As a member of SAPOL’s HR service, I recently attended
Renew, Foster, Sustain – HR Building for Organisational
Sustainability. This was a public-sector conference, about which I had no
great expectations as it was the first such gathering I had attended. The list
of speakers, however, sounded interesting.
The first thing to strike me was the turnout: hundreds of SA
public-sector HR practitioners. Perhaps two dozen had come from SAPOL. Clearly,
HR is a huge industry within the public sector.
The Commissioner for Public Employment and sponsor of the day,
Paul Case, was in his last days before moving to a new position.
The first speaker rattled through at breakneck speed but, at
the end, the master of ceremonies raised an interesting rhetorical question to
be pondered during morning tea. If there are so many committed HR practitioners
with their array of policies working towards sustaining the “most valuable
resource”, the question went, why has workplace health and wellbeing
slipped backwards?
I didn’t ponder on it much – I focused on the
nibbles and chatting with people. But, later, reinforced by other speakers, I
began to ponder.
SAPOL has an HR policy for just about everything. For each
case in which there is no policy, a project team – or two – is
looking into it. Are we now better placed to provide for the needs of our
individual workers? From anecdotal evidence, my guess would be no.
An unintended result of so many HR policies is that people are
seen as needing to adapt to the policy. The plethora of policies has the effect
of ignoring diversity. Therefore, while we read writings of workplace
flexibility, have we really achieved it? The SAPOL future directions strategy
lumps me, as a resource, into a key management area of “resource
management” – no different from the fleet I drive or chair on which I
sit.
To be fair, the key management area on Valuing our
People provides more focus on you and me. But its focus is on how you and I
can assist SAPOL better reach its targets and not on what SAPOL will do to
assist me to reach my needs. It is a one-way document.
The Valuing our People key management area is of great
interest and kept coming to my mind during the conference. The conference
speakers focused on the need for organizations to ensure they foster and
sustain workers so they are healthier and feel committed to their whole lives,
rather than just one aspect of it. In SAPOL’s major strategy document, the
Valuing our People objective is: “To value our people, their knowledge and
skills, and to maximize their ability to contribute to SAPOL’s service
delivery”. I think it says it all.
A priority action included in the Valuing our People is
to: “Assist career development planning for all SAPOL personnel.”
Name the departmental career-guidance officer? Where does the section work? How
can I get someone to assist me with my career planning?
While it is possible to find Professional Development listed
in the SAPOL directory, it is difficult to find the career-guidance people. It
is almost as if they do not exist. But, of course, there must be someone. SAPOL
is an organization of more than 4,000 workers. Many are of specialist areas and
have specific requirements to meet the PID needs. There must be someone who
provides assistance to determine what courses might or might not make sense at
a career level. I think I did find it – there was a TAFE number listed.
Until every worker is appreciated as an individual, SAPOL HR
policies will continue to focus on SAPOL rather than the needs of the
individual. Rightly, good managers – and there are many in SAPOL –
tend to work around the policy and help meet the needs of their colleagues.
They are true leaders, who are rewarded by the respect and loyalty of their
colleagues.
I love conferences. They make you think.
I’d like to have a minute of your time. I know a lot of
your aggression and discontentment with SAPOL comes from the frustration you
feel through not being recognized, promoted or transferred, but don’t take
it out on us. I know you might have a bit of flecking on the shoulders, but
communicate with me one-on-one, as a person and not as a number. We’d get
on a hell of lot better if you realized we can contribute without you
threatening, belittling, yelling and basically disempowering us. Believe it or
not, we are in the same job. We’re not the enemy, we’re your
colleagues – remember?
Frankly, I feel sorry for you, because there have been so
many before you who have had lonely existences in retirement. You spend all
your adult working life working hard to get to the top of a cutthroat
hierarchical structure only to get to the end and realize your only friend is
the water cooler on the eleventh floor. The para-military structure does
promote this type of thinking and action but, thankfully, in the past few
years, this is being challenged.
Workplace bullying is fast becoming a hot topic around the
world and it’s been responsible for some real tragedies in people’s
working lives. The really sad part is that this can be so easily avoided. We
are all faced with having to work, and how enjoyable that experience is –
in some really freaky simplistic notion – makes us want to come to work
and put in a lot of effort. If we’re treated like idiots and made to feel
disempowered and unworthy, it’s not surprising that we don’t put in
100 per cent and generally use any excuse not to be there. Are you getting the
picture? It’s not hard – they’ve trained monkeys to negotiate
more complex issues.
What you’ve got to do – before it’s too late
– is to realize it’s how you’re remembered in this job and what
type of person you are. Get in front of that mirror in the morning and ask
yourself a few hard questions. So, if you’re feeling that the only way to
realize your personality is to wander about the joint like General Patton
spewing venom and making people feel worthless, then you’re going to have
to ask that water cooler for a dance at your farewell.
If you feel like changing and trying to work with people and
provide real leadership, let it be known through your actions. If you’re
not willing to change yourself, another way would be to make “active
anti-workplace bullying” part of PIDs. I think you’d be Mr/Mrs/Ms
Chummy after that.
