Recruiters! Are you getting the best from your applicants?

As a recruiter, it is important to understand today's job market reality and the impact this has on the job applicants.

Though there are plenty of jobs being advertised via different job sites, the reality is that recruiters receive such high volumes of applications that most of the applicants don't even make it to the next stage. Yet each applicant will have spent over an hour repeating their details for the 100th time on yet another application form.

Now imagine if you were an applicant who has applied for 30 jobs in the last month. You will have spent over 30 hours completing application forms which all ask for the same details - name, address, work experience, education background, etc. Of those 30 jobs, you may have been lucky to get 1 or 2 interviews, for which the applicant needs to prepare so they can fit in with the expectations of the employer. A misfit from the employers perspective leads - if you are lucky - to some feedback on your 'performance' at the interview, though really another rejection. Imagine how you might feel after 3 months? Will you have any enthusiasm for completing another application form?

The perspective I wish to convey is one of 'wasted' time and energy due to duplication, and its impact on an applicant's enthusiasm, motivation and engagement.

Now if you allow me, here are two alternative scenario which will lead to better outcomes all round.

What if an applicant can send their CV with a higher quality personal statement? Or what if organisations could 'headhunt' people at all levels of the organisation?

The first is a very practical way in which recruiters can help applicants today. It helps applicants as it reduces the time spent duplicating information on application forms, while more time and energy can be given to a better quality personal statement which really sells the persons' suitability for the role and gives more time to look for other jobs. This ability to redirect energy to improving quality and volume of applications in turn will lead to more  opportunities and less loss of enthusiasm along the way.

The second is one of recruiters educating the applicants they come into contact with. Recruiters have a role to prepare people for the future, and - though many organisations are still fighting it with tooth and nail - social media is here to stay and is helping to change the world of work forever. It is helping us all to get better at celebrating our achievements. Some forward thinking organisations are already using websites such as Linked In and Google searches to great affect, seeking out and attracting individuals with unique skills, knowledge and experience into their organisation. This trend is growing rapidly across many industries who understand the empowering value of the internet.

My advice to recruiters and organisations who seek to recruit is to consider the proposed changes, not only to help applicants but to ensure you don't miss out on the unique individuals whose skills, knowledge and experience would add value to your organisation and help it thrive and survive!

Culture Change and Understanding the True Source of Bureaucracy

The source of bureaucracy is too often misinterpreted and misunderstood. Bureaucracy's source is not 'control', bureaucracy's source stems from a want to 'protect and make safe'.

When speaking to managers who are perceived as controlling, the predominant topic is that of protection and risk prevention to restore safety, stability and consistency. This actually shows a lack of understanding about the purpose of risk in our daily lives. Taking risks helps us all grow to maturity as it comes with powerful life lessons. It also helps each of us explore and identify our own unique strengths.

In overregulated, bureaucratic organisations and institutions, we deprive people from achieving their fullest potential. We paralyse people into 'learned dependency' and institutionalisation where thinking and decision-making only happens at the top of the organisation, and any change then demands the 'carrot and stick' approach which has little or no affect on the paralysed staff who feel undervalued and have disengaged from proceedings all together.

In order to create a positive shift in culture, it is significantly important to recognise that managers do not set out to control, but that the original positive intention is to 'protect' though in the process some managers actually overstep the line and become a 'overprotective, heroic rescuer', contributing to a 'carrot and stick' culture, overregulation and a disengaged workforce.

Next steps to transforming the culture, governance and engagement of the workforce is a three-pronged attack. This includes:

1. a Systems Thinking leadership programme with elements of human psychology and 1-2-1 leadership coaching which helps to identify and challenge the well-intended though paralysing behaviours of leaders across the organisation, and ensure any newly recruited leaders have the right attitude and aptitude which supports the right organisational culture. This may come with some tougher organisational decisions as not everyone - even with support and coaching - is ready to lead in this way

2. simplify and leanify your organisational practices, policies, procedures and processes, and identify and solve any regulatory tensions. Also get 'central support services' such as Communication, IT and HR involved in service delivery, not creating paralysing bureaucratic practices in the background

3. stop protecting staff from the truth and engage your whole workforce by sharing with them the organisational bigger picture - the good, the bad and the ugly! Share the responsibility and accountability with all managers and staff as this is the only way to build a healthier, innovative and more resilient organisation together

This three-pronged attack, but particularly the latter commitment to transparency - will help your organisation self-organise itself (breaking organisational silos). Some managers and staff will be highly motivated by the truth and roll their sleeves up, while others will want to seek out a role more suited to their strengths outside of the organisation, all supported by leaders who are no longer 'overly protective' but who support career development (whether internal or external) and personal accountability in the workforce, as well as being happy to free the organisation from bureaucracy and overregulation. 

