LEADING THOUGHTS

You have seen the character on TV and you may have the displeasure of sitting alongside one or two of them at work. They are The Entitled, self-serving people who feel they are owed special treatment, even if they haven’t done anything to deserve it. Run for the hills: these characters are more likely to be the source of workplace conflict and less likely to be satisfied with their jobs.

Writing in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Paul Harvey (U of New Hampshire) and Mark Martinko (Florida State U) say their research shows that people who feel they deserve preferential treatment are more likely to be the first to take credit when things go well and to blame others when things go wrong.

The authors say that, true to the stereotype, young Gen Y workers are more likely than others to have a self-inflated view of their worth and have trouble listening to negative feedback. They expect a high level of respect and reward that is unrelated to their actual experience or performance, and therefore are bitter when they are not treated like royalty.

The way to deal with The Entitled is to document areas of responsibility and lines of reporting in order to remove as much ambiguity as possible. That way, employees with entitlement attitudes are less likely to form biased judgments.

An empirical examination of the role of attributions in psychological entitlement and its outcomes, Paul Harvey and Mark J. Martinko; Journal of Organizational Behavior (Vol. 30, Issue 4 , Pages 459 – 476)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

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Instinct tells you that employee-employer partnerships are usually win-win arrangements. By workplace partnerships I mean: profit and gain sharing programs; policies that maximize employee security; extensive employee and union consultation; joint problem solving and planning; and flexible forms of job design.

The critical view of workplace partnership is that, far from yielding mutual gains, such arrangements inevitably benefit employers more than employees or unions.

While there is anecdotal evidence that employer-dominated partnerships exist, the weight of research over the years shows positive performance outcomes from most forms of employer-employee partnerships. The latest bit of news comes from William Roche, an Irish academic. Roche was commissioned by Ireland’s National Centre for Partnership and Performance to conduct a telephone survey of more than 5,000 employees in Ireland, asking, Who gains from workplace partnership?

Roche found there are indeed mutual gains, with the same results in both union and non-union workplaces.

Employees: Gains in work autonomy, information provision, job satisfaction, and fairness. No gains in employment security or hourly earnings.

Employers: Gains in organizational commitment and quality of managerial/supervisory relations. No gains in employees’ willingness to accept change.

Unions: Gains in member commitment, influence, and likelihood of union membership. No gains in perceptions of union effectiveness. Roche does have sobering news on this front: “Ominously for trade unions, organizational commitment is found to be negatively associated with union commitment.”

Who Gains from Workplace Partnership?; William K. Roche; The International Journal of Human Resource Management (vol. 20, no. 1, 1-33)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

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Here is a video clip of Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google, speaking at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business Deans’ Conference. Skip ahead to the 16:10 mark, where Varian talks about Google’s people management principles.

At 19:27, there is an amusing anecdote about Google CEO Eric Schmidt arriving at his new private office and being met by a squatter who introduced himself as the “Chief Lumber Jack” (the guy in charge of the logs). As it would happen, the two  bunked together in the office for a few months, giving Schmidt a great introduction to the organization.

At 21:20, Varian talks about “OKRs”, Objectives and Key Results, that all Google employees complete to list work plans for the following quarter.

At 27:02, he talks about how business decisions are made either by HiPPOS (“Highly Paid Person’s Opinions” or hard data.

Two thirds of all change programs sputter and fail. Could it be that rational change leaders rely too much on common sense while disregarding the inherent irrationality of their colleagues? Two very rational McKinsey consultants build the case that human nature gets in the way of truly changing behaviour.

Consider the old chestnut of the compelling change story. It is now a given that leaders must communicate a clear story, which usually amounts to a narrative about regaining lost momentum. Aiken and Keller say this may seem like a rational approach, but it does not tap into what motivates most managers and employees.

These are the real drivers: “impact on society (for instance, building the community and stewarding resources), impact on the customer (for example, providing superior service), impact on the company and its shareholders, impact on the working team (for example, creating a caring environment), and impact on “me” personally (my development, paycheck, and bonus).” If a change leader can hit those five buttons, she is off to the races.

The manner in which the change story is told is no less significant. Instead of rolling out town halls and websites, change leaders would do better to help employees learn for themselves what the story needs to be. It may be easier to just lay it all out but employees are much more likely to buy in to the program when they are part of building the story.

Aikens and Keller offer a number of other insights:

• People think that they are better than they are (except me). Change leaders fall into this trap by thinking they themselves do not need to change.
• Do not over-invest in trying to woo the social “influencers”. More important is how receptive the organization is to the idea of change.

The Aikens-Keller article includes advice on how to follow up on skills-building programs with fieldwork assignments, as well as a reading list.

The Irrational Side of Change Management, by Carolyn Aiken and Scott Keller; The McKinsey Quarterly (Number 2, 2009)

Link to the article

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In these times of globalization, we often hear how important it is to cultivate a diverse workforce. But we also know there is a gulf between words and deeds, with diversity policy often little more than legal cover to protect against charges of discrimination. The question is, how effective are HR diversity management practices in organizations?

That’s the question posed by Australian academics Shen, Chanda, D’Netto, and Monga, in The International Journal of Human Resource Management. After an exhaustive review of research to date, they make these three conclusions:

1. Despite growing commitment to “equal employment opportunity” in many organizations, there is still widespread discrimination. “This is evidenced by low employment of women and minorities and the lack of minority representation at higher organizational levels. Also, female and minority employees are always disadvantaged in training, performance appraisals and remuneration.”

