Building a Culture of Fairness and Embracing Diversity

This post is inspired by a recent discussion in an HR Forum called   hrphilippines@yahoogroups.com . In that particular discussion, an HR practitioner asked if she should ask a job applicant about his/her sexual preference. The exchanges manifest that HR practitioners are slowly recognizing the need to embrace diversity and veer away from any form of discrimination. The problem is that the change is happening so slowly. There are still several of us who feel that it is necessary to ask that question. There were even those who hinted to be less obvious if they really need to ask it. The thing is, it is not the kind of asking that matters but the fact that sexual preference is considered as a factor in making hiring decision, which to me and a lot of people screams of unfair.

HR practice in this area in the Philippines has not matured.  Proof? Look at local job ads and you'll see lines that say, male this or female that, preferably male or preferably female, from one of the three top universities, from this to that age, preferably single  and so on and so forth. These are just the outright manifestations. There are still covert preference for straight male or female, certain religion and ethnicity that people seldom admit. A lot of people will not admit it but physical imperfections could cost someone a job opportunity.

I believe that this got to change. I do not disagree that it is the company's prerogative who it decides to choose to work for it. But I also believe that companies must have a social contract to exercise fairness in their employment practices - to hire and promote people on the account of their competence or ability to do a job and not much else. There are now laws in many parts of the world that secure the rights of the so-called social minorities. We are sadly still left behind in this area. Many business owners are still ignorant of this . Many HR management practitioners on the other hand either know little about it or do not care to champion it. I think it's time we do. Let's campaign for more objective selection criteria, fair treatment of those whom we use to consider to be different, recognize and promote people on the account of their performance and potentials. Let's educate the bosses and everyone else in the organization to be more understanding and appreciative of individual differences and prevent these from becoming the cause of discrimination and prejudices.

In a country such as ours where population is growing at a spectacular rate, discrimination and prejudice will make a lot of people outcasts on the account of their being perceived as different.

I believe the government, the business leaders and the HR field practitioners should make an affirmative stand in ridding this country of unfair and discriminatory practices.

HR Leadership

There's always somebody responsible for inspiring and motivating people to go to work everyday and give their utmost in delivering result. There seems to be no one in charge of doing the same for HR, hence the need for HR management professionals to demonstrate personal leadership, to be self driven and highly determined professionals. Let me substantiate my point.

In my years of consulting work, I most often see HR facing an uphill climb convincing people about what needs to be done. From the management side, hr proposals are viewed with much wariness and decided upon so slowly because of the cost they imply. They often forget the long term value of these initiatives and the short and long term effect of  HR's inaction. Just recently a company suffered some attrition because they decided to cut cost on their HR management-related activities.

From the employees' end, a poorly communicated HR initiative could be viewed with suspicion. HR seem to easily diminish its credibility much faster than say finance or IT.

In order to be effective, HR has to be "leaderly", show communication savvy, hungry for learning, with integrity and highly creative. There is almost always no one in the organization to teach them all these so HR must depend on themselves to imbibe all these qualities.

It might sound to you like I'm painting a grim picture of  HR work, i am not. I am in this work and in this business because I find it exciting. To be able to lead an organization from the middle, to be a source of knowledge, inspiration and motivation to me is an unequaled opportunity. Rejections, frustrations and failure are all part of the game. A true blue HR knows and appreciates all these. When faced by a debacle, a good HR  professional is seldom depleted. He dusts off and then looks at how to better face a problem.

I believe it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy and succeed in the work of HR. These are people who have passion for leadership and for seeing things get better. A great HR person is a perpetual learner, strategic-minded, and mindful of others. There is no better way to succeed as an HR professional than to manifest all these. HR to me is a Leadership position that requires the qualities I mentioned in this post.  If you are a young practitioner, I encourage you to know more and desire more to make a difference in the life of others and in your company' performance.

GREEN HR

These recent environmental catastrophes that are happening in the Philippines and the world are awful warnings of the worsening impact of human apathy towards the environment. The only way for the onslaught of devastation to slow down, stop and then turn around is for all of us to pitch in and initiate conservation. Thinking about it, I realize that we, Human Resource Management practitioners can do a lot considering the amount of influence we have in the organizations we work in.

