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October 2002, USD$3.00 |
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CONTENTS
Editorial
Feature Article One: "E-HR – The Trends and Case Study"
Feature
Article Two: "People, Performance, and Productivity"
Feature
Article Three: "New Humor Resource J
For Human Resource"
HR Summits 2002 Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur
Humor Resource
Book Review
Attitude Vitamins
Links of Interest
Organization
News
Production Details
Editorial
Welcome to the October 2002 edition of HRD Gateway.
Thanks to the enthusiasm of Dr James Y Lin, we've added a new section to this issue: Humor Resource! To introduce the concept of humor in corporate life, James is kind enough to provide us with the text of his presentation at the 29th ARTDO Conference, Taipei, Taiwan, on September 27, 2002
So, readers, please send James your jokes and stories for possible inclusion in a future issue of HRD Gateway newsletter.
The article "E-HR – The Trends and Case Study" provides us with a fascinating case study of e-HR development at General Motors. According to GM's IT head, the e-HR portal’s goal always has been about freeing employees to do their jobs more effectively. The bottom line focus is about the productivity of the employee, not the productivity of HR. GM’s philosophy in designing the portal, named MySocrates, was not just to get productivity improvement for HR, but the underlying tenet was productivity of employees, i.e. how to make the work and life of employees more productive. The portal becomes a framework for work-related job information that one can tailor and customize in a big organization.
Surjit Singh's article, "People, Performance and Productivity" deals with the need for companies to be aware of changes in the market place so that their human resource department will respond appropriately. It lists many pertinent questions that HR professionals should ask themselves and to provide some good answers. It's a must read for all HRD/HRM people out there.
We have other goodies in store for you. Enjoy this issue!
Cheers!
G. K Lim
Editor
HRD Gateway
Feature Article One: E-HR – The Trends and Case Study
By Embrace Ltd, Knowledge Hub Resource
We know that technology has helped transformed the place of Human Resource in the corporate world. This transformation has taken place so fast in the past two decades that many people have not been able to cope with the change.
In order to understand the future trend of the electronic transformation of Human Resource function, it's useful to be familiar with the concept of the “Six Levels of HRIS Technology” developed by Dr. John Sullivan, the Chief Talent Officer for Agilent Technologies.
According to Dr. Sullivan, the six levels of HR Systems Technology are:
Level #1 Paper-based legacy systems
Level #2 Early PC technology
Level #3 Most HR paper systems are transferred to electronic database systems
Level #4 HR systems are designed to automate transactions so that HR can focus on becoming
a strategic partner
Level #5 Systems designed to increase employee productivity
Level #6 Smart systems that “learn” and increase their predictive/forecasting ability as they are
being used
Most organizations are at the moment at level #4 of HR technology. At this level, the HR technology, in whatever forms, are meant to deliver the following advantages:
At level #4, the HR systems shifted from mere providing information to the new paradigm of improving the quality of HR decisions.
With the advances of Web technology, HR technology paradigm has also changed from person-to-person to person-to-PC. This has reduced the reliance on physical face-to-face interaction of HR professionals with employees on every minor detail on HR issues.
In recent years, new IT capabilities have begun to provide applications to help managers identify and eliminate complex HR problems like unnecessary turnover and internal compensation inequity. New technology has also provided new mechanism to improve employee and manager self services, like remote learning, on the company intranet. In addition, complex decisions like compensation and skills assessment that previous could only be made at the corporate level can now be successfully delegated to line managers with no loss in decision quality.
According to Dr. Sullivan, Level #5 tools that can increase the manager’s productivity include:
The case example below is based on the application of Level #5 tools.
General Motors, internationally known as the world’s largest manufacturer of automobiles, today likes to tout itself as an e-commerce company that just happens to build cars. From consumer web sites to business-to-business portals linking the company with its vast universe of suppliers, GM has taken to the Internet with a vengeance, even creating a special e-GM unit to lead the charge.
Internally, some of the company’s efforts have focused on e-HR -- HR programs that seek to push as many HR-related activities as possible into an online environment. The company’s four-year-old intranet site -- where employees once linked to 85 different GM-related sites providing information on everything from retirement accounts to flexible benefit enrollment -- has been transformed into an HR portal.
To the average GM employee, the real difference between the old intranet, dubbed “Socrates,” and the portal, “MySocrates,” is personalization. Employees now can receive news and information tailored to their position in the company when they log on to MySocrates.
As with every major corporate technology initiative, GM’s portal project will be an ongoing endeavor. The launch represents the beginning stages for the portal, which now delivers customized content to two classes of employees but will, in the future, provide it to several levels. In pursuit of this goal, GM’s information technology (IT) staff has been working hard to “portalize” data so it can be directed to the appropriate pool of employees.
