HR Practices Are Most Effective When Staff Feel Personally Responsible For Their Success

HR practices such as those designed to guide ethical hiring, support DEI and ensure fair pay and promotion, are often not implemented by line managers as intended. New research from the Rotterdam School of Management Erasmus University examines why.

The study, conducted by Dr Bex Hewett alongside PhD candidate Rowan Moelijker, and colleagues Prof. David Sikora of Georgia Southern University, and Dr Jeremy Brees of Northern Arizona University, found that line managers are more likely to implement new HR practices correctly if they feel greater levels of accountability for doing so.

With line managers’ time and focus pulled in many different directions, following formal processes might not always be a priority.

“It might seem simpler to select a candidate by gut feeling, rather than following processes that ensure diversity in candidates and equality in opportunity for all,” says Dr Hewett. “The danger here is that ignoring practices that reduce bias in the decision-making process could result in a poor hiring decision – for candidates and the organisation.”
Given that implementing HR practices does require time and effort, the researchers wanted to understand what motivates line managers to put that effort in. The solution, the research suggests, is to create greater accountability among managers to follow proper procedures.
The researchers surveyed 298 managers over three months to understand how their feelings of competence and autonomy relate to their feelings of accountability, and how that then informs whether they implement practices.

Secondly, they surveyed 164 paired sets of managers and employees to validate the findings of the first survey, and to see how managers implementing HR procedures is related to the experience of employees.

According these studies, an important nuance is what managers feel accountable for.

In both studies the researchers found that managers with high levels of autonomy in their roles felt far more accountable for delivering outcomes at work, such as recruiting a new employee quickly or ensuring high performance, which meant that they didn’t implement proper HR practices. Instead, feeling accountable for following the process – for example by understanding why it’s important and knowing that others care whether or not they do it – encouraged them to implement the practice as intended.

Most importantly, managers who felt competent to engage in their HR-related tasks felt more accountable for processes and were then more likely to implement them. This competence also mitigated against the issue of focusing too much on outcomes.

Training and development are therefore vital. According to Dr Hewett managerial autonomy must be structured and supported in the right way.

“On the one hand, the findings imply that autonomy is a problem. But autonomy is also a powerful and important motivator at work so it should be nurtured wherever possible. When managers had freedom in how they go about their management role while at the same time having enough knowledge and training to do it effectively, they are more consistent in their implementation.”

“Our findings are therefore important because they highlight the importance of training managers about the HR aspects of their role – something which is often neglected in organisations – alongside that autonomy,” said Dr Hewett.

Furthermore, the study showed that employees responded positively to consistent, effective HR implementation, being more likely to go the extra mile to support their managers and the wider company by engaging activities such as supporting colleagues, even when such efforts did not result in personal gain, improving outcomes for everyone.

The research paper, “Answerable for what? The role of accountability focus in line manager HR implementation”, has been published in Human Resource Management.

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For more information, or to speak with the researchers, contact Kate Mowbray at BlueSky Education on Kate@bluesky-pr.com or call +44 710022871