A recent case has provided further guidance in Australian employment law on the role of multiple decision-makers in matters involving the termination of employment. 

This case serves as a critical lesson for HR and employers on the importance of either a unified approach by all decision-makers involved in the termination process, or having a single impartial decision maker. 

The case also illustrates the importance of employers providing thorough and transparent reasons for termination of employment.

A brief outline of the case in question

In April 2020, a former employee and truck driver for a freight and logistics employer filed an adverse action application, alleging that the employer wrongfully dismissed him from his position.      

Among other allegations, he claimed that this action was in contravention of statutory protections, as he had exercised a workplace right and believed that the dismissal was in response to him exercising this right.

The Federal Circuit and Family Court found that the former employee’s dismissal was not due to alleged safety breaches or unprofessional behaviour as asserted by the managers. Rather, the Court found that the dismissal constituted unlawful adverse action against the former employee by the employer in relation to having exercised workplace rights, including requesting flexible work arrangements, querying the alleged underpayment and initiating proceedings with the Fair Work Commission.

The dismissal occurred after the national HR manager perceived the former employee’s queries about a flexible work arrangement to care for his child, and his queries about alleged underpayment, as “badgering” and “harassing”. 

The Court found that most of the former employee’s email interactions were respectful, and that he was seeking solutions to genuine issues, not harassing the HR manager. 

The HR manager acknowledged to the Court that in the event of significant safety violations involving an employee, it would be standard procedure for the overseeing manager to initiate a comprehensive investigation. However, the HR manager admitted that there was no paperwork before the Court about any investigation having been conducted into any of the alleged safety matters involving the former employee.

The Court highlighted that there was no documented evidence showing how the single alleged safety incident, which reportedly resulted in a “verbal warning”, transformed into a history of safety issues in breach of the employer’s ‘Three Strike Policy’, or “continual breaches” of that policy, which were given by the employer as reasons for the dismissal decision. 

The Court pointed out that there was a deficiency of credible evidence from the employer regarding the investigation and clarification of supposed safety issues involving the former employee. Moreover, evidence of the explanations provided by the employer for the dismissal was either non-existent or lacked credibility as to how the alleged safety concerns were factored into the decision to terminate the worker’s employment. 

This lack of evidence and plausible explanation convinced the Court that the alleged safety issues likely never occurred. Further, the Court held that the safety issues could not have been significant or influential factors in the decision to dismiss the former employee. 

The Court found no evidence of the serious safety issues that were claimed to have occurred, and accordingly, concluded that these could not have been substantive or valid reasons for the dismissal.

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The intricacies of decision-making in dismissal cases

A key aspect of this case was the involvement of multiple decision-makers, including the national HR manager, a partner of the business, the national transport manager and two state-level managers. 

Despite there being five decision makers, only two of these individuals provided evidence to the Court about the reasons for the dismissal of the former employee – the national HR manager, and the national transport manager. 

The Court found no explanation or evidence capable of discharging the reverse onus imposed on the employer in matters like this. 

Accordingly, the Court was satisfied that adverse action had been taken against the former employee by the employer in dismissing him from his employment for exercising his workplace rights.

Understanding the reverse onus of proof 

Under the applicable Australian law, once an employee establishes an apparent case that their dismissal may have been due to the exercise of workplace right(s), the onus shifts to the employer to prove otherwise. 

In this case, the employer had failed to discharge the reverse onus as it did not provide sufficient evidence or explanation from all decision-makers involved in the dismissal of the former employee.

The Court determined that the employer did not provide adequate evidence to counter the presumption that the former employee was dismissed for exercising his workplace rights. 

The absence of evidence from other decision-makers besides the national HR and transport managers left the Court without a substantive defence from the employer. 

The ruling stated: ‘There was no opportunity for the state of mind or mental processes of the not-called other joint decision-makers to be exposed to or considered by the Court. Further, the Court can also infer that those other joint decision-makers were not called because their evidence may not have assisted [the employer’s] case that the reasons for the dismissal were limited to alleged safety issues and alleged unprofessional behaviour.” 

The judge noted that the former employee’s minor disrespect in an email came late in a series of communications and did not justify dismissal. Instead, the timing suggested that a reason for dismissal may have been the former employee’s threat to involve the Fair Work Ombudsman, which occurred the day before the discussion of his dismissal.

Further, the national HR manager and national transport manager admitted that they had omitted some reasons for the former employee’s dismissal in the dismissal letter. The Court found that these omitted reasons included the former employee’s complaints about underpayment, which are a protected workplace right. 

Lessons for HR and employers 

This case highlights several important lessons for HR and employers. Firstly, it’s essential that all decision-makers are aligned and that their reasons for termination are comprehensively documented and presented. 

Had the employer in this case led uniform evidence from all the decision-makers about the reasons for termination, the result may have been different. Discrepancies or omissions in the reasons for dismissal will likely be detrimental, as seen in this case.

Secondly, employers must be aware of the reverse onus of proof where purported workplace rights are being exercised and prepare accordingly. This involves having a clear, documented rationale for termination that is not related to an employee exercising a workplace right. 

Finally, where possible, employers should elect to have an impartial and sole decision maker in dismissal matters – ideally, someone who is not involved in any previous process or the facts of a matter which may lead to the dismissal of an employee. 

The decision maker should ideally not be familiar with or involved in any workplace rights that the employee may have, or have exercised. Their decision regarding any disciplinary action, including dismissal, should be based objectively on the employee’s performance, conduct or behaviour. Accordingly the decision maker’s lack of knowledge about any workplace rights in the matter, would be advantageous. 

This decision is a reminder of the consequences of inadequate preparation and inconsistent decision-making in adverse action cases. 

The matter is set to proceed to a penalty hearing for the contravention of the relevant legislations, with legal costs reserved.

