Special Interest Groups
“Informative and enjoyable as ever”.
“Exciting event!”
“The SIG day was fantastic”
“The session was excellent”
“I have been to a number of these networks and the CPHR one is the best of the lot”
Membership to the Centre generates excellent networking opportunities. HR Directors and their teams benefit from the informal Special Interest Group Meetings (SIGs) hosting the day and setting the agenda allowing them to discuss the most relevant current topics of the moment. Three SIGs are currently co-ordinated by the Centre and each is run twice yearly.
These groups are self-organizing, tasked with establishing meetings, exchanges of knowledge and repositories of knowledge Each network involves a Partner leader, Centre leader and various HR practitioners from the Members and Founders. They can draw upon broader Lancaster expertise, brokerage of leading HR research, and other external networks and resources. They are tasked with helping produce material for White Papers and positioning documents.
These SIGs, open to the functional specialists within HR of sponsor organisations, serve three purposes. They:
- Help sharpen up Centre research, by interpreting emerging findings and applying the themes to practice.
- Act as an advanced form of executive education, through which the individuals involved are not only kept up to date on issues, but share understanding across other organisations and deepen their professional expertise.
- Provide the opportunity for joint writing and internal research with professionals from other organisations on mutually challenging issues.
Organisation Design Special Interest Group
These SIGs, attended by those members working or having a responsibility for organisation design or organisation development within their company, exchange knowledge on topics such as organisation design approaches, models and philosophies within companies, how organisation design can fit in with the organisation business model and capabilities required for organisation practitioners.
There have been four meetings in this series. The first meeting was a sharing of OD strategies between partners, analysing where OD was located and the key OD models in practice. The second meeting looked at the key academic frameworks that are available and the capabilities needed in an OD function. The third meeting examined external practice at Hay Management Group and the use of metrics at Vodafone. The fourth meeting examined experience on Nestlé’s Global OD Development Program for Business Partners and discussed practice in relation to the management of innovation and customer centricity.
Professionals from Co-operative Financial Services, Sellafield, Vodafone, McDonald’s, and Royal Mail have agreed to collaborate via the Centre to produce a Thought Leadership Paper on the challenge of Design for Line Managers, looking at how they as professionals can develop simplified toolkits for line managers to move from an understanding of the capability that OD needs as a Centre of Excellence through to an understanding of what line managers need to be educated about.
Employee Engagement Special Interest Group
The Employee Engagement SIGs discuss issues such as employee engagement approaches used in companies, how engagement fits into the overall business model and key measures and models of employee engagement. Members directly involved with employee engagement as well as general managers and HR professionals attend these SIGs.
There have been three meetings in this series. The first meeting examined the findings from the Centre’s White Paper and shared engagement strategies across partners by looking at their approach to engagement, the origins and characteristics of the engagement model, how it fits in with their overall business model, who is responsible, and the pressing issues. The second meeting received external input from the MacLeod Review, reviewed the case study of Vodafone, and looked at research that links engagement to Individual well-being outcomes a pharmaceutical organisation. The third meeting examined the key practitioner and academic measures and models of employee engagement, practice at McDonald’s, the genesis of sponsor firm’s surveys, how they measure employee engagement, what works well, and where measurement should move to in the future.
Professionals from McDonald’s, Co-operative Financial Services, Nestlé and Royal Bank of Scotland have agreed to collaborate via the Centre to produce a Thought Leadership Paper on the barriers to taking action in on engagement data. The project explores the operational insight into the business measures that could be linked to engagement, the HR capability to manage all the data, and the challenges for people acting on the data.
The Talent Management Special Interest Group
Designed specifically for those members working in talent, this SIG shares knowledge, methods and practices on talent management including the local and global challenges involved, talent management at the strategic and operational level and the talent management systems used by practitioners.
There have been three meetings in this series. The first meeting shared practice across sponsors by looking at: the organisation’s philosophy/approach to Talent Management; how Talent Management fits into the business; who is principally responsible for Talent Management; what the nature of the resources are available for Talent Management activity, and what are key current priorities in Talent Management. The second meeting looked at the issue of boardroom engagement with the talent agenda and how functions understand this engagement. The third meeting received feedback and discussion on the SIG’s work on Board engagement and also an internal survey on Talent Management analytics.
Professionals from the Department of Work and Pensions, Royal Mail, Royal Bank of Scotland and NG Bailey collaborated via the Centre to produce a White Paper on the challenge of engaging the Boardroom with the Talent agenda.
Internal Strategic Impact Events
“…It has begun a process of thinking which we did not have the opportunity to do before”
“… We have reviewed some difficult issues as an HR team and the Centre has helped clarify our overall direction in these areas”
“… Provided an objective perspective, stimulated learning and pushes us to solutions”
Centre staff have also presented at Annual HR Conferences for Royal Mail, BAE and Nestlé, helping run a number of workshops and planning processes inside sponsor organisations:
- For McDonald’s the Centre designed and facilitated strategic insight days that formed part of the annual HR strategy planning processes, receiving excellent evaluation.
- For Sellafield the Centre helped run workshops as part of an internal review of the HR Delivery Model. The workshops combined the Centre’s ideas of these issues with an analysis of what was being experienced on the ground in the organisation. For Nestlé the Centre hosted an away day on establishing the Strategic Purpose of the HR function and the key role of HR for next 3-5 years, providing inputs on Strategic Capability and Resource Based View of the Firm.
92% rating on “Broker research in ways that are relevant to you as a practitioner”
82% rating on “Put management fads into context”
94% rating on “Provide thought leadership (through ideas or people) and produce new ideas based on emerging trends”
94% rating on “Generate insights of relevance and utility to your HR function”
90% rating on “Provide a reflexive, evidence-based decision-making environment”
