HRD Alert! from Desert Wave Enterprises

Dear !*FIRST_NAME*!

Here is the latest edition of HRD Alert! to which you subscribed.

I hope you find the new HTML format easier to read and more vibrant than the plain text, email versions. If you have trouble reading this, an online copy is available here. You can load it into your browser and save it in HTML format and then read it off line.

EDITORIAL

I BEGAN writing this edition as I sat in a room on the seventh floor of the Landmark Resort, Mooloolaba, Queensland (just north of Brisbane on the east coast of Australia for those of my international subscribers). I attended a conference after which I spent some time holidaying about southern Queensland and the north-west of New South Wales before returning home via Broken Hill (western NSW) and Port Augusta in South Australia. It was a long, but pleasant journey and heartening to see all the greening around Western Queensland which has been dry and dustbound for years.

The conference provided me with a key topic for this edition; Planning Your Conference. As with all human endeavour, there are well organised, mediocre and poorly organised conferences. Below are some tips I have learnt over the past 30 years of attending and organising conferences.

While working on a proposal for a client, I noticed that the client's organisation didn't have a marketing strategy for its HR Department. Thus, the topic for the second item, Marketing and HR.

You'll notice in this reformatted edition that I have Other Stuff in the left hand column. This part of the newsletter from now on will contain freebies, advertising and the odd quotation.

Finally, I have asked for your feedback about this newsletter.

I hope that you and your loved ones had a safe and relaxing Easter break.

Robin Henry

PLANNING YOUR CONFERENCE

THERE is an alliterative saying I learnt in the Air Force: Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. It actually has another word in it before poor, but for propriety, I'll let you imagine what that is ... don't want to degrade this fine ezine!

The 6P Rule is central to many things, especially those requiring structure and excellent organisation. Why? Because if you don't get it right, every one of the participants will know you have dropped the ball.

The first necessity is to know exactly what you want; will you provide lunch, include accommodation, include freebies such as brief cases, package the conference with discount airfares, hire cars and a trip to a local tourism venue? What about spouses and partners, will they be included? Once you know exactly what you want ... and it's a sound idea to contact several venue providers to ask what they will do for what cost, make sure you have a written agreement about:

what you want
when you want it
where it will happen
at what cost
who will carry out the various roles/activities
what will happen if something goes wrong (contingency plan)

Once you have agreed what you want and the venue provider has agreed to provide it, you are on your way. Or are you? You aren't, because there is much more to do ... like communicating with the intended participants ... the reason for the conference.

You need to be explicit in what the conference offers, how people nominate and pay, when it will start and so on. In fact what you should do ... mentally, is think through the various ways and options for people to attend. Go through each step and ask yourself, 'What happens here, how will it be handled?' Imagine yourself writing a cheque to pay your nomination ... where will you send it, what will happen once it is received? By doing this mental thing, you can identify 'fail points', which may prevent embarassment and inefficiencies somewhere down the track. For example, incorrect payee details on a cheque will require you to contact the sender and have another cheque raised ... all valuable time and resources wasted.

Make sure participants are fully aware of what they are expected to do and what you, the organiser will do. Don't allow any room for errors.

Some specific points to watch for are:

When you arrange food, such as lunch and morning and afternoon tea, make sure you know what size and composition the food portions are. If necessary get photos - ask for descriptions or have a look at what you are buying. It's easy to buy sandwiches for 250 and find that the last 50 people don't get a sandwich because the first 200 took too many. Nothing is more off-putting to clients than missing out on food or receiving what they consider small portions. Make sure you know what you are paying for and that you get it on the day (quality control!).
Ensure everyone knows where and when sessions are and how to find them (provide a map) or written instructions
If spouses and partners are accompanying members, consider arranging some discounted prices for meals, car hire, trips etc - you can ask for a commission
If you are presenting, make sure you know what technology will be available and that your version of software is compatible - have a contingency plan for technology just in case it fails at the critical moment. Tell other presenters what is available
Some of the little things matter; catering for vegetarians, ensuring water jugs are sitting on something that will absorb condensation so that participants don't get droplets of water on their paperwork or clothes, seat comfort, adequate breaks, good airconditioning or heating, no distractions from outside noise etc
Finally, when people book their attendance, send them a letter confirming accommodation, specific events for which they are booked, timings, and give them a contact number of someone who can handle last minute cancellations, changes or problems that arise

