Welcome to the 7th edition of Discuss HR. These articles seem to be generating a decent level of interest and we will endeavour to keep the high standards going! On a personal note, thank you to all of you who read and commented on my article last week. This week the last of our regular panellists to make their debut is Dawn Clarke, an experienced HR professional. There is a definite argument we have saved the best to last as Dawn explains how using a holistic approach she vastly improved the morale and performance of a business. (Ed Scrivener)
Holistic approach to management
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| "morale was rock bottom" |
We hear a lot these days about holistic health. Treat the whole body to keep it healthy. Make sure it’s fed well, that it gets enough exercise etc. How would this work if we applied it to people management? Instead of seeing employees as the people who present themselves during their contracted work hours, what about if we looked at the whole person and considered what they do when they are not at work. What motivates them outside of work may well give us the answer to what might help engage them in the workplace. Who are these people who turn up to do a job of work for the Company? If I manage the whole person rather than the employee part of the person, would I get the same effect as the holistic health approach? The answer is yes! Many companies attempt to do this by the type of benefits they offer however I have found that these benefits alone do not necessarily assist with employee engagement. Whenever I have engaged the ‘whole person’, I have never ceased to be amazed at what I find out.
I first discovered this many years ago when I joined a Company where morale was rock bottom and inter-team working was almost non existent. I’d done all the usual things of talking with managers, identifying issues, examining communications and drawing up a new communications plan which should have covered all the issues I had identified. Things improved slightly but it didn’t produce the ‘engagement’ levels I had hoped for. We always want employees to engage with the Company however this does need to be a two way street. The Company needs to engage employees in ways in which they want to be engaged and in my experience most people want to feel special in some way.
In the case above I decided to organise a Christmas Review and asked all the different teams to provide a piece of entertainment. As you can imagine, the response was even less than luke warm. I would have described it as ice cold and so I visited each of the teams and ‘hinted’ that all the other teams had a contribution and that they were the only team not to be participating. (Naughty but it worked!) I continued to engage the teams and was surprised to find how extremely creative (and competitive) they all became. Here were people who played musical instruments, were members of their local amateur dramatics society, had a wicked sense of humour and were so used to organising events in their home lives that what started out as a small Christmas Review became a dinner show with the employees themselves doing the catering and making a charge for tickets so that any money raised could be contributed to charity.
There was now a new buzz about the place. People were just so much happier because they were all pulling together to pull off this event. Employees from different teams were now working together on different elements of the project. Managers began to see their own people in a different light too. Individuals who had always come across as a bit grumpy and uninterested in anything were now coming up with ideas and contributions. The whole thing had become a little like a runaway train.
The event itself was a huge success and both audience and participants felt a sense of belonging particularly when participants drew in members of the audience through the sketches and songs they had prepared. Employees talked about it for months afterwards and more importantly now spoke to each other far more easily. Rather than talking to a stranger from a different team, you were now able to speak to ‘the lady who had played the trumpet’. Incidentally, the lady who did play the trumpet got a huge attack of stage fight and ended up getting the loudest cheering and applause. This was a team now cheering on a team member. People were happier at work because lots of barriers had been broken down. They were also more confident about making suggestions for improvement.
Initially it was a lot of hard work for me and may have looked to my CEO as not being ‘real’ work however I was lucky enough to have a CEO who understood what I was trying to do and she was the first to acknowledge the benefits. Of course this may not always be a practical solution in many companies, however I would say that I did initially meet a lot of resistance – I just refused to give up. Now I make engagement my number one priority. I always make a point of personally meeting new starters, finding out where they came from, why they joined the Company, if they live locally, do they support any particular sport etc. I then make sure that I pass by their workplace or see them in a communal area and ask how they are getting on. I always encourage fund raising activities for things like ‘children in need’ or breast cancer awareness. It really engenders a sense of community and allows people to bring their non work skills into play.
This is all very achievable. In larger companies, this can be done by encouraging HR Business Partners to engage not just with managers but also with the employee group. One of the measures I apply to Business Partners is the number of times they are invited to social events by the teams for which they are responsible.
Holistic management does not mean intruding into the personal lives of employees. It doesn’t mean making ‘private’ people feel uncomfortable. It means making people feel that they are more to the Company than the person who provides services during their contracted hours. If you want to know more or have your own examples of holistic management, please share them with the group or contact me directly.
About the author
Dawn is an experienced HR professional with strong development & internal consultancy experience. She takes a practical approach to HR turning strategic plans into operational reality. Dawn has experience in a variety of industries with a track record of commercial success by engaging people and making work a fun place to be. On a personal note she is a huge Liverpool fan, well someone has to be!
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 24th February and will be written our first guest writer, experienced leadership and reputation consultant Judith Germain.
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