The GM Portal
The idea behind e-HR and what GM calls the “Employee Service Center” part of the portal is “part of an overall transition that will help focus HR on more strategic, consultative and operational issues, and less on transactional issues,” according to Katy Barclay, vice president of global human resources at GM in Detroit, USA. “The portal will further our goal of a web-savvy workforce and enhance our ability to communicate and collaborate with one another.” The Employee Service Center does this by cutting out HR as the middleman, and allowing employees to directly modify their HR-related information.
Beyond the grand strategy of transforming GM into a wired company lies a more fundamental business case: A portal saves a significant amount of money and time. A customer service representative administering HR-related issues costs GM US $1.50 to US$2 a minute, while the web equivalent costs less than a nickel a minute. The portal also allows GM to move to interactive voice response systems and a smaller call center staff. GM believes that doing transactions over the web should reduce cycle times, improve quality and provide more accurate personalized information to the employee.
In devising a portal to help employees navigate GM’s digital mountain of information, GM decided to create a role-based environment in which an hourly employee will see different information on the screen than a salaried one. A role-based portal allows GM to deliver customized information to different audiences, a salient advantage in a company with an employee population larger than many U.S. cities. As the portal evolves, more roles will be added, but it made sense to start first with the two major compensation groups at GM.
Already a large user of outsourcing services, GM figured the portal project would become a reality more quickly by handing it off to another company. GM discovered that no single company could provide every aspect of the project. So they cobbled together a deal in which an outside consultant to produce the portal with the help of the company’s HR IT staff.
E-Information in GM
MySocrates offers tailored messages to different GM audiences on the front page and gives users a large menu of information options—such as reading e-mail and a message from the company’s chief executive officer; learning about a new program; changing their addresses; creating a personal profile and seeing their pay stubs. On the HR side, much of what once required paperwork and perhaps a visit with a supervisor or HR now takes place on MySocrates.
Another major advantage that the new portal offers (and that the previous intranet site did not) is that employees can access the site through the Internet, via user names and passwords. Previously, salaried employees generally used the intranet only at work because access from home required special access telephone numbers. And hourly employees worked in plants that lacked large numbers of computers for accessing the company’s intranet. Nor did these employees bother attempting to log in from home, even though they could.
With security concerns largely solved, employees now can use MySocrates from anywhere through the Internet. The company continues to investigate the use of kiosks and other options for allowing access at manufacturing plants.
The portal’s goal always has been about freeing employees to do their jobs more effectively. According to GM’s IT Head, the bottom line focus -- the key -- is about the productivity of the employee, not the productivity of HR. GM’s philosophy in designing the portal was not just to get productivity improvement for HR, but the underlying tenet was productivity of employees, i.e. how to make the work and life of employees more productive? The portal becomes a framework for work-related job information that one can tailor and customize in a big organization.
The GM Pre-Portal Site
For every portal, there once was a simple intranet site. The Employee Service Center began as a skunk works project in 1997 involving some IT staff that had trouble even getting people in HR to attend their meetings. IT created a site with static documents, such as employee handbooks, various HR-related enrollment forms, benefits transaction forms, flexible benefit enrollment forms and requests for direct deposits.
During this process, GM decided to put General Motors University classes online, which turned out to be a major undertaking that required IT to program a middleware package just to transfer the data from the university’s system to GM’s intranet site. IT convinced management to reduce the amount of paperwork involved in registering for a class by putting the process online.
It amounted to the biggest stab at creating an interactive environment in the pre-portal stage. The system allowed an employee to enroll in classes online, to look at his training history and to build a personal development plan he and his supervisor can review and maintain. That immediately started getting high volume use, especially with the policy that no approvals were required for employees. They just needed to enroll. GM wiped out middle bureaucracy after they learned it was acceptable to the organization.
Early on in the intranet’s development, GM’s IT department enlisted the communications staff to assist in the content architecture; the interface and user experience especially the look and feel.
After a little more than a year in operation, GM saw as many as 15 million to 20 million hits a month on its pre-portal intranet site, with many users heading directly to the Employee Service Center part of the site for HR-related information and to use the handful of interactive tools available. The popularity led the company to move the center from IT to HR to sponsor further development.
Accounting for the high acceptance among employees was the success of the Internet and of e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com. If employees could perform transactions on the Internet, why couldn’t they also perform them inside GM?
Fortunately, GM’s service center had the makings of a mini-Internet on the company’s intranet, and the employees noticed that the Company started displaying content and capability the same way the market was displaying content this provided a lot of excitement.
