Crisis Advice to HR Managers

During crises, the priorities are for personal safety and mental health. Unresolved personal emotions that may arise from events can not only disrupt performance at the given moment, but can be sufficiently traumatizing as to cause long term declines in performance and loss of effective staff. People first and foremost need access to current information, so there may be a need to relax policies to allow more radio or television usage in common rooms and at workstations. Should individuals require a few additional personal telephone calls to reassure themselves of the safety or location of loved ones, that is also a key consideration. It is appropriate to continue some controls provided that you specifically communicate to managers and supervisors that they must exercise judgment where rules would normally be strictly prohibitive of such activities. Greater judgment and flexibility should be allowed and specifically explained to be allowed at the commencement of a crisis or at escalation points. Clearly local disasters require the greatest flexibility and often specific cancellation of work for one or more individuals or at least the provision of absolute discretion to them to determine whether to continue working or leave to attend to emergency matters. The key question is mental health. What may be a minor crisis for one person may have enormous psychological impact on another. Crisis is not a time to use the argument, if I let you, Ill have to let everyone. Rather it is a time to be prepared to explain that everyone is different and one person needed special support. Others will appreciate that they would want the same options. At the same time, remember basic rules of personal privacy when explaining your reasoning to others. Team members need to know enough to understand that an absent member had a crisis, had to leave or make a phone call and that you provide such support automatically when it is explained and is urgent and appropriate. They do not need to know the details from management, but can be asked to find them out from the individual in question when they return or at an appropriate time. Of course, it is best to prevent or correct rumors when possible. When letting someone leave it is appropriate to ask whether you should advise others of the reasons. That way the individual can say yes or no, tell them or dont. If its confidential at least you can tell others they requested the reason not be given out until they have a chance to resolve matters. Even if you cant give a specific detailed reason at the moment you can indicate it was a crisis. Later facts will bear you out and validate your decision to allow flexibility to this one person and not others. It is critical for supervisors and managers to be reassured that these are the procedures so they arent concerned about being penalized if they relax rules in reasonable ways. Most people want to do the right things, but they sometimes fear for their own position if they ease up. They need to understand they will get support and approval for acting reasonably. Ideally this will always have been the policy, but an approaching or on-going crisis is a key time to reinforce such principles for anyone new to the workplace or to management responsibilities.

Can Anyone Survive Whistle-Blowing on Ethical Issues?

In earlier articles Ive outlined the long term practices HR could put in place to improve ethical behavior in organizations. What everyone really wants to know is what to do in a crisis is there a practical action or not? To summarize, the long term suggestions have been build a culture that does not tolerate lapses at any level, develop solid internal successors and conservative pay programs, create good relationships and credibility at the Board level so better internal successors are more likely to be chosen and finally, educate everyone in sensible investing through retirement planning to ultimately lessen pressure from shareholders for the short term results in all companies. Cumulatively I believe these steps can have tremendous effects over a reasonable time, but they certainly arent instantaneous. The toughest question is can or when should HR or other executives speak out, and how, about ethical lapses. At some point, the popular quick-fix idea of whistle-blowing has to be addressed. Cant we somehow make it possible for insiders who know whats going on to protest bad practices or unethical decisions, so the public and employees arent hurt by bad actions on the part of a few senior people? In fact, shouldnt we ourselves, as HR executives, routinely put our necks on the line to be the ones who do this? Isnt this really part and parcel of good HR? Perhaps I should ask whether, like Sidney Carton in Dickens Tale of Two Cities, we ought to offer to step into the shoes of the person destined to be guillotined especially since that person may be appealing directly to HR to decide what to do. Self-sacrifice may seem like some peak of honorable behavior, but its unlikely ever to be viable for executives with families and mouths to feed. Moreover, its far more valuable in the long run to set up the systems and culture to avoid problems than look to last ditch efforts to save things. Could we ever pay people enough so that they could realistically protest, knowing it probably means an end to their career and steady income altogether? How many companies will hire someone with a record of whistle-blowing? This unfortunate fact isnt likely to change easily no matter what sort of legislation is created. Can this be changed or, if not, what else can be done? The expectation of personal sacrifice seems to loom over all HR professionals constantly. If I had a dollar for every time I was told, you should go in there and tell the CEO [whatever the speaker thinks someone else should say], Id truly be rich by now. Its easy for everyone to look to them to solve the problem, but when them is me, I have more thinking to do before I act. To put some perspective around such questions for Ill try to summarize the sort of thinking I believe we all typically go through. First, when we recognize an ethical question, we most likely all react initially based on the question, how significant is it? That probably shouldnt be the case. A better way to put it is, how urgent is it? Every violation of ethics has significance. We

