HR leaders are often burdened with the everyday. Fresh organisational demands and global crises mean they’re often forced into reactive mode. Rather than being able to focus on leading people through change, their attention is too often pulled into the here and now. 

This is especially the case following an ongoing four-year marathon that’s included the pandemic, talent shortages, rising cost-of-living challenges and widespread burnout. 

While it will always be part and parcel of HR’s job to be responsive to a business’s needs, it’s also possible for HR practitioners to pull themselves out of the detail and be enabled to focus on the future, when given the right tools and resources, says Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and founder of behaviour change consultancy Inventium.

“It can often feel like a game of whack-a-mole and always being on the defence across schedules, workloads, emails, calendars and team chats,” says Imber, who is speaking at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. 

“But we need to learn to play offence with our workdays, at both the individual and organisational level – and change behaviours and mindsets en masse.”

“It’s a hard process,” says Imber. “You need to be clear on where you’re going, where you hope to be, then figure out how to close that capability gap and what long-term success looks like to your organisation.”

Here, Imber and two HR leaders share their best tips to move HR professionals into forward-planning mode.

1. Set realistic benchmarks to map progress

Imber says introducing metrics enables HR professionals to establish their organisational strengths and weaknesses and track changes. 

“If you want to drive change, you first need a baseline: what’s going on right now in the organisation? A starting point allows you to measure progress.”

Key, though, is using metrics that are actionable.

“Many organisations come up with so many initiatives, yet struggle to put in place reliable metrics that measure impact,” says Imber. “For example, a client of ours established a goal around disability representation in the workforce. That’s great, but also almost impossible to track in that it’s not mandatory for employees to [disclose] a disability.”

Instead, metrics should be “diagnostic”, she says. They should flag areas for improvement, leading to a clear pathway in which people leaders have actionable recommendations based on results.

This is the approach Christina King FCPHR, Chief People Officer at Cornerstone Medical Recruitment, has adopted.

“We’ve created metrics that flow down and connect with teams, so we know what we need to focus on, while connecting back to the ultimate organisational goals,” she says. “Metrics are crucial – the data doesn’t lie. For people leaders, that means being able to demonstrate in a quantitative and qualitative sense, the bottom-line impact on the organisation.” 

“We need to learn to play offence with our workdays, at both the individual and organisational level – and change behaviours and mindsets en masse.” – Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and founder, Inventium

2. Eliminate administrative burdens with AI to create more time for proactive HR

The advent of generative AI, and automation more broadly, may free up schedules so teams have more opportunities to look beyond tomorrow.

“We’re already seeing some organisations delegate some repetitive tasks to generative AI, automating the mundane tasks to free up time for more creative thinking,” says Imber. 

However, organisational pressures mean HR is sometimes left out when it comes to experimenting with new technology.

“HR teams often spend time trying to build capability across their organisation, but forget about themselves. The top people teams are able to invest in their own development, and improve their own productivity, so they can free up time for more strategic problem-solving. That’s where AI comes in: creating huge productivity gains for the repetitive, less valued work often given to HR.”

Some tech-savvy people leaders are using AI today – and already reaping the rewards. For example, Justine Cooper FCPHR, Vice President Human Resources, Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric, uses her company chatbot for content creation.

“Alongside automating processes, AI can be used to draft items such as strategy days and HR policies,” says Cooper. 

“It’s an exciting tool that frees up so much time. I’ve used chatbot suggestions as first drafts, then written prompts that incorporate organisational values and fine-tuned the language.” 

3. Segment your time by importance rather than urgency 

Cooper read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, early in her career and still draws on its insights today.

“I apply the ‘Important vs Urgent’ time matrix in planning my daily list of activities. This tool helps you move from urgency to where the real importance lies, meaning you can become more intentional with your time,” she says.  

“Being proactive, and beginning with the end in mind, helps anchor me in terms of the impact I can make, which I think through on an annual and quarterly basis and sense-check on a weekly basis. Time isn’t just given to you – you have to find a way to free it up.”

Imber’s toolkit includes meeting clean-up templates (in which leaders sift through their calendars and identify which calls don’t meet short and long-term goals) and ‘recurring irritant lists’ for regular, tedious and often self-inflicted tasks.

There can also be ‘zombie hunts’, she says, where half-dead products, services and processes that drain time and resources are eliminated. This can enable leaders to work smarter, rather than harder.

4. Move with a rational, systems-driven approach 

Some of the best people leaders adopt a scientific attitude, says Imber.  They come up with a hypothesis, measure data against it, then iterate insights within frameworks supported by systems and processes. This helps HR teams become more strategic and forward-focused, rather than just tackling issues as they arrive in the in-tray.

“From my organisational psychologist background, I see everything through the lens of scientific method, such as using data to measure progress,” she says. “When HR professionals do that, they can measure behaviour – rather than just intentions – and take actions based on metrics.”

King’s team extract data from their HRIS and payroll, which automatically generates month-end reports. They also use a company calendar integrating upcoming events, such as budget planning and quarterly reviews, and established an innovation committee that focuses on finding marginal gains.

5. Get comfortable saying ‘no’

Imber says many of her clients include people leaders who are natural strategists, innovators and holistic thinkers. Where they often come unstuck, though, is taking on too much work.

“Before the pandemic, there were clearer boundaries around which sort of problems fell inside the organisation’s remit, and therefore HR. Today, many people leaders are unclear of their roles. Some are almost acting like therapists for direct reports when that’s not their job.”

If HR leaders want to focus on the future of work, they sometimes have to politely decline present-day challenges. King says this can be done in a way that protects workloads and time, without harming relationships. 

“It’s a learned skill. Many of us in HR feel guilty: carving out two hours for strategic planning while an employee has an issue can feel hard. I’ve learned to go with ‘yes, if’. That means you can say yes to a piece of work, but it will come at a cost to something else. That way, you won’t feel as conflicted and can still manage to demonstrate flexibility.”

Proactive HR leaders also find time in their schedules for deep thinking. 

Every Monday, Cooper blocks out the first hour of her morning to reflect on her organisation’s big-picture IMPACT values: inclusion, mastery, purpose, action, curiosity and teamwork.

“As people leaders building a directional vision, anchoring plans and goals to help inspire our teams and build momentum, making interventions that create time for us to reflect is critical,” she says. 

“Being proactive, and beginning with the end in mind, helps anchor me in terms of the impact I can make. Time isn’t just given to you – you have to find a way to free it up.” – Justine Cooper FCPHR, Vice President Human Resources, Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric

6. Think outside the box when planning for the future

The hope is that by slowly shifting towards a longer-term strategy, people leaders will be better equipped to deal with the challenges of tomorrow, today. 

“In the best organisations, HR teams are able to push boundaries and challenge norms and lean into innovation,” says Imber. 

“They’re able to look at the bigger picture, question what the future of work looks like and prepare for the trends shaping their industry, then build the workplace culture and skills for the next five years.”

