Recruiter magazine: Emotional AI

I'm quoted in this article in Recruiter magazine on Emotional AI.

My inputs:

1. Do you think there are enough tools around now (such as Watson etc) for recruiters to understand and trust AI in the recruitment process?

AI and machine learning have only recently become helpful and accessible in business contexts, and their support for recruitment and other HR processes have been even more recent. However, there are a range of AI applications available, including for analysing core HR and recruitment data, CV sifting, video interviewing, serious gaming and other areas. There are also a growing number of organisations using a range of these opportunities to sift out a large proportion of their applicants. In particular, Unilever have suggested their AI enables them to interview just a small percentage of their initial applicants, meaning this stage can simply confirm 80% of these candidates. The evidence is there and recruitment teams need to be paying attention to the opportunities.

(There’s a summary of the Unilever case study here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/06/26/in-unilevers-radical-hiring-experiment-resumes-are-out-algorithms-are-in.html).


2. If they find themselves on the receiving end of being sold tools with AI, what sort of questions should recruiters ask a supplier?

It is not always easy to understand the way that AI works but recruitment teams should still ask about the algorithms the systems use, the ways they have learnt, and what safe guards have been used to ensure diversity in the system's lists of recommended candidates. They should also want to see the results of previous validation studies showing that the systems do identify people who could be seen as high performers against particular attributes or competencies. Ideally recruiters should also be looking to validate the systems within their own organisations, and suppliers should be keen to support this activity too.


3. Do you think AI will play an increasing part in the recruitment process to help recruiters make data-driven decisions about a candidate?

AI systems can often undertake recruitment activities more efficiently and effectively than humans, e.g. by substantially reducing the amount of human bias involved in the process. They are going to play an increasing role in recruitment activities, particularly in roles / levels which can be described and measured in fairly objective ways, and where there are often high volumes of candidates e.g. call centre operators, production (vs knowledge) workers and graduate entry streams. AI capabilities are developing quickly and over time, I can see them having a growing role in knowledge based and managerial roles as well.

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Glassdoor Recruit conference

Glassdoor's first-ever recruiting focused conference, Glassdoor Recruit, is designed to help you win the race for top talent with informed candidates.

But just who are these informed candidates? They're twice as likely to be hired because they’re the right fit, saving you time by cutting out those other unqualified resumes.

In the US, the event is being held in Chicago on Tuesday 19th September.

In the UK, we're having a slightly more select, simultaneous event held in London on the Tuesday afternoon. This will feature a live screening of sessions from Glassdoor's and United Airlines' CEOs.

I'll also be moderating a panel discussion with three local recruitment leaders:

• Craig Hunter Colt Technologies

• Daryl Sutcliffe The Co-Operative

• Vicki Saunders Boots.

There'll be networking drinks too. Maybe see you there?

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Techno Dreams in Recruitment

I've been quoted in this article in Recruiter magazine: Techno Dreams Become Reality.

The article explores the use of predictive analytics, serious gaming and virtual reality in recruitment and is well worth reading.

I comment on the role of machine learning:

Machine learning is a part of predictive analytics that is helping recruiters to use technology far more intelligently. “Machine learning raises the potential of being able to analyse even deeper patterns within the data produced within and around recruitment,” says Jon Ingham, people and organisation development strategist at the consultancy Strategic Dynamics. He believes that while recruiters and candidates are busy getting on board with social media and mobile, technology development has hit a plateau – but that is set to change.  

“The drivers of these changes are around IT analytics, particularly when blended with machine learning systems to deepen the amount of insight we can generate quickly and easily,” he says. “The next five years will be really exciting as these technologies take hold.”

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Best country in Europe to get a job

And if you are thinking of quitting your job, this research from Glassdoor reviews some of the economic factors which are important in providing good job prospects.  And the video is my interview talking about the research on BBC World (in Europe).

Basically, the research supports Glassdoor's entry into the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the UK and Ireland with more national url sites so if you're in Switzerland you can go to de.glassdoor.ch or fr.glassdoor.ch, depending on the language you want to use.  But their experience is that even within Europe there are vast differences between countries with high growth and employment (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and those with double digit unemployment and slow economic growth (Greece, Spain and Portugal).