With HR and management enthusiasm running high, the GM IT team moved forward to add more functions, among them job postings. They never stopped to make a business case for adding a function, knowing the bureaucracy would ensnare them in a web of strategy sessions and endless approval processes. GM’s executive staff gave the IT Head and his team partial carte blanche to get the job done.
The strategy worked. The success of the web site and the service center proved so great, HR showed a tremendous appetite for moving even more HR content on to the pre-portal site. Much, but not all, of that content was static rather than transactional, yet employees used those parts of the service center site as much as any of the interactive areas.
If that may come as bad news to web designers who prefer concentrating on creating spinning globes and greater interactivity on the site, it represents what most employees want and need.
The Future HR Portal at GM
Although GM plans to study how employees use the initial phase of the portal before launching new services, the Company has a few ideas in mind concerning future developments. For example, GM plans to make the MySocrates portal template available to international divisions and expects them to work toward their own versions soon.
In addition, more roles will be added to the North American portal, among them personalized information directed at managers, for example, or for retirees. As it stands, managers see the same portal information today, as do other salaried employees. In the future, they will see content directed at them that will not necessarily be available to other salaried employees. The Company also has plans to match the roles with individual corporate messages focused on each target group.
MySocrates is never going to be a done deal. The GM IT Team plans a new release every six months, with more functions, features and services being added all the time. The portal’s interface may not change every six months, but the continued personalization of information will make the project forever changing and growing.
Moving custom information up the ladder also will become a focus in the project. The Company foresees a day when leader or manager self-service allows supervisors to see in one place everything they need to know about employees, from performance reviews to compensation and benefit packages, from the courses they have taken to their history with the company.
The Company also wants event-based options built into the portal. For instance, a birth would trigger appropriate information and forms to change health insurance coverage. And an employee relocation would generate pages offering moving assistance, and so on.
Of course, employee self-service through the web brings a time of transformation for HR -- which arguably will spend less time filing and maintaining employee records and more time in business units solving problems. The portal is transforming the function of HR within the organization and it will free HR up from mundane activities and allow them to participate in more value-added strategies and activities and services.
So while GM’s e-HR strategy is on a high level, there is no reason why smaller compaines can’t enter the game and begin providing their employees with customized information.
There are also many other big organizations both in US and Europe that have taken the same path as General Motors in capitalizing the technology in transforming the role of HR and enhance the productivity of the employees at large.
This trend has begun to take place in many countries in Asia but at a slower pace.
According to Watson Wyatt Worldwide, HR technology trends will be driven largely by the need to control costs and focus on optimizing current HR systems. There will continue to be significant integration efforts of HR technology but with more pressure to justify investments through ROI analysis and business case development.
Consider the following predictions for 2002 in Asia:
1) Enhanced workplace portals and intranets. As enterprise portals evolve into worker productivity tools, several HR domains will benefit from new online solutions, including e-health tools, defined contribution health care models, compensation systems and performance management tools. Other personalization features will continue to expand, with a new emphasis on web services that provide data needed by organizations and their employees.
2) Increased technology access to more workforce segments. Initiatives will continue to get more employees web-connected, allowing greater access to corporate systems and HR information.
3) Increased use of virtual workplaces. Online meetings, project team workspaces, web conferences and video conferencing will continue to gain popularity.
4) Decision support tools. HR departments will turn to analytical tools to measure successes and to predict future results.
5) Business Continuance Planning. Look for sharpened HR involvement in employee communications and disaster recovery plans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Embrace Ltd is Asia’s
leading Full Service HR Outsourcing Provider. We work with businesses from
various industries in the region, helping them reduce cost and improve
productivity by capitalizing on HR Optimization Strategies. The companies
we work with employ from as few as 10 people to as many as 10,000. And in
all instances, we have been able to save cost at higher service level of HR
delivery for our clients."
www.embrace.com
Feature Article Two: People, Performance, and Productivity
by Surjit Singh
Why do we have organizations?
Organizations exist to serve some purpose. We have business organizations, service organizations, voluntary organizations and so forth. They survive on the needs of the society or customers they serve and the resources at their disposal. One of the crucial resources for the survival of the organizations is the human resource. This is why successful organizations always recognize the value of the human resource as a very valuable asset. If you pick up any Annual Report of a public-listed company you will invariably come across a paragraph towards the end of the report which may sound like this:
Our management and staff are the life-blood of the company. Their dedication, professionalism and loyalty have seen us through one of the most difficult years in memory. I take this opportunity to thank our 20,160 employees stationed throughout the world for their significant contributions to the Group.
