back to the basics
The rising tide
In my two previous blog posts, I covered how to create impactful goals and how to report progress. I hope your HR team and leadership are starting to see how this year’s key activities align to the organization’s goals. But, this is only the beginning. Although you have taken the first steps, once you start reporting goal progress, you will likely expose new opportunities for HR to better support the business. So, what’s next? How do you continue to build on your momentum, help HR find ways to be strategic, and advance the organization’s purpose?
Before you jump in, I advocate taking a step back to re-examine the basics. Let’s be real: most HR teams want to have a greater impact but are at a loss for how to make it happen. Most HR organizations struggle to execute fundamental processes in their organization and are unable to get beyond tactical and compliance-based work. Many HR professionals have spent their careers working in tactical “personnel” type functions that are administrative in nature and primarily focused on compliance issues. Today’s HR professionals are being asked to transition to a strategic “people” function that focuses on driving business results and providing a superior employee experience. This is a big change and you shouldn’t begin to think about being strategic until you ensure the basics are in place.
1. Build a strong foundation
Would you paint your house the latest fashionable color if the foundation were crumbling? I hope not! And yet, I am amazed at how many HR organizations aim to be strategic when they can’t consistently deliver fundamental services. If your essential HR processes—hiring, benefits administration, compensation, termination, etc.—are not working, there is no way you can be strategic. First, you need to come up with a plan for how you can ensure fundamental HR processes are executed effectively. As part of this, you should identify inefficiencies in the existing processes to help offset any new investments that may be needed.
From there, you can have a conversation with your leadership to develop shared expectations on what it means to be strategic in your organization. If leaders want to hire and on-board new employees in less time, they will need to invest in additional recruiting and on-boarding resources. If they want to improve the time it takes to respond to employee questions, they will need to invest in additional resources in the employee service center. My guess is they will be surprised at the investment levels needed to achieve their expectations. This is where you should be prepared to discuss trade-offs. If the inefficiencies can’t fund the required service levels, have an open discussion about what leaders can expect, working together to a compromise that everyone feels good about. It is important to remind your leaders that HR can’t start thinking about what’s coming around the corner until they learn to deal with what is in front of them.
2. At your service
Recently, a friend of mine called to tell me about the on-boarding process at his new job. Usually, these calls consist of a litany of HR complaints and it makes me sad that the excitement level of a new job recedes during a new employee’s first day. But this call was different; my friend was praising the HR team’s efforts and more excited after orientation. Since these anecdotes are so rare, I asked him what made this experience different and he responded, “it was like the HR team followed employees around with a notepad and took the time to understand what an employee goes through and came up with ways to make life easier.”
How simple is that? Yet, I am continually flabbergasted at the lack of employee-focus in HR departments. Most HR processes are designed to prioritize compliance over employee experience. I repeatedly hear stories about how employee questions don’t get answered quickly or are punted within HR with no one owning and resolving the issue. For HR to be people-centric, it has to focus on what an employee needs to be successful while balancing compliance requirements. HR must develop a customer service attitude towards its employees. This means having a laser focus on the employee experience and removing obstacles that impact employee productivity. It also means regularly measuring employee’s satisfaction with HR and adjusting based on the feedback. Employees need to feel that HR is looking for ways to make employees’ lives easier in order for HR to start being strategic. You can read more about employee-centric design in my blog post “4 principles for designing hr solutions”.
3. Light the way
Could you develop an app without knowing how to write code? Unless you have some amazing innate talent, the answer is likely no. Could you make strategic HR recommendations without having in-depth knowledge of your organization’s business and operations? One of the chief complaints about the HR function is that it does not understand the business or operations in-depth. If this is the case in your organization, work with your leadership to seek out business leaders to mentor senior HR team members. The goals are 1) to help HR understand the business at a deeper level to be better equipped to respond to business needs; and 2) to help business leaders understand the value that HR can bring and how best to use HR to drive business results.
For HR to be strategic, business leaders also need to be creative and think about how best to utilize its services. As I have mentioned in prior posts, people is an organization’s competitive advantage. Establishing these mentoring relationships between the business and HR is a key step in transforming HR. You will need to identify leaders that are willing to shift their thinking and be open to experimenting with new ways to use human resources to drive business results. This will require creative thinking from both the HR and the business. The mentors and mentees need to be open-minded, make time, and have a goal of creating a stronger partnership. The time and resources invested in these relationships will be worth it in the end—I guarantee it.
The bottom line
The reality is that you can’t think about being strategic until you have the basics in place. Take the time to ensure that you are consistently delivering effective HR processes, that your HR team is focused on employee needs and their experience, and that your HR team has the right business knowledge and relationships to drive business results.
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