tfpl blog

The Annual SLA Winter Warmer Pub Quiz

by Helen Trudgeon, Contracts Recruitment Consultant

 

Last week saw SLA Europe’s Annual Winter Warmer Pub Quiz event take place, once again hosted by professional QuizMaster, AskTony and kindly sponsored by Swets and the Financial Times.

SLA President and TFPL Managing Director Darron Chapman welcomed the 16 teams, made up of SLA members and friends, all eager to be crowned Quiz Champions 2012.  So keen were staff at TFPL, that we were able to field 2 full teams – the IDOX Idles and TFPL & Back - competing not only for the main prize, but also to take home the honour of being TFPL’s own internal champion. Purely in the spirit of friendly rivalry, of course.

The quiz kicked off with an investigation of our knowledge of recent current affairs, which perhaps left a little to be desired, but the room soon warmed up as we were asked, amongst other things, to identify obscure television adverts, to get inside the heads of Sun readers  and to spot price an eyewateringly obscure range of commodities.  Smartphones were sadly banned, but our team nonetheless managed to achieve modest success, based on a sound knowledge of Asda pricing and at least one mathematical genius who knew the current price of Brent Crude.

The final round remains memorable, if only for the noise of over 80 people singing along to Chas n’ Dave and the Rocky soundtrack.  Possibly with more enthusiasm than any inherent musical ability. Or perhaps that was just me.

The eventual and well deserved winners were the Film Club, captained by Mark Haines, whilst both of TFPL’s teams managed a respectable mid-table ranking, with IDOX Idles pipping TFPL & Back by just 1 point.  We are already anticipating next year’s re-match.

Ultimate winners the Film Club https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928439449238770

https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928397971520194

Implementation of the Agency Worker Regulations

The Agency Workers Regulations, approved by Parliament in January 2010 and scheduled for implementation in October 2011, implement the EU Agency Workers Directive 2008/104/EC, which grants to temporary workers finding employment through an agency, similar rights and entitlements to full-time workers within the same workplace, viz:

• From their first day, Temporary workers will gain the right to:
-  Equal use of collective workplace amenities
- Be notified of other vacancies at the hirer (client)
• After 12 weeks (which can only be broken by a six week break), Temporary workers become entitled to equal terms in relation to pay and holidays and working time rights.

There are several distinct exclusions and non-exclusions that will affect recruiters:

• Only genuine self-employed workers are not included in the scope of AWR
• “Self-employed” does not include candidates working through umbrella companies, who are explicitly included in the scope of the AWR.
• Managed service contracts are included

As such, some of our clients and candidates may need to be aware of their duties, obligations and expectations under the new rules.  All will have a role to play in ensuring the spirit and letter of the law are applied.  TFPL is working with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to ensure that the way we apply the new rules is fair to clients and candidates alike, and that any changes take place with the minimum disruption.

TFPL Connect – Harnessing the power of networks

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

We enjoyed an interesting event last night on how best to develop networks both in the traditional sense and also utilising the latest social media tools. Our event was presided over by Iain Simpson who introduced our speakers and provided the continuing thread throughout the evening.

Julia Hordle stood in for the billed speaker Andrew Beurschgens who was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances.  Julia has worked closely with Andrew and the UK chapter of the Competitive Intelligence forum (UKCIF) for many years and gave some really good pointers on what it takes to develop a traditional network using the methods they had employed to develop UKCIF. 

The key points that I took away from this were that action is all important, particularly the willingness to give and share information along with an enthusiasm and energy to keep the interaction going.  UKCIF started out with an 8 person group who were not afraid to go out to the rest of the community, through their own individual contacts and try something out.  With very little funding they were able to set up a website and utilising different communication channels, including social media tools.

Following on from this was Jemima Gibbons, a social media strategist.  Jemima introduced the group to several new ways to get the most from the popular social media tools such as twitter and LinkedIn.  She also suggested a 5 point plan on how to develop your own social media communication strategy and develop your own online network.  The most important point for me here I think was to develop your own story and not just use it as a corporate broadcasting tool.  Interact with others, replying to, commenting on others comments and questions.

The aspect that I think brings both of these presentations together is the motivation to act and a key aspect of encouraging others to interact and to share their own thought and information is to start sharing information yourself.  Full details of both presentations will be available in the member's area of the TFPL Connect site very shortly.

