HR at the top table

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the aspiration of Human Resources (HR) professionals to ‘‘be at the top table’’; what that means; and how such professionals can become highly valued members of business teams. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses what is meant by ‘‘top table’’ and the ambitions of HR professionals to be there. It looks at the prevalence of HR in top teams; how professionals are prepared for senior roles; and it provides a model for effective top team membership. Findings – The paper discusses the statistics of HR directors in top teams and concludes it should be no surprise that HR is not frequently represented on main boards. It makes the case nevertheless for HR to be on executive teams and finds about two-thirds of major companies recognise this. This paper describes a model of three key functional roles for the top team member and analyses the contributions that can be made. Practical implications – The practical applications relate to the development of HR professionals and to the expectations that team leaders – such as Chief Executive Officers – should have from the HR team member. Originality/value – This paper is based mostly on the writing, models and experience of the author but draws on relevant research papers. Keywords Added value from HR, HR business partnership, HR careers, HR on the boar

Applying HR analytics to talent management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to summarise the different areas of talent management and how HR metrics and analytics can be harnessed to make those areas more effective. Design/methodology/approach The paper first discusses the different definitions of “talent”. It then takes three areas for the application of metrics and analytics – data about individuals, the effectiveness and efficiency of talent processes and the extent of the supporting culture. Findings The definition of talent should not be confined to senior leadership only, nor be fully inclusive of every employee, but organisations need to define those individuals and groups where some specific attention will benefit the organisation; it is as important to understand the potential of all employees as it is to assess their performance; metrics should be chosen for all talent processes and related to business KPIs where possible. Practical implications This is a practical paper giving guidance to talent managers in organisations on how to apply and utilise people analytics. Originality/value This paper is based mostly on the writing, models and experience of the author

Mixed Markov models applied for population changes in Spain

In this paper, common patterns of transition are tried to find in population. We look for chains in order to group Spanish provinces into clusters. Besides, income changes are analysed by the same procedure. Finally, we combine both studies to compare them Population and income data since 1960 to 1996 are collected form I.N.E. (National Spanish Institute of Statistics) databases.

The evolution of organic mantles on interstellar grains

By laboratory simulation of the chemical processes on dust grains it was investigated how solid organic materials can be produced in the interstellar medium. The ice mantles that accrete on grains in molecular clouds, consisting primarily of H2O, CO, H2CO, NH3, and O2, are irradiated by the internal UV field, resulting in the storage of radicals upon photodissociation of the original molecules. Transient heating events lead to the production of oxygen-rich organic species by recombination reactions. The experiments indicated that in this way the observed amount of organic material can be produced if a grain passes a few times through a molecular cloud during its life. After the destruction of the cloud the grains enter a more diffuse medium. Here they are subjected to the interstellar UV field as well as to collisions with atomic hydrogen. Experiments show that the intense photoprocessing results in the removal of small species like H2O and NH3 as well as in carbonization of the organic molecules. Contrary to this, the atomic H flux will maintain a certain hydrogen level in the mantle. These processes likely convert the original, oxygen-rich organics into an unsaturated hydrocarbon type material such as that observed towards IRS 7 and in Comet Halley grains

Electric-arc heater Patent

Magnetically diffused radial electric arc heate