HR best practices are best designed to ensure consistency in workings and regulate workforces. However, what you might not realise is the best practices followed by HRs block innovation at workplaces.HR locks in processes and procedures in place as an integral part of organisation redo, but in the process of ensuring consistency, they leave little or no room for innovation at work.
Stating an example, the prime duty of a HR is hiring candidates. Now when finding the right people for an organisation, there are certain company policies that a HR has to comply. These new people are more or less similar in their educational backgrounds, industry experience and same value system to embed an organisation culture.
During the process of establishing consistency framework within which employees can function, HR managers are rather holding onto a myopic viewpoint on the future of a company. The people interviewed and those hired on board are so similar, that each individual workforce complements for any lacks in the team and therein HR is able to build a tightly knit culture in harmony.
Considering the lack in diversity in background of the candidates recruited, companies hold a myopic standpoint and are unable to look beyond their locked-in traditional business model. Also HR professionals in such situations are pretty much unsure, if any of the recruited candidates on board can unlock this firmly established mechanism to create room for innovation at workplaces.
Only when diversity in workplaces are encouraged by HR managers during the process of recruitment, they can they foster a culture of innovation and challenge competitors in the market by bringing up new product ideas and creative workings to reach out to new markets.
See: 25 Well-Known HR Influencers Worldwide
Regardless of the current market demands and needs, HR managers end up making the same repeated mistakes to recruit people with a similar mental framework, sharing the same vision in line with the company goals. While this helps building organisation culture, on the other hand it also makes companies function homogenously.
This also means HR managers tend to recruit people, they would want to hang out with who share similar life goals, plans for life and course of action. Any kind of diversity or dissimilarity exemplified by a candidate during hiring is generally viewed as a misfit to integrate well with the organisational culture.
Cultural fit has been morphed to resemble gigantic orders and policies stated by the HR managers to make it seem extremely nebulous and dangerous concept. This has shifted from systematic analysis on who will thrive at the workplaces to snap into quick judgements made by managers, only who would they prefer hanging out with.
Fit has eventually emerged to become a catchall used to justify people who are not similar decision makers and such people who could be a potential innovative talent on board are rejected from being hired.
NYTimes reports, “When it comes to creating a cohesive work force, managers often discount the power of shared experiences on the job, especially working interdependently on a high-stakes project. Fit can work, but personal similarity is not the key.”
It is time organisations look upto innovation and not hold back within realms of “cultural fit.” It is final decision of hiring managers to look for people who respond to trends and possess the capabilities to seek beyond the roles offered. Too many organisations simply fail to achieve long term business objectives, because HR managers are unable to infuse diversity at workplaces.
Also read: 5 Fundamental Shifts Which Dramatically Impact HR Industry
