It turned out that there was an HR enemy in my company who was very effective in sabotaging the work of the department. In your organisation there probably is too, maybe even several.
A recurring story
I walk into my office with a mug of hot coffee, approach my computer and thoughts are already swirling in my head about what I will find in my email inbox. I browse through my mail and see a message from the regional director marked with a red exclamation mark - a recruitment order.
I read an email in which I see an internal order to recruit 20 blue-collar workers for two construction sites in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region. I think to myself that I will probably be writing emails for the rest of my work at this company explaining that The HR department recruits people only for managerial and director positions. It does not, however, deal with recruitment for lower-level positions - that is the responsibility of managers.
So I wrote an explanation as to why I wouldn't tackle the task and got on with the rest of the work.
At 12:00, the chairman has put a meeting on my calendar for 12:30 p.m. I feel it involves a morning exchange of emails. I connect with my supervisor at the time; the atmosphere is thick.
- Ms Olu, why did you refuse to recruit these people? After all, HR is supposed to recruit - I heard.
- Mr President, over a year ago we established that it is much more effective to teach managers how to recruit for themselves. They are then more involved in recruitment, take more responsibility for it and there are no conflicts about completing the profiles of the candidates we need. The turnover in such positions is so high that we would have to have a four-person recruitment team permanently employed - I answer politely.
Yes, but what do we have an HR department for!
- Yes, yes, Mrs Olu, I know everything - nods the boss with reluctance - But after all, you have carried out a similar assignment in Warsaw and recruited employees. Why can't you help here? This is an exceptional situation, we have secured a new contract and we need to deliver on time.
- Mr President - I say calmly, although I feel myself boiling - I remember very well the situation with recruitment in Warsaw. I said to you at the time that there was a risk that, if, by way of precedent, we carried out recruitment on this site, an unwritten law would be created to bring us back to the tasks in this area.
- Yes, yes, you said that, but now the situation is exceptional again. What do we have an HR department for, after all?
At this point I remembered that A year ago I attended a training course on contracting. A page of material appeared before my eyes putting the same exclamation mark I had seen in this morning's email.
The website said: A contract is an explicit agreement by each party on clear ways of doing things.
It became clear to me that I wasn't fighting the CEO but the hidden assumptions about my work. This is the silent enemy of HR: contract concealed. It comes up when something important has been left out when building a contract at a psychological level. I thought to myself that in my company, clearly some important need was not addressed in our contract and now a little wildly the organisation is trying to address it.
In practice, this means that although I have interviewed the CEO and obtained his approval, I have not made a precise contract with the other parties - in this case the directors, who are now pressing my boss for the support they need.
When does the implicit contract emerge - the enemy of HR?
Unclear contracts, unspoken expectations, conversations in passing that are often considered binding by one party and are forgotten by the other shortly after parting ways - this is the silent enemy of HR. Because of the place in the organisation in which HR professionals work (at the interface of many other departments) and the supportive role that HR departments play, they are particularly vulnerable to unconsciously entered into hidden contracts. This unconscious contracting can sometimes take place at several points in time:
- Firstly, when we agree to work without a clear contract: "Well we are generally agreed, we are acting".
- Secondly, when we openly fail to respond to changing conditions and the inability to maintain the existing contract e.g. the number of people employed in the company has increased from 50 to 250, in addition to handling HR matters, dos1TP1It is organising technical training, a development plan for managers, etc., and we are still working with two in the department.
The silent enemy of HR begins to have an advantage when:
- we are operating without a clear contract,
- we do not react to the changing situation and work as if nothing were happening,
- people in post are changing and we are not adjusting our contracts with them,
- we translate the old contract into new tasks,
- we do not confront unrealistic dreams, expectations or needs that cannot be met.
How to make a good contract?
In terms of transactional analysis A contract is a clear agreement covering all those involved in a project.
Making precise agreements describing how we will work together is like pouring the foundations for a house. Without the explicit agreement of each party, the work will not go, there will be resistance or a return to old habits. Without equipping people with the new tools needed, clear objectives, defined responsibilities and authority, there is a very high risk that our cooperation will turn into games and we will end up battered.
