Money and the workplace

I like to keep an eye on a few Radio National podcasts, particularly All In The Mind and The Law Report as they often have interesting discussions which link back to the workplace.

A recent All In The Mind episode looked at the 'psychology of money' interviewing Claudia Hammond. While it explored the psychology from a social sense rather than directly from an employment perspective I still found it discussed a number of useful concepts worth expanding here.

Below us a mix of items both discussed in the show and from my own readings and experiences.

1. Consider salary increases in the right perspective.

This isn't referring to positions which are being paid well out of their relevant banding / market rate - that needs to be rectified as you may be filling the position with candidates operating at a completely different level to what you need or have a flight risk. This is referring to salary increases within appropriate bandings.

The value of $5,000pa increase to the incumbent of a role paying $60,000 will be substantively different to someone on $90,000. If you have a star performer and are providing a salary increase consider strategically how you position those increases.

For instance, if you had a budget for up to $8,000 increase on a $65,000 role (about 12.3%) there's a few options on the table. An employee  on $65,000 would probably be pretty chuffed with a $5,000 increase and changing that to $8,000 probably won't provide a huge engagement benefit relative to the $5.000 already on the table.

Splitting it up however and providing the remaining $3,000 as part of a structured development program  provides sustainable recognition over the longer term. I would argue with a greater net gain in employee satisfaction as you now have two meaningful increases rather than one plus a development plan.

In terms of organisational benefit you have the direct financial impact of paying the $3,000 at a later date. Furthermore at the end of this process you've either got an employee who has successfully developed to a new level of performance; or you've identified development gap and can bank the $3,000 for a more appropriate time or reinvest elsewhere.

2. Money as a motivator needs to directly link to behaviour you wish to see rather than a vague end goal.

This was touched on in the Radio National program. A study was done in America researching at the benefits of financial incentives for students and exam grades, the money was reasonably substantial ($1,800).

One group of students was provided the money if they simply produced good marks but was not provided further structure on how to achieve them.

Another group was paid to achieve specific tasks selected to assist them in reaching the goal (i.e reading specific books, researching and revising particular items. etc). It was this group that performed significantly better than the former.

If you have a performance and incentive scheme make sure it's specific enough that it targets relevant behaviours and actions that achieve your ultimate goal. A end of quarter bonus on meeting sales targets is nice and simple but how are your staff meeting that goal? is it in line with your organisational values? Do they know how to meet the goal or are they just swimming furiously up stream? Sure, too much structure can be an administrative burden and cause you to loose focus, but not enough and you might be inadvertently rewarding the wrong thing or ending up with an empty association.

3. Money isn't necessarily the motivator you need.

Not surprisingly if you ask an individual they will always tend to say they want more money and that it will motivate them more (why not!) but the research shows the link is not as strong as one would think. Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic wrote a great little piece summing up research on the subject here.

The results indicate that the association between salary and job satisfaction is very weak. The reported correlation (r = .14) indicates that there is less than 2% overlap between pay and job satisfaction levels. Furthermore, the correlation between pay and pay satisfaction was only marginally higher (r = .22 or 4.8% overlap), indicating that people’s satisfaction with their salary is mostly independent of their actual salary.

In addition, a cross-cultural comparison revealed that the relationship of pay with both job and pay satisfaction is pretty much the same everywhere (for example, there are no significant differences between the U.S., India, Australia, Britain, and Taiwan).

What I've tended to find from speaking with other senior HR practitioners is that its when employees start to experience gaps in the non-financial motivators that money comes in to fill the gap. Money on it's own isn't a great motivator when you're already paying in band for a role or beyond a certain point. This is somewhat mirrored in Thomas' own discussion from the research he reviewed "Quite simply, you’re more likely to like your job if you focus on the work itself, and less likely to enjoy it if you’re focused on money."

Do employees have a manager that provides an opportunity to learn and grow? Do they view their job as important for the organisation? Have they been praised recently? - these are the things that can make a real difference. 

4. Money can backfire as a motivator if you're not careful.

A great example was discussed in the podcast where a fee was being introduced as a disincentive - unfortunately it didn't work. 

And there are examples where it completely backfires, paying people things at all. And one of the best known of these is a series of studies that were done in nurseries in Israel, and they decided that what they would do was fine parents if they turned up late, which lots of nurseries now do, because they were fed up with parents constantly turning up a bit late to pick up the kids and one member of staff had to stay with some kids that were behind. And they thought this will be a brilliant idea, and they charged them quite a bit.

And yet it went so wrong, this plan, that within a week every single parent was late at least once, which was extraordinary. And so it changed a favour of the member of staff staying late and parents feeling guilty about that into a paid-for service. And so then if people were running late at work they thought, oh well, I'll just pay the money, it's worth it, I'll just pay the money. And so it is curious in a way that it went so wrong. And then they stopped making the payments and it didn't turn back again afterwards, which is really worrying, which means if you do want to bring in some sort of incentive scheme you really need to be sure it's going to work and to try it out to see what unexpected side-effects of that it might have, because if you going to crowd out people's altruism and people's kindness, then you need to be very careful about that.