Their review of the various factors relating to and the quantity and quality of employment, centred around unemployment, temporary work and involuntary part-time work suggests that Estonia, Norway, the UK and Austria are the best countries to apply for a new job.

The main finding is that regulated markets do seem to suffer more temporary and part-time work as well as unemployment and an ongoing employment gap (between levels of employment before the global financial crisis and today).  I'd also suggests that Spain's growth today is almost certainly linked to the recent easing of their previously right regulations.

However, I also agree with the report's comments on side effects eg the potential to form a dual labour market with the rise of 'mini jobs' (part-time, temporary contracts).  Or in the UK where we don't have high rates of these, the prevalence of zero hour contracts (see my previous BBC interview on these), self employment and increasingly, completely unregulated roles in the sharing economy.

The key point for me, once again, is designing these types of roles for an organisation's employees and to suit their needs for flexibility, and not just business needs.  And that applies for individuals, businesses, countries and the whole of Europe too.

It's great to have a role which gets me thinking about macro level issues as well as just those operating within companies, and gets me thinking back to some of the economic development projects we did when I worked at one of the government's Training & Enterprise Councils 20+ years ago.

You may also be interested in these posts on a similar agenda.  Firstly, for Glassdoor:

• Zero hour contracts (interview on BBC Breakfast)

• The gender pay gap (interview on BBC Radio 4 Today programme) and Gender pay gap in bonuses (interview on BBC News Channel)

• Pay transparency - on Glassdoor and in your organisation too

• Why men won't ask for Shared Parental Leave (interview on Sky Breakfast)

And for / related to the UK's Commission for Employment and Skills:

• Employment, skills and energy

• Preventative skills planning

• Investors in People VI: Outperformance

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Global Talent Acquisition Strategy

You may be interested in some of my thoughts on the evolution of recruitment in this guide from HRZone and Jobatar:

"Talent acquisition has developed from the previous field of recruiting based upon a more strategic focus, and improved capabilities, which are often provided by technology. Developing a talent acquisition strategy starts with a clear focus on the type of people who need to be acquired, and builds best fit processes and activities around this strategic clarity. This is particularly critical when working across a large organisation or on a global stage, since it will never be possible to control all activities centrally and it therefore becomes more important to clearly articulate the most vital aspects of an organisation’s approach..."

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So why ask about salary if candidates will exaggerate it?

I'm quoted in this article in the Mirror, and elsewhere, commenting on Glassdoor's latest survey about salaries, finding that one in five candidates would lie about their current salaries.

“Inflating your existing salary when speaking to new employers is not a strategy I would recommend. There are far more effective ways to negotiate a higher salary when you are applying for a new job – the secret is to do your homework and then not be afraid to ask.” 

“Most employers do not intentionally try to scrimp on salary offers, but they will usually start with an amount that is lower than what they are willing to pay, based on the assumption the candidate will try to negotiate upwards. This ‘buffer’ ensures the employer is not paying a disproportionately higher salary than they pay existing employees in similar positions. Failure to synchronise salaries across a business for both new and existing candidates can lead to a sea of discontent if employees discuss their pay with colleagues. Use websites like Glassdoor to assess what you should be paid for specific jobs at specific companies so you can use information to power your negotiation.”

These are my top tips for negotiating salary during the recruitment process:

1.       Don’t be afraid to negotiate, employers fully expect you to do this.

2.       Research is key. This will enable you to pitch an appropriate salary range for the job based on your research of similar jobs in the same region and sector.

3.       Be realistic about where you are in your career and what you can achieve – don’t expect to have much negotiating power if you are just a few years into your career.

4.       Make sure you express your interest in the job and the company before you start trying to negotiating a counter offer. Tell the recruiter why you would love to accept the role, how much value you can bring to the organisation and so on.

5.       Negotiating a higher salary can often go backwards and forwards several times. Do not panic if this happens, if often means the employer is trying to meet you halfway.

6.       If securing a specific salary for a new role is a deal breaker, you need to have a clear ‘walk away’ figure in your head.

7.       Practice your negotiation skills with a family member or friend. If your manifesto for a higher salary doesn’t convince your role play partner, it’s unlikely to seal a better deal with your new employer.