Contract setting takes place at three levels:
- administrative (who does what, with whom and for how much),
- professional (who is responsible for what and what is not, how cooperation will take place),
- psychological (cooperation needs and motivations, expectations, frustrations, fears).
Failure to consider the psychological level can lead to an unconscious implicit contract.
Challenges of the psychological level
My story is an example of how various issues on a psychological level were not discussed. The regional director - an otherwise smug człowiek - carried over old notions from his previous company, where the HR department consisted mainly of recruiters.
The chairman, on the other hand - on his psychological level - was afraid of losing a good new director. He was willing to make more concessions to him, putting the arrangements already made with me on the line, explaining to himself - this one time.
For me, this meant three options:
Sticking to the contract and not giving in to an implicit contract, with readiness for all the possible consequences of this: starting a procedure of setting boundaries for those who test how seriously the contract entered into for cooperation is taken by the other party.
Recontracting: return to the conversation with the CEO and revisit the topic of talking on a psychological level about expectations of the HR department, organisational needs and resources and the consequences of realising these expectations.
Termination of cooperation due to non-compliance with my contract and the inability to change this.
Thanks to the very practical tools of Transactional Analysis, I dealt with this situation. Today, I can confidently say to the benefit of myself, my department and the organisation as a whole.
It is important to meet
The story with the recruitment for the new site went as follows. The chairman agreed that I would help organise the process on the condition that the director was actively involved. The director also agreed to this, although he was not entirely happy about it.
In an instructional style, I guided the director through all stages of recruitment. I also included his right hand in the process. I made sure he knew where in the system the next steps of the process were and the necessary advertisements, forms, questionnaires for his recruitment. I showed him how to collect candidate information so that he didn't drown in a sea of data and gave him many other useful tips. I gave feedback and together we looked for options on how he could do it next time, so that it burdened him as little as possible. We also worked out a list of situations that might arise in the recruitment process, where he can already act independently and where he needs to contact me.
On the one hand, I was involved to the same extent as if I had led this recruitment (well, maybe even a bit more, poszł would have been quicker for me on my own). On the other hand, I already had a clear contract of all the necessary parties and a director equipped with the necessary tools and skills to fulfil his part of the contract. Next time, that same director might come to me for support in an unusual recruitment situation, not with an order: "I need 20 people in a month".
Organisational Transactional Analysis as a tool in HR
Organisational Transactional Analysis (AT) is a psychological approach that helps to better understand the dynamics of relationships in organisations and to consciously manage collaborative processes. In the HR context, it is extremely useful in identifying and eliminating problems arising from implicit contracting. AT enables you to recognise the three levels of contracting - administrative, professional and psychological - and teaches you how to put them into practice.
This enables HR to more effectively define the boundaries of its responsibilities, support leaders in their roles and resolve conflicts arising from unspoken expectations. In addition, AT provides the tools to build clear, informed agreements, which prevents misunderstandings and strengthens ownership within teams. For the organisation, this means better collaborative performance and greater satisfaction for all parties involved in HR processes.
How do you know if you are dealing with a disguised contract?
The case of implicit contracting, described above, can happen to any of us. Even if we know that contracting is important in collaboration, sometimes we unnotice that we are operating under unclear rules because something important is going on at a psychological level.
A sense of ambiguity or confusion in the areas of what is to be done, who is to do it or how, discouragement or a sense of injustice are just some indicators of a hidden contract. If you notice several of these indicators, it is possible that the psychological level has not been sufficiently addressed and a hidden contract has been formed.
If you want to learn how to accurately recognise hidden contracts and make good agreements with your team, learn about Transactional Analysis. It is a current in psychology that explains the behaviour of people in organisations in a practical way and provides proven tools for improving the quality of collaboration.
For more on conflict resolution, see the webinar recording: Tame the conflict, in which we discuss effective conflict resolution strategies according to Transactional Analysis. And if you'd like to learn how to make appointments, check out our video course on the subject: Contracting cooperation.
