HR processes could steal our souls

Employees across many sectors have had to get used to all kinds of novel job saving schemes in the past 12 months, from pay freezes and pay cuts to British Airways' proposal that some staff might choose to work for nothing or at least take a chunk of unpaid leave.

Companies have been resorting to what I can only call emergency flexible working measures in an effort both to cut their costs and yet retain their staff. Employers know if they pare down their workforces too sharply they will be struggling as business picks up again. In employment, almost everyone is caught between a rock and a hard place.

The recession has exposed the limitations of flexible working practices and the extent to which employers have persisted with the concept of permanent employment, even as they delude themselves with empty mantras that 'there is no job for life'. How many of us want a job for life any more? That's not what we need. Instead we need meaningful, secure and clear contracts where expectations on both sides are explicit and fully understood.

It's time employers had a radical adjustment in attitudes towards employees, abandoning the concept of ownership that, whether consciously or not, has dominated employer perceptions for more than two centuries. Every time I hear a chief executive speaking about 'our people' or even 'my people' it makes me wince.

You could argue that people are rented in that they give up part of their time to an employer in exchange for a wage. But I would question whether even this satisfactorily describes the employee-employer relationship. I'm not sure employers can demand the wholehearted attention of an individual to a task for every hour someone spends at work.

So what are businesses actually buying in the employment contract? The answer is two things: skills and results. But even this might be narrowed down to results. If employees get things done in ways that meet or exceed the expectations of an employer, then surely they have fulfilled their contractual bargain. I would even suggest the real duty of the employee is to the customer and other stakeholders in the enterprise.

This is why whistle-blowing must be upheld in any company. While employees have a duty to the employer, they have a greater duty to society in ensuring their business is working within the law.

These views, I suspect, would be unpopular with some managers who have become accustomed to thinking of people as unquestioning units of production. The blame for this strain of thinking must be levelled at US mechanical engineer Frederick Taylor and the success of scientific management that over the 20th century permeated itself throughout the corporate system. Taylor would recognise much of his thinking in contemporary performance management systems, where people are graded and sifted against competency matrices.

As US writer Matthew Crawford points out in his essay, Shop Class as Soul Craft, Taylorism, combined with moving assembly, amounted to a 'severing of the cognitive aspects of manual work from its physical execution'. He laments the degradation of craftsmanship and the way it was 'rooted out' of the workforce.

Today, the kind of processes that sterilised craftsmanship have shifted to knowledge work. Discretion is supposed to be prized but free will is viewed with suspicion where employees are confronted by policies on everything. A press inquiry? Forward to the appropriate channels. Internet access? Only to approved sites. Working from home? Office hours please.

Performance management, supported by HR processes, is steadily stealing our discretionary thinking. We cannot let it steal our souls. People need to take ownership of their jobs so that what matters is a job well done.

- Richard Donkin is author of 'Blood, Sweat and Tears' and 'The Evolution of Work'. richard.donkin@haymarket.com