At the backdrop of the VUCA context, prevailing HR methodologies, approaches, and frameworks are rendered ineffective. In agreement, Jackson (2019) argued that the current HR methodologies are dependent on “there being a predictable future environment in which it is possible to set goals that remain relevant into the foreseeable future, on enough stability to ensure that tasks arranged in a fixed hierarchy continue to deliver efficiency and effectiveness; on a passive and unified workforce; and on a capacity to take control action on the basis of clear measures of success” (p. xix). Such methodologies and approaches include existing performance management systems such as the Balanced Scorecard and job evaluation/grading systems like the Paterson, Peromnes, and Castellion systems that analyze the relative worth of a job based on set competence specifications and fixed job description content that allow a rank order and comparison of jobs within an organization. The job grading criteria is prefaced on several factors that include decision-making, job complexity, skills/sapiential authority, work pressure, physical effort, and consequences of error. Included in the HR methodologies are value chain analysis, process re-engineering, outsourcing, and total quality improvement which Jackson (2019) argued that they provide wrong prescriptions to problem solving and decision making against complex contexts.
In view of the prevailing contextual realities, it is imperative that HR repositions itself to be adaptive by adopting systems thinking. Yawson (2016) through a leadership research, put an apt description of the current context that:
The world is operating in a century of complexity, unprecedented interconnectivity, interdependence, radical innovation and transformation, and unforeseen new structures with unexpected new properties …There is a battle for the soul of leadership … a profound divide in philosophical understandings – in the deep meanings – regarding what constitutes the nature of leadership and the research enterprise around it (Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). This is because they have developed from contrasting philosophies of science, that is, contrasting answers to the ontological and epistemological questions that reflect the assumptions researchers bring to their work (Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). The ontological justification of the linear approach to leadership has been the dominant premise on which leadership research has been conducted. However, starting from the early 1990s, there has been an emerging paradigmatic shift to the nonlinear epistemology of practice and the effect on 21st century organizations (p. 262).
My view is that Sys HRM is a methodology from which leaders can draw complementary methodologies and tools for the class of problems that are legitimately complex. For example, the world over, while the COVID 19 spread and effect has stabilized following discovery of vaccinations and medicines to contain the disease, reflecting to 2019 when the first variant was detected, you would agree with me that no leader projected the disease coming, let alone envisaged the devasting effects it had globally. And as I write this article, it is a reality that not a single leader can predict with any degree of certainty what the future holds for their business.
Therefore, globally, while the current disruptive context demands that leaders adopt new ways of managing under emerging complexity, the role of HRM continues to face immense pressure to collaborate closely with the holistic organization to re-design the future, today. Bolton (2020) agreed that against complexity, HR leaders are put at the forefront of reshaping the way work gets done which he argued is an opportunity for the HR function to change from firefighting immediate challenges and relying on best practices.
It is at the backdrop of a highly VUCA context, that I present that HR leaders should adopt Systemic Human Resources Management (Sys HRM) which perspective acknowledges that the prevailing environmental context is overly complex and may not be understandable. Therefore, to remain relevant, HR leaders should ride on systems thinking for problem solving and decision-making which according to Starr (2020) perceives a problem as a system within larger containing systems. Within a Sys HRM mindset, the focus is on interactions, interdependencies, patterns, and system characteristics that will improve or optimize the whole system and not parts.
The holistic systems thinking approach to problem solving and decision making is not the current HRM mindset. For example, in the United States, there is currently a crisis of shortage of workers and challenges to retain critical talent. Most HR leaders tend to seek for some precedence on how others have done it before or they go for what is generically perceived as best practices, and they justify their actions by presenting the old school argument of; ‘why re-invent the wheel’! For example, I did a random check on various company websites in the United States, almost 99% of the organizations I checked are all advertising paying referral or sign-on bonuses to attract talent. While the referral or sign on bonuses can motivate would-be candidates to consider joining your organization, my argument is that this approach provides short term success to solving shortage of talent. While I do understand that HR leaders are putting safeguards in place, specifying applicable terms and conditions, supported by policy to manage risks of possible short-lived employment contracts, I take this solution as a piecemeal approach, that addresses only symptoms of the challenges of staff shortage across various sectors and industries. HR must rise above copying and pasting solutions to reinventing new methodologies, practices, approaches, frameworks based on Sys HRM, for organizational sustainability. Certainly, against a complex context, there is no one-size-fit-all global standard to talent attraction.
Complexity demands that HR leaders learn to appreciate that problem solving mechanisms and methodologies in a complex context cannot be based on generic practices and approaches. The prevailing VUCA context characterized by a lot of new emerging circumstances, that are interdependent and interconnected, high levels of turbulence, everchanging technological and digital world, environmental crisis, and pandemics, increase levels of complexity and chaos. This background makes it critically imperative that HR leaders think outside the box, and innovate new methodologies, approaches and frameworks that work effectively against the high levels of complexity. It is time that HR leaders consider the unique circumstances of the organizations for which they lead as they tailor new methodologies to suit their business and environmental context. Hence my calls for adoption of Sys HRM in this complex environment.
Regina Tendayi (Dr)
HRM & Executive Leadership
Author: Hands Off! Overcoming Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (2019)
My Boss, the Bully – A Chilling Revelation into Corporate Human Resources
Management (2018)
Look out for the next article where I will provide answers on how HRM can deduce the type and nature of context, and therefore are enabled to apply the most apt methodology, approach, framework as part of problem-solving and decision making.
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