Here money created the framework for new expectations and when those expectations became behaviour, removing the framework (money) didn't make a difference because they were already ingrained as standard practice. What's also interesting is that providing a fee became compensation for any social/emotional guilt. 

Associating money with something can always bring with it subtle, but impact meanings - make sure you've considered potential consequences first before opening up the coffers hoping for an easy fix!

Failing to follow a lawful and reasonable direction

In regards to dismissals for serious misconduct in my experience they have often come from actions which resulted in a serious an imminent risk to the reputation, viability or profitability of the employer's business (in reference to section 2 of the definition of serious misconduct).

Given this it's interesting to see a case which instead relies on section 3 (c) - The employee refusing to carry out a lawful and reasonable instruction that is consistent with the employee's contract of employment.

The recent case of Barkhazen v Conair Australia Pty Ltd [2016] FWC 6520 (an appeal has been lodged) looks at this element of the definition.

An investigation occurred where Ms Barkhazen was found to have engaged in improper conduct in a meeting (following on from a grievance from her requesting an apology from a manager in the meeting). Ms Barkhazen was informed she would receive no apology from management and was advised to move on and not raise the matter again.

Workplaceinfo has a useful write up of the case here. As a high level summary, this case involves an employee, Ms Barkhazen who was the Accounting, Tax and Payroll Manger at Conair Australia. Given her role, Ms Barkhazen was also known as the pseudo "HR Manager" for the office as well.

Unfortunately for Ms Barkhazen she did raise the matter again with the manager who then subsequently lodged a further complaint. Ms Barkhazen was placed on special leave with pay and a further meeting was held regarding Ms Barkhazen's ongoing pursuit of an apology from the employee against direction. At some point during the meeting Ms Barkhazen was informed she would also be required to undertake an independent medical assessment.

The employer agreed to Ms Barkhazen's wishes to not be escorted from the building after the meeting. Given this Ms Barkhazen returned to collect her belongings from the office and also took her personnel file unbeknownst to the employer.

While there are some other elements to the case, here i'll be looking into the issue around the personnel file. The employer quickly noticed that Ms Barkhazen's file was missing and formally communicated several times with Ms Barkhazen's solicitors requesting it's immediate return. This involved multiple letters each requesting a specific date of return or at a minimum information as to the whereabouts of the file (Commissioner Cambridge notes at least 7 formal requests). The final of these letters stated that the employer was considering termination due to willful misconduct as a result of her inaction. While Ms Barkhazen's solicitors responded to a number of letters, they never made reference to the missing employee file.

Given this the employer decided that in "the absence of any response from the applicant’s legal representatives regarding the whereabouts of the applicant’s HR file, represented the applicant’s failure to comply with a lawful and reasonable direction. Consequently, the applicant was considered to have engaged in wilful misconduct and it was decided that her employment should be summarily terminated."

It was not until the day of the unfair dismissal hearing that the personnel file was returned in person. 

In her submission Ms Barkhazen raised the following:

Further submissions made on behalf of the applicant also dealt with the purported reason for the applicant’s dismissal being misconduct relating to her failure to return her personal HR file. It was submitted that at the time the applicant was suspended from duty, she was concerned that her HR file was the only objective evidence that could show that she was a diligent and productive employee. Further, the applicant feared that the respondent would alter her performance records if she returned the file to them. Consequently, she did not disclose the fact that she had the HR file.

In response, the lawyers for Conair submitted: 

...that the valid reason for the dismissal of the applicant was her failure to respond to the lawful and reasonable direction to advise Conair if she had the HR file or if she didn’t, and that the evidence has now subsequently clarified that she did have the HR file all along. Ms Jones rejected the proposition that because the applicant may not have seen the letters of 21 and 23 December 2015, she could not have contravened the reasonable and lawful direction of the employer. Ms Jones submitted that there had been no response provided to any of the requests made for information or return of the applicant’s HR file.

Commissioner Cambridge considered these elements in his decision:

In this instance, the applicant was summarily dismissed for misconduct involving a failure to comply with a lawful and reasonable direction of the employer. The direction of the employer, conveyed through their lawyers to the applicant’s lawyers, involved either the return or information regarding the whereabouts, of the applicant’s HR file. At the time of dismissal the employer was not certain that the applicant had removed her HR file from the records held at its premises. The failure of the applicant’s lawyers to provide any response to the repeated inquiries concerning the HR file was construed by the employer to represent a failure on the part of the applicant to comply with lawful and reasonable directions.

In circumstances where communication regarding very serious employment related matters is transacted between legal representatives for the respective parties, it would be reasonable to expect that all communication would, at very least, be acknowledged and responded to, even if only in an elementary manner, perhaps indicating that a more comprehensive response would subsequently be provided once instructions had been obtained from the client... 

