FHRD calls for more people's values
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Foundation for Human Resources Development chairman John Muscat Drago makes his inaugural address at the FHRD annual conference. Looking on are FHRD CEO Maria Pia Chircop flanked by the keynote speakers Geoff Armstrong (on her right) and Dr John C. Grech. |
The Foundation for Human Resources Development (FHRD) held its annual conference at the Hilton, Portomaso, on November 17. The conference, titled 'People at the Heart of Success: How can we create superior performance through people?' attracted a good number of delegates, both from the private and public sectors.
The success of this conference was achieved through a number of factors. The keynote speakers for the conference, Geoff Armstrong, director general of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, UK, and Dr John C. Grech, chairman and managing director of Economic Management and Consultancy Services (EMCS) Ltd, were highly professional, which left an impact on the audience.
The three other speakers who presented their company's success story, Doris Sammut from Green Skip Ltd, Frank Edwards from MCAST and Maronna Filletti from M. Demajo Group, provided a practical way of how to achieve and look at business success in their different business set-ups.
The afternoon master class, led by Mr Armstrong, reinvigorated the audience through active participation, discussing various workplace issues. The exhibition from a number of HR service providers also contributed to the success of the conference, along with the contribution from Cardinal Health, Dedicated Micros (Malta) Ltd and HSBC Bank Malta plc, who sponsored the event.
The core learning of the conference mainly focused on people's values for business success.
Mr Armstrong focused on how today's organisations depend for their success on delighting customers again and again. Changing customer expectations, globalisation and an intensifying competition mean that the agility to take advantage of turbulence is a key driver of value.
That requires the discretionary contribution of everyone in the organisation, not just those at the top. Enforced compliance does not result in the innovation, creativity and customer service, which make the winning difference.
Leaders, he said, need to create organisations, cultures and values that give people the ability, motivation and opportunity to develop and contribute to their full potential. People expect to be treated as respected adults and to have a say in the organisations that employ them.
They want their boss to talk to them truthfully and to take account of their views. They expect to be invested in as contributors of real value, not treated as an unwelcome cost to be minimised.
Evidence shows a high correlation between employee and customer satisfaction. HR professionals should demonstrate the positive benefits of progressive approaches to people management and development, using balanced scorecards and other hard business measures.
The people dimensions of enterprise are rooted in a systematically learnable body of knowledge, evidence and practice. HR professionals should learn continuously to move people to the heart of organisational strategy, the only way to generate sustainable success in the global economy.
Dr Grech defined organisations as living organisms, not just legal entities, and as such they grow, mature and die like human beings. They can be revitalised and live a longer life. They are value generators and hence they cannot be defined by the physical product they generate but by the value they generate.
Organisations are made of people and it is people who drive and power them. This means that people, at whatever level of the organisation they work, generate value or should be generating value.
Dr Grech stated that, for a long time, organisations were considered to be organisational "machines" with the consequence that people became a product of this "reality". But people are not machines but human beings. Organisations are also seen as hierarchical structures.
They are defined by functions and not according to people's contribution. Organisations should rather be seen as a process that changes all the time. They have a composite structure and the bigger they are the bigger the opportunity for networks of teams using technology to achieve specific goals.
Organisations should be better viewed as a network of teams not as a pyramid. However, the formal power structure is still very dominant and there exists a mismatch with using knowledge versus participation in the existing overall organisation.
New organisation structures should be flatter for better communication; use technology with a people interface; generate and use knowledge; and take more decisions throughout the system as they empower people to act not to just report, acting as messengers in the system! Dr Grech said that to make the difference, we need to look at people not in functional terms but in value generating terms. Organisations should speak of their people not as "employees" or "workers" but as people. People must be treated as people and intelligent contributors to value generation.
The local case studies also emphasised on people's values.
Ms Sammut, joint managing director with her sister Mary at Green Skip Services Ltd, explained how their company grew over time in number and values. This required a different approach between management and employees, enforcing more discipline and control, while applying more participation from the work force. The principles applied were consulting with employees on issues that effect them, in-house training and evaluating their contribution.
Mr Edwards emphasised that MCAST is not only an educational institution but also an important tool for the economy. Therefore, it is paramount that there is innovation and creativity to address the challenges that we all face.
It is essential to own and believe in the vision; hence to lead and direct people accordingly, getting people involved; empower and support them and move forward with the economy. He said it is important that his team of directors understand the world of business and the world of work, and that processes are evaluated and measured.
Mr Edwards stated that their success is being achieved through steering a clear path with a clear vision, networking and developing partnerships with all stakeholders, including developing strong links with industry, business and commerce.
Ms Filletti spoke of how the Demajo Group, a leading family-owned business, moved forward with time to a more democratic culture giving a voice to their people. Consequently, the board appointed a number of non-family directors to the subsidiary board.
Through the introduction of a change management programme, it became a leaner organisation where success is being measured through the use of various performance measurement tools.
Among these tools, Ms Filletti gave a detailed explanation of the balance scorecard. Other initiatives included the creation of champion task groups, centres of excellence and think tanks.
The FHRD thanks all those who participated and contributed to this conference and especially to its sponsors and the exhibitors, which were: Atlas Insurance Agency, Computime Ltd, Dakar Software Systems, Henley Management College (Malta) Associates, International Safety Training Centre, Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, Malta University Services, Megabyte Ltd, MISCO International Ltd and St Martin's Institute of Information Technology. | 
