We all know 2009 has been a difficult year for the UK and the global economy. And once you lose business, banking and consumer confidence, it takes some time to return. The problem is that the more we reinforce the ‘doom and gloom' scenario, the longer will be the recovery period. And this ‘glass half empty' mentality continues to be reinforced in the media where bad news stories are flavour of the day, week and month.
We have a new Economic Forum at the heart of government, with politicians, business people and, of course, economists. We now know what happens when economists are given free rein to determine monetary policy. With their ‘too little and too late' cuts in interest rates, they failed to understand the prevailing psychology of the consumer and businesses in the run-up to the recession. Yes, the US banks/investment houses and regulatory agencies failed to understand the impact of their financial products, securitised mortgages and the like, and the rest of the world followed blithely along without their controls in place as well.
The recession is likely to be costly in business and human terms, and to be longer lasting than many of us have seen in decades. The question though is ‘will it get worse for HR', and the answer is ‘not worse, but different'. In fact, in many ways this recession will be the making of HR.
During this period, HR will be challenged as never before. It has an opportunity to demonstrate how it can contribute to assessing and managing the talent it has, to provide leadership in creating organisational cultures that motivate employees at a time when they are feeling insecure and buffeted by events they perceive beyond their control and in a world where constant growth will not be the short-term business scenario.
The past two decades have been about the acquisition of material goods, about excess, about a ‘me-oriented' as opposed to a ‘we-oriented' society. In his book, Working, Joseph Heller suggested in the midst of this that ‘work should be about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dyin'.
The challenge for HR is potentially more meaningful, to ensure that we create the right organisational climates where people can flourish, where we retain and truly develop our human talent, where we humanely deal with people when the times get tough, that we confront senior management when we need to on the important people issues of the time rather meekly accept top management diktat that we know to be wrong (for the business and in terms of how people are treated). HR should be at the forefront of our recovery, not just a compliant functional support system. It is now time to action the often heard HR rhetoric ‘the most valuable resource is our human resource'.
Cary Cooper, CBE, is professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School and chair of The Sunningdale Institute in the National School of Government