...Although it has subsequently emerged that at the time, the applicant was unaware of the directions regarding the HR file contained in the letters of 21 and 23 December, the employer had valid reason for the dismissal because it was reasonable for it to assume that the absence of any response to those letters, and the earlier letter of 14 December, represented a deliberate refusal to comply with the directions. In any event, even if there was some invalidity that could be established for the reason for dismissal as was within the knowledge of the employer as at 4 January, the subsequent actions of the applicant have confirmed valid reason for dismissal.

It's interesting to note that even though Ms Barkhazen claimed she did not receive notice of the request for file from her solicitors it was found to be a valid reason for termination on the part of the employer. In this case, as Commissioner Cambridge notes, it became a redundant point as she clearly did have the file. However it does reinforce the point that communication to a person's appointed legal representative can have the same impact as communicating with the person directly. 

In addition the case shows that a lawful and reasonable direction can also be a simple as being directed to respond to a question. 

The Commissioner also addresses the claim that the file was taken for Ms Barkhazen's protection. Quite rightly the Commissioner mentions that Ms Barkhazen could have simply copied the contents of the file and then returned it. 

It was a shame that this spiraled out of control so quickly. It was not raised that Ms Barkhazen had historical performance concerns and it appears that had Ms Barkhazen simply accepted her employer's initial finding that her behaviour was poor in a singe meeting and followed direction this would have ended there.

I have frequently seen employees start to dig themselves holes and get more and more extravagant in their fervor to defend their (often poorly justified) position on a matter. This seems to be one of those examples.

As an HR Practitioner I have often found that transparency and the philosophy of "no surprises" has been a useful in countering these behaviors before they crystallize. It becomes more difficult to hold an irrational position when all the pieces are on the board for you to see.  It's not completely clear on why Ms Barhazen was asked to attend an independent medical examination, I can only assume this was in relation to her continuously seeking an apology after being directed not to. While speculation without all the information, it could be that this was potentially the catalyst for her to take the file out of concern regarding it's intention, justification and and impact.

A particularly expensive cup of coffee

The relatively recent case of Raj Bista Glad Group Pty Ltd t/a Glad Commercial Cleaning was too unique and somewhat humorous not to warrant a post. Aside from Vice President Hatcher's rather witty highlights in his decision, it's the employer's extreme reaction to circumstance which makes this case particularly notable. The Sydney Morning Herald covered the case in an article here.

At a high level summary, this is an unfair dismissal case concerning a dismissal for serious misconduct. The conduct itself concerned Mr Bista, a part time cleaner for Glad cleaning services who was dismissed for having a cup of coffee at the client's premises prior to starting his shift.

Serious Misconduct is not just a loose term in Australian industrial relations, it is a specifically defined form of misconduct which warrants summary dismissal by an employer. The definition is found under Regulation 1.07 of the Fair Work Regulations and is designed to cover behaviours where an employee has engaged in theft, fraud, assault or engaged in deliberate conduct causing serious and imminent risk to health and safety etc.

Serious misconduct in unique in that there are not only very particular set tests one must meet but also that creates a material disadvantage to employee in regards to their termination. For instance employees are not entitled to notice in lieu of termination as noted in Section 123 (1) (b) of the Fair Work Act 2009 and this also impacts an employee's entitlement to Long Service Leave where they have had less than 10 years service (ACT and TAS being 7 and 15 years respectively as LSL is state based legislation).

With this in mind an employer should be sure they are on sound footing when terminating an employee for serious misconduct as in most cases they would at the same time be making a conscious decision to withhold entitlements the employee would have otherwise received on termination.

In this case the employer made the termination on grounds that Mr Bista engaged in theft stating to Mr Bista in a letter that "Neither the coffee nor the paper cup it was made in were the property of yourself or the Glad Group". Furthermore they claimed that this action this caused a serious and imminent risk to the reputation, viability or profitability of the business in that:

• The tenant expressed distrust towards Glad Group Cleaners; and
• Glad Group's viability depends on it's reputation when tendering for contracts.

I particularly enjoy Vice President Hatcher's reference to the English language when describing how disproportionate the employer's definition of theft was to that of common sense usage in the workplace.

In Mr Bista’s case, I consider that the conduct upon which his dismissal was based was insignificant to the extent that it could not constitute a sound, defensible or well-founded reason for his dismissal. In my view, any reasonable person would regard his conduct as involving no more than a trivial misdemeanour... I prefer to take a more commonsense approach to Glad’s characterisation of Mr Bista’s conduct. In my view describing his conduct as “theft” verges on an abuse of the English language as used and understood by the ordinary person...

Vice President Hatcher goes on to outline a number of mitigating circumstances to assert why this is the case noting points such as:

• Mr Bista had previously shared coffee with his own supervisor and had been invited to have coffee by staff members of the client.
• On the day in question, he made the coffee in front of two employees of the client and chatted with them while doing so. The employees made no objection to his actions.
• The "property" the employer was claiming that was stolen consisted of the "coffee, hot water and a paper cup. They were all consumable items. Their collective value would have been well under one dollar."
• Mr Bista apologised immediately when confronted by the Office and Facilities Manager and explained he did not know he was not allowed to make a coffee. It also appeared by actions of the manager that this apology was accepted at the time.

