‘Your people strategy is the way you communicate it’ – Michael Gerber, E-myth.

Every company, big or small, needs to take the time to set a company strategy: To think about where they are going and ultimately how they are going to get there, both in the short and long term.

For most companies this is usually an annual affair, possibly having brainstorming sessions, producing strategy documents and presenting to colleagues or board members. Sound familiar?

What happens once all this groundwork is done?

In the ideal world we have a business strategy that is alive and well within our business. We hold true to it, execute against it, communicate it to our teams and the market – after all we are excited and motivated by it!

But, how often do we hear about strategy documents that ‘go on the shelf’? That are no longer relevant when they dusted off and evaluated? Too often.

Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth talks about communication, and the way you communicate, being key to your people strategy. I couldn’t agree more, and also extend this from the people strategy to the overall business strategy. If we keep our strategy to ourselves, or do a poor job of communicating it, it may as well stay on the shelf or even go unwritten. This may sound harsh, but any company is made up of its people, so if we are not all going in the same strategic direction, there is no way we can be as successful as we should be.

Take the time to set your strategy, communicate it (well and often) and execute it with gusto!

And if you’re thinking that you’ve got this sorted already, challenge yourself: ‘How many people within your team can articulate your strategy?’

A very real part of life that we will all experience at some stage is family bereavement. We can only hope to have the support we need surrounding what can be a deeply traumatic time for you and your family.

In my experience, I had the added complication of needing to travel to Europe from New Zealand. Not a trip you can do over a long weekend (or the 3 days that our the standard bereavement benefit offers us). This meant an unexpected and extended time away from work at an extremely business critical time (when isn’t it?).

How did I and the business cope?

We just did. But what was different for me, was that I was able to take the time I needed. There was never a question of time – ‘Just do what you need to do’. This went a long way to dealing with what was in front of me.

Legally and in my experience, this is not commonplace. In New Zealand, we are legally entitledto 3 days bereavement leave when suffering from a bereavement. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t many businesses that don’t go above and beyond here, but there are plenty who stick to this, or to a combination of leave types.

How can make the bereavement benefit an actual, real benefit?

Talk. Many years ago, I remember an employee saying to me to she simply wasn’t ready to come back to work after a bereavement. She didn’t express this at the time. No one asked. The result was a struggling employee and most likely lower productivity. It’s a tough topic, but worth taking the leap to support those around you.

Be Creative, yet Real. When architecting this bene

fit, get creative. This is an area that impacts everyone at some stage. Think about how you can offer a benefit that employees can easily use when they need it most.

Ongoing Support. It’s tempting to leave people to ‘deal’ with things themselves. When they return to work, they are definitely still dealing with a lot. What can we put in place to help them find their new normal?

Taking some time to think this through, making your bereavement leave a real benefit to your employees will undoubtedly enhance individual and organizational wellbeing.

In the past the word 'craft' was much more common place. As a society, we appreciated the effort, skill and art it took to build one’s craft. To become an expert.

Today, in our throwaway society, we are focused on the benefits of automation, while losing the beauty and art of how our products are crafted by our artisans. We often take for granted the time, skill, and focus it takes to create our daily products and services. However, according to Goldman Sachs, there is a consumer megatrend showing an increase in the demand for artisan products – soaps, breads, whiskeys, and many more products are increasing their artisan appeal in the market. These are tangible products where we can look, feel and often taste the difference in how they are produced. Makes sense that we may start to seek these out more.

So, what about services? The not so tangible stuff.

More often we are seeing consumers support the little guy, the local underdog who pays more attention to how they provide their services, adding art to their craft. For example, in New Zealand there has been a shift in the telco industry, with smaller, local providers such as 2Degrees popping up and successfully competing with the established brands. The trick will be for them to hold onto their artisan approach as they grow.

This thinking is equally relevant to internal business services such as human resources. Any business should have people at its core, otherwise there simply is no business. Yet I all too often hear people related services referred to as ‘just admin’ or ‘that fluffy stuff’. So why have our people (human) resources services started to lose their value and appreciation of the craft?

Compliance Conundrums: Understandably, business try to avoid risk by increasing employment relations compliance. Although important, there needs to be a balance, otherwise your business and employees suffer when compliance takes over common sense.

For the Sake of Admin: Closely following compliance is administration. You know the old ‘fill this form out if you want…’, ‘this is the approval process for…’. We’ve all lost ourselves in process, and the drivers (HR?) of these processes can become the admin tyrants. Not what we want to be known for.

Stifled Innovation: Ever heard of high compliance and administration enhancing innovation? I haven’t. If we lead with these facets, how will we ever support the fast paced, innovative world of work that we find ourselves in most often? Let’s build our innovative thinking within HR and really get things humming.

I truly believe that with these elements in mind, and a bit of extra craftsmanship, we can take a moment to appreciate the craftsman and artists in our businesses – from the receptionist to the CEO and ultimately our people practices.

PS. If you are interested in the story behind the clock image for this post. Check out Artisan Inc’s Facebook page.

No, it’s not an auto-correct failure. Arbejdsglaede (pronounced ar-byes-gler) is a Danish word literally meaning “work gladness or joy”. There are similar words in other Scandinavian languages, as well as Dutch (arbeidsvreugde) and German (arbeitszufriedenheit), but no-where else.

Not for a minute do I think workplaces in that part of the world are constantly joyous or happy but given the amount of time we spend at work, I believe it is something people should strive for – but how does this relate to performance reviews?

Over the past few years I have watched with interest as the HR industry raises challenges, approaches and thoughts on the good old performance appraisal process, which includes an annual review, ratings and scales – a process that many dislike. There has to be a better way than this archaic process, and it would seem that the dialogue out there suggests that quite a few people agree!

What is evident is the traditional ratings and annual review process is increasingly frustrating with employees ‘enduring’ the process, and managers seeing it as a chore – it puzzles me why companies continue to push it. I say this for several reasons:

So what can we do to change this frustration and return some joy?

Shift Ownership.

A key principal of achieving Arbejdsglaede is that employees don’t wait for their boss (or HR in this case) to make things happen. They take ownership, do small things and own their happiness at work. In the longer term this leads to owning their career, performance, learning, growth, success… the list goes on.

There is a need for people to create a way to achieve their personal Arbejdsglaede especially when it comes to managing their careers. As individuals, this can be inspiring to others, but in a team the potential could be enormous.

Here are some practical ideas for businesses to help individuals achieve ownership:

Let this approach allow you to avoid process for process sake, adding new energy to career management through upbeat communication, innovative ways of achieving goals and getting your people out of boxed thinking.

Finally, as the employee, the message is simple, own it, make it awesome and inspire others along the way! As a business, achieving this as a team will have significant benefits including better culture, more focus and higher performance.