We can launch a green campaign that will not only save the environment but will also help the company save on cost. With management's permission, we can form a green committee that will look at how we can change the way we work so we can save energy, cost and contribute to environmental conservation. Off the bat, here are some of the things I would like your green committee to consider the following:

• Start with responsible use of electricity by turning off lights and office machines when not in use. Benchmark your before and after electricity utilization and see how much you can save. If you think your savings is substantial, you can just imagine how much the entire country will be saving if all organizations refrain from wasteful practices.
• Work with as little paper as possible. HR tend to use more papers than other departments and can find some convincing justification for it. Challenge that thinking by asking ourselves, what can we do to reduce our use of paper substantially? How about using emails or electronic files to document and process, leaves and other requests? How about not printing those CVs? I'm sure we will suffer some inconvenience but that is so minor compared to the number of trees we can save by collectively decreasing the demand for paper.
• Launch a recycling campaign and turn some of your recyclable waste into extra income that you can use to fund some minor (maybe even major) employee events. Have employee groups champion this, I'm sure they will appreciate it.
• Incentivize energy and cost savings. Benchmark your current utilization cost and then measure savings increment on a regular basis. divide the savings when you feel it is already substantial so some of it goes back to the employees in the form of cash or non-cash incentives.
• Launch a company-wide green campaign as a corporate social responsibility so that employees can start practicing conservation activities in their homes. You can be really creative here. Come up with a recognition program that will motivate employees to participate. Involve the media if you can.
• Make tree planting a part of your company's annual activity. Maybe you can even design a team building event using this theme... Hmmm :)

This as far as this bus ride will take me. I'm sure you can come up with ideas of your own or are already practicing some of what I'm saying here. Please share them with me. Send pictures too and I will gladly feature your company in this space.

I am starting this movement in ExeQserve. I enjoin you to start yours in your own company. If we can get as many HR Management professionals to heed the call, we might make a difference in this country and contribute to environmental conservations.

Let's go green, fellows!

Off Topic: Vote for Richard Gordon and Bayani Fernando

To my regular readers, I apologize for digressing from my regular topics. I just feel that this is one of those few situations when I have to break my own rule to pave the way for something that is of utmost importance. This is a one time post. I'll resume discussing HR and Leadership topics in my next post.

On May 10, 2010 we will choose our next leaders. I do not claim to be an expert in politics but at the rate the campaigning is going, it looks like we're going to have more of the same. The most winnable candidates give us a choice between corrupt and incompetent. Those however, are not the only choices we have. We need to look beyond candidates' perceived popularity in order to make a wise decision.

Gordon and Fernando were not my first choice, not because I don't believe in their ability to lead the country but because in my mind, they are among those with the least chance of winning. I asked friends about their preferences and they always come up with another candidate as first choice and then Gordon and Bayani as second. They say that if Gordon and Bayani were more popular, choosing them would have been easier. I was of the same mindset, until I lost patience in the tandem I originally chose. I do not question their integrity but I waited too long for them to show some intelligent plans for the future. Unfortunately all I got were requests to wear yellow shirts and weird TV commercials. I needed to see their platforms because there was no past performance to hang on to. With Gordon and Bayani, a plan is a bonus. I only have to look at their past performance to know that they can deliver the goods. As we say in HR, past behaviors are the best predictors of future performance. It dawned on me that they are the best choice for the presidency. They are not the most popular choice at this time but I'm thinking that if people can realize that we need more than popularity to get this country moving towards the right direction, people can make better decisions. I'm hoping that leaders and managers who read this blog, who agree with me can influence others to rethink their choices. Gordon and Bayani need all the help they can get. They are the real underdogs in this campaign who should be at the top. Let them be the dark horses who will win in the end and deliver to us the kind of leadership and management that we need as a nation.

Transformers is the most apt monicker for them because both Gordon and Fernando transforms for the better everything they touch. It's true of Gordon with Olongapo, SBMA, Dept of Tourism and the Senate. It's true of Fernando with Marikina and MMDA. None of the other candidates can boast of the same. None!

Don't be fooled by sweet talking, eloquent and emotion-laden rhetorics of the other candidates. Smart talking doesn't always translate to action. Some candidates are following the same corrupt strategy of the current administration. To vote for them is to have another six years of the same corrupt regime. The others are well meaning but incompetent. We need integrity plus competence. That's the kind of qualities I see in Richard Gordon and Bayani Fernando.
(Photo taken from http://www.gordonbayani.com)

If you are still looking for an intelligent basis for voting, go to this site: http://thepoc.net/voters-education/4451-voting-matrix-choosing-a-candidate-for-president.html

The Challenge of Creating a Culture that Fosters Creativity

This is more than just a blog post, this is an inquiry.

What does your company do to encourage employees to be creative?


Creativity brings forth a lot of benefits to the organization, it saves you money, enhances productivity, improves customer service, speeds things up and improves quality of worklife. However, in order for creativity to flourish, a nurturing environment is necessary. And there lies the challenge. Managers don't always know where to start and how. Your ideas and experience will surely benefit a lot of readers of this blog.


