and resources to ensure the best outcome. >> Ensure enterprise-wide alignment of business systems, processes, structures, technology, and policies with the required changes so that the organization can run in optimal form once the changes are implemented. >> Ensure that the requirements for the change's success are matched with resources, expertise, time and leadership. >> Identify and promote best change practices and ensure the ongoing development of masterful change leadership and change capability throughout the organization. Identify milestone events and design change process plans to accomplish major pieces of work within a realistic timeframe. >> Develop and coach senior leaders and initiative leads on their change leadership abilities, mindset and behavior, and how to model the personal changes required by the transformation. Help identify, establish and oversee conditions for success and metrics throughout the life of the change. >> Observe executive and change leadership team meetings to ensure understanding, alignment, good decision-making, and to minimize political dynamics, confusion and poor follow through. >> Assess implications of the change on culture, people's reactions, leadership credibility, or readiness and capacity to accomplish the change. >> Input to the development of the change communications and engagement strategies. Input to the learning and course correction process and help facilitate essential course corrections. >> Support the application of a common change methodology on all change projects. Provide or ensure quality change education to initiative leaders, senior executives, managers and the target groups needed to make the change. Upgrade Your Change Practitioners to Strategic Resources Clearly, these services require a level of experience, knowledge, skill and clout to be delivered with real impact. The ability to offer any of them will add to the value of your OD, PM and CM staffs. These services can be developed, tailored, and mentored to be truly strategic resources. Here are four critical actions that will increase your ROI from change, guaranteed . . . # Recognize (and consciously promote) the value that can be gained by having this strategic change skill in-house. # Allocate resources for developing this capacity - in your executives and these three change support functions. # Personally participate in this development so that you-and your executive peers-understand exactly how and when to use these services when planning major change. And, # Reposition these functions so that they are actually used and seen as full players in the set up of your change efforts (e.g., in the creation of the initial change strategy), not just downstream. Benefits of the Role of Change Strategy Consultant The change strategy consulting function can ensure that your major change initiatives are being led with a unified change strategy, meaningful communications, an appropriate infrastructure of roles, teams and resources, and a common change methodology that enables them to cross-reference and expedite action. It can support your organization's leaders, managers and workforce to be ready and willing to take on the change and balance the change effort's requirements with running the ongoing business effectively. Your change strategy consultants can perform reconnaissance for the change, maintaining your ability to "see the forest for the trees" during the complex human and business challenges of transformation. Ideally, they will have the clarity and clout to surface strategic change leadership issues and guide appropriate action toward desired results. Your investment in this upgrade, and the subsequent repositioning of these internal resources, is a high-leveraged investment in your organization's future, and all of the changes that holds. *Reprinted by permission of Workforce Performance Magazine. Free subscriptions to the Digital Edition are available worldwide at http://www.submag.com/sub/wk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Case-Law & Legislation Review: Diabetic Firefighter Wins Against Municipality M&G Online 14 August 2005; www.mg.co.za By Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cape High Court has found the Cape Town municipality guilty of unfair discrimination after it refused to employ a diabetic as a fireman. The court, in the precedent-setting case, in July ruled that the council was wrong not to give John Murdoch (31), an insulin-dependent diabetic, a job if the only reason for the decision was that he suffered from the "type one" variety of the chronic illness. Type one diabetes is a disorder in which the pancreas no longer produces insulin. It cannot be prevented, but is detectable and treatable, usually by regular insulin injections. The case is believed to be the first in South African legal history where a diabetic condition was used by an employer, and challenged by an employee, as a basis to discriminate. Murdoch, of Fish Hoek, Cape Town, had been a volunteer reservist firefighter since 1991, when he was still at high school. He joined the local council as a law enforcement officer in July 1997. In February 2002, he asked to be transferred to the fire department, but there were no posts available at the time. When a vacancy opened in that department, Murdoch passed the physical tests and impressed during the interview. He failed the medical tests and was denied the job. The council denied that the discrimination was unfair, saying "the history of the blanket ban against type one diabetes was [based on] the factual history of treatment of a diabetic dependent on insulin. The disadvantage arises primarily from the medical condition itself; and the extent to which it rendered them incapacitated." The court rejected this view and upheld Murdoch's approach that each insulin-dependent diabetic case be dealt with on its own merits. "The respondent is guilty of assigning characteristics which are general assumptions about groups of people to each individual who is a member of that group, irrespective of whether that particular individual displays the characteristic in question." The court accepted expert testimony from Murdoch's doctor and one of the country's leading scholars on endocrinology and diabetes, Professor Francois Bonnici, suggesting that South Africa's blanket ban discriminating against people afflicted by type one diabetes was outdated. It also accepted evidence by a United Kingdom firefighter, Tim Hoy, who has been at the job since 1998 despite also suffering from type one diabetes. The court said the "medically sound judgement by South Africa's leading expert on diabetics, Professor Bonnici, is incontrovertible that the blanket ban is irrational, unfair and unjustifiable in the light of current medical knowledge". ------------------------------------ IN-COMPANY WORKSHOP: EMPLOYMENT EQUITY COMMITTEE TRAINING ------------------------------------ An Intensive 2-Day In-Company programme For ELECTED EMPLOYMENT EQUITY (EE) MEMBERS & CHAIRPERSON To Competently & Confidently Represent Co-Workers. Contact Jeff Sacht to request a workshop flyer and to arrange an in-company workshop customised to your requirements. Facilitation is charged on a realistic daily rate and not a per person cost. Also available as a web download for self-delivery/in-house use under license agreement. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za --------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Book Reviews --------------------------------------------------------------------- # Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People To buy this book click on: http://www.kalahari.net/e-trader/referral.asp?toolbar=mweb&linkid=5&partnerid=293&sku=27948737 By Bradford D Smart, Viking Press, 2005