The above excerpt from a an Annual Report of a Company is a typical example. It will be noted that the company is providing livelihood to over 20,000 persons and their families. Such gigantic organizations are a symbol of the magnitude of organizations we have today. It also is an indication of the role and contribution of the human resource to organizations. Hence, the need to manage the human resource and manage it well, so that its performance would contribute to the goals of the organization. This also applies to government organizations such as the Ministry of Education.
We can have all the philosophies, mission statements, objectives, client charters, ethics framed and displayed in gold. They will merely remain exhibits if they are not put into practice. Often organizations are accused of slogan shouting because in today's world things are moving just too fast and we spend much time just catching up with the Joneses. There is an apparent lack of understanding of all these changes down the line. Whose responsibility is it? Is management guilty of shirking its responsibility? John Case, in propagating an open-book management suggests that
"A company performs best when its people see themselves as partners in the business, rather than as hired hands -- when they concern themselves not just with doing their jobs, but with the business objectives of the company."
This applies to all organizations both public and private.
HUMAN RESOURCE AND ORGANIZATION SYSTEM
The organization is structured on the basis of various activities and functions that will meet the objectives for its existence.. The whole structure comprising the different sub-systems of Departments, Divisions, Units would have their own objectives to be achieved. But all these objectives must contribute to the overall objectives of the business or the organization.
OUTPUTS, PROCESSES AND RESOURCES
Each functional area will have its sub-objectives to accomplish. It is important for any of these functional areas to establish and define the objectives they wish to achieve. This is a very important aspect, as it would provide the focus for determining all the activities in the unit, department or the organization for achieving the required outputs. These outputs could be services or products. The outcome of the services or products will indicate whether the objectives have been achieved or otherwise. For example:
Once the outputs have been determined, the strategies, resources, procedures and processes can be identified. There will be critical processes at each level of the organization. These processes will have to be examined from time to time in order to maintain them at the appropriate state of effectiveness.
In order to get the processes going organizations will require various resources as inputs. The resources again would be different for different processes. But one resource that is indispensable in any process is the human resource. Whether the process is manual or mechanical or even automatic or computerized, the human touch is inevitable at some stage or other.
TALKING OF REFORMATION
The present is built on the past and provides building blocks for the future. For example, education in in a country such as Malaysia has developed to the present thinking through gradual shifts from the time of the Razak Report in the 1950’s to subsequent changes necessitated by mechanization, automation, information and knowledge-based society of today, thus dictating the trends for the future. To meet the challenges for 21st Century, the Ministry’s mission is:
To develop a world class quality education system which will realize to the full potential of the individual and fulfill the aspiration of the Malaysian nation.
Similarly, other countries would have their own mission for education.
Why the emphasis on human resource ? It is evident that the realization of the Ministry’s vision, mission, objectives and charter are dictated by the changing global environment and local needs. The success of the mission is in the hands of the staff and officers of the Ministry and the schools. Whether or not the objectives are achieved will depend on the performance of the people right down to the gardener in the school.
As environmental changes occur, the customers’ or clients’ needs change, the objectives of the organizations have to be modified thus giving rise to changes in the outputs, the processes or even the inputs. The changes will be determined from feedback of outcomes and the environment. For example, in the year 2002 the Malaysian Ministry of Education has a policy emphasizing the need to teach certain subjects in English to prepare the society to meet global challenges now and the future.
Policy changes will necessitate changes in the educational processes and inputs. The need to retrain teachers for English has arisen. In other words, any change in one area can give rise to changes in other areas of the organization. There is a need for continuous improvement if Malaysia is going to keep abreast with the rest of the world and become the Center of Learning Excellence. This process for change is on-going.. The same goes for organizations in the private sector. We learn from our experience of yesterday, improve on it today and adapt, adopt and change for tomorrow.
HUMAN RESOURCE AND CHANGE
Change is easier said than done. According to 're-engineering' experts, Hammer and Campy, "between 50% and 70% of organizational change efforts fail." There is so much written about it that organizations are often left in a dilemma as to what should be done. There is no one best method. Management gurus have offered solutions and quick fixes. Designing change is not difficult. The difficulty is in implementing change -- in other words bringing about change. Change requires a proper infrastructure. The underlying principle in bringing about change is changing the behavior and thinking of the human resource. While we assume the philosophy that people like to perform to the best of their ability, we often overlook the importance of their understanding of what is expected of them and whether they are provided with the appropriate resources to carry out their jobs. There is a need to align all activities and tasks to the current organizational objectives.
