Human Capital Development

Singapore
Newsletter – November 2002

Welcome to the November edition of Human Capital Development

As we move into the Festive Season, the New Year can bring a valuable time for reflection, re-
connection with our core values around family and close friends, community and charity.

Many companies are having smaller end of year functions as they move to contain costs, so that
the overall mood in the market can be said to be humble, at best.

I believe this places even more need for companies to try and build morale. Many have said as
much to me during our recent Job Index Survey. Team spirit and stronger leadership are needed
to see these tough times through. Many companies invest at least 4% of their budget in training
and development, many of these are team-building events to help people focus and work
together. Getting value for money out of your development programs is one key activity that HR
can demonstrate its contribution to both morale and the bottom-line of the company.

In a recent study of companies who used one to one coaching after their training programs saw
an 85% application rate for knowledge and skills learnt against less than 30%

In this year’ Santa Christmas Stocking for HR Directors and Managers:

1. Change Management – to adapt the changing organisation to their marketplace better

2. Supportive Leadership – to give direction and drive to the human resources effort
3. A Great Team – to support their own initiatives and give life to the many facets of HR they
have to manage within the business
4. Strategy – review all of the functions they perform and identify what strategic contributions
they are making now and plan to make them much stronger in the coming year; the best HR
Strategists apply strategic thinking to even the most mundane of hr matters through
outsourcing of processing to offering equivalent benefits options that diversify choice down to
individual levels
5. Results – HR must be willing to show how their activities relate and contribute to the
business; in other words what is the bottom-line results derived from all of your HR activities
– a typical tool for doing this is Balanced Scorecard, maybe you will find one of these in your
Christmas stocking…
6. Great PR – Human Resources is 50% public relations work; we all need to constantly brush
up on how we promote ourselves and meet the needs of others for information relating to
their work, the company and their relationships with these; a critical element in any HR
Directors toolkit: great PR skills, in the boardroom, with all of the staff, vendors and suppliers
and the public too.
7. Willingness to innovate – look for and implement ways to link pay and performance more
closely; to take on new roles within HR beyond administration to help line managers make
better people decisions; look for better ways to serve their customers: management and
employees;
8. Opportunities for their own learning – staying fresh and meeting challenges requires
everyone to upgrade their professional skills; finding strategic learning opportunities and
getting coaching to help implement the new skills and knowledge acquired will demonstrate
your walking the talk of good professional development practice
MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
Most researchers say that motivation is driven by primary needs in the individual and their fulfilment or
not, from their external environment. How is important is this, is reflected in a recent statement by MIT
economist Lester Thurow who recently observed that successful companies (and countries) will compete
in the future based principally on the quality, capacity, and commitment of their human capital.

Helping managers to identify and change the motivating factors for their staff is a valid expectation of
human resources. However, this certainly cannot be achieved across the board with out involvement and
support from senior management to put the tools of change into the hands of managers and equip them
to use them.

Modern HR approaches expect managers to be leading the process of setting goals (Key performance
areas, key tasks, key performance measures) with their staff, monitoring their achievement and
correcting deviations from them. This is fine as a framework, but it perhaps overlooks the role of
motivation to work. Using any of the modern motivation theories we can see a trend towards capturing
the following critical attributes:

• Self-preservation – safety, ‘rice bowl’, bread-winner – satisfaction of these needs is a common ‘must
have’ driving many to work even though they may not have the other satisfiers below.

• Relationships at work – with significant others, these may be defined in order of priority: first and
most critical is the subordinate - immediate supervisor relationship (the critical retention relationship
for almost all staff); then depending upon the nature of the work …with peers, internal customers and
others as supporting relationships that help to satisfy needs for recognition and affiliation.

• Job satisfaction – the nature of the work and the individuals interest in the work, help to provide a
source of achievement and self actualisation, for those who have moved beyond the first two above.

• Perceptions of importance – influencing perceptions of what is important is the role of leadership.

This is different from management in that it prefers to use a visionary model of communication and
motivation by building ‘buy-in’. In the longer term this is better for sustained performance
improvements. Management can use disciplinary style or simple directive styles for short-term task
performance but this will be unlikely to motivate better long-term behavior by staff. Helping managers
to become managers and even assume a role as a better leader will help the company drive an
agenda for better performance.

CULTURAL VITALITY MEASUREMENT AND IMPROVEMENT

At TMP we are helping a number of organisations to measure the vitality of staff and management
culture. The model used assesses both motivation and ability as the key factors driving performance. If
you are keen to know more about our services in this area, you can request a copy of our powerpoint
presentation of this program be emailed to you. Simply email me, John Read at john.read@tmp.com.

FUTURE PROGRAMS WITH DR. GRANT

We are exploring a number of possible program with Dr Grant for the first half of next year. If you are
keen to participate in any of these please drop me an email indicating your interest so that I can proceed
to make arrangements.

www.sg.tmp.c
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TMP COACHING PROGRAMS PLANNED FOR Q1/2 2003
WITH DR. ANTHONY GRANT

February – One day Conference: ‘Coaching Using Evidence-based Coaching Tools’ – identifying
clearly what works in coaching is vital to a successful coaching interaction. It is also important that
companies know what to expect from coaching, and how best to implement it in their workplace. This
one-day interactive conference will demonstrate the use of well-researched coaching strategies and
practice. It will explore successful case histories of introducing coaching into companies. [content subject
to change]

February/April – Coaching Skills for Managers training course: day one in February followed by day
two in April. This is the second edition of this already successful program for managers to develop their
coaching skills

February/April – In-house Coaching Skills for Managers training – available subject to expression of
interest

February/April – Professional Certificate in Coaching – 3 days in February followed by day four in

April - available subject to expression of interest.

The openness of this calendar is deliberate – we want to make sure that we are meeting your requirements
as closely as possible. Dr Grant has generously given this flexibility to us and we plan to use it for the
greatest good in terms of the development of coaching here

Please send me an email to book your expression of interest or to enquire about our programs. You can
also call John Read direct on tel: 6430 5324 to make enquiries. In his absence please speak to Siti
Zubaida, on tel: 6430 5505.

TMP CONTINUES TO OFFER OUTPLACEMENT SERVICES

As companies are continuing in some sectors to re-structure their operations especially those less
profitable or higher costs areas to lower costs countries, we find a continuing strong demand for these
services from TMP.

Our unique positioning as a recruiter in this region means that we have offices in many different locations
often where our competitors don’t have them. Our ‘spirit of placement’ enables us to direct outplacement
services to where they are needed most for each candidate. And our pricing remains very competitive, for
example, we don’t charge on the basis of salary of the affected staff – we believe this does not relate the
quality of our services provided.

We offer services in Mandarin and other dialects if needed for those involving large-scale or special
outplacement events. We have a relationship with the Ministry of Manpower to offer joint services to
operational level staff if required.

To find out more about TMP’s Solutions, please call www.sg.tmp.c

John Read at 6430 5324
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