HR instruments: curse or blessing?

When it comes to the use of HR instruments for personnel development, there’s one crucial question to answer: do they help or are they a waste of time? They can be both! The job of HR instruments is to make a current situation visible black on white by asking proper questions. Agreed, that alone doesn’t bring anyone any further and it has certainly nothing to do with development. It’s just a simple measurement. But aren’t marketing and sales reports also just simple measurements? No one would ever question these.

Let’s stay in the marketing and sales report example for a little longer.  They put the sum of money invested in marketing and sales effort in comparison to the return on investment (ROI). If the ROI isn’t any greater than the money spent, appropriate measures have to be taken. No doubt, there will be! Whether people are fired or different marketing and sales approaches are chosen, change is guaranteed. Even though the report didn’t cause any improvement itself, it was the trigger for correction and advancement. The report itself stays a report: a simple measurement.

Think of your personnel; aren’t they also an investment?

Analog to the marketing and sales report, HR instruments trigger essential change. Again an example: A team working under a director whose greatest strength is to boss people around won’t perform at its best. Not because the team members can’t, but because they don’t want to. Their motivation is extinct. Often team members don’t say anything negative about their boss in fear they could be subject to dismissal or other consequences. The company though still pays their salary, even if the “ROI” is markedly little. In such a situation, a 360° feedback survey brings light into the dark and shows the real grievance in the team: the director’s way of leading.

The director might not be aware of his behavior and the affect it has on the team. Showing him the survey results confront him with facts and the need for him to change – the need to develop his leadership skills. Once more, the HR instrument only asked questions, it measured so to say, but without it no change and no development would have taken place.

Trigger development among your employees by putting facts on the table.