HUMAN RESOURCES (HR) WORK GROUP MEETING OF DECEMBER 14th, 2015, ABIDJAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of the meeting was to ensure that, following a brainstorming exercise that had defined the Terms of Reference (ToRs) of the HRWG, the ToRs are interpreted and materialized through the design and implementation of operating action plans linked to the concerns shared by the HRWG members.
It appeared that consensus could be reached on the following items:
- Identification, selection and "ARA empowerment" of member or affiliate companies which will become "references" in the area of Human Resources
- The need to choose working themes most likely to lead to a formalization of best practices in keeping with the Terms of Reference
- The need and urgency to build HR databases on existing tools (i.e. job descriptions)
- Real change in behaviors and attitudes among line managers and HR specialists facing an open environment and a more aggressive labor market
- Concrete types of assistance offered by ARA (training, audits, consultancy) provided that some concepts are clarified
We will discuss each of these items, but let us first review the holding of the WG meeting:
- It is regrettable that some full members are repeatedly absent, but we will not be judgmental given the efforts the representatives of the member companies have to make to balance their day-to-day activities and their participation in quite regular meetings or seminars.
- The participating members were very active and did not hesitate to present their current development work, and to plan for the future in order to determine in advance the appropriateness of each process.
- The participating members noticed the multiplicity of actions offered by ARA, and very easily reached unanimous agreement to define action priorities.
- Exchanges between companies have enabled the participating members to understand their respective degrees of maturity with regards to classical issues:
- Vocational training
- Appraisal systems
- Collective agreements on employment
- Etc.
Selection and optimization of training experts’ assistance
It is worth noting that gaining such profiles in order to contribute to the implementation of good HR practices implies that the retained people with major HR skills must prove to be:
- Capable of restituting know-how, knowledge, and new roles (RH/DD/RS perspective)
- Capable of conducting missions to any ARA members wishing to apply a given approach or to acquire a given tool
- Capable of formalizing training sessions, training modules and providing training evaluation methods
As a result, the selection criteria for such people could be summarized as follows:
- To be actually employed by an ARA member company rather than a retired person, so as to remain abreast of latest technical and human developments
- To be available enough to devote enough time to the beneficiaries of the assistance
- To have proven expertise and ability to remain open to new issues raised by the beneficiary of the assistance
- To have undergone an auditor training (i.e. quality) so as to rapidly apprehend the nature and scope of their future field of investigation
- To have received solid pedagogical training so as to optimize the transfer of knowledge
Furthermore, it would be convenient for ARA to approve the experts after a few successful assignments deemed useful, beneficial, reliable and comprehensive. We may also request the experts to produce any certifications delivered by international institutions.
We can expect that during the next WG meeting, ARA members will recommend well identified persons to act as experts in various HR areas.
Topics around which best HR practices may be rapidly formalized
Three topics were selected:
- How to implement a skills management policy
- How to build a training plan
- Communication and its incidence (particularly on the concepts of people performance and potential)
A skill management policy especially facilitates the implementation of individual professional development plans and, today, there are many very detailed implementation plans (to be integrated into the next chapter).
Putting in place a training plan is a real budgeted and integrated process, starting from the detection of annual and even longer term needs to the monitoring of the effectiveness of the training provided.
Communication is multifaceted in the sense that it is addressed to diverse audiences and uses varied media (i.e. performance appraisal, intermediate career evaluation, etc.); when a large number of people is involved, we take advantage of communication to create and monitor indicators and to demonstrate relevance of such indicators to all those who contribute to the overall performance of the company.
An incidence for each topic discussed: it is imperative to define "the procedure of procedures" so that best practices are expressed in a homogenous and precise language.
Development and enrichment of HR databases
It is a vital issue for the credibility of the ARA.
Various documents are available already:
- Job descriptions
- Job evaluations
- Skill benchmark charts per professional family
- Career paths per professional family
- Dynamic sources and targets inventories per job
Other tools and documents should be integrated in ARA database systems such as:
- Training schemes
- Training modules
- Remuneration systems
- Etc.
And it is agreed to move very quickly in this field.
Change in behaviors and attitudes of line managers and HR specialists
On the initiative of ARA President, there have been discussions as to what necessary change should be expected from line managers who very often think that the issues raised by the stall under their responsibility must strictly be addressed by the Human Resource Department. But such issues concern them as well, given that they are in the front line when it comes to annual assessments, setting of operational objectives, measurement of individual performance.
A strong effort is to be made to persuade line managers that they are full players and decision makers as regards the development of their staff, jointly with the relevant ARA specialists.
It would also be appropriate to brainstorm on how to "build" executives officers, through intensive and thorough exchanges between ARA member companies. Thus, assigning a high potential individual to successive positions in various sites will make them to become an executive officer with background in several organizations, cultures and languages, who is able to adapt to different management contexts.
The ARA could play a role as a hub to make recommendations or create real pools of potentially "papabile" executives.
Types of assistance offered by ARA to its members
An obvious form is the organization of training sessions requested by other Work Groups in traditional disciplines such as processes or HSEQ. There should be a marketing of the available pedagogical engineering.
Other topics specific to HR may be covered by specific training, inter or intra companies. It would be interesting in the near future to determine with the HR Work Group whether certain topics can generate widely shared interest; let us give two examples:
-The exchange relationship between the company and the employee, which determines motivations
-Establishment of individual professional development paths
Once the experts have been selected, they can provide services to the various ARA members as full consultants. It will be imperative to give them an intervention discipline, based both on discernment and strict adherence to terms of reference. It is also clear that compliance with budgets and deadlines appears as a pure factor of competitiveness compared to external consultants.
Finally the offer of providing audits of to clarify policies and to find facts on the implementation thereof using tools, is considered interesting but may leading to misunderstanding on the part of the beneficiary if the concept of audit takes a form of inquisition...
The content and the use of audit data are generally well perceived: they lead to proposals for improvements, development of tools (such HR administration and development).
A proposal may be to replace the term audit with:
Clarification of policies and the use of HR tools
The structure would be maintained and may involve the selection of a sample of people to be met, or the constitution of panels for each topic.
Patrick LOQUET