Title

Dean Shoesmith travelled across the Atlantic in search of the answers to all his HR questions – only to find the problems are the same the world over. America. The most powerful country in the world. Economic and military superpower. Globalisation through capitalism. Pervading cultures and countries. Source of the term ‘human resources', or even ‘human capital', if you prefer. Homeland of the HR guru, Dave Ulrich... or is that ‘Auric' as someone recently pronounced his name? In other words ‘the golden one' of HR? At the end of October, I was fortunate enough to be asked by the Public Sector People Managers' Association (PPMA) to represent it at the annual conference of the American equivalent – the International Public Sector Association for HR (IPMA-HR). The venue was Las Vegas or, as the city self-depreciatingly describes itself ‘Fabulous Las Vegas'. This, I was determined, would not be an occasion when ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas'. I was more than 5,000 miles from home, and in an ‘alien' land... or was I? Immediately on roaming around the IPMA's conference and exhibition halls, swapping business cards, and striking up new networks and contacts with my very hospitable and charming American colleagues, it soon hit me that they might as well have been five miles down the road, and not separated by 3,000 miles of ocean and 2,000 miles of continental land mass. As an illustration of proximity, suddenly, an American HR director's BlackBerry device sparked into life. After a hurried conversation, he apologised, and said he was going to have to deal with a disciplinary issue which had just come up. He gave me a brief description of the case in question. I paused and asked, ‘Let me guess... your case comes from the waste services department?' His jaw dropped, and in astonished tone he asked: ‘How did you know?' I reassured him: ‘Don't worry, there's no breach of confidence – it's just that from your description, it sounds like any number of cases I've dealt with.' The Atlantic suddenly shrivelled... into a puddle. The conversations in the exhibition hall continued in similar vein. The main preoccupation of my American counterparts being the demographic time bomb. HR professionals in the US public sector are deeply troubled about the so-called baby-boomer generation whose members are due to retire over the next 15 years. Does this sound familiar? Knowledge management about to leave the building? Insufficient young people to fill the gap? Generation Y disinterested in perceived public service bureaucracy? Dr Peter Cappelli, acknowledged thought-leader and academic on the subject of human capital management, was the first keynote speaker at the IPKMA-HR conference. Almost instantaneously, he focused on the issue of the demographic time bomb. He provided detailed research analysis of issues concerning Generation Y, and their predisposition to care less about salaries, and more about a better work-life balance. In the UK, we've tried manacling Generation Y through golden hellos and handcuffs – in my view, with mixed success. Dr Dennis Kimbro spoke about leadership, and what makes great people great? A remarkable orator, he spoke with passion about leadership, but also discrimination and disadvantage among African-Americans. His exposition and the subsequent election events in American have poignancy. The US challenge has been to spot propensity for ‘greatness' – described by Dr Kimbro as a person's unfair competitive advantage. The challenge for the HR department is to capture, nurture and retain that talent – arguably the ‘holy grail' of HR, whatever side of the Atlantic you might operate from. The last keynote speaker, Dr Donald Kettl, really brought home to me that the world is shrinking. His description of the ‘wicked' problems faced by the US Government and public services had transatlantic resonance. He cited the 9/11 terrorist attack, Hurricane Katrina and the economic meltdown as truly wicked problems. His description of inter-agency silos, borders and demarcation lines hindering effective response might have you saying, ‘It could only happen in America'. However, what about the Victoria Climbié tragedy, our response to the summer floods of 2007, or dealing with the 7/7 terrorist attacks? These are issues which keep us awake trans-globally. Dr Kettl's answer was to advocate multi-agency scenario planning to act as the Mogadon to our collective insomnia.In my naivety, I thought America – superpower and birthplace of so much HR thought leadership – would hold the key to unlock all my ‘wicked' HR problems. Instead, I realised Anglo-American public sector problems were a shared experience, and the true sense of globalisation dawned on me through the lens of human resource management. Dean Shoesmith is vice president (elect) of PPMA, and director of HR at Sutton and Merton LBCs

Title

Is the world of HR shrinking?

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING