Dear Editor,
My human resource management colleague of more than 50years, who had worked at an international level in at least three continents, had his baptism in the discipline right here in Guyana’s sugar industry, and post-retirement advised the largest local private sector organisation at the highest level of decision-making.
It is against the background of his experience, and my comparatively modest career – specialising initially in human resources management and development, and eventually encompassing substantive competence in organisational restructuring – that we have recently been contemplating, with various degrees of concern and even pessimism, the perceptible depreciation in the efficacy of what we, and our contemporaries, have actually experienced and enjoyed, ie the authority and respected status of the human resource management function, not only in the private sector but equally so in public administration. The latter was in earlier times widely recognised for the professionalism with which decisions were made and expedited.
What struck us now as interesting was, that in the face of educational institutions producing increasing numbers of graduates in HR Management, the actual impact of their presence in, and contributions to, respective organisations, were contradictorily less of authoritative advice, and more of subordination to direction from the higher echelons of management.
In other words, those who at first blush may appear to be substandard performers are in reality the deliberate targets of decision-makers who, while deluded about how much they know, are confident about what they want in terms of employment relationships in their organisations. In extreme terms, therefore, there can hardly be compatibility between under-informed directorates and under-experienced recruits to prefabricated systems and procedures, that too often have not benefited from the relevant technical expertise needed. One example of such technical deficiency may be in the area of compensation management, where evidence suggests an incapability to coordinate an effective compensation structure consistent with a job hierarchy (which in any case may be equally confused), particularly since the practice of conducting an effective job evaluation exercise to establish appropriate relativities in job values seems to have diminished.
This is compounded by the fact that the critical performance management process is honoured more often than not in the breach. Clearly the lack of competence in any one component of the HR function will spill over into others, consequently supporting the already biased perception that the function does not merit direct representation at board level. Its absence on most private sector boards is eloquent testimony.
Yet the very boards do not recognise the contradiction in constraining the HR department by the limitations of their own thinking so far as human relations are concerned. A most simplistic reflection of their narrow-mindedness is their acquiescence to the firm’s advertisement of the ‘Career Opportunity’ for a Driver/Office Assistant (see SN of June 1, 2014). Much more fundamental, however, is the organisation’s under-estimation of the essential value of human resources management – in recruiting the right skills, and of retaining the relevant experience, not only to keep the organisation stable but, more importantly, to enhance its capacity to grow in an increasingly competitive market.
The scenario is particularly relevant in those business sectors where the high staff turnover is easily recognisable to customers across the counter. Yet, despite the statistic, there is little convincing evidence of a conscious HR strategy aimed at mitigating the debilitating impact which frequent rotation of employees would have on the highly touted standard of customer service being offered. Indeed, in this connection, there is credible evidence that a disproportionate number of institutions, large and small, barely register the logic that their customer service can only be as productive as how the very service employees (and of course their colleagues) are themselves treated. The differentiation is quickly recognised by bright, sensitive young people who become sufficiently frustrated, even to the point of feeling humiliated in some instances, that they quickly seek other options, despite good pay. There are of course other areas in which the employer’s image does not match the employee’s expectations.
Trivial as the above indicators may appear, more careful examination will show that they are but a sample of other sensitivities related to the particular operational unit in the first instance, then extending to the organisation as a whole. These are sensitivities which a mature, confident proactive HR practitioner would be expected to monitor, analyse, and consequently advise upon the necessary remedial actions to be taken. Hopefully, the latter’s analysis would indicate the need for a more comprehensive communication strategy in the organisation – ideally, one that would provide for even the young voices to be heard – feedback being the essence of the communication process.
But all this thinking may well be regarded as wishful, particularly when the organisation conforms to an environment that demands uniformity, constrains creativity; and indulges egocentricity which turns out to be the only substance being developed.
What in fact has been achieved is a compression into mediocrity. Interest-ingly, the aforementioned scenario is almost instinctually reflexive of current public administrative managements, whereby the Public Service Commission is bypassed, the Public Service Ministry substantively diminished, as individual budget agencies conduct their own ‘contract hiring’ – a process which facilitates inconsistent (and inflated) values for jobs, ignores performance standards, and compensates for organisational ineffectiveness by increasing annually more under-assessed competencies, without transparency in preference of selection.
One of several negative outcomes is the replacement of the system of rewarding specific levels of performance with the dehumanising exercise of impositions across the board.
The floor is open for other perspectives.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
