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Consistency and Predictability and Its Impact on Employee Experience

Diane Slater, CHRO, Stephenson’s Rental Services

Company culture can be defined in many ways  – by industry (pharma, media, construction,  finance, etc.), by culture type (entrepreneurial,  fast-paced, consensus-driven, etc.), or by  programs (summer Fridays, free lunch, strong DEI  programs, wellness programs, etc.) but one thing you  rarely hear discussed when talking about culture is the  impact of consistency and predictability. This is perhaps  something HR people know intuitively, but it is a thought  process that deserves more attention.

 What is meant by predictable and consistent  employee experience? 

Every job will have twists and turns, unexpected  deadlines, changing requirements, and some level of  general stress-inducing chaos, but the elements that do  not need to be chaotic and stressful are the elements that  are about navigating being an employee versus navigating  doing your job day to day. Human resources has a key  role in helping every employee navigate the experience  of being an employee in the organization. The more  HR can make navigating being an employee consistent  and predictable, the better the employee experience, as  employees can focus on doing their jobs, not on having a  job. 

The majority of CEOs appreciate that people are a  great, or the greatest, asset to an organization and are  supportive of the HR annual cycle. In these employee employeefriendly  environments, clear communications on what to  expect will be ever present in HR elements such as talent  acquisition, the hiring process, onboarding, some form  of performance assessment and check-ins, compensation  planning and increases, learning and development, and  exits. Regardless of the value placed on HR by the CEO,  human resources is involved in the employee experience  for the employee’s entire lifecycle with the company.  When that annual calendar of events is known, scheduled,  and communicated, less energy is spent on wondering  when or if things will happen, and, as such, productivity  is increased as certainty increases. For example, when  employees know when performance check-ins will  happen, when succession planning may result in  promotions when to expect a raise if one is forthcoming,  and so on, far less energy is spent worrying about it,  asking about it, and feeling it needs to be fought for versus  knowing it is a predictable and consistent cycle. When the  efforts involved in simply being employed are known and  communicated, even if you disagree with a decision, you  know when it will happen and how it will be shared so  you can adapt and stay focused on the job you were hired  to do. 

In those few organizations where CEOs feel that  people are getting in the way of profitability and HR is  not empowered to create or communicate a clear annual  set of activities that will happen at fixed times in the  year with regular updates, the environment becomes unpredictable and inconsistent as activities are ad hoc or  are viewed as ad hoc. This can result in a highly reactive  and tactical HR team where the leader does not have  the experience required or support to put in a regular  calendar of events. In those environments, typically,  culture erodes, employee experience is poor, people will  spend significantly more energy on trying to get answers  about raises or promotions, and you will likely note a high  turnover rate of human resources professionals as morale  tends to be low and HR will usually lack empowerment to  complete their jobs. 

How can this be fixed? 

Freedom to make decisions within cultural parameters  is the key to an empowered leadership group and human  resources team. This comes from setting the agenda, and,  as stated before, it does not require a sophisticated and expensive suite of tools if you are working in a lowbudget  environment. 

"Human Resources Has A  Key Role In Helping Every  Employee Navigate The  Experience Of Being  An Employee In The  Organization"

Simply create a calendar that states when key  activities will happen and persuade the senior leadership  team to agree to the best of your ability. This can be  comprehensive of simply the foundation activities, but  figure out when you want to achieve each of the following  each year and then commit to months or quarters for  each and publish the calendar. The ‘how’ can be on paper,  spreadsheets, or systems, making it as simple as possible,  but communicating what and when are the keys to  predictability and consistency. 

•Reviews/performance check-ins 

•Goal writing 

•Compensation planning (raises, bonuses) 

•Promotions and job changes – these do not always  have to be ad hoc when it is an in-line promotion.  •Learning and development activities  

•Succession planning and Talent reviews 

If you are new in your role, this is a great first place  to learn about your new HR team – do they have a fixed  agenda, is it well communicated, and which priorities  might you consider adding or fixing along the way?  Overall, fit in an organization is largely due to culture,  and that culture can be phenomenal or awful based on a  few key factors – predictability and consistency are one of  those key factors. Whether you are in a global  pharmaceutical company with all the latest technology or  in a small privately owned company on a tight budget  using paper to get new hires approved, you can achieve a  comfort level in your culture by creating and  communicating predictable and consistent people  processes to let employees get down to the business of  doing their jobs. 

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