The Work Clinic

Dear Natalie.

I am looking for information on how to embed a coaching culture at all levels (management and non-management) in an organisation. I am currently on a leadership programme and our assignment is based on this subject. The challenge for me currently is that we are not looking for any training interventions as our organisation has already established coaching circles, however we still pick up blockers to the process at certain levels.

I am looking for practical solutions of embedding a coaching culture in an organisation.

Zennith

Dear Natalie,

Please could you help me. I have begun a career in law and I am now coming to the end of my training contract. I will qualify as a solicitor in August 2007.

After two years I have realised that criminal law is not for me. I am more interested in managing the office and I would like to begin a career in human resources.

As part of my legal practise course I completed a module in employment law and practise. During my training contract I also completed a professional skills course, where one of the modules was also employment law.

I recognise that prospective employers will require a level of qualification in HR or a specific area of HR. Would the courses I have undertaken be sufficient in their own right, or would they need to be supplemented with further qualifications or would I be required to complete a full HR course to secure a job in this field?

Louise Artley

Yesterday evening I attended an event hosted by Paul McKenna, most famously known for his TV presence as a stage hypnotist, but who now runs a training company. McKenna claims he can use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to help individuals and managers become more effective leaders.

At the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the famous ‘sorting hat’ is used to help Harry Potter and his classmates fulfil their potential.

The sorting hat listens to the needs and desires of the individual and places them in the most appropriate ‘house’ along with like-minded talent to help pursue the academic accomplishments of magic and craft.

In business, however, the allocation of talent and dedication of resources along individuals’ leadership development journeys is a little more haphazard.

In fact, a recent study by global management consultancy Hay Group reveals that only a quarter of organisations believe their current talent management processes will deliver the leaders they need to fulfil current and future roles. As many as 70% of them feel they needed to change their approach to talent management to put this right.

So what can companies do to ensure they help develop and manage talent to cultivate the skills needed to compete in the future?...

Are you a young, ambitious professional wishing to work your way up into the boardroom? Turns out you're in luck. Graham Wallace, chief executive of Merryck & Co, a CEO mentoring organisation, says that today's CEOs are on average 20 years younger than they were two decades ago. However, Wallace also states that being at the top of the tree much younger means you have a longer way to fall. He offers some tips in this special Q&A, whether you're a professional looking for advice on how to get into the boardroom, or needing advice on how you should mentor your CEOs.

Graham Wallace, CEO of Merryck & Co, a CEO mentoring organisation

"Leadership can be an incredibly lonely occupation where the stakes are high, no-one gives you honest feedback and you really can’t afford to learn from your mistakes. Meanwhile CEOs are getting younger and are facing global challenges they just don’t see coming.

Challenges from mending broken business models, winning succession races and handling dysfunctional senior teams are now joined by fresh issues faced by peerless young bosses from juggling work and young families to ‘stretching’ in to a new role."

When you're a graduate it's always hard getting your first step on the career ladder. I was lucky. I was offered a position after completing a work experience placement with a top publisher in London six months before I was due to graduate. They had agreed to hold the position open for me. So if you are currently completing your CIPD professional qualifications wondering what it is going to take to attain your first HR appointment, then help is on hand.

Take a look at the six tips Steve Miller is offering you to help you shine at both interview and also in your first year of employment...

As the war on talent wages on, it's getting harder and harder to retain top talent. Therefore, it is vital to understand what determines whether a high potential employee stays long enough for that potential to be realised or leaves to develop their career elsewhere.

Senior development director Rachel Burlton of leadership development organisation Common Purpose reveals the barriers that limit junior managers from fulfilling their potential as leaders of tomorrow.

Rachel Burlton, senior development director at leadership development organisation Common Purpose:

"Worryingly, research we recently conducted found that over half of junior managers are not fulfilled by their work, and that employers are failing to respond to this unhappiness and frustration - leading to a mass haemorrhaging of junior managers, with over half either actively searching for or thinking about a new job...

Ian Scholes, learning & development consultant, Coventry University School of Lifelong Learning:

If the UK is to avoid becoming a ‘second division’ economy, it’s estimated that 4.5 million extra graduates are needed in the workforce by 2020 - that's an additional 150,000 a year.

So where are all the high-skill graduates coming from? Look around you. All eyes are falling on existing employees and the millions with potential for training and re-training to higher levels. In 2020, 70% of the workforce will be made up of people already in work today, so there’s simply no choice. It all means a major development job for UK plc in the coming years – and a real opportunity for a whole new generation of jobs for HR professionals.

With the government putting more and more emphasis on the importance of higher skills, more attention is going to be paid to how degree-level study can possibly be delivered among such huge numbers of employees without taking people off the job...

