HR Royal Highness
By: Eyal Zukerman
Tags: Employee Engagement, Royals, Human Resources

A look into Employee Engagement, one of the key HR issues, through the most interesting and fascinating family in the world — The British Royal Family.

The British Royal Family have been fascinating people around the world long before, but even more after, Netfix’s The Crown.

Since I confess to being a Royal fan and cannot get away from my HR mindset, I found myself examining the Royal Family (also known as “The Firm”) from HR perspective. For example, the Royal Family as a family-run company (with a strong and tough CEO), their attitude regarding diversity, characteristics of the Royal Family’s internal and external communications, branding and re-branding, and issues of employee’s motivation and engagement.

Analyzing these issues through the most interesting and fascinating family in the world (My apologies to the Kardashians) is a royal hit.

One great example is Prince Harry and Megan Markel, the Duke and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, departure from the Royal Family.

Prince Harry, 6th in line to the throne, Queen Elizabeth the 2nd’s grandson, the second son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, met Megan Markel, an American actress, in 2016. They got engaged in 2017 and in May 2018 had a grand fairytale wedding.

All across the kingdom (and world) hopes were high that Megan’s joining the Firm will help refresh the stiff Royal brand, excitement of the “new hire” bringing in a fresh point of view, increasing the diversity of the company and spirits’ were uplifted by the duo’s love and energy. The Sussex brand value was sky high lifting the Royal brand as well. And they lived happily ever after!

Wait… No, they did not…

Not long after the wedding public and media scrutiny and criticism of the couple began. Megan’s cheeky breakings of protocol were no longer considered cute and their conduct regarding the birth of their son, Archie, brought it all to a boiling point with both the public and within the Royal family.

The Sussex’s went on a 6 weeks’ vacation to Canada during the 2019 holiday season and upon their return in January announced their departure via Instagram from the Royal family and duties. Their statement came as a surprise to the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family.

To solve this royal blender, the Firm’s “executives”, the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William, held a “Board meeting” out of which came a 1-year agreement (to be revisited on March 2021) allowing Harry and Megan freedom to pursue financial independence. The Queen released a statement to the media saying Harry and Megan will always be part of the family and Harry and Megan were off to the Californian sunset in hopes of building a new life.

Happily ever after is still TBD…

There are so many HR issues in this one tale alone — onboarding, change management, expectations setting, diversity, employer branding, communication, off-boarding — but for now let’s look at Employee Engagement, which is a key factor in any organization’s success and has become more challenging and complex during COVID-19, while many employees are now working remotely.

Employee Engagement is the relationship between an organization and its employees. The more engaged are the employees, the more they are enthusiastic, motivated and devoted to the organization’s success. Engaged employee will have a positive attitude and will identify with the organization and its values. Low Employee Engagement can result in low motivation to achieve and deliver tasks or even damage to the company’s work and reputation. Therefore, high Employee Engagement is key to the organization’s success.

Prince Harry was brought up with a clear sense of his position and duty. The organization’s values were clearly communicated and expresses hands-on by the leadership and the Queen is best at lead by example. Yet Harry has shown his low engagement on more than a one occasion throw-out the years, especially by parting hard like there is no Royal protocol in world (for example, the party in Las Vegas where he was photographed naked…).

This goes to show that just hiring right or even excellent onboarding process and expectations setting, is not enough to create Employee Engagement, as even the love of his family and all the Royal perks and advantages, were not enough for Harry.

Creating as strong Employee Engagement is an ongoing process that must adapt to the times and to the environment changes.

The Royal protocol is stiff and contains rules created hundreds of years ago, which were all made to support the organization’s #1 goal — The Crown and his survival. But everything but these rules have changed over the past hundreds of years, so does the protocol still support the goal or is it damaging to it?

Perhaps, some flexibility or refreshment of certain rules or adaptations to the new millennium could actually strengthen The Crown?

Good communication is one of the most important bases for all good relationships. Same regarding Employee Engagement, which is the relationship between the organization and the employee. The methods and content of the communication must adapted to changes and support the organization’s goals.

This is much enhanced during COVID-19. Pre COVID-19 face-to-face communication was one of the major bases for creating this relationship. Almost at once, this form of communication was not available any more. So how do we adapt?

Copy-pasting the same communications we were used to Zoom or to email, won’t cut it. Connecting via video is simply not the same. How do we retain the organization’s culture without being in the same space? Without those coffee-brakes-conversations?

Back to Harry and the Royals, there were previous signs that there are gaps in this relationship, but it seems as if the only side was expected to adapt and toe in line — Harry. Even though the Royals probably understand they need to align their brand with the times and not doubt they love Harry and wished him to continue to be an integral part of the family, I am not sure how much of their communication and conduct were adapted to support this.

As result, the relationship fell apart. Harry, as the employee, seemed not to have a positive outlook toward the organization, its values and its goals. He seemed to be doing the minimum at his position to a point of not caring if his actions were even damaging to the organization. He clearly exhibited low Employee Engagement.

While the agreement that was constructed with the Sussex’s seem to be a step in the right direction, the Sussex’s move to LA and the remote (if any) communication, seem to drift Harry further from the Royal Family and while might not lower his engagement further, it does not seem to improve it. Perhaps it was too little, too late…

In conclusion, as Employee Engagement is key to the organization’s success and is usually one of the top KPI’s for HR, communications and adaptation should always be in mind. Organizations should pro-actively work toward high Employee Engagement, staying one-step ahead of the game.

Another key point to keep in mind is that an organization is made of individuals. We tend sometimes to look at it as a whole and construct our HR strategy according to that. However, sometime an individual, which is crucial to the organization, does not fit the mold. The setback caused by this individual having low engagement or even departing the organization might be major enough for some flexibility as his contribution to the organization is valuable.