BIALL Conference: Gateshead

Anne Ashdown, Consultant, TFPL

What do you get when you cross a group of legal information officers with a long weekend in Newcastle?  Well, thankfully not the latest showing of Geordie Shores but in fact BIALL’s 42nd Annual Study Conference & Exhibition. Conference this year was both informative and a great networking opportunity; chance to catch up with professional colleagues and the opportunity to meet new faces.

It was held in the very modern environment of the SAGE at Gateshead. This is a spectacular venue in a wonderful setting, overlooking the Tyne and the Millenium Bridge. 

This year’s conference was on the topic of “Sharing Experience; building value in legal information”. We learned about the importance of measuring the effectiveness of your service, retaining a focus on customer insight and satisfaction and making sure you understand your clients’ specific needs. Once you have the right mechanisms in place you can ensure your service focuses on meeting business objectives and improving performance of your function. There were many more sessions that I was unable to attend but the general “buzz” of comments all indicated a very worthwhile conference agenda.

Report on the CLSIG NetIKX conference on “Making the Most of Sharepoint”

Author: Matt Woods, Contracts Recruiter, TFPL

This Wednesday, CLSIG/NetIKX hosted an interesting gathering, where about 45 people listened to a presentation by Mark Field on the implementation of Sharepoint and cloud platforms at the Department for Education, followed by case studies and group discussions led by Hugh O’Neill (Knowledge Manager, EMEA for Jones Lang LaSalle) and James Andrews (KIM Officer at the British Red Cross)

Funding restraint, while being a driver of innovation in many cases, could end up being a result of improved efficiencies brought about by a move toward shared workspaces.  Mark spoke about the improvement in document control and compliance at the DfE since the introduction of the Sharepoint-based system.  Perhaps the main theme of Mark’s case study was the importance of achieving staff participation and acceptance of any new platform and to get beyond a perception that it is merely a case of “the intranet’s changed”.  Mark did this at DfE by identifying key people to become advocates or “champions” of the new system, being sure that these people were senior and with a reputation for being resistant.

Hugh also had experiences of promoting Sharepoint as a Knowledge Management tool at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he helped to implement a platform that enabled previously technophobic executives to collate and share information about contacts, intangible market and competitor intelligence and business information.  He stressed the importance of approaching the setup from a KM standpoint rather than as an IT project, a point which seemed to echo the thoughts of Mark Field, who found that avoiding Sharepoint and Microsoft language helped to improve engagement with the project.  Hugh also found that making the platform visually appealing made it much easier for people to engage with.

During questions and answers, user-engagement came up time and time again, as well as references to open government regulations and with that, the future prospects for using Sharepoint platforms to provide linked data to people within and outside of public sector organisations.  With this in mind, Hugh O’Neill stressed the importance of having common versions of the programme to make sure that different sets of data are compatible and able to migrate from one platform to another.  I asked Mark Field whether, as the roll out of this type of platform continues across departments, the use and choice of different programmes or even versions will hinder the linked data aspect of open government.  This will most likely depend on the attitudes of different departments and Permanent Secretaries and how they are able/forced to collaborate.  It was particularly interesting to compare these observations to those made by the information Commissioner and Paul Davidson (Local e-Government Standards Body) at the recent ISKO Public Access to Information conference (see blog post  14 April) and may be an indicator of further business opportunities in exploiting Open government, linked data and FoI requirements within local and national government.

In all, even though approaching the seminar form a non-technical viewpoint, it was clear that there is a groundswell in favour of using Sharepoint and Cloud systems, with upgrades to later versions inevitable.  The key points appeared to centre on the importance of making the platforms easier to use, which in turn will improve user participation and acceptance, as well as the increased likelihood that organisations in all sectors will be looking to implement and improve their use of Sharepoint.

 

 

CI - external knowledge management?

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

I recently had the opportunity to join a UK Competitive Intelligence Forum (CIF) meeting.  I had no real experience of competitive intelligence previously and was keen to understand more about this area.  The presenter for the evening, Monica Giese was very engaging (despite having started her day at 3am) and spoke about both the importance of competitive intelligence (CI) to the C- Suite executives and how to gain a position as a C suite CI professional.

 

One thing that was very clear from the beginning is how CI is very closely linked with knowledge management (KM).  There has always been a strong focus on ‘internal’ knowledge management – both the management of organisational knowledge and to a lesser extent the management of personal knowledge.  It seems that the management of external knowledge or competitive intelligence has been less reviewed and talked about.  I am not sure why this is, I would say that it is equally as important to know what is happening in the marketplace in terms of competitors, laws, policies and innovation as it is to know what body of knowledge you can harness in your own organisation. 

