Crossing Borders Mini-Stories Preview
What can you learn from other industries & other surprising sources?
(these blogs have first appeared in Dutch in the ZigZagHR Magazine and are createdThis is a selection of some of the stories. The 40+ stories will be available for Tribe Members.
Learning from the Mafia
Is your organisation using the best experts on the market?
We condemn their illegal activities, but they do handle quite a few elements better than the legal business world: the classic hierarchy of the Mafia has been replaced by a loose network structure. Depending on the project, they look for the best experts (e.g. a hologram artist who fakes IDs on a credit card). And they are increasingly collaborating with competitors to expand their services globally and to be two steps ahead of the (often border-crossing) police.
Learning from football
How does your HR department do talent scouting?
In the professional sports world, it is quite normal for scouts to analyse the market. Especially in the world of football, the performances of players and teams are closely monitored in a scientific way. Talenty Spy is an organisation which has analysed the performance of over 140,000 players from 6400 clubs. With 180 talent scouts, they scan the best football talents worldwide and then sell the data to interested clubs.
Engagement thanks to transparency
How can your organisation be more transparent for its employees?
More and more organisations are abandoning control & command where only the leaders have access to all information. Transparency increases involvement. You can start small by giving access to more information, perhaps together with a training to interpret the information. Open-book management can lead to employees better understanding how the financial numbers work and taking action to influence them. Some organisations (such as Morning Star) even let employees determine their salaries.
Simplify
Select one HR process that you can radically simplify. And do it.
Most employment contracts are formal and extensive. At Tony's Chocolonely they have reduced their employment contract from 8 pages to 1 page that looks more like an infographic than a boring contract. The most important legal things that need to be covered are there. The rest is based on trust and common sense. There is also a second page with their own values and promises to the new employee.
COVID-safe
What HR activities can you make pandemic-proof?
A job agency from Dendermonde has started with walking applications. Because of the coronavirus measures almost all job applications are done via video calling, but they invite the candidates and do the job interview outside. A big advantage is that they get a lot more non-verbal communication that is lost during a video application. An additional advantage is simply having a nice chat in the fresh air. And you stand out in the market.
Change thanks to Fun
Which activities can you give a higher 'fun' factor so that employees positively change their behaviour?
The Fun Theory is an initiative by Volkswagen that aims to positively change behaviour by introducing the 'fun' factor (e.g. a piano staircase (that makes music) to encourage people to take the stairs instead of the escalator). Or what about the lottery for respecting speed limits in traffic? A speed camera recorded the speed of all motorists. Instead of giving a fine to offenders, a lottery ticket was registered for each person who respected the speed limits.
The wrong room
What would such a wrong room look like in your organisation?
The wrong room is a patient room where mistakes have been made intentionally: is the patient wearing the right shoes, is the bed in the lowest position, is the alarm bell plugged in? Two people enter the room each time: a nurse and a physiotherapist who are given 10 minutes to discover the 20 mistakes in the room. They also have to indicate why it is wrong and then receive feedback on their actions and explanations.
