Pester Esther
Globetrotter: The HRD who's always up in the air, and more
Q. My HRD attends about two international conferences a month. (‘Flying the flag for the organisation’, she calls it.) How can I subtly convince her that her absence is detrimental to morale back home?
A. That’s a lot of conferences and a lot of time out of the business. Is the business asking her to attend these conferences, or is it that she chooses to attend? And what does she share about the conferences when she comes back? Is there a cascade of information?
There are two ways to approach this. First, there may be an opportunity for others in the team to attend conferences occasionally, and benefit from seeing the bigger picture of the industry, or learning more about a particular subject. Ask her thoughts on this, as it could be a great way of developing the team.
Second, what happens in her absence? Are decisions delayed that have an impact on the effectiveness of the organisation? Or is it that the team feel neglected and left to get on with things and therefore morale is low? Again, having an open honest conversation with your HRD is key.
Book time with her, maybe off-site, and tell her how the team are feeling. You never know: she might not actually like being away so much, and might be open to sending others in her place. In any case, if I were the HRD I’d hate to think my repeated absence was having such a detrimental affect on morale and I’d certainly want to know about it.
Q. I’ve had a complaint from our FD, who says our policy of digital-only applications is ageist. (People over fifty can’t use the web, apparently.) What do you think?
A. Actually, his attitude is ageist. Has he never heard of ‘silver surfers’ or seen all the support available for older people learning IT skills?
It may be the case that this is indirectly discriminatory. However this is likely to be objectively justifiable and is therefore fine. You may want to consider, though, not restricting your applications to digital only – you never know who might be missing out on the opportunity to work for you.
Q. Our Marketing Director is insisting that our contact centre staff all wear branded t-shirts while at work. They’re the most hideous shade of orange imaginable, and people are complaining. Who’s side should I be on?
A. This is an interesting one. For a lot of companies, how staff dress is very important and often a branded uniform is required. Of course, this is usually to enable customers to easily identify staff and to present a consistent standard of appearance.
I’m not sure what the value would be in a contact centre, though, where customer interaction is usually virtual. I wonder, is this dress code applied to all staff, even the senior management team? Now that would be an interesting point. If the Marketing Director doesn’t wear the t-shirt, why should the staff?
I think you need to address this with an employee focus group and understand the rationale behind him insisting on these hideous t-shirts. What is the business benefit? Did employees previously have a terrible standard of dress, wearing totally unsuitable clothing to work? Possibly you could create a simple dress code policy that everyone buys into. Maybe the t-shirt could just be worn on promotional days.
If the business insists the shirts must be worn, it could be bad for morale or employee relations. If staff feel strongly about not wanting to wear these t-shirts, you may have a bigger problem in terms of productivity – which is definitely worth mentioning to the Marketing Director.
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