Positive Inspiration

I read recently an article which questioned the reason to be positive, to have hope and to be optimistic. I think there are many reasons why being positive works.  

As we are living in challenging times for employees and companies and very often people are stressed out and look towards HR for advice and inspiration. This can be difficult however research has shown that there are answers. Fred Luthans (2009) has defined Psychological Capital which gives a positive approach to developing staff members, managers and human resources in today’s workplace.

Psychological capital includes Hope, Resilience, Optimism and Self-Efficacy all attributes which are extremely important in the current economic climate. We can all use a little hope, resilience, optimism and self efficiency to keep going in these difficult times.

Psychological Capital has been defined as an individual’s positive psychological state of development and is characterized by (1) having confidence (self- efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success. 

Positive organisational behaviour is the study and application of positively orientated human resources strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvements.

Managers who wish to enhance the performance of their direct employees will derive some benefit from exhibiting the attributes of hope, resilience, optimism and self-efficacy as managers serve as role models for their employees. If managers persist towards goal accomplishment and do not let setbacks deter them, employees will be more likely to follow suit. In addition when adversity strikes or uncertainty surrounds managers, how they cope will be observed and perhaps mimicked by employees. In short managers are always on stage and followers are watching and taking cues about how to handle situations, what is valued, expected and rewarded. Managers who become more aware of how their psychological capital and level of positivity in general influences their employees and subsequent behaviour will be more likely to see positive performance outcomes.

   

Psychological Capital can be developed through short training interventions, which last one to three hours. These include activities designed to enhance the components of efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience. For example in the hope component of a training module participants begin by delineating key goals they will use throughout the session. The facilitator then explains the need for a concrete end point to measure success, a framework that allows participants to work towards goal accomplishment as opposed to away from desired goals by using a ‘stepping’ method of identifying sub-goals as a way to reap the benefits of even modest achievements. The participants are instructed to generate multiple proactive pathways to the goal and reflect on and discuss the realistic options identified. On completion of this training intervention participants have taken ownership of a personally valuable and challenging goal and are prepared for obstacles and are ready to implement multiple contingency plans to attain their goals.

Psychological Capital training interventions will help build resilience by having participants identify recent personal and organisational setbacks within their work domain and employees have learned new tools to deal with setbacks and create a plan to handle these.   

Setting a positive agenda for survival is important in these challenging times. The lessons we can learn from Psychological Capital is that management can create and build a positive environment in their organisation. It is essential that HR takes the lead in this.  Creating Hope, Resilience, Optimism and Self-Efficacy in any organisation is of benefit for all involved. We saw that management is a role model for all employees and that they are closely watched by employees. If management is a role model than human resources are the real leaders in this and it is essential that they show Hope, Resilience, Optimism and Self-Efficacy on a daily basis. Pessimistic managers are the death knell for any organisation as they give no direction and suck up energy.

More than ever this is a time for positive managers who can create a positive environment and challenge the rest of the organisation to improve, be positive and creative.

Company Investigation

There are situations in companies when the behaviour of employees needs to be investigated. This could be for a number of reasons: disciplinary, bullying and harassment or grievance investigation. Whatever the reason for such an investigation it needs to be done with the utmost care and consideration making sure that the constitutional rights of employees are upheld and that there is no bias towards any employee regarding the outcome of the investigation.

To ensure all this it is essential to get an experienced investigator to handle the investigation and sometimes it is wise to get an outside investigator to conduct the investigation. An outsider is without bias to what has happened in the company and can come to a neutral assessment of what exactly did occur. There is also the fact that the investigator can’t be further involved in the case. The investigator writes down his findings and reports to the company who then have to decide based on the findings, what if anything has to happen. It would be wrong if the investigator would be involved in any further actions and is involved in the decision if the employee should be disciplined. That would not go down well if the case would be later heard by an Adjudicator or the Labour Court. You can’t be judge and jury at the same time. For a lot of Irish companies this would cause a problem as they don’t have enough experienced people to conduct an investigation and a disciplinary meeting and therefore need for an outsider not involved in the case becomes paramount.

