We talk a lot about consistency in HR. We have policies to follow to ensure that the same process happens every time someone raises a grievance, finds themselves in a disciplinary or submits a flexible working request. This type of consistency is needed, the process is the process. But what do we really mean by consistency?
I used to think that having consistency meant treating everyone the same and applying the same outcome to similar circumstances. For example, I worked for an insurance company and we had a call centre to take incoming calls from customers, agents would sometimes be found to be avoiding calls, meaning they would not speak to customers. They could do this in a number of ways from entering various codes so that calls would not come through to them, answering and immediately disconnecting calls putting them at the back of the queue and many other creative ways. Calls were monitored so if an employee was found to be doing this they would be invited to a disciplinary and typically the same sanction of a first written warning (assuming first offence), would be issued.
Now of course in the above example there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this, you aren’t treating people differently or better or worse. Same type of behaviour, same outcome. Looking back now, I am not sure we ever stopped to really consider why an employee might behave in that way or what we could do to support them. Working in a call centre is a thankless task and customers can be challenging to deal with. Whilst an investigation would have taken place and employees would have been asked why they were call avoiding, I think there was an assumption and an automatic decision to ensure consistency.
Managers are under pressure to ensure their teams perform and if you treat people differently you may be accused of favouritism. Perception is everything and employees talk and gossip. The thing is though that people aren’t consistent, HR is not black and white we operate in the grey most of the time. The reason one person does something often, will not be the same reason someone else does it.
Managers also manager differently, some take a very rigid approach to following policies and some would take a more human approach. Such as when it comes to taking time off for GP or dentist appointments. Some managers will make employees book time off and others have a more give and take approach, giving the time for the appointment knowing that the employee will often come in early or work a bit later.
Equally what works in one department or area might not work in another. If you are in retail employees will need to work in the shop at specific times to serve customers, however, the support functions may be able to have a remote first policy. A flexible working approach may work for some departments however, if you operate a call centre and need employees at peak times and they cannot flex their hours in the same way. Again, we should take an approach of finding out what works and what different benefits can be applied depending on the needs of the department, rather than decide something is unfair or doesn’t work because not everyone can do it.
The desire for consistency in approach was to instil a feeling that everyone was treated the same and create a “good” culture. However, really what we should do is empower managers to do the right thing depending on the circumstances. Ideally you want to be able to treat employees as the adults they are. Life doesn’t stop at work, people get ill, their family / kids get ill, appointments happen during work time, employees might behave in a certain way for lots of different reasons. Some will want to find ways not to do their jobs but some might need support or training, some might be anxious or worried and some might just be in the wrong job and need an honest conversation.
Empowering managers to make decisions and take an employee centred approach rather than applying a one size fits all approach to employees will ultimately provide a more consistent approach. Not with the same outcome regardless of the situation but with a human approach that makes the best decision based on the circumstances. Rather than insisting on a strict process, trust managers to know their staff and make decisions in the best interest of the employee, team, department and company.
