Using evidence in HR decision-making: 10 lessons from the COVID-19 crisis

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good afternoon everybody I'm gonna get started because it is 12:30 and we like to start on time I hope that everyone is
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doing well today my name is Katie Jacobs I worked from CIPD and I'm back this
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afternoon the coronavirus webinar series we had a week off last week because of the
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festival of work if any of you were able to attend I hope you had a really really great experience I know that all of us
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who are able to attend really really enjoyed it and remember you can access all those sessions for the next month if you are a
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member and this afternoon we're back with our really interesting and I expect
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I happen to know the two speakers quite well but it will be a fun session as well we're going to go a little bit
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left-field and we're gonna be talking about evidence-based practice what it means for HR and the lessons a
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profession can take from the COBIT crisis so joining me to discuss this this afternoon two highly expert
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speakers we're joined by Rob greener professor of organizational psychology at Queen Mary University of London
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Rob's also founder and scientific director of the Center for evidence-based management and if you're
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at all interested in evidence-based practice then Rob is basically a celebrity so we're very lucky to have
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him here and also joined by David D'Souza David is membership director the CIPD he
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also happens to be a fellow for the scent of evidence-based management and if you're interested in nature as
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obviously all of you are then David is basically a celebrity as well so I am surrounded by the true stars of HR and
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evidence-based management thank you very much for joining as ever I'm just going to run through some quick housekeeping
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one very final point a reminder to keep an eye on the coronavirus hub for up-to-date information and sources so on
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with our topic for this afternoon throughout the coronavirus crisis the public has been demonstrating quite a
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strong appetite for evidence from scientific findings to government readings and we've been engaging critically with these reams of
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information evidence-based practice and decision making has come very much to the poor now being evidence-based is at
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the heart of the CIP DS profession map and it's a vital skill for all people professionals to develop so what can we
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as depression learn from this crisis about making more evidence-based HR
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decisions that's what Rob and David and we also want to take your questions
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about using HR evidence in HR in general so please do get them in for up
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it is you
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it's used across multiple fields to do the same sort of thing really is first
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to focus on important problems and opportunities in other words as professionals and practice is a field
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we're surrounded by a whole host of different opportunities problems things that matter things that might not but
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clearly we have to prioritize think about which are most important secondly once you've identified those problems or
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opportunities we want to intervene and do stuff that is more likely rather than less likely to work
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so essentially evidence-based practice has evolved to do those two very simple in a way but extremely important things
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in any field what are the challenges is that we all use evidence so we tend to
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think we're kind of evidence-based already as some of us they are course to some extent and this come out a bit of
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the discussion later so we always use evidence and information in making decisions so how is evidence-based
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practice EBP specifically different I think there are three main differences first is the broad approach to the use
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of evidence and there's three elements to that the first is conscientious the second is explicit and the second the
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third is judicious so the idea is you're quite conscientious in your use of evidence so you don't just pick
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something go that's fine I'll use this piece of information you know just really search quite carefully to try and
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find them and put effort into finding the best available evidence the second is explicit you write it down you
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codified you share it in some way and that's also important it's not just in your head it's something you can
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actually show and share this is my information this is my data this is my evidence the third element of this approach is
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judicious and this is essential it means judging the quality of information in other words we're surrounded by
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information data but much of it may be pretty poor qualities therefore we shouldn't pay much attention to it so we
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need to to find the best available evidence we've got so the first difference then is its broad approach the second difference I think
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for what most of us usually do is using multiple sources and there's two reasons for that one is for triangulation can I
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cross-check so this information is suggesting this is an issue this information is it's suggesting the same
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thing or something different so can we check and triangulate the other reason for it it's also to put evidence in
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context we may have some meth through information from one context that says this particular for example a
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child practice is marvelous fine does it apply in our context inserting by looking across multiple sources can we
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start to understand whether and how that piece of information does apply to our context so the second difference is
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multiple sources the third difference is a structured approach and this is also
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crucial because although we all make decisions all the time do we take a very explicit or structured approach most of
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us probably don't so much why do we need a structure is for two main reasons one is to actually stay on track to make
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sure we keep going with the process to try and get the best available evidence the second reason is because we're
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easily deflected and easily distracted in other words do the evidence based practice is sort of it's simple in
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principle it's really hard to do in practice not because it's complicated but because things distracting getting
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away so I think they're the three main differences between what we already do and evidence based practice next slide
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please so gonna make this bigger in a second this is an infographic produced by the sense of evidence-based management the
