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Queen's University IRC

Linking HR Strategy to Business Strategy

Bringing HR Strategy to Life - The Importance of Delegated Authorities and How to Make Them Work

Bringing HR Strategy to Life: The Importance of Delegated Authorities and How to Make Them Work

Uncategorized / By

How do employers translate HR strategies and well intended policies into effective and responsive HR practices and results? A key driver of this success is the clarity and practical application of one’s HR “delegated authorities”. Knowing what HR decision making authorities to delegate, to whom, and how they need to be supported and applied have become mission critical HR management realities for most organizations regardless of sector. Delegated HR authorities are key to “how” HR strategy is delivered, how desired workplace cultures and employee productivity aspirations are realized. They are also key to how meaningful line management accountabilities for employee engagement, wellness, and performance are achieved.

HR And Manager Partnerships: Building Accountability In The Workplace

HR and Manager Partnerships: Building Accountability in the Workplace

Human Resources / By

Rayna had just received an interesting request. J.B., a recent addition to the front-line management team, had come to her following the division wide quarterly town hall update. The division president, Anne, had given a talk on accountability. She’d been firm in her resolve to increase division wide understanding of what it meant to be accountable at work. J.B. wasn’t questioning the directive. He was struggling with the meaning. What did accountability mean for him as a manager?

Strategy or Culture? What’s Your Leadership Challenge?

Strategy or Culture? What’s Your Leadership Challenge?

Human Resources / By

Change was in the wind. As is true for many industries, the insurance industry was facing significant change. Making the shift from a regulated to a deregulated industry seemed a daunting challenge for the 100 year old RockSolid Insurance Company. The question for the executive team was how to craft a strategy and initiate change in ways that would enable the company to compete successfully into the future.

BrainFishing Book

Questioning Your Way to Success

Labour Relations / By

Many books have been written about negotiation strategy and the different approaches to negotiation, from interest-based to traditional bargaining to win-win to principled, and many more. Much less, however, has been written about the detailed mechanics of successful negotiation and problem solving, about the face-to-face tools and language skills we must master to be more effective negotiators. In particular, one of the most important skills is the “art of the question”.

3 Reasons HR Analytics Projects Can Lead to Frustration and Failure

A Cautionary Tale: 3 Reasons HR Analytics Projects Can Lead to Frustration and Failure

Human Resources / By

Nothing frustrates me more than to see the expertise, experience and time of HR professionals wasted. And in today’s working environment, I see frustration and failure all too frequently in Analytics projects. We have pored through oceans of data and done hours of spread sheeting and analysis, and in the end the leaders we have presented our analysis to have put it to one side or seemed confused or unimpressed by our efforts. Somehow we have missed the mark.

The Making of the Super CHRO

The Making of the Super CHRO

Human Resources / By

Today CHRO’s are judged on what they deliver and how they get things done. Aligning talent, fostering engagement, enabling common shared vision and values are critical elements in their toolkit. The CHRO has a vital role in shaping the direction of the organization and ensuring business success for all its shareholders. A tall order for sure but one that I believe we are fully equipped to deliver. This article gives more detail on strategic business planning and HR alignment.

5 Questions to Help You Sell the Value of HR

5 Questions to Help You “Sell” the Value of HR

Human Resources / By

We have created a checklist of 5 Questions that you need to answer as you work to be heard and have impact. They are essential questions to test yourself against at the start of every project. As you read through this for the first time, we suggest that you identify a critical HR initiative that you are responsible for getting your senior management team (or your boss) to support.

Aligning HR Strategies to Create Business Success

Aligning HR Strategies to Create Business Success

Human Resources / By

I have personally witnessed HR’s evolution from the back room to the board room, from tactics to strategy, and to assuming ownership of the business and its outcomes.  The HR profession has advanced dramatically since the days when I began my career as a recruiter, and we certainly have come a long way from the days of the “Personnel Department”.

Paul Juniper

Director’s Note – January 2016

News / By

Do you or your workplace need a spring tuneup? It can be easy to fall into habits that may seem innocuous, but may actually be hindering your progress. Spring is a great time to review and renew, and Queen’s IRC has just what you need to get a fresh start, with certificate programs, custom programs, and some new opportunities based on requests from our clients.

The Next Tsunami of Environmental Disasters in the Workplace

Managing Under the Microscope: The Next Tsunami of Environmental Disasters in the Workplace

Human Resources / By

There is a new wave of environmental disasters that are just beginning to splash onto our daily news feeds. Workplace cultures are the next targets that will be publicly examined and debated in excruciating detail – just ask the CBC, Amazon, or the Lance Armstrong “company machine.” All the dirty laundry of inappropriate behaviours and unacceptable people practices are flooding out in the wash, and every detail is being hung out on the public line to view.

