Changing leadership in the COVID-19 context
Dr Philip Stiles, Cambridge Judge Business School
The coronavirus crisis will usher in permanent changes to business. Dr Philip Stiles, University Senior Lecturer in Corporate Governance at Cambridge Judge Business School, outlines five key implications for the workplace.
Board succession
Jens Jenssen, CIHRM
In a new study on board succession, co-authored by Jens Jenssen of the CIHRM, the crucial issue of how boards manage change at the top is examined. The research gives evidence from a wide-ranging survey of board directors on the core aspects of succession.
The future of work and motivation
Dr Philip Stiles, Cambridge Judge Business School
A presentation on the “Future of Work” given at BT / MIT Conference in London in March 2019.
Changing the way we think about performance
Centre for International Human Resource Management, Cambridge Judge Business School
On November 24th 2016 at Peterhouse College, University of Cambridge, an invited group of industry leaders attended a roundtable on the subject “Changing the Way We Think about Performance Management”.
The intention of the roundtable was to examine new approaches to how performance management has been revolutionised in a number of organisations and to explore the implications of this for practice more generally.
The event was organised by the Centre for International Human Resource Management and Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.
Opportunity knocks for HR in a time of crisis
Dr Brian Harney, Dublin City University
Corporate mantra concerning the critical role of human resources has been rife for many years. The tight labour markets and so-called war for talent fuelled by economic expansion only served to further elevate the status of the Human Resource (HR) function. The current economic crisis, however, has seriously called into question the realities of any impact achieved. Most obviously, many organisations have been extremely quick to reduce staff numbers and cut back HR budgets.
Reforming executive pay: is regulation the only way?
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
The New Year’s Honours List was not surprisingly devoid of bankers and politicians. The only banker recognised was Dyfrig John, former chief executive of HSBC Bank. But Angela Knight, Chief Executive of the British Bankers’ Association, still believes the 50% super tax on bankers’ bonuses is wrong. In the annual address earlier in the year to her members she said: “There are literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of British jobs directly and indirectly related to banking – bringing billions of pounds in tax income.”
Something rotten at the heart of executive remuneration
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
It has been over three decades since Michael Jensen and William Meckling published in the Journal of Financial Economics one of the most widely cited research papers in economics and management. They presented to the business world a problem and proffered a solution based upon evidence. Witness the birth of executive remuneration as we know it today. The problem they identified, referred to as the principal – agent problem, is that executives’ (agents) interests are different from those of owners (principals). In the modern corporation, where the owners of the firm are removed from day to day managerial control (ie a separation between ownership and control), this is clearly a problem of the highest order. How best to ensure that executives are acting in the best interests of shareholders? The corporation is not viable if they are not.
What’s the difference? Managing people across borders
Dr Philip Stiles, Cambridge Judge Business School
When doing business in Japan, make sure you accept business cards with both hands; in the Netherlands, do not introduce employee of the year awards into your firm; they will be ridiculed; in the UK, politeness in negotiation does not mean acceptance of your position. Sound familiar? These and many other observations have become the staple of the national culture industry, appearing everywhere from management textbooks, and business school seminars, to posters at airports.
What is ‘best practice’ in executive remuneration?
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
Before you try and answer, let me tell you, it is a rhetorical question. Managing the remuneration of your top employees is a complicated business. There is a lot we know. We know that companies should ensure that the remuneration of their top executives is fit for purpose by being aligned to the value drivers of the firm. The result of getting it right is, you hope, to attract and retain high performing individuals that lead the company to success and create shareholder value. Get it wrong, however, and you run the risk of not attracting or retaining the ‘right’ talent, a demotivated and disengaged top team and, worst of all, executives hell bent on achieving targets that destroy value.
Not as easy as ABC: identifying and developing talent
Dr Philip Stiles, Cambridge Judge Business School
For companies wanting to excel, the advice as far as people are concerned is straightforward: hire the best. From boardrooms to business schools, you’ll hear the same message, and its simplicity is compelling: if people are key resources, it seems obvious that the better you have, the more effective you will be.
