Down on the farm

The BBC reports an interesting new study: If you want to recharge your batteries, head to the farm.

"Professor Jules Pretty, head of biological sciences at [Essex] university, said there was "growing evidence" that exposure to green space and woodlands was good for people... This study clearly shows that spending as little as two hours on a farm benefits a person's wellbeing and enables them to connect with nature... ditch the gym workout or snooze on the sofa and get out into the countryside and on to a farm instead."

The report was sponsored by a group called 'Linking Environment And Farming.'

You may be able to re-energize by taking a trip to the country this weekend.

Overlooked and Underutilized: Meeting the talent shortage

The fact that there is a talent shortage surely has not gone unnoticed and will surely not be surprising to any readers of this blog. Over at 'Perfect Labor Storm' the labor shortage is a central focus of the discussion. In particular, blogger Dr. Ira Wolf cites a recent Manpower survey which claims "22% of the 2,000 employers participating in the survey indicated they were having difficulty filling positions even in a slowing economy."

A recent study by Mark Lengnick Hall, Philip Gaunt and Mukta Kulkarni draws attention to an oft' overlooked segment of the workforce which you may want to reconsider. Their study, just published in Human Resource Management, entitled 'Overlooked and underutilized: People with disabilities are an untapped human resource.' I want to point out some highlights.

• In the US, 12.6% of working age individuals report one or more disabilities (thats 21, 455,000).
• The unemployment rate of this group is 60% in comparison to 20% of those without disabilities.
• While 56% of non-disabled people are employed in full-time employment, only 23% of persons with disabilities are. (source for all these data are American Community Survey, cited in the article)

The questions driving the study are simply:
1. If employers are short-handed, and people with disabilities are available to work, what is the problem?
2. What can be done in practice to bring these two groups together and solve both problems at once.

What is interesting and new here is that the authors are asking an old question in a new way. Instead of focusing on whether people with disabilities are available to work, the ask: what factors drive employer demand for people with disabilities?

The answers are enlightening. The study interviews 38 corporate executives. There are three categories of concern that employers have when it comes to hiring people with disabilities:

1. People with disabilities may not be qualified, or may not be able to perform the job, or, may be less productive.
2. The cost of hiring people with disabilities will be higher due to absenteeism, health care costs, legal liability, or making reasonable accommodations.
3. Stakeholders - customers, or coworkers - may react negatively or even feel resentment.

The authors then go to some lengths to evaluate the extent to which these concerns are supported by the facts. While there are certainly some areas we do not yet know much about (e.g., comparisons of attitudes and motivation of people with and without disabilities), there is a lot of empirical data that refute the major concerns of employers.

1. In terms of dependability and performance there are no differences
2. The costs of accommodations tend to be low and there are no differences in terms of accidents or insurance costs
3. There is little evidence that coworkers or customers react negatively to the employment of people with disabilities.

One area where improvements can be made is with respect to institutional qualifications. When people with disabilities have institutional qualifications it increases employer confidence in hiring, according to the authors.

One executive is quoted as saying:

"There has to be an economic reason for people in management to put their heart in action"

If the talent shortage is not a good economic reason, then what is? The costs of failing to hire the right people for the job can be significant for any organization - why forgo this opportunity?

No more people-people

Recently Theresa Welbourne suggested that we reconsider some Myths in HR. In that spirit, I want to raise an old - and painful - bit of HR folklore: that there is an HR personality (and worse - this is a People Person-ality!)

This was the subject of an article published earlier this year over at Human Resource Executive Online. In that article, the author Scott Flander explored evidence that HR execs differ from non HR execs. The results do stimulate an interesting discussion, but beware of jumping to conclusions about the 'HR personality'!.

First, Flander notes that the two groups (HR/Non HR execs) are in many ways the same. This conclusion is drawn on the basis of a variety of personality tests administered to clients by a variety of consulting organizations. The tests included the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the CPI (both from Consulting Psychologists Press), the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, a 'Global Personality Inventory' (Personnel Decisions International) among others.

Here are the other observations in a nutshell.

In comparison to non HR executives, HR execs are:
1. Less competitive - less likely to intimidate, manipulate and resort to passive aggressiveness - and sin of all sins, less ambitious and entrepreneurial!

2. Nicer people - more optimistic, sociable, empathetic, self aware and considerate. They tend to be more interested in working in teams, and building consensus

3. However, there is some evidence that the people at the top of HR are in fact more 'business' and less 'people' than those further down the HR hierarchy - there is more similarity among top execs of all functional backgrounds including HR.

The problem with this approach is that it leaves open the door to claim that the real reason HR does not get its voice heard at the strategy table is personality. That is a poor excuse and not one that should be perpetuated. For a number of reasons we must view the idea of an 'HR personality' with caution.