On the item of "serious am imminent risk to reputation..." etc. Vice President Hatcher interestingly notes that the mere fact that Glad was on a rolling monthly contract with the client and had to undergo a public tender did not substantiate the claim that such a risk existed. Also the Office and Facilities Manager's comment that there was now an "element of distrust" was directed at Mr Bista personally rather than the employer.

This second consideration highlights that employers need substantial grounds to claim such a risk and need to be cautious if the risk is actually concerning just an individual or the organisation. It was also noted that it would not have been difficult for the employer to simply relocate Mr Bista to another site if required.

Vice President Hatcher awarded $9172.20 in damages to Mr Bista in addition to reinstatement, resulting in what ended up being a very expensive cup of coffee.

Make sure you're on sound footing before directing an employee to attend a medical assessment

In the recent finding of Cole v PQ Australia Pty Ltd t/a PQ Australia [2016] the Fair Work Commission has provided some clarity around when it is reasonable for an employer to request an employee attend a medical examination.

In this case PQ Australia stood down Mr Cole after he had taken one day personal leave and directed him to attend a medical examination. When Mr Cole refused (and failed) to attend the medical examination, PQ Australia terminated Mr Cole's employment.

PQ Australia did not state this was the sole reason for his termination. They also mentioned he failed to comply with a direction to only communicate with PQ Australia's Vice President of HR during his stand down. In addition PQ Australia stated in their communication to Mr Cole:

“The reason that we have directed you not to attend for work until further notice is that a number of issues have arisen in the workplace over the last few months which have involved or affected you and we are concerned about the impact these issues have had on you and on others.”

However it was clear that not attending the medical assessment was the core issue here.

In situations such as these, one would expect Mr Cole to have a history of abnormal personal leave absences in order to justify the request for a medical. However this was not the case, as Commissioner Roe finds:

"PQ Australia did not allege that they had any concerns about the frequency or nature of Mr Cole’s absences from work on personal leave. Mr Cole had not had any lengthy or frequent absences. In fact he had accumulated more than 27 days of unused personal leave in his approximately 4 years of service. Mr Cole was absent for one day on personal leave on 14 June 2015. Mr Cole attended his doctor and eventually provided a medical certificate for this single day absence. He also provided a pathology request form signed by his doctor which included a diagnosis of his condition."

Given these facts it is unsurprising that Commissioner Roe found that the request to be unreasonable. While the employer presented a number of reasons to support their request, these were not substantial enough and in reviewing the matter Commissioner Roe outlined the following questions to consider:

1.   Was there a genuine indication of the need for the examination, such as prolonged absences from work, or absences without explanation, or evidence of an illness, which related to the capacity to perform the inherent requirements of the job

2.   Had the employee provided adequate medical information which explained absences and demonstrated fitness to perform duties?

3.   Was the industry or workplace particularly dangerous or risky?

4.   Were there legitimate concerns that the employee’s illness would impact on others in the workplace?

5.   Did the employee agree to the assessment by the medical practitioner selected by the employer?

6.   Was the employee advised of the details of the conduct which led to the concerns that he was not fit for duty?

7.   Was the medical practitioner advised of the issues of concern, and were those matters focused on the inherent requirements of the job? What information was proposed to be given to the medical practitioner about the actual job requirements?

8.   Was the employee advised of the matters to be put before the medical practitioner for his assessment?

9.   Was the medical assessment truly aimed at determining, independently, whether the employee was fit for work?

PQ Australia felt the full brunt of the Fair Work Act in Commissioner Roe's findings as he applied the full 6 month compensation as a remedy in favour of Mr Cole. This equated to a payment of $43,906.72.

I have found medical assessments work best with an open and transparent approach. Clearly in this case the situation became adversarial and hostile almost from the very start. It's important to ensure employees feel comfortable during the process so in turn they and their Doctor/s are more likely to be fully cooperative with the employer.

Holding Redlich also has a quick write up on the case here.

Some pondering on ethics and morality

This months' Human Resource Director Magazine had an interesting piece on ethics interviewing the GM HR of ANZ, Suzette Corr.

The big takeaways from the interview are actually two quotes. They obviously struck the HRD editor as well as he (Ian Hopkins) also referred to them in his editor's note inside the front page.

Firstly was this:

My take on integrity is it's the personal drive to do what's right. It's to advise on in what's right. It's to advise without fear or favour and to have the moral character to not just know right from wrong, but to speak up and challenge as necessary... It's in the actions you take rather than just a trait of who you are. 

What really struck me from this quote is it moves beyond just an ethical stance but rather looks towards one's actions and to be able to take those actions with courage of unbiased thought. 

