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Thursday, February 6, 2014

Making Human Resources Decisions


When decision making concerns human resources, the stakes might be higher than other resource allocation decisions: simply put, there are people involved. An investment decision might involve a certain level of risk and if it goes “badly”, there are consequences, but people move on; however for human resources decisions (e.g. regarding performance improvement, potential development or career choices) then the risk might be considered higher because if it goes “badly”, the person involved will potentially have to carry the consequences for the rest of their lives. Considering this, Korte, in “Biases in Decision Making and Implications for Human Resources Development”, (in Advances in Developing Human Resources, Vol. 5, Nov. 2003, pp. 440-457) researched and concluded on how to optimise decision-making in such an HR context.

Here’s how to make effective HR decisions followed by further implications (“et alors”):

Making Human Resources Decisions

Decision making in the HR context is “a complex process rife with social and political agendas, individual biases and rapidly changing relationships… the decision-making process must include an explicit examination and challenge of the assumptions and biases underpinning the process and a prescription to mitigate the stifling effects of these orientations.” Korte accordingly recommends five optimising processes for decision making in HR:

Bias Analysis

Identify, assess and challenge the orientations and underlying assumptions of the decision-makers.

This is sub-optimal if the assumptions and orientations of the team are “glossed over.”

Information Gathering

Challenge the information gathering process to overcome biases from 1/ visibility, 2/ timing, 3/ limits of understanding, 4/expectations, 5/ comparisons and 6/experience. Do not settle on a definition of the problem or solution until as late as possible in the process.

This is sub-optimal if the sources of information are based on 1/ experience, 2/visible sources and 3/ preferred sources.

Information Processing

Challenge the information analysis process to overcome biases from 1/ inconsistency, 2/conservation, 3/miscalculation, 4/inertia, 5/overconfidence and 6/ anchoring. Explain reasons for processing information and justify the reasons based on the data.

This is sub-optimal if data is analysed 1/ with inconsistent use of criteria, 2/ to support preferences, 3/ with overconfidence on biased data.

Information Response

Enlist several non-aligned sources for reality checks of analysis, definitions and solutions. Attend to the perceptions, expectations and impulses of the stakeholders throughout the process.

This is sub-optimal if you unduly hope for the best and overestimate the degree of control or the ability to fix things later.

General Problem-solving

Consider that the problem can never be completely defined or completely resolved. Avoid the impulse to act early in the process (unless to just as a test of ideas and solutions).

This is sub-optimal if you just focus on a single definition of the problem and the solution or if you follow a linear, mechanistic problem-solving process.

Et alors

That is quite a lot of things to take into consideration all at once; however the points are worthy of consideration if only because the stakes are high when making HR decisions! One of the key messages is to overcome biases in the early stages of the decision-making process; however, these assumptions, orientations and biases might be cultural. Whilst people consider that they are making optimal decisions, in fact, there are underlying cultural references that are (usually) implicit in the assumptions being made by people in arriving at their decision. This might be expedient where the whole context is mono-cultural: “collective programming” or “shortcuts” might be the very definition of culture with the benefit of expediency; however what about in a multi-cultural context? Then there might be a challenge as all the parties in the process might not consider the process (or the solution) to be optimal as it would only be so in one culture or the other (but not both).

So is there an intercultural solution (for example for career management systems in a multicultural organisation)? Potentially not! I have concluded from my research into intercultural leadership that cross-cultural understanding and trans-cultural leadership are possible and feasible when the stakes are not too high and/or the situation is not “personal”. When however, there are individuals involved (such as in decisions relating to HR) and when the stakes are increased because they relate to important human conditions such as love, conflict, power or wealth, then each respective culture tends to revert-to-type. In such cases, cross-cultural understanding tends to evaporate! So overcoming biases etc. in a mono-culture is one thing; whereas it is quite another challenge to overcome biases etc. in a multicultural context when there are “human resources” at stake!

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