The Seven Sins of Human Resource Management

Human resource management (HRM) is a very important aspect of management within an organization.  While often taken lightly by the Management of any organization, HRM is actually the lifeline of an organization unless the organization can be fully operated by robots or machineries with good artificial intelligence (AI) that matches the logical and pragmatic thinking capabilities of a reasonably rational human mind.

In reality, it is quite a sad tale that HRM the most often neglected area of management, and usually ranked the least important after other so called ‘more critical’ areas such as financial management, business development, risk management, and other areas having more direct impact to the business growth of an organization.

After having working for more than 2 decades in 7 different organizations throughout my career so far, I have come to realize that many organizations knowingly or unknowingly committed some common mistakes that gave away their talented employees to other organizations, and worst still, when they joined a competitor.  When that happens, the losses to an organization is far beyond pecuniary measures, and the pain is often felt in the wasted efforts and time consumed to train and develop the resigned employee.

While there may have been many literatures on the common mistakes of employers that drove talents away, I would like to provide my own account of the contributing factors towards staff departure.  I called these factors the ‘7 Sins of Human Resource Management’ and if this happens to appear in any other literatures, it would be purely coincidental.

My own reiteration of the 7 sins are as follow: -

a)          The Notion of ‘Indispensability’

Many leaders or bosses tend to have the naïve perception that as long as an organization possesses the financial resources to hire replacements for outgoing employees, the business operational hiccups can be kept at the minimum level.  Nevertheless, what they failed to realize is that it is always challenging to hire the right candidate for the job and even more so to replace someone who had been well-trained and conversant with the role.

b)         Everyone Has a Price Tag and Can be Easily Bought Over

Employers often take things for granted and assumed too much that their capable employees shall remain indefinitely with the organization.  Such belief is so deeply ingrained in the minds of the bosses / managers that whenever an employee tendered his/her resignation, the said person is often called up for a private pep talk with his/her superiors to negotiate for a retention monetary deal (i.e. commonly termed as a ‘counter offer’). 

Unfortunately, the ugly fact is while monetary counter-offers can temporarily retain an employee, it doesn’t tackle or address the root cause of the issue that resulted in the employee’s dissatisfaction.  Those who took a counter-offer will definitely re-assess a problematic issue and if that remains unresolved for some time, it will very likely lead to the grand finale of the same employee’s resignation with no further possibility of another counter-offer.  The situation can be more severe if an employee felt humiliated or denigrated and sees no valid reason to tolerate a non-conducive working environment any further.

c)          A ‘Noiseless’ Environment is Perfectly Fine

While senior management and Board usually perceived a calm situation in an organization as a blessing, it may not be entirely true.  A calm and peaceful working environment could be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at the most crucial of time.

I view it as an unhealthy situation when there is hardly any up flow of negative or constructive feedback from the employees to the senior management or Board.  This clearly shows either of the following phenomena: -

i)            A serious communication gap across all ranks within an organization that jeopardizes good working synergies among the various parties / stakeholders; or

ii)          An absence of a true sense of belonging in the minds of the employees that would ultimately lead to an easy path of exodus from the said organization; or

iii)         An unwritten restriction on the employees’ freedom of expression where unaddressed pent-up dissatisfactions led to resignations without any possibility of salvation; or

iv)         Inhumane attitude of the senior management or Board that only treats valuable employees are merely tools to achieve given objectives and didn’t care much about their feelings nor welfare.  

d)         Inequality Linked to Favouritism

Favouritism amongst the managers or bosses is perhaps the most prevalent practice in any type of organization outfit that can’t be avoided.  While it is perfectly alright to reward capable and high-performing employees abundantly, managers and bosses need to be fair towards the allocation of remunerations.  No single role in an organization should be deemed as more important than the other.  A more equitable distribution of remuneration, guided by a well-defined performance measurement matrix (based on meritocracy) is required to not only reward deserving personnel, but it should also motivate the lesser-performing ones to strive for improvements.

The performance appraisal process should incorporate a personal development plan as well for the individual employee to set his/her own desired career objectives, together with the timeframe to achieve them.  This should be constantly monitored by his/her supervisors, with proper and timely advices on the risk of side-tracking.

 

e)         Whimsical Organization’s Direction

When the business owners or senior management / Board of an organization often changes the business direction drastically and very frequently, it will surely drive employees berserk.  While it is logical to quote the need for alignment to market trends and dynamism as a valid reason, the said changes should not entail an absolute deviation from the original strategic direction of an organization.

It is fine to have frequent revisions to tactical initiatives to accommodate changing market conditions and business requirements as long as the strategic direction and plan that assures attainment of ultimate goals remained intact for at least a reasonable period of time.

It is therefore imperative for leaders of an organization to be firm and steadfast on upholding the core principles that are meant to steer an organization towards its planned destination.  Frequent unnecessary change of direction will likely be self-destructive.  Do bear in mind that while an organization has its goals to achieve, the employees too have their career plans or aspirations to be fulfilled during their tenure of employment.

f)           Lack of Personal Touch Towards Employees

A caring organization will tend to have much higher employee retention rate and loyalty.  HRM is not about using employees as merely tools to help the organization achieve its goals.  HRM is in fact a delicate management process that considers not only the productivity and performance aspects of the workforce, but the emotional and physical well-being of the employees as well.

It doesn’t hurt for a superior to ask about the physical well-being of an employee returning to work from a sick leave instead of bombarding him/her at first instance with questions on unfinished tasks as a result of the said absence.

More teambuilding activities within an organization may well produce the required ‘feel good’ factor and foster greater camaraderies amongst colleagues.  Always believe that a happy employee will yield more productivity compared to a disgruntled one that continuously exudes negative energy.

g)          Absence of Organizational Culture

This is perhaps the most overlooked and under-emphasized dimension within an organization, especially in a small to medium sized business outfit.  The general notion amongst the smaller organizations is that culture is something reserved for larger entities with bigger staff strengths where organization cultures are truly needed to regulate employees’ conduct and behaviours.

I wish to emphasize that the aforementioned notion is indeed a grave mistake.  Culture is often the single most important thing that defines an organization.  A cultureless organization is akin to a body without a soul.

A clearly established organizational culture aims to set a standard code of conduct and acceptable behavior that is expected from every single personnel within the organization.  In view of such importance, not even the Board of Directors or senior management shall be exempted from abiding to the organization culture.

A strong culture tends to shape good behaviours and promote healthy conducts within the organization and hence, minimize misunderstandings amongst the employees / management / Board.  With consistent practices and behaviours, there will be closer bonding between the organization and its employees - thereby creating a unique trait or identity that is less susceptible to ‘employee poaching’ by other organizations.

There is no single uniformed remedy for the 7 sins as elaborated above.  Each of the contributing factors can be either addressed separately or holistically, depending on the circumstances affecting the organization.  It will take a skillful management team with the full support of the Board of Directors and any committed strong sponsors to effectively and conscientiously resolve any HR issue associated with the 7 sins mentioned hitherto.

Disclaimer:

The views presented above are purely mine and do not represent nor in any manner whatsoever, represent the views of my current and previous organization(s). If any of such views seemed to infer or be perceived to be representative of any organization, it is by sheer coincidence.  The views expressed herein are intended to be objective in nature and no harm or malice is intended or directed on any party.