HR Magazine recently connected with Hilary Stevenson, Lead Development Consultant, Atrium HR, to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing HR in 2020.
Before the start of this extraordinary year, the top five challenges facing HR in 2020 were predicted as longstanding goals relating to finding and landing top talent, addressing employee mental wellness, developing the next generation of leaders, finding resources for workforce development, and achieving diversity with inclusion. Little did anyone know what was around the corner. Hilary Stevenson, Lead Development Consultant, Atrium HR, noted, “COVID-19 has been a gamechanger and a significant challenge for almost every employer, and certainly for HR. It has impacted and challenged HR not only in the above areas but also in terms of technology, engagement, retention, agile and flexible working, pay and reward as well as leadership and culture.”
Coping with disruption
It is hard to give a definitive answer as to how well companies have been meeting the challenges as it varies significantly by employer. Stevenson noted, “I had been working with one client on an 18-month agile transformation which was completed and went live in February 2020. They had no crystal ball to look into the future; however, the transformation process left them well prepared, with employees clear about the expectations on both sides as a result of the change programme.” She added, “Technology for working remotely was in place, together with remote team meetings and performance reviews. The company had invested in a wellbeing monitor which has been able to gauge employee wellness throughout. Learning and development activities have continued remotely. Employees have been asked to give feedback on a weekly, and now monthly basis around many aspects of work-life since the pandemic broke and the results have been very positive.”
Beneficial attributes of agile leadership
Emotional Intelligence (EI) has come to the fore in recent months. Leaders’ EI has been invaluable not only in managing the impact of COVID-19 on their own state and performance but also in demonstrating care and understanding toward employees. Stevenson highlighted, “We have seen an upsurge in demand for supplying assessment of EI as part of leadership development and assessment for selection.”
“Leaders now need to be seen as transparent in their engagement and communication, not only with employees but with all stakeholders.”
In terms of the key features of leadership agility, Stevenson cautioned, “Leaders must be able to change not only their strategies and plans but their own leadership styles to deal with changing scenarios. The days of opaque, top-down communication are out. Leaders now need to be seen as transparent in their engagement and communication, not only with employees but also with all stakeholders.” She added, “With managers under more pressure than ever before to keep businesses running, communicating about events, progress and changing requirements have probably never been so difficult, yet it has also never been so needed. The most successful leaders coming out of this crisis will be the ones with the ability to make connections and see opportunity where others just see an insurmountable crisis.”
Remote working success?
The success of the move to remote working is very employer-dependent. Stevenson noted, “Some organisations simply give people a laptop and tell them to work from home (WFH), then consider themselves an ‘agile’ organisation. This is not the case. A truly agile organisation will have made the shift in culture and operating model to achieve an agile and flexible transformation.”
Where the WFH model has worked well and when remote working transformations are successfully implemented, employees report that they are more in control of their life as a whole. Without the drudgery of the daily commute, many have also found that they work longer hours and critically, keep at their most productive for a greater portion of the working day. Communication, in many cases, has improved as the remote meetings are focused and held on specific dates and times. Efficiency and productivity have increased, and managers report that they feel more at ease with teams working from home. This seems to suggest that trust levels have increased. Despite this, Stevenson highlighted, “It’s not all plain sailing though, and a particular challenge has been with working parents juggling remote working with additional responsibilities for their children’s education.”
Another sometimes overlooked side of work is the social aspect. Stevenson added, “People have missed the interaction with colleagues and without these work-based support networks and regular contact. In the absence of regular feedback on how they are doing, many feel nervous about the future.” A further issue is tech fatigue. This is when people feel a growing sense of frustration with the shortcomings of digital workarounds, missing the ‘old’ way things were done before.
Impact on management and performance assessment
Successful navigation of this new working landscape is down to the manager, and an effective one will have continued to keep in contact and manage performance as before. Examples of new metrics that have been introduced to assess performance in staff and teams working from home deal with availability, that is, how and when people will be available.
Stevenson advised, “The question of accomplishment versus activity arises when leaders assess how well the targets and goals are met. To support this, they can, and should, ask key questions. This can be as simple as, ‘What are you working on?’, ‘What have you accomplished? or ‘What do you need help with?’.”
To supplement this verbal feedback mechanism, many of the new apps facilitating remote workplaces such as Zoom, Tello and Mural allow management opportunities to review and assess performance. Stevenson noted, “This is particularly apparent with productivity tracking software such as Klipfolio to maintain some semblance of the ‘old normal’, morning check-in meetings and end of day progress meetings.”
“Successful leadership teams need to place even more emphasis on inclusion to bring different generations together with different skills to work together.”
Leading multi-generational workforces through digital disruption
Few things bring out the generational divide more than technology. Stevenson said, “It is important to remember there is still a sizeable chunk of the workforce who spent much of their career in the pre-digital age. Rather than fall into lazy inter-generational stereotypes, successful leadership teams need to place even more emphasis on inclusion to bring different generations together with different skills to work together.”
Possible solutions to assist in this on-going mission include introducing a range of remote activities from wine tasting to karaoke, which helps enhance cohesion and foster a sense of shared purpose between employees. Stevenson concluded, “In the often positively Darwinian world of business, companies must adapt to survive. The path to future growth will come when companies are valuing agility in their employees and, in turn, starting to reward that over traditional skills.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
