Top Ten Bad HR Practices

Everybody talks about practicing the best HR practices, which is a good start but pretty useless if bad practices continue to persist. So what are the top ten bad HR practices which need to be eliminated?

1. Employee has no access to personal data (over-confidentiality): Can’t view or update personal information; have no access to leave records, salary data, attendance record, training, and promotion details. As a result, the employees are unsure if the management decisions are based on correct information. This creates suspicion and negatively affects employee-employer relationships.

2. Lack of clarity on deliverables: Absence of a well-defined job description leads to lack of accountability. Neither the employee nor his / her immediate superior (boss) are able to define the job-deliverables. Result is a loss of focus and interest.

3. Absence of goal-based performance: Employee is unaware of the goals to be achieved during the year. There are no quarterly targets and no process to track their completion. The organization merely carries out an end of the year performance assessment. It is often difficult to build a performance culture in such organizations.

4. Employee development without THEIR involvement: No opportunity is given to an employee to project his / her development needs. Training manager nominates employees on various development programs. There is no formal process to collect training needs and analyze skills and competencies gaps. All this leads to unplanned employee development, a wasteful effort, both in terms of time and money.

5. Rusting of talent: Long tenures in the same position with no avenues for job rotations make people rust and relax. In the first 2-3 years in a job position, an employee experiences new challenges, contributes and innovates. Thereafter, it becomes routine and monotony takes over. Even a change of location, if not the job, can provide the requisite challenge to an employee.

6. Non-performers lobby: Each non-performer remains glued to his / her chair. The worst happens when a non-performing manager has to review subordinates who are professionally competent, high-energy youngsters. Some of them leave the organization prematurely and add to the attrition rate. The end result is the creation of a non-performers lobby which impedes the progress of the organization.

7. Retaining performers: Getting rid of the non-performers is important, but identifying, developing and retaining high performers is equally vital. If your best talent is being lured by other companies, your schemes to reward performance are simply inadequate.

8. Lack of feedback: Employees have individual opinions about the quality of leadership in the company. They know their engagement levels at the workplace. They understand what hinders their performance and satisfaction. Unless the management is prepared to receive and analyze their objective feedback, nothing can stem lower productivity and increase disharmony.

9. Line manager not a people-manager: If a line manager only performs his /her operational role and has not been groomed for people management, who is to blame? HR has probably faltered by not institutionalizing a system that ensures that team managers are trained on people management prior to appointment.

10. Technology phobia: Many older employees, even in big organizations, refuse to acknowledge that technology can empower HR staff by providing timely, accurate and quality information for decision making. Often, they feel that IT staff will need to be hired to manage computer based systems. They need exposure to SaaS technology which will demonstrate how it neither requires elaborate hardware platforms nor software expertise.

If you can introspect and shed the prevailing bad HR practices, you are sure to transform and be one among those companies who build talent and drive performance. You will then find it easy to adopt the Top Ten Best HR practices.