Given the society’s move towards individualism, our efforts towards learning and development should be focused on giving employees the skills to help themselves, writes Ganesh Chella in ‘Creating a Helping Organisation: 5 Engaging Ways to Promote Employee Performance, Growth & Well-being’ (www.tatamcgrawhill.com). He believes that the breakdown of the family system can be compensated in some measure by a variety of support networks, such as interest groups and advocacy communities, within and outside organisations, to help employees help themselves.
Reassuringly, the book cites many instances of how, when people choose to engage with others in a helping relationship characterised by understanding, empathy, trust, they are able to solve their problems and achieve their goals. It also discusses examples of organisations that have been heavily investing “in making available to employees, structured and high-quality feedback about their behaviours, competencies and personalities, through 360-degree processes, assessment and development centres, and psychometric tests, in the interest of changing behaviours, developing skills, and facilitating development.”
Comprehensive understanding
Reporting that an increasing number of leaders welcome the opportunity to work with executive coaches, and that organisations are keener to foster mentoring relationships, the author foresees that, five years from now, employees would seek out counsellors, therapists and life-skill coaches far more readily and frequently than ever before. To organisations that wish to tread this healthy path, his advice is to begin with a comprehensive understanding of the psychological and social factors impacting employee motivation, especially at the bottom of the pyramid. Also, at the apex of organisations, just like the audit committees and compensation committees at the board-level, there should also be a committee on employee health and well-being, urges Chella.
A cautionary chapter of immense value is the one titled ‘Ineffective helpers within organisations,’ with a grim reminder that the qualities often celebrated in the world of business – such as, speed, decisiveness, process-orientation, perfection, paranoia, constantly raising the bar, being metrics-driven, conditional regard and so on – are not the ones that help either in raising children at home or building a team at work. The author rues that when organisations routinely celebrate the brash executive, at the cost of the so-called softer helping dimension, it is little wonder that natural helpers are rare to find.
Instructive read for any enterprise with a promise of growth that will be dependent on people rather than on finely-calibrated robots.
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