The rights of employees need to be guaranteed during an investigation and the follow up. This means that at the start employees need to be clearly informed what the investigation is about and if applicable what they are accused of. The letter of invitation needs to clearly state the reason for the investigation and the rights of the employee on representation. If applicable the terms of investigation need to be set out and communicated to all involved which clearly specify how the investigation is going to be conducted. The Disciplinary & Grievance Procedure and the Bullying and Harassment procedure will explain how an investigation should be conducted and any investigator should familiarise himself with procedures and follow the procedures correctly. It is wise to check if the company procedures adhere to the Code of Practices for Grievance & Disciplinary procedures and Bullying and Harassment. If the don’t fully comply with them it is wise to follow the Codes of Practice guidelines.       

The best way to conduct an investigation is to hold separate meetings with all involved and take statements of the people involved. The people involved have the right to be represented at the investigatory meeting in most cases by a fellow employee or union official. I would always give people the opportunity to read their statements and make any changes which they desire and I would make a point of it that once they are satisfied with their statement they need to sign their statement. The signed statement then forms the basis of the investigation. You need to check if there is any other evidence such as records and CCTV footage. If you intend to use CCTV records then you need to ensure that you will follow any Data Protection legislation which would apply. For a start the employees need to be informed in advance that they are being recorded and that the records can be used for investigation and or disciplinary purposes, this needs to be explained through signs in the buildings and in the Employee Handbook, which each employee involved should have received.

Once you have all the signed statements and other records and documents which relate to the investigation then you can start writing the investigation report and come to a conclusion regarding the investigation. At first the people involved should get a draft report on which they can give their comments and suggestion. You have to take the comments and suggestions into consideration when you are writing the final report. The final investigation report is then given to the people involved.

It is here that the role of the investigator ends and he might be asked to clarify his findings, if there are further actions under the company procedures then another manager will take charge of this aspect. Basically the investigation and the role of the investigator have finished. The final report and the signed statements are handed over to the company for safe keeping and for future reference.

Effective Employees

Recently a manager said to me in passing, ‘You say you create effective employees don’t you?’ I replied, ‘Yes I do’. ‘Well’, he said, ‘I need a few of them. Where can I get them?’ I wish that life was only that easy, that I could create effective employees with a stroke of my wand and a spell out the world of Harry Potter. Unfortunately it isn’t that easy, you need to find and nurture effective employees. But effective and efficient employees are worth their weight in gold.

To explain both concepts simply:  ‘Efficiency is doing things right, while effectiveness is doing the right things.’

I would consider that creating effective employees is one of the important deliverables of human resources. Creating effective and efficient employees adds value to the human resource function.

It starts with the search and recruitment of good employees. By this I mean having a clear description of what kind of people you need, what knowledge they require for their position and what competencies are necessary to be successful. Then of course you need to look in the rights direction when you are searching for employees. You will be more successful if you look for certain employees in different ways. Then you have to select employees by using a competence based interview technique.  Through using the right recruitment techniques you will hire better employees.

This doesn’t end our quest for effective employees’ it is only the start of it. Next the manager needs to induce and train the employee into the company to ensure that the new employee understands what is expected of him, how the company operates and its culture of the company. Furthermore the employee needs to understand how the teams work in the company, how he fits into his team and what his team expects from him. After the induction and training the new employee needs to be regularly reviewed and helped to meet the company standards. However if after several attempts the new employee fails to meet the company standards it is better to end the employment in the probation period. This is a difficult decision for both manager and employee. Difficult for the employee because he would have lost a job which he hoped would be there for life. It is difficult for the manager because their investment in the new employee is lost.

After a successful start to the employment the company needs to ensure that the employee is regularly trained regarding the requirements of the job and the company. Again any changes in the organisation and position need to be discussed and understood to become effective. The company will have regular reviews with the employee and he will receive constructive feedback on how he is doing. High achievers need to be rewarded and underachievers need to be tackled.

