So loudmouth Morrison spoke at the CIPD conference last week about social media. And to be honest, in my reflection on the event I’m not really sure I was talking about social media. Ok…..so I WAS talking about social media….but it was more of an example of where I think organisations and HR teams go wrong. And the lessons are applicable to so many other areas.
I was talking about TRUST.
So this is an old-fashioned concept, right? Work is all about supply and demand. Anything else is just side dressing.
I’m not so sure.
The thing is this, how many of you can turn around and say, “we truly trust our employees” or “we trust our employees to do the right thing for us and for them”? My guess is that a lot of you will be saying yes…..yes we do. So then let me ask you this…..why do you have so much of your HR infrastructure set up to kick into play when something goes wrong?
I’m talking about disciplinary procedures, performance improvement procedures, policies on this, that and the other. Ways in which we monitor, evaluate, measure and generally rip the soul out of the heart of the organisation. We all do that. Be honest…..don’t we?
So why is trust so hard? Why is it that we manage the majority with the fear of the minority? Why do we shy away from the bold actions of trust, individual responsibility and mutual support and respect? Why do we seek to punish people for “non-compliance” rather than seek to understand?
Because we are weak, scared and generally under prepared to deal with the responsibility of managing the expectations that are set upon us. So control, structure and managing to the lowest common denominator are simpler, less scary and without doubt more certain.
And that, my friends, is the challenge that we’re up against. Whether we’re talking social media, or whether we are talking about any other aspect of the human experience at work. We need to decide if we’re prepared to truly trust, or if we want to say we do but orgainse ourselves as if we don’t.
There’s a huge opportunity out there, there is a changing agenda. The brave and bright will get it, the rest will become a thing of the past. You have a choice.
change-effect 
Hi Neil
It’s good to see you explaining more fully your observations on social media, which you commented further on in my blog (politely!) disagreeing with you here: http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-tribunal-watch/2011/11/social-media-policies-are-not-stupid.html).
I applaud your approach of trusting employees – that is entirely proper, and a key ingredient of a happy and productive workplace. But – and please do clarify this for me – are you really suggesting that employers do away with policies and procedures in favour of trusting employees to do the right thing?
There are two fundamental reasons why employers set down rules about how their employees should and should not behave in the workplace. First, employees will not always do the right thing, no matter how much trust and education you invest. The number of tribunal cases where employees have (for example) discriminated against colleagues – despite the employer’s rules on the matter – testifies to that. Second, employers face serious consequences for failing to comply with employment law, and well-written/implemented policies will help prevent problems arising, and help the employer legally should the worst happen.
And those policies don’t need to “rip the soul out of the organisation”. Employees might be disenfranchised if you merely impose draconian policies on them, but that’s where the education part comes in. Provided an employer’s policies are reasonable, there’s no danger.
Employers don’t “fear the minority” of employees who cause problems – they fear the potential legal consequences, primarily the monetary ones.
Just as rules without trust would be a terrible idea, so would trust without rules. I agree that trusting employees can be a difficult thing for some employers, but a company that merely trusted its employees and did not set down any rules would simply be asking for trouble.
A final question – I understand you’re an HR director – have you put your theories into practice? E.g. do you have disciplinary procedures, performance improvement procedures, and so on?
John Read (Employment Law Editor, XpertHR; non-practicing solicitor).
“Employers don’t “fear the minority” of employees who cause problems – they fear the potential legal consequences, primarily the monetary ones.”
..potential legal consequences .. a trap .. that the system has fallen into .. out of a mechanistic view of the workings of human societies .. perpetrating the fallacy that they can capture the diverse multi-faceted range ..of human interactions in a few lines of prose .. no matter how many volumes of legal matter have accumulated over the years ..
“..as rules without trust would be a terrible idea, so would trust without rules.”
do you really make any sense .. or you are playing with words .. this play of words ..rules without trust ..trust without rules .. have they a concrete content .. what defines .. rules ..and what trust ..
rules .. they exist .. wanted or not .. and from the two gimmicky states mentioned .. they do not weigh the same … do not carry the same weight .. purely subjective .. though subjective .. it is not a bad thing .. but these, as they are .. do not provide a common standard .. acceptable for both sides of the divide .. employees and employers ..
..because rules without trust .. existed and exist .. the rules the powerful (in whatever way one conceives it) laid down for the weak to follow and adhere to .. without any inkling of consideration of what the weak felt and feel about the rules ..forced upon them ..
