At the very first stroke, I would like to believe that people are not resources and challenge the premise of we as Human called as “Resources”. This is too inhumane, isn’t it?  I am sure in this world of HR many evangelists would agree with me and do away with this title.

Today the vocabulary for managing the employment relationship has made a paradigm shift. Humans can be atomized into physical facts they are energy, today they are “self-aware”; they see self as an instrument and a part of ecosystem. Self- Awareness has become the new panacea and differentiating factor from other resources.

We are dreamers, builders, experiencers, experimenters, we are destroyers, realists, we love, we feel, we have emotions, we have potential to understand & read potential, we can ignite potential, we can measure potential… still resources? I feel have a good case study and premise to build on.

We are redefining the economy to meet our true needs. People economics is a direct propellant to the balance sheet. 

Show me any industry or company who is not in talent business. Today talent is the only differentiator between competitors. Vexing challenge corporates are investing millions to have the best on board. We live in the world of empowered candidates.

By choice and with all moral courage, my love, at first sight, was for Human Resources & the next love was Organization Development. Both professions are noble with humanistic & heuristic Value into it. Brutal truth and non-changeable reality is this has to be practiced in a controlled environment of political structure known as “Organization”.

Our HR studios undergo gentrifying each day. We construct, we redefine and challenge our boundaries whilst we have a say across the table.  We are the Prometheus who provides wealth of anchors to drive the business to vision.

HR today for some people is like cricket commentary with free advice, our technicalities are known as jargon in the world of work!! This may sound bit technical to many but I draw a line for free commentary. Artifact of HRism is deeply rooted in its being a strong observer, processing the data, using science & delivering artistically.

Here are my two cents on it.

Leadership by Head & Heart together: Have you heard of a phrase drag your body to work and mind will follow? How is that you bring head to office and not heart?  Bring your head to office and allow heart to follow, right mix & balance approach works wonder.  

Allow that softer side of your leadership trait to rule. It is a traditional/orthodox approach if you see leading by heart as weakness, I understand that this would be hardest of all pedagogic tasks but be that “Subversive Showman”. I still vote for emotions as most powerful drivers of behavior than logic. "To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. ".. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

HR need to be away from Frankenstein fate:  Reading the physiognomy of HR, one thing that is very prominent is HR is making tall promise extrapolating without understanding ground realities. The Frankenstein monster phenomena trigger in and it derails Human Resources strategies, people & culture. We as Human Resources practitioners need to feel the organization. Illusion of validity is a cognitive/mental bias in which a person overestimates his or her ability to interpret and predict accurately the outcome when analyzing a set of data. Data need to be sexy & powerful; analytics of it should tell a coherent story.

HR Leader as Decision Lab: Mind by design will make meaning of everything as process and it is non-wandering by character. Mind collects data and reflects through experience (i.e., childhood memories and impressions formed, respectively); wandering mind helps widening, collection of accurate data, processing of data with larger & deeper lens. Decision making is ones’ psychological process of understanding analysis, process the data and making choice out of the repertoire. It reflects more of an individual’s learning, ability to understand and process the data.  

Understanding perception & risk perception is a very important part of decision making.  Intuition is a knife but it requires data to be sharpened. Suspending biases is key to HR leaders and fraternity. Stop presupposing meta-rationality, the truth may be resting somewhere else. Knowledge acts as a control on behavior and drives decision making; it helps separate concept from context be it ethical, rational, data-driven, impromptu, intuitive or shared decision making.    

Corporate character: Today one of the biggest obligations on corporates it to behave humanely with humans. I would like to draw this from my belief that it is a competition that is nudging corporates to understand the feelings of employees deeply and in a more humane way. It is also the changing culture that takes away credit for this initiative. As per one of the report, only 3% of organizations qualify for good corporate character. It is so important for this legal entity to become human entity now and have feelings and respect emotions at workplace.

ODWay or HRWay:  I am not that cynical about my profession but many times we look for shortcuts or we are made to take that lane of band-aid approach or quick-fix tools.  Making the management aware of bottoms-up approach is healthy for inner working of the organizational-intestinal tract. Better HR takes an OD corridor & uses a surgical approach to equip with better diagnostic tools. Let that lactose intolerance of management be challenged and HR conduct a well-informed, unbiased diagnosis to clear the problem statement with larger understanding of premise. Let the HR stories be the language of diverse lens backed by qualitative & quantitative data. HR needs to gather their moral courage and take help of most underrated organ of their body that is “GUTS”. 

Hedonic & Eudaimonic: Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. The well-being of employees is derived from two general perspectives (Hedonic is + pleasure-pain) i.e. it dwells more on high positivity and low negativity It is proposed that an individual experiences happiness when positive affect and satisfaction with life are both high (Carruthers & Hood, 2004).

Eudaimonic happiness is based on the premise that people feel happy if they experience life purpose, challenges and growth. It derives cords from Maslow theory. Hedonic is subjective well-being but Eudaimonic is psychological well-being. HR interventions should be more derived from Eudaimonic perspective.   

Toxicity & Antidote: HRism is about being good observant to culture toward the organizational behavior and trait. If HR leaders understand the science behind organizational behavior and leaders, it can take some good holistic intervention to unearth the issues and clear from root. It is important that as a HR leader one understands and read the toxicity syndrome and symptoms. Toxic leaders breed toxic culture, this is one dysfunctional behavior that is supremely self-centered and disturbs the fabric of team and culture. Let us drive this human potential movement and become good humans in the journey. Let HR be away from bias and awareness trap.