Development or growth?

I recently attended a seminar around Human Resources. This was organized by Hays Consulting inviting a guest speaker. It was interesting to see how Japan is ranked in terms of talent resources. For instance, Hays Consulting claim that Japan is worst ranked in Asia Pacific in terms of the mismatch of the talents. If I remember my old days at a Japanese company, this claim does not sound surprising at all. But, I am not sure if this is true because I am not aware how the data has been obtained and collated.

Having said that, I have found the report quite interesting. I do not intend to argue the credibility of the data. My point is actually related to the presentation made by the guest speaker. Piotre Feliks Grzywacz is an HR professional. He was Regional Head of People Development APAC at Google. He has already written a book: 0秒リーダーシップ:「これからの世界」で圧倒的な成果を上げる仕事術

He mentioned that the current organizations are based on promotion but that the future organization should be based on growth. Gen Y values personal growth more than promotion (https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf). This is when the term ‘growth’ started to resonate in my mind.

HR professionals know that development has to be discussed when the line manager conducts performance evaluation. Let’s review what the employee has achieved and let’s see what they need to achieve. The Line Manager is supposed to assess the employee from talent and potential perspective and discuss development needs. But this has a fundamental impediment. When the term ‘development’ is used, the employees tend to expect that their employer offers development opportunities and interventions. This typically means off-the-job training. Is this the right thing to do?

If you are a football fan, you must have heard young players interviewed after a match. All the talented young players say that they enjoy very much here because they feel that they are growing. They learn a lot from their coach, from the other players and from the games they play. Their joy refers to an environment supporting growth. But at the same time, their words confirm that they are responsible and committed to their own growth. They never expect others to take the lead to develop their skills. They know that they are the one who owns their development leveraging on the environment and their own passion for growth. This is possibly influenced by the highly competitive situation and the pride they take in the job they perform.

Let’s apply this to our business context. Let’s use the term ‘grow’ to the business persons. Let’s discuss growth rather than development. Let’s start to review the growth the employee has achieved. Then let’s discuss the growth the employee wishes to achieve. Let’s see what the line manager can do to help the employee grow. When I say all of this, I can pleasantly feel the sense of ownership and the coaching approach. This is a huge difference compared to the case where the term ‘development’ is used.

This may be just a matter of terminology. But we know that words are powerful. I think growth is a powerful word from HR perspective and management perspective.

Culture change

Culture change is one of the most important agendas in HR and Management. This also makes your CV brilliant if you have a successful case around culture change as HR Business Partner.

https://hbr.org/2016/11/hr-cant-change-company-culture-by-itself

This article was written to argue the ownership of culture change. The article claims that culture change does not work if it is solely owned by HR. The business leaders have to own culture change in order to drive the change successfully.

I could not agree more. But I want to introduce this article because the article summarises what a culture is. Let me give you an extract:

True culture change means altering the way the organization lives and breathes. It shapes the way people make decisions, get their work done, what they prioritize, and how they interact with colleagues, clients, and customers.

To summarise, a culture shapes behaviours around

• The way people make decisions
• The way people get their work done
• What people prioritize
• How people interact with colleagues, clients and customers.

This is why work around culture change is difficult. Let’s look at decision making. Decision making is influenced by a few factors. The major factors are 1) decision making quality of leaders 2) approval process of an organization. You can influence or alter decision making quality of leaders possibly through offsite training and/or on-the-job experience. This is a classic product of HR. However, approval process lies in the field of Organizational Development and most of HR Business Partners are not trained as OD specialist. It will be much better to combine interventions on the above two factors, but the second factor can easily be ignored because of the above limitation. As a result, the impact will be likely to be undermined.

So what do we need? I think that an internal workshop around OD for HR Business Partners will do. Any thought on this?

How to retain the talents

There are questions that compel an answer. For instance, you will get a unamious Yes from the participants if you ask: “Does retention of the talents matter to your organisation?” “Does it matter to your organisation to get away from high employee turnover?”

I read the following article with anticipation and curiosity:

http://blog.achievers.com/2016/11/how-to-protect-your-company-from-high-employee-turnover/

However, I lost the interest soon. Why? Because the article talks about what seems to be techniques to retain employees rather than the principle around retention. Besides, it is written assuming that there is no problem or issue with the line managers. But who has confirmed that the line managers have nothing to do with employee turnover? Actually, the turnover has very much to do with the line managers.

We all agree that employees leave their organisation usually for more than one reason. Occasionally, employees leave their organisation 100% due to their family reason (the employee’s father passed away and the employee has to take over the family business). In this case, there is only one reason the employee leaves the organisation. But this is rather rare and usually people have a few reasons to leave the organisation.

I have always thought that the following model can apply: there are three factors affecting the decision to leave or not unless force majeure (the case above is included in the force majeure):

• Job or assignment
• Compensation
• People

Job or assignment

If you find the current job or assignment interesting or exciting, or if you learn a lot from the current job, this serves as retention. On the other hand, if you are bored by the current job, this forms one of the good reasons to leave the organization.

Compensation

If you are satisfied with the current compensation, this serves as retention. You do not have to be well paid, but you have to feel that you are paid in a fair manner. But if you feel that you are not paid enough for what you do, or if you discover that your pay is significantly below the market standard, this forms one of the good reasons to leave the organization.

People

If you can respect some of the people you work with, or if you learn a lot from the people you work with, this serves as retention. But if the workplace is full of people you cannot respect, or if the people you work with are far from role model and actually an anti these, you do not want to stay with the organization.

The beauty of the above model is that the three factors can function as a barometre. If you are unhappy with all the three factors, there is no reason for you to stay with the organisation. But if you are happy with all the three factors, you are embracing your professional life. Here is how the barometre works:

• Green: None of the three factors show concern. There is no reason for the employee to consider leaving the organization.
• Amber: One or two of the three factors show concern. I am assuming that many people have one of the three factors show concern.
• Red: All the three factors show concern. Under this state, there is no reason to stay with the organization.

Let me add a final touch to the above model. I think that the most influencing factor is people. Working is a human interaction. If you have to work with disgusting people, you are highly likely to consider leaving the organization; job or assignment can change and the compensation can increase or can be compromised. But it is difficult to compromise the people you work with.

Even if the onboarding process is excellent, and your colleagues are friendly, you will eventually consider leaving the organization if your boss is utterly disgusting. If we want to discuss retention, we need to discuss the leadership quality and management capabilities. More specifically, we should ask if our managers are people that deserve trust.