The illusion of broken systems in organisations

Any social system is the way it is because some people in the system want it that way. [Courtesy]

Imagine you are a consultant in the organisational behaviour space and you have been hired by a corporate to fix what has been described to you as a “broken HR system”. The firm has been struggling with a high staff turnover with many employees barely lasting two years.

An audit of the departing employees shows that they were making lateral moves. Internal retention panels and taskforces had come up with what was believed to be innovative incentives to retain employees but even with these, the needle barely moved.