Is 'Evidence Based' HR Another Fad?

There’s a chance that evidence-based HR could actually be worse for organisations that non-evidence based HR (or just plain ‘HR’).

People tend to forget that evidence can support the right theory, the wrong theory, both or neither. There is plenty of evidence, for example, that the earth is flat. Don’t believe me? Here’s a ruler – go check for yourself. Critics will object that this is the ‘wrong kind of evidence’ – which is rather my point.

At its worst then, evidence lends an underserved respectability to a really bad idea.

Here’s a very real example from my world – learning. In the 1960’s there was a theory called the ‘Multi-Store Model’ which suggested that we remember things by repeating them – verbally – to ourselves. And there is evidence to support this theory – we are indeed more likely to remember a string of numbers if we repeat it than if we don’t.

But here’s the problem – the theory has next to nothing to do with how we actually remember or learn. I rarely repeat things to myself in an effort to remember them. Even on a good week I might use this approach only a couple of times – when I’m struggling to remember a number for example – and even then I generally forget it soon after. So it doesn’t seem very effective. And it clearly plays very little part in how normal people actually learn, day-to-day.

But if you thought this was an ‘evidence-based approach’ to learning you might be tempted to do something crazy – like, for example have students repeat things over and over again in an effort to learn them – which would be a terrible and damaging approach to learning. Your college prospectus would loudly proclaim ‘we take an evidence-based approach to learning’ and all the students would have a miserable time.

You can well imagine a cynical HR-solutions provider eagerly adopting the ‘fad’ for evidence-based HR in a similar fashion: bolting in all manner of 'evidence-based' claims into their marketing materials.

The problem is that people forget that ‘evidence’ is not the same as ‘truth’.

So what’s the answer? Am I condoning the weird world of HR, rife with all manner of unsubstantiated fads?

Not at all. I would like to see something entirely different: scientific HR. Scientific HR is inquisitive HR. Experimental HR. Scientific HR practice involves spending time observing people, listening to people, coming up with ideas and theories and then putting them to the test – and gathering evidence.

So I do like evidence, after all?

People forget that evidence was properly only part of a hypothetico-deductive process – one in which observations give rise to theories, which in turn lead to testable hypotheses. We are responsible for the whole process – not just the evidence.

So if someone is sharing evidence from their organisational transformation project ask ‘so what’s your theory?’ – because evidence exists to support a theory. Let’s not go from one thoughtless transactional activity to another. Instead, let’s look closely, come up with ideas, put them to the test. Our responsibility is not merely to implement approaches that have some evidential support, but to challenge them – to stay curious, to be inventive, and to be honest about our results.