In this episode of the David Oshin Podcast, Joshua Franklin, a seasoned human advisor, shared his expertise on how to build a workplace culture that drives success.
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David Oshin
Tell me about Joshua Franklin.
Joshua Franklin
I’m a Christian, mostly revolutionary, and I believe in the embodiment and articulation of the African struggle. What drives me is to give people hope that they can be better, even when they don’t have what they think they should have.
David Oshin
What moved you to HR?
Joshua Franklin
I won’t say it was an intuition. The environment that I grew up in was very dynamic and business-oriented. I started out working in operations and got to understand the integrity of running a business, managing vendors, contracts, essentially managing or management. It has always come across to me in a very different way and I really enjoy it.
David Oshin
So what would you say are some of the biggest challenges you faced, building up yourself and growing?
Joshua Franklin
My biggest challenge was myself, not anyone else, not any external situation. Being able to arouse yourself, being able to do what you don’t want to do, discipline, commitment. The joy of all that is seeing how far it has brought me and the dividends it’s paying now. For everyone out there, you have to overcome yourself. You are your biggest obstacle.
David Oshin
What steps did you take in overcoming those challenges?
Joshua Franklin
I was brutally honest with myself. I began to aim, envision who I could be, see myself in a certain way. My perception of myself changed. With that, the results started to come. The desired effect I wanted started to happen.
David Oshin
What made you realize something was not right about your life?
Joshua Franklin
I wasn’t capitalizing on my potential. I was drifting, doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing, and it didn’t add up. That’s why I had to sit myself down and say, “This is what you can do, this is what you can be, you have to go for it.”
David Oshin
You’ve been with HR Leverage for close to two years now or just a year?
Joshua Franklin
A little over a year.
David Oshin
What giant strides have you made with them, and what challenges have you faced?
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Joshua Franklin
One giant stride is increasing my capacity. HR Leverage is a multinational consulting firm managing many employees. My capacity increased in terms of responsibility, training, recruitment, handling expat trades. I manage close to 200-300 employees alongside colleagues.
David Oshin
What challenges have you faced?
Joshua Franklin
I don’t think I have any challenges. My line manager is fantastic, comes alongside and helps me through challenges.
David Oshin
What specific skills do you look for? Is it just talent?
Joshua Franklin
Firstly, I look at the CV. From your CV, I can tell if you pay attention to details, if you’re responsible for your professional advancement. You need to be functional in terms of the role. Most important is your resume. Second are the skills cultivated over time.
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David Oshin
How can someone improve their work culture?
Joshua Franklin
Learn how to break the ice, encourage social relationships within the workspace. We spend a considerable amount of time working. If people can’t relate beyond operational tasks, they won’t stay or perform. Another thing is managing performance through separate channels. Performance management often becomes vindictive rather than objective.
Using bonuses to motivate employees, even during difficult times, helps. Management needs to understand the pressure employees face.
Encourage participation through ideation, open door policies. A lot of organizations say they have open door policies but don’t take ideas on board.
Organizations also need to let everyone know that their work matters. Just because I’m a driver and I drive the company car doesn’t mean I don’t matter to the organization.
David Oshin
How can tech teams cope if HR is giving a deadline to a work without having a proper understanding of when the work should be finished?
Joshua Franklin
I was going to answer your question on HR and tech teams. Two things are key: structure and flexibility. Now, that human resource person in particular does not know how to manage their bosses or their MD and CEOs because working with codes and technology can be very, very time-consuming. And there needs to be an understanding. There needs to be a meeting point where deadlines are realistic enough for the techno people or technology people to meet expectations.
You know, some HRs can be malevolent and they will do it on purpose to undermine the work that that particular employee is doing. And if that’s the case, then I would recommend a disciplinary committee to be held with respect to the human resource practitioner.
What I know about the technology space is that the tech teams are really, really lean. Right? So a tech person will stay at a particular role for the longest, you know, earn bonuses, whatnot, but they won’t advance very much in terms of that career. The tech industry, you need to be very, very specific. It’s a very lean organogram. And human resources is typically not in the equation because all the tech people report to an expert.
But when it comes to them reporting to the human resource, now I can understand why it can be toxic.
But still yet, I would egg on the employees to understand their rights within the labor laws and act on it. People should not be afraid to speak up. They’re working for a living, not slaving for it. It needs to be understood and communicated properly.
David Oshin
How do you measure a company’s culture success?
Joshua Franklin
HR analytics is one answer. This is also where the utility of line managers comes into play, because as is the popular saying, people don’t quit jobs, they quit bad bosses.
If you want something practical, the HR should meet with the line managers periodically to assist in aligning employees with organizational objectives and how the line managers are aligning their employees to that objective.
Surveys can be done. I know I’ve done work-life balance surveys, burnout surveys, compensation and benefits surveys, right? To see whether the general climate and mood of the organization is at a level where people can do their best work.
And then if it’s not, you go back to the drawing board, back to your CEO, sir, ma’am, this is what we found out. If we continue like this, our market share is going to plummet. Hence, I recommend you do X, Y, Z, or you could even say, and I’m making jokes at this point, let’s have yoga at the office for one day.
You know, people need that. Let’s have a PlayStation at the office. We play PlayStation on Friday.
David Oshin
Companies offering stock options may see it as a win-win, because it allows the employee to be fully focused on the success of the company.
Joshua Franklin
But then again, I wouldn’t really recommend stock options because if anything happens to the organization, your life savings and your earnings are in jeopardy. So I wouldn’t recommend as an economic move to invest stocks in a particular company if the option is presented to you.
I think there are more practical things to do. Most companies feel like if you buy their stocks, you’ll be investing in the company. Like you won’t want the company to fail. So it’s more like a win-win for them.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s that. But I’ve read too many papers on companies going down under immediately after they started to offer stock options.
It depends on the industry as well. I mean, banks can do that. But other industries don’t really recommend
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