8.       Be prepared for "no" as another possibility and prepare in advance as to how you will deal with this.

9.       If you can’t get the salary increased to the level you request, you could ask them to increase other elements of the package such as the bonus for example.

10.    Alternatively, you could agree to review the salary following the successful completion of the probationary period.

Actually, I think the surprise is that not more people would lie.

To me, 'how much fdo you get paid now' is just a stupid question for an employer to ask, basically meaning they haven’t worked out what someone should get paid or if they’ve got the experience they need.

So I think many people would tend to reinterpret it as ‘what do you think we should pay you’ and so of course people increase what they say.  This means that employers end up paying more for better negotiators than for better performers and is probably one of the factors behind the gender pay gap.

It's a draft question.  Don't ask it.  Offer what someone is worth to you and if they need more, talk about how you might increase it later.

You may also be interested in this Glassdoor survey on pay transparency.

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Feeling good yet? / iCIMS Recruit

 

Feeling good yet?

 

It’s been a long, hard slog hasn’t it, but in most of the places this blog is read, things are looking up.  The US is booming, at least in comparison to the last few years, and there’s a definite change in the air in the UK and across most of Europe.  Even in emerging markets, whilst tapering may lead to a short-term lowdown, greater global growth can only be a good thing.

 

Of course, this means that if you’re in recruitment or retention, you perhaps shouldn’t be feeling as good as you are!

 

Recruitment in particular is likely to quickly become a lot more challenging:

 

• Growth and attrition mean that we’re going to have a lot more roles to fill, so continuing to get the very best people is going to be a lot more challenging.

• Most competitors are going to be facing just the same set of challenges, so competition for these best people is going to be intense.

• We’re going to face the full-force of employees changing expectations for the first time.  While economies were in or close to recession this wasn’t seen that powerfully but employees do now want a lot more. With a return to growth, this desire will turn into a demand.

 

 

Recruiters are going to have to be really smart to attract the best people away from  their competitors to fill the increasing number of vacancies.

 

Of course, the smartest recruiters have already been preparing for this situation by  modernising organisation structures, improving recruitment processes, developing capabilities and updating technologies.

 

For those recruitment teams still using outdated HR processes, it’s this last opportunity that probably provides the greatest return. As the recruitment world becomes more fast paced, HR professionals will have less time to get more done. Efficiency is more important than ever. That’s where technology comes in to play. Companies are seeing clear benefits from leveraging technology. But what technology should these recruiters use?

 

The HR technology industry is at a fork in the road: best-of-breed solutions (or solutions focused on particular aspects of HR) and full suite systems. Companies need to determine what type of system would work best for them by evaluating their business goals. Some organisations put a greater demand on HR performance. In these cases, best-of-breed systems will give Recruiters more specialised tools to improve their metrics versus standard features.

 

An example of a best-in-breed solution for the talent acquisition process (sourcing and recruitment to induction) is iCIMS Recruit. More and more companies are turning to systems like these to drive down those key business metrics, like cost-per-hire and time-to-fill. 

 

With recruitment solutions, recruiters can attract talent more easily through tools such as recruitment SEO or social media vacancy posting, helping these companies to close the vacancy sooner rather than later. But not only that, tools like iCIMS Recruit allow companies to analyse their HR programmes and pinpoint areas of improvement to facilitate hiring for the vacancy boom. 

  

 

As the economy improves, how do you expect recruiters to fill vacancies faster? 

 

 

This post is sponsored by iCIMS.

 

iCIMS is the leading provider of talent acquisition software for growing businesses. Through the implementation of easy-to-use, web-based solutions, the iCIMS Talent Platform helps organisations manage everything from sourcing, to recruitment, to induction all within one streamlined application.

 

Check out a free walk-through of the iCIMS system or make contact at +44 (0) 118 9000 706 or europeansales@icims.com.

 

 

Also see:

 

Social Talent Acquisition / iCIMS Connect

Technology for Induction / iCIMS Onboard

 

 

Technorati Tags: Recruiting, hiring, talent, applicants, candidates, tracking, technology, social, portal, iCIMS

People Sourcing Certification Programme

 

   I’ve had a long standing interest in the field of sourcing (finding people who might be a good fit in your organisation / role vs recruiting – trying to get these same, but unknown people to send you their CVs), really ever since we developed the idea into an approach we called head farming when I was an HR Director at Ernst & Young.