The potential benefits stretch far beyond HR teams, though. They extend to the people they lead.

“The workplaces I’ve seen with forward-looking people leaders are often more exciting, inspirational and motivating places to work,” says Imber. 

“There’s just an energy about the place. People are excited to come to work, they’re engaged. They have a deeper sense of meaning in what they’re doing.” 

Hear more from Amantha Imber and Justine Cooper FCPHR at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in Melbourne from 20-22 August. Secure your ticket today.

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Expectations often determine how people respond to certain situations. Expectations come from many sources – self-talk, upbringing, experiences, biases, peer groups, lifestyles, and so forth – and they can impact relationships, daily routines and work.

For example:

• Lower-end restaurants, hotels and stores may have far fewer customer complaints than their high-end counterparts because of customers’ expectations.
• Two leaders each receiving a 4.2 (out of 5.0) on a 360 feedback score may have very different responses based on their expectations of themselves.
• An executive publicly promised 15 per cent growth and 12 per cent profit. But when results were a remarkable 12 per cent and 9 per cent respectively, the company lost market value because of high expectations set by the executive.

Lowering and raising the expectation bar

How do we manage this expectation paradox of lowering the bar to avoid disappointment and raising the bar to reach new heights (see figure 1), and drive the right behaviours to deliver desired results?

We lower the expectation bar as a defence mechanism to temper disappointment. An employee who does not expect to receive a promotion is less disappointed when passed over. A customer is less disappointed that a product or service fails by not having high expectations. (We can hardly be disappointed with the $1.99 breakfast.) The danger of the low expectation bar is that despite being less disappointed, we are still unsatisfied: employees quit trying and customers quit buying.

We raise the expectation bar to try harder, do more, take risks, grow and deliver exceptional results. We tell ourselves, our kids and our employees: “You can do anything.” Leaders set aspirational visions of being the best and identify stretch goals or assignments to increase effort and accomplish more than is normally possible. 

The danger of the high expectation bar is that missed expectations can lead to disappointment and a pattern of failure where, again, employees quit trying and customers quit buying.

Four ways to manage the expectation paradox

Let me suggest four tips to manage this expectation paradox so expectations lead to positive attitudes, behaviours and outcomes in both personal and professional settings.

Tip 1: Failure is an opportunity for learning.

Carol Dweck’s focus on a growth mindset suggests redefining failure as an opportunity to learn. I liked this message so much, I had a pillow made for my wife (and me) that we have on our couch as a constant reminder.

When expectations centre on learning and growth more than outcomes and results, we make progress. Struggling in a relationship or missing a goal is normal and enables learning. 

When a relationship ends, rather than blaming, we can learn how to improve future relationships. When a personal or business goal is missed, we can run toward the failure and learn from it. When our expectations are about failure being an opportunity to learn, we turn a vicious circle into a virtuous cycle.

Tip 2: Get real. 

I have coached well-intentioned aspiring leaders who want to have a great marriage, be actively involved in raising kids, serve in community organisations, consistently be in the top five per cent of performance ratings, be promoted rapidly, and run a seven-minute mile. 

Achieving all of these is not likely, at least not all at once. My mentor and colleague C. K. Prahalad taught, “Your aspirations should exceed your resources, but not too much.” 

A close friend is proud to have run (walked) a fifteen-minute mile because that marked progress even if not perfection. Not everything worth doing is worth doing well, and, as my wife has taught me, some things are so important to do that they are worth doing poorly as we slowly learn to do them better. Realistic expectations enable real progress.

Tip 3: See and seek patterns, not isolated events. 

When an aeroplane flies from point A to point B, it is almost never on the direct line between these two points. It is constantly adjusting and making course corrections. But the plane will still arrive at point B. 

In relationships and at work, overstating a single event can be dangerous. A leader said, “I tried asking my team their view of my leadership skills based on a single event, which was not as helpful as their observing my style with many events over time.” 

“When our expectations are about failure being an opportunity to learn, we turn a vicious circle into a virtuous cycle.” – Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Managing expectations means focusing on a longer-term goal (arriving at point B or learning a new leadership style). Isolated events may deviate but should not derail that process. Expectations are too often short-term, quick fixes, which, like fad diets, don’t often work (been there, done that).

Tip 4: Be humble and engaging in public; be ambitious and driven in private. 

Coaches often give different talks to players in a private locker room than to the media in public. In private, they remind players of their gifts, hard work, and likelihood of victory. In public, they acknowledge the quality of the opponent and the challenge of winning. 

Likewise, what we tell ourselves does not have to be the same message that we broadcast to others. Quiet and personal confidence does not have to become public bravado to make progress. I can have very high personal expectations of what I believe I can and should be able to do. But my public statements engage others and share credit.

Expectations shape all aspects of our lives.

In relationships, as we manage expectations about our companions and friends, we can build sustainable social connections that enrich us. When learning from failure, embracing realism, seeking patterns, and fostering private commitment characterises our relationship expectations, they will likely be more fulfilling and meaningful.

At work, leaders who manage employee’ expectations help them reach their potential. Employees who manage their own expectations learn, grow and find fulfilment from work. I have friends who have abandoned their organisation because they expected it to be perfect. Managing relationships requires expectation patience – so does participating in an organisation.

As we manage expectations about our identity, strengths and passions in our personal and daily living, we can be more at peace with who we are than at odds with who we are not. So, what do you expect? Of yourself, your colleagues and your organisation?

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a partner at The RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organisations and leaders deliver value. This is an edited version of an article that was first published on Ulrich’s LinkedIn profile. View the original article here.

Need support enhancing your HR capabilities? Take AHRI’s capabilities analysis test to learn where you can enhance your skill set and receive a personalised report outlining what your AHRI learning journey could look like. Learn more here.

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Widely seen to be synonymous with self-absorption and arrogance, narcissism is not a term most managers would wish to be associated with.

With that being said, many people with narcissistic tendencies embody characteristics that recruiters look for when hiring for leadership roles. Often self-assured, charismatic and able to make difficult decisions without holding back, a narcissist might come across as the ideal candidate for a managerial position – on the surface.

Indeed, famous leaders from Napoleon Bonaparte to Steve Jobs have shown us that narcissists are capable of much more than fruitless self-indulgence.

However, as the events of the last two years have reminded us, employee wellbeing must always be at the forefront of HR’s agenda. If an organisation hires a leader whose personality makes them prone to hostility or exploitative behaviour, the detrimental impact on employee mental health could far outweigh the strengths that a narcissistic personality brings to the table.

HRM spoke with Karen Gately, Founder of HR Consultancy Corporate Dojo, to discuss what narcissism looks like in the workplace and how HR should respond to it.

What actually is narcissism?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a diagnosable psychiatric condition characterised by an inflated sense of self-importance. It was named for Narcissus, a mythical Greek hunter who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and stayed there staring at it until his death.