The secret to successful conference organisation is good planning and meticulous attention to detail. If you aren't a 'detail' person, think about hiring a conference organiser who is or get a conference planning checklist and use it. [TOP]

MARKETING AND HR

I've written about marketing before and will probably address the topic again as it is very important. HR is what is known as a 'staffing' function ie, it is a support function that doesn't add direct value to an organisation as do operational departments eg, sales, mining, production and so on. Because of this, many managers see HR as a costly add-on that doesn't always add value to the organisation. Oh, yes, they admit they need people recruited, training, industrial relations advocates, and payroll functions, but it always seems to require too many people and too much of the hard-earned working capital. This opinion is invariably because most HR work is done in the background and results don't always jump out to be seen. This is where marketing comes in.

Marketing needs to be a core function of any HR department. Just as HR specialists don't necessarily know, want to know, or understand everything that happens in the Engineering Department, engineers don't know about their HR department. So what you say? Well, while we don't need to know that the electrical sub-department has a maintenance schedule for servicing the 354 electric motors installed throughout our organisation, engineering staffs do need to know about the many HR issues that affect them at work. Do you see the difference?

A marketing strategy should commence with staff induction and include what the HR department does and how it can help employees. Provide a brochure advising what help is available, who to contact, where, when and how.

Provide wall charts with helpline numbers; send a periodical newsletter advising staff what your department is doing, what changes to laws, procedures etc impact on employees, when training is available, who has resigned or been appointed. Make sure everyone knows about your achievements ... 'this month we completed rewriting the new Certified Agreement which will be circulated to you shortly'.

As you walk around your office, mine, plant or factory, talk to people. Tell them what you are doing to improve their lot. Ask them if they need your help. You need to remain visible. Hold an open day once per annum and encourage employees to drop in for a coffee and a chat. Hand out free coffee cups with helpline numbers printed on the side. Run a competition occasionally and survey staffs to find out what they think of HR. Use your imagination!

All of these and more can determine the success or failure of an HR function. Because there is no direct value added to an organisation's bottom line by staffing functions, it is good sense, if not just a survival strategy, to show what indirect value you are adding. You do this largely by telling your clients what you are doing for them and how it is helping them at work. It's really very simple, but too often gets overlooked by HR departments that just stumble along. [TOP]

WORTH A LOOK

Business Suit - T&D Consultants
If you've heard of Edward de Bono and his Six Thinking Hats®, you will feel at home with the Business Suit site which includes, in its services, numerous de Bono programmes. According to the site, Business Suit 'has positioned itself as one of Australia's leading providers of Edward de Bono training programmes'.

The organisation also provides performance consultancies. Although there is limited information about who are the key consultants, or a business address, there are contact telephone numbers indicating it is Queensland based. The email address provided didn't work for me.

Despite it being a lean site with no formal address details, it is worth a look as an apparently new enterprise and one wherein you could source the de Bono range of 'thinking' programs.

Home-Based Business Manual
This site will be of particular interest to anyone about to start up a home-based business as it includes a comprehensive range of issues affecting home-based business owners in Australia. Some of the content will be useful for non-Australian readers as it is generic and talks about finance, promotion, technology, development and a few other issues common anywhere.

At the site you can download the business manual as an Adobe PDF file (2.8 Mb) to keep it on hand or you can read the content while online in HTML format.

Well worth a look, it can be found here. [TOP]

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

I've been publishing HRD Alert! for several years now and I'd really appreciate some feedback about what you think of the content, layout, text size, change to HTML, or anything else. Please click here and give me your feedback NOW. It won't take more than a few minutes. And yes, I can take negative critique.

Until next time, stay well.

Robin Henry