Culture, Remote Working & Leadership: This Week’s HR Reading List
People seemed to enjoy my round-up of articles from last week so here I am again.
This is going to be a regular feature on my blog from now on, so if you’re like me and subscribe to far too many HR newsletters, use this as your weekly shortcut!
Here’s a quick overview of some of the articles I enjoyed reading this week.
What has HR learned from the past month?
It’s impossible for HR not to have learned anything from the past month!
This article from HR Grapevine talks about some of the questions HR teams should be asking themselves in light of recent events. Remote working, company culture, mental health and leadership all comes up.
Definitely worth a read for some food for thought! Click here to read the article.
Half of UK employees don’t know their employer’s values
Great Place to Work did some analysis of 1000 companies and what it told us about employees’ understanding of their employers’ values and culture was a little bit surprising!
Nearly half of employees didn’t know their employers values, 52% didn’t know their vision and 27% said the values contained too much jargon.
BUT another survey found that 77% of adults would consider a company’s culture before applying for a job there, with 5000 survey respondents saying culture is more important than salary.
So basically people want a company culture and values they can get behind! And I’m pretty sure HR get to see the positive and negative results of this in their day-to-day jobs more than anyone else in an organisation. It really is important.
What do you think the stats would be for the company you work at?
How can HR contribute to successful change initiatives?
HR practitioners know all too well that change comes with lots of ‘people challenges’. Because change can be scary!
The words restructure, acquisition or merger whispered in an office can make employees nervous. So how can HR teams help employees and organisations to get through major change initiatives without all the negatives they can sometimes bring?
Well, putting employees first is the best place to start.
I read an article from People Management this week which talks about why change initiatives often go wrong. Naturally, business leaders are often overwhelmed by managing whatever change it is, that they focus on structures and processes and forget the softer side – the people part. Sound familiar?
The article lists nine key themes that HR can focus on to help business leaders successfully manage change:
- Respect the past
- Create opportunities for staff to talk to each other, and to leaders, to help them make sense of the changes
- Focus on the how and the what
- Deal well with emotions
- Ensure employees feel valued, heard and safe
- Build and maintain employee and organisational resilience
- Manage employee engagement and career choices
- Establish psychological safety to help staff reconnect with their own value, a new purpose and each other
- Monitor and maintain morale and commitment
Click here to read the full article.
5 leadership skills everyone needs in a crisis
The next article is on HR Grapevine. It’s all about leading at a time of crisis, and they highlight 5 of the top leadership skills needed to guide a team through tough times.
- Clarity – In a survey of 100,000 employees, 89% said honesty and openness was the number one factor they look for in a good boss. So even if you have bad news to share, it’s always best to share it.
- Confidence – such an important factor in ensuring employees have faith in you as a leader. If you don’t have the confidence in your actions, why would anyone else?
- Listening – employees should always play a part in any major decisions being made by the leadership team. So make sure you listen to their opinions!
- Engagement – this doesn’t mean micromanagement, it just means understanding how your people work and how they’re feeling and operating through the crisis.
- Mindfulness – it’s already been mentioned that change can be scary. We’re all living through it now so it’s pretty fresh! Just remember to be mindful before you open your mouth, you never know what’s going on in someone else’s life.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks summary! Check back next week for my latest HR round-up.