Business Intelligence, Big Data and HR

Business Intelligence, Big Data, and HR

Human Resources / By

Our people are our most important asset, or so we hear, so data about those people – workers, or employees, if you prefer – should be central to our organization’s total data set!  To understand where HR data fits, you first have to understand your organization’s overall data management strategy.  How is data collected, organized, and managed?  And how do you analyze that data to obtain information?

Is HR Ready to Respond?

Global HR Trends: Is HR Ready to Respond?

Human Resources / By

This article is written for HR leaders and explores the global human resources trends, the human resources function’s readiness to respond, and the associated implications for the HR leader. It draws upon insights from Deloitte’s 2014 Global Human Capital Trends report and the Corporate Education Board’s Global Workforce Insights Q3 2014 report and relates the trends identified to the evolution of the human resources field.

Playing to Win in HR

Enhancing Your Strategic Value as a Human Resources Professional: Playing to Win in HR

Human Resources / By

The notion that Human Resource (HR) professionals need to be strategic and aligned with their organization’s strategy is not by any means new.  In their book The HR Scorecard published almost fifteen years ago, Professors Becker, Huselid and Ulrich noted that “traditional HR skills have not diminished in value, but simply are no longer adequate to satisfy the wider strategic demands of the HR function” (Becker, Huselid and Ulrich, 2001).  Since then strategy frameworks and the language of strategic management have evolved.  The question is has HR kept up with these, especially in the past year or so?   

Five Strategies to Better Engage with Senior Business Leaders

The Relevant HR Professional: Five Strategies to Better Engage with Senior Business Leaders

Human Resources / By

I’m always stunned when I hear a senior business leader say that their head of HR isn’t one of their key advisors; that the head of HR is often not at the senior executive table when major strategic or market initiatives are being discussed. And yet, in most organizations, human resources are both the largest expense line in the profit & loss statement and the most mission-critical resource: it is only with good people that ANYTHING of business value gets done. For this reason alone, there should be a senior HR professional at the table for every strategic discussion.

Continuous Learning Leadership

Rising to a ‘Seat at the Table’ for HR Practitioners: Continuous Learning Leadership

Human Resources / By

Today many vice presidents and other senior executives in human resources (HR) have earned a seat at the executive table by showing their organization’s senior teams that HR operations contribute at least as much as Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, IT or any other department. The key to this is continuous learning. Jack Welch, former 20-year CEO of world class GE, now an itinerant management guru, is often quoted: “An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.” Executives who aspire to lead organizations have to spearhead that learning first by learning steadily themselves and that is nowhere truer than for HR.

Encouraging Collaboration in the Workplace: Lessons from the Government of Alberta

Human Resources / By

In 2009, the Alberta government's Connie Scott was a trailblazer, a forerunner in a new learning program that would change the way she and her community would look at their work.

Scott, now a manager of HR Strategies in Enterprise and Advanced Education, was in the first cohort of Queen's IRC HR Business Partner Certificate Program, a curriculum custom-designed for the Alberta government.

Erin O'Flynn is the first participant to earn the IRC's Advanced HR Certificate. She is pictured here with IRC Director Paul Juniper, who spearheaded the creation of the Advanced HR programming and the Advanced HR Certificate.

Queen’s IRC Awards First Advanced HR Certificate

News / By

When Paul Juniper became the Director of Queen's University Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) in 2006, he recognized the need for more senior level training in the changing human resources (HR) profession. To accomplish this, he designed a new series of Advanced HR programs to enhance the strategic knowledge, ability, and capability of HR practitioners. The goal was to enable HR practitioners to shift from an administrative and/or transactional role, to one that has become an integral part of an organization's business strategy – an HR business partner.

Lessons from the Government of Alberta

Changing the HR Mindset from Transactional to Strategic: Lessons from the Government of Alberta

Human Resources / By

For the Alberta government's Pauline Melnyk, the Queen's IRC HR Business Partner Certificate Program couldn't have come at a better time. Melnyk was helping design a cumulative effects management system (CEMS) for her department, Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. As part of the system, which designs programs and processes based on the cumulative effects of development on the environment, the department itself needed to review its organizational design.

Paul Juniper

Linking HR Strategy with Business Strategy: Optimizing the Impact of HR practices on Business Results

Human Resources / By

We have moved into an era where traditional support services – HR, Finance, IT, Administration, Legal etc. – are under increasing daily pressure to produce a more direct impact on business results. The business rationale for this pressure is easy to understand. Organizations – both public and private – are being pushed by customers, boards of directors, analysts, and investors to do more with the resources they have or – in many cases – do more with less.  

Navigating the Curves

The Art of Mountain Driving: Navigating the Curves

Human Resources / By

Driving mountain roads can be very tricky. With the exception of those who drive a super-powered something able to negotiate a significant vertical climb, mere mortals learn that reaching the top of the mountain requires learning the skill of turning switchback corners. Go too slowly around the curve, and you run the risk of the vehicle stalling in the climb. Go too fast, and it can be a kissing-the-guardrail moment, or over the edge you go.  

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