HRSB Concepts Inc. Announces New Website

Dear Colleagues,

I am very pleased to announce the new HRSB Concepts Inc. website which was officially launched August 1, 2008. The website has a new modern look with simplified navigation, a collaborative software for clients, a time zone world map, a photo gallery, updated links, a featured book every month and of course a matching theme for the weekly blog.

The site also provides a sign up to a quarterly newsletter which will feature topical subjects of interest to clients and colleagues to complement resources and tools available on the website. The first issue is scheduled to be released September 1, 2008. Featured articles, photos and tools will continue to be added. Plans are to include articles written in French in early 2009.

This bold, freshly designed site (www.hrsbconcepts.com) provides information about specialized consulting services in strategy and accountability, performance management and employee development, integrated business and workforce planning, recruitment and retention and succession planning.

One of the main features of the new Web site is a secure collaborative software available to HRSB Concepts clients called Basecamp http://www.basecamphq.com/index which offers a novel approach to project collaboration. Projects can be supported by charts, graphs, stats, or reports, and a series of tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project – no matter where they are located.

I hope that you will visit our website regularly and that you and your colleagues will find it a useful workspace and reference point.

Winners Walk of Hope

This year HRSB Concepts Inc. is participating in the Winners Walk of Hope, a remarkable event designed to create a sense of community for women living with ovarian cancer and their family and friends.

All funds raised through this event support Ovarian Cancer Canada's mission to: support women and their families touched by ovarian cancer, educate well women and healthcare professionals and to fund ovarian cancer research. It's a day filled with hope and support, creating a greater awareness around ovarian cancer. To date, the Winners Walk of Hope has raised over $3million.

For more information on Ovarian Cancer Canada's many programs, please visit www.ovariancanada.org Secure online donations can be made with your credit card and an official charitable tax receipt will be sent to you by email within five minutes! You can make an online donation now:

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=1902194

For more information about the Winners Walk of Hope, or to join us on Sunday September 7, 2008 at 9am, please visit www.winnerswalkofhope.ca

Thank you for your generous support!

Diane

New Orientations in HR

There is much talk about organizational alignment and the need to cascade strategic goals down the hierarchy. However, there is still limited attention given to reverse cascading: an alignment led by individual employees. Practices that focus on the development of operational standards or far reaching strategic objectives is no longer enough – especially as recruitment and retention become more and more of a priority. Innovative human resources practices that recognize the needs of individuals to stimulate superior performance are gaining importance.

This new orientation does not necessarily have people climb ladders to manage their career or deal with steps to calculate their salary, but rather provides a very different reference point that seeks to redefine the relationship between the individual and their workplace. Recently I came across a couple of novel human resources practices that did just that:

The North Broward Hospital District information services department came up with a compensation system for their information technology business unit that replaced their ladder with a personal dashboard. It is called career banding. Individuals within the career band groups are paid according to their competencies in a number of areas such as technical skills, problem solving skills and people skills as opposed to a set of position-based factors attached to narrowly set pay scales and steps.

The Finnish company, Nokia, maker of cell phones has engineered a way to design meaningful and fulfilling jobs by setting up highly "modular" structures so that instead of moving people around, they move teams around, thereby capitalizing on working relationships that have proven to be working well for its members – and in so doing reduce the amount of anxiety associated with difficult projects.

There are many more such breakthroughs and I’ll try to highlight some of them in future blogs. In the interim, if you have a few you would like to share please feel free to contact me or attach a comment to this blog.

A Tribute to Hadi

Every once and a while you get to know people that mark your path. They inspire you, change you, share interests with you or bring hope where little exists. Such is Hadi. Barely 25 years old and fully bilingual (Dari and English speaking), he is not only my driver in Kabul but he is also the person I count on for identifying when car and radio repairs are needed; where best to go for medicine and other supplies; how best to get to a destination and avoid bottlenecks - but mostly for taking daily precautions for my safe passage while travelling on the city roads of Kabul.

Six days a week we set off to various work locations – and we talk. Conversations with Hadi connect me with life in Kabul and the effects are like drops of water on a dusty counter top. He explains historical events and cultural norms, he gives me a few more Dari words for me to practice, he informs me of National Holidays and local Afghan news and events; helps me plan my daily travel needs and at times, even supplies me with a scarf to cover my head when mine is still at the guesthouse.

It is also during this time that he often shares with me little tidbits of information that sparkle my day. Here’s a bit of Afghan folklore according to Hadi.

1. If you cough while drinking – someone is thinking of you
2. If your right eye twitches – you will get good news or someone from far away will come and visit
3. If your left eye twitches – you will get bad news
4. If there is a tickle in the palm of your hand – you will receive riches

...and riches are indeed made up of people who mark your path.