 

Illustrating the importance of external knowledge management, Monica opened her talk with a quote from Robert M. Gates (ex director of CIA 1991-93) ‘knowledge and fore-knowledge of the world around us, is a prelude to presidential decision making’.  She went on to illustrate how CI can only be effective if linked with action which needs to be complemented with an in-depth knowledge of the organisation’s strategy.  To have this in-depth knowledge, surely one needs to understand fully an organisation’s capabilities including the ability of the people within it.  This is where (internal) knowledge management comes into play.  Interestingly however, as the talk progressed it became clear that in a lot of organisations there can be conflict between KM and CI at the C-Suite level.  This seems like madness but perhaps the focus of different perspectives (an internal and external one) can lead to conflicting messages......  Whatever the reason one thing is clear, for all our strategic leaders in government and industry, having an understanding of the internal and external environment is of utmost importance to decision making.  So how do CI and KM work together?  I don't know the answer but I think it is an important question to consider

UK Competitive Intelligence Forum - Thursday 25th November

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources

Seminar and Networking event for UK CIF:       The Art of Inference: The Case Study-based Approach to Understanding the Changing Bigger Picture

We know how ‘data’ gets turned into ‘information’ which in turn turns into ‘intelligence’, if it is actionable. This event will aim to challenge the complacency of received wisdom with this topic “The Art of Inference’.

These ideas should be of interest to anyone with a remit which includes business intelligence or supports intelligence functions with KM and/or research.

I’m interested in this group because many of the ideas from competitive intelligence practice are subsequently taken up in mainstream business circles. Maybe this one will too.

TFPL Intelligent Resources supports the UK Competitive Intelligence forum (affiliate of SCIP) in the spirit of market making for the Intelligence industries. See you there perhaps?

 

UK Competitive Intelligence Forum   Thursday 25th November, 2010:  From 5.45pm

 

Seminar and Networking event for UK CIF:       The Art of Inference: The Case Study-based Approach to Understanding the Changing Bigger Picture

 

We know how ‘data’ gets turned into ‘information’ which in turn turns into ‘intelligence’, if it is actionable. This event will aim to challenge the complacency of received wisdom with this topic “The Art of Inference’.

 

These ideas should be of interest to anyone with a remit which includes business intelligence or supports intelligence functions with KM and/or research.

 

I’m interested in this group because many of the ideas from competitive intelligence practise are subsequently taken up in mainstream business circles. Maybe this one will too.

 

TFPL Intelligent Resources supports the UK Competitive Intelligence forum (affiliate of SCIP) in the spirit of market making for the Intelligence industries. See you there perhaps?

Unlocking the value of you

Author: Shooresh Golzari

Last night we hosted our third Connect event of the year at the Radisson Edwardian hotel, close to Tottenham Court Road. The theme of the evening, kindly chaired by Gwenda Sippings of Linklaters, focused on how KIM professionals could demonstrate the value of their function and themselves as individuals to the business in times where cost cutting may put them at the fore of management scrutiny.

The first presentation was that of Rosemary Nunn, who demonstrated how she has championed the value of KIM as a critical function of business at EC Harris.  Rosemary highlighted the problem as largely being a lack of understanding in the business around what KIM is all about.

She stressed that this problem is often compounded by the obscure language of KIM, which people outside the discipline struggle to link with business objectives.  This very much resonates with what other speakers at previous Connect meetings have posited and echoes our own Vivienne Winterman's blog on plain speak.

Where I feel Rosemary's piece was particularly powerful was in the solution she proposed: let's not only use plain speak, but let's also demonstrate how intrinsically linked what we do is to the business cycle.  Let's look at the business, identify where we add value and be ready to demonstrate it. If we do this effectively, by showing what we do, what it enables and what would happen without it, then we will not make for such easy targets in lean times.

Dave Tullett of Heidrick and Struggles added to Rosemary's angle by bringing an introspective turn to our attention with his presentation, building the case for you.  The crux of Dave's point was that you, as in you personally, have to know what your value to the business is and be ready to present it in a way that is resounding to the places that matter and authentic to yourself; because it's not anyone else's job to monitor and promote your value.

To illustrate with one of Dave's examples, it is not very useful to answer, when asked who you are and what you do, with "I'm a knowledge manager" - what's a knowledge manager?  On the other hand, what would be useful is to demonstrate quickly and effectively how you make things happen for those you're there to support. An "elevator pitch" for yourself.

Dave recommended you do this by firstly measuring your actual impact (how you are perceived) with how you intend to be perceived.  Then by following a three step process of self discovery, expression and evolution begin to build for yourself a case, a set of stories and a brand that demonstrates your skills, attributes and ultimately, your value.

