The Illusion of Alignment – Investigating the Ends and Means of HR Strategies

Human Resources (HR) practitioners and business leaders know that well-designed people practices can improve organizational capabilities, increase engagement and create a work environment where people contribute to their full potential. Research consistently supports the link between high performance HR designs and organizational performance, but just as consistently finds that most organizations struggle to implement, and fail to maintain, these practices. There are well established theories to explain why such practices should work. Where theory is lagging, however, is in understanding why HR designs often fail in implementation.

Research on implementation requires a key shift in focus in order to broaden the inquiry from HR strategy intentions to how those intentions are perceived by employees and how they are communicated by mid- and front-line managers. A study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2010 suggested that strategies must be made meaningful for front-line managers, or they will simply invent their own interpretations. Recent research at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business suggests we can gain insight into implementation success by looking at the degree of consensus between the designers of HR strategies and the implementers – in this case front-line leaders. In particular, it suggests that many organizations suffer from an illusion of alignment – where leaders understand and agree with the strategic intention, but not with the specifics of implementation.

Communications metaphors and frameworks can provide a valuable perspective in understanding consensus in implementing HR practices. HR designs such as talent management initiatives can be viewed as a message to employees regarding the organization and its people management intentions. For example, comprehensive training programs signal an organization’s commitment to developing skills from within. Group incentive programs signal a commitment to collaborative work methods. These signals are aimed at ensuring employees perceive the organization’s intentions and shape their behaviour to match. The problem faced by HR departments is akin to the “last-mile” problem in electronic communications – it is far easier to design a sophisticated server farm than it is to connect far-flung homes and buildings to the main distribution lines, with many of them needing customized connections. Front-line managers, each with different views about people and their own role in people programs, are the last mile for HR messages – if even a fraction of your front-line leaders create ‘noise’ in your signals to employees, the HR message will fail to get through. For high fidelity transmission, both the sender and receiver need to be tuned in to the same frequency, to share a consensus on the meaning of the HR strategy message.

This question of consensus and interpretation on HR strategy messages led to a pilot study of several industrial construction companies in Alberta, most of them large North American construction firms engaged in fabrication work for oilsands projects. The research, jointly funded by Haskayne and by the COAA, looked at whether HR and senior managers shared a consensus with front-line leaders on talent management strategies for apprentices. We expected to find that front-line leaders would not always be supportive of programs designed to attract, retain and train apprentices, since it required a significant amount of their time. Instead, we found that they were unanimous in their support for the strategic goal of apprentice investment. Where consensus broke down, however, was in the means to achieve that goal. More than half of companies interviewed had supervisors and apprentice trainers (journey persons in construction trades) who saw the means to attract, retain and train very differently than their HR counterparts. The results of the pilot study are shown in the Ends & Means Alignment Matrix.

In the Ends & Means Alignment Matrix, the Ends are the goals of the HR strategy, and the Means are the implementation by front-line leaders. As indicated in the diagram, only Company 6 could boast of clear consensus (“highly aligned”) on both the ends and the means of their talent strategies. In this highly aligned organization, leaders at every level were clear on both what they were trying to achieve, and how they were going achieve it. In contrast, Company 3 had low consensus. The front-line leaders and management of this company had conflicting views on the ends and the mean, and there was a highly visible display of cynicism toward the entire process. In the “leader compliance” quadrant, front-line leaders disagree with the intent, but dutifully follow orders to implement it, and interestingly, there were no companies in this quadrant.

The most common quadrant companies fit into was “the illusion of alignment”. In four of the six companies, front-line leaders would say the right things about the ends, but had a very different view of the means. In those situations, the messages delivered to apprentices were mixed. While the company and their leaders told apprentices they were highly valued, the apprentices didn’t always see those messages translated into real support for their learning and development. The illusion occurs because top leaders hear the right things from their front-line leaders - agreement on the direction - but don’t realize that the message is distorted by the time it reaches employees.

Consensus amongst executive teams is seen as critical for effective strategy implementation. When it comes to people practices, we need to bring mid- and front-line leaders into the equation. Effective people strategies require those leaders to be aligned with organizational intentions. Too often, however, the message to leaders is focused on high-level intentions rather than the specific actions they need to take. We see examples of how this mis-alignment goes wrong in cases like Amazon, described in the New York Times in August, 2015, where front-line managers interpreted the company’s focus on relentless performance improvement as an instruction to relentlessly pressure employees, resulting in high levels of stress and burnout. This study highlights that such cases of mis-alignment are not one-offs by negligent companies, but that they occur all around us when we fail to bridge the “last mile” with front-line leaders and ensure there is consensus on both what we are trying to achieve and how we are to achieve it.

Are you interested in learning more about The Illusion of Alignment? Call 403-220-6600 or email execed@haskayne.ucalgary.ca

About the Author: Scott Rankin, PhD
Scott is an experienced and versatile HR leader with over 25 years of senior HR experience in the private, public and education sectors. Scott’s expert skills include executive and employee compensation, HR strategy, HR business partnership, change management and diversity. In his career, Scott has worked to build board and executive confidence in HR solutions, with a track record of linking human resource practice to business strategies. He has supported both public and private sector boards in HR governance issues, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Westmount Charter School.

Scott earned a PhD in Management with a focus on HR strategy at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary in 2015. He holds a Master’s degree in Communications Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Calgary.