Category: Uncategorized

HR takes care of everyone, but who takes care of HR?

There has been no definite answer to this simple but complex question.

Recent research shows that many HR professionals in Nigeria and around the world deal with a range of workplace challenges. In 2019 before the pandemic began, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified burnout as an occupational phenomenon. In making its decision, the agency drew on the work of Christina Maslach, psychology professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.

The WHO said burnout is characterized by:

Feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion.

Increased mental distance from one’s job or feelings of negativity or cynicism tied to the job.

Reduced professional efficacy.

The pandemic has left many HR professionals grappling with seemingly unending stress as they try to find the best ways to cope. A 2021 survey of 726 HR practitioners in 7 countries showed that burnout and exhaustion are rife amongst HR Managers, with 42% of teams struggling under the weight of too many projects and responsibilities.

A report by Lattice, a provider of HR software solutions in the USA, noted, “The team tasked with upscaling the rest of the organization is critically understaffed. Among HR leaders who said they were emotionally exhausted, more than two-thirds blamed it on being overworked, and over 40% said it was because they needed additional headcount to meet their business goals.”

At the same time, employees experienced a tremendous amount of distress with the change in work style and environment leaving HR to figure out how to keep employees feeling engaged and supported. “Nobody was really taking care of HR while we were running around like headless chickens trying to make sure everybody else was OK,” Kittredge says. HR is “the place where stress goes to live in an organization,” she adds.

Raghida Abdallah Yassine, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., says it falls to HR “to create the policies for the well-being of the employees and company.”

Many business leaders panicked in 2020. Government-mandated restrictions ordered many businesses to shut down, people were told to shelter at home, and an alarming stock market plummet in March 2022 put fear into company executives. Unaware of what would happen to the economy, millions of employees were fired or furloughed and HR managers were saddled with the unpleasant responsibility of dispensing the bad news. If you have ever let a person go, you will know how awful it is for the recipient of the bad news—but it also takes a huge emotional toll on the person delivering the message.

In light of the pandemic, HR has had to continually ensure employee well-being is intact and look for signs of burnout. Although it is not part of their job description, members of this group had to serve as de facto therapists, cheerleaders and leaders to maintain morale. These tasks were in addition to their core mission of recruiting, hiring, onboarding and retaining employees. They have had to make tough decisions around keeping a remote policy or enacting a hybrid or in-office model. No matter the choices, you cannot meet everyone’s needs or make everybody happy.

A recent study conducted by Workvivo highlights the following reasons for HR burnout.

1. Workplace transformations and the Great Resignation

2. Bearing the brunt of employee burnout emerging from remote and hybrid working transitions.

3. Under-resourced HR departments

4. Workplace disruption caused by office politics adds more strain to an already tumultuous period.

5. HR Managers feel undervalued in their organizations

The above shows the severity and widespread of HR burnout, and if not curtailed it will have an enormous impact on organizations and worsen the challenges they are currently facing.

How can HR Professionals deal with burnout and exhaustion?

It is a good idea to rethink job satisfaction and possibly make some changes to how work is done. These tips can help HR Professionals cope with burnout:

Get Sufficient Sleep

Getting enough sleep helps the mind stay sharp and focused on the day ahead. It improves concentration and gives the brain time to rest so it can tackle problems more logically. If you are rested, you will have more energy for the challenges of the day, rather than feeling overwhelmed by them.

Leave Work at Work

Be sure to unplug from work entirely on days off and when you are away from the office. If your company has a bring-your-device policy, make sure not to check email or answer texts during your downtime unless it is an emergency (and even then, do so sparingly).

Take Time Off

Whether you need a short vacation or a couple of sick days, take them. It can be difficult to admit that you are burnt out and struggling with anxiety, but it is better to take care of yourself than keep working until something breaks.

Take a Wellness Course

It is not too late to learn more about staying healthy and increasing productivity. Taking an online wellness course can help you learn healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

Find outside or internal groups to connect with

Lots of groups popped up during the pandemic. If you like Slack, there are groups there. LinkedIn, Facebook, and even Reddit have groups that provide support for the HR professional in need of advice.

‘Kemi Onadiran

Head, HR natnudO Foods,

Visionaire, Careerswithkemi

Imagine walking into a dark room; you are likely to bump into the wall, corners and possibly run over an item and maybe even end on the floor with a few injuries. That’s very similar to practising Human Resources management without leveraging data.

Data is a powerful tool for HR professionals and the world at large; for its immense importance in decision-making. For example, it is used for something as simple as checking reviews on where to eat, what vendor to use, and for complex life decisions. Data is the centre of it all.

I love data a lot and rely on it. Just as individuals rely on data, so do organizations, from supply chain decisions to expansion or hiring decisions.

Data provides organizations lot of benefits which include:

• Greater confidence in business decisions, which leads to improved business performance.
• Help to increase business profitability through higher operational efficiency and cost savings.
• More accurate predictions.
• Root-cause identification.

Data has been and will continue to be a core part of the human resource function.

Human resource programs no longer need to be based on soft reasoning but should be analytical and data-driven as any other management discipline – Chris Argyris, Management Theorist & Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School.

While it is impossible to predict the future, relying on good data can help prepare for what’s around the corner and is better than flying blind.

In my opinion, I would classify the quest for data into three phases:

Data Collection: Most organizations have data; from onboarding, and documents to exit surveys, there is a lot of data available to HR to use. Data availability is less of a challenge to the HR profession. Business leaders look to HR to provide data-driven advice, not guesswork, thoughts or presumptions. A level of certainty enhances the trust of business leaders, and data-driven advice is a way to earn a seat at the table.

Data Interpretation: Data tells a story about what we know today. An example of data interpretation would be “there was a 10% employee turnover in 2020. HR often uses data to describe a problem rather than solve it.

Data for Predictive Analysis: This is the phase I believe the HR profession and professionals strive to operate at, leveraging the information collected to provide advice that solves business problems and mitigates business risks. For example, using data as a predictive tool in making an accurate hiring decision can save the business lost time and other associated recruitment costs.

Choosing the appropriate data to analyze is also very important. While relying solely on one data source may not provide a complete story, combining multiple sources and data points will give a more holistic picture that would help with insightful decision-making.

In conclusion, it is now more than ever before important that HR professionals handle, analyze, interpret and communicate data effectively to drive business outcomes. To continue to be relevant as HR professionals and live up to the expectation of business leaders, we need to move from administrative HR activities to leveraging data in how we support businesses to be more productive through people and achieve business objectives. This is how we become strategic business partners.

Thank you for reading!

Written By: Laide Adepetu

References:

Gartner Management Consulting (2022) Enhancing your Data Judgement (assessed August 25, 2022)

<https://www.gartner.com/document/3992363?ref=solrAll&refval=337489401>

Stéphane Kirchacker, 2022, 6 Ways a Data-Driven approach helps your organization succeed. Available from https://www.sinequa.com/blog/intelligent-enterprise-search/6-ways-a-data-driven-approach-helps-your-organization-succeed/