ASIA – One-third (34%) of companies say managing the gap between Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y staff is rapidly becoming one of the most challenging issues in HR today, a study by Tal-os Asia Limited found.

The lack of manager engagement (31.5%) was cited as the second biggest challenge, while 30.1% say the current economic slump was a cause for concern.

The generation gap is partly due to the changing face of the Hong Kong and China business in the past decade, where rapid globalisation has been readily absorbed by much younger workforce, even as senior workers attempt to hold on to traditional business practices.

“The gap can be bridged out. Before this is possible one must first understand the generational stereotype, what they have lived, their history and what has shaped them to be what they are today,” Erica Perry Briody, global sales director of Tal-os Asia Limited tells Human Resources.

Leaving the gaps unmanaged can lead to a serious and detrimental effect to the workplace. Briody comments: “The employee may not feel he is understood or heard and therefore will no longer be engaged in the company. This may leave them vulnerable to other career opportunities and they will either stay and perform averagely or poorly or leave and take all your training and intellectual property to the competition.”

To counter the issue, Briody suggested that managers need to learn to become “situational leaders” and learn to not treat everyone with the same criteria. Communication styles need to be adjusted as well as KPIs and compensation structures to truly engage the entire workforce which will in turn lead to employee retention.

This would lead to a positive outcome for companies with an improved employee retention, collaborative and productive workforce, enjoyable working culture and environment and most importantly, engaged employees

Source: Engaging Gen X and Y employees in today’s multi-generational workplace by Tal-os Asia

ASIA - While business codes are essential for organisations who wish to strengthen its reputation, corporate culture and financial performance, research has shown that only 52% of Asian companies have such codes in place.

The disparity widens further when compared to their Western counterparts. According to the Business Codes of the Global 200 report by KPMG and RSM Erasmus University, all North-American firms and 80% of European companies in the Fortune Global 200 have some form of business codes. However, Bob Yap, head of forensic services at KPMG in Singapore, says Asian companies are likely to catch up due to the rapid growth in the region. “As companies in the Asian region continue to grow, they are likely to implement business codes to meet the increasing expectations of their employees to build a stronger shared company culture.”

Besides improving corporate culture and work climate, business codes correctly embedded throughout the organisation can provide guidance to the employees on their expected current and future behaviour. Yap says, “While there is no single approach to implementing the code, it is important to ensure the code becomes a ‘living’ document that imbues the behaviour of employees.”

Another important way to include the code is via internal communications, with 85% of respondents say they have issued their business codes to more than 95% of their personnel. Some of the ways in which business codes are brought to people’s attention include emails, separate intranet sites, availability at busy office locations and during work meetings. The survey also reveals that more than 80% of companies use e-learning modules to implement business codes.

Once business codes have been clearly communicated to an organisation’s employees, there should be continuous efforts to monitor its effectiveness. Yap says monitoring the business code can help serve as a basis for internal accountability and for external accountability.

The key is to prevent codes from gradually fading into the background, adds Yap. “Companies with a ‘living’ code are able to enforce, and ultimately anchor it on a long-term basis in the heads and hearts of their people.”

More than 80% of the companies also have policies to enforce their codes and to investigate violations. The survey shows 88% of respondents have a business code monitor in place, and 66% of the companies have periodic reports of compliance with the business. Monitoring and reporting is even arranged for each business unit, say 44% of respondents.

To tailor business codes that link the company’s strategy and identity yet differentiating from others, companies need to pay more attention to their own situations, ambitions and dilemmas. For an updated business code, Yap suggests companies to first assess the current challenges that management and staff are confronted with in their work process. Asking internal and external stakeholders what they expect from the company in terms of mission, responsibilities, values, norms, and rules would also help, adds Yap.

Source: KPMG’s Business Codes of the Global 200 Report

Many CEOs have no faith in HR

Global – Despite stressing the need for strategies new talent attraction and retention strategies to maintain competitiveness, most CEOs surveyed have little confidence in their HR’s abilities to handle the job.

According to the 2008 11th Annual Global CEO Survey by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, a vast majority of CEOs (89%) recognise the strategic importance of the talent agenda in the increasingly connected business world. Yet only 43% of CEOs believe their HR functions have what it takes to effectively recruit new talent.

To increase the value HR can provide, the survey says, “many HR organisations need to align themselves more closely with their companies’ strategic direction”. It also suggests CEOs should “encourage them to become more innovative in competing for talent and driving organisational change”.

Besides empowering HR, many CEOs (73%) are also increasing the remuneration they offer and creating a more flexible working environment (76%). And while CEOs are also hiring and developing from more diverse pools of talent (67%), it has been difficult to find people with the right skill sets.

The findings show 60% of respondents say qualities such as global experience, the ability to lead and develop others, and creativity and innovativeness are all in short supply, whereas skills like an aptitude for qualitative or quantitative analysis (44%) and ‘soft’ skills like the ability to collaborate (33%), are easier to find. Most CEOs (94%) are addressing these shortfalls by investing in the training and development of soft skills, which are not commonly found in schools.

CEOs also doubt the abilities of their middle and senior management to drive change adequately, the survey says. While half cite the lack of motivation from middle managers is a major obstacle, 48% of CEOs believe inadequate change-management skills and experience are major weaknesses among senior employees.

Source: 2008 11th Annual Global CEO Survey by
Pricewaterhouse Coopers

Managers who have trouble transitioning need a psychological shift.

US – An overwhelming number of managers have been found to be ineffective, either by acting as individual contributors or by remaining stuck in their transition to the manager role.

ConceptReserve’s released a five year study which was conducted among 2,600 managers at 149 Fortune 100 and other large organisations across the United States and Eastern Canada. The study found that 86% of managers are not fully engaged or in their managerial positions, making this leadership crisis at least four times worse than what it was in the 1990s.

When asked to identify challenges they face in making the transition to the manager role, a subset of 1,200 managers ranked transition challenges such as doing versus managing, managing former peers, and producing results over developing and coaching people as most difficult. John Davis, chief officer of ConceptReserve, says this is due to several “fatal assumptions” managers make when they transit into a managerial position. Some of the assumptions identified were: “My individual contributor success will translate into management success”, and that the people managers lead will be similar to them in thinking, approach, expectations and goals.

Davis says in order for a manager to be effective, the leader would need to undergo a psychological shift. However, the manager would require the right support and tools to do so.

“We have also learned that it has very little to do with learning so-called management skills. While important at the appropriate time, developing such skills will do little to facilitate the transition if emphasised too early in the process. In fact, overemphasis on a manager’s skill development, without addressing the required psychological shift, is often fatal to the transition,” says Davis.

Source: ConceptReserve