Guru

Guru found himself in Paddington Basin the other day at the head office of revitalised retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S).

While waiting for chief executive Stuart Rose to call him up (can't disclose why - client confidentiality and all that), Guru couldn't help but notice what looked like a massive patio umbrella in the middle of reception.

He whipped out his mobile phone camera (out of sight of the watchful security guards) and got this exclusive shot...

It's actually a Cyclepod - a fancy, covered bicycle stand that can store eight bikes in a 2m² footprint. M&S is 'peddling' Cyclepods to its staff at the Waterside head office and at 12 stores nationwide in a bid to encourage them to cycle to work.

It is all part of M&S's £200m ecoplan to make the company carbon neutral by 2012, which it calls Plan A.

The retailer writes:

Plan A is our five-year, 100-point plan to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our business and our world. It will see us working with our customers and our suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, safeguard natural resources, trade ethically and build a healthier nation.

We're doing this because it's what you want us to do. It's also the right thing to do.

Worldwide, Plan A will involve 2,000 factories, 10,000 farms and 250,000 workers, though M&S is pledging that no additional costs will be passed on to their customers.

And why is it called Plan A? "Because there's no Plan B."

Whistleblowers now have more protection than ever before as legislation safeguards those who are prepared to report the illegal or unethical behaviour of their employers.

But at a level slightly below this 'official' whistleblowing, a whole new industry has grown up in the blogosphere where disgruntled workers write regular blog postings about the drudgery of their employment.

Check out the Anonymous Work Blogs Blogring, where people as diverse as policemen, traffic wardens, teachers, nurses, secretaries, ambulance dispatchers etc are busy telling everyone how crap their working lives are.

It's a fascinating insight into employee disengagement. And some of them may work for you!

A whisper tickled its way into Guru's lughole whilst he was on beachcombing duty in Brighton last week concerning the glamorous past president of the Public Sector People Managers' Association (PPMA), Angela O'Connor.

It appears the newly installed chief people officer at the National Policing Improvement Agency is collecting police-related memorabilia, having already bagged a hat and couple of badges.

A disciple let slip, however, that following on from a good talking to by the chief executive of... um... adult-themed er... memorabilia retailer Ann Summers, La O'Connor and a mystery blond accomplice were inspired to take matters into their own hands.

Guru's blogging nemesis Peter Gold of e-recruitment blog Hire Strategies appears to be developing something of an unhealthy obsession with Yours Truly.

Obviously ired by Guru's recent search engine optimisation (SEO) successes, Gold has started repeating the words "human resources guru", "HR guru" and "Personnel Today" ad nauseam in a shameless attempt to pass himself off as the real deal and overtake Guru's own impressive Google ranking. And without so much as a courtesy blog link, would you believe?

Guru is coming to expect this sort of underhand behaviour from this fiendish enemy, who is starting to take on James Bond-villain proportions. But he's in danger of becoming more of a Gold-whinger than a Gold-finger (pictured left) if he keeps up this stalker-like behaviour.

Don'cha just love Texans? The big steaks, the big hats and the big guns! Those good ol' boys sure know how to keep a sense of proportion.

Why, only this week Guru hears that the Texas legislature has passed Bill HB 220 out of committee. This Act relates to the rights and liabilities of an employer with respect to the carrying of a concealed handgun and expressly prohibits employers from banning guns in their parking lots.

Blogger Michael W. Fox (why must they always include a middle initial - in case you confuse him with Michael J. Fox of Back to the Future fame?) of Jottings by an Employer's Lawyer writes:

I am not a hunter, nor a student of the 2nd amendment, but I do know a bit about workplaces, and let me tell you this is an important issue for employers and it's crazy to think they shouldn't have the right to ban handguns. The New York Times agrees.

I am not terribly optimistic that these bills won't make it through the legislature. If you are concerned, you better speak up soon.

I can just see it now, instead of a hat check closet, employers will now have a gun check closet.

It should make that stand-off between sales and marketing a bit more interesting. Yee ha! Hot diggedy! etc.

Guru is busy making new blogger friends on the other side of the pond.

