How to get staff and employers working as one

By SELWYN PARKER

Was it 40 minutes that is changing the face of commerce in Britain?

That is the length of time management theorist Michael Taylor spent with Tony Blair, then Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.

Mr Taylor met Mr Blair, who was facing a general election a few months later, at the latter's request.

The appointment was in the politician's office in the Houses of Parliament.

"I was very impressed," recalls Mr Taylor, a crisply objective Englishman. "Mr Blair cancelled all his calls and listened closely for the whole 40 minutes."

The topic of conversation? Investors in People, a workplace management strategy of remarkable simplicity championed by Mr Taylor.

And with Mr Blair becoming Prime Minister of Britain, the rest is history.

While the politically neutral Mr Taylor would be horrified at any claims that he put Labour back into power, he did play a small part.

Not long after the meeting, he was asked to do an Investors in People-type audit on the Labour Party. Thus, five months before the election, he went through the party machine from top to bottom.

Verdict? "They were in brilliant shape."

And as Labour's landslide showed, Mr Taylor got that bit right.

But what has happened since is more important in the long term.

Since being elected, the Prime Minister has become a champion of Investors in People, which must have something to do with its popularity.

About 37 per cent of Britain's working population are reportedly involved to varying degrees in Investors in People, which is barely 10 years old. The Investors in People strategy seems to stick. Apparently, 93 per cent of organisations stay with it.

Mr Taylor is launching the strategy in New Zealand at the invitation of International Accreditation New Zealand, which holds the licence.

As he explains it, there are three attractive things about Investors in People.

* It involves just one document.

* It is highly versatile, applicable to any kind of organisation, including businesses, charities and the public service.

* It is all about people rather than procedures.

You could add a fourth - Investors in People does not claim to be the whole answer.

As Mr Taylor points out: "This is not a guru's snake-oil recipe."

Rather, Investors in People aims to show organisations where the gaps are and it is up to them to decide how to fill those gaps.

So what is Investors in People?

Basically it is about aligning employees with the organisation's goals. And that is about proper training at just about every level - give them the direction and the skills and they will do the job.

This sounds deceptively easy, but it is harder in practice. As Mr Taylor explains it, organisations have to know exactly what they are about. All that can be put on the one document.

Then they must explain their philosophy and goals to employees.

And finally, they must make sure the training employees get is exactly what is required to enable them to get on with meeting the company's goals.

Investors in People assessors roar through organisations like a dose of salts. They interview just about every animate object.

"We like to start at the top and we go down to quite junior level," explains Mr Taylor.

"We ask them what role they are expected to play and what competencies they have. If employees aren't up to speed, we ask the company what they're doing about it."

The gaps soon emerge. If the company is not clear about its destination, clearly its employees are aboard a ship without a compass.

After auditing hundreds of organisations through confidential conversations with employees, Mr Taylor has learned a lot about what makes the successful ones tick.

"You quickly get a consistency of evidence," he says.

Take communication. Here, he finds, the spoken word rules.

Employees of organisations with open management styles are generally much more in tune with what is required of them. In these organisations, management spends a lot of time with staff, telling them about the big issues and learning about what's working and what isn't.

"It's active communication," says Mr Taylor.

Managers who rely on the written word are fooling themselves.

"E-mails, bulletins, notices, company newsletters - people don't read them," says Mr Taylor.

"This is passive communication. It doesn't register on people. Anyway, if you look at a lot of written communication, it's boring and turgid."

Top people should be highly visible.

"It's not enough to sit in the office and say, 'My door is always open.' It's nonsense. Very few people will go and talk to the chief executive in his office. That's even if they can get past the personal assistant."

If Investors in People worked for the Labour Party, and works for about 40,000 British organisations, it must have something going for it.

It can probably expect a call from the National Party.