In Topgrading, industrial psychologist and global consultant Bradford Smart expands upon this idea by examining in great detail exactly how today's premier organisations have assembled such top-level employees, and then showing precisely how others can do it, too. "Simply put, topgrading is the practice of packing the team with A players and clearing out the C players," Smart writes. "A players is defined as the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels--best of class. With this radical definition, you are not a topgrader until your team consists of all A players. Period." Essentially a best-practices manual for developing this outstanding personnel pool, the book is based on more than 4,000 interviews and case studies conducted by Smart at major corporations like General Electric as well as fast-growing high-tech companies and small family-owned firms. He further bolsters its effectiveness by including his extensive "Chronological In-Depth Structured Interview Guide," along with other assessment tools and hands-on strategies for assembling an ideal work team. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Combating Short-Termism - and Managing for the Long Run* By Danny Miller and Isabelle Le Breton-Miller who can be contacted at: danny.miller@hec.ca; lebreton@generation.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- The last decade has seen a steep decline in the credibility of corporate America. Enron, Worldcom, Andersen, Tyco - the names are enough, as they conjure up images of greed and dishonesty. But the more fundamental story here is the rise of short-termism. We read so often now of ill-conceived acquisitions, disastrous bouts of downsizing, rampant social violations, and a disdain of far-sighted investments in people, quality and innovation. Small wonder, when we look at the pressures on top executives. Over the last two decades, the stock-price-based incentive component of CEO compensation has soared from less than 30% to over 80%, and CEO tenures have shrunken from almost ten years to less than four. In other words, "hit those quarterly numbers - or else". Happily, short-termism is a combatable disease. In a recent book, "Managing for the Long Run" (Harvard Business School Press, 2005) we describe a collection of companies that are quintessential long-term managers - where time horizons are decades not months, and accountability is not just to shareholders but all stakeholders. All are family businesses in which a value-driven family cares enough to do the right thing, are willing to sacrifice accordingly, and are masterful competitors. These 40 firms have led national or global markets for 2 to 10 decades, and average 104 years in age. All have revenues of over $1 billion. They are not so atypical of their breed. Studies have found that family businesses tend to outlast other companies by factors of two or three, and outperform in market valuations and returns on assets. So why the out-performance? First, some words about what we did NOT find. >> A focus on quarterly numbers. The attitude was that earnings and sales would take care of themselves if the firm delivered on a market-relevant mission. >> Emphasis on competitive analysis, grand strategizing, or much study of the best practices of other companies. Firms were more focused on doing something unique rather than copying. >> Major changes in strategy, initiatives towards unrelated diversification, downsizing. >> Sophisticated organizational structures. There were few tiers in the hierarchy, little bureaucracy, and a reluctance to track closely the performance of small parts of the company. Instead the emphasis was on the substantive achievements and health of the whole organization. >> Charismatic leaders. CEOs had little interest in drawing attention to themselves. Nor did we find any lavishness in the lifestyles, perks or compensation of most top managers. >> Gamesmanship or confrontation with stakeholders. Cooperation was more common. >> Attention to shareholder PR, market analysts, or the stock price of the company (and 50% of our firms were publicly traded). What we DID find: All our best companies were dominated by the same theme and approach: "managing for the long run". The "four C priorities" of that management philosophy follow: >> Continuity. Our winners favored a substantive mission, not a dollar-driven strategy. They invested deeply in focal competencies; and built these cumulatively over a sustained period (at Corning and Tetra-Pack, investment sometimes started 10 to 20 years before payback time). Firms also fostered long executive apprenticeships and tenures to match these investment time horizons. >> Community. These firms also embraced strong values, were super-choosy in people selection, hired very sparingly, trained and mentored deeply, and were unusually loyal and generous to employees -- often to free their initiative and fight bureaucracy. S.C.Johnson had the first pension plans, avoided layoffs for over a century, and consistently out-paid rival P&G. But they insisted that everyone buy into the values of the company. >> Connection: Our companies favored long term, win-win relationships with external stakeholders over bargains and transactions -- especially with customers, suppliers and partners. IKEA rebuilt the plants and redesigned the processes of its suppliers. Bechtel has worked with some of their clients and suppliers for over 50 years, Corning and Michelin for over 100. >> Our fourth component is Command: The first three priorities could only be realized via governance: that is, if executives and boards had the freedom, knowledge & incentive to invest for the long run. Our family executives had the clout to stay in power, the benefit of years of apprenticeship and learning, and the future reputations, fortunes and careers of their children at stake. Managing for the long run represents some really important challenges -- and opportunities. The challenges come from American and foreign -- especially Asian -- businesses, that DO manage for the long run. How can firms with a short term time horizon even begin to vie against those whose long run orientations give them deeper capabilities, lower costs and more loyal stakeholders?