Though head farming was horribly expensive, social media makes the same sorts of approaches straight forward, eg this case study from Coca Cola, but still requires a good level of skill.

And I’ve sort of thought I know quite a bit of what I need to in this area (or quite a bit of what you need to, since I’m not actually a sourcer or recruiter, but I still want to understand it to show you what you’re missing out on.  And actually I still use the approaches in various other applications – eg finding business prospects.  I’d almost suggest it’s becoming a core skill that everyone should be taught at school in today’s networked world.)

That’s until I tried Irina Shamaeva’s international people sourcing contest a couple of month’s ago.  And…  err…  well, I realised I didn’t know quite as much as I thought I did (basically, I didn’t have a clue.)

So, I’m currently setting out doing some initial self-study (I might post more about this in early January) and will be attending Irina’s People Sourcing Certification Program on, and following on from, 29 January.

Again, I’ll give you a taste of what I’m learning around then, but if you really want to understand sourcing, and how to do it, why not take the programme too?

 

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Technorati Tags: Irina Shamaeva,sourcing,certification,programme,Internet Research. Search Engines: Syntax,Operators,Social Networks,LinkedIn,Recruiter,Facebook,Twitter,Google Plus,Productivity Tools

iCIMS - Technology for Induction - and ensuring Quality of Hire

 

  There’s been quite a bit of reporting in both traditional and social media recently about improving quality of hire.  That’s great to see - it’s something recruiters should be focusing on much more than they do (rather than just recruitment time and cost).

 

There are two issues I think recruiters, and other HR professionals, need to understand in order to get to grips with this more important objective / metric.

 

The first thing is that quality isn’t just about the skills / competencies / capabilities that someone is selected with.  Instead, we need to focus on how well a new joiner will be doing in their jobs someway - eg 100 days or  6 months - into their jobs or even their careers (one of my clients has recently restated its quality of hire metric as the proportion of new hires that get taken on for the company’s high potential programme).  It’s much more important that someone can get to this future level of performance, and do so quickly, smoothly and cost efficiently, than that they had the required capabilities when they came in.

 

The second thing is that performance is always contextual.  Eventual performance is probably always as much about what we do with the candidate as anything internal to them.  The high first year turnover experienced in many, many organisations isn’t usually down to poor selection, it’s about everything else that’s going on instead.

 

These areas include effective organisation and job design; alignment of the new hire with the organisation’s EVP; supportive manager and colleagues; and professional management from HR.  But the topmost requirement - the thing which most often makes the difference between great and mediocre performance, as well as complete failure - is effective onboarding / induction.

 

And as is often the case, the key enabler for effective onboarding is effective technology.  And one very good example of effective onboarding / induction technology is the product provided by this blog’s sponsor, iCIMS.

 

This system helps ensure employees are productive as quickly as possible - having access to all the information they need, and being able to provide their own data online.  Perhaps less intuitively, iCIMS are also seeing positive impacts on their client’s engagement scores and retention rates as well.

 

The product also provides a management dashboard which helps HR teams co-ordinate other departments to ensure onboarding is completed effectively, and in the most efficient way.

 

It’s a great tool in ensuring quality of hire is consistently high - you may want to take a look?

 

 

This post is sponsored by iCIMS.

 

iCIMS is the leading provider of talent acquisition software for growing businesses. Through the implementation of easy-to-use, web-based solutions, the iCIMS Talent Platform helps organisations manage everything from sourcing, to recruitment, to induction all within one streamlined application.

