While the HR function has largely moved from an administrative to a strategic function, a lot of the elements still dates to the old times.
The future of HR must be one of expanded focus and extended influence: expanding its focus to encompass the entirety of work and the workforce and extending its sphere of influence to the enterprise and business ecosystem.
Deloitte has written over 13 articles through its Global Human Capital Trends, calling for action. Given the growing importance of the human element at work and the continued gap in HR readiness, will HR remain as a distinct function? One of the plaguing items circle around Talent Management.
Here are a few habits that have proven to be toxic to an organization and why we should steer clear of them.
Being unaware of one’s actual company culture – It is often noticed that the top management / investors have a completely different understanding of the company’s culture than that of the employees. Open-source websites, such as Glassdoor, which record employees’ experience of their working environment, provide a much needed reality check for self-deceived leaders.
Confusing employee engagement with happiness – Although employee engagement deserves all the attention in the world, the concept has been hijacked by those who equate it with happiness. The main purpose of an organization is to make their employees productive. When an employee is engaged, it means that he / she finds meaning in the work that they are doing.
Ignoring the toxic effect of office politics – Every organization has varied levels of office politics involved. While you can’t completely eliminate that, it is critical to ensure that it doesn’t go out of hand. Most notably, perceptions of office politics have been linked to higher levels of stress, turnover intentions, and burnout, as well as lower levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement.
Misunderstanding leadership – there is a big difference between what organizations actually do about leadership, and what they should do. For instance, most managers – are selected for either technical expertise or personal charisma, when the quality that really matters most is their ability to build and engage teams.
Relying on intuition instead of data – Although reasoning biases are universal to all human beings, they are particularly pronounced in managers. Allowing intuition to proliferate unchecked by metrics allows prejudices of all types to flourish while undermining true talent.
In short, to the extent that organizations are able to accurately evaluate their culture, energize their staff, minimize the influence of office politics, and properly assess leadership potential, they will be more likely to outperform their competitors.
