New SOPs and digitalization of learning and performance are buzz words in today’s post-Covid HR world. We are just embarking on this journey, and perhaps yet not fully aware of a lot of other yet-unheard-of realities. One of such lurking on the horizon is the urgent need to rescale and re-size HR policies into actionable truths in today’s virtual-side-up reality.
While HR policies have always been a laborious read, often made up of deceptively concealed words to lure employees into “could-bes” and “could-be-nots”, here are a few ways that HR practitioners and policy-makers can use to upend the most used (and often most violated) HR code:
Correct
Pinpoint to the most relevant and obligatory set of policies which are re-defining daily lives and tasks. From time and absence management to conducting online reviews or managing employee welfare, identify which are the policies that simply have to be re-drafted, amended or thrown away entirely in the changing landscape post Covid-19. Now is also a time to review those practices that have been legacy more than need and in their place erect only the most prudent yet flexible policy statements that will allow real work to proceed without the flounce and carelessness that times of leisure and ease have afforded previously.
Conceive
A doctor can only help you if he’s able to access the medicine and surgical instruments needed to administer the cure. The same applies to policy-writers; to be truly effective they have to be 1) Able to grasp the change needed to bring about more effective operations or running of the daily tasks, 2) Able to identify who this change will affect the most and the simplest way of spelling it out and 3) Also aptly identify the domino affect that the new or changed policy might have on other policy areas or subjects. If these ingredients are present, a clearer and more stabilizing policy can be drafted quite quickly to address the changing nature of todays workplace.
Cascade
Perhaps what’s the seemingly easy and innocent press of an email or a virtual meeting invite, is most often the most damaging to employee morale and engagement, leaving them feeling even more isolated and at the mercy of their individual intellects to decipher the new HR code. It’s imperative that line and top management take out the time to not only share the revised policies through one common announcement but to repeat the message until it becomes the common code for all.
Most large organizations are well on their way to putting together a brief set of guidelines on how to run virtual meetings, post comments, evaluate performance remotely and share materials across the wide geographies they operate in; and some others will embark on a journey of adapting and simplifying existing policies to meet the demands of the new hour. Whatever the task at hand, it’s quite obvious that the world of work as we know it has changed and if companies are not quick to jump in and fix their first point of introduction, there’s not much to say about what comes later for them.
The author has extensive functional experience in HR & Talent Management practices in global organizations, and has been advocating better practices and processes for nearly two decades.