 

Key features of the Onboard product include:

 

• New Hire Onboarding Portal: Immerse new hires in corporate policies and culture with a personalised New Hire Onboarding Portal. This portal is uniquely tailored to your organisation and may include content such as a welcome message from the CEO, social activity information, and insights into current projects.
• Communication Center: Create messaging that reflects your brand by generating a complete library of onboarding correspondence. Engage employees with consistent communications regarding company goals and how they can help achieve them.
• iForms Library: Automate induction with more than 20 universal forms and 70+ specific to the US, UK, and Canada. Send new-hire packets electronically and capture electronic signatures.
• Induction Reports: Measure global metrics on HR productivity and key performance benchmarks. Run reports to gather data on induction by location, workflow, iForm completion, and more.
• Access Levels: Manage departmental tasks with access levels that streamline process inside the platform.
• Reporting Center: Create custom searches and reports, while also gaining access to a set of standard reports that help determine induction programme effectiveness, such as turnover.

 

 

Check out a free walk-through of the iCIMS system or make contact at +44 (0) 118 9000 706 or europeansales@icims.com.

 

Technorati Tags: Employee engagement, technology, iCIMS, onboarding, induction, portal, system, productivity, retention, quality of hire

Internal recruitment: right or wrong?

 

    One of my readings today has been an article in HR Magazine: ‘Internal Recruitment: Right or Wrong?’.  I found it an irritating article (eg I for one have never heard anyone in business use the words ‘people are critical to the business’) but it does make one strong challenge:

“The main disadvantage of internal recruitment is that the pool in which you are fishing for talent is limited, leading to a toleration of candidates who are good enough but not great - and that's not good enough!”

 

It’s a good suggestion with an element of truth and has also got me thinking because I’m shortly going to be inputting on a panel from the other side of the fence (not sure if that’s a mixed metaphor or not!).

This is a session on 19th July being organised by Monster, with Keith Robinson of HR Buzz, which will be the first of a series of sessions called Monster Buzz.  This one will also feature Isabella Hung at TMS, Lee Moody from Rank, Matthew Jeffery from Autodesk, Marilyn Davidson from APSCo and Steve McNally from The Equality Law Group.

 

The first thing to note is that this is obviously a rather theoretical question – in practice you need to do both  - the HR Magazine article calls this a balanced approach.  And actually the use of the word ‘balance’ is appropriate.  To buy or to build, including through internal recruitment, isn’t a choice – it’s a matter of balance: slightly loading the scales to give a little more focus to buy or build depending upon organisational needs (the main need being either to maintain current performance if things are going well – by tipping the balance towards internal moves - or to provide new insights and perspectives if not everything is so rosy – by tipping the scales the other way).

Doing both is also central to the concept of integrated talent management which I’ve been blogging about here.  You can also think about there being a similar need to integrate recruiting within HR as there is for integrating learning into HR, which I presented on at Learning Technologies earlier this year.

 

However, if this is all I said it’d be a rather boring panel.  So I’m going to be coming down on the side of talent development.  And I actually find this a rather easy argument to make – talent development is simply a more strategic activity than talent acquisition is.

Talent acquisition provides our undeveloped people – our raw materials if you like (OK, neither do I, but stick with me for a minute).  The quality of these raw materials is hugely important but it’s just not enough.  The even more important activity is what the organisation does with these raw materials – how it converts these into something more useful for the business to use.

There’s a direct analogy to the business value chain.  Businesses also buy raw materials or other inputs and then transform these into something more valuable which can be sold to customers.  Procurement is therefore a vital activity, but even with advances in areas like supply chain management there are very few businesses which compete on they way they procure raw materials.  Most do this on the way they add value to these materials through some transformation.

Organisations don’t compete on the way they do recruitment either.  They compete on the transformation of their new joiners into an aligned and engaged workforce.  Much of this transformation is down to the role of talent development, including the way that people are progressed up and across the organisation.  And the need to focus on the transformation rather than the raw materials becomes ever greater then more we focus on competing through organisational capabilities.

That’s because competition rests upon differentiation.  If we recruit the same people as our competitors, if we have the same culture as them, we simply can’t compete upon these things.  And OK, it may be possible for one organisation to recruit better or different people simply based upon its employer brand or the speed of its recruiting activities etc.  But the difference is likely to be quite small.  The key difference is much more likely to come from the transformation of the people we’ve hired and the creation of organisational capabilities we can use.

 

You’ll be able to read more arguments for and against this perspective on the Monster Thinking blog leading up to the debate.

