 "When employee appreciation ideas backfire")
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work," says Peter F. Drucker, management expert, author and teacher
A lot of corporate executives will probably smile and nod their heads in agreement reading this quote. A lot of HR managers will also agree that there are instances when they have introduced some spanking new processes with the best intentions in mind that have gone horribly wrong and have ended up becoming major irritants for the employees of their organisation.
First things first: No HR policy or process is designed with the express intention to irritate employees. No exercise in HR is created to harm their output or eat into their time while they chase targets and meet deadlines on a day-to-day basis. No HR process is intended to become a pet peeve or a deal-breaker for employees.
In fact, a disengaged worker can be more dangerous to your organisation than you can ever imagine. Research by Towers Watson, a global consulting firm, shows that only two in five workers in the Asia Pacific region are highly engaged at work. The rest are not consistently productive, and lack the willingness to go the extra mile for their employers, because of a lack of 'emotional connect' with the company. This is dangerous given that these 'disengaged' workers contribute to a high attrition rate, a huge setback to companies given that in India, the cost of replacing an employee in the junior to mid-level range and training her for the job would be roughly three times her salary.
Clearly, then, the top job for HR managers is to design processes that can improve employee engagement. Experts say that while the intention is great in most cases, many HR processes falter in the execution.
The Strategist spoke to a range of companies from different industries to identify a handful of such processes that were designed to keep employees satisfied and goal-oriented but ended up falling flat on their faces.
Filling up time sheets, leaving the task at hand to attend birthday cake-cutting ceremonies, receiving vacation reimbursement vouchers instead of cash-rewards, waiting in queues for food vouchers, being forced to attend yoga or wellness classes… the list of 'nuisances' as many call such rituals is endless.
Take the issues with time sheets, for instance. A few years back a news broadcasting company made filling up time-sheets mandatory for all departments. While it was easy for sales and marketing teams to comply, journalists were hard-pressed to justify the time taken to develop a story. The time-sheet thing continued to bug edit hands for quite some time before the editorial head decided to call a meeting between his team and the HR team to resolve the issue. Over time, the company has exempted editorial teams from filling up weekly time sheets.
A public relations firm narrates a similar story. Executives, who are busy through the week dealing with media and their clients, found it difficult filling up online time sheets every day. So what most of the people ended up doing was fill them up in a hurry on Fridays, usually at the day's end. The result: the system became slow and it was difficult to submit the forms in time. "We realised it was not working and we scrapped it," says the HR head of the firm.
A lot of people also feel that the real problem is that HR doesn't understand the 'real' needs of people. So even as they dole out gadgets and vacations in the name of rewards and recognition programmes, what the mid-level manager actually needs is hard cash. Bristlecone, a supply management solutions company, part of the Mahindra Group, was faced this conundrum when it decided to reward employees in kind for referring candidates for a vacant position. These would include iPads, iPhones and vacations.
The complaints of employees (especially those in their early 30s with young families) who asked for cash instead went unheard till the HR team in the company noticed that an increasing number of people were actually declining to accept the rewards. Some had their own gadgets; some had to be with a pregnant wife and so on. At some point the company's HR division decided not to dictate rewards but let the employees choose what was best for them. Of course, if one chose a reward it would be 18-20 per cent lower in value than what the company had in mind; but what worked was the fact that the choice rested with the employee.
What also annoys employees, despite the good intentions of HR, is the amount of time team building exercises take up. At advertising agency Cheil India, for instance, the harmless birthday cake cutting ritual for employees took up 30-40 minutes on an average. Little wonder, when the HR team sent emails to employees to be present at the function, it received a terse 'no'. The result: participation rapidly dwindled and a genuine, heartfelt exercise failed to get its due. Saswati Sinha, head, HR, Cheil India, realised the problem and quickly turned the elaborate ritual into "20-minute pizza parties" that were informal, less time consuming and had a larger buy-in. Attendance to these events held once at the end of every month for all the employees whose birthday fell in the month shot up.
That was an easier mess to fix, in part because Cheil was a smaller set-up. For larger corporations even such small issues have the potential of getting out of hand. Employees at NCR Corporation, India's largest ATM service provider with over 2,600 employees will vouch for that. The company used to offer its people food coupons on designated days of a month. The process became a nightmare because somehow not all employees could assemble at the same time. Also, when they did, the queues became endless and one had to stand for hours before his turn came. As people became miffed, the company ditched the idea and give employees electronic cards (akin to credit cards) that could be topped electronically by punching the employee code at the cafeteria. Suman Rudra, the company's HR leader in India, says while upgrading the process took close to a year, the effort was worth the investment.
Even small changes, agrees Padmaja Alaganandan, executive director (people and change), PwC India, can make a huge difference. Global IT outsourcing firm Xavient, which didn't have a dress code when it first began its innings in India, decided to introduce it later. The move to get everyone turn up in office in 'uniform' got employees fuming. But instead of scrapping it altogether, the company decided to reward employees who were visibly putting in an effort while dressing up for office. "We don't force a dress code now. But we make it a point to notice those who dress well," says Deepika Pillai, human resources director, Xavient, India.
So there you have it: it is not easy to be an HR manager, but you can do your job if you have the people on your side.
A lot of corporate executives will probably smile and nod their heads in agreement reading this quote. A lot of HR managers will also agree that there are instances when they have introduced some spanking new processes with the best intentions in mind that have gone horribly wrong and have ended up becoming major irritants for the employees of their organisation.