shouldnt overlook a single issue, but we have some latitude to decide whether it needs a quick solution, especially when weve been talking about useful long term solutions. Can it wait? Urgency depends on imminent danger. If a safety violation could get someone killed or injured, that takes immediate action of some sort. Most of the time, one could presume most managers would agree with us and a critical mass would develop pretty quickly to save the law suits from happening if for no other reason. Much as we would hope everyone would fix such problems for purely unselfish reasons, we all know that doesnt always happen. Nevertheless safety is more likely to be seen generally as urgent and get resolved than, say, minor pilfering or somewhat questionable results-reporting by your boss. At some point, urgency is low enough for any of us to step back and put our efforts solely into long term solutions involving education or culture change rather than risk our jobs by going over our bosses heads if we cant find other ways. Of course, with pilfering theres always the anonymous note to audit or whoever ought to react. Not a very honorable feeling, but if it gets the job done, lots of companies encourage it. Reporters get these notes all the time, but ethically they cant act unless there is confirmation. Imagine the chaos if every wild allegation got reported publicly. Typically when a major problem surfaces everyone becomes aware that there have been such warnings and no one acted, but is that so unexpected? The alternative could be worse. If none of the easy routes work and the problem is important, I believe a second level of analysis arises in ones mind. Its best described by a hierarchy that we consciously or otherwise use to sort such issues and choose an action. We consider where the matter fits: 1. Routine Problems you know senior executives will recognize and want to fix which therefore pose no problem to raise. Thank heavens we live in mostly ethical organizations. 2. Easily solvable Problems we believe we could openly confront the CEO with and expect discussion to reveal the logic. Great to have an open-minded boss. 3. Solvable with effort Problems where some senior execs have blind spots, but approaching various people carefully may build consensus so a team takes a united front with the top people or puts a solution in place themselves. 4. Solvable if not too urgent Problems where you have a snowballs chance of convincing anyone to act short term, but one of the long term approaches previously discussed may jog corporate policy and action and you can live with that. 5. Unsolvable, but livable Silently accept that you probably cant do anything ever consider it not my problem. 6. Hopeless, mild and unacceptable to you Start a job search with possible future action when youre safe, if you still care. 7. Hopeless, serious consequences but not fatal Quit as soon as possible. Have you followed the common recommendation to save six months salary somewhere?

8. Hopeless, immediate and fatal Blow the whistle, wait for consequences. Like it or not these are likely the pragmatic thoughts that we all have to face one time or another in organizations. They are more rare as you go down the list. With luck one can get through a career with no number 8s or find that one of the other solutions finds a sympathetic ear further up the line without becoming fully public. By laying out the hierarchy clearly perhaps were in a better position to help everyone struggle as effectively as possible with such decisions. I believe its truly difficult to categorize some types of situations. Each is complex and we typically dont have all the facts. The time of decision-making is extremely stressful. This creates a tendency to waffle between ignoring the issue or blowing it out of proportion as we mentally test what we should do. It rarely helps for people to offer snap judgments about what someone else ought to do. Ethics, done right, are ultimately very personal and there is no way to escape the inevitable soulsearching and hesitation. Thoughtfulness is a requirement or there isnt really an ethical question. The sad truth is that we dont get a lot of preparation to make reasoned, balanced decisions on this sort of thing and we should. That takes us back full circle to my first article recommending we build a culture that routinely involves people at every level in thinking about and participating in decisions to enforce ethical behavior. Whatever the individuals decision when an apparent ethics issue arises, it is complex and can have far-reaching consequences for them, for the whole organization and for a lot of other people. Its time we started making this a part of everyones responsibilities and training. As an HR manager I didnt see it as my role to make the decision for someone or blow the whistle for anyone except perhaps in matters that were literally life and death. We must each face our own issues. There is, however, a role for HR to work with people to help them think through their roles logically and to encourage this sort of discussion.

