The HR Paradox, Part 3 – The Value Worker Model

At the end of every day, company success is dependent upon every employee adding value in the area where they work. Otherwise, why pay them?

We believe that there are several types of employees. These differences are discrimination neutral and quite simple. Either they want to work and contribute to company success or they want to be paid without working or they are want to work but are so self-focused that company teams and other employees are adversely impacted. I call those who want to work and contribute to company success as “Value Workers.”

Those who want to be paid without really working, I call “Loafers” or “Blood-Suckers” (they suck the life blood out of companies). Those who are self-focused may appear to be highly successful but result in sub-optimizing long term results. I call this group the “Selfers.” They create a highly inefficient company that is usually inward focused, slow moving, and often bureaucratic.

Which group would you want in your company? Value Workers, Bloodsuckers, or Selfers?

Yet in most companies, all three profiles exist. What is that costing your company? How is that impacting client sales, client satisfaction, product quality, company branding / image, profit, response times, employee turnover, employee development, and company teamwork? How is it impacting your company alignment and leverage?

Yet somehow HR is expected to have a magic wand to “fix the problem.” Top management is busy focused on growing the business and assumes that just hiring a HR team will transform the organization, or just spending more money internally will fix the problem, or outsourcing HR will fix the problem. Unfortunately, even the best HR team in the world cannot “fix the problem.” That is part of the HR Paradox.

Just as finance does not create the money it helps to manage. Just as technology does not create the business requirements it seeks to automate. Just as procurement does not specify the products or services it seeks to purchase. HR is only one out of four components to “fixing the problem.”

Unfortunately, unless HR has the right team in place there is no one else in the company whose job it is to coordinate the solution. Executive management does not have time. Managers do the best they can but are time pressed and do not have the tools or training. Even if the rare manager “fixes her department,” that does not fix the entire company. The individual employee has the least personal impact, responsibility, authority, skills, time, or ability to help. Even Value Workers are impacted when Bloodsuckers and Selfers exist throughout the company.

So strategically, how can a company resolve the HR Paradox?

Next week we will discuss the HR Paradox Solution.