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cater will dimension and COPD just to try and communicate in a simple way what evidence-based practice involves in HR
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so this kind of approach is use always first identify a particular problem or
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opportunity and only if you're pretty clear one exists or you're fairly certain one exists then you use the same
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process to also identify potential solutions so again this is part of the
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structured approach so you don't just do stuff you first find out if there is a particular problem opportunity what the
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nature of that problem opportunity is next slide please so this is the top bit of the infographic showing that
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definition I just mentioned conscientious explicit and judicious it also describes or starts to describe the
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four sources of evidence so for us in HR the scientific evidence its organizational internal data its
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stakeholders what do they feel about what's going on what do they believe what of their preferences and also
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practitioners professional expertise and again when we talk to start to talk
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about the parallels maybe with decision making around coding 19 you see that again government
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around the world have tried to draw on these multiple sources with varying degrees of success I think another thing
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that makes it challenge is drawing on multiple sources means you may even get conflicting information different kinds
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of information but that's that's normal that's nothing unusual next slide please this is an example of the structure now
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a lot of people look at this this infographic a girl oh my god do I have to have four sources do I have to go
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through this six steps dancers - no remember the principles multiple sources is better than only one or two having a
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structured approach is better than not having a structured approach so if you only have two or three sources that's
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fine if you just follow into some of these steps that's better than not following any steps at all but in this
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full-blown model that I did you ask a question like what's going on what's the problem you're quiet in evidence that might tell
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you about that you critically appraise it is it trustworthy or not you pull it together you apply it in this case to
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understanding what the problem might be and then you assess the quality of your decision-making around I have we
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actually establish what the problem might be so that infographic I think is useful in that it sort of gives you an overview
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but it's not a completely strict recipe have to stick to the important thing here is to go back and think about the
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principles there what evidence-based practices for next slide please
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over to David David you need to unmute
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yourself if you would like to say the reason I wasn't actually saying it's in case there's health cause that was is
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there the mute button was refusing to do anything I was wondering happen next didn't our G
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respondent see me taking on it more and more aggressively so and welcome everyone I'm really glad that one we've
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got Rob's expertise it's an ode to that hopefully will give you a bit of brain food and three that we have some time
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for some questions at the end and let's see Albany is really committed to people
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being more evidence-based more equipments befriend and what outcomes driven so we want some new profession
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came out a couple years ago evidence-based is absolutely the heart of that and there's a few reasons why
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and I think they're really pertinent to situation to rent currently first of all and this is probably actually a bit of a
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myth buster around evidence-based practice as well it doesn't mean that you can't experiment it doesn't mean it
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can't be creative but what it does mean is that when you're doing things when you try own different things you're
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looking at it with a really critical and secondly some of the problems that you will be trying to solve at the moment
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absolutely require us to give organizations our best injudicious view
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on what's most likely to work there are no things that are guaranteed to work it's not about truth but what's most
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likely to work so whether you're dealing with some of the situations you'll face at the moment around racism in the
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workplace and what's most likely to make a difference within your organization whether that's about well-being of
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people at the moment and what you need to do in that space or whether actually is about remote working and what's most
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productive it makes sense to actually look at a combination of literature
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expertise and the different sources that rug has spoken about to make sure that you have the best chance of solving
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these problems because none of you at the moment will have a surfeit of time that won't be you know if you're working
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with or in organizations you won't be going I've just got too much time on my hands what you need is the thing that is
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most likely to make the difference that you want to see so the processes that were talking about here the rigor that
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Ron's talking about here are really important but what's also important is the point you made earlier that just doing things a bit better makes a
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difference so if you can find some external sources that makes a difference if you can invest some time in actually
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reflecting whether what you're doing is the most joined-up effective way of approaching the problem and what
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evidence you've got for that that is a brilliant thing to do in organizations so it doesn't take more time in some
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ways takes less time because you're more likely to be right and at the moment organizations need us more than ever to
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either be right first time I'm not to invest so much that we can't step back from it and the other thing I want to do
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was just mentioned we've got a we surveyed the people profession we did a survey this year and one of the things
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that we looked at was to watch them are practitioners evidence-based and there are a couple of interesting observations from
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I wanted to make the first of all is the best different thing in house next down
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and we saw that really clearly in the results so more external practitioners and consultants felt that they could
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challenge practices that were either ineffective or were old-fashioned within organizations and that means that we've
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got challenged and said like dynamics of how HR practitioners work within organizations and and the second one