Aaron Goonrey is a Partner and leads the Australian and APAC Employment & Rewards practice at Pinsent Masons and Yuliya Chis is an Associate at Pinsent Masons. The advice in this article is general in nature and does not constitute formal legal advice.

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Executives in Australia are increasingly turning to talent analytics to derive insights on outcomes such as employee attrition, performance and sentiment to influence talent and business decisions. While many leaders value the availability of this data, few feel confident their organisation is maximising its potential.

According to Gartner research, 78 per cent of HR leaders say their organisation relies more heavily on talent data to make decisions compared to four years ago. However, 71 per cent agree that current team structures and capabilities limit their ability to use these insights effectively.

To be successful, HR leaders need to focus on developing the skills of their HR team members to help them become:

1. Analytics experts who manage and prepare the data to produce insights 
2. Decision enablers who interpret the information and apply learnings
3. Strategic consultants who influence broader business priorities as tactical communicators.

Doing so will enable talent analytics to influence HR’s biggest functional decisions and act as a central driver of innovation throughout the organisation by providing objective and timely advice.

Building a culture of analytical learning

Skilled talent analytics experts play a crucial role within any organisation. They are responsible for maintaining data, effectively analysing it and supporting an integrated approach to workforce planning and risk management, among other strategic activities. 

To develop analytics experts, HR leaders must build a culture of technical learning within their team. This can be achieved by fostering collaboration between those responsible for talent analytics and the learning and development (L&D) team. 

This will help HR leaders identify technical skills gaps within the team and create learning pathways that ensure employees stay ahead of new methods and technologies. 

Rotational programs with IT or data and analytics functions can also be introduced to bolster technical skills and knowledge. 

“Traditional earning mechanisms won’t be enough. A core competency that drives effective decision enablement is the business acumen that can only be gained through experience.”

Using data-driven HR to develop strong decision makers

Gartner research reveals only nine per cent of HR leaders feel their department has been truly successful at arming their team with data to enable them to support workforce-related business decisions. 

Given that talent processes can be disrupted by external changes and technology, HR decision-makers need uninterrupted access to relevant data to gain a deep understanding of HR’s priorities and activities. 

The L&D function can also be an invaluable partner here by facilitating regular knowledge exchanges on priorities, emerging trends and insights between talent analytics experts and HR leaders. 

However, traditional learning mechanisms won’t be enough. A core competency that drives effective decision enablement is the business acumen that can only be gained through experience.

Developing true business acumen and the underlying competencies of industry, organisational and financial knowledge is best achieved through a combination of classic development activities combined with high-impact, hands-on learning moments.

For example, providing HR team members with the opportunity to work in cross-functional teams to lead change initiatives, build and execute business cases or play a significant role in delivering a solution can transform by-the-book thinkers into strategic problem solvers and innovators.

From tactical directives that respond to changing business conditions to supporting the entire employee life cycle, this approach ensures leaders can make data-driven talent decisions with confidence.  

Becoming a strategic partner

Executives and business leaders often face many competing priorities, particularly when managing the interests of shareholders, internal stakeholders and customers. As a result, HR leaders can struggle to effectively influence their decision making, even when equipped with data or insights.

According to a Gartner survey, 81 per cent of talent analytics leaders state that it’s important for their team to be proficient in strategic consulting. However, less than half (47 per cent) are currently satisfied with their team’s proficiency.

Rather than focusing on relationship management approaches designed to drive stakeholder satisfaction, strategic consultants should build and hone skills such as persuasion and storytelling with data, which can empower HR to be more effective in their dealings with stakeholders. 

To do this, consultants need to develop a deeper understanding of their business stakeholders’ needs and drivers, along with demonstrating the impact of their interactions. 

Feedback from business stakeholders and measures of consultants’ performance should go beyond the basics of capturing face-to-face time to collect real evidence of when HR insights have resulted in action.

Similarly to decision enablers, strategic consultants benefit from connecting with other department leads or C-suite members, fostering partnerships between talent analytics and other functions. Creating these relationships allows for the sharing of best practices and can help inform talent analytics teams about which HR technologies (e.g., data visualisation tools) are the most effective for sharing insights with stakeholders.

HR leaders who can implement these steps will be well-placed to grow their talent analytics function, increase their credibility, influence innovation and drive critical business decisions. 

Robin Boomer is a Senior Director, Advisory in Gartner’s HR Practice. He provides strategic advice and insights to support HR leaders and strategic workforce planning teams.

Understand the principles of data-driven decision making and learn to apply a data-driven mindset to HR strategies and challenges with AHRI’s foundational short course in People Analytics. Take the advanced course to elevate your workforce data management and analytical skills in a business context.

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When an important decision needs to be made at work, it’s often our first instinct to call together a group of minds to tackle the problem. After all, two – or five, or 10 – heads are better than one, right?

While studies have shown that groups tend to make better decisions than individuals, the benefits of different perspectives and expertise among group members can only be leveraged when they feel comfortable expressing those perspectives, even when they contradict the current train of thought.

When a group dynamic leaves teams reluctant to challenge the ideas on the table, the desire for consensus can lead to narrow-mindedness and poor decision-making – a phenomenon also known as ‘groupthink’. 

“When people who come together to discuss an issue converge on a particular direction or perspective, and start to self-silence or silence voices that might dissent, there can be an excessive alignment that can sometimes lead the group in a bad direction,” says Jennifer Overbeck, social psychology expert and Professor of Management at Melbourne Business School.

“[Maybe] they’re trying to impress each other, or they don’t want to rock the boat or they don’t want to seem like they don’t know as much as their colleague does. So, for all sorts of reasons, people will land on a wrong answer early, and then everybody just gets really aligned behind that wrong answer.”

What is groupthink?