Frank Roche and Sarah Chambers from communication consultancy iFractal run the KnowHR blog, an award-winning US-based human resources blog that has just been named Best of the Web by Human Resources Executive magazine.

Guru is awaiting his Best of the Web commendation from Personnel Today, but worries that the editor might want to declare an interest.

The American HR blog community is better developed than our own fledgling UK efforts, as evidenced by KnowHR's impressive blogroll (for all you non-techies out there, that's blogroll, not bog-roll), which links to such luminaries as Bob Sutton of Work Matters and Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World.

Sutton and Kawasaki have themselves collaborated on an excellent new self-test tool called ARSE (the asshole rating self-exam).

Questions include:

You believe that one of the best ways to 'climb the ladder' is to push other people down or out of the way - true or false.

You are often jealous of your colleagues, and find it difficult to be genuinely pleased for them when they do well - true or false.

Try it - and let Guru know how much of an ARSE you really are.

So one in five men who use the internet have confessed to being distracted from work or study by 'adult entertainment websites', according to research.

Ironically, Guru was distracted from looking at adult entertainment websites by this survey - conducted by YouGov for price comparison website moneysupermarket.com - flashing up on his email.

As if it wasn't bad enough that it took his attention away from Paris Hilton having a particularly thorough wash in the bath, the survey had to go and pollute Guru's brain with another horrendous buzzword.

Guru is not a vain man - though this baby-soft blue skin doesn't look after itself.

But he couldn't resist submitting his photo to the ultimate peer review website - Hot or Not.

The site encourages people to post pictures of themselves and then allows web surfers of the world to pass judgement on their looks by means of a scale of 1 (not) to 10 (hot). To date the site claims to have attracted 12 billion votes!

Pictures of the most beautiful people on the site are coralled into a hot hall of fame, and users are encouraged to send them on to their horny friends.

There seems also to be a dating element to the site, which boasts that it has been the catalyst for "many happy relationships and even marriages" (does that mean marriages are not happy relationships!?).

Guru is waiting patiently for his (pay-as-you-go, purchased-especially, don't-tell-Mrs-Guru-about-it) mobile phone to ring with offers of no-strings-attached, hotel-room-based relationships with hot female 10s.

However, at the time of writing Guru has only been rated as a 3.7 - have these people got no taste? Don't they understand the evolutionary leap that Guru represents? Or do you think the blue hue might be putting them off?

Frankly, the fact that Guru is "hotter than 30% of the men on this site" is of scant consolation.

Guru did get a couple of 8s, so there are at least a few ladies out there who understand that Yours Truly is upper quartile.

Hot news from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), which has just announced that director general Geoff Armstrong will be standing down in June 2008 after 16 years in the post.

Guru's first reaction is to think that Armstrong has "done a Tony Blair", and risks a year of plotting, infighting and lame duck leadership as he counts down the months to his retirement.

Why, until just recently he even had a deputy called Brown (though it was Duncan, rather than Gordon).

The accuracy of this analogy will ultimately hinge on whether Armstrong insists on a Blair-style farewell tour to cement his legacy, complete with appearances on Blue Peter and Songs of Praise.

Guru is always keen to find out who is in his webspace.

The other day he stumbled across what appears to be a Czech HR Guru website - www.hrguru.cz

Now, despite having visited Prague several times on 'research' assignments, Guru's understanding of the Czech language doesn't extend far beyond essential phrases like "another pint of Staropramen, my good man" and "can you give me this 25,000 koruna receipt without the Pussycat Club logo?".

So to 'Czech out' what this website is all about, Guru had no option but to use one of the free website translation services that is now available online. He chose Translation Experts, since they sounded, well... expert.

But just as you should never judge a book by its cover, so you should never judge a website by its URL.

Guru has no evidence to suggest otherwise, but he is pretty sure the main homepage headline should not read: "Inaptitude applications individual award".

Still flummoxed, he applied the translation service to the 'About Us' page. And this is what it returned:

Expansion plus edification are neediness piece heart-blood každého joker plus too neediness qualification make for sustenance konkurenceschopnosti každé sign within trhu. Within České republic to fetch within scope expansion plus edification yet with input interview 78% wooer within work. Benefice within této areas to accordingly wax by one of nejvýznamnějších kriterií with determination within prospective master.

