HR Professional - February/March 2008 - (Page 51)

But did the tea group wholly disappear? Certainly no one talks about them now, 30 years later, but elements of the concept remain. By the time of the tea group’s demise, many corporations were paying more attention to workplace mental health issues, probably prompting the rise of the employee assistance program. And team building exercises where people go skydiving together to cement work relationships? Really, that’s just another (extreme) way of illustrating that we all have our strengths and fears. “Tea groups were a different form, I suppose, of what they do now with Outward Bound-type teambuilding exercises that foster bonding and getting to know each other,” says Hackett. The latest thing Every year the business press comes out with a bookshelf of new HR titles, all touting new ideas, programs and systems that promise to revolutionize the organization. Authors go on book tours, consultants knock on doors promising to execute these changes within companies, and HR professionals look for ways to blend the more promising concepts into their workplaces. Sometimes HR fads flash and burn out, sometimes they stick, and often they’ll run their course and morph into something completely new. “My main observation about HR fads is that even though people tend to dismiss them, there’s always a kernel that sticks that helps people move forward,” says Lisetta Chalupiak, an HR manager at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. “Take Total Quality Management (TQM). When that first came out in the 1990s, we had a big introduction where we rolled out the concepts to staff here at the university. This is no longer a major focus for the university, however, the net result was a greater awareness of the need to work in teams, and to review processes to understand how you’re delivering services to constituent groups.” TQM is a good example of an HR trend that became immensely popular, ran its course and ultimately morphed into something new. It was a management strategy that focused on getting workers together in groups to identify areas in all aspects of the work environment that could be improved on an ongoing basis. It focused on three pillars: quality of return to the shareholder, quality of product to the consumer and quality of life in the workplace. “It hasn’t really disappeared more than TQM isn’t mentioned anymore as a buzzword,” says Hackett. “I think we can say TQM is a winner in that it has become commonplace in the culture, or subtly embedded in many organizations—there’s less of a need to have the formal quality sessions on a regular basis.” Not only that, but the core continuous improvement concepts behind TQM have since turned into completely new trends, such as quality management systems like ISO certifications and Six Sigma. w w w.H RThought L eader. c om F e b r u a r y / M a r c h 2 0 0 8 51 http://www.HRThoughtLeader.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - February/March 2008

HR Professional - February/March 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Boards By the Numbers Did You Know Sustainability Education News: E-Recycling Communications News: HR Study FYI Ethics World Watch News: Legislation Legal Compensation Focus Strategy The Colour of Money Sustainable Skills From Brown to Green HR Trends: From Winners to Also-Rans Branding Human Capital HR 101 Interview with David Suzuki Off the Shelf The Last Word

HR Professional - February/March 2008

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