By Sue Bingham
Human resources departments had a difficult job before the pandemic. In 2019, more than 50 percent of HR leaders struggled to ensure that employees had the skills necessary to navigate an increasingly digitized workplace. But, admittedly, this “future of work” had always seemed a safe distance ahead—far enough, at least, to thoughtfully prepare for it.
Covid-19 has changed the playing field. Today, HR leaders are working around the clock and taking unprecedented measures to keep their employees safe and ensure that their organizations survive. They are navigating furloughs, layoffs and reductions in force. They are adjusting to mass remote work.
All of these issues are being addressed through a familiar process: defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated and agreeing on the best way forward. But today’s greatest challenges are ones that we have never faced before: They are not just complicated (predictable), but complex (unknown). Traditional problem-solving, which is aimed at addressing the complicated, is not designed to tame the unknown.
To be truly effective in this “new normal,” we believe HR leaders need to develop a new core capability: a complexity mindset.
Simply stated, complicated problems require linear thinking—they can often be predicted or avoided, and they can benefit from expert input. In stark contrast, complex problems live in the realm of the unknown. There are no best practices to solve complex problems because we’ve never experienced them before. In this framework, it’s crucial to tap into your organization’s collective intelligence, prioritize company values and allow solutions to emerge.
This means that HR leaders will need to start collaborating more with employees at every level. Now is the time to focus on interpersonal relationships rather than control, standards and hierarchy. Adopting a complexity mindset starts by accepting that complexity exists and needs to be accounted for differently.
Here’s how HR leaders can embrace this mindset:
· Tap into the power of collective intelligence
The majority of the work force consists of smart, trustworthy people who know their jobs better than their leaders do. Given everything on HR leaders’ plates today, they will not succeed if they don’t trust their employees to help them brainstorm solutions for remote work accommodations, continued engagement and additional support. In other words, they won’t succeed if they don’t embrace collective intelligence.
Traditional thinking in human resources is that employee behavior must be guided by the rules of compliance. Corporate attorneys consistently tell HR leaders that they must adopt a mindset of risk mitigation in order to avoid lawsuits. This mindset translates into a culture of bureaucracy: rules, policies and practices for every bad apple ever encountered. To make matters worse, HR leaders are continuously reminded to “treat everyone the same.” Given that every person and every situation is different, this often results in a lack of fairness and good judgment.
Complexity-conscious HR leaders, on the contrary, view a good company performance as the result of open and clear communication. In practice, this means that when an employee comes to them with a problem, they probe for the underlying cause instead of jumping to a rule book solution. They ask open-ended questions such as “What is holding you back?” or “How would you handle this?” Throughout, they assume that the vast majority of employees are good people who will want to solve a problem once it’s brought to their attention.
· Foster a trust culture
So much has been written about the need for organizations to improve communication, recognize employees and practice transparency, but real change has been slow. As this crisis unfolds, it’s my hope that organizations will see the benefits of creating respectful, trusting workplaces and act with more urgency than before.
From an employee perspective, consider that more than 60 percent of workers say senior management-employee trust is paramount to their satisfaction. That’s because high-trust environments allow people to be their true selves, and when people can bring their whole selves to work, they are not only more creative, but also more productive.
Building a high-trust culture starts with cultivating positive beliefs about employees, because assumptions drive behavior. If you assume your employees work hard, care about the company’s success and have integrity, they are likelier to act accordingly. For HR leaders, this means rewarding exceptional performance with public recognition and individual growth opportunities; encouraging employee autonomy by letting workers set their own habits and mold their roles; and fostering transparency through open communication and evolving relationships. The goal is to develop leader-employee relationships based on genuineness and vulnerability, and to debunk the notion that managers should keep their distance from a personal standpoint.
HR leaders who adopt a complexity conscious mindset recognize that trust is key to getting through this present crisis. Thankfully, many realize this and have already begun to build such cultures: Research by the global communications firm Edelman shows that people trust their employers more than the government or media when it comes to Covid-19-related communication.
· Make your company values foundational
Even progressive organizations backslide to traditional thinking during crises. Under greater amounts of pressure, it’s not unusual to see leaders make autocratic decisions without regard for their impact on employees. Moving forward, HR leaders can help fight this instinct by putting a greater focus on demonstrating fairness and a passion for their people.
Every successful company has a set of fundamental beliefs upon which the business and its behavior are based. But too often, they are words on a wall, when they should be the very basis for how the organization executes its mission during good and bad times. Adopting a mindset of complexity means returning to the values of the company and allowing them to become a filter for decision-making in high-pressure situations.
If your company lists trust as one of its core values but it’s failing to deliver, pause to ask yourself: If we had trust in the vast majority of employees, what would we do differently? What’s getting in the way of trust? What personal behaviors can we demonstrate that would help build even more trust?
Applying this approach yields powerful benefits: Companies that focus on social good are more likely to survive the pandemic than businesses that focus exclusively on profitability or growth.
If you work in human resources, remember that your role is to be your company’s moral conscience. You should be willing to step up and challenge your organization to act in alignment with its values. Adopting a complexity mindset will help you get there.
Sue Bingham is founder and principal of HPWP Group.