How can we make work less paternalistic and more focused on treating employees as adults, humans and consumers? Day two of AHRI’s Convention and Exhibition took a deep dive into this topic.

When Lucy Adams was working as the HR Director of the BBC, she started to realise she was falling out of love with HR.

“I got sick of people saying to me, ‘Lucy, you are the conscience of the business.’ I mean, you can’t abdicate your conscience to one person,” Adams told the crowd at day two of AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition.

“You’d walk into a room with two grown men talking to each other and they’d say, “Oh, shhh. The HR police are here.” I got really tired of working really hard to come up with new initiatives or practices, only to be met by indifference at best or, at worst, outright hostility.

“But I think mainly what I got tired of was trying to equip organisations, employees and leaders for a disruptive world, and yet I was still giving them stuff from the 1980s.”

This is when she realised it was time to step away from what she perceived as “traditional HR” and shake up the people profession.

The EACH framework

Adams, who is now the CEO of Disruptive HR, a UK-based consultancy, has encapsulated her thoughts on ‘disruptive HR’ in a framework she calls ‘EACH’ – Employees as Adults, Consumers and Human Beings.

Importantly, she caveats all her advice by saying, “Everything I criticise, I have done.” She doesn’t want anyone to feel like they’re ‘doing it wrong’, and she acknowledges that the complexity of certain sectors and legislative requirements might mean that not all of her advice will work for everyone.

Instead, her intent is to spark intrigue in people to consider if the traditional way of doing things is really the best way, and to inspire HR leaders to be the champions of new ways of operating.

“Most organisations are incredibly parental,” she says. “We have two types of parenting. The first is the ‘caring parent’. This comes from a good place, but it leaves us trying to do everything for our people.”

She uses an example from an organisation she used to work for. It was snowing and she was told it was time to send out the ‘all staff snow email’ to let them know they should stay home.

“And I was like, ‘Really? Can’t they just look out the window? And what if they don’t get the email? Will they just sit there and wait for directions?’ Of course not! They’re grown ups and are completely capable of making a decision about the weather and their journeys to and from work.”

The second type of parental role HR sometimes takes is the ‘critical parent’, she says.

“This is when we feel it’s our responsibility to protect the organisation against every possible eventuality and bad behaviour that might happen. We think it’s our responsibility to write a policy and make a rule or process to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Both approaches are counterproductive, she says.

“If we want people to be agile, productive, collaborative and innovative, then we can’t just have them passively waiting to be told what to do. We have to have people who are able to take a risk, speak up and challenge the status quo. We need a different type of mindset to the one we’ve had over generations.”

Small changes, big results

While she might be advocating for some big shifts, Adams’ suggestions for changes are relatively simple (in theory).

She wants employers and HR to take a step back and assess all the processes they take as a given and ask themselves if there might be a better way – a way that centres around the EACH model.

During her keynote, she shared some examples of how other organisations are doing this, including:

Removing ‘probation’ periods – This is the language we use in our criminal justice system, she says, and it doesn’t belong in our workplaces. Plus, it “puts the fear of God into people”. 

Recognising this, Virgin Atlantic’s HR Director removed probation periods from the organisation.

“They looked at the number of people who failed their probation period and, on average, it was two out of around 10,000 staff. So they got rid of it. Instead, they now have ‘getting to know you’ periods.”

This aligns perfectly with Adams’ framework – treating employees as autonomous humans who, more often than not, will strive to do the right thing.

Not tracking leave – Motley Fool, a private financial and investing advice company, decided to stop tracking its people’s holiday or sick leave. Employees can do that themselves and take leave for the moments when they need it.

“This may sound too far-fetched for your organisation, so instead think about where you could say, ‘We trust you,'” says Adams.

That might be things like allowing employees to determine their start and finishing times, for example, or having them take ownership of the types of training they do and when they do it.

“We will have influence because we will be proud of the fact that we are the voice of human behaviour and human understanding. And that’s where our superpower lies.” – Lucy Adams

“We haven’t got the time for monitoring. Our role is to enable people to do their best work, to be more agile, productive, innovative and collaborative. We’re not sickness monitors.”

She also uses the example of bereavement leave policies, which can feel stuffy and impersonal.

“They say things like, ‘You can have this number of days’ leave for the death of a mother and this much for an aunty.’ But who are we to say what’s appropriate in terms of that grief?”

Adams showed an example of what she believes to be a much more human approach, which read: ‘From time to time, there might be events occurring in our lives that make us tremble and fall. It could be the death of a loved one or signs of anxiety when we least expect it. Not all things in life are within our control. We’ve got your back. We’ll make sure you get the time and support you need.’

“How much more engaging is that?”