 

A final note: I hope I haven’t offended any of my readers in recruitment!  As I noted earlier on, this is a rather theoretical debate.  We need both recruitment and development and the real need is to have them both better integrated together; both focused on achieving the same thing – and for both of them to be doing this more strategically.

 

Technorati Tags: David Henry,Monster,Thinking,Keith Robinson,HR Buzz,Monster Buzz,talent,acquisition,development

 

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#BersinIMPACT: Agile HR

 

   As well as career development, performance management, recruiting and learning, the two key themes of the conference were probably big data, and agility.

This is Josh Bersin on agility:

“In today’s fast-changing business environment, organizations tell us that their #1 goal is to improve their “business agility” – their ability to understand market changes, rapidly adapt, and operate as a globally integrated business. How can your HR, learning, and leadership programs help make this happen?

Well unfortunately, many existing HR and L&D programs are getting in the way. A recent Economist Intelligence Unit study (Fall of 2010) found that Human Resources is the ‘least agile’ function in most businesses, less change-ready then even finance and administration. The old fashioned processes for training, performance management, succession, and compensation are just not keeping up.

And to make matters worse, HR teams are not always aware of modern solutions. Chief Human Resource Officers tell us that their #1 challenge, after partnering with their CEO, is modernizing the skills and capabilities of the HR team itself.”

 

Supporting Josh Bersin’s presentation on agility was another from Matt Milbrodt at Walmart.  After having performed the Walmart cheer (including squiggley – well, as a Brit, I took photos of everyone else doing it instead [and I bet Asda staff don’t do one!]) – we learnt about Walmart’s agile approaches to keep up with some amazing growth projects – from a base of 2m employees today, Walmart needs another 4m people by 2013 to cover growth and replenishment!  So recruiting, development, retaining processes have to keep up with this pace.

I particularly liked the example of a group selection process from Walmart Canada in which 9 managers interview 18 associates in one 1.5 hour session.  The process includes role plays and scenarios, benefits, including career etc, and speed meetings and interviews.  Oh, and the Walmart cheer of course.  The process is completed by a collaborative hiring decision.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Bersin,Impact,conferences,2012,Matt Milbrodt,Walmart,agility,recruitment

 

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Bersin Impact 2012

 

   I’ve got a couple of great conferences coming up over the next few months.  First up will be Bersin’s Impact 2012 in St Petersburg, from 10 to 12 April.

I love Bersin’s research, having been introduced to this about five years ago whilst working for an elearning group in the UK when their research was mainly focused on learning too.  Since then, they’ve expanded into other areas of talent management, and into Europe and the UK too.

So for example, I recently met up with Josh at the Lumesse conference, and since them have attended one of their webinars (organised by Linkedin) on UK Recruiting (on their 2011 Talent Acquisition Factbook) too.

There were some great insights in this, including that UK companies spend over £5300 per new hire – over twice as much as US companies.  The cost differential is due, in part, to a difference in sourcing strategies – and that in the UK, companies spend two-thirds rather than one-third of their recruiting budgets on agencies!  And that’s despite the fact that it’s not even particularly effective (see the percentage of jobs filled) and it’s certainly not cost effective!!!.

 

 

Sometimes I despair!

 

Josh is one of the very few people I’ve had guest post on here, and have posted on them and their research quite often too:

• Top 22 Programmes for Talent Management
• The Strategic HCM Suite / 2
• The New Disciplines of HR
• Tours through the blogosphere: B is for Bersin
• Josh Bersin on informal and social learning
• Bersin: Measuring HCM in financial terms?

 

However, it seems that I forgot to post on last year’s Impact conference, which I did attend virtually, and was well impressed by.  In fact I remember there being so much great research being presented that I was pretty much tied to my computer screen (and the print screen button too).

So this year, I decided that I needed to be there irl.  If you’ve got a few spare days in mid-April, you might want to try to get along there (I’m told it’s a great time to go to Disneyland as well, and I may even see you there too?).

If you can’t get to the conference, I will be blogging on key insights from the research (learning, recruitment, and other areas from within the talent management agenda too) – meaning lots of posts, I expect.  So follow the action here!

 

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Who should be the CIPD’s new CEO?