“We’ve got to be willing to recognise that irrespective of their expertise, or how hard they are to replace, these people can not only be incredibly damaging, but also limiting to the group’s potential.” – Karen Gately, HR consultant

“It starts with the mindset,” says Gately. “[Narcissists] tend to have a depth of self-belief that can be unwavering. They will also place a higher priority on their own needs. They’re less likely to listen to others and it’s very difficult to challenge and sway their perspective. 

“They’re more likely to have a detrimental impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing, because they’re unlikely to have as much empathy as others, and they’re unlikely to recognise when they are undermining other humans. And if they’re in a position of power, that dynamic can become really unhealthy.”

NPD is not straightforward and can manifest itself in a number of different ways. Accordingly, there are several different forms of narcissism that organisations should be aware of. 

Three types of narcissism

1. Grandiose narcissism

The grandiose narcissist radiates charisma, confidence and high self-esteem, and is likely to thrive in a leadership role. Their unwavering self-belief gives rise to their disregard for the opinions of peers and experts, making them prone to defensiveness or hostility if they are contradicted. 

2. Vulnerable narcissism

Sometimes known as a ‘covert narcissist’, the vulnerable narcissist has a fragile sense of self and seeks constant approval from those around them. While they may not share the confidence of grandiose narcissists, their extreme sensitivity and preoccupation with self image can have a similar impact on others around them.

3. Malignant narcissism

When he coined the term in the 1960s, social psychologist Erich Fromm called malignant narcissism the “quintessence of evil”. This form of narcissism is characterised by a Machiavellian indifference to morality and the feelings of others. 

How to manage a narcissist

HR can employ a number of strategies to spot narcissism early on, and keep it from causing too much damage. 

1. Structure your interviews carefully

To avoid a narcissist with harmful tendencies slipping through the cracks, it is essential to be on the front foot during the candidate screening process. While HR and recruitment teams are not qualified to diagnose a personality disorder, a simplistic interview process that focuses on charisma rather than the specific skills required for the position is a risky game to play.

“It doesn’t matter how technically competent you are, how much sales revenue you’re bringing in, or how hierarchically senior you are. Your capacity to engage constructively and effectively with other human beings should be non-negotiable.” – Karen Gately, HR consultant

When interviewing for a leadership role, Gately advises getting a clear idea of what success looks like to the candidate.

“It’s about assessing the aspects of their character that enable them to engage with other human beings – as a leader, are they in service to their team?

“Narcissists are very self-focused, as opposed to focused on other people. [If we ask] for their key drivers of success, and the response is all about them, we need to be cautious.”

2. Establish clear boundaries and expectations

Particularly in a leadership role, a narcissistic personality type is liable to get swept up in their mission to serve their own interests. This is likely to come at the expense of their colleagues’ interests and those of the company as a whole. By offering clear guidelines on the culture and expectations of the workplace, HR can prevent a narcissistic employee from slipping out of control.

“There should be no exceptions to the rule,” says Gately.

“It doesn’t matter how technically competent you are, how much sales revenue you’re bringing in, or how hierarchically senior you are. Your capacity to engage constructively and effectively with other human beings should be non-negotiable. And in order to set people up for success, we need to clearly articulate what great behaviour looks like.”

Including these expectations in position descriptions and performance plans is also essential, she says. 

3. Bring managers into the feedback process 

Delivering feedback effectively to a narcissist is a tall order, due to the fact that they are inclined to disregard others’ opinions – particularly when they come from an unfamiliar third party such as HR.

For this reason, Gately suggests engaging a familiar face in the process.

“HR can only go so far towards influencing them. Ultimately, their manager needs to take the reins and lead the conversation,” she says.

“A lot of leaders who feel uncomfortable with certain conversations will avoid it at all costs, so we need to help the manager to feel ready to have that conversation.”

Read HRM’s articles on delivering feedback effectively and how to have difficult conversations at work.

4. Approach issues diplomatically

Since narcissistic personalities are prone to becoming defensive when criticised, tactfulness is key. Although superficially they may seem confident and self-assured, an inflated sense of self makes narcissists fragile and prone to hypersensitivity when they perceive a threat or a critical comment. 

It’s important to consider gentler forms of feedback that are less likely to provoke hostility, and equally important not to take any backlash personally.

“To the extent that’s possible, we need to help this person to feel safe and that it’s not a telling off or warning,” says Gately. “Because that will trigger defensive responses.

“If they feel safe and that HR is actually working with them to help them be better, they are more likely to bring down their defenses.”

Gately says organisations must ensure they are offering every employee opportunities to grow and improve, but that it might not always result in meaningful change.

“We should give them every opportunity, engage with respect and sensitivity and offer them coaching and support. But then, ultimately, if they can’t get there, we’ve got to make the tough call. 

“We’ve got to be willing to recognise that irrespective of their expertise, or how hard they are to replace, these people can not only be incredibly damaging, but also limiting to the group’s potential.”

Learn how to mediate any conflict that arises between employees and those who display narcissistic tendencies with this short course from AHRI. Sign up for the next course on 5 October 2022.

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Earlier this month, HRM sat down with AHRI’s State Presidents for a virtual roundtable to talk about the current challenges HR professionals are facing in Australia, as well as what the future could hold for the profession.

Below, HRM has shared their video responses, along with key timestamps so you can skip to the section that interests you most.

1. Meet AHRI’s State Presidents

In order from top left – Freya Beech MAHRI, TAS President; Jonathon Woolfrey FCPHR, WA President; Athena Chintis CPHR, NSW President;Steph Waddon FCPHR, ACT President; Renee Alexander MAHRI, NT President; Susan Sadler CPHR, South Australian President; Rod Francisco FCPHR, QLD President; and Matt Connell FCPHR, VIC President.

2. What challenges are HR professionals in your state or territory facing?

10 seconds: Alexander talks about the need for Northern Territory employers to keep pace with the changes that Victoria and New South Wales are spearheading after months of working in lockdown.

58 seconds: Francisco talks about the challenge of people moving to Queensland to live, but not necessarily working for Queensland-based companies.

1:38 minutes: Chintis says the labour market shortages and a lack of real wages growth are causing issues in New South Wales.

2:20 minutes: Connell says high absenteeism rates are currently pulling focus for Victorian HR professionals and employers.

“We’re not just about people and process. We’re about business and how to leverage the business… to get the best possible outcomes.” – Renee Alexander

3:30 minutes: Woolfrey says finding and retaining talent in Western Australia, as well as the record-high demands on HR professionals, are both key issues.

4:41 minutes: Waddon says ACT-based HR practitioners are focused on how to prepare for the future of work in a public sector context.

7:19 minutes: Sadler says South Australian HR practitioners are still focused on managing the transition back to the office environment.

7:53 minutes: Beech says there aren’t enough qualified people to fill positions in Tasmania right now.

3. What does the future hold for the HR profession?

1:40 minutes: Francisco says the AHRI certification process is only going to become more important over the upcoming years, as organisations will want HR to prove that they’ve been tested against a best-practice model, in the same way that CPA-qualified accountants are.