BARRIERS TO HUMAN RESOURCE PERFORMANCE
Very often we blame the people in an organization for their negative attitudes, lack of motivation, low capability to perform as factors contributing to the slow implementation of change. We often fail to look into the barriers that are hampering the performance of the staff. Many of us are stuck firmly in the past, the victims of obsolete ideas. We are too busy with the day-to-day business of maintenance and "sweep problems under the carpet". We pay lip service to the change because we ourselves are not clear or aligned to the change. Some of the common barriers in implementing change include,
John Kotler, in his book "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" has identified the following eight reasons for failure in leading change:
The question posed to us as Human Resource personnel is how can we get our people to perform so that we are able to achieve the organizational goals to meet the global competition at the speed of change itself. We have also noted from the earlier discussion that our action to overcome the barriers or the causes for failure could necessitate a wide range of interventions, both training and non-training. This is where the HR managers and HRD practitioners have a role to play.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
In a keynote address at a Malaysian Institute of Personnel Management forum, the Malaysian Director of Labor indicated that
"Human Resource (HR) Managers must move with the times and keep abreast with developments. They must be pro-active, innovative and move into new frontiers and paradigms to achieve standards of excellence.
What this means is that today's HR managers should not act as 'maintenance people' seeing to compliance of rules and regulations but as 'people-developers' responsible for aligning the performance of the human resource to the goals of the organization and enhancing productivity. They should move out of their limited function of keeping employees comfortable, to helping them develop themselves. They should measure outputs using ''standards of performance' rather than just asking them to do their best. It is only by having the right person, in the right job, at the right time and performing at the right level, can any organization hope for success and high productivity in the present times.
Again, how well are appraisals made? Do organization politics color the appraisals? How sincerely do we rate people?
We have to look at the big picture of organizational performance, which takes into consideration the following factors:
According to Schuster the success of any organization is the relentless pursuit of continuous performance improvement.
HUMAN PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY
With reference to the need for continuous performance improvement, I would like to share with you the concept of Human Performance Technology (HPT), which is gaining interest among organizations today.
Human Performance Technology has evolved since the1960's. The International Society for Performance Improvement (formerly known as the National Society for Performance and Instruction) has contributed largely to the propagation of the technology as an approach to improving human performance in the workplace.. Sometimes it is called just Performance Technology but the human aspect must not be forgotten as our focus is on the performance of people in the organization system.
As we all know performance indicates some output, a result, an achievement or something carried out to a desired accomplishment level. The word technology brings us images of mechanism but in this sense it is refers to some systematic, researched procedure to deal with problems and issues in the workplace.
Thomas F Gilbert, frequently referred to as the Father of HPT, explains that
"The purpose of performance….is to increase human capital which can be defined as the product of time and opportunity….technology is an orderly and sensible set of procedures for converting potential into capital."
HPT is relevant to organizations because it adopts a systematic view of organizations weaving all aspects of organizational behavior into the performance fabric. Another important aspect of HPT, according to Rosenberg (1982) is that
"...... it is evolved from the realization that instructional or training systems were ineffective or inappropriate if other factors were not attended to."
Therefore, HPT does not restrict itself to training interventions alone for solving workplace problems but considers a whole range of other alternatives such as ergonomics, cycle-time, work simplification, job-rotation, QTM, re-engineering, rewards, incentives, etc. Rather than savoring 'the flavor of the month' approach to improving performance, HPT suggests a more holistic approach based on actual 'needs'. HPT identifies opportunities for improvement at the organizational, process and individual level.
The opportunities are derived by carrying out what Gilbert calls a 'performance audit' based on the following steps.
The HPT Model is very much akin to the Instructional technology. The difference is in that the parameters are wider and the Performance Technologist has to be a generalist with knowledge of various interventions but with expertise in some of them. In this context it has to be a collaborative effort in dealing with problems rather than leaving the onus on the trainer(s) or individual consultants. It caters for
Once the 'potential improvement gap' has been identified and the appropriate interventions have been selected then it is a question of implementation, monitoring and evaluation. For the success of this approach it is important to put together is work team which is committed to the performance improvement project.
HPT, or any other technology, will only work if there is total support from the top. The question is, are we really interested improving performance? Are we prepared to take risks in trying out new strategies? Are we prepared to stretch our minds to identify measurements for performance? Do we dare to make performance improvements?
PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTIVITY
Peter Drucker the foremost management guru has observed that productivity is the first step of management competence. And, according to Deming, 85% of all productivity problems relate to management and only 15% relate to workers' performance. Besides being responsive to change, effective managers must also demonstrate high productivity.
