The ingredients:
All employees are unique, as they are individual persons with individual differences. Because any organisational role is represented by the person occupying it, various roles in an organisation bring along different recipes of life, each with unique ingredients. These ingredients can be grouped broadly under what I term as BIG SAVES – Beliefs, Identity, Goals, Standards, Attitudes, Values, Expectations and Skills.
When these ingredients are available in a favorable combination, they result in ‘big saves’ to the organisation – cost-wise as well as in terms of reputation or risk. If one or more of the ingredients go missing, or are not compatible with the other ingredients, they could really cause a lot of heart-burn.
Let us discuss each of these ingredients in more detail:
1. Beliefs
Belief is a statement, assertion, or theory of what one accepts as true. For many, beliefs are an important part of their identity. These beliefs can be moral, cultural, or religious. Culture has a very important bearing on beliefs in the workplace. For example, in East Asian countries, people higher up in the hierarchy believe that their juniors are being insubordinate if they address them by their name. These seniors themselves use salutations when speaking with or about their own bosses.
Some others believe that questioning the logic of their seniors is a sign of mistrust and could hinder their chances of growth in the company. A few other people have irrational beliefs that make not only their own lives miserable, but others’ as well. Irrational beliefs have a direct link with “expectations” which I have covered further down under that topic.
2. Identity
In life, by knowing about one’s identity, a person understands how his or her past self has developed into the present self, and how the present self will develop into his / her future self. As part of this process, one revaluates their old behaviours, explores options, and commits to life goals and values.
This identity takes on many hues in a workplace. In fact, the type of workplace determines whether an individual is able to maintain his or her identity. Nascent workplaces such as startups focus on objective goals such as profits and scale, which causes employees realign their identities around monetary benefits. As an organisation grows and experiences ups and downs, changes in leadership, and even big overhauls, the identity factor also keeps evolving to meet the needs of culture, brand, and social factors.
In a developed workplace, employees do not need to constrain their personality. They have freedom to choose their perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors in various situations. The principles and policies of employer on how to behave at the workplace imbibe this essence of freedom. Staff get a sense of fulfillment by doing the best they are capable of do, and most realize their full potential.
When on this topic, one cannot but highlight the importance of gender identity as well. With newer laws and cultural changes, there is a greater need to be open about individual gender choices and acceptance in the workplace.
3. Goals
Goals are objective conditions that people strive to attain or achieve at any given point in time. Goals and objectives are often used interchangeably. However, goals are generally broad statements that describe desired outcomes, while objectives are concrete, measurable actions needed to achieve the outcomes. Goals can be short term, medium term, or long term. They can be personal or professional. From organisational perspective, goals are strategic or tactical.
But goals make life more exciting – the harder they are to achieve, the more exciting it gets. Sportspersons and adventure-seekers seek tougher opponents – people and obstacles respectively – to beat. Without goals, life become meaningless. This is often felt towards the end of middle-adult stage of the human lifecycle, when people who have worked for most part of their lives begin to face an existential crisis. What am I here in this world for? Have I done what I wanted to do in life? Is there anything else left to do? Some find answers, a calling; many don’t.
If personal / individual goals align with those of the organisation, there is a harmonious relationship. For example, some employees desire stability over promotions. They prefer to stay in the same role as long as they can work 9 – 5 most days and not having to relocate. While others want faster growth and are willing to learn new skills or work long hours or travel frequently. Organisations need both types of workers. So, understanding the needs and aligning the right roles with right people is important.
Some goals are met by individuals either by coincidence or by luck. Some good decisions result in bad outcomes, while a few bad ones could lead to unexpected but desired outcomes. It would augur well for both, employees and employers, to understand one another and not take unnecessary credit for the good results nor punish the bad ones in such cases.
4. Standards
These are a set of measures intended at operationalizing the organisation’s or individual’s values. In organisations, especially in operations, there are standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). These standards are usually rigid, that is they are based on experience, regulated by internal policies, monitored by audit and enforced by compliance functions. Broader standards across organisations or industries are benchmarks. These are mainly used for comparison against own organisational performance levels.
Individuals too have standards. They are the personal metrics to measure how they act or behave. Some personal standards, especially conventional ones are quite rigid. Examples are “I will reach my office desk before 9 am every day”, or “I will pause any work to have a 20-minute power-nap every mid-day.” While non-conventional ones tend to be quite flexible. E.g., “I will set aside an hour for my self-Time (time for introspection) in the afternoon three days a week.” Some employees may have blended standards – rigid for some aspects and flexible in some others. Acceptance of flexible standards gives greater freedom of choice, more relaxed life, less strained relationships, and fewer anxieties.
5. Attitudes
Attitudes are a composite mixture of feelings, emotions and convictions that are derived from heredity, environment, experience, and present purpose. Attitudes are hypothetical concepts that represent an individual’s likes or dislikes about anything. They prepare the mind to react to objects and situations in a given way. Attitudes are positive, negative, or neutral towards a person, behaviour, or event. At times individuals experience ambivalence in attitudes. Attitudes are composed from various forms of judgement. If a person has a bad experience working with a manager in an earlier organisation, he or she may feel that all managers are bad. This reflects negative attitude towards managers in general.
6. Values
A value is a principle or quality that is desirable. It is very important to the person that holds it. Many people don’t know them as values, but they have them. An employee can consider transparency as a primary value and will be upset if the company or his colleagues (especially seniors) do not share strategic information with him or her.
Values are mostly acquired during various stages of development in life, so for most, values are already in place by the time they reach employable age. Some employees adopt new values in the workplace, based on how they align with their existing values and whether they benefit from them. For example, if a person has grown up believing “honesty is the best policy”, they may not have thought of “openness” as a separate value, but they would fit in very well with an organisation that has embedded openness in their culture and may even make it their core value.