2:16 minutes: Chintis doesn’t think HR should get bogged down in risk mitigation. Instead, she thinks it should focus on creating cultures of trust.

4:20 minutes: Connell says HR will continue to focus on leadership development, training in critical areas such as emotional intelligence and why staff engagement matters.

4:40 minutes: Woolfrey says HR will evolve into expert problem solvers.

5:19: minutes: He adds it’s also important that HR continue to develop broad generalist skills.

5:35 minutes: Waddon says HR needs to wholeheartedly embrace technology instead of it being solely driven by the IT foundation.

“I think there is a deep requirement for specialist expertise… especially around education, skills and training because some of the emergent issues at a national level require quite different ways of building skills and competencies.” – Steph Waddon FCPHR

6:35 minutes: Waddon adds that while there’s a requirement to have a generalist knowledge base as your foundation, the specialist role is only going to get more critical in our complex business environment.

7:40 minutes: Sadler says the HR function will become more litigious and that all HR professionals will be expected to have a general understanding of employment law.

8:48 minutes: Beech believes the function will need to continue to learn how to be agile in order to properly align with business’s objectives.

4. What should HR professionals do to prepare for the future?

30 seconds: The professionalisation of HR will be critical, says Alexander. HR need to quickly leverage the influence that was gained during the pandemic, she adds.

1:20 minutes: Francisco says that by doing the work to professionalise the industry, HR will no longer be treated as an afterthought.

1:58 minutes: Chintis encourages HR professionals to stay across what’s happening outside of your own industry and stay up to date with research to help to form credible arguments when pitching business cases.

2:33 minutes: Connell says HR should think beyond their remit to add further value to the business.

3:09 minutes: Woolfrey says it’s critical that HR understands its business’s goals and pain points.

4 minutes: Waddon says leaders need to provide people with opportunities to build new skills and move beyond tactical work into more adaptive and strategic work.

5:19 minutes: Curiosity is a key HR skill, says Sadler. You don’t need to know everything, you just need to know how to ask the right questions.

5:58 minutes: Beech says HR need to upskill in analytics in order to understand where to focus your efforts.

What do you think the future of HR looks like? Share your thoughts with your peers over at the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge, exclusive to AHRI members.

The post The future of HR: how should the profession prepare? appeared first on HRM online.

The closest thing HR professionals can get to a crystal ball is strategic workforce planning. In most instances, this means looking two to five years into the future to understand the needs of your workforce in the context of the business strategy, says Erin Prothero CPHR.

“In collaboration with the business, the workforce planner asks themselves, ‘How do I make sure we have the right people with the right skills at the right time in the right place,’” says Prothero, who is an Associate Director in the People and Change (P&C) team at KPMG.

This is the right question to ask for all workforce planning, but KPMG takes it a step further by approaching the challenge of a dynamic labour market using an approach known as ‘workforce shaping’.

“This is about thinking future-first and asking bolder questions that will impact the shape, not just the numbers, of the workforce. So you ask, ‘What do you want to be like in 10 years’ time? What are the values and characteristics you want to have? How can we reinforce our EVP?’

“Rather than starting where you are and moving forward, you start by envisioning the future and move closer and closer back towards you.”

This means asking questions such as: How will we support employees whose jobs are augmented or impacted by automation? How should we re-skill employees to give them the competencies they’ll need in the future?

What decisions do we need to make about how we build, buy, borrow, bot and base our workforce?

Uplifting workforce shaping capabilities 

As more and more executive teams look to their HR department for guidance on how to build and sustain a suitable workforce for the future, HR professionals will need to start reaching for tools such as workforce shaping in order to provide an accurate and well-rounded response.

To do this, they need the right kind of training. Prothero recognised this. And so, as part of her project to achieve certification via AHRI’s Practicing Certification pathway, she developed a capability uplift framework for KPMG’s national P&C team.

“I always ask myself, ‘How would I explain this to 20-year-old me?’ It’s okay to just be a human and be supported to learn.” – Erin Prothero CPHR, Associate Director, People and Change, KPMG

Workforce shaping is one of the aligned and empowered workforce enablers in KPMG’s Connected Enterprise digital transformation framework. Prothero noted that 85 per cent of the jobs needed in 2030 are yet to be created – so she wanted to create a helpful resource to help organisations respond to a very different future of work.

“My project was about how to operationalise [workforce shaping] so our people can better understand what it means and why it’s needed.”

While this had already been part of the P&C strategy, it wasn’t yet at the desired maturity level, and the pandemic meant that learning needed to be targeted and highly impactful to cut through the noise. 

Prothero needed to figure out how to make it easy for the P&C team to stay abreast of the global trends surrounding the fourth industrial revolution – that is, the rise of the digital and AI-driven world – and to learn the relevant methodologies.

Her goals were to:

• Formalise a common understanding of workforce shaping among the P&C team.
• Create a helpful toolkit that could be used nationally, which included videos capturing workforce shaping insights from influential figures in the organisation.
•  Do this via a sprint-based approach (breaking a project into smaller chunks).
• Break the concept down and clearly explain it to get buy-in from the P&C teams.

“I try and remind myself of in my day-to-day work of what it felt like to be a 20-year-old – who had just spent a year serving pancakes and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do for a career – walking into the Australian Public Service [where Prothero first worked] and feeling like everyone was talking about something complicated… and that I was the only one who didn’t know what was going on.

“So I always ask myself, ‘How would I explain this to 20-year-old me?’ It’s okay to just be a human and be supported to learn.”

The power of collaboration

Prothero conducted a two-week sprint to pool the perspectives of a variety of other experts across KPMG, to refine the approach of establishing an effective and meaningful workforce shaping scenario.

“I got everyone together – from graduates to directors, and people from a range of disciplines and sectors – and asked them to brainstorm and share what they liked and didn’t like about the approach. I then produced a technique paper and circulated it once again for further improvement.  

“As a result of this collaboration, I was able to further refine our workforce shaping scenario technique and ensure it was current and fit-for-purpose.”

Diversity of thought is important when introducing new processes or ideas, she says.

“I could have just drawn on my experience and sat at my computer doing my own research, but it wouldn’t have been as rich or as broadly applicable. It seems like an obvious statement, but sometimes you do feel like you have to do these things all by yourself. That’s something I’m trying to unlearn.”

Next, she had to think about different ways to deliver the information to the P&C team. For example, her learning preference is to read something and take her time doing it. 

“If someone sends me a video, I look for the transcript,” she says.

But plenty of people don’t learn that way. 

“I wanted to make the learning accessible to everyone.”

That’s where the videos came in. She got leaders to talk about how workforce shaping applied to them and their clients, to make it real and put it into a real-life context.

“Again, I thought about 20-year-old Erin having no idea about what workforce shaping was all about then spending 10 minutes listening to respected leaders in her business sharing their perspectives and being able to say, ‘I get what they’re talking about now.’”

