With both organisations and employees struggling on almost every front, many are asking themselves, where’s HR?
As everyone knows, organisations are facing unprecedented challenges across the board.
Increasing operating costs combined with falling revenues have made the past few years difficult for business leaders. At the same time, a cost of living crisis is taking its toll on employees as their ability to offset their expenses through overtime is a thing of the past leading to increased debt or even asset sales for the most exposed.
With so many people feeling the brunt, it's little wonder employees, just like those who employ them, are worrying about the future which is no doubt having an impact on their productivity. Not surprisingly, employee wellbeing – a result of all that’s happening – has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded leading many to ask themselves the question, what are their HR teams doing to help the organisation address it?
While there’s no doubt businesses are grappling with HR-related issues, understanding the cause of the employee disconnect remains a mystery to most even though it’s one we’ve been speaking about for years.
Having examined organisational performance for decades, we believe the breakdown in workplace relations we’re witnessing is a direct result of organisation’s doubling down on compliance-driven systems to try and improve their people's outputs.
Although organisations need employees to comply with company policies, using them as a means to manage their activities is unhelpful as it reduces their status in the business to a resource. This, in turn, undermines their interest in the company and with it, their desire to participate.
Despite the promise of control, rules-based systems are not a substitute for leadership and nor are they an effective mechanism to manage staff. Instead, they are either guardrails to mitigate risk or performance enablers to maximise efficiencies.
While many would argue with my hypothesis, we only need to look at the evidence to know there’s a problem. For example, why is it that the rise of compliance-based systems equates to a similarly notable fall in employee well-being and engagement?
Unlike many in the industry who argue that it’s all a hangover from Covid, I don’t. Instead, I believe it is a direct result of organisations trying to force their people to conform without understanding the impact prescriptive-based policies might have on their engagement.
For example, if you want to increase your people’s productivity, you need to strengthen their commitment to your business. However, if their relationship with the organisation is being supplanted by policies, you will undermine their initiative which is why employees the world over are feeling disillusioned as they assume it’s what leaders want hence the rise in dissidence. Not surprisingly, it’s also the reason managers across the board are losing their influence all the while being burdened with the responsibility of trying to fix it.
As studies are discovering, the more organisations try to ‘manage’ their people, the less of them they get. Conversely, the more leaders focus on increasing their relevance to the business, the more engaged they become. The fact is, trying to improve people’s productivity using rules-based policies has the opposite effect as it depersonalises the relationship and with it, their discretionary effort.
What’s changed?
To understand how we’ve arrived at this point, we need to recognise the context. As we know, employee expectations changed following COVID-19 to a point where what was previously ‘normal’ was tipped on its head. As a result, organisations found themselves having to contend with unforeseeable challenges all the while trying to keep the lights on.
This led to the introduction of workplace charters or guidelines as working from home for the masses became the only option. To leaders’ credit, however, most did their best to support their people even though the cost of doing so was having an impact.
As the situation evolved, however, it became clear to leaders that their productivity was taking such a hit that their ability to survive was suddenly in doubt. This led to the closer monitoring of staff to try and keep them performing all the while trying to support them given the pain was also personal.
Nevertheless, the enormity of the challenge caused many to believe that without directives, their company was at risk of failing; hence policies were tightened despite the risks they posed.
Fast forward to today, and we’re witnessing the unforeseen breakdown in the relationship between employers and their staff due to their attempts to protect their business.
It’s important I stress that while it’s an issue that needs to be resolved, it isn’t the fault of any one party but a consequence of executives’ efforts to keep their businesses afloat.
To move beyond their current state, however, organisations need to reset their agenda because until they do, their staff will remain indifferent to the problem as they will feel like there’s nothing they can do about it.
Back to policies and the role of HR
So what does all this have to do with an organisation’s policies and, for that matter, the role of HR?
Answer? Everything. Why? Because the most important thing organisations can do to get ahead is to provide their people with an opportunity to make a difference. However, if HR advisors allow their businesses to continue pursuing a path of compliance, they will destroy their interest in the business and with it, their aspiration to succeed.
A particular problem at the moment is the constant cycle of restructures which, although important, are becoming the headline act in almost every business. As a result, employees are feeling secondary to everything as they don’t know where they stand or whether they’ll have a job in the future.
Unfortunately, the distractions this has caused amongst staff has encouraged leaders to hold firm on this issue as they see leakage everywhere which they know they will have to plug if they’re to deliver on the expectation of shareholders.
This in turn leads to yet more stringent controls which are interpreted by staff as further evidence of their executive’s intent – to extract as much as they can out of them – which gets their backs up as they feel like they’re no longer valued.
Although the challenge differs between organisations, the compliance issue has been elevated to a point where it’s topped the mission hence people feel like they no longer matter despite what they’ve been told in the past.
In other words, if an organisation reaches a point where its policies become people’s defacto connection to the business (rather than the aspirations and encouragement of leaders) their desire to contribute will wane. This is because the overriding narrative suggests to them the business no longer supports them hence, we’re witnessing the erosion of trust in workplace relationships across industry.
So what’s the answer?
In simple terms, organisations need to affirm a new focus that reaches everyone – a focus the entire executive needs to champion that’s predicated first and foremost on building a high-performing business that’s committed to delivering on its promise to customers.
To achieve this, the executive needs to elevate people’s performance above everything to ensure they understand they’re critical to the organisation’s success as opposed to a resource that needs to be managed.
If this occurs, people will see a reason to move but if it doesn’t, it will lead to a slide to the bottom which sadly, is what many organisations are facing because of their inability to shift gears. In other words, the compulsion to make people productive is sucking the lifeblood out of businesses for no other reason than the relationship between parties has lost its meaning.
If you’d like to understand how Vantaset can help you lift the performance and productivity of your workforce, or build a more constructive high-performance culture, call us on +64 9 522 9409 or email us at info@vantaset.com
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