People Not Paperclips. Kath Howard

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      I have spent over 20 years working within organisations to understand people and how they interact, and to apply this understanding to support more productive, and ultimately more fulfilling, workplaces. I describe myself on business and professional networks as a Change Agent, HR Leader, Occupational Psychologist, Facilitator, Coach and Organisation Development Consultant. I’m all of these things, but above all else, I’m a human who is interested in other humans. I derive my personal meaning from seeking to create meaning at work for others. I’ve worked in a wide range of industries and organisations and I’ve worn multiple hats as a researcher, HR practitioner, Chartered Psychologist and Consultant. Through this experience, I’ve observed that work just isn’t working for many of us. People are often treated as a resource akin to a box of paperclips; shifting them around, using terms such as ‘capital’ or ‘headcount’, and ‘managing them out’ when they’re no longer deemed to be productive. This book is my response to this work context. I believe there is a huge opportunity to work together to bring greater humanity into the workplace, and that both organisations and people will benefit.

      I founded HeartSparks, an Organisation Development (OD) consultancy, with the purpose of sparking change in how we treat people at work. Quick fixes in recognition schemes or reward structures just aren’t going to cut it any longer. We need to support holistic, sustainable change in our workplace; change that offers the opportunity to create cultures that treat people as individuals with individual needs, motivations and desires. I’m proposing that we can learn so much from the world of behavioural science and from Organisation Development when considering such a lofty aim to bring greater humanity into the workplace. We carry sizeable influence within HR, and a good starting point for creating a person-centred shift in our organisations would be to create this same shift in how we operate as a function. This book is a first step for all HR professionals to start building HR teams that will put the human back into Human Resources. As Gandhi (sort of) said, let’s ‘be the change we want to see in the world’.

      Why am I the right person to write this book? In all honesty, as I write this, I’m knee-deep in imposter syndrome and thinking perhaps I’m not the right person at all. But no one else has written it, and I think it needs to be read. Or rather, it needs to be read, and the concepts within need to explored and talked about and acted on through every organisation that employs people. Rest assured that I have the technical expertise to speak sensibly on this topic, from leading employee engagement, talent development, OD and change leadership within major brands and government departments and spending 20 years studying or learning more as an Occupational Psychologist. And rest assured my sense of humility made me feel slightly nauseous as I just wrote that sentence. But more importantly, this topic is central to who I am, to my values and to how I operate. We’ll explore the concept of ‘self as an instrument’ in OD within the book, but this is me using myself as an instrument or tool to guide our collective practice as HR professionals. I don’t think you can truly lead and create cultural change if you don’t seek to embody your vision through all you say and do. I seek to be compassionate and to bring ‘heart’ to my OD and HR practice, which I think puts me in a strong position to be at the very least your ‘guide’ in creating person-centred cultures, if not perhaps your ‘guru’.

      You can find out more about me and my work here: www.heartsparks.co.uk