Pay management requires a 21st century shake-up
Dr Jonathan Trevor
According to Dr Jonathan Trevor it’s time to revisit the management of pay. Instead of using it to leverage value, it should be approached as a risk with the primary focus on protecting value.
In his paper ‘From New Pay to the New, New Pay’ Dr Trevor lays out some principles for consideration by the business and human resources communities. These include the suggestion that pay is an enabler not a driver and that it’s like plumbing: it should matter only when it goes wrong.
New transformational leadership drives change
Dr Jonathan Trevor
As network-based organisations evolve, the role of leadership is focused less on performance and more on change. ‘Transformational leadership’ is a move away from traditional forms of organising and traditional forms of work that are largely centred around performance and performance-in-role.
Conflict in the workplace
Dr Jonathan Trevor
Dr Jonathan Trevor is calling for a new approach to reward policy. Organisations, he says, are really struggling with the issue of performance and relative reward. It is leading to underlying conflict in the workplace, which he warns is discreet but ever present.
Opportunity or threat?
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro
Leaders of established and successful organisations must recognise and react positively to the deep-seated changes taking place in an operating environment where complexity is leading to uncertainty. The alternative – to exercise greater control and improve the existing model in order to survive – has a limited shelf-life.
Leadership, vision, cynicism and social issues
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro
Leadership plays a huge part in the transformation and visioning of the future organisation but cynicism is a major barrier in that process; and, as the operating environment becomes increasingly uncertain, vision is becoming more important than planning.
Beyond efficiency
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro argue the traditional, bureaucratic organisation – based on execution and efficiency – is being replaced by network-based, informal structures as the industrial age disappears. Organisations need to cultivate a model of empowerment, development and liberation of talent within an organisation, to go beyond just merely seeking to exploit efficiencies, but to do something fundamentally different without reference necessarily to those above. The key to this empowerment, however, is trust!
For leadership read fellowship
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro
Social media needs to be seen in the context of what we’re seeing as the emergence of distributed leadership, where organisations are becoming flatter, leaner, more empowered, more democratic and more knowledge intensive. According to Kate Tojeiro and Dr Jonathan Trevor, people are no longer waiting for permission from on high to engage with each other and to make something new and exciting. We’re seeing a leadership change being driven by social media.
Cutting the mustard
Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro
Levels of satisfaction, loyalty and engagement are at an all-time low but there other measures which indicate that, given the difficult environment, some leaders are managing people very well. So, which leaders are cutting the mustard and how are they doing it, ask Dr Jonathan Trevor and Kate Tojeiro.
Can pay be strategic?
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
In his book Dr Jonathan Trevor, Co-Director of the Centre for International Human Resource Management at Cambridge Judge Business School, examines through case studies the global and local approaches to the management of pay.
Breaking with tradition
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
Dr Jonathan Trevor argues that we will see a move away from large scale public sector organisations which are the providers of professional services to public services organisations which are the commissioners of professionals from the public, private and not for profit sector to provide these services. The question he asks is how do we ensure these public servants and organisations are best fit for purpose to deliver this agenda.
Human capital risk
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
Not since the winter of discontent in 1979 has our economic and social well-being, societally and personally, been so dependent on how effectively people, as human capital, are managed. Ineffective HRM can inhibit organisational performance, destroy value and competitiveness; Dr Jonathan Trevor explains how the current financial crisis is an example of just such a human capital crisis.
Building bridges: what is best practice for structuring executive remuneration?
Dr Jonathan Trevor, Cambridge Judge Business School
Is it shaped by social imperatives or should it be held as an economic negotiation? Dr Jonathan Trevor discusses this contentious issue, calling for an increase in transparency and more direct dialogue and consensus between shareholders and executives on what constitutes good governance as opposed to a reliance on using intermediary bodies: “We need to bridge the gap between the interests of shareholders and the interests of the executives. One size does not fit all and it is where we have seen prescriptive ‘best practice’ applied without contextual sensitivity, that we’ve seen the systems fail, with executives being incentivised for what amounts to bad behaviour with negative outcomes for the companies involved.”