The only constant is change…
For May’s blog post I thought I’d focus on something that’s definitely a constant in both my work and personal life - change.
Personally, as mum to two young boys, I feel like I’m constantly watching them change. The minute I feel I’ve caught up with the development stage they’re at, they learn and grow and change, and I’m right back to figuring out how to support them through the newest phase.
Professionally there’ve been so many changes in recent history! The constantly evolving hybrid working model has undoubtedly featured highly for many people. For me, the ability to continue to work from home has been invaluable. In fact, I was only commenting to a colleague of mine last week that I had no idea how I juggled my commute and childcare pre-pandemic. This, however, is probably worth a blog post on its own!
Returning to work from a period of maternity leave has also left me learning updated policies, meeting new colleagues, and continuing to work out how to juggle my little ones and my career. In this post-pandemic world (and yes, I’m going to be optimistic and say post!) so many people are dealing with their own changes. Many have had to contend with significant loss, others are experiencing triumphs. As an HR professional, I believe that it’s never been more important to see our colleagues as holistic people. While I appreciate that some may ascribe to the view that employees should “leave their personal problems at the door”; experience has taught me that this just isn’t realistic. Of course an individual’s personal situation shouldn’t dictate working practices, but I absolutely believe it should inform HR advice particularly when dealing with employee relations and change processes.
Take, for example, a large organisational restructure. When employees have already been through a period of significant change and instability with the pandemic, it’s even more important to ensure large projects of this nature are planned out thoroughly, with a specific communications plan that enables employees to be informed at every stage and consulted with meaningfully. Nobody wants to be sat in a room full of their colleagues and presented with a nameless structure, trying to work out what this means for their job moving forward. For me, a more individualistic approach where people fully understand proposals for their roles and the impact of suggested changes on them, the more likely you are to get meaningful engagement with consultation and employees who feel valued. I’m not suggesting that meetings should happen on an entirely individual basis, that’s not always pragmatic, but you want to ensure people feel heard and have a mechanism by which they can raise queries and concerns.
Where employee relations issues are concerned, again I feel that an individualistic approach is far better than attempting to move forward with an attitude than “one solution fits all”. Yes, in any organisation you want to ensure parity in respect of approach and decision making, but to assume everyone should be treated the same is to discount the true meaning of equality. For example, during the pandemic my place of work changed our absence management process to be less prescriptive and more individualistic with a focus on managers documenting their decision making and having room for taking a creative approach depending on individual circumstances. Where sickness absence is concerned there of course remains guidance and suggestions for levels of attendance that are/aren’t broadly acceptable - but what our new policy does well, is empower managers to take decisions that account for the holistic person they’re dealing with, rather than a rigid formulaic approach that reduces a person to statistics. This means conversations change from “you’ve had x days absence therefore we do x” to “you’ve had A days absence due to B, you’ve sought C support and your personal circumstances have meant D. Taking this into consideration our approach moving forward is to do E.”
Change is inevitable, and right now many people are exhausted from the constant lack of clarity and changes that have occurred over the last 2.5 years. If you’re supporting management (or if you are management) and you’re implementing a large scale change initiative (e.g. redundancy, restructure programme) or you’re wrestling with complex casework - I implore you to stop and consider the experience of your employees as they’re taken through the relevant process. I’m sure you’ll find that a more person centred approach to people management better enables you to achieve your strategic priorities, while caring for the welfare of your employees and supporting them, as we all navigate constantly evolving circumstances.