Keystones to the HR Growth

Paolo Vasques, Global Director for Industrial & Retail Relations, Benetton Group

I am not a Z-generation guy – my wide experience and sound knowledge of HR issues make me constantly aware of the complex overlapping consequences business decisions and behaviours have on human nature and on relationships men and women act in their daily life.

Being an HR consultant is, to me, a way to envisage – grasp – manage needs to give solutions satisfying both the individual - the context the individual is part of and the organization.

There is no unique road to walk along: shifts of perspective drive HR reasoning. Biases and certainties can’t exist: they would narrow the openness and integrity of thought and action. Therefore, the key question is: which are the tools to apply not to slip, like a baby on a banana skin?

As far as my daily life suggests, I truly believe in the power of listening, meaning that the skill of changing personal points of view, much more than the already difficult task of understanding what the other person/counterpart wants to elicit.

"Spreading trust culture is an objective everybody working in HR should have, as it cannot weaken the overwhelming effect oxytocin produces, as found in the neuroscience research by Paul Zak and Kenneth Nowack"

Such an approach does relate to my second keystone. It is the inner interest and goal in setting great, trustful communications and ties, allowing individuals first – rather than bosses/employees/colleagues - to feel themselves at ease daring to let their ideas be shared, to say, “I made a mistake”, “I need help”, “thank you”.

Spreading trust culture is an objective everybody working in HR should have, as it cannot weaken the overwhelming effect oxytocin produces, as found in the neuroscience research by Paul Zak and Kenneth Nowack. How could we push towards attraction and retention of Millennials – Generation Z otherwise? If control and transactional, not to say directive, leadership models have shaped the practises feeding baby boomers and generation X contributions, a new management language has been lucky drawn and spoken in these last decades/years. I still possess some doubts concerning how – how much such an idea is applied daily by managers, no matter what position they cover within the organization chart, at least in Italy.

The motivational levers of the four generations, being at present the working force of a company, greatly differ, and so does the way each of them takes work and has a sense of belonging. Notwithstanding that, they all have to interact, find ways to tune, and put competence & knowledge together to succeed in demanding market contexts by playing team working experience, most times nowadays even by being hybrid teams. Common ground is the trust they can give each other to have it back and start sharing views.

My third and last keystone is the thirst for new learning. Diversity and inclusion can be handled by expanding the frame each of us has step by step depicted. New horizons open only on condition the individual knows how to question themself and find the energy to raise one more centimeter in the self-amelioration ladder. The quiet quitting phenomenon requires attentive analysis. It is a matter to be fully studied and understood by embracing a new reading lens.

To sum up: three concepts are the three complementary roads listening – trust – thirst for new learning; all in one curiosity.