Human Resources is Sadly Unsophisticated

I just read Susan Heathfield’s article in About.com on how to create an environment that encourages employee engagement.  Susan claims organizations are bad at employee engagement because it is hard work.  This response is true yet sadly incomplete and unsophisticated. 

Susan is right about some things.  We need to improve employee engagement.  It is a critical condition for success as we continue to feel global competitive pressures.  We must protect the intellectual property of our organizations by reducing turnover of employees and protecting the knowledge they continue to accumulate in their brains.

Susan and Human Resource professionals continue to avoid a sophisticated discussion about the root causes of the lack of engagement.  They claim to know what managers should do to create employee engagement and they always list the same tasks, i.e. adopt an engagement as a strategy, align the values, listen to employees, measure performance, hold employees accountable, yadda yadda yadda.   Most of these ideas are fine but they don’t address the real root causes. 

Human Resources professionals continue to recommend these basic steps but fail to recommend the abolishment of performance appraisals and the dissolution of pay for performance.  In fact, in Susan’s case she continues to support these policies by recommending holding people accountable for results.  This recommendation is the same thing as supporting Management by Objectives which almost always includes the current performance appraisal as part of the process.  She also recommends an effective reward and recognition program.  She still recommends rewarding top talent and using pay for performance as a carrot and club to both threaten and motivate top performers.  This dysfunctional policy is what got Enron in trouble and Human Resource professionals continue to ignore the data that supports its demise. 

Human Resource professionals continue to be in denial.  These two policies represent the root cause of organizations inability to fully accomplish these other steps. 

This is disappointing coming from the typical HR professional. It borders on incompetence when it comes from someone who is supposed to be a professional consultant and an author and advisor for Human Resources on About.com.  There is no excuse.  Research abounds supporting the dissolution of performance appraisals and pay for performance and anyone who is supposed to be an expert with forward thinking recommendations should know it and at least discuss it.  I am seriously underwhelmed.