6 steps to making work not suck

Work sucks! This was the title of the speech Laszlo Bock, former Vice-president for HR at Google, gave at this year's annual conference of the world's largest organisation of HR managers, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Even people who have great jobs experience bad days, said Bock. And then, of course, there are people who don't have great jobs. What can HR people do about it? Fix it.

Laszlo Bock managed Google's HR from 2005 to2016, i.e. from the time when the company had 6,000 employees until the number of employees rose to 76,000. At present, he runs his own consulting business. He says the position of HR is unique because HR really can change the world of work for the better.

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At the conference, he summed up the following six steps that will make your people more satisfied and productive without the need to invest more time or money.

"I want to dispel the myth that a good culture is about free food and beanbags and lava lamps and shuttle buses and even a lot of money," Laszlo Bock said.

1. Work needs a purpose

Only a third of people find a purpose in their work themselves. The others need your help to feel the same. You need to find out why your people are doing their jobs and what purpose they see in it.

2. You need trust

When you trust others, they will trust you. Offer more freedom in how people perform their work and they will reward you with greater productivity and efficiency. According to Bock, many workplaces are still struggling with the fact that managers don't share enough information and don't trust subordinates enough to let them work independently.

3. Don't reject people who are better than you

Traditional job interview techniques fail because we all tend to choose people who are as similar to us as possible. Bock therefore thinks that managers and other people the successful candidate will work with should be entirely omitted from the interviews.

4. Reward based on performance

The best-performing employees are much more profitable for the company than those with average performance. However, the difference in rewards for the best and the average is about 20% in most companies, which Bock considers insufficient. It should be at least 50%. However, the compensation process must be built on clearly defined performance measures that will not be affected by other factors.

5. Make onboarding easier for newcomers

Google found out that it took an average of nine months for new employees to reach full productivity. Those who did it faster were more active in meeting other people, asked more questions and also had fully functional equipment from the very beginning. In order to reduce the onboarding time to six months, HR only had to start sending emails to managers emphasizing the importance of more frequent communication with newcomers and requesting the timely provision of computers and other equipment.

6. Do it again and again

Repeat all your efforts so that the work in your organization gets better and better. You basically have two options. Either you can survive every day at work like everyone else, or you can work actively on improving the situation.

-kk-

Article source Society for Human Resource Management - world’s largest HR professional society
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