HRER301 W4L1 - Lecture notes 4 PDF

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HRER301 Lecture 4 – Employee resilience Goals Understand core concepts and implications concerning:  Employee resilience o Coping with challenges and stress & growing from them o Do workplaces create environment were people grow and learn new things?  Psychological capital o Optimism, hope, self-efficacy  Physical activity and workplace wellbeing

Some common problems in practice  Development is often weak and ineffective (implementation issues)  Staff often do not develop to potential – creating serious risks to their career and their organisations o A poor, ineffective manager can be a big factor in this  Training and development’s effectiveness if often quite marginal, sometimes really powerful/strong, but often not done well o Event-based training courses often don’t stick (the transfer to the workplace is light/low), it needs to develop in the individual’s day-to-day at work (feedback, interaction with peers and bosses, learning what works well etc.) o Trying to create an environment of learning through good management, culture & this idea of resilience where we grow and develop in the job

Leadership behaviours that help employees be resilient

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Mt. Stupid – ignorant & confident, difficult to work with, rigid in processes/won’t adapt to change, lower performers who don’t take feedback/deny it/lay the blame elsewhere Valley of despair – learning and developing on the job, far less confident, they’ve developed a framework of what being good looks like but can necessarily do it but they’re judging themselves constantly against that standard, need support Slope of enlightenment

Research finds that top performers underestimate skills, they are aware of how good they can be but are tough on themselves for mistakes, stressed easily/before big projects, reasonable knowledge, some confidence which is sometimes shaky -

Low performers really overestimate their abilities High performers underestimate theirs

These new ideas of employee resilience are helping people move along & get more confident, more competent and more knowledge.

Resilience – for growth and development, not just bouncing back

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Network leveraging ability o Wide, diverse network inside and outside the organisation where you can get professional and social support Learning o Take feedback and reflect on it, keen to learn Adaptability o Give new things a go, willing to see change as an opportunity for growth

Discussion notes: - Learning orientation (learn new things) vs. performance orientation (appearing good, getting high grades but taking short cuts to get it) - It makes sense for managers and organisations to care about fostering these behaviours and meta-competencies in individuals which discourages individuals being from working on their own, defensive about feedback, rude and abrasive work environments, isolate etc.

Employee resilience scale (Naswall et al., 2019)  I effectively collaborate with others to handle challenges at work  I successfully manage a high workload for long hours of time  I resolve crises competently at work  I learn from mistakes and improve the way I do my job  I re-evaluate my performance and continually improve the way I do my work  I effectively respond to feedback, even criticism  I seek assistance at work when I need specific resources  I approach managers when I need their support  I use change at work as an opportunity for growth

What drives ER, what does it cause? (Naswall, 2019; Plimmer et al., 2021) Antecedents  Innovation climate o The organisation is trying new things  Constructive leadership o Think ahead, plan day-to-day tasks, allocate tasks fairly, look after staff  Role clarity o People who have a clear idea of what’s expected of them, they perform better  Public service motivation o Motivated to serve the public & make a difference in society  Pro-social skills o Convincing someone to do something by appealing to their interests rather than just your own (work together, this will help the public etc…)  Proactive personality o Willingness to have a go, initiative, action instead of a victim, more promotions/job satisfaction etc. Consequences  Engagement  Job satisfaction

What does resilience-enabling management look like?

Final scale – how can we measure this form of management?

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Micromanagement Poor people management Poor learning orientation Unsupportive leadership Managers can also be poor at giving negative feedback to help development (and staff are poor at receiving it) o Resilient employees are competent and receiving feedback and learning from it

A typical scenario - NZ Covid surveillance plan and testing strategy 

You have been asked for advice on improving management quality in the public service

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The Roche Simpson review found people both inside and outside the Ministry of health were not listened to, and consequently advice to the government was not always good. o Poor communications both between and within the Ministry of Health, various parts of the public service and different parts of the health sector o A lack of appreciation for operational implications of directives o Need improvement in a range of areas including workforce management o Resistant to collaboration and outside input

