Human systems engineering

Human systems engineering (HSE) is a field based on systems theory intended as a structured approach to influencing the intangible reality in organizations in a desirable direction. HSE claims to turn complexity into an advantage, to ease innovation processes in organizations and to master problems rooted in negative emotions and a lack of motivation. It is taught in the Master of Advanced Studies program of the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO) as a complementary and postgraduate program for students who have already achieved a bachelor level or an MBA. Recently, after the crisis of the Swiss banking system due to whistle blowing and to the stealing and selling to intelligence services of sensitive data by bank personnel, numerous articles featured "human risks" as a major problem in organisations. According to :de:Lutz von Rosenstiel the "lack of meaning" and conflicts between personal and organisational values systems is becoming increasingly a problem; people have not any more the feeling to "belong" to an organization if every relation is to be seen as a commercial interaction. Chris Argyris sees the same problem from the point of view of learning interactions between the organization and personnel, where the organization expects from its personnel to learn in order to fulfil jobs, but the organization is not prepared to learn from its personnel through double-loop learning. To handle these issues, in HSE, the organization is seen as a living system according to J.G. Millers theory of open and self organizing systems. In HSE, the 3 systemic levels "individual", "group" and "organization" are considered as main entities and targets to influence, whereas the levels "society" and "supranational system" supply the criteria for a positive insertion of the organization in its environment. This approach is intended to help managers to understand the organization as a complex and organic system where functional relations, hierarchy and processes are only the visible and tangible part of the "iceberg".