Donna's Blog
Is your HR function creating friction or flow?
- Details
- 05 March 2015
I first came across the idea of HR creating friction or flow a year or so ago when reading an article by J Craig Mundy in the HBR.
This idea had surfaced for me once before when I was running a workshop for a group of HR professionals on the topic of “What business wants from HR”.
The conversation turned to policies that make work harder, things like expense claims, annual leave records, and specific things like taking an important client to lunch, or rewarding a colleague for doing great work (buying them lunch, or a movie ticket). There was much discussion on how policies often prevent people from being able to do these simple things.
My suggestion, which garnered many nods, was that if a policy is preventing people from doing good work, then change the policy.
One of the participants went very red in the face and said, “Under no circumstances should HR be changing policies! They are there to be adhered to!" I nodded thoughtfully to him and suggested that this is why HR often has the brand in organisations of being “difficult” or being the “policy police”.
A few questions to consider:
Do you have a few policies that are well written and aligned with the organisational needs?
Do you have too many policies that are detailed and prescriptive?
Are the policies helping people do their work?
Are the policies hindering people from doing their work?
There are a couple of stand out organisations for me that are getting their HR stuff right. A while back I met with Seek.com, who at the time were amongst Australia’s employers of choice, and got a tour of their business from the HR Manager who explained a few of their more unorthodox HR practices. The one that stood out for me was, no probation. They decided that if their recruitment process were on the mark, they didn’t need to give employees a probationary period. They also took responsibility as an organisation to make it work if an employee was having difficulty settling in.
The other one was unlimited sick leave without the need for doctors certificates. They decided to trust their employees to do the right thing, and they managed by exception rather than the rule.
Here’s a link to a great article from HBR about how Netfllix is reinventing HR:
For many HR professionals some of these practices would seem foreign and/or unmanageable. Either way, it’s food for thought.
The question to ask is, are our HR practices creating friction or flow in the organisation?
