Pratica di Shadowing: #01 The strategic Side of Human Resources Management - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Music Hello

and a warm welcome.

I'm Armin Troost, professor at the Fortwangen University in Germany.

And this is my series on Human Resources Strategies,

a real master course for advanced HR students, professionals and executives.

This series is available on YouTube and on all podcatchers like iTunes or Spotify.

All slides that support this series are available on my website.

For more information, please read the description to this YouTube or podcast.

I'd also like to refer to my book, Human Resources Strategies, available at most online bookstores.

So, again, thanks for listening.

Have fun and gain valuable insights into the fascinating world of HR strategies.

So let's assume you are a regular employee in a regular company.

Whatever it is.

You are an engineer.

You are a lawyer.

You are a salesman, a saleswoman.

You are a nurse.

You are whatever, right?

And I ask you, what is your first thought when thinking about HR?

human resources.

What is your first thought?

What comes to your mind?

I had the chance to ask these questions to hundreds of people in the last 15 years since I'm a professor.

For instance in my MBA courses, the master courses, I asked this question in the beginning of my course

and in this round I meet people from all over the world, really.

It's a very international group.

I meet people from various professions.

I have engineers, lawyers, everything of different ages.

And all of them are professionals.

They are all experienced.

And then I ask exactly this question.

What do you think of HR?

What comes to your mind?

And, you know, the last thing I hear as a response is something like,

oh, yeah, HR, that's very cool.

I mean, HR, that's probably the most important function in any organization.

I mean, yeah, that's about people.

You know, it's about people and our business is about people.

It's about their creativity and their capabilities and their motivation and that's why HR is so incredibly important.

I don't hear this.

I hear this sometimes and probably decide that the person who says this is an HR person.

Well, I don't hear this.

What I hear very often sounds a bit more like this.

Yeah, HR, let me think.

In my organization I was working with, there was also an HR department, I suppose.

I don't have too much experience with what they did.

Of course I had to deal with nice colleagues from the HR department during the recruiting process.

I guess there was one person in the interview, did not say too much.

Well, yeah, in the beginning I had to share some information with HR, but that was not so much.

What I also hear sometimes is something like this.

Yeah, HR, my organization, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have an HR department and what they do is crazy.

I mean what they do is they run employee surveys

so we're supposed to respond to satisfaction questionnaires every year where

I'm being asked about my satisfaction about a lot of different things

but actually I do not know what happens to the results

I guess we were asked to do some workshops with the results

but in fact I've never seen them so yeah that's HR I sometimes hear something like this up yeah HR

I remember that one time HR came across saying we have to do this performance abrasion every year.

They wanted to do this.

Well, yeah, so we did, yeah, because there was this rule, don't mess with HR.

So we did it, but it did not work out.

Not really.

It was more a mess.

It was ridiculous.

But okay, we did it, and HR was happy.

Keep HR happy.

Anyway, HR department, it's a department where you have nice people.

Mostly women, love to go there, it's nice.

Something like this.

Well, that's bad, you know, that's bad.

And really, I recently had a little debate with a great Dave Ulrich,

and he shared with me his empirical evidence saying that that the competences of the HR department constantly grow.

And you also assume that the acceptance of HR is constantly growing.

I don't see this, really.

I don't see this.

What I share here is not an empirical evidence.

It's just what I hear from hundreds, hundreds of people I were asking over the course of the last 15 years.

Well, that's not really valid, I know.

So, to sum it up, what I hear very often is,

HR is seen very often as an administrative function.

It's about administration.

And HR administration, of course,

deals with the daily operational issues and topics all around people in your organization.

So when we think about these daily operational things, of course, we think about payroll, for instance.

Make sure that the people get their salaries on time and in a correct way.

Making sure that the people, the new hires, get their job offers, their contract or whatsoever.

If somebody quits, you prepare the reference letter or if you fire somebody, I mean, that might be an administrative process.

So there are a lot of things to be done in a very operational way.

And probably this is where HR came from, a time when we named it personnel.

And this is, of course, important.

I mean, somebody has to take care for all this stuff.

That's absolutely sure.

So this is HR administration.

But before I progress and talk about HR strategy, I would like to make something clear here.

When we talk about HR in this series, I do not talk about the HR department.

This is not a series, this is not a course about HR department.

Not at all.

Yeah, of course, there might be an HR department, but that's not the point here.

100

HR is not a department.

101

HR is, how do I name it?

102

It's a bundle of activities and strategies and things we do, of course,

103

along with certain priorities but the responsibility for human resources is not primarily or mainly in the hands of the HR department.

104

That must not necessarily be the case.

105

And we will talk about this over this series.

106

I mean, let's have a short example here.

