Welcome to the new era of technologically advanced systems and operations. An era where HR personnel scrounge for all-rounder ‘multi potentialities’ to survive the test of time against the ever-evolving demands of the industry.
Let’s first take a halt to agree upon what indicates progress – Scrapping off every manually tested process? Embracing digitization whole heartedly? Leaving behind the traditional best practices with new age human resource management?
Well, in spite of embracing all the technology and improvisations that the digital era provides, honesty has always been appreciated upright, even if had to consume with a pinch of salt. Even an artificial chat bot needs to be supervised by a living human being to produce the desired answers.
What Constitutes Growth & Profit?
Rational:
Numbers speak volumes. If the balance sheets of businesses do not highlight consistent profit, how will they sustain?
Rationale:
Employees form the pillars of an organization. If there weren’t any people, how would there be profits?
Being rational versus re-aligning the rationale, the million-dollar question from the average HR professional still remains: “How to keep the employees happy?” In order to keep the top and bottom lines afloat, organizations have to make tough decisions at times. But not at the cost of its driving force. All strategies, decisions and processes rolled out within an organization or by HR consultants must ensure that they keep the well-being of its people on priority.
Progress Beyond Numbers
Treating employees as a mere statistic is the biggest folly that organizations have been committing since decades. Adding onto existing under-achieved targets, cost cutting, overlapping job profiles, and tight deadlines equals to a tremendous increase in the stress quotient at the workplace. Employees will eventually be disengaged and leave the organization in search of better opportunities. Analyzing the Quotient of Happyness at work and taking preventive measures to rectify it should always be on priority for effective people management.
HR should focus more on cultivating the passion to work better. Drive productive professionalism. Policies with flexible regulations, that ensure that the business doesn’t suffer, but at the same time, caters to the happiness of the people.
Two Sides Of The Same Coin
Time and again it has been said that ‘HR is not a career for nice people’. That in no way implies that ‘People in HR cannot be nice’. The duty of an HR personnel goes beyond marking attendance and acknowledging good work. Getting the employees to take a person from the HR industry seriously, means making communication a two-way process.
Instead of complaining, organizations, and especially the HR personnel need to take a keen interest in reasoning out where the processes lack. The root cause needs to be addressed. Replace the competition with appreciation, nurture skills, and encourage discussions. Rely on empathetic instincts to get work done. A politely delegated task gets more work done than an instructional manuscript.
Strategize For The Future
The rapid rise in intelligence quotients that is making talent acquisition simpler, is in fact a bane in disguise. If the HR survey results for the rate of attrition across industries were to be tallied; freshers today majorly comprise of millennials. And this generation actively seeks emotional satisfaction at the workplace. Salary and perks take a secondary position on their list of priorities.
Engaging this audience is the easiest. Every professional thrives on challenges. Projects that teach them the virtue of patience, that enhances decision making skills, human resources management and makes them a better leader. Present a package that helps employees enjoy coming to work and you will solve the biggest dilemma of where their loyalty should be directed.
Working hard to meet deadlines, pooling in resources to achieve targets, length brainstorming sessions to generate out of the box ideas; these are the age old best practices that no technological advancement can replace.
Till date, there are organizations that believe in ‘driving processes for progress’. It’s time we burst the myth. It’s time we go back to recognizing the true pillars of an organization that add value to its being.It’s time we add back the ‘people’ to People Management. Identify the elements that bring Happyness at Work and make it an agile, ‘people first’ and ‘people oriented process’ that delivers results.
“I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people.”
— Thomas J. Watson, Jr.
A Business and its Beliefs (1963)