The other was in reference to how CHRO's and HRD's can often find themselves leading organisations of thousands or tens of thousands of people and their capacity to drive positive change is particularly significant. 

Imagine the powerful force for good HR could be if these people, whose profession is humans, embraced an understanding of ethics and integrity and acted upon and spoke up to ensure the right thing was done?

This got me thinking back to a podcast I heard from Radio National's All In The Mind years ago about morality and so I went on a search. Fortunately I found it surprisingly quickly! It's titled Moral Minds: The Evolution of Morality and while it doesn't directly reference the organisational context, I believe it still has worthwhile items to ponder on. Here All In The Mind interviews Mark Hauser, Professor of Psychology and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Richard Joyce, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney.

Below are two extracts from the show. Both have differing and interesting implications when we look back to the workplace. With Marc it relates to distance (physical and hierarchical/organisational), action vs inaction and why sometimes people might be inclined "put things under the rug". With Richard it delves into areas like organisational politics, unwritten cultural norms and conflicting obligations.   

Marc Hauser: 

So where we're making progress on this is that we built about three years ago a website called The Moral Sense Test which now after about three years has somewhere like 300,000 subjects from around the world. And on that website people log in and tell us where they're from, their religious background, or educational background, age and so forth. And then they proceed to take many of the kind of classic moral dilemmas that you know people like Richard and other moral philosophers have invented to try to get some purchase on the nature of people's intuitions. 

Here's some examples of the kind of things that seemed to cut across culture, at least with the sample we have. 

As far as we can tell across this very large sample of people, people judge actions that cause harm as worse than omissions of an action that caused exactly the same harm. People consider a harm that is intended as worse than the same harm that is foreseen... 

...why is it that people think that using somebody as a means to an end is not OK, whereas something that maybe harms one but for a greater good, under certain circumstances, it might be OK.

Richard Joyce: 

If it's true that human ancestors lived in an environment where reciprocity was extremely important to them, which almost certainly they did, then there's a question of 'well, what does morality actually add to the reciprocal exchange'? And the idea that I've been examining is that it bolsters motivation. It's all very well to give something to somebody cause you like that person, but if in addition you feel that you're morally obligated to pay them back in exchange for something they gave you on a previous occasion - that is perhaps the evolutionary function of the moral faculty. That it bolsters motivation in the social sphere to make us better co-operators.

If you have the time and interested in the subject, I highly recommend you check out the article and podcast.

What makes your employees highly engaged?

This infographic I came across on LinkedIn is rather self-explanatory so I'll save an introduction.

Click on the image to enlarge

What I do find interesting however is the bottom statistic, knowing what is expected of them at work, which is the only element shown as being almost identical between engaged and disengaged employees.

When you contrast that against the highly engaged experiences - talking about progress, encouraging development and praising work there is a clear pattern. It's not so much about the 'what' but instead the 'how' and 'why' that can really help drive engagement when talking about management direction. Do employees still need to know what's expected of them? Yes of course they do but if you want highly engaged employees you'll need to deliver much more than that. 

I also took note of the phrase They have a best friend at work. This puzzled me a little bit however in my quick search for the original image source was not able to find further information. I can only think this refers to having a trusted friend in the colloquial sense. 

My final thought is some of these statements are almost truisms such as Their manager cares about them however even so there were a number of respondents who clearly answered in the negative. It would be fascinating to take a deeper look at some of these respondents and cross reference answers against other data points. Are these 'lone-wolf 'engaged employees who plough their own destiny or just unavoidable statistical deviations? Without knowing more background on these numbers I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps I'll have a new perspective in a few years when I have run through number of new engagement pieces both individual and organisational. 

Post Ulrich HR?

This post is a link to Lucy Adams' article titled Kissing goodbye to traditional Ulrich - Next Generation HR Organisation Design.

This enjoyable read takes the core elements of the Ulrich model then explores and projects them against current HR trends and observations. 

What I particularly like about this post is that apart from being bit a bit tongue in cheek, it's also slightly controversial. There are a number of elements I agree with such as the argument HR advisory work needs to be more than a transnational service. 

It's easy to answer a technical question, push out a contract or read out a policy paragraph, however it's not until an HR Advisor considers these items in the context of the people, culture and organisation they are actually value adding. I believe managers and staff often come to HR for advice because they need a trusted and informed or different perspective beyond the obvious - if it was obvious they probably wouldn't be calling.

Other items I'd like to challenge such as when Lucy states that "But most critically, we forgot the fact that when a line manager is asking about a policy - they are not actually asking about a policy - but how to get round it!". For me good policies are about best a practice framework for presumed situations and are built upon justifiable fundamentals, aligned with an organisations culture (and legislature where relevant). Perhaps Lucy was just making a generalisation of a few, however I would argue that her statement a surface level assessment. In my experience, most of the time managers of the disposition that Lucy describes don't really just seek to get around policies. Rather they either have a conceptual disagreement with what the policy is trying to achieve or the policy itself is a troubled answer to the unique situation at hand. One then has to ask, is the policy really meeting its purpose? It's rare that I've come across a manager that doesn't genuinely have the interests of the organisation at heart - the goal often remains the same, it's the perspectives, philosophies and values that change.      