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that's interesting is though of everyone's surveyed only 54% agreed the
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leaders in the people profession we're evidence-based so I think people are
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quite keen to say that they were but they weren't observing it in leaders and and this probably a bit of a balance
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there between people being generous about themselves
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you
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again don't be fascinating but later I'm back to Broadway if I just press my button correctly this time okay
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thanks David thank you very much so yeah just so just picking up a couple of things David mentioned is irrelevant to
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this introduction to this piece is that this is not about perfection situations
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are often pretty messy and it's not about having any answer some thing I think many people observed about HR is
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it seems that the world of HR is often full of solutions and answers and do this and everything will be great
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it isn't about that in HR it isn't about like in any field and it's certainly not about that in relation to managing
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coffee at 19 it's about trying to make the best decision you can given the data
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you can get and the way the process through which you're making decision so that's very important it's not about perfection is trying to make better
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decisions to make some difference and also to pick up something David said in the end this is gonna save you time
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rather than create more time because you're more likely to get the outcome you want around this particular piece
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for people management because as someone has been interesting evidence-based practice for a long time in the way in which we consume and use evidence or
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don't in decision-making it really struck me that as Katie was at an introduction people seem to be really
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fascinated for obvious reasons about what was going on not just in the UK but around the world what are our
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governments doing about this you know life threatening economy threatening sort of what feels like a very novel
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problem what are they doing about it what are they telling is how are they making these decisions because these
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decisions are really gonna impact on us our families economies the people we
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love the world we love etc so this is the point at which I think I noticed in the media and amongst my friends are not
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taking interest in evidence-based practice or HR they're really getting interested in what is this information
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where from what is it kind of mean and I think in a way observing some of these
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more or less effective efforts I think it showed in the way important lessons for how we can best use evidence to
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inform our decisions so again the point here is not to critique in particular any government about what it's doing
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around it more because this is a very public example of a moment in time when suddenly many of us
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for really important reasons getting pretty interested in what's going on how these people using this information next
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slide please these are the ten lessons are going to go through them quickly and perhaps
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today locator so other people can chip in as well these are things that I found when observing it the seeds of important
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lessons for us in a charm indeed other fields about doing it I added two extra at the end which I'm going to talk about
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today because it happened after I've written the article one is another lesson is don't over rely on a single
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advisor and again this applies to any situation any context it might apply to
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make sure I direct to your eyes off the one person or one Academical one yeah that's not very helpful second the
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second extra point of me is you should never like to have no one indicator so in this case the case of confident was
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are so suddenly are became the thing that we had to look at now looking at indicators is okay the single indicators
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are always quite limited and there's some serious problems in I'm sure now since this has been written could they
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give other lessons we can learn as well about kind of decision making and using evidence so I'm gonna go through these
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just briefly and just say how they apply to HR so next slide please
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multiple sources of evidence so again this is a cornerstone of evidence-based practice and you saw the government
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initially some would argue perhaps over rely on the science we're using the
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science we're not this is not a political thing this is not about what you think about it this is just a sign for and that's okay and that's
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understandable but actually as you see if time has gone on yeah it's kind of it
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seems to disappear somehow now so some of those sources of evidence now see the scientific advisors aren't appearing it
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doesn't mean they aren't using the science but there's this sense in which people is hard to hold all these sources together but that is actually a
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cornerstone of evidence-based practice and he gave evidence-based HR it's important not just to look at one or the
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other or make one superious there's actually combined them together that's a key less nothing from this keep those
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different sources hold them together and try and use them together next slide please
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there's always time to collect and use evidence so classic I think thing in many fields and I hear there's a lot in
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HR people say we haven't got time we're so busy we haven't got time to use evidence and
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collect data to visit we need to do something now and of course you cannot see that in the commad 19 crisis you
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know that is not there's always time to collect in use evidence so if people if governments can suddenly you know
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raptured things up and start to collect lots of data and try and find evidence in a very short time we all care if it's
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important if the decision is important if a good decision is important then there's always time to collect it so I
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think the excuse that we don't have time to collect evidence is is a lesson yeah
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we need to observe there's always time to do side three please next sorry next slide yeah get the handle on the problem
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before we start implementing solutions and this of course picks up on things like track and trace in case of covered other things that were going on that
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initially wasn't quite clear that we get
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a hand on the prompt before we start implementing solutions so what is the issue so when we in the case of cover