How to move from Theory X Blame Culture to a Theory Y Agile Culture?

Many organisations in the current climate are having to deal with significant pressures. As human systems, organisations react using the same neurological pathways and human psychology as an individual. If the individual lacks resilience, we often observe a fight, flight or freeze response. When the individual is more resilient, we observe a different set of behaviours which helps the person thrive. Within an organisation however, it is often the persons at the top who set the behavioural expectations and therefore the culture of the organisation.

As I was reading up an Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y model, I noted some significant similarities between the organisation's psychology and McGregor's model. Theory X leadership is the sign of an organisation which lacks resilience and trust, which in turn translates into increased control at the top of the organisation (and where relevant Governance Board) and results in more complexity and 'You must ...' style bureaucracy (aka command-and-control, see image). This leadership style in truth paralyses most of the workforce.

In a Theory X organisation we often find increased centralised control at times of uncertainty, which leads to poorer performance, increased risk of litigation and increased mistrust and blame. Theory X, according to McGregor, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Theory X leaders are most definitely in the process of 'sinking the ship'. If your organisation or team is governed/managed by Theory X leadership, my question to anyone is: 'Do you care enough to do something about it? Or do you value your health more to step away?'

On the other hand, Theory Y leadership is a sign of resilience and trust as it recognises the need for the organisation to become more agile and play to the strengths of its whole workforce, not just the managers. Agility can only be achieved through devolution of control and installing shared accountability. To play on the boat metaphor above - 'a big tanker finds it much harder, if not impossible, to move safely through a field of icebergs' and there are plenty of 'icebergs' yet to be manoeuvred round in the current economy. This agility needs to permeate throughout everything the organisation does, starting with how it is governed and structured. To give but one example, instead of the strict 'You must ...' policies and procedures, the organisation has to consider and prioritise 'the chalk outline' of the field (see image). 

The devolution of control and accountability also means the devolution of risk. The earlier risks can be responded to within the governance process, the quicker the response and the smaller the impact of the risk. Shared accountability also means that people will take responsibility for working with others so that decisions are better-informed, solving the age-old dilemma of silo-working (a symptom of hierarchical organisational design).

The great thing about believing in Theory Y is that it makes leaders of us all and that culture can be grown at the grassroots. Our own personal resilience can help influence positive changes across the organisation as resilient leaders can help others, who may be less resilient, feel at ease. Please note that this does not make strategists redundant in the organisation. On the contrary, the shared accountability across teams does change their role from 'people managers' seeking compliance with centralised processes to 'systems thinkers' who coach/facilitate trust & resilience-building, develop peer-to-peer accountability and encourage collaborative working of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams. 

Procurement, the Social Value Act and Organisational Change

Simon Cohen, Business Development Manager at Aress Software started the following Linked In conversation:

Legislation such as the Social Value Act in the UK appears to be becoming more important in public procurement – with a company’s social value/social impact seemingly having significant weight in the tendering process and directly influencing whether or not it is chosen by a public body as a supplier. To what degree is this trend toward measuring social value/social impact changing the way companies behave e.g. in terms of corporate social responsibility? What impact does this have on change management?

Heidi De Wolf, Principal OD Consultant at Future Catalyst replied:

The consideration should be three-fold in my view. First there is the Environmental impact of any change initiative. Regardless of the change initiative Change Managers/Agents are involved in there will be an opportunity to consider environmental impact, and it could be as simple as not printing off papers (digital by default) or as significant as using recycled materials for a major engineering project. 

The second is Social. Change is driven by people and people are social beings. It is important for Change Agents to consider how they involve people with the change initiative. Here too we could be talking about a simple engagement survey, which in my view is fairly tokenistic but has its place, or as significant as co-creating solutions. The less tokenistic the engagement activity, the better the ownership over the change/transformation. 