The term ‘groupthink’ was coined by psychologist Irving Janis in the 1970s, who used it to characterise the way a group setting can interfere with good decision-making. Janis identified a number of symptoms of groupthink, including the illusion of invulnerability, an unquestioning belief in the morality of the group and stereotyping of those outside the group. 

Decisions affected by groupthink, he said, tend to overlook alternative courses of action and ignore the risks involved in a given decision. 

Janis referred to a number of historical examples of foreign policy decisions that were likely influenced by groupthink, including the escalation of the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs invasion. In a more modern context, some have attributed online ‘cancel culture’ to mass groupthink. 

In a workplace context, groupthink can creep into decision-making when employees feel pressure to conform to the majority opinion or the views of a dominant leader within the group, even when they have reservations or alternative ideas. 

Or, a group may be reluctant to change course or admit mistakes, even in the face of mounting evidence that their decision was flawed, because they have invested time, effort and/or resources into the chosen path – a phenomenon known as the ‘sunk cost fallacy’.

According to Overbeck, teams can be particularly susceptible to groupthink when the presence of a senior leader leaves junior employees afraid to speak up.

“Anytime there’s a power difference, there’s going to be a tendency for people to say the things they think the powerful person wants to hear. And the more power distance there is, the more pronounced that will be,” she says.

“Unless the leader takes steps to prevent that, and really explicitly says that decision quality matters more to them than agreement or their own view, power can have a big impact [on groupthink].”

Decision-making is also not the only area where groupthink can cause harm at work, she adds.

“It’s even things like, ‘What is acceptable behaviour?’, ‘What kind of culture do we have?’ or ‘How do we treat people?’,” she says.

For instance, if someone has a reputation as a ‘star’ worker, this collective perception of them might lead us to overlook any damaging behaviour they might display.

“Because there’s such a strong norm to congratulate and celebrate the person, it takes on a momentum of its own and that person is just a superstar whether they deserve it or not.” 

“Anytime there’s a power difference, there’s going to be a tendency for people to say the things that they think the powerful person wants to hear.” – Jennifer Overbeck, Professor of Management, Melbourne Business School

What steps can leaders take to minimise groupthink?

To help keep groupthink under control, Overbeck advises a number of strategies leaders can use to ensure critical thinking is able to thrive in a group setting.

1. Cultivate an environment where employees feel comfortable voicing their views

To prevent groupthink arising in team settings, leaders’ most important goal should be creating a dynamic where all group members feel safe to express their point of view and speak up when they have questions or contradictory views. 

As well as ensuring all members of the group are given the chance to say their piece, leaders can help to facilitate this by modelling good behaviour when it comes to taking criticism, says Overbeck. 

“One thing I’ve seen some leaders do very skillfully is to demonstrate really clearly that they are willing to change their mind. A lot of times, leaders feel like they have to show strength by being very consistent: ‘I came in saying I believe X, so I need to be consistent and make sure that I follow through with X.’ But that won’t necessarily get you the best-quality decisions.

“If you come in and instead you say, ‘I’m starting off thinking X, but I want to hear what you all have to say,’ then they can ask questions like, ‘What could be wrong with X?’ or ‘What would be the worst-case scenario if we did X?’ If they make a habit of this, [they] model what it looks like to gracefully and confidently change [their mind] even though they’re the boss.”

Another way to create an environment where employees feel comfortable to speak up is to reframe the purpose of the meeting away from decision-making, she says.

“[Instead], frame the purpose of the meeting not as making a decision, but as getting all of the information out and trying to understand the problem as clearly as possible.

“When we know there’s a decision to be made, and think success means we walk out here today with a decision, that changes the discussion. When [leaders] explicitly say at the beginning of the meeting, ‘The goal today is not to make the decision, the goal is to make sure that we understand the space of the decision as fully as possible,’ that usually will allow information to come out in a way that helps to inoculate against groupthink.”

Read HRM’s article on how to facilitate healthy dissent in the workplace.

2. Assemble diverse groups for decision-making

If the key to group decision-making is to leverage more than one perspective, assembling employees from similar backgrounds and areas of the business may end up being a recipe for groupthink. As author Edward Abbey once said, “Where all think alike, there is little danger of innovation.”

Studies have consistently shown that diverse teams make better decisions than homogenous ones, given the broad range of perspectives they bring to the discussion. 

However, Overbeck cautions that the value of diverse teams is only realised under an inclusive leader. 

“In the hands of an unskilled leader who doesn’t know how to work with different people, then you actually see more self-censoring, [and] more silencing of voices on the basis of identity.“

As well as demographic diversity, Overbeck suggests ensuring that teams have functional diversity, bringing perspectives from different levels and areas of the organisation, which will help teams make well-informed, strategic decisions.

3. Appoint a devil’s advocate

To counteract a groupthink dynamic created by ‘yes’ people, organisations can designate a ‘no’ person, or a devil’s advocate.

The role of the devil’s advocate is to take a more critical perspective to the ideas on the table, presenting contrary opinions and asking important questions about issues that may arise as a result of the decision. 

However, Overbeck warns that there are right and wrong ways to employ the devil’s advocate model in a workplace context.

“Devil’s advocate will fail if there’s always one person who’s the devil’s advocate, and [it] will fail if that person is self-appointed as the devil’s advocate, because we tend to think, ‘Oh, that’s just [this person]. [They’re] always making noise about everything,’” she says.

“The devil’s advocate works when we have rotating devil’s advocates, and everybody knows they’re going to take a turn. So it’s not about being a crank and trying to derail everything – it’s my job. I’m going to do it today. And you’ll have to do it next week. [That way], you’re not going to make as many negative attributions.”

A larger-scale alternative to the devil’s advocate strategy is dialectical decision-making. This model involves assembling two teams to deliberate opposite courses of action, who then come together to present their findings.