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what actually is the problem what's the rate how is it spreading how does it spread where is it what's going on
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exactly the same.you nature what's actually the problem or issue with whatever happens in the performance
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reward okey attrition what sexual problem before you start implementing
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things again a common thing across many fields is people start doing stuff a fourth of understand what the problem is
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next slide please find out what's already known before collecting new
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information and this is something again you saw a thinking coffee nineteen governments across the world the people
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madly started doing things like systematic reviews of medical and epidemiological literature and in fact
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systematic reviews or they come a smaller version rapid evidence assessment it's things that CIPD is now
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investing lots of time and energy is to get the scientific information and pull it together to say what we already know
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about this before getting these stuff also they've mentioned this idea we can't try and use things of course you
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can try these things evidence-based practice is but you first need to find out what's already known I think many of
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us have had experience of people suggesting a new ideal coming up with something they feel is new that if you
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could dig around for example in the scientific evidence you'll find isn't you it's all people be talking about for 40 doesn't make it right or wrong but it
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doesn't make it new and it's quite important to know what we already know and don't know before we launch it's
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affecting more and more danger about zones next slide please yeah this isn't this is a classic and I think it's actually
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almost stopped now at least at least in the UK stop talking about verse science-y because there isn't the
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science there are there's different bodies of knowledge that may agree may may not agree but there isn't single
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unitary unchanging this science and I think if we start talking about the
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science it's as though we've done that we've got the science we could stop thinking about that which is always
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dangerous talking about any sorts of evidence scientist evolving is changing it has a limitations as a weaknesses so
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don't hold up as the science the single thing we can automatically trust because we can't next by please stop talking
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about being guided by or following the sign so it's this idea that we stayed the reason we're doing this is for this
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reason alone well it can't be as I said before multiple sources are very very important
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so even in HR contexts people might say well implementing this because some professor all this is great big metric
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analysis so we know from science that this work that's only one source of
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evidence is great to use it it's an important source but it's only one and it's also quite misleading because we
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need to look at sources as has happened now for example in UK we're slipping into I think a moment where we're not
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talking about being guided by the science we're now talking about thinking about stakeholders the economy there's
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always trade-offs so we have to think about this again in terms of multiple sources next slide please
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be very worthy of over-invested enthusiasts I think in a previous
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version of the article I described these peoples nerds or geeks and it was edited out across them because it's felt this
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would have been insulting and it is potentially I'm not meaning to be supported by two nerds or geeks but actually over-invest enthusiast is a
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good way of thinking about some people for example very into nudge there ain't a nerd should we're into some aspects
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behavioral science that's great that's fine but some people all of us are over-invest ignitor some bodies
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knowledge some techniques stuff we just like doing as practitioners we have to
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be very careful those individuals they enthusiasm and excitement about something actually doesn't get in the
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way of considering other approaches and other ways of thinks about it so it's these dozens great he ever invested in
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being very narrow is not great next slide please don't stop being skeptical and again
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this is real a stab it back to the science idea in I think again the cop in nineteen crisis is watched unfold I
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think there are points at which people quite skeptical and they stop being skeptical then they were skeptic and I think the key point is to continue
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skepticism there's just a sort of baseline I'm not sure I don't get it maybe there isn't I can I get more
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information another don't just automatically believe anything the skepticism is the important thing and as
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very two people said skepticism it's not at all of denial of understanding we
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understand baton or what evidence more the more we can be skeptic about it doesn't mean you don't use it it need to
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keep us a few questions about next slide please don't make comparisons unless
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you're fairly certain they're valid and again in the case of covet this was the on-off relationship various governments
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have had with doing national comparisons so what we've seen some governments do is do national comparisons wearing
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suited or made them look good and avoid national comparisons where it doesn't the problem with comparisons like
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comparing your organization with another organization is you've got to know if that compression is a valid thing to do
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so a number a figure some data stand finding from one context doesn't
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necessarily is not necessarily a useful benchmark for you so I think if persons
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can be useful only if you're pretty sure they're valid comparisons to make next slide please
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if it's getting hold of evidence is difficult now remember that there will be a next time so again as we've seen policymakers and
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this covert context talk about we need better sisters you need better early warning system we need to start
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collecting data next time in the better way that applies exactly to evidence-based practice in HR I've had
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people nature often say to me well you know it is too difficult it takes too much time to get a hold of this stuff so
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you know what we'll just what we've got well that's okay but it's very likely to be next time so maybe
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it's important yes to make a decision now the remembers gonna be next time and say can you set up systems or processes