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Using the Roche Simpson review as a starting point, what would be your advice to reduce mediocre leadership in the public service? o Define core behaviours around what is expected  Job analysis and job design where you put it into the expectations that people are expected to collaborate (role clarity) and specify behaviours that reflect that  Competency analysis – interview different people to see what good & bad performance looks like around collaboration o Training for managers  This is how you help your staff learn o Coaching  How to handle meetings, debrief o Performance management  These destructive behaviours are being rewarded (people have done well under this environment), there needs to be a change in incentives (rewarding the right behaviours) o Hiring  Description of competency/ good behaviours that we are going to train and develop and have it on recruitment and selection criteria o Office layout/workplace design – people can talk freely o Stress management – stops people from getting defensive

HR concepts applied to a practical problem:

1) 2) 3) 4)

Job analysis & design (defining what good performance is, having competencies) Hiring for it (definition is in recruitment criteria) Training and developing staff for it Feed it into performance management (people who are good at it get promoted)

Training managers  Managers also need support to perform behaviours that help develop staff  For example: o Giving feedback o Dealing with difficult situations o Doing development properly o Coaching and developing managers Need to build resilience, develop psychological capital, develop collaboration and agency. - Meta issue around managerial capability

Psychological capital (Psycap) (Nolzen, 2018)     

Psychological resources self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience “Positive appraisal of circumstances and probability for success based on motivated effort and perseverance” (Luthans et al. 2007a) Broaden and build Recover from setbacks Stake-like (can change & develop in people) & personality factor

Components of Psycap 

Self-efficacy – “confidence to take on and put in the necessary resources and actions to succeed at tasks in challenging environment o (Bandura 1997; Strajkovic and Luthans 1998b)

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Hope – existence of goals and the conviction and energy to pursue those goals and when necessary to redirect the paths to these goals in order to succeed o (Snyder et al. 1991)

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Optimism – “one’s positive attribution about current and future success” o In contrast to self-efficacy and hope, which explain their effect on the pursuit of goals through an internal perspective only, optimism adds an external dimension o (Bandura and Locke 2003; Seligman 1998)

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Resilience – “ability to bounce back to attain success when beset by problems and adversity

o (Coutu 2002; Maten 2001)

What predicts and comes from Psycap? Antecedents  Gender role orientation  Trust  Positive emotions  Transformational, authentic (and TF) leadership, supervisor support  Climate  Abusive supervision Consequences  Job satisfaction  Performance  Innovation  Positive emotions  Organisational citizenship behaviour  Intrinsic motivation  Salary  Academic grades  Importance of competence and growth vs status, independence, comfort, security  Less Stress, involuntary absenteeism, wellbeing, incivility, depressive symptoms, cynicism - Positive leader-follower relationship has the strongest effect on follower’s job performance under conditions when employees lack positive psychological states, while the effect decreases with the employee’s existing level of positive psychological capacities. - The negative relationship between perceived politics at work and job satisfaction tends to be weaker for individuals high in Psycap, indicating a moderating effect of Psycap o Positive contagion effect of managers’ Psycap on followers o Buddying in the workplace

How would you ensure prison officers have the Psycap they need to do their work? - Build social support at end of meetings - Communicate about feelings - Stress reduction - Realistic job preview early on it the training o Warning them of incidents that may occur (e.g., a fight) & telling them how to deal with it (role play around how to manage conflict) - Mentoring

o Assigning people to particular sections to learn how to handle the tension between being friendly to prisoners but maintaining professional distance

Physical activity at work (Chap, 21 of textbook)  Declining in the Western World  Strong links to physical, mental and social wellbeing  Physically active employees are more productive, less absent  Programmes in workplaces – job satisfaction and mood  Recruitment and selection o Having gyms (etc.) will attract the right kind of employees  Reduce presenteeism? (remain despite physical or psychosocial problems) o Presenteeism – people turning up for work even they are not able to do much

Interventions  Meta-analysis – small effect on physical behaviour (Dishman et al., 1998)  Worksite walking with step counters  Behavioural counselling – exercise, smoking cessation  Stair use – office design  Cycle help – showers, hair straighteners!  Anything else? Organisations can do little things to help encourage and facilitate exercise and commuting in health-enhancing ways.

Conclusion  People are not always naturally competent  Employee resilience is increasingly seen as ecological rather than fixed, and concerning network leveraging, learning and adaptation  Psycap includes hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience (defined here as the ability to bounce back) AND is also shaped by the workplace o Socialisation early in the workplace through things like role modelling and realistic job preview seem to be effective  Physical activity is a good thing but hard to ‘impose’ in a workplace...