..on the other hand .. trust without rules .. never existed and will never exist .. as there are always rules .. spontaneous .. emergent .. out of the very trust people apportion to one another ..
the crux of the matter .. lies ..in the potential legal consequences .. and, as it is put .. primarily the monetary ones .. how were the legal parameters have been put ..in the first place .. what is their evolution ..
..evolved .. out of an era .. where the powerful had complete control of the legal processes .. legal content massively influenced towards their side of the story
and bit by bit .. the massive influence .. of the powerful .. read in our present vocabulary the employers .. eroded .. the weak asserted themselves..
and gradually .. as the weak managed .. to gain some ground in the legal content ..
like it or not .. that’s the way it is .. but this is not the problem .. it is the over-reliance on the legal system .. a rigid corpus that does not allow the flexibility .. the ever-evolving situations ..require
the rules that govern peoples interactions ..are amended continuously .. which the legal corpus have to keep at pace .. otherwise .. it will prove useless .. and rendered obsolete ..
and even though .. you, and your likes, hate to admit .. the weak .. are in favour ..
and the monetary ..consequences .. degrading .. hideous .. vile and disgusting .. to even consider .. that human interactions should be based upon ..
Wow….now that is a comment and a half. Unfortunately I think is this country we don’t have the legal system we deserve, but reform is a long way off.
John,
Thanks for commenting. I guess the key lines in the post above are these,
“Why do you have so much of your HR infrastructure set up to kick into play when something goes wrong?” followed by “We all do that. Be honest…..don’t we?”
So in answer to your question, I’m not advocating the complete removal, but instead a refocus. As you rightly point out, people will do things regardless of the policy (you use the case of discrimination) and I’d argue we’d be better of focussing on trust and education rather than reqriting handbooks and adding additional policies which get ignored anyway when things go wrong.
“Employers don’t “fear the minority” of employees who cause problems – they fear the potential legal consequences, primarily the monetary ones.” – Partly yes, but if this is the case it is because people like yourself (and I don’t mean this with any offence) and the Solicitors organising free employment law seminars go around scaring poorly educated HR people by taking a very static and hugely risk adverse approach. In the latter case this is of course so they can then sell their services.
Every major piece of legislation over the last 20 years has been met with overly cautious advice and fear by both the legal profession and the trade press. And in every case, this has proved unnecessary scaremongering.
So no, I’m not saying there is no need for anything (although I would still argue this in the specific social media question) but I am saying that I think a better way is to trust people to do the right thing than legislate for them doing the wrong thing.
Hi Neil,
Great to read an impassioned post on a Monday morning 🙂
Picking up on a slightly different thread nested in your argument, and linking in with John’s comments, I wonder if the issue is also linked to the way in which organisations frame relationships? HR – as a function and in terms of how it has to work within the constraints of e.g. employment law – often struggle not so much with trust, rather the whole process of relationship, i.e. “the way in which two or more people or organisations regard and behave towards each other” – Diana McClain Smith’s definition.
This is not me making the case for woolliness or feel-good at the expense of performance, process, efficiency etc. My sense is conventional organisational thinking wants all that ‘stuff’ to happen, yet typically fails to recognize that it unfolds as a function of relationship; yet little work is done to equip people with the necessary skills. I say this as someone who runs programmes aimed at improving workplace relationships, and I view trust as an emergent quality of relationship, so tend to start there.
In terms of John’s question around how all this sits with HR/process/law etc, there is a tension here. Some conversations that take place within an HR frame e.g. the “your role is being made redundant” meeting, set conditions that mean the pattern of interacting will be determined by the needs of the organisation, rather than those of the people having the conversation. And I have experience of both sides of that exchange! In those circumstances, trust tends to head for the hills….
In a sense, this discussion revolves round the balance between formal (strategic) and informal (intimate) levels of interaction, the need for these to be negotiated and then re-negotiated over time. The difficulty is that oganisations that recognize this essential dynamic and configure their HR accordingly are, I suspect, rare. Plus HR is an easy scapegoat IMHO.
Best wishes,
Steve
Steve,
Great points and I think the comment on relationships is right. Trust is stronger when there is a relationship. And that brings me back to the point that HR people should be focussing MORE of their attention on other areas rather than legislation, policy and control.
Thanks for commenting.
Neil,
lawyers create new rules, practioners extend existing ones. keep fighting the dinosaurs from xpert?HR. A simple, cost free approach of talking, educating and looking at what you can do (not what you can’t) solves this. perhaps Mr.Reid should spend some time talking to people who work in this space every day, instead of scare mongoring and guessing. biggest tart since Eggwina Curry
Bill
“A simple, cost free approach of talking, educating and looking at what you can do (not what you can’t) solves this.” – Bill I agree.