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or structures then we'll get the kind of information you need at the point which you need it than that I'm a similar
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decision is there so there basically there's sort of ten lessons as well I think for HR practice from how coffee 19
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has been handled and now I think I'm going to throw it over thanks Rob sir really really interesting
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we've got a few questions in but I'm gonna if I was in a room and you're all sitting in the room I would point at
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people and to ask a question and pick on people but unfortunately I can't do that from my living room so all I can do is
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ask you please do to get involved I'm going to come to the questions that people have asked I just want to ask one of my own first so David you alluded to
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the fact that stuff we hope that the profession is moved on in terms of being evidence-based I just wanted to ask both
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of you so when I was Time magazine I wrote a big piece right and it I think I wrote it in 2014 or 2015 about the need
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for the profession to become more evidence-based and that is you know like five or six years ago now so Rob are you
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optimistic or frustrated about the progression that we're seeing among the
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people profession both into interest but also action yeah I mean I'm both
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optimistic and frustrated so I think if you said think about ten years ago have
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things changed for sure absolutely so you can actually identify things so yeah this thing's sorry dear doing this kind
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of articles you wrote there's definitely more awareness now evidence-based practice how accurate less awareness is
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I don't know but there's certainly more aware awareness of it there's more universities now so globally we try to
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become a service as 17 universities around the world trying to teach evidence-based practice to students now
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which again at five years ago there's probably only four or five as some of those Jesus ray charges so it's changing
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it is changing a little bit I think the frustrating the pessimistic a bit I think is and again it's hard to tell but
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when I go to HR conferences and when I look at the kind of stuff that's returned for and there's tools and
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techniques and practices that sold to HR practitioners I always ask the question how are people buying this and if
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they're buying it I'm quite worried because I can't see I can't see much progress if this stuff is still
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appealing if it's still the case you can market and sell stuff within this content say this is the solution to this
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it's analytics it's neuroscience whatever it happens to be it's employee experience great if that's the way stuff
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is being bought it concerns be there maybe pressed this some criticality there but it cooked bit more
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there could be more of it as if there's more questioning of those products and services and how they're addressing real
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organizational problems so yeah there's definitely things have changed but it's slower than David about you yeah I think
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those contributing to that article soon so we're all equally feeling is old and I I am and I am positive I think you
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know having it embedded in our profession map and the way that we you know all of our students will be taught
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I think that's a really important step for the profession I think there will always be and as Rob says people selling
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or advocating cheap enormous re cheap
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actually they're quite shallow solutions to quite complex problems and I think
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it's an opportunity for evidence-based HR I think it's an opportunity for organizational development but I think
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now is a really good time for every age health practitioner to to start thinking
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and reflecting on how many initiatives we've tried in the past that haven't shifted the dials on things in the way
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that we might have liked and therefore what we need to do and as I say it joins
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a thoughtful fashion to start shifting the dial on some really complex and challenging issues and so I am hopeful
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because I'm hearing more acknowledgement from people now you know just having a piece of training here isn't going to
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fix it you know just changing this one element if the organisation won't fix it either so it's about that joined up
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thinking it's about that humility I've had times to understand that and stuff
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we've done the past isn't going to get us there but also maybe humility to say look actually there's a whole raft of
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people working on my stuff how do we as a community come together and understand what's working different environments and how are we open to you know seeing
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research or challenges that say I think you know what you're doing there it's probably not good there's much values
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you would like so I am I am hopeful but I'll go back to the survey that I cited
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any we've still got the distance to travel but I think the momentum is
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positive and good questions coming in now I'm gonna ask once the pandemic and the fact that its new
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for all of us where do you get evidence from if you're dealing with a totally new situation yeah well first thing is
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it's not totally new of course have been many pandemics historically and if I weren't interested things early on is
30:55
that people were looking a lot of the history of other packing parameter to say what if anything can we learn about them I think there is sometimes a
31:01
tendency I don't know maybe it's a human thing to think of things as being new
31:07
and different and completely different organizations classically will see that completely unique and like any other
31:13
organization in the world or I'm completely different to every other person well yeah up to a point but
31:18
actually there are some commonalities I certainly the case of pandemics there's there's a whole history around how they're being handled for for the source
31:25
of cause being you know many other coronaviruses now this one behaves differently but again doesn't mean you can't look at other coronavirus to say
31:32
how is it similar or different and in terms of manage how you actually manage these things and the things that
31:37
might have impacts yeah you can look back historically stuff and also get collect data very quick and as I
31:42
mentioned because the face coverings it's a very interesting systematic reviews that come out about face
31:47
coverings which have now sort of been adopted I think almost clone bleak but initiative we've never had this we
31:55
haven't got any dates from getting information but then of course you dig around and you find the best available information in this case it turns out it
32:02
has got some quite useful things to say so when people feel something is completely new completely novel
32:08
completely different it's gonna be different but maybe not different enough to mean you can't use some existing
32:13
information you've already got I think in a build on that as well and say it depends broad question you're solving
32:19
for so if you think how are we solving with dealing with a pandemic that's a
