HR is in Crisis - The Unspoken Epidemic
In 2017 Kronos published a study that sent Human Resources teams into red alert across the globe. The study, titled “Employee Burnout Crisis” informed us that 95% of HR leaders admit employee burnout is sabotaging retention rates, and there was no “evident solution” on the horizon.
So like every good HR professional armed with data, leaders across the world (myself included) marched to the C-Suite to change this epidemic for their organizations. New programs were put in place, surveys were expertly crafted and consultation services were paid small fortunes in an attempt to alleviate the crisis.
Still, we missed the mark. By a lot.
We created sustainable retention budgets and programs centered around employee burnout but we did not include our own departments in this effort. HR teams went to battle for employees but forgot themselves in the process. We added a massive initiative to our plates but did not clear off any others.
The alarm bells sounded, we jumped to war, and we lost our own soldiers in the process.
In 2018 a study called The 2018 UK Workplace Stress Survey released data to prove the HR casualties. This data revealed that HR is the #2 most stressed department in organizations, stressed out only 3% less than Sales teams.
The study goes on to break down what causes stress, the demographics of the most and least stressed employees, and what industries suffer the most stress.
Here’s what this study should be saying to all of us entering a new decade:
Human Resources teams are in crisis.
If we are going to keep these HR armies marching towards innovation and excellence in 2020 we must make adjustments to our current practices and formulate battle plans to fight this common enemy - stress.
After reflecting on the survey data, testing a few theories and seeing what made tangible changes, here are a few recommendations I bring to you and your teams to face this HR Crisis:
Flexible Working Hours
The #1 reason for stress according to this survey is Long Working Hours. It’s typical to find HR professionals as the first-in last-out type of people. Between differing time zones, needing uninterrupted blocks to get actual work done and demanding projects with aggressive deadlines it is easy to understand how this HR crisis happened.
Working long hours has become expected - by our peers and our stakeholders - yet it is the number one reason our own staff are stressed. We have got to be willing to allow for flex schedules and creative working hours that meet the needs of our department while also meeting the needs of our business. It is possible.
The data around four day work weeks and six hour work days is astounding, yet we sabotage ourselves by not exploring the idea within our own departments.
What if we found massive success with flexible schedules and began a ripple effect for our company? What if simply changing the hours we are at work changes our entire department? What if we see less dark circles under our eyes and healthier bodies and happier smiles from our team members simply because we decided to try something different?
What if we were willing to be innovative with our time and protective of ourselves first?
Less Meetings, More Meaning
That’s right, I said it. We’ve all sat in countless HR meetings that should have been an email. We’ve all eaten at our desk because the 11am one hour meeting turned into a two hour meeting because two team mates decided to debate a nuance.
Whether it’s due to a mentality that meetings are the main form of communication or it’s because we have always had meetings about certain topics, our meetings are destroying our workdays and inevitably contributing to this HR Stress Epidemic.
In a book by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson titled It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work, the only two C-Suite employees at mega tech company Basecamp make the case for less meetings, less stress, and more independence:
Calm is protecting people’s time and attention. Calm is about 40 hours of work a week. Calm is reasonable expectations. Calm is ample time off. Calm is smaller. Calm is a visible horizon. Calm is meetings as a last resort. Calm is asynchronous first, real-time second. Calm is more independence, less interdependence. Calm is sustainable practices for the long term. Calm is profitability.
Here’s what we’re not saying to ourselves: we have meetings so no one feels left out. We have meetings so everyone is “on the same page” and no one gets offended. We have meetings so we can fight with each other about track changes on a policy, We have meetings because we complain that we don’t know everything that’s going on. We have meetings because we don’t prioritize email communication from each other.
We are crippling ourselves.
We have got to start normalizing the idea that we hire HR experts to be experts, not to be babysat. Meetings about HR topics should be seen as a last resort.
We must stop wearing this meeting-busyness as a badge of honor.
Let’s start having meetings about meaning - where are we going in the next quarter, who’s unhappy in their role, what’s the HR leadership changing soon that affects you, who’s having a shit year in their personal life, why is everyone working more than 40 hours a week, who’s really pissing us off and why.
Let’s make a pact right here, right now that we are willing to try less meetings and more meaning in 2020 to see how it changes this HR crisis.
No Judgement Zone
We are the most judgmental department on the planet, and we judge our own kind ruthlessly.
In all fairness HR professionals are paid to judge millions of things - benefit plans, compensation structures, new laws and how to apply them, credibility of allegations, performance, training content, candidates, software solutions…etc.etc.etc.
Although it be but natural for HR teams to judge, we must stop judging each other immediately if we are going to make it out alive.
We judge each other on what we wear, how we present data, the ideas we come up with, our image to stakeholders, the cleanliness of our desks, how often we’re at our desks, what time we arrive at work, how many times an employee comes into our office, the length of our skirts, the activity we picked for HR team building, how many PTO days we take…AND THE LIST NEVER STOPS.
If we are going to reduce the amount of stress HR professionals have then we have to stop imploding on ourselves.
Sure, there are times we need to bring ethical concerns to the table, but those times are less often than we imagine.
It’s time to leave judgement towards HR professionals to the HR leadership. Its the job of the Director or the VP or the CHRO to judge their staff, not ours.
It’s time to close ranks and band together and create a team of happy contributors, not a sorority of catty and insecure individuals.
We are entering a new decade, friends. Let’s leave behind the HR crisis in this last decade and start fresh with a commitment to trying flexible work hours, less meetings / more meaning, and creating no judgement zones for each other.
Let’s enter 2020 as a new HR army.