Hi Bill
It’s a shame that you’ve resorted to insulting me personally – I was just joining in the debate that Neil started, from a different perspective. Not a nice way to speak about someone you’ve never met and have no reason to dislike.
John.
Ah, I was just going to ask whether you two knew each other. I tend to reserve insults like that for people I know very well.
@Rick
Indeed. I feel a bit like I’ve unwittingly wandered into a dangerous area and the social media-wolves are circling. Nonetheless, I enjoy hearing different perspectives, especially as I come from a very legal perspective.
Hi John – I can understand why you feel like that and I hope it doesn’t put you off continuing to engage.
Having written only last week about how off putting I find Vance Kearney’s (Oracle’s VP of HR) unnecessary rudeness I have to say it’s equally unappealing to read it from Bill.
Social media wolves? I hope you don’t count me as one of those!! 🙂
As most of you know, I used to work for Gareth Jones (@garelaos). I was fortunate enough to experience working for a fantastic man who gave me the freedom and assurance to do things in my own way, which included social media.
Never once did he lay down a ‘policy’ for me – he respected me enough to assume that I had enough common sense in my head to use social media platforms responsibly.
And you know what? The trust he showed me didn’t just apply to social media – my point goes wider than that. By trusting your staff, I believe that you genuinely get more from them. Rather than fighting an authoritarian, dis-trusting boss, I felt happy in my work and willing to work hard for a great boss.
You say “why is it that we manage the majority with the fear of the minority?” and this is so true. Unfortunately HR practitioners (and naysayers) seem to get hung up on the few negative examples of social media misuse than the HUGE array of benefits that social media can bring to your employees and their professional lives / development.
Trust your staff and foster a culture of trust, respect and transparency, and people won’t misuse social media or any other channel.
“Trust your staff and foster a culture of trust, respect and transparency, and people won’t misuse social media or any other channel.” – Amen brother, amen!
Following on from what John Reid said – I do work in an organisation where we trust our staff/volunteers and it works really well. We have a well entrenched culture of empowerment, which means managers are able to run their patches and shops and we trust them to do so in the best way possible and that includes using social media if that is a tool they wish to use.
We do not have policies regarding social media and I argue that we don’t need one – in the same way that I don’t need a specific policy for using my phone or sending an email. Of course we have disciplinary policies and performance improvement procedures (and this sensationalist remark I don’t think is helpful) as well as an overall policy regarding use of office equipment for personal reasons (which again has a huge element of trust in it) and others regarding conflict of interest and confidentiality – I don’t see the need for more.
Trusting your workforce is motivating and encourages innovation. I work in an environment where it is OK to fail and I am not expected to work in a given way – I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Beth,
Great points well made. Sounds like the (near) perfect model to me.
Apologies for spelling your surname incorrectly John
As a previous journalist with Personnel Today and Employers’ Law magazine, I’ve followed this debate over the past five years when employers started to ban Facebook from the office. I agree with John that there needs to be some guidelines, but I also take a middle ground.
Neil states: “Why do you have so much of your HR infrastructure set up to kick into play when something goes wrong?” If you have a policy that is so rigid, I believe this creates a fear culture around social media. There needs to be a balance. The issue here is trust. Writing up and imposing in-depth social media policies creates a policing culture. When I first started a blog, my first posting was around office irritations and before it went live to the worldwide population, this was released on the company intranet first. This posting created a frenzy of responses. Blogging was new back then and employees wrote in such a way that some colleagues were able to identify who they were referring to within their team. I did end up having to delete some comments or for people to re-submit them, and people do make mistakes, but they learn from them. It doesn’t meant that all those employees should be hauled up and shamed by the company.
Using social media for many organisations is still a new concept, but employees should be able to experiment without fear. If you think how many times employees make mistakes, there isn’t a policy that accounts for every possible mistake that takes place in an office. People may be told by their manager, ‘that wasn’t appropriate so please don’t do that again’. Imposing such stringent criteria limits creativity, innovation and engagement. The presentation that followed Neil’s was also enlightening. Matthew Hanwell, HR director for Nokia, publicly asks its employee workforce to be honest and open about their frustrations and they can criticise without fear of reprisal. So back to trust. If you create an open, honest, transparent culture where people get to state their real views, how they feel, isn’t this about allowing people to foster change? Only a handful of people will abuse the system, the majority will actually self-police their own communities.