32:24
really broad general question if you're challenging an organization is right
32:30
okay we're having to me for more people to remote working and we have done prior what can we learn from organizations
32:35
that have done that historically and what does you know what literature or reports can be pulled quite quickly and to you an insight into best practice in
32:42
that area or stuff we might want to try that's a lot easier to solve in terms to a problem you know if it's how debate
32:50
teams by sharing for me there's there's lots on that if it's you know how do you preserve knowledge in an
32:55
organization there's lots in that if it's you know how do people cope with going through sudden change there's lots on that as well so I think
33:01
if you can break down the component parts of what are the problems we actually have here that you might want to try to address becomes a lot simpler
33:09
for you to get right okay and to the point around pace because I think there's a point in the chat about make
33:15
sure wants to be agile and evidence-based are they in conflict know that the quickest way to get to a
33:22
sensible solution to something that you want to try is to go what people don't already in this face what can we
33:27
understand their what have we done in the past and what do I know as a practitioner and the other people I can pull on about the
33:33
stuff we might want to try here so I think they actually they gel together and whether you want to use the word
33:39
agile or whether you want to use a different word because that has different connotations I think it's it's
33:45
really important that actually you chunk down the blooms as effectively as you can and go but what we don't look
33:51
similar in this space and this blog says it won't always lift and drop perfectly and you probably shouldn't expect it to
33:57
you but there's enough of what we're dealing with here that speaks to effective change management how people
34:03
respond in a crisis and how people cope with having to you know what was
34:09
probably becoming zoom fatigue but I think you a lot about how people interact in the screens and systems
34:14
beforehand so so chunk it down or as my economics teacher you tell me how do you
34:20
eat an elephant piece by piece and I think that's a sensible way of approaching can I ask you to build on
34:26
the kind of perceived conflict between being pasty or agile and being evidence-based I mean you've mentioned
34:31
it quite a lot yeah yeah it's it's a sort of it's a constant frustration and
34:39
I think everything I've written and by to talk about obviously hasn't convinced lots of people the agree David not in
34:47
competition at all and I think the things like innovation so sometimes people say we can't innovate well innovation less you mean it's
34:52
random stuff you try and it happens to work or not work then innovation is usually evidence-based you have to base
34:59
it on knowledge and understanding of the situation of contents what's going on and so forth and similar with speed so
35:04
things that look is like a quick fix yeah quick fix is fast but most quick fix is by definition
35:10
don't work so it depends what you're trying to do are we trying to do stuff fast that doesn't work are you trying to
35:17
maybe do things a little less fast that are more likely to and the whole point about this is about likelihoods so David
35:24
mentioned the idea there just certain bits of knowledge won't drop perfectly into your space that's true absolutely
35:29
and it's not about thinking this is about having an answer and I think where people feel they've got to find the
35:35
answer to something they tend to move very fast and just do stuff for an ethically if you think now it's about
35:41
making a better informed decision that's more likely to get the outcomes we want then I think it make to me that that
35:48
allows you to see slowing down that's not a bad thing but actually a very positive thing yeah there's some really
35:55
smart questions here with their words I'm not quite sure how to pronounce I know what I mean I'm just gonna read one out many
36:02
organizations in the name of checking if their employees are performing well are
36:07
effectively spying on people extreme activities including maybe even inserting chips under people's skin or
36:14
putting the the software on the computer that can check if you're at your desk or not such constant observation creates a
36:20
notion of a kind of cop tear I know what it is I just think I can't pronounce it thus affecting employees well-being can
36:26
such practices be said to be part of evidence-based management and how can space management ensure that employee
36:33
well-being is not panopticon stuff
36:51
let's see lots and lots of data about all kinds of aspects of behavior is I think is nothing to evidence-based
36:57
practice that's just - dude I do just need to get more data and often draws on
37:04
fields so-called you know big data fields or actually there's Sun sensor just getting more and more information
37:10
because you can do incredible things with it in most HR context there isn't big data but you can get most most information
37:16
the question is is that useful now there's the moral thing which was put to one side about spying on people
37:22
but in terms of the question that was asked in terms of evidence-based practice I think getting more and more information is not is absolutely not
37:30
evidence-based practice because information knowledge data itself doesn't tell you anything you have to
37:36
start with the clear question and getting information it's going to be useful I think most HR people particulars ations are used to the idea
37:42
a big complex management information system that's full of data how much of it is useful reliable trustworthy how
37:50
much it helps you make better decisions maybe not much so collecting lots of data B people is not in itself anything
37:58
to use evidence-based practice believe it yeah I think as HR practitioners you don't have the luxury of putting that
38:04
principles piece to one side so if we went back to the profession map its
38:10
evidence-based its outcomes different but it's also principles laughs yeah and and there are significant ethical
38:17
questions that need to be raised and around unnecessary observation of people or in fact what is essentially a kind of
38:25
turbocharged version in micromanagement and so we know that orgonite Trust is
38:30
important in organisations Trust is and dignity is important for individuals and you're immediately encroaching on that
38:38
space and I always talk about Jurassic Park and there's a lovely line in that where they go they're too busy thinking
38:44
about where they could do it to think about what they should do it and I think just because technology enables us to
38:49
monitor people to the end really within organizations that isn't a mandate to do
38:55
that and and that actually requires heavy reflection and to Rob's point
39:00
earlier just because another organization is doing it doesn't justify you doing it you're not necessarily
39:05
missing out on anything because actually what you may find and quite likely to
39:11
find is there anything that would cause that group disquiet just contentment with the people you work with it would
39:20
necessarily mean that in fact is going to impact productivity poorly but even
39:25
if it were to enhance burroughs ability doesn't mean you should do it because there are lots of things that might
39:30
enhance one of the worst things I ever saw in my career was receiving genuinely a postcard from a provider with a picture
39:37
of the pyramids on the front saying you know how the parents were built discretion me effort worms I do to get
39:46
people to do work but there are lines that you shouldn't cross to a neighbor and so we've written quite a few
39:52
articles on it doesn't mean I think that's very much the role of the HR
39:58
professional as well is to make challenging challenging voice and a
40:03
question that I know comes up quite a lot only to have discussions about this about the accessibility of academic
40:09
literature and that sometimes it's difficult for petitioners to engage in do you see any improvements on trying to
40:15
reduce the gap between evidence and practice or to do scientific evidence is
40:21
only one of multiple source of evidence Baird that one in particularly is hard to access in several ways well it's
40:26
physically hard to access unless you pick $2 another way it's hard to access is a lot of its incomprehensible so I
40:33
think that is changing and there's more much more open access stuff now and of course in particular CIPD as I mentioned
40:40
earlier started producing rapid evidence assessment and these are structured ways
40:46
of synthesizing scientific evidence around particular questions and presenting in a way that's useful and
40:53
understandable and does it in the contrast in the fair and balanced and explicit way so yes that is starting
40:59
change there aren't enough systematic reviews yet but if you look at other fields such as policymaking medicine there are thousands of systematic
41:05