2. HR diversity is often restricted to “hiring by numbers.” Little is done in areas such as training, management development, and individual-based appraisal and pay. “Often, minority employees are recruited for lower positions and provided few promotion opportunities. . . While many organizations provide diversity training most training programmes reinforce norms and values of the dominant organizational culture.”

3. HR diversity management is primarily focussed on equality and fairness. Most organizations do not really have effective diversity management practices that value and make use of diversity, or that “unleash the potential of the diverse workforce they employ.”

And here’s a reality check: The authors note that there is no empirically proven association of HRM diversity practices with increases in diversity and improved organizational performance. And researchers have not investigated what HRM approaches are appropriate to manage diversity effectively.

Managing diversity through human resource management: an international perspective and conceptual framework, by Shen, Chanda, D’Netto, and Monga; The International Journal of Human Resource Management (20:2,235 — 251)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

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Today’s organizational principles are based on the idea that the workforce is shaped like a pyramid, with many young people at the base, a medium number of mid-career workers in the middle, and fewer older workers at the top. In reality, the workforce is beginning to look more like a rectangle with nearly the same number of workers at each life stage, writes Tamara J. Erickson, president of nGenera Innovation Network in the journal People & Strategy.

Given this reality, Erickson asks a number of provocative questions regarding organizational design:

Is it time to redesign career paths for lateral moves, with less dependence on promotion? Tie variety, recognition, learning, and compensation to the development of capabilities that are not necessarily related to hierarchy.

Do we need titles and, if so, for what purpose? Titles that clarify the function a person performs are essential; titles that recognize movement up the org chart are less so.

Does a career need to be continuous and linear? Provide employees with the opportunity to leave and re-enter the workforce.

How long should we expect people to stay in one job or even in one company? Redesign jobs to accommodate frequent movement and short tenures per role.

Should we redefine work in terms of tasks rather than time? Have employees put in only as much time as it actually takes to get the work done, and remove the need to keep regular hours or show up at the office each day.

How can you ensure employees are choosing you? Find ways to let prospective employees understand for themselves what it is like to work in your organization, and then encourage the prospective employee to evaluate the fit.

Redesigning Your Organization for the Future of Work, by Tamara J. Erickson; People & Strategy (Human Resource Planning Society, Vol. 31, Issue 4)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: Engin Erdogan

The average manager spends about 18 percent of her working day handling conflict, nearly double from the 1980s, making conflict resolution skills of prime importance. But you would never know that judging by the undergraduate curricula of university business schools.

In the Journal of Education for Business, Matthew Lang of Morgan State University reports on his study of 166 U.S. and European business schools. Among U.S. schools, only 44 of the 97 studied clearly identified conflict management as part of a business course, and of those only 18 had a course dedicated to the subject. Of the 69 non-U.S. schools studied, 14 identified dealing with conflict as part of an undergraduate course; only seven offered a required course.

Lang says universities should better equip the next generation of workers for the reality of organizational life. “Completion of a required conflict resolution course should result in better group and team performance, improving management effectiveness for graduates as they move into organizations abundant in conflict.”

Conflict Management: A Gap in Business Education Curricula, by Matthew Lang, Journal of Education for Business (March/April 2009)
Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

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With a population approaching 1.2 billion, half under the age of 25, India is one of the world’s human capital powerhouses. But is India making the most of its demographic edge? In Human Resource Development International, Rao and Varghese suggest that “conservative human resource development (HRD) policies” have not helped India’s skills base to keep pace with the country’s economic progress.

India’s organizations were among the earliest to separate HRD departments from personnel departments to focus on talent and organization development. Despite this, the authors contend, “there is little to show that the HRD function has added value. HRD’s impact on business is still not assessed. Data from HRD audits of 12 Indian organizations indicate that the HRD function is structured badly, differentiated inadequately, poorly staffed and fails to meet basic HRD framework requirements.”

The authors cite one recent study of line manager perceptions of the HRD function in 18 Indian organizations, which indicated a dramatic fall in the performance of the HRD function over the last decade. “While many organizations have been trying to reposition or reinvent their HRD,” they note, “the HRD function seems to be busier in HR maintenance activities than HR development activities.”

The HR environment in India is beset by a shortage of skilled labour at all levels of the spectrum and fierce competition for talent, resulting in poaching, rising wages and attrition, and the loss of intellectual capital.

Faced with such challenges, HR departments are running to stay in place. The authors offer a litany of shortcomings:

• HR departments spend little time or resources on the development of existing employees.
• What resources are available for training are almost exclusively devoted to building hard technical skills at the expenss of soft skills.
• Several management fads and styles are practiced across organizations, confusing employees.

“Large-scale professionalization of the HRD function in Indian industry through reliable and robust HRD systems and sub-systems is, at best, a distant dream,” Rao and Varghese write. “While many firms have taken encouraging steps to pursue HRD on a more systemic footing, at several others, systems serve a public relations function to be pointed out occasionally in chaste corporate speak to newspapers and magazines for employment branding purposes.”

Trends and challenges of developing human capital in India, by T.V. Rao and Sumeet Varghese; Human Resource Development International (12:1,15 — 34; 2009)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com