1. © Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. 1 The Relationship between Research and Practice – A Practitioner ‘s Perspective Aidan Lawrence UFHRD Conference June 5 th 2015

2. Introduction Explore the need for HR strategies to be informed by latest Research Share the insights on the Investment focus for HR and L&D Strategies Examine need for improved and faster learning cycles Research – Practice – Impact Suggest Researcher/Practitioner collaboration opportunities Constant drive to improve organizational competitiveness. Innovating new customer products and solutions, Aligning operating costs, Engaging employees, Delivering shareholder value Implement transformation strategies - fast and successfully Continually improving the performance of the organization Making talent and organization capability a strategic differentiator Organizational and Strategic Imperatives

3. Drive Positive Organizational Change! Leading and driving key organizational competitive strategies Ensuring HR programs, policies and practices deliver business strategy. Learn faster and innovate new practices. Accelerate decision making New IT tools and data analytics HR, The Strategic Enabler The strategic importance of HR Strategy formulation and implementation: Employee engagement and best management practice Workforce planning, location strategies, labour pyramids Competitive talent: acquisition, development, retention and succession Transformation strategies to drive renewal and growth Performance and learning culture Advanced reward and recognition systems and practices Strategic capability development to enable current and future strategy Diversity and inclusion, ethics and global citizenship Charter: “Drive positive organizational change”

4. Strategies, Choice- points and Trade-offs The challenges facing HR Leaders What strategies should we implement? How can we find the time to discover and internalize How can we ensure strategic plans and investments are grounded in the best thinking? How can we articulate to senior stakeholders, and build their understanding and sponsorship How do we align leadership teams, develop and engage in implementation plans? How do we implement quicker? And create for the best chance of success? How can we predict the impact and outcome for the business, and deliver maximum ROI? How can we report success and key learnings to drive insight? Has my HR team got the capabilities required? The rapid rate of change and the need for higher ROI is presenting a huge opportunity Academic research can directly inform strategic intervention selection, accelerate implementation, create faster learning cycles, and reduce failure rates. Proof points from research used for predictive business impact modeling to engage senior stakeholder investment and commitment. Increase the value and relevance of future research for both academia and HRD practitioners. We really need strategic program partners to guide and bring:  The best thinking and examples of implementation  Fail quicker learning insight  Learning for the organization based on the learning cycles of others Practitioner Research Collaboration

5. The Strategic Future of L&D Charter: Strategic capabilities required to drive growth. “Global” investment has to be centrally managed, and is one of HR strategic contributions to business. Total Investment has CEO focus and input into strategy (ASTD 2012 -$1200 per FTE):  Choice points and trade-offs  Investment in strategic capabilities  Critical few  No longer “lots of stuff” – focus on moving the “right needle” The strategic L&D Plan is investment driven, and leaders require high confidence of ROI L&D investment is a business lever and can be moved to other competitive investment strategies Evaluation is a challenge for most organizations. Research is the predictive ROI. Research enables modelling of strategies, and can indicate the likely environmental and learner factors needed to accelerate application of learning. Deepen Practitioner insight, and predict future challenges Provide language and models to enable stakeholders internalize the key issues and articulate the critical organizational development needs and strategies Develop new ways of assessing, benchmarking and improving performance The Research / Practitioner Opportunity

6. Researcher and Practitioner Engagement ideas 1. Governance 2. Practice/Research Circles 3. Expand the relationship Definition: The Structures, Systems, Practices, and Processes that are put in place to ensure the overall Strategy, effectiveness and accountability of the TL&OD function. Organizational and Strategic Imperatives

7. 2. Practice/Research Circles Researcher facilitates Practitioners organize Learning Circles New insights and understanding about strategy selection and intervention design Create strategies for organizational/environmental inhibitors impacting application Increase success rate for application and focus on business impact Development of both the academic and practitioner Develop senior stakeholder ROI tools to “strategically” assess value of L&D investments Develop and implement simplified practitioner tools to improve the organizations capability:  to develop “predicative ROI” models and frameworks  to assess performance improvement,  to identify the factors limiting success, and strategies to remove/reduce Embrace New style of IT - Tools, Systems and Applications Big Data and Data Analytics- develop capability for HR Benchmarking – insight driven application and impact 2. Practice/Research Circles

8. 3. Expand the Relationship Become valued strategic partners Understand competitive challenges and strategies - partner to bring forward “independent” suggestions and investment proposals Internships for Researchers and Academics Prepare graduates for the working environment, more input into academic research topics Develop practitioner development programs in key strategic areas Speed of change challenging the relevance of current thinking and practice Shared goals to accelerate learning and knowledge creation Build deeper engagement opportunities between Researchers and Practitioners Conclusion