Mark on people, technology and stuff

"Business Schools" & "Financial Services" (Oh, the Harm They've Caused) | Britannica Blog

2009-01-25T04:05:00.002+13:00

This article seemed fairly accurate to me.

Suggests that the pattern of the best & brightest individuals for the last couple of generations going to business schools & then financial services has been fairly deleterious to society as a whole.

Sorting a protected list in excel

2008-12-06T02:47:00.010+13:00

As far as I can determine there is no way to use excel's standard sort function while a sheet is protected. The reason being that a sort is effectively moving rows around, which breaks the editing locked cell restriction.
Nevertheless, a search around the net suggests the best way to do this is to use a macro to un-protect the sheet, run the sort & then re-protect the sheet. The first way that I've done this is to add two buttons to my worksheet to sort a particular range ("data") dependent on what column the user currently has selected.
Here's the code:

Private Sub cmdSortAsc_Click()

cmdSort (xlAscending)

End Sub

Private Sub cmdSortDesc_Click()

cmdSort (xlDescending)

End Sub

Private Sub cmdSort(order As Long)

'unprotect the sheet
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Password:="sunshine"

'calculate required parameters
Dim current_cell As String 'the currently selected cell
Dim current_column As String 'the column of the currently selected cell
Dim data_range_address As String 'the address of the "data" range
Dim top_row As String 'the top row of the "data" range

current_cell = ActiveCell.Address
current_column = Left(current_cell, InStr(InStr(current_cell, "$") _

+ 1, current_cell, "$") - 1)

data_range_address = Range("data").Address

top_row = Mid(data_range_address, InStr(InStr(data_range_address, "$") + 1, _

data_range_address, "$") + 1, _
InStr(data_range_address, ":") - InStr(InStr(data_range_address, "$") + 1, _
data_range_address, "$") - 1)

'sort using the calculated parameters
Range("data").Sort Key1:=Range(current_column + top_row), Order1:=order

'snap the selection to the active cell to show user what was used to select
ActiveCell.Select

're-protect the sheet
ActiveSheet.Protect Password:="sunshine"

End Sub

Access: Using a combo or list box to navigate a form's record set

2008-11-25T00:55:00.000+13:00

You'd expect access to have some of this functionality out of the box (.net does).
Not to worry, here's the code that seems to work:

Private Sub StdNoList_AfterUpdate()
    Dim rs As DAO.Recordset
    If Not IsNull(Me.StdNoList) Then
        If Me.Dirty Then Me.Dirty = False
        Set rs = Me.RecordsetClone
        rs.FindFirst "pricing_id = " & Me.StdNoList & ""
        If rs.NoMatch Then
            MsgBox "Not Found"
        Else
            Me.Bookmark = rs.Bookmark
        End If
    End If
    Set rs = Nothing
End Sub

Crystal: passing parameters to child reports

2008-11-21T05:33:00.002+13:00

Say you only want to ask the user for a report parameter once and want to use the parameter in multiple reports. The best way I've found to do this is:

Create the parameter in the parent report
Link the parameter to any ole field in the child report
Remove the parameter in any selection criteria in the child report (unless you do really want it used)
Consume the parameter in calculated fields

Crystal: summarising formula fields

2008-11-20T22:08:00.004+13:00

For some crazy reason, it seems that Crystal won't easily let you summarise (sum, average, etc) calculated values. After trawling the net for a while I managed to come up with the following 'hack' to achieve this.

Create a calculated field that clears an array variable & returns "";
Insert this field into a group or report header;
Create a calculated field that re-dimensions the array variable with an extra element, adds the calculated value to the array & returns "";
Insert this field into a details line;
Create a calculated field that summarises the array variable & return this out put;
Insert this field into a group or report header.

Workforce analytics - developmental stages

2008-11-20T22:01:00.002+13:00

Just came across this article by infohrm discussing the development of workforce analytics / metrics in organisations.

I particularly liked the descriptions given for each of the 'developmental phases':

Phase 1: Service Provider: Organisations at Phase 1 are primarily reactive in their approach, with a workforce reporting team that responds to ad-hoc requests for transactional data, prepares one dimensional performance reports and maintains HR databases.

Phase 2: Business Enabler: These organisations are seeking to improve data efficiency, the team provides reporting self service for end users, places a focus on data accuracy and consistency, and automates common information requests.