We know that productivity is not a measure of production or output. It is an index of measurement calculated as a ratio of total output to total input. In other words it is a measure of how well resources are combined and utilized to accomplish desired results or outcomes.
Total output
RM results
achieved
effectiveness
Productivity =
---------------------- = ------------------------------------------ = ----------------------
Total input
RM resources consumed
efficiency
There are various factors that contribute to productivity. Basically productivity is the result of efficiency of the workforce besides other resources. It is the people who take care of the finances, it is the people who order and maintain supplies, it is the people who man the machines, it is the people who maintain the processes. Therefore, the efficient utilization of the resources is in the hands of the human resource. With the rate of change today, we may be using the same resources but there is a constant need to update and upgrade the competencies of the workforce. Hence the HR developer's role has become even more important. However, the other needs of the human resource, besides skills development and education, has also increased in demand.
The HR manager has to be proactive to these demands in order to maintain a high level of performance so that optimum level of productivity can be achieved. Hence, people are the key to organizational performance and productivity and have to be acknowledged as the pillars of organizational success. We have to cater for their needs so they can meet the needs of the organization.
If we want exemplary performance from the human resource, we need to treat people fairly, treat them as partners, treat them with respect, and trust and above all provide them opportunities for development. Only by so doing we can earn their respect and loyalty that will forge a relationship contributing to a high level of performance and productivity.
In this process of HR developers taking on a wider role and greater responsibilities, we will be repositioning training to the function of Human Performance Improvement or Organization Performance Improvement. What should we call our selves? Human Performance Technologists? Human Performance Consultants? Organization Performance Engineers? Think of a nomenclature!
We could then leave the term ‘Trainers’ to the circus.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surjit
Singh has been a teacher, an executive-officer, administrator and a
training-coordinator in the Malaysian Public Service. He has authored and
co-authored several school texts and general text books besides contributing
chapters to some publications. He occasionally writes articles and makes
presentations. In 2000 he co-authored "Human Resource Development In
Organizations." He has served on various associations and societies.
Presently, he is a management and training consultant. His pastime is "learning
at the speed of change." He can be contacted at surjits@pc.jaring.my.
Feature Article Three: New Humor Resource J For Human Resource
Do you often wonder why you are so distressed at work? Do you know most people are working hard but hate working? If you do not have fun at work, you are wasting 3/5 of your life! It is crucial to make your work fun by transforming your work attitude and by promoting fun workplace. Working supposed to be fun experience for all.
In our six-year survey of Asian Human Resource Development, in both the private and public sectors, the QLQ International team observed that HR is in the transitional position for new transformational actions.
One of these HR transformational actions needed is to initiate the underdeveloped workplace wellness. Studies have proven that among other things, humor power enhances employees’ total physical, mental and spiritual wellness. Hence, where there is humor there will be positive work attitude, work satisfaction, loyalty and better performance and productivity. Humor is also said to be the best medicine for a healthy well being. It is also the vital enhancer for workplace wellness. Workplaces lacking laughter often suffer higher work stress, higher health risk, more dissatisfied employees and poor work performance.
In the current millennium, the new HR roles are: to initiate proactive wellness transformation of the workplace and to develop healthy and happy employees. So, let laughter be heard and let smiling faces be seen, as work should be fun and a satisfying experience for all!
WHY AND HOW TO CREATE A HUMOR RESOURCE IN YOUR HUMAN RESOURCE SERVICE
First of all, you must believe that appropriate laughter in the workplace has positive healing and helping powers. Initiating humor resource calls for shifting of the HR mindset, transformation of organizational culture, which will lead to the enriching of employees’ work life.
Here are seven reasons and seven ways that humor resource (HR) can transform a distressed workplace into a fun workplace, and burnout employees into satisfied and productive workforce:
1. HR TRANSFORMS HARMFUL STRESS INTO HELPFUL STRESS – it prevents illness, and heals sickness by transforming harmful stress into helpful stress. It also heals body, mind and spirit, by changing one’s biochemistry and behavior.
2. HR LIGHTENS UP THE WORK ATMOSPHERE -- the sound of laughter diffuses a heavy stressful atmosphere in the workplace. It is vital to provide healthy ergonomics for hard working employees.
3. HR ENHANCES EQ (Emotional Intelligence) FOR NEW SOCIAL ATTITUDE – appropriate socialization in the workplace is helpful in building empathy among employees and minimizing organizational hierarchy. When employees have friends at a friendly workplace, they tend to become more enthusiastic and happy.
How is this done?
4. HR PROMOTES POSITIVE WORK ATTITUDE – the best work attitude comes from having fun and being rewarded for one’s work effort. Work smart replaces work hard. Positive work attitude minimizes work errors while maximizing quality performance. Positive work attitude will motivate employees to do above and beyond what they should do.