But there are opportunities as well. Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com and Steve Jobs at Apple have been out-innovating rivals year after year with their far-sighted management. A long run approach also opens doors to huge foreign markets like China - where relationships only materialize from lots of patience and up-front investment. Finally, the long run approach has proven itself again and again, in superior financial returns and valuations, as well as the tried and true investment strategies of people like Warren Buffet, Ben Graham, and Peter Lynch. However -- nothing will happen unless investors, boards and top executives are given the incentives and metrics to take a longer-term approach - and begin to assess performance along numerous substantive indicators. Executives must act as stewards, not careerists. Their concerns must become the long-run interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders but employees, clients, partners, and society at large. It is truly a blessed paradox that shareholders, ultimately, will gain the most only when these other interests are taken care of. Here is a happy situation in which traveling the high road benefits everyone - in time. *Reprinted by permission of the authors and courtesy of David Creelman who can be contacted at creelmanresearch@canada.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Downloads: White Paper: From Human Resource Metrics To Human Capital Metrics --------------------------------------------------------------------- There has been so much talk about HR metrics in recent years that a young HR professional can be excused for thinking it's a new topic. However, as long ago as 1983 John Boudreau was teaching a course in HR metrics at Cornell. Jac Fitz-enz's work goes back even further; he published his first article on the topic in 1978. So for nearly thirty years academics, consultants and practitioners have been working on how to use HR metrics. Download a copy of this White Paper at: http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/180.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Unsubscribe & Moving Soon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UNSUBSCRIBE: Scroll to the end of the newsletter where you will find a code directly linked to your name. Click on the unsubscribe link. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS NEWSLETTER TO UNSUBSCRIBE. MOVING SOON: If you are changing your email address soon and would still like to continue receiving this newsletter, please email us your new or temporary email address to ensure that you do not miss out on the next edition. ------------------------------------ About the e-Journal/e-Newspaper ------------------------------------ Equity-Skills News & Views is a free bi-monthly newsletter for business owners, Line Managers, and Human Resource Practitioners (who support Line Managers) with the implementation of fair and developmental people management systems and practices. The style of this e-Newspaper fits between the traditional email newsletters and printed professional trade journals & magazines. Subscribers will be kept up to date with the latest developments in the world of people management, receive handy people management tips, and feedback about labour court rulings that relate to the implementation of the key Labour Acts. Please add equity skills news & views to your list of approved senders if your Internet provider or server administrator filters incoming e-mail, to make sure you receive periodic e-mail alerts and this newsletter to which you are subscribed. ------------------------------------ Opinions expressed by contributors DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT the standpoint of the publisher-editor of Equity-Skills News & Views. Information published here is for general information, and is not intended as legal advice. The authors, editors, and publishers do not accept responsibility for any act, omission, loss, or damage occasioned by any reliance upon the contents hereof. This message is sent in compliance with the ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSACTIONS ACT. 2002, Act No. 25, 2002 [South Africa] passed on 20 May 2003. Sender: Jeff Sacht URL: www.equityskillsweb.com E-mail: jeffs@worldonline.co.za Telephone: +27 011 485 4943 Facsimile +27 011 485 4943 Publisher-Editor: Equity-Skills News & Views 'A MUST TO PRINT & READ' ------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 2004 Registered electronic newspaper: 1SSN 1684-5714 |
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