Strategic Shortcomings That Most HR Policies Fall Short On

When things are going well in your company, it's easy to overlook human resources management. After all, we have far more urgent issues to deal with every day. Depending on the situation, working with employees can be joyful and gratifying or time-consuming and terrifying. 

With each new year, companies face a new set of problems as the HR team changes to meet the needs of a fast-paced, digitally-driven environment. HR managers have their hands full, from the #MeToo movement to a greater emphasis on paid leave and new pay equality employment laws. 

Big and small businesses will eventually aim to find, develop, and retain personnel in more efficient and effective methods in 2021, resulting in competitive advantages and improved culture. 

But what are the most pressing issues in HR practices in the workplace?  

We've whittled the list down to the five most prevalent challenges faced by HR professionals, along with reasons. 

1. Rigid protocols (lack of flexibility)  

Simply, getting a new printer/scanner connected to your office's Wi-Fi is a bureaucratic headache these days! 

A healthy company culture is created by a mix of good management and flexible working methods, which inspires employees and influences their overall happiness and job satisfaction. 

Many employees have recently felt unsupported in their jobs, blaming tight hours, a lack of flexibility, micromanagement, and inadequate leadership. Those who were provided flexibility and support in their jobs, on the other hand, highlighted flexible hours and the freedom to regulate their own working time as reasons for their pleasure, which was bolstered by effective training, regular meetings and having "understanding" bosses. 

Evidently, allowing employees to manage themselves and fit their work around their personal obligations while investing time to engage with them personally on a regular basis, leads to a happy, loyal, and productive workforce that is less likely to leave the company. 

2. Incentives/perks evaluated for measuring success 

It's difficult to stress how most managers and those who advise them believe in the restorative potential of incentives in a performance review. 

Several investigations in laboratories, businesses, classrooms, and other settings have found that rewards often impair the very processes they are supposed to improve. The findings show that the failure of any incentive programme is attributable to the insufficiency of the psychological assumptions that underpin all such schemes, rather than a flaw in the programme itself.  

Some executives argue that the only flaw in incentive programs is that they don't reward the proper behaviors. However, these executives are unaware of the psychological variables at play, as well as the dangers of maintaining the status quo.   

Punishment and gratification are two sides of the same coin. They are both manipulative, they have a burdensome effect. Offering a bonus to someone who appears unmotivated is similar to offering saltwater to a thirsty person. Bribes in the workplace are simply ineffective. Aligned flow of work (lack of a balanced pyramid structure)

Middle management, sandwiched between leadership and individual contributors, often appears to be out of touch with the organization's priorities and initiatives. If the next level of management doesn't understand or accept the change, a bottom-up approach can only go so far.  

Alignment drift is aided by uninvested management. For a variety of reasons, managers can stray from business aims and initiatives. Some managers are discovering strategic planning methods for the long term out of the misaligned middle despite being constrained by how they're judged and trapped in the thick of leadership disagreements. 

When the human eye is drawn to a visual representation of an issue, it tries to solve it like a puzzle. This is why charting the complete end-to-end flow of work and resource planning throughout the entire system is so effective: it allows everyone to see the bigger organization's collective demands in relation to their individual departments. 

Connecting teams with corporate goals through first-hand engagement in the challenges is an eye-opening exercise. Repairing misalignment takes work, but the payoff to the labor market is enormous. 

4. Lack of provisions for personal development 

Gone are the days when staff could get away with performing the same thing for decades. Individuals are expected to actively participate and contribute in other departments, as well as the organization's general productivity, in today's environment. This brings up the topic of self-improvement.  

Personal development is necessary not only for professional advancement but also for the organization's existence. No company wants to keep someone who is resistant to change and underperforms in unusual and unforeseen scenarios. Unfortunately, few organizations provide an environment conducive to training programs. 

In the due process of self-development, employees have the inkling to pursue their own career objectives and interests, as well as build confidence and become more self-sufficient. Training and developing not only benefits the employees but also the employers in the following manner: 

•  Significantly enhances employees' skills and performance.  

•  Creates an upwardly mobile workforce so one may promote more frequently from within.  

•  Boosts productivity by maximizing the value of one's staff to the company.  

 As people are constantly updating their abilities, provisions for self-development can help your company handle change more successfully.  

5. Unidirectional Communication (Mostly downwards) 

When firm executives and managers exchange information with lower-level employees, this is referred to as downward communication. This remains the primary mode of communication for almost all companies.  

Downward communication conveys information that aids in informing employees about important organizational changes, new goals, or strategies; providing organizational performance feedback; coordinating initiatives; presenting an official policy (public relations); or improving worker morale or customer relations.  

But downward communication has several drawbacks, including the following:  

•  Issues with interpretation  

 Because of the distortion effect and the sluggish feedback for message clarification, downward communication poses interpretation issues. 

•  It's not inspiring  

This style of communication does not help with motivation because of the sluggish feedback and reliance on official channels of communication.  

• Morale plummets  

Downward communications can have a detrimental influence on company morale due to the time it takes to communicate and the issue of distorted signals.  

Therefore, unidirectional communication as such needs to be altered soon to uphold performance standards and objectives.   

Humans at the heart of the employee experience are the future of HR. 

Do you want to lose your top talent at an alarming rate? Continue to say, "That's just the way we do things." ‘ 

The old techniques of doing business don't hold up in today's workforce. Human experience management is mission-critical if you want to keep staff engaged to execute their best work. After all, the previous year has demonstrated that it is people who make a company special. You win when you place employees at the heart of everything.  

While work could have come to a halt in 2020, HR attitudes, processes, tools, and technologies ensured that it didn't - and HR leaders aim to sustain some of those achievements as the future of HR unfolds.  

Parting Thoughts 

We can see a road forward for HR that will necessitate some fundamentally fresh thinking about what HR does and how it is designed to deliver. The path forward could begin with a phased implementation of workforce shaping or a trial project in one of their business divisions to test a more digital experience. 

These temporary initiatives, in our opinion, will only be beneficial if they spark a more comprehensive rebuilding of HR skills.  

As the business leaders prepare to emerge from its imposed seclusion, HR professionals have an opportunity to reinvent their playbooks for the future of HR from the ground up. 

Author Bio:

Parth Shah - Co-Founder, COO | DevX  With 10 years of experience in operations and training, Parth is a go-to person for his team and even a multitude of growing start-ups. His knack lies at spotting and supporting start-ups, helping them streamline their processes, and even take their ventures to the next level. After successfully establishing two start-ups and exploring the start-up landscape up-close Parth has learned the nitty-gritty of the industry, which he now shares with fellow entrepreneurs.