  

That being said however I am aligned on Lucy's comment on trust:  

...any of us who have had to draft interminable employment policies recognise that this comes at a cost – to our capacity to focus on building the capabilities of line managers. I am often brought in to provide fresh challenge and ideas for HR teams. Whilst they like the innovation, they equally are concerned about their ability to deliver as their managers “wouldn’t do it”. They may be right but this means we are stuck in this vicious cycle where - we don’t trust managers to manage - we therefore produce rules and processes that make them do it - we spend our time enforcing and monitoring the process to make sure they have – which means we don’t have the time to develop their capability – so we don’t trust them to manage – and so on ….

Some of the most enjoyable HR memories I have is where a manager who I once worked closely with develops new levels of confidence and capabilities due to our joint learnings and experiences. It's important to remember we hire managers to manage, sometimes this can get lost in the noise of a busy HR practitioners' schedule or desire to craft the perfect policy. 

The Conflict Paradox

At a Disrupt HR conference I was introduced to a really stimulating concept about the idea of the 'Conflict Paradox' by one of the speakers, Sandra Walden Pearson. Sandra kindly referred me onto this article which discusses the paradox a bit more as part of a short book review.

The Conflict Paradox - Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes, Bernard Mayer

The idea here is that Bernard identifies seven paradoxes that frame how people tend to compose their approaches to different situations. The assumed general consensus being that one needs to be on a articular side of the fence with one of these elements.

1. Competition and Cooperation
2. Optimism and Realism
3. Avoidance and Engagement
4. Principle and Compromise
5. Emotions and Logic
6. Neutrality and Advocacy
7. Community and Autonomy

On the outset, each of these items appear polar opposites and mutually exclusive. What I found really interesting however is that Bernard does not describe them as contradictions at all but rather "codependent realities".  

This all builds off the concept of moving from a win-lose scenario to a win-win scenario where experienced negotiators are able to intellectually manage both of these elements at the same time.

As HR professionals we are often provided with situations where we appear to be presented with conflicting elements. Take for instance a flexible work arrangement, where one party is seeking flexibility in work patterns while the other wants to maintain productivity as per standardised norms. From one point of view these a contradictory, however as HR professionals we know that flexibility is an excellent avenue to actually boost productivity. A 2013 Ernst & Young report on The role of women in unlocking Australia's productivity potential is a great paper discussing flexibility.

It's interesting to consider situations were particularly skilled practitioners would be able to both identify and then capitalise on both of these codependents in order to achieve a net gain for both sides. Obvious examples come up around considerations with enterprise bargaining for instance where employers and unions can be firmly pushing their relative position built on the foundations of one of these elements (competition, principle, advocacy...)

I'll have to save a more detailed review for when I have had the chance to read further. In the meantime it's interesting to consider how one can manage complex situations by challenging the conception that it needs even be a win-loss scenario - make it a win-win.

The impact of workplace bullying

I'd like to share one of my favourite videos on workplace bullying.

Australia has a specific definition of workplace bullying - that being repeated, unreasonable behaviour that creates a risk to health and safety. For those of you who like to go directly to the source, you can find that in s.789FD of the Fair Work Act 2009. This should be kept in mind when actioning bullying items in Australia but that aside, there are some very stimulating materials out there when you consider the matter in its broader sense. Some of these are below: 

One of the pieces I really enjoyed from the video is when it described key style differences between leaders and bullies. The punchline being, "bullying is not a leadership style, it is the opposite of leadership".

Workplace Leaders

Workplace Bullies

·    Leaders inspire and build functional teams.  ·    They value others, reward competence and encourage contribution.  ·    They set good examples, holding themselves to the same high standards they expect of others. ·    They aim for clarity, behave with integrity and maturity and take responsibility for their mistakes. ·    They let others work without interfering. ·    They resolve conflict.

·    Bullies erode and disrupt functional teams. ·    They may use team language but they’re not team players. ·    They devalue others, feel threatened by competent staff and stifle contribution. ·    They set bad examples and exhibit hypocrisy. ·    They pollute the workplace by projecting their own negative stuff onto others, creating confusion and uncertainty. ·    They lack integrity and maturity. ·    They lie and blame others to disguise their own failings. ·    They focus on petty fault finding. ·    They generate conflict and when their   bulling is rooted in personality problems, their behaviour is unlikely to change.

While we're on the subject of comparisons, I also want to share another piece I found particularly stimulating. Below is a table which explores the difference between Bullying and Harassment which I came across and understand to be the work of Tim Field, an activist in the area. 

While I don't necessarily fully agree with all of the points below, such as that it tends to be secret and without witnesses (I have seen examples to the contrary). I think this is a great piece that helps intellectually distinguish two terms that many people use interchangeably without really thinking about it.