Finally, for those of you who are members of TFPL Connect, we'll be making Rosemary and Dave's slides available online in the members' area.

 

Global Knowledge businesses: Large horizons, big ambitions, lots of compromise

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Corporate Intelligence Recruitment

Observation/ Spring 2010:

Galvanised into action by a comfort break in market crises, clients have serious business to pursue as well as root and branch re-structuring to achieve.

But globalisation and off-shoring has made the art of resourcing an international business more complex, not simpler, in the immediate term.

One client, in a rhetorical mood said:  “How do we find the numbers of people we need, with the sophistication we need, in the locations we need? ...the short answer is that this year, we can’t!”

Comment:

With seismic shifts in investment patterns and shifts also in trade alliances, no resource planner can be confident in establishing highly-engineered hubs in fixed locations, as demand for knowledge-rich roles ebbs and flows between continents.

So what does this mean for hirers and recruitment consultants alike?

• One global talent pool, but impeded eligibility to work, language barriers and cost of migration
• The need to appoint local experts to a global team, but to educate them quickly
• Compromise. If it is only possible to find a person with all the qualities and experience we need in a high cost location, let us enjoy having them in a convenient place.

Not for the first time, we are hearing more than one grand plan flummoxed because the experience talent planners imagined must be available in the offshore location, simply is not there.

I know the human race has improved online communications so we don’t have to be in the same room to share or confer. But the need to do business with someone we can laugh with, drink tea with and shake by the hand is still so important, especially for focused knowledge transfer and resilient business relationships.

It isn’t really the case that London has moved instantly from being an optimum location to one of last resort. There is still a huge amount of talent here, which superficially may look expensive but can be very cost effective.

What is TFPL Intelligent Resources doing to help our flummoxed clients?

• Reaching beyond the UK in our networking and marketing, to help you find talent overseas or attract professionals across borders.
• Cultivating contacts who can Connect geographies as well as special interest groups
• We make no assumptions when searching. We understand that some candidates can and will want to get on their bike, plane or train to find work.
• Due diligence to inform compromise if choices have to be made.

Does the location conundrum flummox you too? I’d like to hear from you if you are grappling with exactly this kind of issue.

Help us map the market for business and competitor intelligence

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Corporate Intelligence Recruitment

Joining up with TFPL doesn’t mean the old “Intelligent Resources” team has lost its zeal for developing the market for skills in Intelligence disciplines. Far from it, the TFPL offering has diversified since we joined up last year. This has broadened the choice of roles in the TFPL recruitment portfolio for people with strong commercial and information/research/analytical skills.

Ivan (Radulovic) and I have been contributing  to the UK-CIF board and panel since a group of passionate practitioners decided to breathe bit more life into the CI forum in the UK, and not be quite so reliant on the US administration of SCIP. In particular, we are interested in mapping the communities of people in the UK with an interest in Intelligence.

In our Corporate Intelligence recruitment team, we already know that there is vibrant demand for people with the right mix of skills and experience for collection and communication of commercial intelligence, and more specifically, demand for people with the ability to see significance and steer strategic thinking. Practitioners exist within “pure” Consulting and Strategy roles, exist in Sales and Business pursuit, in Procurement/sourcing and in investment and advisory businesses. What is your interest? I’d love to know…

HOW YOU COULD PARTICIPATE:

NEXT EVENT:   The UK Competitive Intelligence Forum will be hosting its forthcoming networking event on 10th June around the theme of career planning. (please look out for event details nearer the time)

Market research for UK CIF:   HOW WELL DO WE KNOW OURSELVES?

To enrich the event in June we are undertaking some classic market research to obtain a foundation of understanding with respect to:

• How practitioners entered the discipline
• Their existing trials and tribulations, perception, value measurement, focus
• How practitioners will evolve

It will help us all to know the emerging market for skills in the UK better than we do at present – we are hoping to provide a hub of information and interest for the UK community.

Please help us all by completing the survey - It will only take 10 minutes and every recipient will receive a summary of the results, from UK CIF. 

Take the Survey 'Intelligent Intelligence Career Planning'

As of today, 28/04/2010, we have already had an encouraging response, but your input will help make sure what we get is an accurate and balanced overall picture. Please do join in.

For my sins, I’m also involved in planning the event on June 10^th and would be delighted to hear from anyone who would have an interest in speaking or joining a panel for debate, or providing some sponsorship to UK CIF. Please get in touch as soon as you can. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!