National Chip Week has been and gone, and America’s National Banned Book Week may have passed us by, but Apprenticeship Week kicks off today, and is not to be missed …

While the word apprentice conjures up all sorts of dreary images (think the downtrodden and love-staved Granville in ‘Open All Hours’), there’s no denying that what was once a respected way to learn ‘a trade’ seems to have fallen by the wayside. Now that our school leavers are aiming to be instant pop stars/ footballers/ Wags (delete as applicable), we are facing a massive skills shortage. And it’s only going to get worse.

The idea behind Apprenticeship Week is to encourage more employers to take on apprentices, while at the same time providing them with more than the basic skills.

According to John McGurk, CIPD’s learning, training and development adviser,

“With an increasing number of UK organisations facing acute recruitment and skills shortages, many employers see skills training as a means of addressing these. Apprenticeships provide employers with the opportunity to meet these skills demands and at the same time provide personal development for employees. Employers need to step up to the demands of a knowledge economy and train all their staff with both basic and soft skills.”

Could behavioural neuroscience be the answer to managing your career in the economic downturn? I recently spent a weekend on a 'retreat' organised by The Mangrove, a company directed by two professional coaches, Marie de Guzman and Damon Newman. Their approach to supporting career and personal change is based on the idea of 'brain plasticity', which refers to the way that new ways of thinking lead to changes to the neural activity of the brain.
This apparently is needed for sustainable change in our thinking, behaviour and problem solving. It was previously thought that only children's brains had this plasticity but now evidence shows adults do too, so there is hope for all of us. There is no way those of us uninitiated in behavioural neuroscience can assess its validity for a career development weekend, but it is a useful metaphor to show that to change you need to reinforce new behaviour over a long time frame.
The Mangrove runs its retreat weekends to stimulate brain plasticity through creative thinking and activities include a cooking workshop with a top chef, sports coaching on a golf range, a financial clinic, one to one coaching and even a flower arranging lesson. There is a dedicated chef and sommelier and you get to sample wines normally only available in the best London restaurants.
But was it more than a luxury weekend break with some coaching thrown in? While I was unconvinced that the theory behind brain plasticity could really be so easily translated into a set of group activities, I found the event helpful, fun and at times inspiring, and potentially useful for people who need a change of direction in their life or career and who are struggling to know where to start.

Noel O'Reilly.

Has the love affair between Second Life and the world of work gone too far? First it was cobwebby old corporate types using it to try to connect with yoof (ie potential Generation Y employees), and now even student nurses seem to be jumping on the bandwagon ...

While 'Nurse Island' sounds like something targeted at bespectacled nerds who lack the social skills needed to interact with real women, it is in fact a legitimate educational tool. Glasgow Caledonian University has launched it 'to help students with decison making', according to Jacqueline McCallum, senior lecturer in clinical simulation. Trainee nurses will be able to create characters and lives for themselves in a parallel universe, interacting with virtual patients before being let loose on the real thing.

The university is a big fan of Second Life, having already created a replica of its own campus, complete with Glasgow landmarks, so that potential students from abroad can get an idea of campus life before arriving in Scotland. Personally, I find that a bit dispiriting - what ever happened to mystery or anticipation? And will access to a virtual campus put off would-be students from sunnier climes?

As for letting trainee nurses run riot on 'Nurse Island' ... all good, clean fun, I'm sure, but wouldn't they benefit from more, rather than less, interaction with patients?

Last year I wrote about a charity asking its staff to stop singing at work because of potential financial implications. This year, however, following on from a deluge of music-related reality TV shows (Bradley Walsh in 'Maestro', anyone?), insurers Admiral are looking to a few 'doh, ray, mes' to motivate their call centre workers.

Admiral has hired Inspire, set up by two vocal coaches, to provide vocal health sessions aimed at motivating staff, team-building and reducing sickness and absenteeism. Forty staff have already formed a choir, meeting once a month over a six-month period, Singing work by Queen, The Blues Brothers and OutKast, they will perform in front of thousands of colleagues at the company's staff general meetings in Cardiff and Swansea

The morale boosting benefits of singing are well known, but Inspire will also participate in inductions for all new Admiral call centre staff, training them to use their voices effectively, and providing tips on avoiding sore throats and managing throat infections.

I could do the cynical journalist bit and decry this for a waste of money during a credit crunch, but I think it's a lovely idea.

Social work has been in crisis for some time, and more so than ever now, in the aftermath of the Baby P case. According to the Local Government Association (LGA)'s Respect and Protect report, one in 10 social work posts is vacant at any one time.  In fact, so few people now want to work in the beleaguered sector that the LGA is to ask up to 5,000 retired social workers to come back to work.