Harassment	Bullying
Tends to focus on the individual because of what they are eg. Gender, race etc.	Anyone will do, especially if the bully feels threatened in some way.
Harassment is usually linked to sex, race, prejudice and discrimination etc.	These things play little part.
The person being harassed can usually identify it – particularly with the extent of awareness training conducted in defence.	The person being bullied may not realise it for weeks or months.
Most people can recognise harassment.	Few people recognise bulling.
Harassment will often reveal itself through the use of recognised offensive language.	Workplace bullying tends to fixate on trivial criticism and false allegations under performance. Swearing may be done in private.
The harasser often perceives the complainant as vulnerable to harassment or a challenge.	The complainant is seen as a threat and that must first be controlled and subjugated and, if that doesn’t work, eliminated.
Often harassment is for peer approval, bravado etc.	Apart from initiations, tends to be secret, behind closed doors and with no witnesses.
Harassment takes place both in and out of work.	Bullying takes place largely at work.
Harassment is often domination for superiority.	Bullying is for control of threat (of exposure of inadequacy.)
The harasser often lacks self discipline.	The bully is driven by envy (of abilities) and jealousy (of relationships)

Pay your employees to sleep?

Came across an quick little Human Capital article worth sharing:

Aetna, a US health insurance company has implemented a novel sleep program where they provide Fitbit fitness trackers to help promote healthy sleep patterns for their employees.

If they can prove they get 20 nights of sleep for seven hours or more in a row, we will give them $25 [$33 AUD] a night, up to $500 [$661AUD] a year

They have statistics to prove they're on the right track as well. Atena's CEO claims that employees improved their productivity by 69 minutes each month as a direct result of participation in the program.

I did a little research and it appears Atena has around 5,700 employees. It would be interesting to know if this is being rolled out across the whole organisation or just departments - do staff bring their own FitBits? There may be some privacy implications as well...

Overall however, I think this is a fantastic idea.  One of my first reservations was how this might fairly integrate with employees who have career duties such as flexible working parents. Turns out they thought of that too as the 7 hours are not continuous and can include naps.

It reminds me of a short story a senior manager once told me that stuck. Essentially it was a tale about two woodcutters who were working away when one notices the other is quickly outpacing his productivity and even finishing early. Turns out the productive woodcutter sharpens his axe at the end of each day.

A nice story stressing the importance of tackling presenteeism and taking time to develop your skills / having rest to boost genuine productivity. It's important as HR professionals we drive a culture that encourages people to sharpen their axe rather than just swing harder with a blunt instrument.

Culture and Engagement

I have rewritten this post a few times because the more I read and discuss with experts, the more I realise how many differing views there are on the subject on culture and engagement! Given this, below is a top level collection of thoughts on the subject and some models I found interesting.

Engagement

Generally I have found alignment in my research on the concept of engagement.

Sometimes referred to as an individual construct, engagement can also be referenced in relation to a group or team. Engagement focuses on how motivated and energised staff are in relation to their work and goals. Employees are more likely to be engaged when their values and behaviours are in alignment with their organisations. 

A common way to test engagement is though the 'Say, Stay and Strive' concept. Aon Hewitt uses this model. Effectively it looks at employee actions that are indicators of engagement. Aon Hewitt's model as you can see looks beyond this to identify the drivers which generate those behaviours.

Culture

Culture is where there seems to be a much greater divergence in opinion and models. Currently, my take on the matter is aligned with some work from Denison noting that that culture is an organisational construct. In other words, an emergent property that is created from the from all the individuals in a group working together.

An example of some of the differing concepts on culture is below:

Ryder Group sees culture as the intersection of how people think (rational), feel (emotional) and act (behaviour) in an organisation. The former two elements creating a 'climate' that drives behaviour. 

As a similar but alternative view Aon Hewitt defines culture as an intersection of beliefs about strategy and business models, behaviours and personal interactions, and finally how decisions are made.

One of the more interesting distinctions i've found is that some models strive to achieve a high performance culture that aligns with certain characteristics (Human Synergystics) while others don't prefer any specific culture over another but rather see them as functional or dysfunctional depending on their alignment with company strategy and employees (Aon Hewitt / Culture Amp). Personally at this stage i'm drawn towards the latter however I wouldn't be surprised if my thoughts continue to change as I work more on the subject. 

Gardening Leave

There was a great write up by Ashurst recently on Gardening leave.

Focusing on the case of Actrol Parts Pty Ltd v Coppi (No 2) [2015] VSC 694, this explores a case which I imagine would be common across many organisations. Here a Sales Manager leaves for a competitor and is placed on gardening leave during his notice period. The employer attempts to enforce their contractual provisions when the Sales Manager begins employment with the competitor within the notice period.

Here i'll point out a few items of Ashurst's analysis I found particularly interesting.

Impact of the employer asking the employee to return their material benefits

Justice Bell J accepted the employee's argument that by removing the company car, iPhone and iPod the employer had repudiated the contract by unilaterally reducing the employee's remuneration. It's important to remember that employees are still entitled to all of the benefits of their employment contracts while on gardening leave and this may mean access to tools and perks normally associated with performing their roles.

