Newsletter
http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/
December 2006
Spotlight: CSR
and the Void HR Has to Fill
Corporate Social Responsibility
presents the ideal opportunity for HR practitioners to become strategic partners
in their organizations, says Jay Handelman, Director of the Centre for Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) at Queen’s School of Business. So why aren't
managers embracing it with open arms? ...more
This Issue:
- Alumni Chapter News: Notes from IRC's hearty inaugural party with Toronto alumni last month ...more
- Three Secrets to Strategic
Negotiations: Learn
insights shared by CBC's HR/IR leader George Smith ...more
- Leadership Capacity Bonus: Enroll now to save $150 in program fees ...more
- Free Download: A discussion paper to help managers stop pushing the punishment default button
when dealing with discipline ...more
- Spotlight: Corporate
Social Responsibility, HR's role in driving it, and why managers aren't embracing
CSR - yet ...more
Upcoming Programs:
Alumni
Chapter News: A Hearty IRC Party in Toronto
The bonhomie was brimming at the
inaugural Toronto alumni chapter event on November 23. From the luxurious sky-high
surroundings of the St. Andrew’s Club, the 30 attendees enjoyed catching
up with colleagues and hearing David Weiss talk about leadership alignment and
engagement. As Vice President and Chief Innovations Officer of Knightsbridge
Human Capital Solutions and author of The Leadership Gap, David has
done considerable research into the success factors in employee alignment and
engagement.
He said “high probability engagement
motivators” include:
• Being part of a “winning” organization
• Career challenge and professional development
• Positive
working relationships and work-life balance
• Working
for admired leaders
• Recognition
and appreciation
Employee “alignment”
refers to many things: alignment to the vision of the business; alignment among
different departments (the value chain); and alignment within departments. David
said leaders have a specific role in making such alignment a reality. His suggestions:
• Take responsibility for the
alignment and engagement of employees and your departments.
• Have
conversations about what is needed from leadership, employees, and teams to
make the organization successful.
• Ensure
that you allocate time to employees to engage them and align their work.
• Take
responsibility for respectful and candid feedback to employees to target develop
to their specific needs.
• Ask
for help when you are not sure what to do – find your own mentor to talk
things through – and then act.
At the end of David’s presentation, the IRC’s new Director Paul
Juniper presented David with a framed certificate marking his reappointment
as the IRC’s Senior Research Fellow for the next five years.
Watch for news in 2007 of new Queen’s
IRC alumni chapters in other centres in Canada.
CBC's
George Smith on Secrets to Strategic Negotiation as Don Wood Visiting Lecturer
George C.B. Smith, Senior Vice President,
Human Resources and Organization at CBC/Radio-Canada, shared lessons from his
33-year career as a management negotiator at November’s Don Wood Lecture
at Queen’s University School of Policy Studies.
“If you can create organizational
alignment, manage the interpersonal aspects, and manage the complexities of
the process, you have a good chance of being successful in strategic negotiations,”
Smith told more than 80 attendees.
The three key success factors, identified
by academic theory, are borne out by his experience, Smith said. And they apply
equally whether you are on the management or the union side of the table.
To read the full
article go to: http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/news/cbc-s-george-smith-s-secrets-to-success.htm
Leadership
Capacity bonus: Enroll now to save $150 in program fees
Registration is picking up for the
popular Leadership Capacity program. These intense three days of learning
will help you diagnose how well your organization builds its leader pool and
will give you the tools to nurture leadership talent at individual, departmental,
and organizational levels. This engaging program features a blend of case studies,
jazz metaphors and models, and small learning groups. Register and pay by January
3, 2007 to save $150. Leadership Capacity runs February 26 to March
1 in Kingston.
Learn more about Leadership
Capacity
Free
Download: Stop Pushing the Punishment Default Button!
To download Mark Alexander's discussion
paper exploring why managers have such difficulty dealing with determination
of just cause and application of discipline, as well as a helpful decision-making
tool click
here
Spotlight:
CSR and the Void HR Has to Fill
Jay Handelman, Director of the
Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Queen’s School of
Business, says CSR presents the ideal opportunity for HR practitioners to become
strategic partners in their organizations. Read on to learn more about CSR,
HR’s role in driving it, and why managers are not yet embracing it with
open arms.
IRC: What is corporate social
responsibility?
Handelman: CSR is when a company
genuinely tends to the expectations of its societal members, not just its customers
or shareholders. If you extend that, CSR is the way a company demonstrates that
it is genuinely part of the social fabric, and genuinely cares about the communities
and countries in which it resides. The people benefiting from CSR programs look
at these companies and say, ‘They genuinely do care about issues that
are important, and are not just paying lip service.’ CSR makes sense,
because if an organization is not meeting the expectations of constituents,
there won’t be enough support for it to survive.
What opportunities does CSR
present for HR practitioners?
The initial reaction by lot of companies
when they see external pressure to be socially responsible is, We need to do
something. So then it becomes a public relations exercise, because the PR department
can do something immediately, maybe put out an ad to say, Look what we are doing.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but if CSR only resides in the PR department,
I don’t think the company is really serious.
Human resources is a pivotal area.
Think of the contrast: when CSR is part of the PR department, it’s something
externally put out there, but not necessarily internalized within the organization.
I had an MBA student in his 30s who
was well along in his career, successful in sales, and he said: “In my
company if you read our mission statement and values, and listen to our corporate
leaders, it brings tears to your eyes. But if in doing my job I actually followed
our code of ethics I’d probably be fired because I wouldn’t get
the sales.”
That’s where the HR department
comes in. They are the ones who can take it beyond either the PR department
or a few passionate people in the upper echelons of the company, so that the
sales person is given incentives to be motivated in terms of CSR, and is rewarded
for it. If the employee is not, then it looks nice, but that’s it. As
many people have noted, one of the best codes of ethics around was the one written
by Enron.
To read the full Spotlight article,
go to: http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/hr-management/articles/csr-the-void-hr-has-to-fill.htm
~~~
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