Policy is trumping people all over the world, says Duncan Brown, and it’s about time we practiced what we preach
I am just back from a fascinating four days teaching 30 senior HR managers on an international HR Masters programme in Moscow. The CIPD-approved programme is run in partnership by Kingston University, and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Affairs. With participants ranging from Rosneft, to Marks and Spencer, from Renaissance Capital, to HP, it provided that ideal mix of difference and distance combined with similarity of role and a shared HR agenda to reflect together on where our profession is and where it should be heading.
The challenges and issues we shared were probably very similar to yours: dealing with market and political uncertainty, with the threat of major shocks such as the Ebola epidemic and economic embargo on Russia; managing the impact of the economic environment, with a cost and pay-constrained recovery rapidly intensifying skill and talent shortages, and, as ever, initiating and coping with the seemingly continuous cycle of organisational restructuring and change. Overwhelmingly though, was the issue of how in this demanding external and internal context, we as HR professionals are tasked with improving individual, collective and corporate performance.
The HR responses and initiatives our employers are taking are also very similar, perhaps worryingly so. Managing major projects designed to implement organisation-wide, standardised policies in a consistent and efficient way, to develop talented and identikit leaders, so we can globally grade our managers and administer their pay and bonuses, plan and manage their performance.
Most interesting for me was the level of internal disquiet these senior managers expressed in the safety of this academic environment, at the imposition of externally-designed processes that don’t fit with the needs and culture of their organisation; at uniform processes that don’t have the flexibility to reflect the increasing diversity of people and cultures, leading to major implementation problems; at the top-down, often secretive, project process that commonly lacks local manager and employee involvement and buy-in at best, and leads to employee resistance and opposition at worst, and at the overwhelming cost rather than competence-driven agenda.
From the programme faculty’s perspective, I might add disquiet at the lack of research evidence as to the effectiveness and performance-impact of many of these initiatives. Most participants for example did employee attitude surveys, increasingly on an organisation-wide basis. Yet only a handful initiated any responses to the worryingly low levels of engagement that most of them reveal.
My conclusions based on this sample of HR leaders are that process is winning-out over purpose, projects over people, and policy over practice.
Yet I meet many managers in Aon Hewitt and client organisations who are as good as me at project, risk and financial management, the areas where our supposedly business-driven HR agenda seems to focus our activities. When I speak to business leaders, what they really need help with is how to motivate and engage their people to perform highly in these difficult environments. And that’s where HR can, does and needs to focus its contribution.
Fellow guest lecturer Andy Crossey from Capgemini described the key ingredient of their leadership development framework, La Niaque: the ability to secure drive, energy, engagement and commitment from their people.
According to professor Jeffrey Pfeffer in The Human Equation, the key challenge for HR and all our business leaders is “creating a fun, challenging, and empowered work environment in which individuals are able to use their abilities to do meaningful jobs, for which they are shown appreciation, to enhance motivation and performance – even though creating such an environment may be more difficult and take more time than merely pulling a reward or HR (project) lever.”
I didn’t come into HR to manage projects to deliver efficient grading, pay or flexible benefits processes, although that’s part of what I do. I came into the profession to improve people’s lives and thereby help them to succeed, for themselves and for their employers.
How about you, why did you come into HR and to what extent are you doing that in your job?