Stakeholder management

The rigor of AHRI’s certification process helped Prothero to dive into some of the foundational work of her project, such as stakeholder management, which she believes is a critical part of the planning process.

“That was probably my most impactful learning from this project… getting into a greater level of depth around stakeholder mapping,” she says.

“There are always people further up the chain, and outside of your immediate team, who you need to make sure are comfortable with what you’re doing, and understand the value that will be delivered.”

Prothero used the ADKAR model to identify where all her key stakeholders sat at the beginning of the project and where she wanted them to be at the end.

“A lot of people were aware of what workforce shaping meant, but we wanted to create awareness for some and deepen the knowledge – or leverage the experience – of others,” she says.

“I mapped out all the stakeholders, and if they had more experience with workforce shaping, my messaging about their role in the project was quite different than for someone with no experience.”

This was a great way to ensure she demonstrated the benefits of what she was doing quite clearly. It also meant that she could clearly differentiate between those in the business who could be champions for her project (i.e. people featured in the educational videos) and those she just needed to take a light-touch ‘update’ approach with.

Prior to the project, 63 per cent of people in the P&C team felt they had a common understanding of workforce shaping. Now, 100 per cent say they do. 

Prothero also saw an uplift in people’s understanding of, and comfort level in delivering, workforce shaping techniques. Her toolkit has since been incorporated into the approach used by global KPMG P&C teams.

“It has been great to be surrounded by people who recognise your work and think what you’re doing is important and that you’re doing it well. That’s such a core part of what makes me happy in my job.” 

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the May 2022 edition of HRM Magazine.

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Earlier this year, I wrote an article for HRM about the Critical HR skills that all leaders and managers should have. To my surprise, I was inundated with feedback from all over the world, from HR and business leaders alike, sharing the view that HR skills are now a must-have for the modern-day leader.

Many people would argue that the HR function has become an organisation’s most important asset, and although I may be biased, I completely subscribe to this view and believe the best is yet to come.

For a long time, we have been working for ‘a seat at the table’ and the pandemic has secured us the seat and the table, all in one.

We know that HR is about people – who, over the years, have been referred to as an organisation’s most important asset. We also know that HR is equally about the business. Savvy business owners and leaders who embraced a people-first approach early in the pandemic are no doubt seeing the benefits now.  

For many people working in HR, during the pandemic it may have felt like we were going in circles, but I believe that HR has made progress that we may not have even realised yet. It’s an exciting time to be a HR professional, as we start thinking about the future of work and what this means for us in HR.

The evolution of HR competencies 

So what does the future of HR look like? 

In my article from earlier this year, I explored the key HR competencies of the strategic positioner, paradox navigator and credible activist, which were established by the amazing HR thought leader Dave Ulrich. 

The research in this area continues to evolve and it’s pointing to what we are starting to better understand, that great HR is less about defined ‘roles’ and more about generating ‘action’ within an organisation to deliver value.  

Ulrich’s latest research is now describing key HR competencies as: accelerates business, advances human capability, mobilises information, fosters collaboration and simplifies complexity. From these competency shifts, we can see that HR is less about the ‘roles’ we hold and more about our ‘actions’ that generate value.

HR is now more about the ‘whole’ and less about the ‘parts’. What this means is that you must have all the ‘parts’ of HR working together to deliver value. For example, you can’t have a great recruitment process that isn’t supported by a great approach to learning and development or workplace relations.  

This shift in the research demonstrates the progress HR is making. It confirms that we certainly aren’t going in circles.

Why is ‘integration’ so important?     

Integration is going to be a key focus for HR in the near future, particularly as we look at reconnecting people and organisations in the post-pandemic workplace.

Brene Brown, in her recent Dare to Lead podcast in conversation with actress America Ferrera, spoke about the importance of ‘integration’ in the context of leadership, explaining that leaders must bring all the parts of themselves to their roles to be effective. The same methodology applies to HR.

I believe that ‘HR cannot be what it’s meant to be, without all the parts of who it is’.  These parts, as defined by David Ulrich’s research, must work together in an integrated way to deliver value. If there is one thing HR practitioners have learnt as they pivoted and adapted to the pandemic, it’s a strong sense of purpose and identity in the roles we hold. How we connect the parts of HR to an integrated whole is going to be what defines high-performing HR teams in the future.

Five considerations as we move into 2022

As we prepare for the year ahead, here are some suggestions that could assist with your planning.

1. Is your HR function delivering value in an integrated manner? This will be a key focus next year and beyond. The structure of your HR function is critical, as you seek to deliver value to your organisation. Here are some questions to help you shape thinking:

• How are the parts of your HR team working together as a whole to deliver value?
• Does your culture support an integrated approach to HR?
• What action does HR generate within your organisation – or is it more about roles? If it’s the latter, what would it take to shift to action?   

2. The pandemic will continue to dominate the HR agenda – experimentation will be key.

Lynda Gratton, who is another exceptional HR thought leader, continues to encourage the adoption of ‘experimentation’ in her most recent article, Why It’s so Hard to Recruit and Keep Employees Right Now, published in MIT Sloan Management Review.  

This article emphasises the focus on employee health and wellbeing, and keeping abreast of the workplace experiments others are adopting in order to remain competitive in order to offset the impacts of the Great Resignation.

Whether it be transitioning workforces to hybrid working arrangements, rapidly responding to new strains of the virus or implementing strategies to support the wellbeing of people at work, we know HR is going to be kept busy. Burnout and fatigue are a high-risk factor for those working in the HR profession. So it will be important for HR professionals to practice healthy self-care behaviours.  

(You can read HRM’s guide on self-care at work here).

3. Take the time to reflect on the role HR has played during the pandemic. We all tend to be quick to move to the next thing, sometimes failing to reflect on what has just passed us by.

The pandemic has made HR an organisation’s most important asset. I’m repeating this point as I know many HR practitioners have been so focused on their people and organisations during the pandemic that they may not have taken the time to look back on the great work they’ve done.

HR professionals have done incredible work in extremely challenging circumstances, and often on top of their ‘normal’ workloads. It is important you know that this work hasn’t gone unnoticed. 

Reflection is useful for all HR professionals to consider what worked well and what didn’t go to plan. This is how we learn and grow.      

This process will assist HR professionals better understand the magnitude of the shift that has taken place for the HR function during the pandemic. It will provide us with the space to appreciate what these changes mean for HR, for the organisations we work in, and, most importantly, what it means for our future careers in HR.     

4. Consider the symbiotic relationships HR has and why it’s important. 

One of the obvious and most important symbiotic relationships is between managers and HR professionals.

We know that managers are more eager to engage with HR as they adapt to the new challenges of leading people. This relationship must not be underestimated and presents an opportunity for HR to create people-focused champions within their organisations, who, in many ways, become an extension of the HR function.

5. Celebrate the progress HR has made.

It has been a challenging couple of years for HR. It’s clear that we’ve been able to be effective, and we must embrace our position of influence and importance within our organisations by celebrating what has been achieved and building on it for the future.