The third is Economic. Change has a significant economic imprint. When you consider change as a project, many change projects will fail as usually people throw money at creating change momentum, but rarely does it lead to sustainability. When you consider change as an important and necessary part of the fabric of any organisation, change agents will approach the initiatives with a very different thinking hat. As mentioned above, change is driven by people who bring to it their thoughts and energy, which should be the new currency for many organisations who want to embrace continuous change/ improvement. 

Only by considering these three elements will change initiatives add more long-term Social Value and help develop a culture of continuous improvement and even innovation.

Simon:

Very interesting. Of course, procurers in the public sector are looking at how their suppliers impact society e.g. through employment, CSR acts such as charitable giving, activities in the local community etc. If an organisation is not used to this kind of activity on a corporate-wide level it can create a real change-management issue.

Heidi

I agree, what is worse is that everyone - from top to bottom - should have consideration for Social Value, not just procurement. We do not only silo our organisations, but through it silo our knowledge, creating 'experts' who hoard knowledge instead of placing knowledge somewhere where people can access it 'on demand', as and when it is relevant to them. We should 'co' everything, e.g. co-learn, co-produce, co-own, co-develop etc, and truly make workplaces 'human communities' again.

Simon:

Ideally, there should be a framework within the organisation on creating social value which everyone can refer to. This framework should provide guidance on what kind of social value fits in with the organisation's values, objectives etc. and how this can be achieved. 

But at the same time the organisation has to bear in mind its responsibility to its shareholders to deliver shareholder value. Often, these two kinds of value can be at odds with each other.

Heidi:

There is nothing more powerful than aligning both value creation activities, as organisational misalignment only causes unhelpful tensions which lead to tokenism and poor performance in relation to Social Value. Social Value is not a 'nice-to-have', it is a necessity if organisations want to contribute to a stronger local and national economy. 

As citizens, your shareholders (and employees) will also benefit from any Social Value commitments your organisation makes and in an ever more consciencious society, organisations who care about the economy, the environment and people will WIN long-term!

The Strategic Strengths of HRM & OD

This blog is in response to the HBR blog 'It's not HR's job to be strategic' - http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/its-not-hrs-job-to-be-strategic/

Unlike the blog above, I believe HRM and HR Technology (including L&D) have a very important role in the organisation's bigger picture, supporting people within the organisation, which requires a strategic overview of how people can be attracted to the organisation and supported to reach their fullest potential. While traditionally HRM was built on McGregor's Theory X, facilitating Taylorist style industrial age organisations, today's HRM is needed to support organisational transformations focusing much more on workforce motivation, agility and resilience.

Organisational Development (not to be mistaken for L&D) on the other hand is committed to the organisational bigger systemic picture, which includes people, process, finance, IT, governance and other organisational functions. With this broadness of overview, OD helps to remove silo working mentalities. They should be seen as the organisation's 'bees', cross-pollinators of ideas. Siloed strategic thinking around one aspect of the organisation does not deliver efficiencies or innovation. This is where OD draws strategists, planners and doers together to collaborate on cross-functional innovative solutions.

OD does not hold the detail, they are solely the facilitators of collaborative strategic working practices as part of the bigger organisational picture, bringing people, knowledge and ideas together from across the organisation. This makes OD is a useful partner in partnership working with other organisations whose culture and processes may differ, as ODs expertise in Organisational Behaviour, Culture and Design supports the building of bridges and the re-designing of organisational systems and structures.

So in summary both HRM and OD have an important strategic function. The only difference is that HR is a functional strategist while OD is a cross-functional strategist.

Quick Note on Organisational Culture, Strategic Ownership and Measurement

In my experience as an OD Consultant, organisations fail to bring together Employee Relations, Employee (and wider Stakeholder) Engagement and its impact on not just Employee Wellbeing but on overall organisational performance, success and ability to innovate.

Often this can be traced back to an organisational culture which encourages the use of siloed task/project-driven strategic plans with high volumes of KPI which add unnecessary complexity, and in turn encourage the strengthening of micromanagement practices at the top. What is needed is a 'joining of dots' to simplify and make more efficient the delivery and measurement of outcomes by creating ownership over a solid outcomes-driven strategy.