A slightly different workday today, because we are moving offices and there is "no office" to work in at the moment. So, instead of just working from home, three of us went to a fourth colleague's house to work instead, which was great! I am not sure how productive we were in terms of what we were meant to be doing for work, but we got a lot of other work done, had a nice lunch together at a local shopping center and ended the day with a sauna and a chat.
A good day.
A good thing about having decent hiring practices is that I get to work with people I actually like as people and don't mind spending personal time with them also. At least most of them. One of the approaches to hiring in the organization in Finland is through referrals. A job opening arises, it is announced internally and then people are able to recommend those they think are suitable. If they get chosen, there is even a decent "referral" reward. There are a lot of benefits to this, as there is a network of trust involved, that goes in several directions.
For instance, I was referred five years ago by the person whose house we visited today, who is someone I used to work with in a previous job. They referred me, which means that they are staking their judgement and some kind of reputation on me with the person who is hiring and will interview me. If I am decent (even if I don't get the job), their reputation is intact, but if I am not suitable at all, their judgement will get questioned. This means that people don't refer candidates who they don't trust.
However, trust also goes the other way, where not only am I being referred for the position, but the position is being referred to me. This means that my friend is also staking their reputation with me. If the job is unsuitable, or if I get it and the company is terrible, again they are going to have their judgement questioned.
But, if get the job, I go into the position "pre-approved" in the sense that a friend of my friend is likely to be a friend too. There is a small network to lean on, and because of the trust exchanged throughout the process and the friend of a friend conditions, onboarding and internal networking is far easier, as there is already some modicum of trust built - trust via proxy.
Is this cronyism?
cronyism
/ˈkrəʊnɪɪz(ə)m/
noun DEROGATORY
the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.
But, to those who aren't in the know, it can seem a lot like cronyism, can't it? It is easy to make the assumption that a position, especially a promotion that leverages these networks later in a career, is down to "being friends" with the right people alone. However, that outside looking in view doesn't consider the qualifications, nor the track record that has built up trust over time - it only sees the end result.
And what is interesting is that often people don't seem to appreciate that building up the internal network, trust and social capital, is not only for getting a promotion, it is for getting shit done. For example, one of the people today is in my team and we work closely at times when things overlap. However, if he or I need some help from each other, we go out of our way to help, because we each have stake in the other in some way and also know that having the network is valuable for us later too. I might be the one helping today, but next week, he will have my back.
Through this kind of interaction, we not only build trust, but get experience seeing each other in action, which means when it comes to promoting internally, he will get my advocacy if I believe the job he is going for is suitable, because my recommendation is still going to carry some level of trust in my judgement. If I just support because I like him with no regard to qualifications, it will damage my reputation too.
It is funny in some way, because a healthy community is on that includes a decent amount of trust that isn't blind. So in a corporate culture, they should be trying to build trusted relationships and where people feel an adequate level of concern and accountability for others in the organization.
But, this is one of the reasons that communities are failing, because there is very little social capital and trust built up directly with other members. Instead, we have created a society of strangers, where we pay people for their expertise to fulfil our needs, with very little social accountability involved. We trust the reviews of strangers we have never and will never meet, because we don't have a wide enough network of trusted people surrounding us.
Fake reviews don't work well between friends.
And I think that this is something that we should consider when we are making decisions based on the opinions of others. Do we trust the information they give, and why do we trust the information they give. Are they qualified, do they have a good track record, have we benefited or been burned by them before?
What have we got to lose?
What have they got to lose?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
