Hi, my name is Yanislav and I am a student in the International Human Resource Management programme at Saxion UAS. Additionally, I am also following an Honours Programme (HP) “Creativity in Finance and Management”. As part of this HP, I did a small System Modeling research, on which I will elaborate in this article.

Research Question

My research question is: 'How can I co-create a positive impact for employees in a company when working as an HR professional?’. I believe that the positive impact on the employees in the company should be something that each HR professional should focus, to ensure the well-being of the employees. Furthermore, this should be a collaborative process with each employee. A reason for that is that an employee would be way more interested in listening to HR if he/she sees that HR is creating a positive impact with him/her (and not for him/her). In such a way only the activities which will benefit the employee will be discussed, which will prevent the employee from losing motivation. The well-being of the employees would result in a positive image of the company and increased productivity, which are two huge benefits for every company.

Research Method

During this research I had conversations with people with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, to make sure that this reach will have a better representation of opinions. After each conversation, I made a Causal Loop model with the outcomes of this conversation. In the end I made one big model with the most relevant outcomes from each conversation. The end model has 7 Loops and 17 variables in total and it could be seen below. 

Discussion

There are 7 Loops in my model, as could be seen above. These are Trust in the HR leadership style, employee engagement, basic company knowledge, HR employee skills, employee empowerment, company profitability and credibility. These represent the most important factors which should be considered when an HR professional is trying to co-create a positive impact for employees. 

Surprisingly, I found out that no matter the different backgrounds of my interviewees, part of the variables they share are the same, but just mentioned at a different stage of the conversation. There is one variable, which was mentioned the most in all my conversations and which plays an important role in each Loop. This variable is ‘trust’.

Recommendations

Based on my research, I have three recommendations for future HR professionals, when trying to co-create a positive impact for employees – knowledge of the company, knowledge of your employees and going out of the office and communicating with the employees. Firstly, if they have a good knowledge of the company, they would be able to come up with a good balance from one side on the things which the employee needs and wants and needs, and on the other side with those who the company can offer to that employee. Secondly, if they know employees then they would be able to have proper conversations with them, resulting in them trusting HR more and seeing that the policies which HR is going to implement are useful for them. Lastly, if these HR professionals, go on the floor and have talks with the employees to see how they feel, and think daily, it would become clear to the HR if they are doing their job good.