107

Let's assume there is an employee in an organization, maybe you, and you want to learn something.

108

They would say, yes, that's a great idea.

109

You better learn.

110

Learning is good especially these days and the fast -changing world

111

so you better learn that's cool yeah learn

112

so okay learning professional learning who is responsible for that is

113

that the HR department I mean you you might say yeah yeah that's about learning learning is a people thing

114

so HR must be responsible

115

so I knock at the HR department's door is hey guys hey I want to learn something

116

so So what do I have to do?

117

Yeah, maybe in some companies that works that way, but I see many companies, or the majority of companies, that don't handle it that way.

118

You want to learn?

119

Okay, go ahead and learn.

120

Take over responsibility for learning.

121

You as the learner, you are responsible for your learning.

122

It's your job.

123

It's not the HR department's job.

124

And this can go on and on and on.

125

We're gonna talk about this.

126

So HR is not the main responsibility of the HR department.

127

So let's put that right here, okay?

128

So, this entire series will not be about HR administration, not at all.

129

I mean, this course is named HR Strategy.

130

So, what we will not talk about here is how to create a job ad.

131

We will talk about it in the context of employer branding, it would make sense, but that's a strategic point of view, as you will see.

132

We will not talk about how to create a job offer.

133

We will not talk about how to organize an interview.

134

We will not talk about how a payslip is supposed to be structured or how to read a payslip.

135

We will not talk about this.

136

We will not even talk about things like label law or something like this.

137

Not at all.

138

We will only talk about strategic things.

139

Strategic.

140

So, now comes the question, what does that mean, being strategic in HR?

141

What is that, strategic HR?

142

That's an important question, and I would like to clarify this in this very first episode.

143

What makes HR strategic?

144

What is the strategic side of human resources management?

145

Well, I've mentioned it already.

146

HR administration is about the daily operational issues and topics related to people.

147

What is HR strategy?

148

HR strategy affects the future business of the company.

149

Yeah, you got it right.

150

It affects the future business of the company.

151

It affects its competitive advantage, its competitive position in the market.

152

It affects its overall strength.

153

That's what HR strategy is all about.

154

Of course, it's long -term.

155

Of course, it's big.

156

And it does not change daily,

157

of course and decisions upon HR strategies are very often made on the top of an organizational hierarchy,

158

very often, even though they are decided upon democratic procedures, might be.

159

So HR strategy again is also about people,

160

But it's about all those things that affect the future business of the company.

161

Now, that sounds weird.

162

That sounds a little bit like this typical MBA stuff.

163

But let's be specific.

164

Let's be specific.

165

In the next few minutes,

166

I would like to share with you some real cases some real cases that I found when working with companies.

167

And let me start with the first one, okay?

168

And it goes like this.

169

There is a small and medium enterprise operating as a supplier in the automotive industry.

170

We talk about 3 ,500 employees.

171

This enterprise is desperately looking for software developers.

172

They want to hire software developers.

173

They need them because digitization, you know.

174

Relying on job ads only doesn't seem to lead to expected results anymore.

175

Engaging an executive search consultancy turns out to be too expensive.

176

What to do?

177

Do you see the case?

178

Do you see it?

179

When I share this case with companies, most of them these days would say, yeah, that's my case.

180

That exactly describes my problem.

181

In some companies, it's about software developers.

182

In some other companies, it's about nurses,

183

about truck drivers, about teachers, about engineers, about doctors.

184

Here we talk about talent shortage and talent shortage affects the future of a company's business.

185

I mean, look at various studies that were conducted in the last few months around the globe when CEOs were asked,

186

okay, what are the major limitations for your business?

187

Most of them say it's the shortage of talent. But Paul...

188

Isn't that something that affects your business?

189

Isn't that a big question?

190

Isn't that something that is supposed to be solved by any mean?

191

Yes, of course.

192

And this is not something where we talk about daily operational administrative things.

193

No, not at all.

194

This requires a big answer.

195

Okay, this is strategic.

196

So, here's the next case.

197

In recent years, a company had to deal with an increasing turnover among its most talented and most motivated people.

198

This company obviously has a retention issue.

199

Further research and discussions made clear that there is a lack of career prospects among most talented employees.

200

You can imagine this.

201

And very often my MBA students report the same thing.

202

They don't see perspectives for their career in their own company.

203

At the same time, key positions mainly have been filled with external candidates.

204

What to do?

205

Now, look, this is a problem.

206

This is a problem.

207

And we're going to talk about this more intensively.

208

When you lose your most talented, most qualified, most motivated people,

209

you have a serious problem, really.

210

And as we're going to learn over this series,

211

we know that the top 10 % of your employees provide a significant extent of total contribution.

212

If you lose them, you are in serious trouble.

