Employee Sessions!

Certain HR processes are periodic and predictable in their occurrence, e.g. - Training Need Identification, different steps of Performance process, etc.

Is there a need to communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway?

I would contend yes! Even if there is no new message to provide or skill to develop, still there is a need to reinforce key message or make employees update their skills.

How do we communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway? 

We could use low-context mechanisms, e.g.- mailers, emails.  While mailers can reach large populations at one go, it doesn´t guarantee participation or interest.  In fact, as a process owner you would not even know how many people read the mailers.

We could use high-context mechanisms, e.g. employee sessions/town halls/nukkad nataks (street plays). In these mechanisms, you would know participation rates and you can get a sense of what´s staying with the audience.

But, how do we know whether these employee sessions have worked or not?

I think there are a few things that need to be looked at:

·         What is targeted message for sessions? Were these delivered during session?

·         Who was target audience? What was participation rate of targeted audience?

·         Who should be delivering session? I think a joint business-HR facilitation for employee sessions on HR processes leaves a powerful message.   I have experienced such facilitation a number of times, and always it seems to drive involvement and powerful conversations within room.

·         By end of session, did audience understand & internalize the action items for them?

·         Were these actions actually worked upon post session? When it comes to behaviors, it´s not easy but also not impossible to measure.  We may not even have metrics but indicators (even qualitative) might do.

An effective employee session does a good job in all elements of pre- session communication, session design, choice of facilitator, facilitation skills, post session closure, and processes/interactions to support actioning at work place.

Does this sound similar to a training workshop design? Yes, it does in terms of process. Intent of employees sessions is awareness, understanding, learning, and committing to actions.

But I experienced designing and executing these sessions as being different from doing same for a training workshop. Have not been able to place my finger yet on what´s the difference though!

What´s been your experience with Employee Sessions? How would you figure out whether these sessions have worked or not?

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Sourav

Inter-Dependent Groups and Conflict

So here I was in a group of about 45 people. It was the 1^st day of a workshop that was to span across 2 days. The seating arrangement was different. We were to sit on mattresses placed on the floor in U shaped arrangement. There strangely seemed to be no PPT.

Most of us knew each other but still there was this anxiety and excitement on what lay ahead. I was aware that there was this group of some 10 participants who had participated in a planning workshop before. I had heard, through informal networks, good reviews of the planning workshop. I, and the other first time participants, were curious to know what had transpired there.

The facilitators found a unique way of transferring context from one group to the other. They 1^st called in the “experienced” group to sit in a circle, within the U, and share their experiences of their experience of the first workshop and Appreciate Inquiry discussion they would have had with their subordinates (a planned post workshop event). The first time participants sat in the outside U and could comment/ pitch in anytime we felt like.

After those in the inner circle were done sharing their experiences, we were called in to the inner circle to share what we had felt while we had heard the 1^st group sharing their stories.

At the end of these 2 sharing sessions, all of us were on almost common ground.

At the start of the 1^st day, there were 2 specific groups in the room. There was a need to bring them to common ground. The facilitators acknowledged this need and found a creative, experiential way to bring the groups together.

What might have happened had this initial exercise not being done? The presence of the 2 groups within the same room might have been a White Elephant- something no one speaks about but is present and influences all interactions within the room.

What are the other situations where different groups need to be brought to common ground? I can think of inter-dependent departments (e.g.- production and maintenance, sales and commercial, research and marketing). Even mergers and acquisitions would come under this realm. What seems to go wrong in these situations? Why do we frequently see friction and heartburn in these integrations/inter-dependent relationships? What can be done about them?

I think the answer lies in ‘speed’ and ‘norms’ of the different teams.

Different teams have different ‘speeds/flows’ in which they work. A simple manifestation of this would be the turnaround time for any query which flows into the team-some teams may respond in 24 hours; others may take 48 hours. Another manifestation would be what is meant by a project timeline- an IT team might be used to working on year long projects while a sales team would talk in terms of quarters.

Different teams also have different ‘norms’ – these would be in terms of decision making, communication, rituals, etc. Sales might prefer things to be done over phone, while accounts might need everything written down and documented.

Many a times these differences in ‘speed’ and ‘norms’ are not acknowledged leading to continuous and, at times, caustic friction between inter-dependent teams. Acknowledging these differences and making the teams take conscious steps towards reaching common ground on ‘speed’ and ‘norms’ would be the first step in ensuring effective collaboration.

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Sourav