Anne Gibson and I have just spent a couple of days in St Andrews, Scotland with wonderful and hospitable colleagues from SPDS. Their annual conference this year was on the topic of ‘Delivering excellence in times of change’.

Their new President, Karen Algie, delivered a passionate opening speech about the difference HR can make in changing organisations following which I spoke on how HR can lead organisations through the downturn. At the annual dinner on the first evening there were moving tributes to our dear friend Hogan Burke, who died suddenly in August this year. It was lovely to see Hogan’s wife Moira and his daughter Abigail there to hear the tributes.

On the second day there was a charismatic presentation from Dame Eliza Manningham Buller about the leadership challenges she faces whilst in charge of MI5. Her heartfelt view was that leadership is all about playing to your strengths, giving credit to people, thanking people for their effort and being humane. Her powerful presentation was littered with examples of how she put this into practice at MI5.

It is always a pleasure to be with our SPDS colleagues and I look forward to our two organisations building an even closer relationship over the coming years.

Have a great weekend.

Gill

The October edition of People Management carried an article in my regular column on the importance of social networking sites in society. My thoughts on this are that there is a danger that we could fall behind by not embracing the opportunities that these fast moving cyberspace developments offer. The next generation of workers will have been brought up using these sites and will not only expect to see their use in attracting them into organisations but also their use within the organisation.

There is vast potential, in my view, for us to think differently about a whole range of organisational communication, development attraction and other strategies but follow the link to the article to read more about this fascinating subject.

As it happens I have also met today with Karen Wormwell and Jon Coulter our colleagues from Ten Horizon who deliver this blog to PPMA followers! Karen and Jon were telling me about the exciting work they are developing with clients in the use of social networking to enhance brand and reputation. They also told me about a number of public sector organisations who are already doing this successfully such as Newcastle City Council with Twitter and Barnet Council with Facebook.

In another interesting development, I’m going to be taking a paper to the next Board meeting of PPMA to discuss how we might be bale to make use of social networking sites to attract more interest in PPMA, keep people up to date with our development, and to give opportunities for more interaction and discussion amongst members - watch this space.

Next week I’m off to speak at the SPDS Conference in St Andrews on behalf of PPMA and am hoping to use technology to post a live blog and photos from the event!

In the meantime have a great weekend.

Gill

Well, I’ve just attended one of the most sociable, informative and enjoyable conferences I’ve ever been at! The content was good, including: Prof. Cary Cooper; Grieg Aitkin (RBS Group and PPMA speaker this year) and Cllr. Pat Waters (President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities - COSLA) amongst others. If Cllr. Waters and COSLA (LGA equivalent) didn’t give it away…I’ve been attending the SPDS (Society of Personnel Directors in Scotland) annual conference in St. Andrews.

Along with Dean Shoesmith, Anne Gibson and John Tonks, PPMA was well represented (including both Dean and I providing input as speakers on the programme - Dean provided an informative and challenging issue around the ’skills timebomb’). The details are due to emerge later this week, but I’m delighted to confirm that SDPS and PPMA have concluded a formal partnership agreement to bring the two organisations closer together - many thanks to SPDS President Murray MacFarlane and Past President Iris Wylie for their leadership and support to achieve this (I’m proud of being involved as a Scot as well!).

Scotland apart, this week sees a number of key activities, including a PPMA/LGE workshop session on pay and reward and the PPMA Policy Board on 14th November.

Final post - is that the much-awaited 2009 PPMA conference has arrived and what a conference it is! Apart from the great venue of Manchester, Gill Hibberd has put together a stellar programme, including no less a person the David Ulrich. This is a not to be missed opportunity, so economic climate in perspective folks this is a conference second to none, with the chance to select a range of masterclasses, skills workshops and to learn, share and network in a great location! A range of delegate packages means that this offers real value for money. Get booking your places now - I know that I am!

Best wishes

Stephen

P.S. I’d love to get your feedback on any of the topics discussed in this post - it’s very easy to join in the conversation and get your views heard, just click on ‘Leave a comment’ underneath the headline of this post and type away.   

If you want to stay right up to date with all the latest blog postings it’s really simple - all you need to do is ’subscribe’ free. You can do that in a couple of ways, either via email by entering your email address in the box in the right hand column - you’ll receive the latest blog updates in your Inbox as soon as they’re published or via RSS by clicking the orange button.

Well, following up on my post from last week, I thought you’d all be pleased to hear that Gill Hibberd and I attended an event organised by the CIPD to launch their new programme “Shaping the Future”. This programme is intended to be a cornerstone of the CIPD’s policy and research agenda and will focus on the future of people management and the implications for H R as a consequence. Perhaps CIPD will draw upon PPMA’s Evolution or Extinction Theme for this year? This new research programme, unlike others, will be heavily influenced by HR practitioners like ourselves (Andy Albon and colleagues at Birmingham City Council have already signed up to be a case study I believe).

During the launch we heard an interesting presentation from Dr. Tim Miller, Director of People, Property and Assurance from Standard Chartered Bank. Tim made a lot of sense with what he said and the approach of his organisation to employee engagement was fascinating. As a side note I should add that in a room full of predominantly private sector HR people that Gill and I were both “winners” at the event during one of the exercises and were gifted with pens from the CIPD for our efforts to identify the most important factor in engaging and motivating employees. You guessed it, we both (independent of each other) identified Leadership and A Sense of Purpose as the key factor. What was really strange was the fact that we both also talked about the need for authentic leadership. Talk about continuity for the future of PPMA!

