There are few things I am more averse to in the HR sphere than a job description. At one time ubiquitous, I am now optimistic about the fact that they will shortly become a dying breed. And no one will celebrate their demise more than I will.
Tag: engagement Page 1 of 3
We’ve all heard that old adage: People leave managers, not companies. While that’s not necessarily the case 100% of the time, it is nevertheless undeniable that the person managing you has a significant impact on how you feel about your role, your potential for progression, and your organisation.
One of my greatest frustrations as I have progressed through my career has been the experiences I have had – thankfully few and far between – of working alongside people who haven’t cared. People who just haven’t been bothered about the end result, who don’t care about where we end up.
The reason this is frustrating is twofold. Firstly, when people don’t care, we are less likely to achieve our goals. And secondly, when people don’t care, we are more likely to lose our good people. More likely to lose those people who really do care, who really want to make a difference, but gradually, over time, become worn down by the apathetic approach of their colleagues around them.
In my next blog in my series on Culture, Engagement and Business Objectives, I want to look at how we really start to define our culture.
The HR press have done culture no favours. It is all too frequently described as this almost ethereal concept, impossible to pin down and to objectively define. Consequently, there is a very real risk that it becomes perceived as some fluffy whim which should sit firmly – and solely – within HR’s domain.
A friend of mine has been having a rather torrid time at work recently. She has a new line manager. Unfortunately for her, it transpires that this particular individual is not the best when it comes to managing people. Quite an issue, when they have responsibility for a team of twenty people.
In the last blog post in this series I talked about my personal experiences of the impact culture can have on engagement, and therefore the delivery of business objectives. Following on from this, I want to now look at how these fit together in a model, and how the relationship between them is driven.
If we want to avoid the human race dying out, it is a requirement that we continuously repopulate. Each generation takes on the responsibility for bringing up and raising the generation that follows. In very simple terms: if our generation don’t have children, then there will be no generations to come, and mankind will eventually die out.
With this as the backdrop, I confess to being absolutely baffled as to why still, in the year 2017, there is a majority viewpoint that business and family life should be mutually exclusive.
In my last blog post in this series I started to explore how culture and engagement drive business objectives. We looked at the definition of ‘culture’ and ‘engagement’, and in turn, why this makes these elements so vitally important to an organisation.
We now need to start to look more closely at the relationship between culture and engagement. In order to do so, I want to share with you a case study. This case study is based around an experience I had very early on in my career, in my first HR role.
I spoke last week at the Executive Leaders’ Network conference, on the topics of culture, engagement, and how they can help to drive business objectives. I thought I would share across a series of blog posts some of the topics I explored, and how they translate back from theory into practise.
I’m going to be upfront from the start, in that I have a huge issue with the phrase “work/life balance”. To me, its connotations are both incorrect and unhelpful. By differentiating “work” and “life”, we have a starting point which suggests that working is mutually exclusive to living, and that every moment we spend at work is a moment which prevents us from getting to all other elements of our life.