Sounds like a conversation Guru once had in the Pussycat Club.

Any proper Czech translators out there?

Check out one of Guru's favourite blogs - Indexed by Jessica Hagy.

Hagy has a peculiar talent for reducing life's comlexities and dilemmas into Venn diagrams - a branch of mathematical set theory.

Anyone who remembers A-level maths will recall John Venn's strange intersecting circles.

Well Hagy has taken them to the next level and published a whole pack of index cards full...

Fans of Hagy can already buy Indexed t-shirts, and it can only be a matter of time before she expands the operation into a Gary Larson Far Side-style enterprise.

Guru wishes his old maths teacher had been this interesting.

Thanks to the petty preoccupations of employers and employees alike, human resources can be a pretty joyless function at the best of times. So Guru was delighted to stumble across a notice on the Evil HR Lady blog announcing that "the next Carnival of Human Resources will be held on Wednesday, 18 April".

Guru is not sure what a Carnival of Human Resources is, and has asked the Evil HR Lady for clarification. Will there be an Human Capital Carousel, a Recruitment Roller Coaster and Disciplinary Dodgems?

These carnivals seem to take place every fortnight. Just be sure to log on to Evil HR Lady later this week for all the fun of the HR fair.

Guru is intrigued by Evil HR Lady, immediately imagining her to be some sort of sadistic dominatrix specialising in 'personnel services', shod in nail-heeled stilettos and a wielding a leather riding crop.

Guru has been a very, very bad human resources expert and needs a strict course of performance management.

Guru once again witnessed the annual debacle that is the start of the Grand National horse race on Saturday as his own office sweepstake pick advanced straight to the glue factory.

Former jockey Peter Scudamore wrote for This is London:

You can hardly blame the riders...

Another Grand National scarred by the shambolic start. Six times starter Peter Haynes asked the jockeys to line up as tempers frayed. Each time some riders barely moved, with blindingly obvious conclusions.

Haynes has a tough job and blamed the jockeys but a lack of trust exists in the weighing room after a leading fancy was left standing at the Cheltenham Festival. After that, riders are reluctant to risk blowing their chance.

Guru is an expert in matters that extend far beyond the boundaries of mere human resources, and has an excellent idea to make the start of the world's most famous steeplechase both more reliable and more exciting.

The scheme has its origins in the old Le Mans motor race running start, when the drivers had to leg it across the track and climb into their cars before setting off.

Guru suggests something similar for the Grand National. The horses could be lined up at the start next to mounting steps, and the jockeys could be 800 metres away in their own starting blocks. On the gun the jockeys could sprint towards their horse, climb aboard and set off around the testing Aintree course.

Further variations could be added such as:

a) Allowing the jockeys to choose their horse on a first-come-first-served basis (thus rewarding the faster runners).

b) Positioning the horses after the first hurdle, which would make for a very entertaining spectacle as three dozen tiny Irishmen attempt to scale a 4' 6" obstacle.

This would also have the benefit of giving the hard-pressed bookmaking community plenty of welcome additional gambling opportunities.

Thought you might like to know what Rolling Stone and former hellraiser Bill Wyman is up to these days.

Click to find out... Bill Wyman's secret hobby

According to the great man himself: "Metal-detecting is not just for anoraks or eccentrics."

Yes, Bill. But appearing on Richard and Judy!? Where's your dignity?

Guru's e-mail inbox regularly breaches its storage limit thanks to the hundreds of human resources-related press releases he receives every day.

Guru does his bit for the e-environment by filing them all in his "recycling bin".

Why don't public relations departments spend their PR budgets more wisely? Like on expensive gifts, swanky lunches and fully catered overseas junkets for journalists. If only they knew how easy it is to bribe us members of The Fourth Estate...

On the subject of bribery, one press release made it through Guru's spam filter (delete button) thanks to its intriguing headline: "Two thirds of workers reveal passwords for chocolate and a pretty smile."

