I’ve just had the pleasure of spending a couple of days with some delightful and talented people – I am of course talking about the PPMA Board. We all centred on the beautiful village of Old Amersham in Buckinghamshire for our annual 2 day event, and what a tremendous amount we achieved.

We started with a half-day session on the future of public sector reward at which we were joined by Chris Johnson of Mercers and Sarah Messenger from the LGE. We developed a PPMA position on the future direction of travel, which will now be worked up into a campaign to use with key stakeholders. After our normal Board Meeting in the afternoon we had a guided historical tour of Old Amersham with an obligatory stop at a local hostelry.

There was a great opportunity to wind down over dinner, graciously sponsored by the MJ, and then we all enjoyed entertainment in the bar – not provided by a PPMA member I hasten to add!

On the next day we started to develop our 5 year business plan which will shortly be posted on our website for consultation with all PPMA members.

Overall, we achieved a tremendous amount and I feel privileged to have worked with such a talented bunch of people! Further details of the reward discussion and business plan will appear on the website soon.

One ‘hot off the press’ news item from the Board meeting is that Anne Gibson from Norfolk County Council was nominated and appointed as Vice President (elect) of PPMA. Anne will take over as President in 2011. What a great track record the Eastern Region has of producing future PPMA Presidents and I can think of no-one more capable and deserving of the role than Anne.

Gill

As I mentioned in my recent blog post, the president of IPMA-HR Joe Lunt indulged me by agreeing to a 16-minute video interview where I asked questions of Transatlantic comparison and contrast - check out the video interview below.

Dean Shoesmith (PPMA) Interviews Joe Lunt (IPMA-HR) from PPMA on Vimeo.

…and remember, if you’ve any feedback on the interview, please do leave a comment on this blog post.

Dean

Nashville reflections

Nashville is a beautiful, vibrant city, located on the meandering Cumberland River and surrounded by rolling green, tree-covered hills. The city, famed for its music, is not just about country and western – rock and pop also feature large. Whilst the IPMA-HR conference was in town Taylor Swift and Metallica made appearances.

The historic Nashville Broadway is a lively area made up of shops, bars and continuous live music including the old country ‘honky tonk’. Nashville is the state capital of Tennessee and is ‘Music City USA’.

Conference facilities

The conference was staged at the magnificent Renaissance Hotel and conference centre – so named as it marked the origins of redevelopment of downtown Nashville in the 1970’s. The hotel’s facilities are considerable and the scale often mind-boggling. Rightly so for a conference that on occasions hosted up to nine concurrent workshops on a wide array of HR topics. The main auditorium seats 1,000 easily and there are many well-equipped breakout rooms.

The hospitality, kindness and friendliness of my American hosts knew no bounds – the president Joe Lunt, a real dynamic force, made every effort to make me welcome and even indulged me by agreeing to a 30-minute video interview where I asked questions of Transatlantic comparison and contrast (watch out for more on that interview soon!).

Keynote speakers

The conference was graced by three exceptional keynote speakers – one for each main day of the conference.

The conference was opened by the hugely motivational and evangelical Dr Dennis Kimbro, from Atlanta University Business School. Such is his speaking prowess that IPMA-HR members specifically asked for him to return to their conference following an oratory powerhouse display in Las Vegas in 2008. Dr Kimbro presented the theme of developing the next generation of leaders and provided his speech within the context of the current economic and employment turbulence in the US.

Dr Kimbro spoke of the need to develop leadership talent in the public sector to provide clarity of purpose and transformation of services under the cloud of acute financial pressure. His delivery was so stirring he received a standing ovation as he concluded. He has kindly agreed to speak at the London 2010 PPMA conference and I hope will be a real treat, as well as providing a very different presentational style, for a UK audience.

Day two of the conference saw a very different keynote speaker style from Dr Robert Hogan – probably known to many UK HR practitioners for the Hogan assessment instrument. Dr Hogan also spoke about leadership and took a psychometric and personality-based approach to the subject. His presentation – the leadership value chain – examined the links between personality, leadership and organisational effectiveness – dependent on the organisation’s leader.

The closing keynote address of the conference was provided by Dr Charlotte Roberts – an expert on learning organisations. She also delivered a presentation on leadership and covered the ground of considering leadership necessary for the next decade in the US. Dr Roberts also covered ground on ethical leadership and the impact of ethical and non-ethical leadership on the organisation.