How is this done?
5. HR INCREASES WORK SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY -- work is supposed to be a fun experience in the workplace. Work satisfaction comes from intangible rewards. Satisfied employees enjoy working and they have less health risks and there is also a low turnover rate.
How is this done?
6. HR FACILITATES TEAM BONDING – good team bonding will develop better communication, conflict resolution, decision-making and better skills in coping with difficult people.
How is this done?
7. HR@ INCUBATES CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EMPLOYEES – when employees have fun together they work best together. Creative minds and innovative performance are resulted from happy employees.
How is this done?
SUMMARY
Many workplaces do not have wellness consciousness. They are likely to be ‘unwell’ workplaces that need healing desperately. Employees who work in these ‘unwell’ workplaces tend to develop negative work attitude, poor morale, high work stress, and become dissatisfied with their work. These ‘unwell’ workplaces will suffer from poor productivity and quality control. They will also have problems retaining good employees, let alone their worker enjoyment and loyalty.
To remedy this, HR should be the major driver that takes transformational actions towards implementing humor resource in the workplace, so as to develop the truly ‘Human Resource’ and not just ‘Worker Resource’. Let every employee, regardless of position and power maximize his/her work enjoyment and satisfaction, so that total workplace wellness may be shared and enjoyed by all.
Let humor resource enriches the human resource!
Guidelines for implementing good Humor Resource: follow A.T & T principles .........
- Appropriate to the situation and people
- Tastefully and sensitively done to achieve good response
- Timely, for the appropriate occasions
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Dr James Y. Lin (PhD, MEd, BA, LTh
– USA & Australia) is a Polynesian born and Western trained psychologist,
corporate trainer, humorist and stressologist from the USA. He is the chairman
and CEO of the QUALITY LIFESKILLS QUANTUM INTERNATIONAL (USA, Asia Pacific).
He leads a
team of QLQ corporate consultants and trainers serving the Asia-Pacific
countries. He is also the executive advisor to HRD Gateway (Asean HRD
organization - www.hrdgateway.org) For more
information on QLQ please visit www.jyl2000.com,
email jyl2000@singnet.com.sg All Rights
Reserved – QLQ
Training.
HR Summits 2002 Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur
Organized by Keymedia and supported by HRD Gateway, malaysiaHRonline, and China HRM, two HR Summits are now open for registration. The dates and venues are as follows:
HR
Summit 2002 Shanghai, China
Date: 29-30 October 2002
Venue: Pudong Shangri-La Hotel
HR Summit 2002 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Date: 18-19 December 2002
Venue: Putra World Trade Centre
For more information, please visit www.hrdgateway.org/conferences. HRD Gateway members (including those of our alliances) are offered a special discount. Please attend if your schedule permits. There will be a display table reserved for HRD Gateway and malaysiaHRonline at the KL Summit. Come and visit us!
Humor Resource
When we start our days without laughter we will end the days
without fun and perhaps even miserable. The good news is that we have the choice
and power to make our days happy or grumpy. It does not cost anything to be
happy with laughter and it might make a great difference to others and most
importantly to ourselves!
This is our premier celebration on Humor Resource, thanks to a few contributors who generously shared their positive attitude and joy of life. But we need more contributors on fun and clean jokes, cartoons, short stories. If we only take laughter in and not giving it out, we might cause humor bankruptcy on someone. Just imagine there is no laughter and smiling faces on this planet, it is surely a lonely and boring place where people will die of boredom!
Please send in the clown to jyl2000@singnet.com.sg today!
Enjoy and Have a Laughly Day!
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Here are some laughers to share:
THE BOSS FIRST
A Sales Rep, an Admin Clerk and their Manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke.
The Genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one."
"Me first! Me first!" says the Administration Clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Poof! She's gone.
In astonishment, "Me next! Me next!" says the Sales Rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of pina coladas and the love of my life." Poof! He's gone.
"You're next," the Genie says to the Manager .
The Manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."
Moral of this story: Always Let your Boss have the first say.
Source: Funny Bin
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MARKETING 101
You see a gorgeous lady at a party. You go up to her and say, "I'm a fantastic lover" That's Direct Marketing.
You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous lady. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, "He's a fantastic lover" That's Advertising.
You see a gorgeous lady at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm a fantastic lover." That's Telemarketing.
You're at a party and see a gorgeous lady. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink. You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm a fantastic lover" That's Public Relations.
