As I re-engage with the HR world, however, I get a sense of de
ja vu because there don’t seem to be many new developments or thought leaders. The topics are amazingly similar to what they
were three, five, even ten years ago: Performance management is still broken, the war for talent continues, and HR technology still promises to solve everything from talent acquisition to employee engagement.
Meanwhile,
industry experts are still talking about how to do the same things better while surveying HR practitioners about HR priorities and best practices. It’s quite the echo chamber
so perhaps it’s not a huge surprise so little has changed.
There are a few fresh voices
talking about things like employee experience, design thinking, behavioural economics,
the gig workforce, holocracy, gamification, etc. Some of it’s pure nonsense, or ahead of its time, but at
least it’s new. And some of the tech
trends are truly exciting.
Nonetheless,
after three years focused elsewhere, it feels like HR has gotten itself stuck. Is it fear of
failure? Is it an ingrained tendency to follow
rather than lead? Or is it just easier to talk about the same problems with like-minded
colleagues than it is to rethink them completely?
Don’t Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk
Here’s an
example of what I mean: If diversity and personalization are drivers of creativity
and innovation, why do HR processes continue to trend toward standardization? And if outcomes matter more than activities,
why do organizations continue to measure things like number of training modules
or performance evaluations completed?
I mean, sure,
if you’ve taken the time to roll out an LMS or a performance management process
– despite the fact that for more than a decade, experts have claimed performance
management is broken while offering new best practices to break it in more up
to date ways – you want to understand your participation rate. I totally get that.
Understanding
your numbers is fine as you don’t confuse a high participation rate with
success.
One of the
problems facing HR today is confusing activity with outcome. And it’s not just HR, because we humans latch
onto anything we can measure. The problem
is that when it comes to people, some of the most important things can’t be
measured. So, in a way, it’s worse when
HR does it.
And don’t
bring up AI or block chain now as the magic dust or I’ll have to come over there. AI and block chain won’t help measure the
unmeasurable, although machine learning will likely have a huge impact on personalization. At best, they’ll help you
do a better job measuring or making sense of the things you already try to measure. At least for a while.
Just kidding.
I totally won’t come over there.
Time to Rethink HR Conferences?
I know, they're really fun. However, instead of
talking about the usual tech trends and topics, why not talk
about how to apply behavioural economics to innovation or incentive strategies? Or how to ensure managers are inclusive and
promote a culture of trust where innovation can flourish? Or how to apply gamification principles to motivate
the entire organization to achieve the impossible? Or how to create healthy workspaces that
inspire creativity and play? Or introducing a 4-day work week?
Someday AI will know us better than we know ourselves, but it’ll still be a
while before a a bunch of code – be it ever so elegant, unbiased and networked
- understands people well enough to make accurate predictions about individuals
in a fast-changing environment. And quite
frankly, HR will have about as much to do with blockchain as they do with SSL
or Unix, i.e. you’ll use it without knowing you’re using it. I don’t mean to be insulting
but let’s face it, the business isn’t looking to HR to figure out distributed encryption or machine
learning.
So why not
use the time to talk about how to enable people to bring their best and most
authentic selves to work? My post The HR Journey from Productivity to Purpose suggests some ways to help you do that.
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