Phase 3: Business Partner: At stage three a shift occurs whereby the focus is on engaging with the business rather than just supporting it. The team moves beyond reporting to provide support for integrating data into business planning processes, and takes steps toward identifying workforce trends.

Phase 4: Business Driver: Building on the experience gained in Phase 3, the team shifts its focus toward issue analytics and workforce planning to quantify the impact of human capital on the business and forecast the future workforce. The first two stages can be met by a successful data implementation and roll out of reports and dashboards to the users. A shift occurs in the second two phases whereby there is a cultural change within Human Resources.

Crystal: sharing variables between sub and main reports

2008-11-18T01:27:00.003+13:00

Crystal reports is none to friendly when it comes to incorporating information from sub queries. It appears that the best way to do this is to create a sub report with a shared variable that you can then make use of in the parent report. While you can include this variable in calculations, it appears that you can’t summarise (sum / average / etc) the variable.

Here is the step-by-step guide I came across at https://boc.sdn.sap.com/node/251

Synopsis

A report contains a subreport. Data from the subreport is required for calculations in the main report.

How can you share subreport data with the main report in version 7 (or higher) of the Crystal Reports Designer?

Solution

Shared variables, introduced in Crystal Reports version 7, make it easier to pass values from a subreport to the main report. Using shared variables requires two formulas: one to store the value in a shared variable, the other to retrieve the value from the shared variable.

The most important thing to remember when using shared variables is that Crystal Reports must first evaluate the formula where the value is stored before evaluating the formula that retrieves the shared variable.

For example if you want to pass a grand total from the subreport to do a calculation in the main report, follow these steps:

1. In the subreport, create a formula similar to the one below:

//@SubFormula

//Stores the grand total of the

//{Orders.Order Amount} field

//in a currency variable called 'myTotal'

WhilePrintingRecords;

Shared CurrencyVar myTotal := Sum ({Orders.Order Amount})

2. Place this formula in your subreport.

3. In the main report, create a formula that declares the same variable name:

//@MainFormula

//Returns the value that was stored

//in the shared currency variable called

//myTotal in the subreport

WhilePrintingRecords;

Shared CurrencyVar myTotal;

myTotal

4. Place @MainFormula in a main report section that is beneath the section containing the subreport.

NOTE:======

For the shared variable to return the correct value in the main report, you must place @MainFormula in a main report section that is beneath the section containing the subreport. This ensures Crystal Reports evaluates the @SubFormula before @MainFormula.

One way to do this is to insert a section below the section containing the subreport, and place @MainFormula in this new sub-section:

· On the 'Format' menu, click 'Section'.

· On the 'Sections' list, click the section containing the subreport.

· Click 'Insert' (at top of dialog box). This inserts an additional subsection.

· Click 'OK' to return to the report, and insert @MainFormula into this new sub-section.

The next time you preview the report, @MainFormula displays the value from the subreport. In this particular example, that value was the grand total of the {Orders.Order Amount} field.

============

5. Once you have verified that @MainFormula is returning the correct value from the subreport, you can include this formula in other main report formulas, such as:

//@NewFormula

//includes data from subreport

{@MainFormula}+ Sum ({Customer.Last Year's Sales})

· Place this formula in the same section as @MainFormula, or in a section further down on the report.

You have now successfully shared data from a subreport with the main report.

NOTE: =====

This is not possible with On Demand Subreports in Crystal Reports.

Stemming the tide of title inflation

2008-10-21T21:28:00.002+13:00

McLagan have just released an interesting article on the dangers of inflated job titles in the work place.

Apart from the compensation cost consequences, the author highlights the issues of:

reduced employee moral as more junior employees have no development path, due to bloat at the top end;
and the stagnation that occurs when over-promoted individuals are effectively 'chained' to their employers (which isn't good for anyone involved).

Getting rid of the performance review

2008-10-21T20:39:00.003+13:00

Just came across this popular article in the Wall Street Journal.

It somewhat inelegantly makes the case that performance and compensation reviews are flawed because of their one-sided nature. It then argues for the introduction of performance 'previews' which are effectively just performance previews with more of a participatory element. This just sounds like best-practice performance review / development planning; so I'm hardly convinced. No

All in all, this guy (Samuel A. Culbert) needs to get out of academia and into the real world - nevertheless, a thought provoking read.

Signposts of an 'ideal' process

2008-07-05T09:31:00.006+12:00

Please forgive the lack of references, but I thought it might be an idea to jot down some of my thoughts on the signposts of an 'ideal' process.