Businesses need to also be aware that there is a "quid pro quo" in gardening leave. For the business to receive the person's loyalty and fidelity, the employee must remain "on the books" as an employee and, critically, must continue to receive all contractual entitlements, such as a company car or technology. 

The right to place employees on gardening leave

The Fair Work Act 2009 is silent on the issue of gardening leave, or more specifically the ability for an employer to direct an employee not to perform work. Given this an employee's contract needs to be worded appropriately to provide these options. If a contract doesn't allow for such an action an employee could also argue that the employer has repudiated the contract.

Dealing with confidential information 

Again, this case acts as a clear example demonstrating the importance of contacts filling in gaps of law. While generally there are protections for employers dealing with misuse of confidential information, these protections probably stop short of the prescription most employers would like.

In the Actrol case, the employer had no redress against the employee in relation to the emails because the employee had not breached any contractual term or any policy by sending information outside the employer's IT system to his personal email address. The fact that he had a legitimate business purpose for doing so, and had not otherwise used or misused the emails was sufficient. It did not matter that it was not management's preference that documents be transferred as the employee transferred them.

Abandonment, small business employers and a very poorly worded text message

A recent Human Capital email in my inbox reminded me of a case earlier last year where a small business employer dismissed an employee for sending a text message to her manager calling him a "complete dick".

Colourful texts aside, I find Louise Nesbitt v Dragon Mountain Gold Limited [2015] interesting because it touches on both serious misconduct for small business employers and abandonment of employment.

Dragon Mountain is about as small as a small business can get, consisting of two employees. Mr Gardiner, Chairman and Managing Director and Ms Nesbitt Office Administrator/Bookkeeper.

On 12 January 2014, Ms Nesbitt sent a text message intended for her daughter's boyfriend to Mr Gardiner stating "Remember.... Rob [Mr Gardener] is a complete dick... we already know this so please try your best not to tell him that regardless of how much you might feel the need."

Realising her mistake almost immediately, Ms Nesbitt sent two subsequent messages of apology and did not attend for work the following day. Ms Nesbitt also did not complete a task required for the board meeting on 14 January 2014.

Having not returned to the employers office between 13 to 17 January 2014, her employment was terminated on 17 January 2014 sating the Board considered the matter on the 12th and made a finding of gross misconduct.

Abandonment of employment:

Commissioner Cloghan found that while he did not accept Ms Nesbitt's argument that she performed work from home, he never the less found Ms Nesbitt did not abandon her employment.

Effectively this was because on a number of occasions Ms Nesbitt held points of contact with the employer. Such as when she:

• attempted to resolve the matter with the non-executive directors, 
• stated she was unable to prepare board packs 
• and left documents at the office door. 

Abandonment of employment comes into play when an employer is effectively getting radio silence from an employee after attempting to contact them by all reasonable means (Some Awards also have additional rules). Here the employer clearly knew where Ms Nesbitt was and she was in contact with them so abandonment was not an issue. 

Gross misconduct:

Being a small business employer, Dragon Mountain was subject to the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code.

Here Commissioner Cloghan considers a few things. The context of the relationship between Ms Nesbitt and her employer, the wording of the text itself and her actions and words used following the text.

Below are a few select excerpts from Commissioner Cloghan showing his reasoning:

To call a person a “dick” is a derogatory term to describe them as an idiot or fool. The word “complete” is used to convey the message that the person is, without exception, an idiot or fool - they are nothing less than a “dick”.

The principal reason for Ms Nesbitt’s dismissal was the text message describing Mr Gardner, the Employer’s Chairman and Managing Director, as a “complete dick”. However, the evidence provided in the hearing indicates that this remark appears to have been the culmination of a “testing” relationship with Mr Gardner.

Ms Nesbitt poses the rhetorical question of how the Directors of the Employer describe an “accidental, out of context text message as gross misconduct.” Accidental or not, what matters is the content of the text message. In view of the deteriorating working relationship, I consider the Employer had reasonable grounds to believe, that Ms Nesbitt considered Mr Gardner a fool or idiot.

Ms Nesbitt assumes that having called her boss a fool or idiot she is able to reformulate its consequences by considering it acceptable to apologise (by text), provide implausible reasons for calling Mr Gardner “a complete dick” and go to third parties and seek that they not speak to her boss, before they discuss the text message with her. I mention these matters, because the Employer was aware of them and they should be considered, in whether Mr Gardner’s believed the conduct was sufficient to justify immediate dismissal.

This case shows the importance of the employment relationship and how that importance is arguably heightened in smaller teams, in this case two people. Ms Nesbitt's choice of words was carefully analysed by the Commissioner including her actions following the text in forming a view of the relationship. This obviously works both ways and careful wording of letters and following of procedures is just as important for employers. 

For another opinion, CCIQ has a write up here.