 

   So the CIPD are searching for a replacement for Jackie Orme.  Or rather a recruitment consultancy are doing the search for them, which seems a rather redundant exercise give that the successful candidate has to (or certainly should) already have a prominent role in the HR community in order to act as a figure head for the profession.  Therefore we already know who they are, or at least we know who the candidates should be.

This is my suggestion for the top 10 (in the order I thought of them):

 

	Duncan Brown.  One of the most insightful people to have passed through the CIPD, with more recent experience at IES, PwC and Hewitt.  Sensibly intelligent and articulate, with a great understanding of the new reward agenda.  Time for the CIPD to take on bankers’ bonuses?  Too right!
	John Philpott. If the CIPD wants to fill the role with an internal candidates, and they should really shouldn’t they, then John Philpott, the CIPD’s Chief Economist is the clear front runner.  Loads of informed insight, respect across the HR community and clout with government.  What’s not to like?
	Peter Cheese.  Highly experience and credible consultant, ex Accenture now kicking his heels at the ILM.  Author of a couple of fairly sensible books on strategic HR management and measurement including the Talent Powered Organisation.  Would measuring HR’s contribution get the profession into shape?
	Ann Almeida.  Prefer a practitioner to a consultant?  Yes, probably.  There are a number of senior HR leaders who good do the job – probably from the FTSE100 as they’d carry respect in smaller organisations whilst the reverse isn’t always true (often unfairly).  However, my nomination would be for Ann Almeida at HSBC - probably the deepest thinking HR practitioner I’ve met.
	Neil Morrison.  I’m only half joking here – maybe not even that – what about Neil Morrison?  Board level HR Director at Random House, social media superstar and greatly talented wit.  Not overly into the CIPD which I think is a good thing.  But of course, a big supporter of Connecting HR, which is better still.
	Lembit Opik. A real joker in the pack would be Liberal Democrat politican and general celebrity Lembit Opik.  Ex HR, ex MP with the capability to bring a cheeky grin to all HR professionals.
	Julian Birkinshaw. Moving into academia, I’ve needed to have a think.  My favourite UK academic for a long-time has been Lynda Gratton at London Business School, but I’m less into her newer stuff, despite the fact that it’s increasingly closer to my main agenda these days.  So my nomination goes to a non-HR professor who I think speaks the greatest sense about HR: Julian Birkinshaw, also at LBS.  Time to reinvent HR!
	Ruth Spellman. What have we got left?  I guess HR types with experience of running other professional institutes must be a good bet. What about poaching Ruth Spellman, ex CEO of CMI and IIP UK before she joins WEA next month?
	China Gorman. Or what about China Gorman, ex SHRM hard hitter, heavily engaged in social media too. The American take-over might not go down well with some, but better this than a full take-over of the institute by SHRM!
	Gwyn Burr. Errm, I’m running out of ideas now, but, well, I suppose the final opportunity would be a business person who is known as a progressive talent manager.  I’m not a particular fan of the businessisation of HR, but it could go down well across the profession.  A compromise might be someone doing both HR and a business job eg Gwyn Burr, Customer Service and Colleague Director at Sainsbury’s, or possibly Lucy Adams, Business Operations Director (and former Director of People) at the BBC. Actually, I do like this idea, so there you go: Gwyn Burr is my recommendation for the job.

Who else would you suggest?

 

A few reflections:

• I’ve not worried about the job these people are currently doing, or how much they’re currently being paid etc.  Such is the freedom of the blogger vs the recruitment agent!
• It’s not a very diverse list, and hopefully that’s something that the recruitment agency can improve on.
• I’ve been a bit ambivalent about HR Magazine’s list of Most Influentials in the past (though obviously a bit less so now that I’m on it!) but based upon the above they do seem to have hit the spot – I had a look through their lists (1,2,3,4) when I got a bit stuck with my #10 and it’s interesting to see most of the people I’ve listed are on their lists already.
• But no, I’m not putting myself forward – though I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fun – see my next post on this!

 

And a PS: I’ve never exchanged more than a couple of words with Jackie, and I don’t agree with all her views on HR, or all of what she’s done at the CIPD, but it’s horrible to hear about anyone, particularly someone still relatively early in their career, having cancer, and I wish her the very best for a full and speedy recovery.

 

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