The pandemic may have been the catalyst for making HR an organisation’s most important asset, but we won’t disappear when the virus does. We’ve worked hard to get where we are today and this is something to be proud of – and is most certainly worthy of celebration!

Sarah Queenan is the Founder and Managing Director of Humanify HR Consulting.

HR skills aren’t just helpful for those working in the people department. They’re useful for everyone. AHRI’s short course HR for non-HR people is designed to upskill managers to manage HR matters in their teams. Find out more about this new course here.

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Early this year, Dave Ulrich, a luminary in the HR profession and a regular speaker at major AHRI events, wrote about six defining trends for HR in 2020 and beyond (which you can see the bottom of this article). Then the most powerful social and economic shock since World War II, the COVID-19 pandemic, tore its way around the globe and everything changed. Or did it?

“The trends are still legitimate. The virus simply exacerbates or draws forward some of those trends and puts a timeframe on them,” says Ulrich, speaker, author, professor of business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and co-founder of The RBL Group.

Business success first

At conferences, Ulrich often presents the question, “What’s the most important thing HR can give an employee today?” 

When he asked this to a group of business leaders at a seminar not long ago, they said the most important things are employee purpose and meaning, and opportunity to grow, learn and belong.

“I said, ‘That’s terrific, but you missed the most important thing we as leaders can give employees, which is an organisation that wins in the marketplace.’” 

Ulrich’s latest book (co-authored with Arthur Yeung) is Reinventing The Organisation: How companies can deliver radically greater value in fast-changing markets. He gave it that title “because unless we win in the marketplace, there isn’t a workplace”.

“A market-oriented mindset acknowledges that the best way HR can help employees is to work with line managers to succeed in the marketplace. An outside-in logic means HR practices should be connected to customer and investor outcomes.”

Evolving

In addition to looking at leadership and the outside in, Ulrich and his colleagues have evolved how to think about and create the right culture. For over 30 years, Ulrich has examined the importance of organisation (his first book was about Organizatinoal Capability: From the inside out). Today, organisational culture has, quite rightly, become a focus in the HR world. And the way we approach it continues to evolve.

Previously HR has worked to create culture maps that describe how organisations make decisions, manage information and treat people, and how employees behave. These descriptors define culture from within the organisation. It’s an inside-out approach.

“For me, given my third HR trend, about stakeholders, the internal culture should reflect what we need to be known for by our customers, communities and investors outside the organisation,” says Ulrich. 

“So the issue is not just describing your internal culture. It’s whether you have the ‘right’ culture. The right culture connects your internal business processes and employee behaviours with external stakeholders. Culture is not just internal values, but the value that those values create with external stakeholders. Culture is not the roots of the tree, but the leaves of the tree that are growing and adapting.

“You might all love each other and chant ‘Kumbaya’, but until the customer or investor says, ‘That’s the culture that will lead to me using your products, or investing,’ then we’ve missed the point.”  

HR in a pandemic

None of the above basic principles change in a world struggling with COVID-19, says Ulrich. What HR has to do in this crisis, just as it would in another, is perform talent, leadership and organisation triage.

“When there’s a major car accident, for example, the first responders on the scene do triage. They quickly work out who most needs their attention. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s necessary,” says Ulrich.

HR professionals are now finding themselves in a similar decision-making state. In working with talent, triage that asks HR ‘How do we logistically get people working from home (having digital connections and creating home working spaces)?’ HR talent triage also helps ensure employees’ personal health and mental wellbeing in socially distant and isolated working environments.

In organisational triage issues, HR works with others to help remote workers continue to act, think and feel in ways that serve customers (culture from the outside in).  

For leadership triage, HR helps to make sure that leaders personally model the values that will differentiate their organisation from others in the marketplace. 

When HR conducts triage in a crisis, it sets the foundation for longer-term care. In a crisis, it is what differentiates companies that survive and thrive from those that don’t. 

“In triage, you don’t plan. You simply react,” says Ulrich. “So when you discover a person in your business has a household member with coronavirus, what do you say to them about staying away from the office? Who else needs to know? How can you ensure they’re still productive? What does that change in terms of your priorities?”

Our core values, Ulrich believes, tend to reveal themselves under such circumstances. “Somebody once said that when we hit our thumb with a hammer, we always swear in our native language. Pain and stress bring out our true colours.”

HR during a pandemic is also about navigating paradox, says Ulrich. On the one hand HR, along with line managers, care for employees by working on the frontline of emotional wellbeing. But on the other hand, HR also shares responsibility for business results. It could be argued that that has always been the case for those in HR, but in the pandemic environment the effects of the paradox are amplified.

“How do we manage this care vs competitiveness paradox? I don’t have a clear or easy answer for you. Trust your values and trust your instinct. If you find yourself turning too much to the people side, cut that back a little bit. And if you find yourself turning too much to the business side, do the same.

“Navigating paradox doesn’t often come with a generic recipe for success. Do required triage, quickly and boldly. As the crisis moves on, you will then be in a position to create longer-term opportunities to deliver value to all stakeholders. As always for HR, the best is yet to come.”

Ulrich’s six HR trends

1. Changing context: The HR profession must adapt more quickly than ever to the changing context of its work. This might include the coronavirus pandemic, environmental challenges (the Australian bushfires, for example), digitalisation of work, or other social and political trends.
2. Creating value for others: This is not simply about meaningful jobs, great working environments and fair pay. It’s also about playing a powerful role in creating a business that succeeds in the marketplace. Without that successful business, there are no jobs.
3. Stakeholders are everywhere: No longer are HR’s stakeholders limited to the employees and leaders within the business. They’re everywhere, including customers, investors and communities outside of the business.
4. Unique contributions: HR is the architect, and line managers the owners, of talent, leadership and organisational actions that deliver value to all stakeholders. In particular, Ulrich’s research shows that an organisation’s capabilities (culture, workplace) have four times more impact on business results than individual competencies (talent, workforce). In any business setting, HR explores how to better manage talent, leadership and organisation issues.
5. HR should reflect the logic of how the business is organised: Design of the HR department should match the design of the business. So if the business is centralised, HR should also be more centralised.
6. Reinvention is a must: Competencies of HR professionals change about 30 to 40 per cent every four to five years, which means they must constantly reinvent themselves.

This article first appeared in the May 2020 edition of HRM magazine.

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Imagine a scenario where an organisation’s chief HR officer and chief executive officer engage in a popularity contest. The CHRO is jealous of the CEO and vying for their job; the CEO feels threatened and is accused of bullying the CHRO. Trust is eroded, the relationship crumbles and, as a result, everyone in the organisation suffers.

This example, albeit extreme, shows just how bad things can get when HR and the CEO don’t align on important matters. It’s a case HR expert Susan Sadler CPHR observed first-hand in one of many HR/CEO relationships, good and bad, she has witnessed during her extensive HR career.

