In AHRI’s new video series, The Game Plan, HR leaders tackle an unfolding scenario in real-time, cutting straight to the heart of a common challenge in modern people management.
Dora Peake FCPHR, Chief People Officer and Certified member of the AHRI Victorian Council, sits down with three HR leaders to tackle a complex hypothetical yet hyper-realistic scenario many HR professionals would be familiar with.
Joining Peake for this first episode is Katriina Tähkä, CEO of boutique HR agency A Human Agency and Managing Director of Cultivate Sponsorship, Anoop Chaudhuri FCPHR, former CPO at Ford ANZ and Christina King FCPHR, CPO at Cornerstone Medical Recruitment and a non-executive director.
The scenario
In this episode, Peake raises an issue many HR professionals would be familiar with.
Your organisation has rolled out a refreshed performance framework – it’s executive-backed, governance is tight and it’s designed to end rating inflation and sharpen differentiation between top and bottom performers. On paper, it’s working.
But behind the scenes, a culture gap is opening up. HR business partners are hearing that managers are quietly sitting on ‘needs improvement’ ratings, because they feel paralysed by fear. The rise of psychosocial safety legislation has them worried: could a low rating trigger a formal stress claim or a bullying complaint?
The governance process says this project has been a success, but the culture says something else entirely. How do you approach it?
Watch Part 1 to see how they respond in real-time as new information unfolds:
Phase 1: How would you react to the initial scenario?
Anoop Chaudhuri FCPHR: Two things I would really focus on is:
- Being very clear on the ‘what’ – what is it that we’re trying to achieve from a business and commercial perspective? What are we expecting the business to deliver? What are we expecting the teams to deliver?
- The ‘how’ – how are we going to go about behaving and working with each other to deliver those changes.
It’s perhaps a good plan in terms of how we started off, but going back to the drawing board, understanding the differences and the gaps and addressing it is going to be really important.
Christina King FCPHR: There is still an ongoing feeling in pockets of the workforce that psychosocial safety means that you can’t be provided with feedback that is delivered in a professional or respectful way.
Now, my view is that that’s simply not the case.
There are times where you can maintain someone’s psychosocial safety while still providing them with that honest and direct feedback, so long as it’s delivered in an appropriate way.
Perhaps for those leaders who are really sitting in that cluster of giving the ‘needs improvement’ ratings, there’s an opportunity to improve their knowledge around psychosocial safety.
Phase 2: How would you address the unintended consequences?
Paralysed by the pressure of the new system, first-time leaders are defaulting to vague, non-committal feedback that is leaving employees more confused and anxious than informed.
A framework designed to lift accountability is, paradoxically, starting to suppress the very behaviours high-performance cultures depend on.
What’s your next move?
Katriina Tähkä: While I accept that psychosocial safety is absolutely critical and fundamental as a legal principle and as a practice, it’s almost become a bit of a red herring in this scenario, if I can be that controversial?
Psychosocial safety is something much more holistic in a whole team. It is how we design work, it is how we manage work, it is how we lead work, it is how we have conversations about work. If that is the only time that we are assessing safety, then even the concept of psychosocial safety in a team is not being handled correctly, let alone the performance conversations.
Anoop Chaudhuri FCPHR: I would encourage us to go back and look at where this is happening well, and role model those behaviors. Perhaps you can form a buddy group between those first-time leaders that are doing it really well and the ones who might need some support and guidance, because often we learn best from real-life situations.
Christina King FCPHR: First-time leaders are trying their very best. They have a lot of enthusiasm, but it, of course, depends on how much support and guidance and development they’re being provided as to how well they can execute their role.
So for me one of the first parts of this is to ensure that all leaders, not just first-time leaders, but all leaders, have got clarity around this performance review process. We also need to talk about the intent versus the impact of the conversation that we’re having.
The other thing that we could do – if people are not interested in providing feedback openly – is putting together a fairly brief survey to go out across the organisation to understand the sentiment around this new process.
Perhaps even considering whether we need to decouple the performance review from remuneration.
The problem is far from solved. In fact, it’s about to get more challenging. See how Katrina, Anoop and Christina tackle it through to a resolution in part two, coming next week.
🧰 HR’s career resource kit
Turn the learnings from this video into action:
- Learning: Learn how to manage the complex landscape of psychosocial wellbeing in the workplace with this course from AHRI.
- Learning: Learn how to have difficult conversations in a more effective manner with this course.
- Support: Become an AHRI member for access to Ask AHRI where you can receive expert HR guidance for challenging workplace issues.
- Watch: Subscribe to AHRI’s YouTube to ensure you never miss a future episode.
- Connect: Follow Dora Peake FCPHR, Anoop Chaudhuri FCPHR, Christina King FCPHR and Katriina Tähkä for more insights into their work.
