Francke, who was speaking at the HR Director's Business Summit in Birmingham, added: “Don’t leave your ethics at home. Link your personal values with organisational value.”
She added that HR should also be training people in good management, advising HR directors to “[prepare] people to manage and lead at all levels in the organisation and [bring] on future generations in management and leadership”.
Francke cited CMI research that found a high proportion of employees are dissatisfied with their management. Almost half (43%) said they have ineffective or highly ineffective line management.
To improve line management, Francke offered the following five steps:
1. Stop excluding, start including. She said HR and management should focus on diversity and ethics, and not differentiate between personal values and organisational ones.
2. Stop controlling, start coaching. Francke said enhancing job satisfaction levels increases productivity from 28% to 67%. She advised embracing coaching and mentoring and using weekly coaching rather than yearly reviews.
3. Stop confusing, start clarifying. Communication is a highly-desired skill and Francke urged HR to make objective-setting a “jargon-free zone”.
4. Stop resisting change, start embracing it. With 90% of organisations going through annual change, Francke said: “Look at change as an opportunity for people to improve their skills and leave the old culture behind. Change is not about managing a project, it’s about people and communication.”
5. Stop competing, start collaborating. Francke suggested creating teams based on competencies and not structure, and said management needed to become “dynamic and personal” rather than “static and organisational”.