213

And here's the thing now.

214

Very often the very talented people, I mean they want to grow.

215

Every talented person wants to grow, wants to leverage his or her talent.

216

They want to see a perspective, of course.

217

And if they don't see it and at the same time see that the company is constantly hiring people from the outside, you might leave.

218

Because every time a company hires a person from the outside for a senior position,

219

this is a loud and clear message to the existing people, you are not good enough.

220

And how many times do you as a talented person want to hear this?

221

How many times do you want to hear that you are not good enough?

222

I mean, that's a serious problem.

223

And if a company is facing exactly this case, and I saw it all too often in many companies,

224

they obviously don't have something in place,

225

what we name a systematic talent development program or system or however you name it.

226

They simply don't care.

227

Okay, what to do?

228

I mean, really, what to do?

229

That is crying for action.

230

I mean, you could pause now for a minute and think about, okay, what would you propose now?

231

What would you propose?

232

What is it? So, okay.

233

So here is the case number three.

234

The new externally hired CEO at an insurance company became instantly aware after lacking ambition

235

and try for performance in almost all areas and functions.

236

That sounds dramatic, right?

237

Not so ambitious workforce.

238

A strong appeal to all managers and employees probably might not be enough.

239

The company is thinking about a new kind of performance management system. Does this make sense?

240

If yes, how could it look like?

241

I mean, if you have a little bit of experience, practical experience, you know what this case is all about.

242

That's very often the case, that in a company, ambition level is low, performance is low.

243

The people who follow this is not my job mindset, they just stick to their job description, are not really hungry for success,

244

are not really hungry for growth.

245

So you miss innovation, you miss new ideas, you miss everything.

246

And that's bad and that sometimes could be a matter also of the culture.

247

And sometimes I also personally can feel it when I deal with companies.

248

I have this feeling, well, these people are not hungry.

249

They are not really driven.

250

And in this case, the newly hired CEO instantly see this.

251

And now this is crying for a solution.

252

And of course, many companies think about a performance management system.

253

What is a performance management system?

254

We're going to talk about this extensively.

255

A performance management system is something where you constantly agree on objectives.

256

Really.

257

Okay, what do we want to achieve in the upcoming weeks, months, years?

258

And what is your role on this, John?

259

What are your objectives?

260

What is your specific contribution?

261

And it's not only that we define these objectives, that we agree on them.

262

We're also gonna track progress constantly.

263

And you better meet expectations.

264

Because if you don't, you're gonna face some serious personal trouble.

265

So, performance management is a system that tries to align the people's individual contribution towards an overall goal.

266

it has its roots in something

267

that we're also going to talk about something like management by objectives now here's the thing

268

if you as a company think about a new performance management system you can

269

just take a textbook and do it as it is described in the textbook

270

or you could look at your competitors and ask yourself how are they doing these things and then you simply copy it.

271

Okay, good luck with it.

272

Good luck with it.

273

Probability is high that whenever you develop a performance management system, it probably won't work.

274

As we have seen since many decades in hundreds, thousands of organizations.

275

It's sometimes tragic.

276

Most performance management systems don't work.

277

So, the question is, okay,

278

if we need to do something and let's agree this company needs to do something what is the right way of going?

279

What might be the right strategy?

280

Is it more this kind of performance management system or that kind of performance management system?

281

Or is it about a performance management system?

282

Anyway, what is the problem?

283

What's the real problem?

284

That's the first question.

285

What is the problem?

286

What are the reasons for lacking ambition?

287

Maybe you don't need a performance management system.

288

Maybe you need something else.

289

Maybe you need a new CEO again.

290

So it's not so easy.

291

And again, this case is big and the problem is big.

292

And again, this is not about HR administration.

293

Not at all.

294

That's a big problem.

295

And that big problem requires a bigger strategic answer.

296

Okay.

297

So, here's the final case.

298

A company in the retail sector sees a decline in sales and is continuously losing market share.

299

The new corporate strategy now consistently focuses on digitizing the supply and distribution channels,

300

as well as all related business processes.

301

An analysis has shown that the workforce has little knowledge of digitization and is rather reluctant to deal with this topic.

302

What is to be done?

303

That's our last case for the moment.

304

Again, these days you see a lot of companies out there where at least the executives have understood that digitization really matters.

305

If you don't digitize, then you become obsolete maybe.

306

whenever you talk about digitization in your organization the response is

307

come on digitization you know come on that's not that's not the real thing

308

and the people are worried they're worried that they that they lose their job, they are worried that they have to change their job,

309

they are worried about the need to learn new things, and they are worried whether they can really cope with the new situation,

310

that they can keep up with this fast development.

311

And of course they are resistant.

