Articles by Ron Jones

It is often said that HR should be a business partner with other areas of an organization. The focus of being an effective business partner is to ensure the HR function is relevant; that it is well integrated with the business and capable of delivering all of the required outcomes. The problem is: where and how does HR start? If everyone else accepted the premise that it was good for HR to be...Full Article »

I am surprised at the number of organizations that fail to implement any form of induction and initial performance goal setting. Most of us – if not all HR managers – accept that the selection process for new recruits is not always perfect. Yet somehow we fail to implement strategies that protect the organization – and the employee – from making a bad choice. Induction...Full Article »

I have often wondered how we should prepare those we expect to take on leadership roles in our organizations. There are many leadership programs in place and a considerable amount of money is spent developing and implementing the right program for the organization concerned. It often seems that the only people who get access to such programs are those already in positions of senior management or...Full Article »

I have reflected on various events in communities across the UK, USA and Australia over recent months. The specific circumstances of cause and effect in each situation will be the source of continued debate and enquiry by politicians, academics and community leaders for some time to come. Some years ago, I lent help with school-to-work transition at a school community located in an area with the...Full Article »

As economic uncertainty continues to play out across the world, the legacy of the Great Financial Crisis remains with us and drives the need for even greater levels of accountability for HR practitioners. Much of what we still focus on was defined by a period of growth and certainty that shaped our policies and procedures in the period before 2009. The issues of talent recruitment,...Full Article »

HR needs to take responsibility for building a more open communication system within organizations. I have recently completed reviews of workplace bullying allegations in two different companies. In each case, the allegations were directed at the behavior of a manager, and in each case other staff – who had not previously complained – joined in to support the complainant. From my...Full Article »

I found myself watching the royal wedding and enjoying its tradition and pageantry. I was also struck by the number of people who were watching it  – not just television spectators, but the extraordinary number of people who turned up to the Abbey and then waited for the balcony scene. It occurred to me that we were actually witnessing an amazing turnaround in the fortunes of the...Full Article »

I had spent some time in recent weeks trying to really come to terms with the difference between leadership and management . I know that there are plenty of theoretical and research-based differences about roles, personality types and a range of other key components. What I was looking for was what we as HR practitioners could do to tangibly promote leadership. And then I attended a presentation...Full Article »

Almost every article on employee engagement refers to the importance of culture. I have struggled at times with understanding how the culture of the organization is really defined, since so much of it seems to come from the approach adopted by line managers. We constantly claim that “people join organizations, but leave managers.” This suggests that the interpretation and practice of...Full Article »

One of the challenges for HR is preparing job descriptions that are effective in addressing the strategic needs of the organization and linking this to the outcomes expected of any particular position. Somehow we seem to have separated the job from the organization in such a way that we describe the focus of the organization in strategic terms but describe jobs by reference to the tasks they...Full Article »

Some time ago I undertook a review of the equity and diversity management practices of a large government agency. After two days of initial interviews, including a briefing and formative discussion with the CEO, I commented to my colleague that the agency had a secret – there was an elephant in the room and it was dominating the way in which people responded to us. Staff were clearly...Full Article »