Common Sense Has Left HR

Common sense has left HR and we need to bring it back.

I was at an HR conference with 200 HR professionals and saw the epitome of "groupthink" or lack of common sense. I still can't decide. There were 200 people, having the same problems, BUT asking each other how to solve the problem they all have. I was looking at these senior HR professionals thinking, "Am I wrong to think that if I had the same problem as them I would not be asking them for solutions? I would be asking people who don't have the same problem as I do."

Here is the thing, HR is run everywhere pretty much the same way. Same policies, processes, practices, performance management systems etc. Why? HR was taught that these processes should work because they are logical solutions to HR's problems. Also, because the herd mentality gives us comfort and someone to blame when things don't work out. Following others is easy and comfortable. So we have implemented everything we have been told and we have also collectively ended up with the same problems. Bravo! So what do we do?

First of all, HR must understand that those processes do make sense in theory. I can fight for each of them but then humans come into the picture and the logic in those processes is gone. What works on paper most of the time doesn't work in real life and we are dealing with real life. If it doesn't work we must change it. How do we know that they don't work?

Ask your employees, and they will tell you. Stop asking other HR professionals what your workforce needs, they don't have the answer, your workforce does. Would that be a strange thing to do?

Apparently it is because when I was at the conference I asked HR "Okay, so all these frameworks and solutions, but, tell me about your employees' experiences. How do they feel about.......?" They looked at me not even understanding where I was coming from. Look inside not outside.

As an HR in charge, you should be looking outside to see what are the new tools, interventions, etc. But, you must always start with your workforce. What you want to do is design their experiences based on their and your organisation's unique needs and when you get that you realise that it doesn't matter what Sally from another company says or does it wouldn't work for you. The game is not to have every corporate buzzword incorporated somewhere into your organisation. The aim is to look at your unique situation and decide what your workforce and organisation need. Your needs and strategy should identify your tool/intervention and not the other way around. Look at NatWest's case study of how designing employee experiences has transformed HR and the organisation.

HR must move away from adopting and continuing with practices especially if the workforce doesn't take them seriously. If your PIPs, reference checks, exit interviews, annual appraisals and other processes are not taken seriously by the users and are just something "that we complete for HR", does it make sense that you burden your workforce with them? Can you get rid of them? Can you change them? Are there alternatives? You must ask those questions.

When you deliberately design employee experiences you start with that. You audit all your processes and check how your employees feel about them, and then you do the creative work of designing solutions that are suitable for you instead of adopting practices that put everyone in the same poor situation. When logical solutions fail us, it is time to think differently and maybe do something that is illogical but works.

Just because others have lost their common sense it doesn't mean that you have to.

If you need help here it is. Books, videos and other free guides:

How to design employee experiences:

EX Design Video: Part II