The responsibilities of all the actors are clearly articulated and represented. I.e., all the relevant people know what they're supposed to be doing (preferably with timeframes noted) and it is obvious who's doing what.
Work flows seemlessly from one actor to the next as a part of the process itself. I.e., there should not be a seperate system to manage work flow.
Actor's interactions with processes are highly transparent / observable. I.e., not only is it clear who's doing what now, but who did what and when.
Beyond people doing the work required by the process (e.g., making a decision on something) there should be no additional human activity. I.e., seperate administrators should not be required to action the decisions made by others. The decisions should be stored within the processes themselves and actioned by automation.
People will easily have all the information required to work on a given process. Ususally this will mean that the information is presented within the process.
Working in the process is as easy as possible. I.e., user experience matters.
The process is as simple as possible.
Work is be performed along reporting lines and in an actor's key responsibility areas. E.g., if person x reports to y and is performing work on a process that x nor y has no responsibility for then problems will inevitably arise. I.e., responsibilities should not only be clear, but they should make sense.
Work is as centralised as is possible / sensible.
Activity does not jump backwards and forwards between the same actors. I.e., processes should be streamlined.
The work done by the process will be self-audited within the process. I.e., activities of manager y will effectively audit the work of manager x and the generation of output b will be the final audit as it is verified by manager x before delivery to employee m.

Talent Management - Why Employer Brand is Critical to Retention and Engagement

2008-07-02T19:59:00.003+12:00

I recently came across this article at talentmgt.com which does a great job at making the case for the importance of a strong employer as well as consumer brand.
Of course this is likely old hat to you, but the value of the article is in that it outlines some solid steps to strengthening your employer brand. Some ideas I particularly agreed with / liked are:

Linking an employer brand to your consumer brand
The usefulness to well-designed onboarding programmes
Importance of getting performance expectations aligned with brand (i.e., vision + culture + values)
Value of having employees as brand ambassadors to clients + potentially employees + new hires

Does Generational Difference Matter?

2008-06-24T20:11:00.004+12:00

I like this article on generational differences in the work place. Yes, this topic has been done to death, but it summarises many of my thoughts on the topic (which in a nutshell is that generational differences don't really exist but people at different life-stages naturally have different outlooks)

To summarise some of these points:
Similarities

Everyone wants respect
Trust matters
People want leaders who are credible
Organisational politics is a problem - no matter how old / young you are
No one really likes change
Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation
It's as easy to retain a young person as it is to retain an older one - if you do the right things(don't necessarily agree with this one - but perhaps that my personal experience)
Almost everyone wants a coach (again, not 100% sure about this one. I don't disagree though)

Differences

Longevity - young people are more mobile (which, to me, contradicts the second to last point above)
How knowledge gets transferred (I've come across this a lot)
Expectations of work

Reporting on HR function performance

2008-06-24T08:07:00.003+12:00

Here is a small whitepaper on PWC's offerings in the HR benchmarking area as based on the Saratoga Institute's HR metric list. Of course, you could get PWC to come & benchmark your HR performance for you. Or you could just do what I would do & develop my own bases for automated reporting on the metrics listed.

For further ideas I came across this summary of Kaplan and Norton's balanced scorecard approach to business reporting, which I thought could be adapted nicely to this situation.

Guide to Leadership Assessments

2008-06-23T20:14:00.001+12:00

Here's a nice list of leadership assessments. It includes the MBTI inventory and DISC profiles, which I've done in team environments (both relatively successfully).

New Zealand scores well on Mercer's QoL index

2008-06-23T08:13:00.001+12:00

Hot of the press are Mercer's new Quality of Living and Cost of Living indicies for 2008.

Auckland comes in really well at number 5 in the Quality of Living stakes. Other Asia-Pacific cities did well with Sydney at 10th, Wellington at 12th and Melbourne, Perth and Adelaid at 17th place.

From the press release:

New Zealand cities have continued to lead worldwide quality of living standards, making them attractive destinations for overseas expatriates, Mercer’s 2008 Worldwide Quality of Living Index has found.

Both major New Zealand cities surveyed, Auckland and Wellington, rank among the world’s top 15 cities for overall quality of living and dominate the rankings within the Asia Pacific region.

Mercer’s head of information product solutions, Mr Rob Knox, said the results were great news for New Zealand employers trying to attract overseas workers to help ease pressure on possibly the worst skills shortage New Zealand has ever seen.