reviews in HR there aren't so many yet but it's certainly starting to change but without that that does mean as the
41:12
question is implying that's one source of evidence you may ignore just because it's so hard to get all good stuff and I
41:18
think in the end I would so put that blame on academics and universities for
41:25
not making sure that happens there is changing and David in your practitioner
41:30
life is it is that it's also evidence you make a lot of use of and how do you make it make sense to you so I'm happy
41:37
to place the blame on academics I think it's granny six Thanks and there are number of motivators I assume that
41:44
cause that and I think the easiest thing to do first of all Rob and I were both
41:50
support there's an organization called science for work yeah and who do some really good work in this so if you genuinely are facing an organizational
41:57
problem go on the COPD website and see what we've summarized in terms of evidence because we're getting far back
42:02
over the last few years and just giving you an accessible we're at performance management what's happening in that
42:08
space what the things you should be looking at you can to remain pop bias from your hiring systems we've got a
42:14
really good guide on that so if you don't access our research go there but otherwise science work do brilliant one
42:20
two pages on here in the things that are probably true and here is the certainty
42:25
level of certainty that you can get from that evidence but this isn't just a random occurrence so that the data is
42:31
trust work and use those sources to Rob's point around time it takes five
42:37
minutes to Google and read one of those reports so to have a pretty good overview even if it's not in-depth
42:51
you
43:18
effective or not what does it mean The probe's yes yeah solution what yeah so I
43:25
think one of the game I guess lots of people have ever tried evaluation no this to their cost possibly it's very
43:33
hard to evaluate anything unless you know what it's for unless you're clear there was an actual problem opportunities there to begin with so I
43:39
think the key thing for me in evaluation is going back to that something like
43:44
that infographic so you use that first identify if there is a sort of problem opportunity there that you should act on
43:50
once you establish that reasonably well and you made a decision to then intervene and to do something then I
43:57
think you use the information you found there to develop criteria to evaluate it so something I hear a lot I'm sure
44:03
everybody does is people saying evaluate something how shall we evaluate it and one of the
44:10
key questions well what was it trying to do what was it for and often that's very fuzzy and very unclear so in the fence I
44:16
think he's really it's impossible to evaluate something unless you first established a problem opportunity and you also then you know what if what you
44:23
were actually trying to change so I think it goes right back to the not the decision to do something goes about a
44:28
decision of what do you think the issue was yeah I think there's take employment
44:34
of the HR and I've seen across from multiple organizations so please go away and challenge you your people director
44:40
if you see missing yours is that what retrospective evaluation which is
44:45
deciding the criteria that you'd like to evaluate when when it happens because what you tend to be then is you look for
44:52
the wins you don't look to Rob's point as to whether it solves the problem you set up stop originally you basically at
44:59
the end of it go well these are the good things that we got from it and that's what we're going to report on and that's never going to get you to the place that
45:04
you could be and you get quite often what I call tangential justification
45:10
which is why you look back and you go well it didn't solve that but it did all these other things and quite often you
45:17
still not any further along the route so the key thing to do is to do it first
45:22
well I can't what you're gonna evaluate first and don't shift from that and the other thing that I found increasingly
45:28
helpful is I've got older and more don't just set success crazy reset failure criteria if it didn't do these
45:34
things then say it failed and don't let anyone shift those as you go through the work or go through your kind of time
45:40
invested be really clear at the start once it low like if it succeeds what's it like if it fails and it doesn't mean
45:47
if it fails you can't learn from him sure that's not what you were setting out to do in the first place and a great
45:55
question here that some related very much to our current kovat situation so some stock of questioned whether as an
46:01
organization we should have kept them informed about the effects of Cobra on pame staff if the government only just
46:08
received you then the data on the impact of Tobit on being people how do HR
46:13
effectively talk about it when there isn't enough evidence nature that's quite a meaty question tackle it yeah I
46:21
think I think if there isn't enough information share there's always some
46:27
information to share and what's enough is yeah it's difficult it's kind of difficult to say and I think in the in
46:33
these situations I think when people don't know stuff I think the most important thing to say we don't know but
46:39
don't just put your hands in there talk about what you're actually trying to do to find out and obviously people with
46:45
know something even if it's not much so they are that's being silent or saying we don't know or waiting is actually
46:52
communicating with people what is it you do know so far what do you do to find out more what is the purpose that information particularly it's so
46:58
important and sensitive in this current context around coffee 19 and bane staff so I think I think it's important just
47:04
to be explicit about what you know and don't know why yeah yeah it's a really
47:11
good question for me so I think him if it's a Bellingen your organization or or
47:17
actually you know you haven't quite got it nailed yet or the information is now then just be really open about that and
47:24
so in fact the way the question was posed you know how do we talk about these things given that we only know this and the limitation of the
47:30
government's you know advice is this currently but that's how you'd address it within the organization and you know
47:37
we don't know yet we are looking at it you know more than us so you can open it
47:42
up you know the same reports that we should be take into account you know we're open to hearing from them so you approach it
47:48
with openness and humility and people will respect that how do you lift your
47:55
managers and leaders out of their silos to consider the wider picture and bring evidence together especially when things
48:02
are needed by this afternoon or the decision has already been made need the information yesterday so I guess it's
48:08
back to that case issue but a little bit more out influencing I think I mean
48:13
assessing I believe is probably the case is that if you focus I think there's the
48:20
classic silo issue there's also people focusing another incentive so everybody
48:25
in every organization sent advice to do things of punish to do things a lot of those things are actually not
48:30
particularly beneficial for the organization so the key thing is to get
48:36
people to focus on what are important business or organizational problems not to choose to get some shared anything of
48:42
that so I think whatever silo you're in so there may be some problems for example issues organization faces -
48:49
actually I've got almost nothing to do they charge that's okay there's some problems an opportunist organizations that might be to do the facilities
48:54
management or to do the counts and see what to do with finance or to do with these different silos and I think one of the key things for any this is to work
49:02
out what it is doing is another than through which organizational problems but starting point has to be can we as a
49:10
group review there's a senior manager actually agree about this problems are and opportunities are and what what is
49:16
the evidence we have all that so I think if people can agree on that then throws of that silo stuff sort of drops away
49:22
because they've tried to have a more common purpose that's my sense anyway yeah I think there's a lot of video at
49:30
play quite often when you're dealing with leadership teams and that sense of urgency and desire to action is kind of
49:36
inbuilt into them and so there's a couple of things you can do one is reflect or help them reflect on the fact
49:43
that maybe you haven't made as much progress in the past so you know maybe we can try a different way of doing it and then make make something that's a
49:50
painfully reasonable ask so say like could I have a week to look at this given how serious it is given how
49:55
important is can I have a week to look in here can we think kind of ever night could I get some people together for half an
50:00
hour tomorrow morning and we'll kick this about in a bit more detail and see what we know that might help us get to a better solution and
50:07
