EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

www.henley.ac.uk/hrc

THE HENLEY CENTRE FOR HR EXCELLENCE BE EXCEPTIONAL. THE HENLEY WAY.

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The Henley Centre for HR Excellence is a group of leading national and multi-national organisations who share a common interest in achieving excellence in HR. It is led by highly experienced, senior HR practitioners with outstanding track records in taking a pragmatic, results-driven approach to organisational development. The Centre has been operating since 2005 and has built a strong reputation, both for thought leadership in the HR arena and for supporting the development of HR functions and individuals.

WHAT IS OUR POINT OF VIEW?We believe passionately in the pivotal importance of HR’s role in business, now more than ever. We also believe that HR needs to continually adapt and challenge itself to deliver what is asked of it. Right now, HR is being asked to deal with greater complexity, balancing tactical and strategic objectives whilst supporting productivity improvement and cost reduction. This has raised additional capability challenges which ask more of HR functions and the individuals within them than ever before. Through our own work, we find these capability challenges fall into three areas:

WHAT IS OUR APPROACH?Our approach is based on the premise that, to be effective, HR needs to understand how business actually works. Rigorous research enables us to explore and contextualise key areas of HR practice – but that research must be applied and HR teams must have the skills to use that intelligence to make a genuine, measurable difference to business performance.

Our values are illustrated in the diagram below; member organisations tell us they place most value on four:

WHAT DOES THE CENTRE FOR HR EXCELLENCE DO?The Centre has six core activities:

Nick brings a unique background that combines experience as an army officer, ten years as a successful futures and foreign exchange broker with Merrill Lynch and sixteen years in senior organisational leadership and people development roles in large global organisations. This background means he understands the theory but combines this with a proven ability to deliver and sustain change in highly complex organisations.

At the Centre, Nick has worked with a large number of organi-sations acros s public and private sectors to advance current thinking around HR. He has recently carried out research on employee engagement, HR in the recession, HR leadership, HR organisational models and performance management.

Nick has also worked in a large number of different countries around the world on a number of projects looking at change management, HR strategy and capability, leadership development, people and performance management and strategy implementation, as well as providing one-to-one coaching for a number of senior line and HR leaders up to CEO/Chairman level. Nick was recently voted the fifth most influential thinker in HR in the last 5 years.

Nick has had a successful corporate career across six sectors, his last role being Group Vice President Organisational Effectiveness. An engineer by education, Nick worked outside of HR for several years, before going on to set up and run Strategic HR/OD functions in renowned global businesses including Travelport, Prudential, Mars and BOC/Linde Group overseeing the development of strategic organisational capability and maximising business efficiency and productivity. He has setup and led resourcing, talent and leadership performance and L&D functions at global, regional and local levels. In his work with the Centre for HR Excellence, Nick works to develop organisational capability and HR functional capability, and has a particular focus on strategic workforce planning, OD, talent management and metrics.

Nick has worked with a large number of corporate, public sector and third sector clients around the world, and is sought after as a speaker and contributor to publications on a range of topics. Although known for his work in HR, the first half of his career was spent in project and business management for renowned businesses such as GE, GEC-Alstom and Rolls-Royce Aerospace, including considerable time working on Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Sales & Marketing issues.

Professor Nick Holley Co-director of The Centre for HR Excellence

Professor Nick Kemsley Co-director of The Centre for HR Excellence

Email: hrc@henley.ac.uk - Telephone: +44 (0)1491 418 885

Commerciality HR needs to have both commercial understanding and the financial acumen to be able to demonstrate how what it does contributes to the overall strategy and financial performance targets of the business. Too often HR is disconnected from these realities. As experienced, pragmatic HR practitioners we can help organisations interpret and apply that leading-edge insight to support business growth.

Practicality the Centre’s practitioners have ‘been there and done that’ in their extensive careers, so bring real practical experience to the programmes and organisations they work with.

Flexibility members tell us they value our ability to help translate models, learning and thinking to their specific situation, and to create bespoke approaches to develop capability actually inside their organisations if needed. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the Centre’s work.

Community the HR Centre is focused on collaborative learning led by experts in the field, and recognises the value in networking and sharing learning across organisations.

Emerging HR functional requirements• Being tactical in a strategic context• Doing fewer things, faster and cheaper• Changing focus from process to impact• Developing greater pragmatism, flexibility

and tolerance of ambiguity• Consolidating to create an organisational

capability offer

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Commercial & strategic capability• Understanding how business

works• Translating strategy to HR

priorities, processes and tools

• Understanding how to measure value

Political capability • Partnering behaviours • Influencing skills• Stepping up to the role

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• Research leveraging Henley’s capability and reputation to develop thought leadership which is topical, relevant and which has its foundation in validated research

• Events each year a number of one-day events provide an opportunity to learn, explore and debate around current hot topics for HR

• Open programmes an opportunity to focus on specific capability areas in more depth, developing skills participants can quickly apply on their return to work. These are open to both members (with a discount) and non-members

• Custom programmes tailored development activity for specific customers (member and non-member) – applying leading-edge thinking to support individuals and HR functions in a practical way as they up-skill HR teams and deliver change within their organisations.

• Consulting diagnostic work, facilitation, HR effectiveness support, process improvement, strategy development and other topics.

• Networking using the Centre’s events and contacts to bring individuals and organisations together for mutual learning and to build a community

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE INVOLVED?The Henley Centre for HR Excellence is led by people who exemplify its values:

This brochure is correct at the time of going to print (November 2015). Henley Business School reserves the right to amend any aspects of this information. For the latest information please see our website.

If you would like to find out more about The Henley Centre for HR Excellence and events please contact:

Emma Thompson

The Henley Centre for HR Excellence Henley Business School Greenlands Henley-on-Thames Oxfordshire RG9 3AU

hrc@henley.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)1491 418 885

www.henley.ac.uk/hrc

EFMD

HenleyBusinessSchool

Executive Education at Henley Business School

@HenleyBSchool

+Henleyacuk

HenleyBSchool

HOW TO GET INVOLVED?The greater the number of companies that get involved with the Centre, the more value we are able to deliver back to organisations. However, we recognise that some organisations want to have a closer working relationship with the Centre than others.

Membership via annual subscription• Participation in HR Centre research, access to results as

soon as they are available and a specific event to review findings in detail

• Attendance by up to 5 nominated individuals at all member-only Centre events

• A significant discount in fees for the Advanced HR Business Partner Programme and preferential rates on other open programmes

• Bespoke work via separate agreement at a competitive rate

Other ways of interacting with the centre• Attendance at any open programme• Consulting work• Tailored custom development programme• Participation in research