The spreadsheet love affair

2008-06-20T21:58:00.003+12:00

This article outlines some of the issues with the wide adoption of spreadsheets.
I whole-heartedly agree - spreadsheets are dangerous. The only use I have for them is a manual cross-check of reporting that I'm doing correctly in an automated reporting environment.

10 Greatest Management Theories

2008-06-19T22:12:00.003+12:00

This page lists the author's favourite management theories and references to some quick summaries.
I agree with Management by Objectives (Drucker), Heirarchy of Needs (Maslow) and Levels of Culture (Shein).
I'd add Expectency Theory (Vroom), Group think (Janis) and Cultural Dimensions (Hofstede) as a few extra that I like.
Check out this site for more summaries (you'll have to get over the terrible site design though).

Team building

2008-06-19T21:45:00.003+12:00

Here's a nice article on the author's views on what works & doesn't work with team building. E.g., mandated fun time isn't necessarily the best, while MBTIs and resultant action plans can be quite useful. Learning about the 5 dysfunctions of teams (Patrick Lencioni) was also highlighted.

HR Challenges

2008-06-19T21:18:00.005+12:00

Here is a really worthwhile read on the writer's key learnings from working in HR. In summary:

The importance of excel, pivot tables and access
HR clients expect the right answers – and quickly
Work shifts from a few big projects to one never-ending series of tasks
HR is a 24/7 job
HR Generalists have to know a lot about everything
The value of a strong HR admin, HR VP, and a supportive team
An effective HR pro really needs to understand the business
HR can be a lonely, isolated role
What it’s like to struggle in a job
Finally, I learned the value of HR and a competent HR pro

Most of this looks fairly sound to me. The only thing I would say is that excel isn't really the answer to HR analytics. Proper reporting tools based on sound information stores (eg pure databases or data warehouses) are the best solution of this. You can be an excel genius, but it's too volatile an environment for reliable business reporting. Access is simply not a professional database, so I wouldn't even waste the time waiting for it to install.

Linking to the article above, this post praises HR generalists for the skills they bring to bear in the organisations they work in and their ability to deal with the unique role they have to play. In particular it lists:

Compartmentalisation (switching from one topic to the next to the next in rapid succession over the day)
Helicopter thinking (zooming in and out from detail to the big picture - again in rapid succession over the day)
Judgement (in acting professionally and in confidence with the many stakeholders involved in HR issues).

Again - I found this to all be fairly valid material.

Talent Management Analytics

2008-06-19T09:12:00.002+12:00

This is a fantastic article on Talent Management Analytics (aka HR Metrics).
Written by Dr John Sullivan, it goes into great depth on the reasons that these measures are typically ineffective / weak. In summary:

Skill deficiencies in HR practitioners to actually create / report on the metrics
Lack of business knowledge (inhibiting the ability to establish relevant metrics)
Expensive tools raising the entry price tag
Lack of quality data
Complicated nature of talent management

Also covered are a few promising developments in this area:

text analytics (i.e., software that pulls out summaries and trends from massive amounts of raw text data like forums, blogs and intranet documents)
predictive modeling (i.e., using statistics to actually prove relationships scientifically rather than just hypothesising & making guesses)

A few principles for adopting Talent Management analytics are presented as well. I like the concept of addressing business rather than HR problems and preparing yourself for failure on the first attempt.

The importance of fairness

2008-06-17T20:35:00.000+12:00

Fairness is one of my favourite topics when it comes to I/O psych. Of the many factors investigated affecting employees' thoughts & behaviours, I've found that fairness comes up time and again as a potent force. This is saying a lot, as there are many factors with more ambiguous effects (e.g., job satisfaction).

This article in the Washington Post covers some recent research in this field that empirically found that employee perceptions of fairness in an organisational restructure significantly predicted engagement and burnout. Effectively, those employees who felt that they were being treated less fairly in the process were more likely to be reporting symptoms of burnout and less likely to be engaged.

This points to the important aspect of fairness in that it's more the perception that matters rather than actual / distributive fairness.

Gen-Y vs. corporate IT

2008-06-17T09:37:00.000+12:00

Having experienced this first hand, I thought this article included a fairly accurate summary of the issues that are emerging through the clash between ultra-tech-savvy Gen-Yers and corporate IT departments.