because quite often when you get from that sense do I need it yourself Janine what's coming from that is really I want
50:14
someone to be working on this and I want you to know it's important but actually normally senior leaders are quite reasonable if you do then say look I
50:21
just have 24 hours and I think I've got a better chance of solving it for you or a better chance was making it different
50:28
if I can have that time and so be aware of the egos at play think about whether
50:34
it really is that it's urgent in fact someone's just making an urgent because they feel it hasn't been resolved in thank you and it's
50:41
particularly question for you Robert I'm sure David give some examples as well did you give the practical example that
50:47
includes all four sources evidence-based decision-making and the six steps so a
50:52
natural maybe a live HR or management example that you've seen in the past or
50:58
something creatively make up I would love to be able to would have to
51:04
creatively make it up so there are examples of obviously organizations that use sun sources but maybe not all four
51:10
and the examples organizations to take some steps but not all examples i normally use are unfortunately more
51:16
hypothetical about every six months i put something out on twitter and linkedin saying and put up that
51:22
infographic as a is anybody actually doing this please tell me i'd love to chat to you confidentially whatever whatever and a
51:29
few people always respond and then i respond back as they are you sure you're doing this yep four sources six steps
51:35
yeah a family are you really should yep great let's talk and they never are doing that and so there's something
51:42
about i think people feel they're doing it even if they're they're not quite say it doesn't matter if you're not doing
51:48
you know for sources three is great season or six steps but i think i think that the moment it would be nice to have
51:55
a problem
52:04
you
52:28
was around employee engagement but actually what I found at the time was most of the literature took me away from
52:34
employee engagement right and as you look at the employer satisfaction and motivation which were far less sexy but
52:40
actually more closely aligned to the organization outcomes we trying to solve for yeah around performance and absence
52:46
and we still call it employee engagement internally but we certainly used we have
52:52
an incredible amount of organization information we you know did a lot of consultation and kind of training
52:58
information from different stakeholders or my personal learning too but we did
53:04
go to the academic literature as well in some depth and as well as a range of white reports that we assess the
53:11
credibility off and say I've done it but it makes me feel real think about how
53:16
far away it was we've done summer at the copd recently actually not on HR issues
53:21
but actually an improving membership experience where we have you know in a very methodical way alerts of different
53:28
sources but I'd have to go back away and start talking about engagement when it was first fashionable or even now yeah
53:35
but that's I mean that's a good point if anyone actually listening to this has got an example they'd like to share as
53:41
making any confidence or not I'd love to hear it so actually we did almost do it or we did most of it I'd love to hear I
53:48
mean as a result of this that would be even better for thing yes I just want to
53:57
pick up on the point you made wrong the kind of resources is better than two sources and I think when we talk about a
54:05
lot of this it can feel almost out of reach and then think what's the point if there aren't any examples and it
54:11
obviously cannot be done so um maybe you could just reinforce that anything is better than nothing
54:17
yeah I mean my current favorite analogy which makes almost no sense in the current context is the idea you might be
54:25
flying to I know capital somewhere else on board and you want to have a really really good dinner and you're obsessed
54:30
with you so that's company obsessed with food someone's going to buy me dinner I want to make sure I get a really good
54:36
dinner so I land in this this capital somewhere let's say Paris I don't know where to go they there anything about
54:41
but they're gonna buy and could choose a reading breast I would like now in that case I could just ask a concierge one
54:48
source I could just Google you know one source I could speak to someone who
54:54
knows been to Paris or and all I could look at the Michelin Guide I could look at timeout I could look at multiple
55:00
source I could go to the website etc etc I could look even look on TripAdvisor and I could try and sort to judge the
55:06
caller information and try and come to a decision about where I'm likely to get a better dinner now an example if only
55:19
it says look across multiple sources and similarly if I can't critically appraise a mess on the quality's information
55:25
again I'm not going to use it very much so even if I've only got 10 minutes to
55:30
do it if I look in a sort of sentence or skilled way what the information is and just I've only got 10 minutes I just
55:36
make a decision I'm still more likely to get a better dinner if you can imagine that mature restaurant and still want to
55:43
get a better dinner than if I don't do that so absolutely as you implied and as David said this is not about make
55:50
perfect decisions it's about making a better decision yeah you've got ahead of
55:55
my joke which was what's a restaurant so [Laughter]
56:00
before I close just one some quick thoughts from you on both on benchmarking so how many for a
56:07
comparison within other organizations compared is it is it worth benchmarking and how do you know if it's effective
56:12
and David Jimmy thoughts yeah first of all it depends on your motivation for benchmarking exactly and it's really
56:18
easy to go out with benchmarking 2010 to make you sort of feel better and lots of organizations do that and I
56:25
think was I actually think there's a opportunity for more organizations to
56:30
use either people in their sector of doing similar work for clothes comparators so find an organization
56:37
that's quite close to you and they're probably keen to be the same plane there are limitations to that approach in
56:42
terms of context but actually you can eliminate some of things so case studies dangerous to some extent but funding
56:47
organization that's happy to learn with you is yes industry benchmarks I'm
56:52
really skeptical about just really skeptical about and and it's natural to want to know how you're doing but
56:57
actually setting your own benchmarks internally how do we want us treat your people how do we want them to feel is
57:02
really important if you look at something like absence you know that can vary wildly
57:08
sometimes it is good to get a better understanding as to whether you are doing well or badly based on you know
57:15
based on a whole range of factors so and some yeasts the high skepticism at the
57:20
same time just a quick tears I mean I think benchmarking depends what each one of benchmark so I see some benchmarks
57:26
around practice like DNI practices let's bench one how many are they doing how many are we doing well that's five
57:33
suppose in all those practices are completely useless whatever used what have you achieved by copying other
57:38
people's useless practices so but even where you've got more information that this particular practice seems to have a
57:44
result in another organization the key thing if you want to use that as a comparison is to understand why why did
57:50
that particular thing have this particular effect in that organization if you can understand that to some
57:55
extent they understand how an it applies to your contact so the the example that
58:00
always drives me nuts is Google so people look at Google look at things Google are doing and go oh you know Google did this thing you're not a
58:07
Marvel as well who knows why they're marvelous if they're marvelous it doesn't really matter but you don't know
58:13
whether they have this effect and even if and how it had been effect and if you didn't know that sure maybe they are we
58:20
like Google in this way so I think it's really understanding what the benchmark
58:25
is if it's of value and also understanding really what the cause and the fit was if it's an intervention and
58:31
how that might work in your situation I'm going to place it there because
58:36
about two minutes till half past thank you so much David and Rob I always enjoy talking about this topic with you that
58:42
was a no exception and thank you everybody for watching and thanks for some really really smart intelligent
58:48
working questions which always makes my job a lot easier just a flag again that
58:54
this webinar will be available on demand probably from this afternoon so feel free to watch it again share with your
59:01
colleagues you'll also be able to download the slides and the reminder that you can sign up future webinars on
59:07
the CIPD website and that this Friday we will be tackling furlough for I think
59:12
the fifth time maybe it will be the LA
59:22
you