There are many reasons these relationships can fail: a stubborn leader, a personality clash, an assumption that HR doesn’t add enough value or an organisation rooted in the past. But one thing is sure: when the CEO and HR lead are on the same page, it makes a world of difference.

Leadership afterthought

While CEOs may preach an equal playing field among the executive team, that’s not always the case. Those who are closest to the money will be placed higher up the ladder (CFOs, finance directors, heads of sales etc.), leaving HR near the bottom rung. 

We can all agree that HR is undeniably important, but being a leadership afterthought is still a reality for many HR professionals, and it’s worth looking at why this is the case.

“Rarely do we hear people asking, ‘Should the finance director be at the executive table?’ But often we hear this about HR. I see myself as a member of the executive team, with a technical expertise in HR, in the same way a finance director is a member of the executive team with a technical expertise in finance,” says Sue Jennings, HR director ANZ for international biopharmaceutical company AbbVie.

Sadler, who is the founding director of Red Wagon Workplace Solutions and an AHRI vice-president and state councillor for South Australia, says the ability to make a case for the people department is incredibly important. 

“What HR can do to influence business growth or contribute to cost-down strategies isn’t necessarily understood or accepted by CEOs because HR professionals aren’t always very good at explaining the value they add, but the value of the finance function somewhat speaks for itself,” says Sadler.

“For an effective HR/CEO relationship, it needs to be ‘all in’ from both sides. You both have to welcome constructive challenges from each other and be open to debate. But you need to be prepared to do that behind closed doors and have a united front when you go out and speak with staff.”

“If you don’t share respect for each other’s different skill sets, it can become very transactional; you’re never going to get the most out of the relationship.”

She says that when HR professionals lay the foundations for a respectful relationship with the CEO, they have much more leeway to incite change or call out bad behaviour than a finance manager would.

Sadler also believes senior HR professionals need to ensure they have an understanding of the work their senior counterparts are doing, such as basic financial knowledge, in order to demonstrate how HR can support and strengthen those functions.

“You’ve got to have that ability to think and contribute at the same level as other senior leaders and speak the same language. If you want to operate and play at that level, you need to realise you have shared accountability for achieving business objectives, even outside of the HR jurisdiction. The shared accountability of a senior leadership team is much the same as you would see with a board of directors.” 

Sadler’s advice here is familiar. As a certified HR practitioner she is well acquainted with AHRI’s Model of Excellence, a globally benchmarked model for HR behaviours and capabilities that undergirds HR certification in Australia. 

What Sadler outlines is a path HR can take to get leaders to see their value, but what does the relationship look like once it happens?

“It wasn’t warm and fuzzy people and culture stuff. It was making tough decisions around redundancies and restructures. It’s the kind of stuff we needed staff to see us doing as a team. HR are the glue that bonds it all together.”

Combining forces 

A common problem for growing companies is figuring out how to maintain the connection between senior leaders and an ever-increasing number of employees.

“In a large organisation, if you’re in a senior position, you don’t have as much contact with frontline employees,” says Sadler. “The information from staff that eventually gets to you tends to be filtered. So HR, CEOs and operational managers need to be working closely together to make sure they have a finger on the pulse of the employees.”

The local arm of AbbVie was facing just this issue. General manager ANZ Kirsten O’Doherty already knew how important people were to an organisation, so she didn’t need convincing to give HR a respected voice. Her strategic relationship with Jennings meant they were able to come up with a simple solution. 

After analysing the results of an internal engagement survey, they noticed employees were seeking an avenue to regularly address their concerns; they wanted a direct line to their CEO. Together they set up a program called Conversations with Kirsten where each month a group of 10-15 randomly selected employees have lunch with O’Doherty and talk about anything and everything.

“People love it. They’re very open about what they love and the stuff they think needs to be improved. It’s a new form of feedback group,”says O’Doherty.

This simple act of allowing space for conversation not only allows employees to feel heard by the executives, it also generates innovative ideas that can help the business, and it costs no more than their time.

“As an executive team, we ask, what are the things that keep our culture strong? What areas do we need to do more work on? So while HR might be coordinating many of those things, it’s owned by the business.”

Jennings adds: “I’ve worked in other organisations where engagement was seen as HR’s responsibility. At AbbVie, one of our greatest strengths is that the engagement results are owned by all of the executives. And the minute they’re owned by the executives, it becomes a business issue.”

Drawing on a positive experience of her own, Sadler recalls her relationship with one CEO who really valued HR’s contribution.

“Along with the CFO, we did amazing things. We were like the three amigos. We were working in an organisation that was really struggling financially, but with input from the three of us, we were able to pull it back together. 

“It wasn’t warm and fuzzy people and culture stuff. It was making tough decisions around redundancies and restructures. It’s the kind of stuff we needed staff to see us doing as a team. HR are the glue that bonds it all together.”

But when there are cracks in the relationship, it’s felt by everyone.

“Rarely do we hear people asking, ‘Should the finance director be at the executive table?’ But often we hear this about HR.”

Sadler shares another example where the relationship started strong but came undone when the HR manager told the CEO that, legally, they weren’t able to demote a particular member of staff.

“The CEO didn’t like being told they were wrong. It broke the relationship completely and the HR manager got managed out the organisation,” says Sadler.

“This is an extreme example, but it’s not isolated. I’ve had young HR practitioners say to me that they want to stand up to certain decisions and offer advice, but fear it won’t be well-received and could cost them their job.”

While she acknowledges the bind this puts HR in, Sadler says in certain circumstances it’s important to push back on the CEO, even if that’s to the detriment of the relationship.

“If you have knowledge of an illegal wrongdoing, you can be held personally liable. That can be far more serious than losing your job.”

Her overarching advice is to have broad knowledge of all facets of the business and a deep knowledge of HR.

“The only way you’ll get leaders to understand the value of HR is by demonstrating it in a way they can understand.

“For example, while HR isn’t all about recruitment, it is an area that the CEO understands as important. There is a huge dollar value associated with it. So it’s a great opportunity to come out with a strategy that meets business needs at a number of different levels and allows you to talk in a commercial language about the results you can achieve.”

Value recognised

Not all executives treat their HR team as an afterthought. Those interviewed in this article are testament to that. And a recent study by Stanford University, which interviewed 85 CEOs and CHROs from Fortune 1000 companies, found that 96 per cent of respondents viewed their HR department as vitally important. 

However, it’s not just about how HR is perceived by the business, but how HR views itself. It’s true that the executive team has a responsibility to bring HR into the fold, as Jennings says, HR needs to ensure it’s being a valuable business partner. “I’ve struck HR professionals who’ve held a very different view of HR’s role,” says Jennings. “And I think those people don’t do HR a great service, because the minute we’re not relevant to the business, we’ve got a problem.”

This article originally appeared in the August 2019 edition of HRM magazine.

Senior HR professionals that undertake AHRI’s Senior Leaders Pathway are trusted advisors to their organisation. Learn more here.

