Hey, Industry: It’s Time to Value People Over Process

I have felt, for almost as long as I worked in health and safety (almost 20 years), that the importance, value, and emphasis placed on the workers commitment to an organization has been sorely lacking. This is not necessarily a reflection on the employers for whom I’ve worked, but more so a perception developed through observation, discussion, and interaction with colleagues, managers, professors, students, and networking acquaintances.

This perspective that industry has lost focus of its most valuable strength has been fed by discussions with a diverse range of people from different industries, with different backgrounds, in different professions, from different countries, and of different generations – yet one thing that most of these people agree upon is that there seems to be a lack of value for the people within the workplace.

To narrow the scope of this article, I ask the question, “If we start positively focusing on the people’s interaction with the organizational processes, can we create a healthier, safer, and happier workforce, leading to higher organizational output?” I would like to argue the affirmative!

Why Bother?

The list of studies that demonstrate the correlation between employee job satisfaction and increased personal and organizational performance, is not a short one. Researchers have all demonstrated that by considering human behavior in the workplace and focusing on the human implications of process development and use, both individual and organizational performance can be positively shifted.

Consider what might happen to a company’s organizational culture if the organizational systems and policies worked toward ensuring that authentic and competent leaders were placed in leadership positions, and then received continual feedback and professional development opportunities.

The kind of leaders who have a thorough understanding of how OHS impacts the work schedule, project budget, and WCB premiums. The leader who grasps the implications of worker morale and value on turnover rates. Consider what might happen to your organizational culture if workers were clear on their job expectations, duties, and OHS obligations; if they were provided regular feedback and opportunities for development; and, if they were held accountable to meeting those expectations, duties, and obligations on a regular basis by a leader who operated with integrity and transparency.

How do we begin shining the organizational spotlight on our people?

Well, I recommend starting here:

1. Accept an understand that human behavior can and will impact your industry processes, and start looking at it as a solution, rather than a problem to be solved.
   

2. Hire, develop, and promote leaders into positions of leadership within your organization, rather than taking the easier and more common route of promoting based on seniority, experience/excellence on the tools, nepotism, favoritism, or which body can move into the position easiest

This will all stem from creating human resources processes, and a leadership team that focus on finding, hiring, developing, and promoting the right people within the company. Those who embrace the organizational vision and mission by continually striving to challenge the status quo and increase organizational output, and not those who make life easier for their boss by brown nosing, manipulating situations, or acting unethically.

A few additional tips directly related to those human resource related processes include:

1. Creating thorough and detailed job descriptions that include job competencies (i.e. specific qualifications, training, and skill requirements). To do this, you will need to involve the workers who are actually doing the jobs. No one in the organization, no matter their title, can provide more value or information to support the job description that the person doing it on a regular basis. Make these descriptions public so that if workers want to advance or cross-train within the organization, they can become clear on the associated competencies required for them to do so. This also helps with promoting integrity and transparency.
   

2. Developing and implementing an advanced performance review and development process that provides corrective feedback, reinforcement, praise, and competency assessment on a regular basis. Performance review and development opportunities should be managed, discussed, and documented on a continuous basis rather than once or twice per year. All leaders should be trained on the process and the process should require insights from direct managers and/or supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates, clients, and/or customers who regularly interact with, or are impacted by, the person being reviewed. If you are really interested in knowing how someone is performing, check-in and receive feedback from ALL levels within the organization (yes, this includes seeking feedback from workers on their supervisor’s and coworker’s performance). 
   

3. An important note on this point, is that if your workers don’t have trust in the system, people will not be willing to share for fear of it impacting their relationships. In such cases, consider anonymous feedback that’s generated by a sufficient number of people to actually be considered anonymous, and to provide a reliable overall view of how the person being reviewed is perceived in their role.

Performance feedback cannot be based solely on perceptions from those at the same level as, or above, the person being reviewed without significant risk of bias.

1. And finally, develop and communicate a clear, concise, and transparent accountability system that keeps people on all levels within the organization accountable to their expectations, duties, and performance. This accountability system should tie-into the performance review and development programs whereby employees who are meeting and excelling in their roles are identified and developed, and those who are not are identified, mentored, and either developed through progress, or removed if no progress is noted.
   

2. Not because they are bad people, or terrible employees, simply because they are not a good fit for the role or organization, and they are not moving toward the organizational values and mission.

It’s Time for Change!

Let’s stop underestimating and undervaluing the impacts of strong transformational leaders. Let’s accept and take advantage of the positive impacts that motivated, competent, and satisfied employees can have on our organizational output. And finally, let us recognize that the best way to create a positive organizational culture of engaged leaders and workers is to VALUE OUR PEOPLE as the individuals they are.

Granted, it takes a substantial amount of time to do this, but skimping on dedicating this time and attention to organizational and worker development means skimping on your overall productivity and output. The research is clear. It’s time to get on board.  

Main Takeaways from Today’s Blog:

1. When workers are left to feel insignificant, replaceable, unheard, unseen, and lacking value, the financial, health and safety, and productivity implications on an organization are vast and highly impactful to overall profit. 
   

2. The most impactful way to create an organizational culture whereby workers are motivated to produce and remain loyal is to create the organizational systems related to recruiting, hiring, developing, and promoting the best people for the job – and this can be established only by ensuring these systems are owned and implemented by authentic leaders who are competent in the art of transformational leadership. 

Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll join me again for some other blog posts, and to check out the services we offer that can help you gain some well integrated, and holistic balance in your life! Until next time, take care and stay well!

#professionaldevelopment #personaldevelopment #occupationalhealthandsafety #mentalhealthandwellness #managementsystems #psychologicalsafety #selfawareness #emotionalintelligence