Week 6 Post - The Talents of Wisdom and Evidence-Based Human Resources

Pfeffer & Sutton (2006) incorporate a table of the talents of wisdom.  This table describes the personality types that sustain organizational learning.  It was surprising to see the descriptions of the individuals as they sound like they have strong negative connotations with them.  The 'Noisy Complainers' quickly repair problems and then let everyone know the system failed (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).  The 'Noisy Troublemakers' point out others mistakes to help them and the system learn (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).  The 'Mindful Error-Makers' tell others about their mistakes so others can avoid them too (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).  The 'Disruptive Questioners' constantly seek a better way to do things (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).  Looking only at the descriptive names of the people, they sound extremely negative, but looking at the descriptions, it is easy to see how beneficial they are to the development of the organization.  These are important to the organization because when there is an error it needs to be addressed and subsequently fixed.  Individials described as the most talented cause the same mistakes to happen repeatedly by not complaining, silently correcting others' mistakes, don't question flawed practices, and create the impression they never fail (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).  It is easy to see that people who 'create waves' (when done constructively) can be critical to the development and improvement of an organzation.  Do you think that you fall into one of the above categories?  Do you think one of the catergories above is better than any of the others?

Working in healthcare, we are constantly having new evidence-based practices come into practice.  As these new changes need to be implemented, a challenge arises.  This challenge is how to best implement change when people are always so resistant toward it, so this is always something that interests me.  From the reading this week, it discusses building the capability for EBHR (Evidence-Based Human Resources).  The main points are: improving internal capability, better use of external evidence, and addressing wider challenges (Hirsch & Briner, 2011).  Each point has a deeper point that is related to building the people capability and building the data capability (Hirsch & Briner, 2011).  Having target points for building organizational capability for the implementation of any type of evidence-based information is a critical step in actually becoming evidence-based ran organization (Hirsch & Briner, 2011).  EBHR is an approach to decision-making in which the application of logic, systematic search for the best available evidence is applied and evaluated (Hirsch & Briner, 2011).  This helps to eliminate the incorporation of fads and trends in business and HR.  Do you utilize evidence-based practices where you work?  Do you think that including evidence-based practices would make a difference in your work place?  A great resource tool for HR questions, news, legal, jobs and many other things related to HR is the Human Capital Magazine.
A Glassdoor Survey asked employees about education versus specialized training for enhancing job skills.  The majority said that a Bachelor's degree helped them with their career but many feel that beyond that training versus an advanced degree would be more beneficial to career development.  The overarching theme in the article is that experience is more likely to land a larger paycheck or another job more than having greater educational credentials.  74% of the respondants stated that employers value experience more than education and 72% stated that training programs for specific skills are more valuable than additional degrees.  There is evidence behind this article based on the survey results; however there is no evidence to say whether or not the opinions of the respondants is actually true.  Does more experience over education get you a better job?  I would like to know that information to determine whether that actually holds true or not before I hold onto what the responses were from the survey as fact.  This is a survey that is done quarterly and then compared with prior quarter responses, so there is some consistency to it, but again I would be curious as to actual results of job applicants and who was hired more often the one with great education or the one with more experience?  I would imagine if it actually came down to it, the one with more experience will take the cake.
This week I learned a lot of different things.  I further developed my ideas and definitions on diversity from the IU videos on diversity.  I learned that a noisy complainer may not always be a bad thing.  I found out that even HR should have evidence-based information when making decisions because it too needs to work from best practices instead of fads and trends.  Next week we get to present our final project and then we are done with summer classes!

Hirsch, W. & Briner, R. (2011). Evidence-Based HR: From Fads to Facts? Corporate Research Forum. Retrieved from: http://www.cebma.org/wp-content/uploads/CRF-EBHR-report-aug-2011.pdf.

Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. I. (2006). Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense: profiting from evidence-based management. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Montini, L. (2014). Glassdoor Survey: Employees Want More Training Programs, Not Degrees. Inc.com. Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/laura-montini/glassdoor-survey-employees-want-more-training-programs-not-degrees.html