@Natalie – maybe what you have named in your comments is that ‘social media’ is a red herring. As you say: “If you create an open, honest, transparent culture where people get to state their real views, how they feel, isn’t this about allowing people to foster change?” What people choose to express through their use of social media will amplify existing patterns; the behaviour and relationships, whether functional or dysfunctional, do not simply happen because someone has flicked the social media switch.
As @cal’s experience possibly illustrates, an organisation’s policies and ‘simple rules’ for how it expects people to behave (socially or otherwise) need to be aligned with, and arguably nested within, a broader contract.
“there isn’t a policy that accounts for every possible mistake that takes place in an office” – I’m going to put that up on my office wall! Thank you!
Most company policies & procedures tell us what we must do and what we can’t do. They demand compliance but they don’t really engender trust do they? They tend to expound a singular “right way” of doing things often at the expense of experience, learning & innovation.
Perhaps worse than that, as lovely rule-hugging humans, we allow them to blind us to our fundamental need for experience, learning, innovation & failure… Look at the stories of how people flourish when they are given trust in a new challenging role… Look at how people are discouraged to achieve their best when the rule book controls the way they are rewarded or developed.
Policies and procedures do not help us develop – by their very nature they control & limit.
So for me, the point here is not one of should we do away with policies & procedures. The point is despite the “rule book”, we need to develop better, more human relationships in the workplace based on trust.
[BTW trust always comes with rules – the rules we hold most dear.]
David,
A voice of reason as ever. I think your point is a little similar to Steve’s above. More human relationships that have the potential to expand and grow, less (but not zero) policies and procedures that control and limit.
@stevehearsum – Hi steve, just to explain, a lot of employers think social media is a red herring. I totally agree with you. i’ve been reporting quite a bit on social media and the positive effects it can bring into an organisation to connect people together across the globe. When employers trust their people (case in point @Cal), employees are empowered to innovate in line with the company’s vision. So rather the wider question is ‘do you value your people’?. So the role of employer or manager is not to control/manage employees, but to provide them with the tools and guidance to be the best they can be. I recently asked James Caan a direct question at the SHL conference about how he drives business. This was his response:
James Caan – valuing your people
“It’s people who build business, not products. The impact of finding the right people transforms your business – when you get it right, it is transformational. You can never spend enough time securing the best talent. Good people genuinely work with good people. I’m a massive believer in culture.”
He argued that if your organisation is like a bowl of soup where everyone is thrown in – how can you have identity? “It’s not rocket science,” he said. “People spend more time at work than they do at home. If you have a strong culture, this builds loyalty and this is more important than salary because people don’t want to leave. You need to be open to change.”
I never thought James Caan would be quoted on here……not sure whether to celebrate or cry in the corner!
I, too, am not convinced that organisations need social media policies. As I said 4 years ago when everyone was banging on about Facebook, this is a management issue like everything else. If people don’t perfrom because they are messing around on Twitter, you already have policies to deal with that. Likewise, what’s the difference between slagging off the company on Twitter or to a print journalist?
http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/facebook-and-crap-managers/
On the wider point of rules and procedures, they are almost as old as the human race. As soon as societies settled down (and probably even before that) they had rules. Almost as soon as markets appeared they were regulated.
Some people will misbehave and we have rules to deal with those situations. In some cases, like the near-collapse of the world’s financial system, it would have been useful to have had a few more regulations.
Rules in organisations are there to protect people as much as to disempower them. They protect people from overbearing bosses and bullying colleagues. Without them, authority is arbitrary and can be exercised on a whim.
By making the boundaries clear, regulations can make it safe to experiment within that given space. Without clear boundaries, people don’t know when they have crossed the invisible line and may therefore be lass inclined to experiment. Rules can provide the safe scaffold around which innovation and creativity can build.
No society has developed very far without some sort of structure and rules. The secret, both in organisations and states, is to get the balance right. Which is, of course, easier said than done.
“What’s the difference between slagging off the company on Twitter or to a print journalist?” – Is that one of your bad jokes? What is the punchline? 🙂
To trust, we have to give something of ourselves away, make ourselves vulnerable, forget what we are – and believe in who we are or want to be. I don’t think that the HR function as it is lends itself to that.
I heard an expression today about “off boarding and separation” which I assume is referring to leavers. Yuk! As long as HR people are unable to talk plain English, offer candour, sometimes be opinionated and risk discord they will build trust. Individual people may create trusting relationships, but HR as an entity in it’s current form will always be distrusted. In a (unrelated) discussion earlier today, I was comparing two of my own recent experiences; where I am trusted I am at my best and am resilient; where I am not trusted what I can give is necessarily limited and my resilience is lower.
Agree. We all intuitively know that when we are trusted we perform better.
