What makes someone an effective hire boils down to three characteristics. Do they have the knowledge to do the job? Are they motivated to work hard (on their own)? Do they have social skills that will make it easy for them to work with others?
This is a situation that nobody in the world has experienced before and, therefore, this is a time to make bold bets. It’s a time to start questioning the basic assumptions and begin to design a different workplace that values everything that the previous workplace norms did not allow for. Mental health has always been something that organisations have left people to worry about on their own. Perhaps this is a time to step up to the plate, prioritise employees’ holistic well-being, and question the inclusivity of the whole process. These are things which endear people to you. You build deeper connections, and that’s one of the big ways in which you build emotional resilience.
This is the first time in the world of work when the leader is as uncertain about the future as the employee. This democratisation of information or lack of it is creating a new contract between the employer and the employee. When leaders admit they are vulnerable, they are building trust. Being able to say, ‘I don’t know’ is a new phrase the leader has to get used to. It takes a courageous and self-assured leader to admit that it is their judgment and not precedence they are relying on.
In the workplace, there is a special team of people who manage “total rewards” that does everything with the belief that periodic rewards make the employee feel appreciated and a little more engaged. Could it be that our system of rewards is just what is making them disengaged? Could it be that rewarding high performance is precisely what is making people not collaborate with colleagues? Could it be that offering rewards for innovation is stopping the employees from taking on complex problems? What does the science say?
While the job descriptions may be the same, you probably do the same job very differently from your predecessor. Personality shapes several aspects of the role – our ability to bounce back after rejection (Sales roles); risk taking ability; our method of competing with others or even how much we voluntarily socialize with colleagues can be traced to personality. A caveat: use a personality assessment tool that is scientifically validated and reliable. Humantic uses AI to assess the candidate for Big Five personality traits without requiring her to answer a questionnaire.
Look around and see how much has changed about work and the worker. It is a clear signal that we need to redesign HR. So drop the assumptions of rational human beings. Maybe we will call it Behavioral HR. Google already has taken a lead in this space by starting a lab called Irrational Lab. Maybe it is time for all organizations to start one too where HR will remove outdated policies and replace them with ones that assume people do not make rational choices (mostly).
