Vasant Kunj, New Delhi | +91 9810 232 822
Peter Drucker said ages ago that ‘all management is about people management’. Very surprisingly organizations are still struggling to deal with only one thing they need to handle well – their people. Many organisations espouse and claim that ‘people’ are their only resource or greatest resource. Mr Murthy, Founder of Infosys had said with dramatic effect that “all my assets walk out of this gate, every day”. Some words and phrases have gained currency over the last few years, in organizations people transaction vocabulary – War for talent, Attrition, Employee engagement, People Focus, Employees First etc.
Why is it that organizations still struggle to keep their folks together; keep them going in tough times; keep the best talent from moving out? Is that because often employees as asset are only a statement of fact without any ‘real’ commitment to it? Does it go beyond the ‘structure’ of employee engagement and employee motivation interventions? Is the ‘process’ part of the equation too complex?
Any organisational intervention has two distinct facets – structure and process. Most organizations over-emphasise the structure part of people interventions. Structure is part of masculine language and process is of feminine language. Structure is easy to replicate, easy to document, easy to report and easy to monitor. Processes are as much more difficult to implement, monitor, report or replicate. Process also demands individual competency that structure does not. Therefore, creating and following up with processes have inherent challenges. Processes are demanding – from creating to implementing to sustaining – at all levels. There may be a subtle difference between structure and process, in the context of ‘people’. People-structure is about know-who and know-what. People- process is about know-how. Structure in this context is about the ‘hard’ part that is codified, process is about ‘soft’ part that is often tacit. Structure helps in monitoring and ensuring compliance, while the process would help in being responsive.
This may have to do with masculine culture in most organizations. This is not about gender, but nuances of human behaviour processes. Masculine culture uses a different vocabulary and emphasises ‘results’, ‘performance’, ‘tasks’, ‘numbers’ etc. and therefore that is what gets delivered. On the flip side a feminine culture uses a different vocabulary that is about ‘process’, ‘engaging’, ‘experience’, ‘empathy’, ‘listening’
etc. Look at this infographics – it shows usage of only masculine vocabulary. Why is it that most of these do not deliver desired results? My argument is that if organizations focus on feminine vocabulary and action them, employee practices will yield much better results. From your own experience of organizations and anecdotes that you may have heard, ask ‘why employees leave an organization’ and ‘why employees don’t want to leave an organization’ – you will get this answer. People leave organizations because of the way think they are ‘treated’ and they remain in an organisation for long also for the same reason.
In the following paragraphs, you may find arguments that deconstruct this dilemma and then offers a simple formula to handle this conundrum, successfully. So you will find all kinds of fancy interventions being copied from other cultures and organizations. Understandably they hardly yield result, because these interventions are carried out as a ‘task’ and employees also ‘participate’ as a perfunctory task.
One simple formula therefore I am sharing to handle all the issues related to – War for talent, Attrition, Employee engagement, People Focus, Employees First etc. I call it 3 pillars of success with employees – Transparency, Fairness and Predictability.
If as Managers and Leaders, we create systems that are transparent and generate trust about it being so, a large battle is won. Most employee complaints, disengagement, dissatisfaction and disenchantment starts from here. Opaqueness leads to lack of trust. Creating trust may be a herculean task but destroying it is not. Organizations should therefore create activity flow chart of all key and regular employee processes and keep them easily accessible, for anyone who may need it. Policy manuals, guidelines and rules etc are fine but not good enough. Easy to understand process flow charts make all employee processes appear transparent and therefore trustworthy.
2nd pillar of success is fairness. Organizations also need to demonstrate they are fair in implementation of their policies and rules. Most organizations claim this, but employees may not feel the same way about them. One aspect of fairness is speed and agility of delivery mechanisms. Very simple things like employee reimbursements – if they take undue time in settlement, they are considered unfair. Now interesting thing here is that organizations look at their structure and may say this is a reasonable time to deliver. But if employees feel differently, it impacts both transparency and fairness. HR should be custodian of implementation of such processes but should not be made to decide what is transparent and what is fair. Implementation and judgment both should not be in same hands.
The 3rd pillar of success is predictability. It is fashionable to claim that rules are same for everyone, but I am sure you have experienced, organizations treat different people differently. Organizations often are reflections of neo-feudal system – senior vs juniors, competent vs not-so-competent, client-facing vs others, critical resource vs others et al. All these categorisations may affect predictability
Transparency Fairness Predictability of our employee processes and interventions. Implementation, impact and consequences should be secular and blind in nature. That build and reinforces predictability. When employees understand inflexibility of consequences, they often fall in line and enjoy it as well.
The 3 pillars mentioned here are part of feminine vocabulary and reinforce ‘happy experiences’ in an organisation and therefore drive all employee perceptions positively. A good mix of masculine and feminine vocabulary could make work life interesting, exciting and enjoyable. These 3 pillars – transparency, fairness and predictability – could greatly enhance quality of work life and employee experiences in any organisation. This will help successfully handle organisational challenges related to people.
Copyright © 2017, Naveen & Naveen. No part of this publication may be used, shared, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written approval.
B-8/6038, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi – 110 070 Phone:+91.9810.232.822, e-Mail: naveen@naveenconsulting.in