“It’s a really good technique, but it’s a lot more intensive,” says Overbeck. “Dialectical decision-making is better when there’s really high uncertainty, and your team’s sketching out what [they] think the future could look like under these conditions. [This model] allows everybody to latch on to a vision of something to be able to debate that uncertainty.”

By leveraging these models to combat groupthink and encouraging an atmosphere of openness to others’ ideas, Overbeck says leaders can help enhance ‘group intelligence’ among teams.

“We have IQ, [which is] an intelligence factor for individuals. [But] there’s also a group intelligence factor,” she says.

“You might think the intelligence of a group was just the sum of individual intelligence, but it’s not; groups develop an intelligence that’s not related to just adding individual intelligence together. And [something] that seems to really matter for group intelligence is social awareness and being sensitive to each other.

“That suggests that the more we can promote social sensitivity to each other, being tuned in to each other, being connected to each other, pausing to listen, asking good questions, setting aside our own needs for a minute and thinking about that other person, all of those things should be really, really helpful for avoiding groupthink.”

Develop the necessary skills to build and sustain a high performing team and tap into the individual potential of team members with this short course from AHRI.

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Google ‘How many decisions does the average adult make each day’? (or allow us to do it for you) and you might be surprised by the result. Article after article quote 35,000 decisions as the standard. Cornell University research suggests 226.7 of those decisions are solely based around food (this checks out for me).

This 35,000 figure would factor in sleeping time and equate to roughly 1500 decisions per hour, which sounds excessive, says Associate Professor Guillermo Campitelli, Psychology Lead at Murdoch University. 

This statistic is most likely factoring in automatic decision-making, he says, like moving our legs as we’re walking or scratching our head, so perhaps it’s not indicative of the average human’s daily mental load. 

However, there is no denying that we face a mountain of decisions in our professional and personal lives every day. So learning how to strengthen our decision-making capabilities can only be a good thing. Here are some research-backed ways to do that.

Use tripwires to streamline decision-making

You may have heard the story of Van Halen’s David Lee Roth requesting a bowl of M&Ms to be backstage ahead of each performance, with all the brown M&Ms removed. If they weren’t removed, he’d flip out.

On paper, this looks like a diva meltdown 101, but what Roth was actually doing was setting up a tripwire – that is, an indicator that pulls you out of auto-pilot mode or determines the next action that you’ll take, i.e. ‘If we can’t make X happen, we need to proceed to do Y, but Y will only be deemed a viable option if Z has occurred.’

In Roth’s case, it wasn’t a hatred of brown M&Ms that enraged him, it was the indication that the people responsible for setting up the stage hadn’t paid close attention to his set-up list – which included lots of important safety information for their complex set. If they’d forgotten the M&Ms, what else had been skipped?

He didn’t waste time going around ensuring every screw was tightly wound. He just decided that he needed a tripwire that would determine if they’d proceed with the set-up or pull everything down and start from scratch. 

Including your own tripwire in the decision-making process – such as ‘We will only allocate more budget to this product if it shows more than a 5 per cent ROI – helps to ease the burden of making a tough call come crunch time.

Look for satisficers

Campitelli’s research focus on decision-making was inspired by Herbert Simon, who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978 for his contributions to modern business economics and administrative research.

“He coined the term bounded rationality… He said decision-making models in mainstream economics [usually] assume that humans are rational, so they had to investigate if that was true.

“He decided to study chess players,” says Campitelli. “As they were playing, he asked them to say out loud what they were thinking. He looked at patterns of how they make decisions, and [off the back of this], he coined a term called ‘satisficing‘.”

In short, while some people might think that analysing all your options before selecting the one with the highest value is the best approach, Simon suggested this wasn’t rational.

“You’ve got time pressures to consider – especially in a chess game,” says Campitelli.

“So Simon says chess players set a threshold in which they would be satisfied. If one of the options reaches that threshold, that’s the option they go with, rather than analysing all the possible options. You look for the one that’s satisfactory, not optimal.”

Sometimes it’s good to remind yourself that near enough is good enough in order to move on with more high-value work.

“Availability heuristics help us to judge how frequently things occur without needing to go through our [mental] filing cabinet of evidence.  – Ryan Metcalfe, cognitive scientist and lecturer at University of Queensland

Ideate options alone

Renowned Wharton Business School professor Adam Grant is a proponent of individualising the decision-making process. We shouldn’t be making decisions as a group, he suggests. Instead, we should formulate options on our own and then take that to the group for feedback where we finesse and tweak the idea.

Groups are far more efficient at building on an idea – that’s when diversity of thought makes all the difference – but you’ll just get stuck in circles if you’re trying to make decisions as a pack, or you can fall intro groupthink or authority bias, says Ryan Metcalfe, cognitive scientist and lecturer at University of Queensland.

“People in the group tend to go in a specific direction and then, through social conformity, everyone follows along. Everyone feels convinced that they’re all making a really good decision, but there’s no diversity,” says Metcalfe.

He refers to an experiment in which participants had to guess the amount of jelly beans in a jar.

“You can have 100 people make an estimate of how many jellybeans are in the jar, and if you take the average of those estimates, pretty much every time it will be the single best guess out of all of the 100 people. 

“However, if you give people the opportunity to speak to each other before they make their estimate, they will anchor on each other’s guesses and you reduce the diversity in those estimates, so your average is worse.”

Understand how heuristics help and hinder

Without even realising, our brains develop mental shortcuts, known as heuristics, that help us bypass the process of trawling through our memory to gather the information we need to make a decision.

“Heuristics are intuitive judgments where we don’t necessarily need to think very hard,” says Metcalfe. “By relying on these shortcuts, we’re able to take those little decisions throughout our day and increase our efficiency without [relying heavily on our] mental processes.”

