“I used to be the next president of the United States,” Al Gore quipped, addressing a 10,000-person crowd at the Society for Human Resource Management’s recent Annual Conference and Exposition in San Diego. As the laughter died down, he added, “I don’t think that’s very funny.”
Steve Forbes, the other headliner at the conference, says, “Forget about the ‘new normal’ and such; that’s nonsense.” Sure, he said, there’s anxiety, but we will grow 4 percent this year. Companies have to rebuild inventories and make capital expenditures to maintain competitiveness. Consumers will spend a little more, and Asian markets are growing.
He called employment “disappointing,” but he noted that HR has an important role to play, especially in helping to mold changes in workplace laws and in dealing with new healthcare legislation. “This thing is just getting started,” he said.
Forbes offered a tip he got from his grandfather, who founded the Forbes publishing business: “You’ll make more money selling advice than following it.”
Wayne Cascio, winner of the Michael R. Losey Human Resource Research Award, related to the Advisor a story of “responsible restructuring.” He says that in his research, he found that when faced with financial challenges, CEOs tend to fall into one of two camps:
One group says, “What is the smallest number of employees we can survive with?” The other group asks, “How can we better use these employees?”
As an example of the latter approach, he related the story of Lincoln Electric, a major producer of welding equipment. Rather than laying people off, Lincoln moved them from the shop floor to sales, Cascio says. They named these people “Leopard Teams” (for changing their spots).
These teams ferreted out a previously untapped demand for home welding equipment—for fixing barbeques, etc.—that turned quickly into a totally new $800 million line of business.
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Gore told HR managers to “Be bold.” He emphasized that employees want to be part of the solution. “When your employees are proud of what you do as an employer, you get two things—retention and engagement. You get their best every day.”
He cited the example of Northern Telcom, which developed a new cleaning process that was friendly to the environment and less costly, and then shared the rights to the process with its competitors. “I met with the employees,” Gore said. “You could see how palpable the pride was.”
Gore offered the following “Top Challenges for HR”:
Challenge #1: Diversity
HR has to find ways to integrate diverse workers in a way that they can make a contribution and make the organization stronger as a consequence.
Gore offered the example of the world’s most powerful telescopes, which are located in Hawaii. The two telescopes, placed 200 yards apart, are both trained on the same place in space. Together they give much greater information than either telescope could give alone. This advantage, gained from looking at a slightly different perspective, is just what corporations gain from diversity, Gore says. With diversity, you learn more, see more, and respond more effectively.
Challenge #2: Education
HR needs to be at the cutting edge of education and development, Gore says. Human capital is the key to improving competitiveness.
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Challenge #3: Internet Digital Revolution
We’re already at 1 billion transistors for each person in the world, Gore says, and we’re just in the early days of the Internet/digital revolution.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll get Gore’s take on particular HR issues, including compensation, and we’ll take a look at a long-trusted source for compensation guidance.