You're at a party and see a gorgeous lady. She walks up to you and says, "I hear you're a fantastic lover." That's Brand Recognition
Book Review:
Many people have experienced the futility of marketing in today's competitive business climate, facing dilemmas such as these:
"How am I supposed to go out and get new business when all I have time to do is work on the business I already have?"
"Marketing is so expensive ……. and poor results don't help! I mailed 10,000 brochures and received no responses."
"I'm struggling to find solid strategies for adding new subscribers to my E-newsletter while respecting standards of 'Netiquette' and privacy."
A new book, SmartMatch Alliances: Achieve Extraordinary Business Growth and Success!, provides an alternative solution to the frustration of low-impact, high-priced sales and marketing efforts. The process is simple, inexpensive - and effective.
The book's authors, Judy Feld and Ernest F. Oriente are professional business coaches.
"Our working definition of a SmartMatch Alliance is 'an arrangement between two or more businesses to exchange something of equal value with the aim of increasing the visibility, sales, and profits of each alliance partner,'" says Feld. "The operative words are 'exchange' and 'equal value.' Both concepts are essential to understanding the Exchange of Value or EOV, a fundamental principle behind SmartMatch Alliances. For example, writers, speakers, and coaches have a hidden EOV. Writing and communication skills are a wonderful way to launch a strategic alliance, which in exchange, will give the writer increased visibility and exposure, which leads to more book sales and other income streams."
Attitude Vitamins
When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure. -- Peter Marshal
Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue. -- Francis Bacon
Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch -- what makes you go beyond the norm. -- Cicely Tyson
A feeling of confidence and personal power comes from facing challenges and overcoming them. -- Brian Tracy
All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter. --Chinese Proverb
If you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more. -- Brian Koslow
Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That's called doing your homework. -- Jim Rohn
I have often been afraid, but I would not give in to it. I made myself act as though I was not afraid and gradually my fear disappeared. -- Theodore Roosevelt
Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one. -- Lyndon B Johnson
Mountains DO move, one stone at a time. -- Rick Beneteau
Links of Interest
Free MIT courses online
MIT has started to put some of their courses online so that colleges and universities can use them in their classes. Students and the public have free access to the material too. Go to: http://ocw.mit.edu/global/all-courses.html
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Arab culture and civilization
From the website: "The National Institute for
Technology and Liberal Education has developed this site, with funds from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as a resource for all who would develop a better
understanding of the Arab world. While our principal audience is the students,
faculty, staff and alumni of the liberal arts colleges served by NITLE, the site
is open to all visitors. The materials comprising the site are organized
thematically into a set of ten modules, each of which contains a variety of
original texts, video clips and audio files from online and print
sources."
www.nitle.org/arabworld
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Google news
From the website: "The headlines on the Google News
homepage are selected entirely by a computer algorithm, based on many factors
including how often and on what sites a story appears elsewhere on the web.
Google News relies in a similar fashion on the editorial judgment of online news
organizations to determine which stories are most deserving of inclusion and
prominence on the Google News page."
http://news.google.com
Organization News
1. On 13 September 2002, editor G K Lim met up with Li Zhi Yong, a programmer from Beijing who is working for his MBA in e-Commerce at the Kuala Lumpur branch campus of the Charles Stuart University of Australia. As a result of the meeting, GK and Zhi Yong are to assist with the development of Chinahrm.org. They will also encourage HRM/HRD professionals from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan to join HRD Gateway.
GK and Zhi Yong meeting in KL, Malaysia
2. HumanTalents celebrated their second anniversary on 1 October 2002. This egroup focuses on enhancement of Creativity & Innovative skills of all professionals through out the world. It fosters concept innovations in Management. The moderator, Jayadeva de Silva, is currently serving as the VP of HR for HRD Gateway. His egroup is also an alliance of HRD Gateway. To sign up with the egroup, go to the Member Area and use the master subscription form posted there: www.hrdgateway.org/hub2.
3. HR Philippines and HRD Gateway members held a successful joint meeting on 8 October 2002 in Manila, Philippines. The attendees include Ma. Concepcion Ureta (CEO of HR Philippines and VP of Membership for HRD Gateway), Michelle Lim (Consulting Development Partner), Norbert Allan Z. Aquende (VP of Online Development), Raffy Perfecto (Executive Advisor), and several others (Lanie, Khajel, Elma, Ricki, Jeni, etc.).
Views expressed by the various authors are their own, and do not necessarily coincide with views of HRD Gateway.
Readers, please email comments, news items, and article contributions to the editor, G. K Lim. HRD Gateway reserves the right to use your contribution.
Copyright © 2002 HRD Gateway and Contributors. Email This Page.