Having been in the Canadian workforce for over 20 years (hard to believe!) if I’ve learned anything it’s that nothing ever stays the same, everything changes and it changes all the time.

One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed lately, particularly in large global organizations, is the new focus to make everyone follow the same process and procedures regardless of their location. While I support this in theory and fully comprehend the value this can add, alliging best practices, one standard policy for everyone, there is a fatal flaw with how these global changes are being driven. No one is asking any questions.

Global Senior leaders are deciding which country’s rule, policy, process they like best and they are telling the other geographies that this is the new best practice and to get on board. Only when these communications are happening with the local leadership are the SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) being engaged. Thankfully, in our organization, we have SME’s that have been around long enough to know the reasons why we sometimes aren’t able to implement these changes. Not because we don’t want to or because we are being difficult, but normally, each country has their own set of laws around employment that at times prevent us from being able to move forward with the alignement. Had the local leadership been asked, before the process change was decided, we wouldn’t now be having t back track the global direction.

Personally, I know I ask a ton of questions everytime a new process if about to be announced. I ask the who, why, when, where, how questions, because from experience, I know that no one else has asked and if I don’t then we could find our selves in a heap of trouble with our ER/LR friends downstream. I’m sure to my colleagues, I come across as defiant and perhaps as a road blocker, but please trust me when I say that is not the intent. I only wish that someone would have asked us before the decision was made rather than having to fix it afterwards.

In this ever changing environment, we need to work together on being proactive rather than reactive and this is just one more example where we think we are doing a great thing, but in reality, we are only having to clean up another mess. More talking and less telling might not be such a bad idea after all…