U.K. consultants encouraging Czech managers to adopt 'Invest in People' standard
"Investors in People" is a certified standard that sets out a level of best practice for training and development of people to achieve business goals. The IIP standard was developed during 1990 by the U.K. government in partnership with leading national businesses, personnel, professional and employee organisations. Today the standard has been adopted in scores of countries around the world and is being introduced to the Czech Republic.
"We take the standard all over the world. So, we're in places like Oman, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, France. I think last year I did 16 trips abroad. We get around quite a bit. This project will probably see me working in the Czech Republic for round about three months of the year."
A lot of listeners will be very familiar with the ISO standards. How do you explain the Investors in People standard?
"ISO can actually support investors but I think the key difference with ISO is that the main reason lots of people do it because it's required by their customers — they need to have that system in place — whereas with Investors in People, companies do it for lots of different reasons.
"I think the easiest way I can explain it is that ISO deals with processes, so as long as you've got written processes in place you can show that you meet the standard, whereas Investors in People actually deals with outcomes. So, for example, one part of the standard is how managers are effective in developing people. So how you do that, how you equip your managers with the skills is very much up to you. So it's not a prescriptive standard. You can still do it within many different cultures and many different sized organisations."
You go to a country with a basic outline with how to work with the corporate culture there; how does that change as you're working with an individual company or within a specific corporate culture?
"I think the crucial thing here when we are working with organisations, what we look for really are at heart an Investor in People already, so we look for the culture where there is an embodiment of learning, where managers are motivators, not where managers are just seen as to keep everybody in line and shout at people if they get things wrong. It needs to be a learning culture where people feel valued for what they do, where people feel part of an effective team, where people get regular feedback."
This is a formally communist country; have you notice a specific corporate culture in Central and Eastern Europe?
"I've worked in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and I'd say that, generally speaking, I'd say that managers tend to be the way that we were in the U.K. maybe 30 or 40 years ago, where the manager's role was to keep people in place, make sure that they did the job and if they didn't do the job, they'd shout at them, and they'd actually motivate them by fear.
"The role of a new manager within a Investors in People organisation is to be one of a motivator, a helper, a trainer, a mentor and a coach, so the people will try new things rather than just keeping their heads buried, doing the work and then going home at the end of the day."
Norman Jennings, head of work force development for Exemplas U.K., is the leader of the team that will be introducing the IIP standard to the Czech Republic, in large part thanks to funding from the European Union's Phare programme. I asked him what the EU hoped to achieve by getting involved in the IIP project.
"The nature of the work is to establish Investors in People as the international standard of best practice for HR [human resources] development and to build capacity within the Czech Republic so that after we're finished, we can transfer that knowledge so that it's sustainable in the Czech Republic."
And part of that is working with the Phare programme for EU accession countries?
"Yes. The Phare programme has funded this project; we had to bid to enable us to get funds to run this project. So it's paying for my time, the time of my colleagues, et cetera, the time to train some advisers in the Czech Republic. And then, obviously, to help the 10 or so pilot companies achieve the Investors in People standard and then, ultimately, to do some evaluation of the impact on those companies and see if we can roll that out across the Czech Republic."
Since there is EU money involved, is part of the project targeting areas that are hard hit by unemployment?
"Yes. Our intention is to identify pilot projects that can benefit from the Investors in People standard and I know through my discussions with CzechInvest that one of the areas that we may wish to focus in on is the Ostrava region, which I understand to have higher unemployment rates, et cetera."
So, part of the project might be, in fact, building up strong companies, giving them this global recognition?
"That's right. The ultimate aim is to improve the competitiveness of the companies in the Czech Republic, by using global best practice to put them in the global marketplace as a true competitor."