First, we have substantial research evidence that personality only influences behavior when the situation is weak - there are not strong norms or social expectations - one has to rely upon one's own framing of a situation and this leaves the way open for personality. Ask yourself, are making an effective presentation to management, selling your ideas, being accountable, measuring results really activities that are so ambiguous that personality matters? Or, are these skills and habits that can be learned, no matter what your personality profile may be?

Second, if we start to examine that list of strengths and weaknesses we also may find some social framing going on. After all, we have a lovely myth that being tough-as-nails is the only way to win in business (just ask Jack Welch). On the other, we have the myth that HR is for people-people. In fact, this very article risk's re-creating this myth! This point is well made by Gina Hernez-Broome (Center for Creative Leadership) who notes that in these personality inventories, people may be simply reporting 'what was expected' of them

Third, there is a distinct difference between the statement that personality is an important driver of occupational preference, and the statement that it is a driver of executive effectiveness. There is no doubt that personality preferences influence our occupational choices. However, HR executive effectiveness or ineffectiveness stems from what you do. There is not a strong argument that says your personality will prevent you from doing the right thing if you know what that is.

What is your opinion?

Cooking, energy and engagement

What can we learn about work and employment from cooking? This week I took my Global Executive MBA group to an 'experimental kitchen' here in Milan, called Spazio Galatea. The idea is to have some fun, get to know one another and of course reflect a little on what it means to be engaged and energized by work.

The beauty of this kind of activity is that it is, of course, fun. However the rhythm of a kitchen brings certain other issues to life. In particular, the ideas of meaningfulness of a task, and the urgency of the context.

The team building aspects of the kitchen stem in part from your novice status - shared with the rest of the team. You and your peers are likely to be novices, at least when it comes to cooking for 30 people in a professional kitchen. For non Italian speakers, novice status is reinforced by the fact that your guides in this adventure will only be speaking Italian! The roles and tasks can be quite unclear, and this process creates an environment that is conducive to very authentic interaction - where you reveal both your strengths and perhaps weaknesses, but in a safe environment.

A second useful aspect of this activity is that it presents a task with a high level of meaningfulness. When your job is to cook a dish, which will hopefully be enjoyed by the others in your party, this brings a sense of accountability to the game. Accountability is an important driver of being engaged in the work - you have responsibility and ownership. These are intrinsically satisfying and motivating and can support a greater degree of engagement in a task.

Lastly, an interesting dimension is inherent in the life of a professional kitchen - that is urgency. Timing is perhaps the key skill in cooking, and making sure everything comes together at the right time is essential. However, with urgency comes pressure. Pressure can be very energizing - you focus your attention and bring extra effort to bear. However, it can also become overwhelming. Although we certainly didn't bring anyone close to breaking point in this exercise (this isn't boot camp!), we did experience the waxing and waning of our individual and collective energies over a 120 minute period. Fortunately, eating a great meal and sipping a nice glass of wine helped us all recharge quite quickly!

Cooking - who knew you could learn anything about management in the kitchen!

Welcome to Threee

Its always nice to do the first blog - the first marks in a blank workbook, first tracks in the snow, kind of thing. This is not my first actual blog (james-hayton.com has some earlier items), but this one might be more coherent in its goal, which I will share with you here. The goal of the blog will explain the blog's title: threee, as in Three E, actually as in e-cubed or e to the power of 3.

I am a researcher of organizations and particularly focused on managing people and the formal and informal systems that influence their behaviors. I believe that, within all the complexity inherent in organizations, we need to focus on three levels of analysis, which 'magically' can be captured by the three e's.

External alignment of people management practices with strategy, structure, culture, and competitive environment of the organization. We tend to focus on strategy, and this may be most significant. External alignment or fit between how we manage and reward and the goals of the organization seems like common sense, but is often more complex that first appears.

Engaging employees in the organization. Again, obvious, but not so easy - especially when no one can even agree on what engagement actually is or how it is defined.

Finally, energizing: yourself, the group in which you work, and the organization. Energy is a very personal and direct experience and has recently received some attention by researchers - including a colleague at University of Michigan, Theresa Welbourne who is running a project called 'leadership pulse/leadeship team pulse.' Full disclosure - I am also involved in this project and hope to share some of the insights from our part of the project here in this blog.

The core idea is that all three levels of analysis are significantly influencing performance whether or not you pay attention to them. Furthermore, the idea that they are interdependent means that there will be synergistic effects from paying attention to all three levels. The question is, how can you leverage these dimensions to produce superior performance?

This is the substance of threee.
More later