Please share your own story or ideas on how you set up a work environment that serves as hatching ground of creative and innovative ideas in the comment section below.

Team Building: Why Teams Fail To Execute Great Ideas

There's a learning game I often facilitate as a team building facilitator in the Philippines. It's called Helium Stick (or ring depending on what I'm using at the time). It's a very tricky game that tests the ability of groups to work as a team. The goal is to move the stick from one's eye level down to that person's knee. It's a pretty simple task made difficult by the requirement that everyone's fingers must be touching the stick from below and that at any time during the game, if one of them loses connection with the stick, the group goes back to the beginning point.

The exercise can be quite frustrating because the stick keeps moving up instead of down. Most teams eventually find their rhythm and win the game while others fail. I have seen this game played dozens of times and I think I may have seen every conceivable strategy of bringing the stick down but here's the thing. I have seen most of them strategies both fail and succeed which leads me to conclude that it is not about the strategy. It's all about teamwork. Strategies fail not because teams fail to come up with a good one but because of several reasons. Here they are:
Failure to communicate clearly - when teams plan, they tend to just hear out the one with the idea and often fail to clarify some details like what is expected of each member, and what the performance parameters are. During execution they end up disconnected, un-synchronized and misaligned. When this happens, a group would throw away an idea that we have seen work and come up with one that we have seen both fail and work.
Failure to trust - when communication isn't clear, it is difficult to trust the effectiveness of the strategy. When this happens team members disown the entire goal and just focus on what they as individuals have to do which is to keep their fingers attached to the stick. This causes the stick to move to the opposite direction, thereby further frustrating the team.

Fear of being blamed - when trust is not there and communication is unclear people mistake the attachment of the finger as more important than bringing the stick down. Bringing the finger down too far is risking detaching the finger from the stick, thereby causing the team to be punished into going back to starting point. Those who are bold enough take the risk of being blamed. Not a lot of people is willing to do it, hence the team as a whole fail to improve their performance because not all of them are willing to try out the strategy.

Obviously, what makes great ideas work is communication. Communication builds trust, clarifies issues, resolves conflicts, establishes accountability and clarifies what is important. Communication is not one way. No amount of memos or PowerPoint presentations can do it. Only when you see people asking questions, posing a challenge, stepping up to suggest better ideas can you say that there is indeed communication going on in the team.

only those who are able to figure out that they need to improve the way they communicate and the start trusting the process and each other can they win this game.

Many of us managers forget this and this is why too often our own helium sticks go up instead of down. Let's all learn from this lesson and work towards improving communication in our teams.

Let your team learn the powerful lessons of this game through the way we process them by inviting us to facilitate your next team building workshop. Click here to know more.

Two Tracks

Marcus Buckingham is right. Conventional career paths in organizations need to be reviewed and changed so that people can play more to their strengths. As it stands now, most people are promoted to their level of incompetence (See Peter Principle), a principle that we seem to have accepted even though we can actually change it if we want to.

In one of the IT companies we've done consulting work for, we designed the career paths to give people two options. They can either take the path towards leadership or the one that will keep them doing the things they love doing, grow in it professionally and financially without having to be promoted to a managerial role. This way, some of our engineers do not have to take up leadership positions when they are not made for it just to get more compensation. We also don't have to lose great players and then gain ourselves lousy leaders.

It probably is unfair to say that this is applicable to all but to those where this is possible, the process isn't that complicated. The first step is to create two career paths where one leads to managerial roles while the other one keeps the person doing what he does best and rewards him or her for doing better. The next step is to design your salary structure to support the two-track career path. This can be done by designing broad ranged salary levels with wide overlaps. This way, people can receive salaries as high as their bosses', maybe even higher for as long as they are able to demonstrate improved performance competence in the work that they are doing. The third is create a mechanism for assessing whether people are going to be more successful keeping their old roles or moving up to leadership roles. Lastly, design your incentive and benefit scheme to help people who are better off keeping their old jobs be motivated to stay in that job rather than aspire for a bigger role where they will likely suck. One of the potential problems of this model is the thought that it will become internally inequitable due to people's conventional idea that managers should be paid more than their subordinates. This is where communication is very important. Management should be able to explain clearly why this action is being taken. Also, performance standards must be made clear so that people are aware of what is expected of them.

Personally, I believe that people who are meant to become leaders whether or not the company embraces the conventional approach to career pathing. Nothing can stop those who have what it takes to lead to actualize. It is their destiny. Those who are better off and more productive by being kick-ass programmers, sales pros or service professionals should be given enough incentive to do what they do best.