Author: Blog

Your happiness is your responsibility; it’s time to quit your job

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Over my career I’ve been able to identify the single biggest cause of employee dissatisfaction. That’s been working across multiple sectors, in different roles and in different conditions.

It isn’t compensation
It isn’t development
It isn’t promotion

It’s something that is completely out of our control.

It’s regret. The regret of failing to act.

Life is full of events over which we have no control, life is full of changes which we cannot influence. We can sit idly by and bemoan the fact that things aren’t what they were, that life has dealt us the hand that we didn’t want or that people are doing things or behaving in a way in which we disapprove.

We can’t change any of these things. But we can always act.

Unsurprisingly, these two things are often confused. The response is, “but I can’t do anything to change [insert cause of issue]” and the answer is always, “so what can you do?”

Ultimately we are all responsible for our happiness, we are responsible for finding our own peace and for ensuring that we make the most of our life both in and outside of work.

And that means accepting responsibility that we can act and our failure to act, not the change, leads to our regret.

In a work context, that often means leaving a company where you’re unhappy. I’ve seen too many people become under performers, become organisational hostages, become “that guy” in the canteen that everyone tries to avoid, become the source of dissatisfaction of others, simply because they failed to act.

Or it means accepting that sometimes change happens, the past is exactly that and we need to move on. In either case, this is a choice, a conscious decision that each and everyone is able to exercise.

Life is too short to sit, being unhappy and blaming others.

“Il n’y a de réalité que dans l’action.”

The only reality is in action.

Because you’re worth it. Aren’t you?

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The nature of my life is such that the topics of conversation can verge from the sublime to the ridiculous, to the completely unexpected. A case in point is that last week I managed to discuss the array of deviant sexual practices and the financial model of HR services within the same 24 hours.

Go figure.

Whilst I’d love to tell you all about felching spoons and the fetishistic objectification of nuns, I’m not sure that would be the best use of your time, please the internet censors, or be particularly wholesome. That said, if you catch me over a glass of wine or two, who knows what could happen….

But that’s not the point. Or maybe it is. But it’s not THIS point.

Most HR teams are set up as cost centres. They’re overheads. Essentially this means that as a user, you get what you’re given. And you pay for it, whether you like it or not. There are advantages to this. Sometimes we have to do things that people don’t want, or don’t know that they want. Sometimes we need to do things a little bit differently to how people want.

But what if we were profit centres? What if we charged for our services and then other departments could buy them? How would that work? And why are companies increasingly looking at this?

I can immediately see some advantages. Instilling a mindset within the HR team to focus on value generation would be helpful. Allowing managers to define the value they want from the HR team could be insightful. And perhaps most of all, reducing the number of pointless and failed initiatives that drive employees and managers up the wall would be a huge benefit.

Still, it can’t counter the unease I have about the whole idea. Firstly it assumes that procurers are experienced, educated and knowledgable. And that isn’t always the case. Secondly, it creates unnecessary internal markets that detracts attention away from the real purpose of the organisation. Finally, and for me most importantly, it suggests HR is there to serve the budget holders and not all employees. Which worries me.

I think HR can gain all the benefits that are derived from this way of operating, without having to change the financial model and incur the associated down sides. It doesn’t seem to me a huge leap of faith or thinking to do that.

Ask yourself, every day, “Would I pay for my service?”

And if that doesn’t work and if things get really bad. Console yourself that what ever might happen, “we’ll always have fisting”.

Yeah. That.

Performance anxiety

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I’m no fan of the performance review. In fact I’d class it as the single biggest example of the old joke about the definition of insanity being the repetition of an act whilst expecting different results.

It isn’t working? Then change the form.

Everyone hates performance reviews, they suck the life force out of managers, employees, the HR department and the leadership team. And yet, we kind of need them.

I was having a conversation with a friend last week and they were bemoaning the torture that is the annual performance appraisal. The sentiment went something like this,

“And then they expect us to review people against these stupid f***ing values that make no sense to anyone. Why can’t we just get in, get out and get the job done.”

And I’ve got some sympathy. We all like the idea of a quickie. The performance equivalent of a knee trembler behind the bicycle shed.

But the thing is this, if you think about the best manager you’ve ever had, if you think about the best team you ever worked with, if you think about the most problematic experience you’ve ever had at work. Was it because of the delivery of the work, or was it because of the behaviours and the personal qualities?

My guess is the latter.

The challenge for us in HR, the challenge for those of us who aren’t sleep walking towards conformity and a mediocre stupor, is to think about how we reinvent and rethink this important aspect of our working lives.

– We know the value of human and heart in the workplace, and yet we systemise it to the point of ridicule and derision.

– We know the value of feedback and honest, open discussions, and yet we develop such complex processed that it becomes a task in itself.

– We know that what we have isn’t fit for purpose and yet we persist in tinkering not transforming.

And yet, I just can’t come up with an answer.

That’s what is on my mind. What’s on yours?

We like it nice and hard

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The hard appeals to us, the hard is commercial. The hard is sure and certain. The hard is the thing that we yearn for. As humans we long to be hard, to be formed, to be clear, to be resolute in our existence. The hard makes sense, it makes it easy, it makes us believe and belong.

And anything that stands in the way of this is unhelpful, it is counter productive, subversive nonsense. That needs to be put in its rightful place.

The soft is for the uncommitted, the inconclusive and the indecisive, the soft is for the softies, the losers and the weaklings, the almost rans and the wannabes. The soft is what makes us vulnerable.

Giving people choice is soft.
Telling them what to do is hard.

Giving people responsibility is soft.
Taking control is hard.

Considering the views of others is soft.
Being decisive is hard.

Looking after the wellbeing is soft.
Measurement of output is hard.

We know what we need and what we want, we know what we value and where we excel. We understand what makes us tick. What’s soft is hard, what is hard is soft.

The rest is just a choice.