Oops missed a critical word – meant to say that if HR don’t. (etc etc)…. they won’t build trust
I understand what your saying, but you have just listed the qualities of an HR department I hate. My point is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Especially using such hideous terms for leavers!
Hrwithouttickingboxes – are we in agreement? I think we are in agreement about what we don’t like.
I think you are in agreement. Yes.
It barely seems worth making these arguments when Bill Boorman is making them all for us. He says: “Mr.Reid should spend some time talking to people who work in this space every day, instead of scare mongoring and guessing. biggest tart since Eggwina Curry”
Would anybody consider this an appropriate way to talk to a fellow professional face-to-face or by letter in a discussion of this nature? I’d hope the answer would be no. It’s also not appropriate here, yet this is how he’s chosen to refer to somebody expressing a professional opinion. Clearly social media is not a space in which everybody can be expected to behave with decorum. It might be stupidity, but equally it could be anger, or more likely the sense of detachment that comes from engaging in the online space. There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon that expresses this very clearly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog
Sadly, unlike the dog, who successfully hid his dogness, Bill Boorman has been less successful in hiding that he is a boor.
Roger, thanks for taking time to comment. I walk down the street every day (sometimes more than once) and you’d be surprised at the language that I hear. Drive around a city all day and observe the language that is used between motorists, between motorists and pedestrians. Go out on a Friday night into any town.
I’ve also heard people have outbursts in the office, say things that they later regret or apologise for. As I’m sure we all have. I’m not defending this sort of behaviour either online or offline, but I would make the observation that it isn’t just the detachment that comes from being online.
We’d be unwise to draw conclusions from one statement, without knowing the context, the intention and the person behind the comment. To be fair, Bill isn’t posting anonymously, he is doing so as himself. You use a clever play on words, but is calling Bill a boor any better than him calling John a tart? More eloquent maybe, but ultimately isn’t this the same thing?
If we want to play the role of moral compass, we should apply it equally to all.
“Is calling Bill a boor any better than him calling John a tart?” Yes: it was in response to his behaving like a boor. I’ve read John Read’s original blog post and there’s no justification for calling him a “tart”. I’m frankly amazed you’ve failed to notice this difference. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with libel law, but such distinctions can be quite important. I suggest you familiarise yourself with it while you continue to host such comments, and, indeed, note your agreement of them.
You suggest that people’s online rudeness doesn’t result merely from the sense of detachment that comes from being online. Did anybody suggest it did? It barely seems worth pointing you to what I actually said, as that does not appear to be particularly relevant, but I hope it was clear to most readers that I was highlighting what was distinct about interacting online. This is pertinent to a debate discussing whether there is a need for a distinct social media policy. I was not, to be quite clear, proposing that all online rudeness results from the sense of detachment that comes from being online and no other factors at all, or suggesting that people do not behave rudely in places other than social media.
You also suggest that I go out on a Friday night. If I were to go out, I suspect I would see some intoxicated people swearing, urinating in public and fighting. Correct me if I’m wrong, Neil, but do most companies not have policies that in one way or another communicate that such behaviour will not be tolerated? If they, in fact, do, then perhaps we can agree that you have accidentally added weight to the proposal that making room in your policies for some guidance on the use of social media is a sensible idea, just as it is a sensible idea to clearly outline, for example, that employees should not drink any alcohol at all during work hours if this is what you want from your employees. In this way policies can give employees clear, written notice of what is expected of them, where it may not be entirely obvious.
I feel I should also stress that my referencing of Bill Boorman’s statement was not intended to be taken as data conclusively settling the debate. Rather than drawing “conclusions from one statement”, I was positing that comment as an example of how people might behave online in a way that they wouldn’t behave in person. I don’t know Bill Boorman, but seeing as you and others seem so kindly disposed to him I had assumed he wouldn’t, in person, call somebody a “tart” who was expressing a professional opinion in an entirely non confrontational manner.
The alternative to this is that Bill Boorman is, actually, an incredibly rude man who will happily insult strangers for no good reason. This makes my example even more illustrative, as you have, firstly, failed to decline to publish his comment, and, secondly, noted your agreement of his view. Again, I’d hope that if such a situation were to arise in a meeting you were hosting that, rather than offering obsequious agreement, you’d suggest that the tone be kept professional and that those who couldn’t behave with dignity and decorum remove themselves from the situation.
I hope this is sufficiently free of ambiguity to prevent your further amazing me.
Roger – if I wasn’t laughing so much, I could risk being offended. In response all I can do is give a resigned sigh and say……. “Yes dear”.