It takes somebody thirty minutes to fix a bicycle and somebody three days.
Everyone is good at something. Unfortunately, this basic truism is the foundation of many overhyped HR strategies. If time is a currency, the cost of a task varies among individuals. Yet, many HR management overly focuses on soft metrics like employee happiness and retention rate. Time to completion is the stone that rarely gets turned. Does focusing solely on “time to completion” take the humanity out of the employees? Yes.
I’m not good at maintenance-natures tasks, but I am exceptional at networking and making ideas come to life. Not just my time to completion is S-tier do I thoroughly enjoy the talk, the walk, and the sleep deprivation that comes along. Hence, the HR index should be a product of two variables, time to completion and enjoyment.
Introducing the HR index…
HR index = time to completion x enjoyment
A successful HR department would have employees with a very high HR index due to the high level of not just enjoyment from the employees but time to completion. The same goes for employee retention rates and other HR parameters. Buying new furniture, renovating office spaces, and different approaches to make the workplace pleasing to the eyes are measures to increase the enjoyment of working in the office. This should not be overhyped because enjoyment alone, even though it may improve employee retention rate, paints a mosaic picture of productivity at work. Enjoyment is such a double-blade as it motivates people and, at the same time, de-motivates them. Also, there is no clear picture of the productivity of an organization just by looking at the number of smiley faces in the office.
In contrast, what is enjoyment? The answers could be bean bags for some, an extensive gym for some, and intellectual challenges for some. Therefore, open offices with ping-pong tables in a room full of colorful bean bags at random spots are such a sickness of generalizing that work is not an enjoyment in itself for most employees. Otherwise, if the work is fulfilling and we enjoy doing it, we will check in, do our job, check out, and go to sleep - no bean bags needed.
In the end, if I must err, I would always prefer killing a rabbit while networking over maintaining a database.
Everyone is good at something. Unfortunately, this basic truism is the foundation of many overhyped HR strategies. If time is a currency, the cost of a task varies among individuals. Yet, many HR management overly focuses on soft metrics like employee happiness and retention rate. Time to completion is the stone that rarely gets turned. Does focusing solely on “time to completion” take the humanity out of the employees? Yes.
I’m not good at maintenance-natures tasks, but I am exceptional at networking and making ideas come to life. Not just my time to completion is S-tier do I thoroughly enjoy the talk, the walk, and the sleep deprivation that comes along. Hence, the HR index should be a product of two variables, time to completion and enjoyment.
Introducing the HR index…
HR index = time to completion x enjoyment
A successful HR department would have employees with a very high HR index due to the high level of not just enjoyment from the employees but time to completion. The same goes for employee retention rates and other HR parameters. Buying new furniture, renovating office spaces, and different approaches to make the workplace pleasing to the eyes are measures to increase the enjoyment of working in the office. This should not be overhyped because enjoyment alone, even though it may improve employee retention rate, paints a mosaic picture of productivity at work. Enjoyment is such a double-blade as it motivates people and, at the same time, de-motivates them. Also, there is no clear picture of the productivity of an organization just by looking at the number of smiley faces in the office.
In contrast, what is enjoyment? The answers could be bean bags for some, an extensive gym for some, and intellectual challenges for some. Therefore, open offices with ping-pong tables in a room full of colorful bean bags at random spots are such a sickness of generalizing that work is not an enjoyment in itself for most employees. Otherwise, if the work is fulfilling and we enjoy doing it, we will check in, do our job, check out, and go to sleep - no bean bags needed.
In the end, if I must err, I would always prefer killing a rabbit while networking over maintaining a database.