In many cases, this is a great thing. It means our cognitive load isn’t depleted following the many micro-decisions we face each day – What coffee should I order? Should I take a left or right turn? Should I hit the snooze button again? 

However, there are certain decisions that require considered thought, says Campitelli. In these instances, heuristics can do more harm than good. This is especially true in a workplace sense.

Take an employee who is exhibiting bad behaviour, for instance. Metcalfe says a manager might call on ‘the availability heuristic’ when addressing the matter.

“The availability heuristic helps us to judge how frequently things occur without needing to go through our [mental] filing cabinet of evidence. We use the ease with which we can recall instances of a particular thing to make a judgement about how often it happens,” says Metcalfe.

For example, say an employee has been performing poorly since they returned to the workplace after lockdown, but they’re generally one of your top performers. They’re late meeting a deadline for the third time this week, and you notice they’ve forgotten to follow up on an important email. If you pull them into a performance meeting, you might be more likely to come down hard on them due to the recency of their performance issues. 

You could assume they’ve always been forgetful or conclude that meeting deadlines is a consistent challenge for them. Heuristics can lead to systemic biases, says Metcalfe.

“Things that come to mind easily are salient in our memory – they’re things that may be highly emotional or surprising. Perhaps you’ve only seen a couple instances of them, but they’re easy to remember, so you might make an unfair judgement.”

So how do you pull yourself out of this? Be systematic in your decision-making, he says. 

Relying on gut feelings alone is unlikely to generate the best result. Use those gut feelings as an indicator that you need to dig a little deeper and investigate and bring in a third party to consider whether bias is coming into your decision. 

Be conscious of your existing cognitive load

If you have too many options, you become overwhelmed, says Campitelli. It’s called the Paradox of Choice or decision fatigue.

“You start getting confused when you’re presented with too many options and you start making worse decisions if you consider all the options,” he says.

That’s why people like Mark Zuckerberg talk about wearing the same style of t-shirt every day. It’s one less decision they need to make. This might make you roll your eyes. Is anyone really that busy that they can’t choose a shirt to wear that day?

“I’m not so sure about the claims about picking a different coloured shirt is going to fatigue my capacity to redesign Facebook,” says Metcalfe.

It’s less about reducing the number of decisions you make and more so about reducing the type of decisions you’re making, he says.

“Cognitive load refers to the amount of mental strain that we’re dealing with at any given time while we’re trying to complete another task.

“If I’m drafting a report and then I get an email from my boss reprimanding me, that’s quite stressful. I also know that after work, I’ve got to go to my couples counselling session with my wife and I’ve got a deadline in the next half hour. I’ve got a lot on my mind… in that case, I’m probably not functioning optimally as I’m burdening my executive functioning.”

When faced with big, complex decisions that need to be made, Metcalfe suggests taking time to pause and reflect on the various factors that are potentially competing for your cognitive resources. If there’s too much going on, the old adage ‘sleep on it’ can do wonders.

Final quick decision-making tips

• • Implement bayesian reasoning – Campitelli says this is about not getting stuck in your prior beliefs while also not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Amalgamate your existing view with new information to “update your beliefs”.
    
    “It happens a lot in organisations where they’re looking for a new way of working, for example, and they think they need to abandon the old approach. The knowledge that you’ve acquired so far should be incorporated with new ideas.”
  • Schedule things into your diary, such as when you’ll go to the gym or grocery shopping. This means you don’t have to carry around that mental load in your mind all day, says Metcalfe.
  • Don’t let expectations cloud your decision-making process, says Metcalfe.
    
    “If you feel like your boss is a grumpy person, any situation you go into with [your boss] will be coloured by that expectation,” he says. “The interactions we have with people are inherently ambiguous; every single thing that we perceive is an interpretation.”
    
    Because this happens automatically and unconsciously, it can be hard to avoid. He suggests considering your situational and environmental factors as a way of bringing some of these biases into your consciousness. “It requires deliberate, mindful practice. Seek feedback from other people before you draw conclusions based on your own interpretations.”

Ryan Metcalfe will be unpacking the Sunk Cost Fallacy in the upcoming edition of HRM magazine. Sign up to become an AHRI member to receive your monthly copy.

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It’s often hard to find one good hire, let alone two. So when recruiters and hiring managers find themselves in the unusual situation of having two seemingly perfect candidates and only one position to fill, it’s a good problem to have.

Although, it’s still a problem. While you know you’ll end up with a great new employee regardless, it’s not easy to choose between two equally qualified, talented and deserving candidates. So when push comes to shove, how do you decide who gets the coveted role?

Looking at your candidates from multiple angles and testing their abilities practically can be the tie breaker you need to help you make the final decision.

First things first: break the tie, don’t cut the rope

When you find yourself with two equally qualified candidates, a few clever tactics can help you choose the front runner. But when you’re choosing “the one” make sure you don’t cut off the other candidate in the process.

As an organisation you want both candidates to have a positive experience in the hiring process, regardless of the outcome. And importantly, if one doesn’t accept the offer or if another position opens up down the line, you’ve already got a perfect candidate you can call on.

Think ‘culture add’

No doubt you’ve asked yourself this question already: are they going to be a good cultural contributor? However, leaning too heavily on ‘culture fit’ when hiring can lead to a homogeneous culture, a lack of diversity and even unconscious bias.

Try thinking of ‘culture contributor’ instead. Culture contributors can bring a diverse set of traits, values and backgrounds, as well as new energy that drives innovation while also making your workplace more welcoming and inclusive for future candidates.

Does either candidate stand out for the different perspectives and experiences they could bring to your company? Is one of them from a group that’s underrepresented on your current team and so could bring viewpoints you perhaps haven’t considered in the past?

Vet for soft skills

Vetting for soft skills will help to crystallise what a candidate can contribute to company culture.