Guru once knew a girl who would reveal all for a chocolate and a winning smile. She's now fathered eight children by six different men. But that's another story.

Infosecurity Europe carried out a survey of 300 office workers passing through London train stations to see how security savvy they were.

Some 64% gave up their passwords for what Infosecurity grandly calls "social engineering techniques" - ie a free Mars Bar and a bit of flirting from "the attractive researcher".

But Guru can't help but wonder whether Infosecurity has underestimated the wily ways of the London commuter - who have probably all "given up" fake passwords in exchange for their prize.

Attractive researcher: "Hello sir, I was just wondering - would you tell me your computer password in exchange for this bar of chocolate?"

Guru: "Why yes, young lady. It's URA5UCK3R. Thanks for the Mars Bar."

Back at his MySpace page, Guru received a message from 'friend' and disciple Rachel, whose profile is delightfully accompanied by a spirited rock and/or roll musical backing track and photographs of herself pole dancing.

Rachel told Guru:

Just thought I'd let you know that I have been upgraded! I'm an MCIPD now! Most of my friends don't understand... so I share with strangers! lol!

Now there is some debate in the Personnel Today office about whether "lol" means "laugh out loud" or "lots of love". For the sake of argument, Guru will assume the latter.

Anyway, Rachel - your friends may not be wowed by the news that you've arrived at the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, but Guru is mighty impressed.

The pole dancing could do with some practice, though...

Guru has made a great success of his life. But that doesn't stop him wondering whether he might do things differently if he had his time again.

So Guru has tried to set himself up on Second Life - an online three-dimensional alternate universe complete with its own currency - but with little success (Guru suspects he needs to part with real money to take part in this unreal experience).

The site proudly tells Guru that he is one of 5.6 million residents, but Yours Truly has not yet met any of his fellow avatars - the idealised 3D personas that people use as their online identities.

Others seem to be having more success. Indeed there are reports of the first Second Life millionaire having made her money from dealing in virtual property.

And now it seems that international management schools are getting in on the act. INSEAD has set up a facility in Second Life "to supplement in-person learning".

INSEAD, which describes itself as 'The Business School for the World' and which has bricks and mortar establishments in France and Singapore, is currently 'building' its new Second Life campus.

According to Business Week:

It already boasts a tree-lined walkway, large screens that provide information about the school, and some plush chairs. Eventually, students will be able to download documents, work in teams, and meet alumni at a campus café.

Guru might even consider lecturing at this virtual college. If he can find it.

Having recently been so disparaging about press releases, Guru is now somewhat abashed to be blogging about a second one in less than a week.

But when this beauty arrived from De Vere Venues, Guru knew he had to share it with his disciples.

De Vere Venues Theobalds Park, Hertfordshire's leading dedicated training, conference and meeting provider, is set to become the first venue to host tree top meetings with the construction of an innovative tree house in its impressive grounds.

Constructed between two mature oak trees, the tree house meeting space will measure 23sqm and comfortably house at least 10 people. The tree house will be available for a variety of business meetings and brainstorming sessions to inspire great thinking and encourage creativity and is set to become one of the most exclusive retreats for corporate gatherings.

Click to see Guru's impression of how it might look...

Guru picked up on a story last week that seemed to have dropped below the radar of most media outlets.

A study by German academics - who else - found that equal pay was unfair and penalised workers who put in the most effort. Real fairness would be paying staff according to how hard and how well they worked, our Teutonic cousins concluded.

The study said:

While the participants who were paid individually achieved almost the highest possible performance level, those who worked under equal pay wages produced hardly half as much. In addition, their performance got worse over time.

Happy St George's Day, by the way.

You might need Guru's reminder of the significance of 23 April, since there don't seem to be many others celebrating England's patron saint.

The Welsh proudly sport their leeks and daffodils on St David's day; the Scots don tartan and quote Rabbie Burns for St Andrew; and those of Irish descent drink vast quantities of black and green(!) beer in celebration of St Patrick.

But an Englishman is discouraged from displaying any hint of nationalism for fear of being associated with those unsavoury elements of society that have hijacked its symbolism and those so-called sportsmen who perform such mediocrity in our name.

