You may have picked up in the media that the CIPD have recently issued a paper entitled ‘Building Productive Public Sector Workplaces’. The document highlights the inevitable and lengthy period of public sector transformation that we are going through and positions effective people management as an essential prerequisite for success.

The paper goes on to make a number of recommendations for improvement in people management practice across the sector. For those that haven’t seen the document I have arranged for a link to be sent directly to PPMA members in the next couple of days. Although the paper is, in my view, positioned as a policy and lobbying paper by the CIPD, it has unfortunately been translated into a negative portrayal of public sector people management practice by some parts of the media.

Dean Shoesmith was busy responding to media calls with the PPMA view yesterday but we are also interested in hearing your views on the document. Let us know by commenting in the blog if you agree or disagree with the recommendations? Does it represent a fair and balanced commentary on the sector or not?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

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

Did you know the expression having a ‘Hey’ day dates back to an Anglo-Saxon use of ‘hey’ as an expression of great enthusiasm and happiness? A person’s ‘heyday’ is the period of her or his greatest vigour and success.

If only this were the case with the latest position on the UK default retirement age. I use the Heyday analogy, as this is the name of the case that has been commented upon by the European Advocate General before the matter finally washes up in the European Court of Justice. For those of you who haven’t been following this case it’s about the Heyday organisation who want people to work beyond the age of 65 and consider that the UK’s current stance with a default retirement age of 65 is discriminatory.

The Advocate General commenting on the case has said that the UK’s stance may not necessarily be discriminatory…but at this stage it is only a comment and the case has to be finally determined by the European Court of Justice.

I do hope the Government uses the opportunity of the Single Equalities Bill to sort this mess out. The default retirement age is really difficult for employers to follow and many end up unsure of what to do when their employees reach the age of 65…even some with large HR and legal departments at their disposal; so spare a thought for small businesses.

In my view, the ‘default’ retirement age is too woolly and we need a clearer statutory position. So please can we have some clarity before I revert to some good old Anglo Saxon expletives?

Dean Shoesmith - Vice President (Elect) PPMA

Colleagues – you may have read a topical piece in the Sunday Telegraph about Local Government Chief Executives’ pay over the weekend (Sunday Telegraph, 5 October 2008). The article provided a commentary on the so-called 50 top paid Local Government chief executives and was written in the style of condemnation of how big a bill the Council Tax payer is footing. In fairness, the article was balanced by quotes from Paul Coen Chief Executive of the Local Government Association where he put into perspective the amount of responsibility chief executives have in terms of people, budget and other resources – as well as the challenges many face in trying to provide services to deprived communities.

Like many articles in the press some of it has to be read with caution and I don’t think the list of the alleged top 50 earners was necessarily accurate as a league table…some big names and Councils seemed to be missing to me. Probably what would have been accurate would have been to say this was the top 50 earners of those Local Authorities that responded to the Freedom of Information Act disclosure request from the Sunday Telegraph.

In simple terms it’s correct to say that senior pay in Local Government has increased beyond the rate of inflation over recent years. However, in my view, this simply boils down to the old Keynesian economic law of the balance of supply and demand. Securing the supply of scarce talent carries a price tag. There aren’t many people out there in the employment market with the skills set to run a Local Authority. Having the leadership skills to run multi-million pound organisations that have a huge array of stakeholder interests to balance is certainly no cake walk and compared to the level of skill, complexity and responsibility in the private sector, or public industry, the pay of a Local Authority Chief Executive is still very modest.

I can remember a chief executive saying to me once that unlike other sectors he’d worked in, being a Local Government Chief Executive wasn’t just a job - it was a way of life; you’re almost married to the job where Members can - quite literally – contact you day, night, or weekend. So the ‘fat cat’ often doesn’t even have the chance to skim the cream off the milk - they’re too busy.

Dean Shoesmith - Vice President (Elect) PPMA

We’ve not had a presidential visit for more than two years in London and we were very pleased that Stephen Moir was able to join the region on Friday 27th June, to speak to us about his recent conference theme of HR evolution or extinction. In choosing this title, Stephen revealed his secret boyhood love of dinosaurs and his yearning to be a palaeontologist…

In a really engaging way Stephen tackled some of the significant issues for public sector HR:

• Selling ourselves as HR professionals better
• Celebrating success
• Working smarter - being more strategic
• Total rewards, rather than just pay
• Linking contribution and rewards better
• Tackling inequality

Our regional members got a chance to ask any and many questions of Stephen and the ‘up close and personal’ approach worked very well.

Rave comments afterwards included, “That was inspirational”, “…best session we’ve had as a region”,”…a very clear vision for public sector HR”.

Big thanks to Stephen. Also big thanks to LGA for so kindly hosting us at their Smith Square offices. So…other regions, if you haven’t booked him up yet, grab that phone or bash out an email…you’ll enjoy the result!

Dean Shoesmith - Chair of London Region / PPMA Vice President (Elect)