Communication, conflict resolution and problem-solving help staffers address issues. Creativity and critical thinking help to find new solutions. Empathy and flexibility mean staff work well in a team and get along with others.

Ask yourself, has either of the candidates highlighted instances of collaboration, problem solving, or excellent communication in the application or interview process? If not, ask the candidates for examples of when they’ve demonstrated such soft skills. Or perhaps you could have candidates rank their soft skills from most to least important to see if their priorities align with the business.

Plan for the future

While it’s obviously important to address immediate needs, thinking about the direction you want your organisation to take in the future can help to differentiate between two equal candidates.

It’s imperative to hire candidates who can support growth and take the organisation forward. To evaluate this, assess each candidate within the context of your current team and their individual characteristics. Can you envision one candidate making a more positive contribution to the organisation’s future than the other? Does one candidate bring with them a particularly useful or rare skill that could potentially create a new offering or solution to a problem?

Let’s say your candidates are competing for a marketing role in a medium-sized, growing company. Both candidates have the relevant experience and can present compelling case studies for the job. One of them has built a side business while they’ve been between jobs, to test lead-generation tactics. The other is a digital marketer with a global corporation and writes and analyses blog content. Does one seem better prepared to meet the direction your company is headed and propel you forward?

Put it to the test

If you still don’t have a clear winner, set a test or conduct a practical interview to see the candidates’ skills in action. Some examples of how you can test for exceptional skills include:

• For copywriter candidates, present them with a realistic creative brief to write.
• For marketing strategists, put together a short client brief and ask them to provide sound recommendations to meet it.
• For customer service officers, put together a short list of customer issues and have them demonstrate how they’d resolve them.

These kinds of activities will demonstrate how candidates operate in a real-life work setting and can really help to illuminate if one candidate stands out from the other.

When it comes to deciding between two people you really want to hire, it’s  important to ask these tough questions. Your answers will highlight which candidate is the best possible fit for the role and while it can be a tricky process, the right hire is worth their weight in gold.

Paul Wolfe is SVP of Human Resources at Indeed. He oversees all global human resource functions, including talent acquisition, employee retention, compensation, benefits, and employee development.

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1. There’s a leader in all of us

When Sir Bob Parker was the mayor of Christchurch, the city suffered a series of devastating earthquakes, culminating in a 25 second destructive force that occurred five kilometres below the city. It was equivalent to three times the strength of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II. Christchurch suffered 185 deaths, 10,000 immediate injuries and is still dealing with the long-lasting effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the city’s leader, Parker was thrust into the middle of the crisis, but he doesn’t take individual credit for gearing the city out of the woods. “Each and every one of you is capable of extraordinary things, of being great leaders,” said Parker in his opening address of the Public Sector Conference at the 2018 AHRI Convention and Exhibition. “But sometimes it takes a crisis to bring it out of us.”

Leading the city through the devastation required some key things: authenticity, collaboration, supporting the people and strong decision-making. “We stayed honest about the facts,” says Parker. “There were no cover-ups. We worked hard to communicate with our community. We needed to create a clear vision that we would get out of this.”

Parker was quick to note that the effort was by no means singular, which is something any organisation should take heed of. “Any achievement I received was a result of the great people around me,” he says. “What works is the network. I knew the right people in key roles, such as the police chief and fire brigade chief. Those strong relationships are crucial to leadership.” 

When an earthquake of this magnitude hits, and buildings and businesses come tumbling to the ground, coming into work is neither a priority or a possibility. Christchurch was essentially out of commission for six weeks. Parker said there was a strong belief that the city would recover, and that meant building it back up by supporting their people.

“We changed the rules, we did what we shouldn’t,” says Parker. “Because what was the point of rules? We might not have always done everything right, but we never refused to make a decision. Like, which person can I save?”

Delegate Scott Beasley from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources said the lesson he took away from Parker’s presentation was the importance of “just doing something”.

“Don’t get stuck in a decision-making process. We’ve all got leadership abilities within us and it will come out at the appropriate time. [As HR practitioners] we need to learn how to harness that leadership before we have a critical incident,” said Beasley.

2. Ethics not processes

Christchurch’s crisis was beyond any human’s ability to stop or control. Whereas the crises faced by organisations are often embedded in past mistakes.

This is what occurred in the Department of Defence after a 2016 report into its “rancid” culture. Justine Greig, director general people strategy and culture at the Department of Defence, said post-report there was an overhaul of the ethics, leadership accountability and decision-making processes of the organisation. Also speaking at the Public Sector Conference, Greig noted that the processes and rules that govern decision-making can lead to misguided acts, simply because they aren’t coming from the right place.

Paula Goodwin, first assistant secretary (chief operating officer) Department of Environment and Energy, echoed this sentiment: “When we have such a rules-based approach, we forget how to help people make inherently good decisions.”

“Most people go to their immediate manager for advice about ethical decisions. So how do we build these managers up so that they have good decision-making processes?” she says. “Rules can take away the ability to think ethically. We need to instead, build this capability in people. Setting expectations is the key motivator.”

Peter Collins, director, Centre for Ethical Leadership, believes HR has a much bigger role to play in leadership than they currently exercise. “Unethical cultures are a passive defence to over-processing. HR shouldn’t look upwards for answers, they should just go for it. They should drive a sense of ethical purpose by engaging employees.”

3. Beware of the decision-making you leave to computers

A question we need to start asking ourselves, according to Toby Walsh – a professor on artificial intelligence at UNSW and Data61 and presenter at the AHRI Tech Conference – is to what extent should we give machines the ability to make decisions over human lives?

Because in this day and age there’s a temptation to do exactly that – whether it’s to an algorithm or AI. And this is despite famously disastrous examples of problematic tech, including Google’s racist image recognition labelling black people as gorillas and Centrelink automating its debt recovery.