Some people acquire the wrong values as well. A person having a value “success at all costs” will find ways, by hook or by crook, to get what they want. An example would be of supervisor falsifying customer feedback to show a better performance rather than trying to find out what is really ailing the customer and improve the processes.
7. Expectations
Even though this term does not require any clarification, very few realise that it has a strong connection with belief systems. An expectation is a belief that something will happen, or something “should” be a certain way. Expectations shape and sometimes bend our reality. Research has shown that sportspersons tend to show better results when they believe they have taken performance boosters, even when they haven’t. Most would have heard about the placebo effect – where people heal feaster even when they consume “sugar” pills believing them to be medicine.
There is a similar reverse effect called “Nocebo” effect. And this is common not only in the field of medicine, but also in the workplace. If a worker is given a target or job to achieve, and if it is “fed” with an expectation of potential failure or disaster, then that work is more likely to end up that way.
Irrational expectations are happiness killers. Such expectations usually have the words “should” and “must” in them. A few examples are given below:
- I should have been given a fair deal
- I should be liked by everyone
- Everyone should agree with what I say
- I should be able to get what I want
- I should be able to convince everyone all the time
In many cases, the employer too expects its employees to do all the above. Again, the same concept of rational v/s irrational expectations applies to the employer as well. Because, an organisation in this case means another employee or owner higher up in the hierarchy.
Not everyone or everything will be fine all the time. And there are many reasons why things can go wrong, or goals cannot be met. But instead of worrying about when these “shoulds” and “musts” do not materialize, the employees would be better off preparing for all possible scenarios and taking actions accordingly. Any unexpected scenarios can be dealt with as exceptions as appropriate.
8. Skills
I wrote about “life skills” from an organisation perspective in an earlier blog.
In addition, there are core skills that need to match with what an employer is looking for. Again, this match-making of skills is entirely subjective, as many skills are to be customized for each employer, and most skills can be developed on the job. It is the intent what an employer is looking for usually, and whether the worker has sufficient “life skills” to be able to handle a role. Again, this has everything to do with how to manage “expectations” and whether these expectations are realistic or not.
Skills are most likely to be associated with the educational qualifications of a person. Competencies result from cumulative learning processes moderated to some extent by reasoning ability (Baumert et al. 2009, p. 174). Many of these processes are facilitated by formal education. Therefore, the more opportunities for knowledge acquisition are provided to and used by an individual, the higher the level of formal education and basic competencies achieved. This point of view thus leads to the expectation that educational attainment and basic competencies are closely related.
The above factors are the BIG SAVES for any organisation. I deliberately kept another factor, Habit, separate for a reason. As it could be a determinant factor for the success of all the other factors and depending on whether they are good or bad can either make or break that organisation.
9. Habits
Habits are actions or efforts made in a sub-conscious manner. These are done through reinforcement and repetition, without the explicit intention of the person doing it. Habits can be desirable or undesirable.
Habits that align with the workplace values or team culture are appreciated. Any undesirable habits formed prior to joining the organisation are best if unlearned and new habits learned in their place. Some bad habits catch on fast especially when unchecked. For example, if the employee culture has created a habit for bosses to bill large entertainment expenses, submit false claims, support unscrupulous activities, exploit subordinates for personal favours (including sexual harassment), etc., these are usually adopted by employees next in line as well. And very soon the organisation develops an unhealthy work culture.
Efforts become sub-conscious when they are structured or organised in a way to facilitate automatic recall. A structured schedule be it for a month, a week or a day will provide the necessary assistance to form positive habits. This schedule can be on a piece of paper, on a wall / cubicle, entries in virtual calendars, or any of the scheduling apps available on smartphones. Anything done regularly irrespective of whether voluntary or by force tends to become a habit. It depends on the person and the recurring activity as to how long it takes to become a habit. Some habits are formed in a matter of a few weeks, while some take months. Bad habits are said to be easier to make, as they require the least efforts, or provide a sense of false pleasure or satisfaction.
Conclusion:
While collective positive habits of employees can provide BIG SAVES to organisation, poor ones are likely to result in BIG SHAVES, as they can shave off benefits entirely or result in razor-thin profit margins.
Each employee commences a working relationship with widely discrepant frames of reference with regard to the above factors. These factors impact their problem-solving, decision-making, communication patters and performance on a daily basis.
Dissatisfaction in the relationship does not begin when there is a difference in personal factors but begins if the personal factors are unvoiced, implicit, and not negotiated. Also, in most beginning relationships, both employers and employees have a potential for bias based on extraneous factors such as gender, ethnicity, education, and quite commonly, age.
The HR function is nowadays better equipped with technology to screen job-seekers for relevant factors like BIGS(H)AVES. Collaboration between hiring managers and recruiters also has never been better. But nothing is fool-proof. There will be mismatches and false-positives which can become evident only after the onboarding process is complete. Even when there may be no or very little disagreement at the beginning, these factors could become a major source of conflict in the employer-employee relationship later.
Therefore, it is senior leadership’s responsibility to coordinate with the HR / people managers to identify gaps in these factors, especially in the values. The employees can be heard and further enabled to make their values explicit. Not all values may align, but even if there are differences and acknowledged, the employer and employees can narrow down the differences over a pre-determined period. If discrepancies remain, an awareness of the differences itself creates conditions for change to occur.
Do you think these ingredients are relevant for your organisation? Would it be possible for employers and employees to align better on these ingredients and ensure an enjoyable appetite not only for work but also for life? Feel free to share your thoughts.
