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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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