For HR, AI has started to be used to handle resume screening, the analysis of video interviews, and performance management. If this technology is flawed, it can have profound effects on people’s lives.

On the other hand, it’s not as though human decision-making isn’t deeply flawed, and frequently troubling in its own right. To illustrate, Walsh referred to a study of Israeli judges presiding over parole hearings. It turned out that you could track the harshness of their decisions by how far away they were from their last break. As they moved away from a meal, and their blood sugar dropped, the judges became less likely to demonstrate leniency.

The advantage of a machine, it would seem, is that it has none of these biological weaknesses or our very human biases. Unfortunately it can have biases of its own and on top of that it lacks accountability. Facebook can throw up its arms when its accused of allowing for racially targeted ads, and blame the vagaries of their algorithm.

But, says Walsh, bad behaviour is bad behaviour and it doesn’t matter if it’s digital. We wouldn’t consider it okay if a TV campaign was racially based, so why is it okay on social media? We wouldn’t be okay with people opening our mail, so why should we be okay with the hoovering up of our private online data?

Half-jokingly, Walsh says we are moving into the age of the CPO, or “Chief Philosophy Operator”. Technology allows us to be very precise with our ethical considerations, and measure bias down to each data point. But until we have these longer conversations, and have a better way to remove the bias from AI, perhaps all organisations should be following the dictum of Mike Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs: “No fundamental rights, privileges or entitlements should ever be denied by a computer.”

Image credit: superjoseph

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Organisations are confronting the need to rapidly respond to changing market expectations and to take advantage of arising opportunities. Central to being equipped to successfully do this is knowing how and when to collaborate.

IBM’s 2016 Redefining Competition – The CEO perspective report highlighted that more than two-thirds of CEOs expect the traditional industry value chains to change into cross-industry ecosystems. It is these eco-systems which are expected to create new value, by enabling organisations to achieve more than they could do alone.

Such approaches require high levels of collaboration.

When leaders genuinely collaborate they open themselves up to different ideas. They also recognise that a better outcome will be achieved by securing input from a diverse range of stakeholders and having their ideas debated and tested.

This is important because humans are often more certain of their answers, beliefs, abilities and decisions than is warranted.

Genuine collaboration vs veneer collaboration

Research undertaken by the University of Southern California and London Business School (Power and over confident decision making) found there’s a correlation between over-confidence and how much power a person has.

The research found that the more power a person feels the more confident they are of the accuracy of their thoughts and beliefs. Their results indicated that power can harm performance on tasks that require careful deliberation and accuracy.

People who feel more powerful in an organisational setting are typically those in more senior leadership positions.

With genuine collaboration, as opposed to veneer collaboration, the leader is open to the fact that they don’t have all the answers. They are willing to listen to other perspectives and examine those contrasting perspectives to determine a way forward.

By ensuring ideas are robustly debated, this approach can help mitigate the potential for over-confidence to negatively impact the decision taken. The caveat is that the people involved in the discussion need to have diversity of thought. If they all draw from a similar background, it’s less likely that diversity will materialise.

As part of this process, the leader needs to create a culture where team members are willing to challenge or disagree with each other. Teams need to be able to robustly discuss and disagree as part of the decision making process.

This is about encouraging the team to engage in spirited conversations – rather than silent, shallow or stunted conversations that don’t advance the decision making process. These are not aggressive conversations where one person dominates.

Spirited conversations create energy, spark new ideas, help people think more clearly about the position they hold, and open the room to different perspectives. It’s about each person sharing their thoughts in the spirit of achieving a better and more robust decision.

(Read our article on authentic conversations)

Collaborative decision making can help the group focus their intent so it is not so much about winning the argument, but about finding the best solution.

When this happens it builds trust and buy-in, which is crucial element of strong and healthy group dynamics.

Collaboration is best done with clear purpose and intent. This includes being time bound and specific. For example, determining at which points in the decision making process that collaboration will add value, and where is it redundant.

If leaders over-collaborate the run the risk of either never get anything done or taking too long to make a decision on time sensitive issues.

It was the esteemed management guru, Peter Drucker, who said: “Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level”.

Michelle Gibbings is a change leadership and career expert and founder of Change Meridian.

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Power can affect people in strange ways, with examples across multiple industries, the Harvey Weinstein scandal being the latest.

Dacher Keltner from Berkley University found that people who feel powerful are more likely to act impulsively. For example, they may have affairs, drive aggressively, communicate in rude and disrespectful ways or lie.

In his book The Power Paradox, Keltner says that power is something a person acquires by improving the lives of other people in their social network. In this way, power is granted or bestowed by others. However, he found that often this very experience of power destroys the skills that gave the person the power in the first place. As a result, they can eventually lose the power that they acquired.

Organisational hierarchies are the very definition of power structures. The further up the totem pole, the more power you have.

The danger for organisations is how this flows into decision making. Research shows that humans are often overconfident in their belief about their abilities. It’s one of the many brain based biases that exist. The problem is that it’s worse the further up the food chain you go.

A 2010 study by the University of Southern California and London Business School found there’s a correlation between overconfidence and how much power a person has.  

The more power a person feels, the more confident they are of the accuracy of their thoughts and beliefs. This means people in powerful positions are more confident that their opinions are right.

For leaders who are being charged with solving complex problems and making difficult decisions, being overly confident may result in them failing to heed advice or look for alternative opinions. This in turn leads to ineffective decision making.

It’s important for leaders to be alert to the warning signs that power is negatively impacting how they think and behave.

Here are four to consider:

• The leader thinks their rights and needs outweigh those of others and so their decision making is all about what works best for them.
• The leader stops listening to the ideas and opinions of others, believing that their knowledge and insights hold more weight and value than others.
• They ignore feedback from people seeing it as unhelpful and irrelevant, rather than reflecting on what is driving the feedback and what they may want to adjust to be more effective.
• They believe they are smarter than others and have little more to learn, and so they stop seeking out new ideas and diversity of thought.