Never fear - Guru has come over all red and white nevertheless, and will mark this proud occasion with the following lines from Shakespeare's Richard II...

This royal throne of kings, this sceptr'd isle/This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars/This other Eden, demi-paradise... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...

With thanks to Philip Johnson and his excellent article in today's The Daily Telegraph.

Guru can only apologise to his disciples that yesterday's first blog posting was late (uploaded at 12.15pm, rather than the usual pre-9am).

Guru had arrived in the office nice and early and begun his 15-minute index finger warm up routine, when he was suddenly called into an urgent Personneltoday.com meeting to "review our taxonomy in order to maximise our website traffic".

Guru said he couldn't see what stuffing animals had to do with the internet, but helpfully volunteered to select some of his less vivacious colleagues for the treatment anyway. That seemed to get Guru off the hook and he slept undisturbed through the rest of the meeting.

Anyway, all this is by way of a rather long-winded introduction to today's real story, which is that Wendy Cartwright, head of HR at the Olympic Delivery Authority, has finally broken cover (after no doubt being subjected to the sort of endless and pointless internal meetings exemplified above).

Amazing as it might seem, Duncan Fletcher's resignation as England cricket coach has highlighted a key business issue that not enough companies take into account.

That's according to Guru's favourite business pyschology firm OPP. Never slow to jump on any bandwagon that might happen to be trundling by at the time, the company thinks employers need to understand the impact a significant crisis - such as a management failure - will have on their people.

An OPP expert opines:

A senior manager might resign in the wake of a disastrous event, the way Duncan Fletcher has, but the impact on the team will still be considerable.

Some individuals will attribute a failure to their own shortcomings, even if it has little or nothing to do with them, while others will seek to blame others wherever possible.

The guest speaker at this week's Personnel Today HR Directors Club breakfast briefing was former ITN political correspondent John Sergeant.

You'll remember him as the man made famous when then prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her press supremo Sir Bernard Ingham elbowed him out of the way on the steps of the British embassy in Paris at the height of the Tory leadership crisis of 1990.

Not only does Sergeant bear an uncanny resemblance to funny woman Jo Brand (as these separated-at-birth pictures testify), but he does a similarly amusing comedy routine.

Guru's favourite anecdote from Sergeant's presentation went as follows:

Back in 1986, BBC newsreader Julia Somerville left the corporation to join ITN, and at the same time ITN newsreader Martyn Lewis moved in the other direction to join the BBC.

When asked how he thought the BBC had done from the 'swap', its head of news paused momentarily, then replied: "Tit for tat."

Diversity and employee engagement are big issues for business - and rightly so. For a start, Guru contends that blue people are massively under-represented and misunderstood in the workplace.

And so it was that Guru found himself last night at a diversity and employee engagement seminar at the swanky new Kings Cross offices of property and construction consultancy EC Harris - dubbed ECHQ.

After what Mrs Merton would have described as a "heated debate", Guru got talking to one of the EC Harris partners about how it keeps its diverse, international workforce engaged.

He said two words: "Free bar."

ECHQ has a licenced bar on the premises, and three days a week - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday - it opens to the 700 head office staff from 5pm to 8pm and serves them free booze. What's more, it is staffed by the partners so they can get to know their employees and keep an eye on any of the potentially unseemly behaviour that complimentary alcohol can so often cause.

Does it get any better than having the boss pour you a pint of beer?

Guru salutes the genius of this forward-thinking organisation and looks forward to celebrating with it (in the free bar) when it is inevitably named Sunday Times Best Company To Work For later this year.

Guru told you that Jessica Hagy's Indexed blog was pure genius.

See for yourself...

It's the time of year again when Guru's mail sack weighs heavy with press releases about addictive TV show The Apprentice.

Over the last few days Guru has received several releases attempting to relate Alan Sugar's assessment techniques to the 'real world' of business.

Business psychology firm OPP, already on a yellow card with Guru after some poorly thought-out sport analogies, says workplace conflict needs to be managed well - something that's not being achieved on The Apprentice.