Anyway, what else to report? Well in People Management this week I’ve got another opinion piece - this time on employee relations. The purpose of the piece is to stimulate some debate (as always) and I’d be interested in your comments having read this.

It’s also worth saying that next week sees me head north to Scotland for the SPDS conference in St. Andrews. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak at the conference again this year and watch next week’s blog for some more news on this front.

Also, just a pointer towards the PPMA website to say that our intrepid adventurer, Dean Shoesmith, returned safely from America. Dean has produced a series of updates and information items to share his american conference experience with all of us and this will be appearing on the PPMA website - I recommend his report. However PPMA Board members have also been active in travelling the length and breadth of the UK - many thanks to Gill Hibberd and John Tonks for visiting the South West Regional Group. I understand that there was good engagement and attendance at the session - it’s great to hear that we have some flourishing regions out there! This also counts as another region visited by either the President or Vice President this year. A few more to go and we’ll be close to a full house.

Lastly some personal congratulations to HR colleagues from Castle Morpeth for being an award winning HR place to work - I’d say I was surprised, but I’m not - Paul Moody, the Council’s H R and Performance Manager, is someone I studied at college with. If anyone can create a fun working environment, it’s Paul or maybe that’s just my ‘alcohol fuelled’ memories of college?

Best wishes

Stephen

P.S. I’d love to get your feedback on any of the topics discussed in this post - it’s very easy to join in the conversation and get your views heard, just click on ‘Leave a comment’ underneath the headline of this post and type away.   

If you want to stay right up to date with all the latest blog postings it’s really simple - all you need to do is ’subscribe’ free. You can do that in a couple of ways, either via email by entering your email address in the box in the right hand column - you’ll receive the latest blog updates in your Inbox as soon as they’re published or via RSS by clicking the orange button.

It’s a later blog post than normal, but with a number of key PPMA update points to note: -

I held a meeting last week with Kelly Sandiford from the IDeA to discuss a range of issues including the National OD Programme, Raising the Standard launch arrangements and the national People Management Forum - all of which involve or have had PPMA leadership in some shape or form.

This week, I had the chance to catch up on Monday with John Tonks, our Executive Officer to discuss plans for the September PPMA Board meeting in Cambridge. John and I have also had an interesting meeting today (more later).

On Wednesday, a really positive meeting with Gill Hibberd and Alan Warner as well as colleagues from Communications Management (our PR agency supporters). This was a great chance to review our progress and contract with Communications Management - needless to say progress has been great and we’re keen to continue to work with them going forward - subject to Policy Board debate/decision in September.

Today was a wonderful homeland meeting for me, with John Tonks.  We both met with the Executive Committee and Office Bearers from SPDS - our Scottish sister organisation. In a very wide ranging discussion we re-emphasised our shared commitment to partnership working and collaboration to the benefit of both organisations and their members. We’ve all left Edinburgh with some actions to progress, which I’ll pick up with the Policy Board and Lead Officers particularly. I’m hopeful we’ll have more news on this issue later in the year - perhaps to coincide with the SPDS conference later this year…watch this space!

Finally, taking the opportunity provided I’m spending the weekend in Scotland with family - but the life of PPMA President doesn’t end at that. Over the weekend I’ve got a People Management column piece to write and an opener for the HR and Training Journal.

Best wishes

Stephen

PS - if you’ve not already cast your vote by e-mail for the Personnel Today 40 Power Players of 2008, get to work folks - this is another PPMA profile opportunity and we need to feature in the listings and show the private sector that our people compare with the very best that they can offer.

The summer has certainly been with us in force this week (at least in Cambridgeshire) and other than melting, I’ve had a week of relatively low key PPMA commitments. 

Yesterday, Jan Parkinson from the LGE kindly visited Cambridgeshire and we were able to talk about both PPMA/LGE business and a range of specific issues facing Cambridgeshire County Council - I can’t afford to forget my employer after all!  In particular, we were able to share intelligence about the concept of the public sector worker and some interest in this that appears to have been expressed by the Cabinet Office - something that from both a PPMA and Cambridgeshire perspective, I’ll be following up.  We also, of course, discussed the status of the local government pay award and the proposed “nothing ruled in, nothing ruled out” discussions with the trade unions, like you I await with interest the outcomes from the next round of discussions, which will involve Jim Savege, our lead officer on Pay and Reward.

Today I received an e-mail from the Director of HR at Communities and Local Government (CLG), Clive Norris. CLG’s Permanent Secretary, Peter Housden, has asked Clive if he could explore opportunities for the Communities Department to develop a more shared agenda across the public service - but specifically between the Department and local authorities, such as on matters of joint interest related to public service improvement or diversity for example. This sounds like a very positive opportunity to forge stronger links for the PPMA directly with CLG and is something I’ll be following up on in weeks to come.

Finally, I’m delighted to say that the ‘Edinburgh Summit’ with SPDS colleagues - previously mentioned in the blog has been agreed for 15th August. Both I and John Tonks, PPMA’s Executive Officer, will be heading to Edinburgh to discuss closer collaboration with our friends north of the border.

I hope this update finds everyone well - and if you haven’t already done so, get writing those applications PPMA Lead Officers in waiting!

Best wishes

Stephen