Remember, when you start to think you are the smartest person in the room, it’s time to find another room.

Michelle Gibbings is a change leadership and career expert and founder of Change Meridian.  

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The marketing manager gently closes the door behind him, explains it’s been a pleasure working with the team, but he’s been offered a position he can’t refuse and is moving on to new adventures. This position was critical for our company and we needed to find a replacement that could kick big goals. It was one of those decisions where I felt immense pressure to get it right first time.

After the news got around, one of our project managers put his hand up for the position, but he had no marketing qualifications and no marketing experience. However he was an amazing project manager, seriously productive and a huge contributor to the team. My big fear was if I let him take the marketing manager role and he was no good, then things could go pear shaped and we might also end up losing a great project manager. If I didn’t give him an opportunity I may risk losing him.

I’m fortunate that I have a great peer group that I regularly turn to for advice. However, many situations are unique and the peer group have not had relevant experience to be able to offer advice. This means the decision process still rests firmly on my shoulders.

The traditional approach to management decisions where you’re not sure, or inexperienced is to:

• Act confident, be decisive and announce a decision; or
• Delay the decision until you’re more confident of the outcome.

I feel uncomfortable acting confident because the underlying message is that “I know what I’m doing and I have certainty in the outcome”. But that’s not always the case. I also dislike the follow-on pressure that the decision ‘has to be right’. So option one was out for me.

When decisions are delayed in pursuit of more certainty, I’ve learnt that it’s easy to fall into a trap of analysis paralysis, lots of time can tick past while resources are consumed trying to predict an outcome. I didn’t think option two was going to be effective either – no matter how much time we applied to more research, we would never achieve a confident prediction.

Our answer was to collectively agree that none of us knew how this would unfold, we would give him a go as marketing manager, assess the situation after three months and label the whole thing as an ‘experiment’. If either party thought it hadn’t worked then we would go back to how we were with no hard feelings.

I’ve found this approach to be incredibly effective on many occasions when I’ve been faced with a decision where I’m unsure, or lack confidence in what the outcome might be. I’ve applied it to bonus schemes, staff positions, marketing campaigns etc. The key point in this approach requires a manager to throw away any ego or the need to appear ‘all-knowing and confident’ in every outcome. There is agreement that nobody knows how it will unfold.

The simple act of labeling a decision as an experiment carries a message that “this may or may not work, and that’s ok”. It must be communicated to the broader team so everyone is aware of the experiment. This creates a safe environment with an escape route for all parties to comfortably return to how things were, without a fear of failure. And most importantly it allows you to take risks that you wouldn’t take if you always have to be right.

And as for the project manager, well, it was one of the best experiments ever…. for us both. Christophe was an amazing marketing manager, he really did kick big goals and a couple of years later went on to work with Atlassian where he became head of product marketing.

Mark Lewis is the co-founder and CEO of Crewmojo.

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Have you ever “got it wrong”? Psychometric assessment isn’t the silver bullet but it is arguably the most valuable source of objective data, which, if used in partnership with other layers of assessment, greatly increases your chances of ‘getting it right’.

The problem with traditional recruitment methods

When organisations employ people, they go through a range of decision-making steps.  Traditionally almost all businesses use interviews as the key selection tool. Often multiple interviews are used as a way of assessing capability and looking for the right patterns of behaviour.

However, there are two significant problems with this approach. The first relates to the fact that overly relying on one source of data (“the interview”) means that you are likely to be assessing the same type of information, even through multiple interviews, and may be missing out on other critical information. Secondly, unstructured and non-behavioural interviews predict future performance less than 4 per cent of the time – worse odds than tossing a coin.

So, what does an effective selection decision process look like?

Making the right decision about whether or not a person is suited to a particular role within an organisation involves gathering data about the job and the person from multiple sources. And using the tools with the maximum predictive validity greatly increases your chances of “getting it right”.

The tools that work

Research has consistently shown that the least reliable methods of making selection decisions include CVs (correlation of only one per cent with future performance); reference checking (one per cent, again); and unstructured interviews (four per cent).

If you’re being honest, how much do you rely on these tools in your recruitment decisions?

Tools with greater predictive validity include:

• Personality profiling (nine per cent)
• Intellectual abilities assessments (25 per cent).  
• Structured behavioural interviews also have a very good predictive ability correlating around 25 per cent with future performance.  

Adding these techniques into a structured assessment process can increase your chances of getting it right up to about 60 per cent.

So the tools you use matter a great deal.

But how you use them is equally important. Psychometric assessments are usually applied towards the end of the selection process, just prior to reference checking. Often the preferred candidate goes through a psychometric assessment process, but this can create significant decision dilemmas if it emerges there are significant problems with their results.

A more useful approach is to assess the final two to three candidates –  ideally before the final interview and reference checking take place. By doing this, the psychometric assessment results can be further validated through interview and reference checking, and support a more informed final selection decision rather than creating a “pass or fail” situation.

Using psychometric assessment for onboarding and development

In addition to using psychometric assessments to help make a “yes or no” selection decision, the information obtained should always be used to help “onboard” the new employee effectively by  creating an idiosyncratic development plan to ensure they are set up to reach their true potential. You have invested the money in the tools and process; why not maximise the return on investment, and increase your new employee’s chances of success? This approach works for appointments at all levels, not just those senior appointments who are traditionally psychometrically assessed.

Getting recruitment decisions right the first time impacts the bottom line, culture, reputation and performance. Investing in the most useful tools at the appropriate stage in the process has not only proven to deliver better results more of the time, it’s key to successful recruitment decision-making.

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