On one hand you have a group of people who have known no boundary to their adoption of new technologies and on the other is a group tasked with the sustainable and efficient maintenance of an organisations' IT systems.

My view is that it's not only young professionals that will challenge draconian IT dept practices, but work forces in general. The reason being the discrepancy between employees' abilities to achieve outcomes in the consumer space can often out class what's possible in corporate IT environments. A few examples that come to my mind are Gmail's conversation view feature, which MS Outlook fails to match (even with search folders) and Microsoft's Live Mesh product where I see end users being able to work more effectively outside of their corporate IT domains.

I would say the resolution sits in the cautious loosening of controls on corporate IT and employees accepting the reasoning behind these. The later I expect will come with time, but might be expedited through increased communication between IT & the rest of the organisation.

Employee satisfaction → Company Financial Performance

2008-06-16T19:35:00.000+12:00

Just came across this article exploring the relationship between employee satisfaction and long-run stock performance. Yes, this is a topic that's been done to death, but from my perspective relatively little hard evidence is available to prove the satisfaction → company performance link.

Here's the abstract for a few key points:

This paper analyzes the relationship between employee satisfaction and long-run stock performance. An annually rebalanced portfolio of Fortune magazine's "Best Companies to Work For in America" earned 14% per year from 1998-2005, over double the market return, and a four-factor alpha of 0.64%. The portfolio also outperformed industry- and characteristics-matched benchmarks. Returns continue to be significant when extending the sample back to 1984, before the list was published in Fortune. These findings have three main implications. First, employee satisfaction is positively correlated with shareholder returns and need not represent excessive non-pecuniary compensation. Second, the stock market does not fully value intangibles, even when independently verified by a publicly available survey. This suggests that intangible investment generally may not be incorporated into short-term prices, underpinning managerial myopia theories. Third, certain socially responsible investing ("SRI") screens may improve investment returns.

In addition, here's a white paper that discusses this article, which also includes some references to other studies along the same vein.

Value of HR Technology and HR Technology Trends

2008-06-14T10:02:00.000+12:00

Cedarstone has recently published two white papers on HR Technology.
The first broadly covers the impressive business case for implementing advanced HR technologies. I particularly liked the listing of the performance metrics in the areas of cost, cycle time and quality. The best practice listings were also useful, e.g.,
People

Update change management plans to ensure managers
and employees use self service tools
Managers held accountable for accuracy of personnel
actions
Communication to employees and managers that
details their roles and responsibilities for demographic
and/or personnel actions
Assess HR activities to ensure that HR is doing the
tasks that they are supposed to; and that the right level
of staff is doing the right level of task

Technology

Integrated HR, Time, Payroll, and Financial systems
Automated workflow for personnel actions so that all
appropriate parties are notified (security, facilities, etc.)
Comprehensively implement self service for employees
and manager
Deploy self service to automate HR practices and
thus hold managers accountable for transactional HR
processes
Deploy integrated systems to lower training and
maintenance requirements
Role-based dashboards that place appropriate
information in front of HR itself and managers about the
organization’s human capital
Multi-dimensional and trending analysis integrated
to available systems (payroll, point of sale, and
production systems) in order to optimize human capital
management performance

The second goes into some detail on the results of their 2007 / 2008 HR Systems Survey. Which is interesting from an industry trends perspective.

Check out the list of Cedarstone publications here.

So, what does Google pay it's people?

2008-06-14T09:28:00.000+12:00

Glassdoor is an innovative new site that you can join to see what people are paid in various companies around the globe. It works by showing you a few sample positions first. From there you need to supply information about your own job to see more. It's kind of like a perpetual employee opinion survey in that you're also asked to rate your company in relation to Employee Satisfaction, CEO approval and pros / cons.
If this site gains in popularity I can see it causing waves in the corporate world.

Leadership competencies

2008-06-14T09:07:00.000+12:00

Interesting article discussing the most popular leadership competencies and the typical gaps that exist. Based on a study the Center for Creative leadership, the article argues against the 'playing to your strengths' approach to leadership development & quotes a set of core competencies that study participants have selected as required for any successful leader. Namely:

Ability to lead employees
Resourcefulness
Decisiveness
Managing change
Straightforwardness and composure
Building and mending relationships
Doing whatever it takes
Employing a participative management style

Ability to lead employees, change management and building relationships were then found to be lacking in participant's ratings of current leadership strengths.

If nothing else, I just like the list of core competencies above.