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In our daily lives 40 per cent of our actions come from habits. A daily routine like getting up for glasses of water  promotes a healthier and more productive day, but what if you took routines and expanded upon them to create rituals for a better work culture?

A study found that performing a simple ritual like meditation prior to a normally anxiety inducing task, reduced the number of elevated heart rates and improved the overall performance of research participants.

So introducing rituals and better habits can help a workforce, but meditation isn’t going to be possible or appropriate for everyone. Here are some other examples.

The lesser known All Blacks ritual

Many would know of the All Blacks’ ritual before games, the famous Ka Mate Haka, but they also perform a simpler ritual after their games.

It’s called ‘sweeping the shed’ – every team member cleans up the locker rooms after each game. According to Legacy by James Kerr, it contributes to the team’s success (they have won just under 77 per cent of all their matches) by keeping them humble.

Another successful organisation, Google, allegedly has 86 per cent of its employees state they are either extremely satisfied or fairly satisfied and the secret to their success is attributed to constant innovation, experimentation and fun.

“Organizations are tapping into the power of ritual to encourage innovation. These small acts can be used in the workplace to engender a sense of community, build cohesion and ultimately help take an organization from good to great,” Google’s chief innovation evangelist, Frederik Pferdt says.

Pferdt’s team engages in a ritual at the beginning of every week where everyone shares a personal or professional failure and what they learned from it.

“The ritual is repeated every week and helps build psychology safety and comfort around failure,” he says.

Alleviating disappointment

Rituals aren’t just about increased satisfaction though. Researchers at Harvard Business School conducted an experiment to see if rituals could alleviate disappointment.

They invited participants to their lab and told them they would be a part of a random draw where they could win $200 on the spot without having to complete the study.

Some of the losing participants were asked to complete the following ritual:

• Draw how you currently feel on the piece of paper on your desk for two minutes.  
• Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the paper with your drawing.
• Tear up the piece of paper.
• Count up to ten in your head five times.

Those who engaged in the ritual reported feeling less grief than those who didn’t.

Ritual design strategy

A team of researchers from Stanford and Oxford found that total employee engagement in the US is only 32 per cent. They decided to tackle this problem in an ongoing series of ritual design workshops. Through them they found what they believe are the keys to successful ritual design:

• Improvisation
• Collaborative and playful interactions
• Adapting to team life cycle challenges
• Acting out rituals rather than writing them down
• Having clear ground rules

Crash the desk

The results from one of the workshops provide an interesting look into the kinds of rituals organisations could consider designing. On the first day participants identified a challenge in a particular organisation’s team, and the next day they used the researchers’ framework to design rituals that could assist them.

One of the identified challenges was a virtual team that was struggling to connect personally. To help them a ‘Circle Up’ ritual was designed. During the team’s once-a-year in-person meeting they would come together in a circle and each member took turns walking into the centre to share something small but personal. After each presentation, the rest of the team would clap and cheer.

A similar use of personal details was in-built to a ritual designed to help a team with its onboarding. It’s called ‘Crash the Desk’ and its purpose was to surprise new hires on their first day of work. While the staff member was away from their new desk, it would be filled with personal objects from their teammates. The idea is for the employee to go on a ‘treasure hunt’ where they have to talk to co-workers to try and figure out which object belongs to whom and find out what made the objects special.   

Do you have any team rituals? Tell us about them in the comments below.

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The week before starting his new job at Mackay Regional Council, Rod Francisco sat in on a management meeting there. It being a Friday, he was wearing one of his bright, paisley business shirts that he reserves for the final day of the working week.

“The CEO, Craig Doyle, just looked at me and said, ‘What is that shirt?’” Francisco recalls. Doyle then announced that Francisco would lead the meeting – an arrangement sprung on him. “I literally took a deep breath and went ‘wow’. The level of dysfunction, from a team perspective, was really an eye-opener.”

Francisco was stepping into the role of people and culture manager, which had been vacant for two years. During that time, the council experienced a sustained period of uncertainty and senior staff turnover. Many program managers had departed or changed roles and there had been a changeover of mayor, CEO and director of organisational services.

“Consistency of purpose was lacking and there was no HR manager in place for an organisation of 1100 employees,” says Doyle. “The focus became on a ‘survival’ mode rather than looking for continuous improvement and direction. There was more emphasis on industrial relations than core HR principles.”

Management self-assessments revealed the team was “siloed”, “protecting their backyards” and “acting like junkyard dogs”, says Doyle.

As a result, there was poor operational and capital expenditure management, disengagement, silo mentality, multiple capability redundancies across programs and a high level of resistance to organisational change.

“I came to the business in early 2016 without local government experience. There was a lack of faith in leadership in the HR space,” he says.

New beginnings

One of Doyle’s first decisions was to recruit Francisco, an experienced HR manager. Over his first three months in the job, Francisco sat down with the 40-odd program managers and directors for at least an hour.

“I said to them, ‘It’s not for me to tell you what I’m going to do. I want you to tell me what you want from the people and culture function – what is it you need to be more successful?’ The CEO presented me with some feedback the team had written about themselves and there were very clear cultural dysfunctionalities.”

Francisco noted that drivers of poor collaboration, such as distance or work across different business sectors, were mostly absent.

“It’s not because they didn’t want to work together – it just wasn’t embedded in the culture. The belief that they would get a better result by collaborating just wasn’t there,” he says. “The program managers didn’t always talk to each other about what they were doing, so you would see double-ups or conflicts of outcomes.”

Initially, Francisco wrote a 2016-2020 people and culture strategy document, remodelled the team and filled two vacancies. “It was probably the busiest I’ve ever been in the first three to six months of a job. But it was a fantastic opportunity to embed a new way of thinking about how culture works within the organisation. There were so many frustrations. We needed to ensure people understood that their delivery of technical, performance-based outcomes was fine, but that we could do a better job, and things would be easier for others, if we worked as a team.

“We worked hard for them to understand that sometimes their efforts reap benefits more for others than for themselves – and that’s ok.”

Problem management

Now the management team meets monthly, with a focus on strategic outcomes and challenging strategic thinking, says Doyle.

“Most managers and directors have embraced the new direction. The change has been dramatic. They laugh and joke together, which wouldn’t have happened 12 months ago.

Turnover is down, we’re attracting quality applicants, we’ve become an employer of choice and there is confidence from staff that we are here to develop everyone. Our industrial relations issues have evaporated and we’ve adopted a more transparent style with the unions.”

Mackay’s transformation was documented as part of Francisco’s case study to achieve HR certification via the Senior Leaders Pathway. The submission includes quantitative and qualitative data as evidence of success. Francisco says being certified by AHRI also improved his standing among colleagues.

“I work with CPA accountants, and certified engineers and project managers, and to be able to stand alongside them and say I’m a certified HR practitioner adds an element of credibility.

“A couple of them, when they heard I was doing it, said they had always thought HR was a bit wishy-washy, but that if I was typical of someone doing certification, it would make the profession more authentic and respected.”

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