Business Planning for Non-Planners It's the start of your business day and you quickly whip out your clearly written plans. Pardon? Did

you say you don't have a written business plan? Then join the club, 'Business Owners Without Plans'.

The problem this club faces is that the majority of members' businesses are likely to fail. Business failure rate is high and a major reason for this is lack of planning. If you're a member of this group and I was once, you're probably an entrepreneur or a creative person. The idea of planning is boring to you, seems unnecessary and involves too much detail. And you'd rather be doing other things. Your way of working is probably much more spontaneous, exciting and in the flow so you don't want to be tied down with plans. However, without any plans you can end up very unfocused, not achieving the results you want and ultimately face your business failing. So, what's your reason for not having business plans? Apart from the usual reasons, like not having enough time to plan, not knowing how to do it or where to start, perhaps you think that planning doesn't fit with your entrepreneurial and creative spirit. After all, this is who you are and you don't want to lose this. Now fear starts to surface; fear that you many need to change or fear of failure. While your plans stay in your head, it's not so frightening and real. Putting them on paper brings them closer to fruition and although you may say this is what you want, is it really if you're not willing to commit them to paper. Planning your business takes it from being a hobby to a fully-fledged business. Although most people would say that they operate their business as a business, in reality most operate them as hobbies. Then they wonder why they're not being successful and seeing results. I feel one of the problems for creative and entrepreneurial people is that when they think of business plans the picture that spring to mind is of hours pouring over vast pages of details. That's enough to turn them straight off. However, it doesn't need to be like that. There is a way to develop plans for your business, and to be creative and entrepreneurial with it. These informal plans are ones that you'll use yourself. If you need a business plan for outsiders, such as your bank or investors then this idea might not be for you. However, it may be a good way to get a formal business plan started. Instead of thinking that you need to commit hours to writing your business plans, I invite you to start with just 5 minutes. Now without any thought of the right way to do it, just write down the things that come into your head about your business. Just capture any goals, strategies, problems, current situation and positioning. Writing down your plans clarifies, organises and prioritises them, and clears space in your mind. The next step is to tap into your strengths as an entrepreneur or creative person. You're probably great at coming up with ideas and solutions, and may well be intuitive. So, you'll tap into all of these using the power of questions. You'll use questions to come up with answers and solutions that you'll put into your business plan. Your business plan need only be a straightforward discussion of

your present situation, your strategies, resources and goals. Nothing complicated or too detailed. Here are some questions to get you started: What is the current business situation? What goals do you have for the business? What problems and challenges is your business currently facing? What strategies are you using? What strategies do you need to use? What resources and opportunities do you have? Okay, so having spent 5 minutes on your business plans, I invite you to make a commitment of 5 minutes each business day and continue working on your business plans. Once you've responded to the above questions, put on your creative and entrepreneurial hat, and come up with your own thought provoking questions to answer. Take your creative and entrepreneurial spirit, and use these to develop plans for your business that keep you focused and producing the results you want. Once you start laying down some plans for your business and experience the benefits of doing this, you'll want to continue. The most important step is to get started. As an entrepreneur or creative, what will it take for you to start putting some of your business plans onto paper?