That's 5000 people who may be out of date with legislation, working practice, even technology. As if the sector wasn't in enough of a mess.

 
Much has been said and written about what organisations lose when their older workers retire, particularly soft skills such as dealing face-to-face with customers, or historical knowledge of the organisation and how it operates. But, except in extreme cases, such as that currently faced by social work bosses, wouldn't it make more sense to keep the knowledge within the company and train younger staff properly, rather than going to the expense and inconvenience of rehiring retirees?

Of course it depends on how long people have been rehired, but have companies thought through the financial implications of training returning retirees? And although personal financial needs may well mean that people are keen to come back to work, surely the majority would prefer to enjoy their well-earned retirement.

With little sign of the recession letting up, a growing number of professionals are putting together a Plan B. Uncertain of their long-term career security, they continue with their jobs while plotting alternative work.

Plan B-ers, as they will no doubt soon be known, are secretly enrolling in evening classes, taking online courses, writing up business plans and approaching potential backers as they try to prepare for a new career. And it's not a case of not enjoying their current work - they simply can't rely on it continuing long-term.

According to John Gnuschke of the University of Memphis: "This is what we expect to see in times of recession. People can't count on a single employer or even a single industry anymore. If you're lucky enough to still have a job, it's wise to begin to retrain and to broaden your skill base."

While that's all well and good, what about the new graduates trying to get into the areas that these second-chancers have earmarked for themselves?

Trina Thompson, 27, has filed a law suit against Monroe College. She is seeking the £42,000 she spent on course fees.

Thompson has been unable to find work since completing her information technology degree in April, and claims that the college failed to provide her with the promised leads and career advice.

Monroe College says that the lawsuit is without merit, and that it helps its graduates find jobs.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this particular situation, shouldn't it be up to Thompson to find a job for herself? Surely a 27 year old graduate has sufficient initiative - she's shown plenty, alas, of the wrong kind, in launching this court case ....

Last week's A level results prompted the usual photos of leggy lovelies getting the grades they needed to get to the university of their choice, but it's not all about the students. What does the business world need of its graduate recruits? Are students studying subjects that will make them employable, or just opting for the easiest, or most entertaining, course?

According to the CBI, more people need to study maths beyond GCSE level, although the number of students completing A-level maths this year has risen 12% to 72,475. The organisation welcomed this increase, but said that around 85% of young people still give up studying formal maths beyond GCSE in England. In contrast, two thirds of students in France continue studying maths after 16.

Susan Anderson, the CBI's director of education and skills, said:

"Young people need to know that certain subjects - like maths and science - are highly prized by employers. Britain needs more people coming out of school, college and university with maths as part of their skills armoury. Maths gives young people confidence with numbers, a good grasp of statistics and problem-solving abilities. These are skills that people take with them through life and which make a real difference to their long-term career prospects".

Maths facts:

• Currently, only 9% of A-level entries are in maths, and less than half of those getting top A and A* grades in maths GCSE go on to do an A-level in the subject.

• A recent survey conducted by YouGov for the CBI shows 31% of graduates are not confident about their numeracy, and 34% felt that they would have benefited from further maths education at school. Among sixth formers, 26% were not confident about their maths and among undergraduates this was 30%.

• Half of employers are dissatisfied with the basic numeracy skills of school leavers, and a fifth are dissatisfied with graduates' numeracy skills, according to the CBI's latest employment trends survey.

• People with maths and science skills are in demand. Almost all firms, across all sectors, employ people with science, technology, engineering and maths qualifications.

• People with maths and science skills earn more. Starting salaries for science sector jobs can be as much as £32,000, putting them in the top 20% of starting salaries. People who did maths A-level earn around 10% more over their lifetime than those who did not.

 The Brits have long been known for their conviction that speaking loudly and slowly in English - often with grossly over-exaggerated gestures - is the same as speaking foreign languages. But it appears that, in the world of business, the ruse (laziness?) has finally backfired.

Research by Cardiff Business School  has found that improving languages could add an extra £21bn to the UK economy and that export businesses using language skills boost their sales by 45%. At the same time, fewer and fewer young people are applying for university language courses.

The National Centre for Languages (CILT) wants languages to be treated as strategically significant subjects in the same way that science and maths have been championed.

CILT chief executive Kathryn Board says: "English is one of the great global languages but it will only take us so far. Our engagement with the non-English speaking world will remain superficial and one-sided unless we develop our capacity in other languages."

What to do? Is it maybe time that those thousands of unemployed teenagers were sent out to learn something that might just possibly be of use?