Are people our most important assets?
“People are our most important assets.” Whether that statement rings true or hollow depends on actions. It depends on how people are treated. Are we celebrated as humans, or pushed to be cogs in a machine?
With AI coming, I wonder if “people being the most important asset” is still true. How long will it stay true? Should we celebrate the potential of AI replacing people; or of AI enhancing people?
Below I'm going to summarize chapter 23 from Level Three Leadership by James Clawson. In it we'll cover the main activities of HR and how to make them a bit more personable. This way we can all work towards celebrating people, who, even with AI, can still be our most important asset.
What is HR?
Human Resources are the systems and structures to manage people. When you have great people within great systems, greatness happens.
When you have great systems with unqualified people, the company is frustrated and unable to reach its potential. When you have great people in bad systems, the people are constantly frustrated and unable to reach their potential.
The 6 key HR processes
Hiring
Find capable people with character traits that fit the culture who will be able to achieve organizational goals. This is really hard to do.
From all the evidence hiring is currently broken; both for people searching, and for people hiring. Unfortunately I don’t have a good answer. For some ideas read Patrick Lencioni “The Ideal Team Player” and my earlier article "Expectations to help people grow".
(Side note: because it’s hard, who-you-know and referrals become critical signals.)
Part of the problem is a desire to have someone that can contribute from day 1. This leads to over-weighting specific tools/technologies and under-weighting soft-skills and general aptitude. If organizations have a clear 90 day on-boarding process they may be able to focus less on experience with specific tools/languages and more on the person. In fact, creating a great on-boarding process helps hiring significantly because it becomes easier to identify bad-hires faster; and helps new team members learn the ropes and feel like contributors quicker.
Work Design
How do people know what to do to move things forward? This is tricky because at one end of the spectrum is dictatorial command-and-control; at the other end is undirected chaos.
World class work design provides people a say in what they do, an ability to do a complete task end-to-end, a variety of tasks, an ability to be creative, clear feedback, and a feeling that what they do matters. Does your team have that type of work?
When people first join an organization they won’t know the norms, nor will they know how value is created in their position. It’s important to help them get up to speed in a coordinated way. I recommend the book “First 90 Days”.
It’s important to think through the habits that run the organization. Push to make these the norms.
For example; I generally ask new people to have a PR in production as fast as possible. This shows they can get environments setup; they see how feature requests are managed; they see the code base and can push code out the door. To accomplish this they also need help from the team which is a good way to start building relationships. I’ve found it a good indicator; and helpful for people to feel part of the team by having something in production.
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To help with work design, think through how each of these steps is handled and by who. The more of these an individual or team can decide; the higher their empowerment.
Appraisal
How does an organization appraise the performance of people? There are a variety of tools aimed at this. OKRs, 360, forced ranking, 9 box, etc etc.
I’ve found a regular cadence of clear, caring, communication is the best. This is an area most organizations have an opportunity to show people they care for them as humans. Not by avoiding appraisals - but by doing it in a direct way with back and forth dialogue.
Unfortunately, appraisal is often needed for legal reasons; and is implemented at a system level by companies in a standard way. This is to force managers to have those caring conversations; but can result in people feeling like cogs in a machine. It’s best to use these systems; but bring your whole self to them; and have conversations more frequently than the corporate mandated ones.
Rewards
Often rewards create odd incentives. People are really good at optimizing to hit a goal without really hitting the goal. Or hitting a goal at too great a cost.
Rewards are an opportunity to be personal. To know what a person cares about; and help them achieve those goals; and get appropriate rewards for doing so. Note that not all rewards are monetary; but ignoring money does make people feel taken advantage of.
The goal of rewards should be to make sure the reward system leads to an improvement in strategic goals and objectives of the company. If the rewards are a drag; they need to be adjusted.
Learning Systems
People should grow. That means different things for different people. For some it’s growing in depth to master a specific skill set or craft. For others, it’s growing in breadth to be capable of more things. Some, it’s leadership. Others, management. Others, a multitude of ways.
It’s a bit like a Tetris game. People have desires for growth; and companies have opportunities and challenges. Support people in finding a fit, and coach them as they stretch.?
People also learn in different ways. I’m a big fan of helping people learn by doing. First, by watching someone else, second by pairing with someone, third by doing it themselves with coaching on the output, and finally by running themselves. In some cases it’s great to have the learner document what they are learning so the next person has something to go on.
Exit
People shouldn’t be surprised. People should be treated with dignity and empathy. How an exit goes will leave a lasting impression on the person; and will be seen by the remaining team.?For exits make sure things are documented, and work with HR.
Since networking is critical in finding another job; help provide resources.
See www.level3leadership.com for more on Level 3 Leadership.