312

I mean, not everybody, of course, sure, but maybe a vast majority.

313

And this is a problem, this is really a problem a serious problem.

314

If this company, in this case, if this company does not overcome this particular problem, then this company is in serious trouble.

315

So again, this is not administrative.

316

Not at all.

317

This is about people and this is about strategy.

318

So this one, again, requires a powerful human resource strategy.

319

And, you know, we're going to talk about all those cases and many more.

320

And in this series, I will guide you stepwise through the different steps required to develop an HR strategy.

321

We're going to talk about all those things

322

and you will see it's very very fascinating sometimes a little bit complex

323

but but still very very cool

324

and you can do a lot of things right also as

325

as as the HR department now yeah you can contribute so much really I mean really

326

but at the same time you could do so many things wrong and you just have one bullet very often.

327

If you look at one of these cases I just were sharing, if you trigger the wrong bullet or if you one single bullet does not meet the goal,

328

you will not be asked twice.

329

So you better be right in the first place.

330

Okay, so this is...

331

I hope that these cases, along with the explanation of the difference between HR strategy and HR administration,

332

you get a little bit of an idea about how HR could be strategic.

333

And now for every course, in particular for any academic course, I have to start with a little definition.

334

This is how courses like this are supposed to start.

335

And I would like to give you a little definition on what is an HR strategy.

336

Okay, and I will walk through a definition stepwise and let me first read it to you.

337

I have to read it by myself.

338

Actually, I don't know this definition by heart.

339

I did not do my homework.

340

So I just read it and then I will walk through this stepwise and will explain it.

341

And in the end, it's going to be clear to you, I'm pretty sure.

342

So here's the definition about HR strategy.

343

A company's HR strategy refers to all people -related approaches

344

that address both strategic business challenges and purpose in order to strengthen a company's competitive advantage.

345

Moreover, the HR strategy defines how all critical approaches are aligned to the structural and cultural context.

346

So, that was big and probably you didn't get it right away.

347

I mean, of course, it's a long and ugly definition.

348

So, let me walk through this stepwise.

349

So the first part of the definition is it's a company's HR strategy refers to all people -related approaches.

350

I mean people -related, that's clear.

351

That's the human part, right?

352

It's about people -related approaches.

353

What is approach?

354

The things that you do, okay?

355

Approaches.

356

The way to do things, right?

357

Approaches.

358

A company's HR strategy refers to all people -related approaches that address both strategic business challenges and purpose.

359

Okay, this is the business part.

360

And of course, we'll talk about business challenges, business purpose, why is the company there,

361

what is the ultimate reason why the company exists,

362

and all those people related approaches must address these things otherwise they are not strategic.

363

Okay?

364

Got it?

365

Okay.

366

So let's go further.

367

So, we already agreed.

368

All approaches that address both strategic business challenges and purpose in order to strengthen a company's competitive advantage.

369

That's the ultimate goal.

370

Okay?

371

That's the ultimate goal.

372

The HR strategy is about strengthening a company's competitive advantage.

373

Being good in the market, being better than the competitors.

374

That's your ultimate goal.

375

Okay.

376

Moreover, the HR strategy defines how all critical approaches are aligned to the structural and cultural context.

377

The context.

378

The context matters.

379

So what we're going to do very intensively is we're going

380

to look at different things you might do in your company to strengthen competitive advantage.

381

But the way how you do it,

382

that must fit to your structural context and to your cultural context.

383

That's absolutely necessary and that might sound a little bit weird or vague,

384

vague, better word, a little bit vague now in the moment, but I promise you in the end of this course you will understand,

385

you will clearly understand what that means.

386

The same approach might work, one and the same approach might work in one company, but not in the other. But in which way?

387

So you have to make strategic decisions upon how you do your talent development, if this is a necessary approach.

388

How you set up your compensation strategy.

389

You have to make strategic decisions.

390

And the way you do things really depends on who you are as a company.

391

how you are in structural terms and how you are in cultural terms.

392

And we will have a couple of episodes where we just talk about the context, really.

393

Okay?

394

So that was the start for today.

395

And I hope that you now take home the difference between HR strategy and HR administration.

396

This course will be about HR strategy

397

and based on these few cases I was sharing with you I hope that you got a little bit of understanding

398

what that actually means and it's serious,

399

really it's serious I hope that you understood this that was the first thing and in the next episode

400

I will start talking about common pitfalls when building an HR strategy

401

and it will be a good start a funny start maybe talking about the pitfalls first.

402

Hope you can enjoy.

403

So, see you.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

Pratica di Shadowing: #01 The strategic Side of Human Resources Management - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Per chi è questo video?

Parole e modi di dire da rubare

Come migliorare l'accento con questo speaker

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?