New Year, new leaf

Simon Foster, senior client director at CHPD, loves New Year in the same way that he used to like the start of the new school year – new pencil cases, new textbooks and the chance to be better than last year.  Here are his thoughts on the four things you can do to turn over a new leaf in 2009:

1.      Stop assuming you know your talent – at a time when positions are being cut, it’s never been more important to truly understand where the talent in your business lies.  After all, how can you keep the best people if you don’t know who they are?  Identify those who have real leadership potential, rather than people who are just good at what they currently do, and invest in them. With share prices and profits dipping, the people you have ‘locked in’ with share options and bonuses may have more possibilities open to them, and development is a key way to keep them on board and focused.

2.      Be even more tailored with your development – with budgets tight all training courses and coaching sessions should have be relevant not only to a person’s need, but also to the work that they do. Look for development that enables people to use live work examples in the training and minimise their time away from the office.  I would focus very clearly on development that addresses a specific need for those individuals. Think also about the organisation and what skills it will need in order to survive a recession whilst gearing up to capitalise on the eventual economic upturn – cross-functional teamwork, creative thinking, etc. Get your talent population to implement and practise their training by working on key projects that will help to re-engineer the organisation and get it in good shape for the coming months.

3.      Communicate, communicate, communicate – communication is at the heart of employee engagement and in the current economic climate, your staff are likely to be feeling vulnerable.  They need to be reassured that your business has a plan, is prepared and is welcoming of their ideas and initiative.  The HR department has a key role in driving the management team to communicate regularly and effectively, particularly at the moment.

4.      Get business savvy – sadly there remains a view among some outside the HR world, that we’re a bunch of fluffy, ‘people’ people.  This may not be the case where you are, but there’s still no harm in making sure that you have a really good understanding of the commercial needs of the business.  Ensure that any projects you’re looking to run are linked to clear business objectives and have measures in place to ensure ROI.

Finally, if you’re really serious about sticking to these resolutions, write them down and put the list up somewhere prominent, so you don’t forget them.