First things first: No HR policy or process is designed with the express intention to irritate employees. No exercise in HR is created to harm their output or eat into their time while they chase targets and meet deadlines on a day-to-day basis. No HR process is intended to become a pet peeve or a deal-breaker for employees.
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On the contrary, many of the HR policies and processes are designed specifically to help keep employees on the same page and streamline their day-to-day tasks. "Without HR policies, employees invariably get confused about the company's culture and expectations, resulting in a chaotic work environment. A good HR manager will design processes so there are fewer disengaged employees - the more disengaged the employee, the harsher the implications on companies," says Pankaj Arora, managing director, Protiviti.
In fact, a disengaged worker can be more dangerous to your organisation than you can ever imagine. Research by Towers Watson, a global consulting firm, shows that only two in five workers in the Asia Pacific region are highly engaged at work. The rest are not consistently productive, and lack the willingness to go the extra mile for their employers, because of a lack of 'emotional connect' with the company. This is dangerous given that these 'disengaged' workers contribute to a high attrition rate, a huge setback to companies given that in India, the cost of replacing an employee in the junior to mid-level range and training her for the job would be roughly three times her salary.
Clearly, then, the top job for HR managers is to design processes that can improve employee engagement. Experts say that while the intention is great in most cases, many HR processes falter in the execution.
The Strategist spoke to a range of companies from different industries to identify a handful of such processes that were designed to keep employees satisfied and goal-oriented but ended up falling flat on their faces.
Filling up time sheets, leaving the task at hand to attend birthday cake-cutting ceremonies, receiving vacation reimbursement vouchers instead of cash-rewards, waiting in queues for food vouchers, being forced to attend yoga or wellness classes… the list of 'nuisances' as many call such rituals is endless.
Take the issues with time sheets, for instance. A few years back a news broadcasting company made filling up time-sheets mandatory for all departments. While it was easy for sales and marketing teams to comply, journalists were hard-pressed to justify the time taken to develop a story. The time-sheet thing continued to bug edit hands for quite some time before the editorial head decided to call a meeting between his team and the HR team to resolve the issue. Over time, the company has exempted editorial teams from filling up weekly time sheets.
A public relations firm narrates a similar story. Executives, who are busy through the week dealing with media and their clients, found it difficult filling up online time sheets every day. So what most of the people ended up doing was fill them up in a hurry on Fridays, usually at the day's end. The result: the system became slow and it was difficult to submit the forms in time. "We realised it was not working and we scrapped it," says the HR head of the firm.
A lot of people also feel that the real problem is that HR doesn't understand the 'real' needs of people. So even as they dole out gadgets and vacations in the name of rewards and recognition programmes, what the mid-level manager actually needs is hard cash. Bristlecone, a supply management solutions company, part of the Mahindra Group, was faced this conundrum when it decided to reward employees in kind for referring candidates for a vacant position. These would include iPads, iPhones and vacations.
The complaints of employees (especially those in their early 30s with young families) who asked for cash instead went unheard till the HR team in the company noticed that an increasing number of people were actually declining to accept the rewards. Some had their own gadgets; some had to be with a pregnant wife and so on. At some point the company's HR division decided not to dictate rewards but let the employees choose what was best for them. Of course, if one chose a reward it would be 18-20 per cent lower in value than what the company had in mind; but what worked was the fact that the choice rested with the employee.
What also annoys employees, despite the good intentions of HR, is the amount of time team building exercises take up. At advertising agency Cheil India, for instance, the harmless birthday cake cutting ritual for employees took up 30-40 minutes on an average. Little wonder, when the HR team sent emails to employees to be present at the function, it received a terse 'no'. The result: participation rapidly dwindled and a genuine, heartfelt exercise failed to get its due. Saswati Sinha, head, HR, Cheil India, realised the problem and quickly turned the elaborate ritual into "20-minute pizza parties" that were informal, less time consuming and had a larger buy-in. Attendance to these events held once at the end of every month for all the employees whose birthday fell in the month shot up.
That was an easier mess to fix, in part because Cheil was a smaller set-up. For larger corporations even such small issues have the potential of getting out of hand. Employees at NCR Corporation, India's largest ATM service provider with over 2,600 employees will vouch for that. The company used to offer its people food coupons on designated days of a month. The process became a nightmare because somehow not all employees could assemble at the same time. Also, when they did, the queues became endless and one had to stand for hours before his turn came. As people became miffed, the company ditched the idea and give employees electronic cards (akin to credit cards) that could be topped electronically by punching the employee code at the cafeteria. Suman Rudra, the company's HR leader in India, says while upgrading the process took close to a year, the effort was worth the investment.
Even small changes, agrees Padmaja Alaganandan, executive director (people and change), PwC India, can make a huge difference. Global IT outsourcing firm Xavient, which didn't have a dress code when it first began its innings in India, decided to introduce it later. The move to get everyone turn up in office in 'uniform' got employees fuming. But instead of scrapping it altogether, the company decided to reward employees who were visibly putting in an effort while dressing up for office. "We don't force a dress code now. But we make it a point to notice those who dress well," says Deepika Pillai, human resources director, Xavient, India.
So there you have it: it is not easy to be an HR manager, but you can do your job if you have the people on your side.