“We haven’t got the time for monitoring. Our role is to enable people to do their best work, to be more agile, productive, innovative and collaborative.” – Lucy Adams

However, she notes that while trust and autonomy should be given to everyone, there are still instances where discretion will be important.

“For instance, I trust my husband implicitly, but I wouldn’t trust him to do my make-up.”

Embrace light-touch approaches

Adams wants HR to reduce the number of policies and procedures it uses. This is a point that will likely resonate with many in HR, but that can’t always be executed due to red tape or legislative requirements in their organisations. 

However, perhaps there’s a way to make your existing policies a little more people-friendly.

Mercury (formerly Trustpower), a utilities firm, audited its policies by asking, ‘Does this policy promote autonomy and trust?’ And if it didn’t, they’d change it. The organisation moved from policies to light-touch principles.

“That’s things like ‘dress for your day’ instead of a detailed dress code policy. Employees know what their day looks like and what’s appropriate. And if they don’t, then the problem is greater than them just turning up to work in flip flops.”

Own the way you work

“I got so excited during COVID-19 when all of that work we’ve been putting in for decades around flexible working suddenly started happening – and the sky didn’t fall in. And now I see that old-school thinking creeping back in about coming back into the office for X amount of days.”

Leaders often make knee-jerk decisions, such as ordering people back to work, and then rely on HR to do the hard work of executing on their decision, she says. Instead, she suggests adopting ‘own the way you work’ processes.

“Employees know when they’re most productive. They know their social responsibilities, hobbies etc… so they should go and have a conversation with their manager about where and when they work. They might not get everything they want, but it’s about having that adult-to-adult conversation and determining what works for the team, the organisation and the customer.”

Treat your employee as a consumer

Adams isn’t a fan of the phrase ‘employees are your greatest asset’.

“Assets are cars and computer equipment. We deal with human beings, who are wonderful, incredible, annoying, frustrating and all different from one another.”

That’s why a tailored approach is called-for, she says. Just like you would go into a retail store and expect to see different-coloured shirts to choose from, employees should also have options when it comes to their experience at work, she says.

“A one-size-fits-all approach completely ignores the fact that our role in HR is to try and cater as much as we can to individual needs and wants without, of course, resulting in too much complexity and cost.”

She refers to companies including 3M and Starbucks who undergo internal research to learn more about the various cohorts that exist in their organisations. This allows them to develop employee personas – just as a marketing team might create a consumer persona – to offer a more tailored experience.

“People work for very different reasons,” says Adams. “You might have people who are motivated by high-risk and high-reward environments and then you might have people who have young kids and a big mortgage and just want stability. Then you have people who are coming up to retirement and want to maximise their pension benefits and perhaps need more flexible working.”

In 3M’s case, they put employees into five categories: 

• In it to win it – those motivated by a fast-paced, highly challenging, risk-taking environment
• In it to experience it – those motivated by developmental stretch assignments
• In it as alpine ascenders – those motivated by rapid, regular promotions
• In it for my life – employees who are motivated by the company’s flexible working arrangements
• In it to stretch – employees who are seeking learning and growth opportunities.

Armed with this information, HR teams can then provide a work experience that aligns with employees’ expectations and needs, which is more likely to lead to a satisfied and committed workforce.

Employees as human beings

The recruitment space is an area where Adams thinks we could be more human-centric. For example, at Dropbox, instead of engaging in transactional hiring processes – i.e. recruiting people after someone has handed in their resignation – its managers engage in relationship-building with potential talent year-round.

“Their managers have objectives to have Zoom meetings and coffee with people, even when they don’t have a vacancy. So they are constantly building a community of talent.”

Performance management also needs to be far more human, she says. Feedback and goal-setting can’t be a once-or-twice-a-year event.

“Atlassian got rid of its formal performance management framework, and instead they just ask three questions: what are you working on? How can I help you? How do you feel?”

The first question touches on alignment, the second question gives leaders a coaching opportunity and the last one is about recognising that you’re dealing with a whole human, she says.

In her experience, this consistent yet simple line of questioning often results in far richer and more authentic conversations.

HR’s evolution

“[HR is] in a really exciting phase. I think we’re in our third evolution. The first phase was what’s often called the ‘tea and sympathy brigade’, where it was all about helping employees and being nice. And then suddenly, overnight, we were told, ‘You’re now a strategic business partner and you will do ‘strategic stuff’.’

“Now we’re in our third evolution. We know that our role isn’t just to support leaders or employees, but to enable people to do their best work and make sure they’re equipped for the challenges ahead.

“We will have influence because we will be proud of the fact that we are the voice of human behaviour and human understanding. And that’s where our superpower lies.”

You can read some highlights from day one of AHRI’s Convention here.