Conference reflections

Three key themes emerged as the hallmark of the IPMA-HR conference 2009:

1. The recession and its devastating impact on jobs. Any number of workshops throughout the conference covered the ground of downsizing, legal issues as well as behavioural impact and considerations.
2. Leadership and the need for leaders to transform organisations in order to survive the recession – in particular the impact of the recession on public services in the US.
3. How to achieve effective organisational transformation and have a clear vision for future public services.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I am reminded of what striking similarities exist between the US and the UK even when separated by 3,000 miles of ocean. Globalisation is prevalent in so many forms – recession, societal impact, and human resource management.

Dean Shoesmith - Vice President (Elect) PPMA

After a well deserved (I would say that wouldn’t I!) summer break, I’m now in the throws of the busiest time of the year at work. It’s also a busy time for PPMA with our annual, two day Board meeting coming up next week. The agenda has been extended to give us time to focus on PPMA’s policy on the future of pay in the public sector. We are lucky to have a specialist reward consultant from Mercers coming along to facilitate the session. The meeting is being held on Buckinghamshire turf, as is traditionally the case, at the Old Crown Hotel in Old Amersham, which incidentally was the setting for a number of the famous scenes from Four Weddings and a Funeral!

I’ve recently given evidence on behalf of PPMA to the Social Worker Task Force. I would like to give my thanks to Andreas Gosh from Lewisham who collated PPMA’s written evidence on our behalf. The Task Force were very complimentary about our submission saying that it gave them a number of ideas that they would like to pursue as part of their ongoing workplan. The evidence we gave included suggestions such as creating more vocational routes into social work, more student sponsorship, investigating why people chose to stay as agency social workers, more investment in senior leadership and considering a national professional institute.

Finally, I was very saddened to hear the news about the loss of our much loved colleague and friend from Scotland, Hogan Burke. The news reached me whilst I was away on holiday and was a complete shock. Hogan was definitely one in a  million, a kind gentle man who was dedicated to his role in supporting our sister organisation SPDS. He will be missed very much and our thoughts go out to his colleagues and his wife, Moira and family.

Gill

Hi All

With our President currently enjoying the final rays of the summer with a well earned break, it falls to me as your Past President to give a little post on what’s going on.

First, Gillian’s written a great piece on Shared Services in her latest column for People Management. Some real food for thought about career structures for HR to consider from this.

Second, public sector pay, employment and pensions remain topical in all forms of media and the battlelines for the Public Sector cuts to come appear to be forming across all the major political parties in advance of the General Election. The PPMA Policy Board will be exploring these issues further at its next meeting where our new Deputy Lead Officer (Pay and Reward), Ian Hunter from South Tyneside Homes will be joining us for the first time. Ian will be supporting our Lead, Jim Savege, to take forward the increasingly challenging role for PPMA to play in this arena - in the grey area between employer and employee (familiar territory for HR folks!).

Third, the Public Sector is putting up a good show for the Personnel Today Awards this year, with South Norfolk Council, Lancashire County Council, Kent County Council, Lincolnshire Police, the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police, Croydon Council and London Fire Brigade all shortlisted in various awards categories - well done to all concerned!  I’d also particularly like to highlight the fact that the multi-award winning Birmingham City Council is again shortlisted for its work on Employee Engagement - Raffaela Goodby and Co should be bursting with well deserved pride by now!

Moving from positive news to really sad matters. PPMA was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our great friend and colleague from the Society of Scottish Personnel Directors. Hogan Burke was a true friend to PPMA and SOCPO, an exceptional HR Professional in his own right and will be missed by all who knew him. Our deepest sympathies are extended to his family and friends, more detail can be found on the PPMA Website.

And finally, on a more positive note, I’d like to take the chance (while she is away) to pay tribute to Gillian Hibberd. Gill has made the PPMA Presidency her own, has enhanced our profile even further and is providing dynamic and energetic leadership for our Association, whilst balancing a big day job at the same time. I’m really delighted to be supporting Gillian during her year and think that we, as Association, have every right to praise her for the work she has done and has yet to do, well done Gill, you’re doing a great job!

Anyway, time to exit the train (I’m in London tonight for the Personnel Today Pre-Awards Reception, yes yours truly/Cambridgeshire CC has also been shortlisted for the HR Director of the Year category, whether I win or not, I’m really humbled to have been considered and shortlisted).

My best wishes

Stephen