To really create effective employees, the manager needs to engage with the employees. This means to keep talking with the employee and find out how the employee gets on in his job and where he needs support. There needs to be regular communication about what both sides expect from each other what the employee expects from the company and his colleagues and what his colleagues and company expect from him. There needs to be a balance between employee remuneration and the capacity of the company to pay. Any misunderstandings between employee and manager need to be resolved as quickly as possible.

As you can see it is difficult to create effective and efficient employees but the reward of creating a cohort of them is extremely valuable for any company.

Your Human Resources department should be able to deliver the required instruments and outcomes in order for your company to be able to create effective employees. Your HR people should be able to deliver excellent recruitment tools, ways to objectively review people, induce and train staff members, knowledge on how to engage staff members, how to handle company communication, advise managers and employees on how to perform their jobs and how to handle underperformers and find solutions for them.   

Wage Negotiations

Recently The Irish Times published an article which predicted a 10 percent wage increase for 2016! Hard to believe but unions will be delighted reading this. However the article was based on the experiences one of the major recruitment agencies in Ireland. Now recruitment agencies have an interested to get wages increased as their fees are normally a percentage of the wage of the selected candidate. A ten percent wage increase would increase their fees with ten percent as well.

The economic growth of 6.5 percent in 2015 indicates that the economy is strongly growing and in 2015 the majority of companies increased their wages with an average of 2.5 percent. With the economy growing again in 2016 pressure to give further wage increases is growing.

Since the collapse of the National Wage Agreements and it is back to local bargaining. A lot of managers would have little experience in local bargaining. Here are some golden rules to apply if wage bargaining is to be an issue: -

1.       Do not negotiate if you do not have to. In most small and medium size companies there is no union recognition and no agreement with the union that new salaries have to be negotiated. So if you do not have an agreement with a union, your industry is not under Employment Regulation Orders or Registered Employment Agreements do not negotiate even if the unions would like to have a place at the table.

2.   Setting the agenda. Many companies have been caught out by starting talks and not sorting out the agenda and procedure. You could be making a far reaching deal with the union officials only to be confronted with the fact that the union members have the final say on it and reject it. The already far reaching deal has to be renegotiated to include even more concessions. Set up and organise a clear agenda and procedure under which the negotiations take place. Make it clear that what happens when a deal is negotiated and if the union insists that their members have the final vote before it can be accepted, maybe your management board has to have the final vote on it as well and can reject it as well as too far reaching. 

3.   Setting your own objectives. Establish what wages increases you can afford and define three possible settlements from your company’s point of view: the ideal or best possible deal, a realistic or best possible settlement and the worst, though still acceptable settlement. Before setting these objectives make sure you know where your company’s stands compared to other companies in areas such as salary, benefits, compensation, economic growth etc. Know your salary levels compared to your industrial sector and regional salary levels. Is your company paying above or below the average salary levels in your industrial sector and region? Are your benefits and compensation par with other industries? Most likely unions will start negotiating with companies they perceive as easy targets to set a trend in wage negations. Always focus on your own situation and make it clear to the union that your company cannot be compared to these easy targets.

4.   Preparing the case. Once the objectives have been defined, it is necessary to put a case for negotiation together. The bargaining process is one in which attitudes are swayed by a complex mixture of facts, logic, interest, fears and pride. Preparation involves consideration of the information which will be needed to support the case being made. It is essential to consider this from the other party’s view point. Try to establish the unions and employees objectives at the wage negotiations. Try to find out what they negotiated at other companies. Hold a mock bargaining round and let some managers play devil’s advocate, examining your company’s position and probing the company’s arguments for weak points and prepare your answers for the real event.

5.   Communicate. Before, during and after the wage negotiation keep communicating with your staff, in particular your managers, supervisors and team leaders regarding the company’s point of view and needs. Make sure that your managers and supervisors are all aware of these essential points which will ensure the company’s survival. I do not mean to give away the bargaining plan, however, keep them abreast of what you can do regarding wages and benefits and if union objectives are in the interest of the company. Very often only the union communicates effectively with employees during this phase and this will lead to high and unrealistic expectations and difficulties with staff once an agreement is reached.

These are just a few of the practical personnel solutions regarding wage negotiations. There are many more issues to address and many pitfalls to watch out for.