50 Questions that help CHRO's assess how much **** they are in.

The world of work as we know has ended, this is the lull before the storm - which will be an emotional roller coaster as businesses are reinvented, rightsized, closed , merged , acquired and bought out / aquahired ...and more

Posts and articles that imply HR will be the centre of attention- are a polite way of saying - that HR will be the Janitor for clearing the mess that is about to happen- the Video below is most HR leaders for the next 6 months !

Structured questionnaires like these can be used by CHRO's to assess and define their reality; they also help in getting away from stuck in the headlights inertia and into an action mode . These questions are skewed to startups, small and mid-sized companies . It is also skewed towards the tough conversations- where a structured questionnaire helps in digging more information

Questions to CFO and CEO - How do we Stretch the runway

1. Reality Check - Worst case scenario to the most positive outlook ?
2. Which business lines/ products will be hit the hardest?
3. If we continue with the same cost structure and revenue trend as projected- what time frame do we have - to stay afloat or start taking cost cutting decisions including people?
4. If we remove the “dogs” from our product/service portfolio and the associated costs including people - how much does the timeline/ runway increase to ? ( Dog - reference- BCG Strategy Matrix)
5. Using the same analogy like 3- what are the product / service lines which are star/ question marks that we need to focus on and maybe utilise excess manpower for ?
6. Now that we know we can work from home - if we give up 50% of the facilities ( especially true for IT and KPO’s) - and have staggered time into work- and 50% working from home- how much do we extend the runway ? 
7. If People cost have to be reduced - then 

• How much people costs do you want to reduce ?
• What time frame do I have to reduce those costs?
• If we decide to do Salary Cuts- What are the ideal permutations and how much buffer do they give us 

------- CXO to CXO-2 - if we decrease by x% , y% , Z%

------ Rest of the firm- do we need to make salary decisions now or later ( cue question) and if yes- how much ?

------ Do we make it democratic at senior management by asking people - or give flat a percentage announcement ?

Questions to Business Unit Head and HRBP

1. What is your P&L- 3 months, 6 months and 1 year ?
2. How do you think your product/service line will be impacted by the pandemic?

• Do you want to give up a product/service line ?
• Is there a product/service line you want to focus on next 6 months?
• How do we redeploy resources in your BU so that the best are aligned to the best opportunities ?

3. Who are or will be your major customers in the next 6 months- who are the people in your team aligned to them ? 

4. Who are the people you cannot do without ?

5. What are the roles you cannot do without?

6. What roles can we permanently change to a WFH model?

7. Are their roles we can split and they can be done by 2 people - as part time partners?

8. What are the new roles or replacement hiring you cannot do without?

9. There will be talent available in the market as some companies shed and some close down - what would be the 5 roles I can get now for you which will be an investment in the business?

10. How do we retain the best talent in your business unit ? / Are their folks in your BU who are competition/ poaching targets - how do we retain them ?

11. Do you have a competitor who is in trouble- is their talent we can poach from them ?

12. Do you have a client / service provider in trouble - is their talent we can get from them - after informing them ?

13. If you and your team have capacity & time 

• Apart from the usual - What training / development need should we be addressing for you and your team ?
• Would you like to volunteer as a trainer and mentor ?
• Would you like to represent our firm at campus- guest lectures or hiring ?
• Who in your team would be a great trainer for technical and for soft skills ?
• Who are the best technical trainers in your team- do they have time/ capacity to take organisation wide workshops. 

Questions to Recruitment Team

1. Here are x important roles that we need to hire - we have a golden opportunity to improve quality in this market- how do we access it ?
2. Can we focus on improving diversity - as the market is going to get a lot of options?
3. Since everyone knows someone losing a job- can we focus on referrals aggressively?
4. Since we are hiring below recruitment team capacity - can we do a succession planning exercise till the first level manager level? Do you think it will cause unnecessary panic ?
5. Can we get day x, instead of the usual day Z on campus ?
6. What can we do to improve Campus relations ?
7. If we are reducing our campus hiring - how do we decide where to go and where not to ?
8. What are we using the capacity and time we have for 

• Better selection tools and process ?
• Employer Branding improvement ?
• Recruitment process ?
• Reducing time to hire ?

9. What are the 5 recruitment and selection dashboards we always wanted but never had the time to implement ?

10. What are the improvements we need to do in our application tracking system ?

11. What are the HR tech / solutions we wanted - can we negotiate better prices for them ?

12. Can we negotiate better terms for tech licensing ?/ cloud solutions that we already have?

13. If we have to give up a solution- which one and at what cost to efficiency/ effectiveness

14. If we have to let go of certain people/ skill sets- which organizations are hiring for that skill - can we approach them to do a “campus hiring’ with us ?

15. Are there any consultants which can help us with outplacement ?

HRBP and Training & Development 

1. How do we keep our employees engaged while they WFH ?
2. Can we gamify Cost Cutting suggestions ? 
3. Can we gamify WFH engagement ?
4. If we have excess capacity in tech- can we use it to make and / or implement HR / training solutions a, b & c ?
5. What are the wellness issues we can have and how to mitigate them ? Do we do a counsellor on call ?
6. How do we support associates who work from home but their homes are not as conducive to WFH?
7. What are the tools which help productivity that we can deploy ( p.s. Basecamp is 100$ these days !) ?
8. How do we train team members to manage remote teams ?
9. How do we scale remote training & development initiatives ?
10. If we have excess capacity / time - can we have internal trainers taking sessions and is there an existing or new solution that we can use ?
11. How do we protect employees who cannot work from home? Do we give them Hazard pay?
12. Women associates might have to bear a disproportionate burden of working from home ?- How do we assist them ?
13. How do we measure our engagement - do the questions become different ?
14. How do we institutionalise company culture in a remote setup ?
15. If we have to let go people- how can we do it with grace ?

A word of caution for HR folks - this period is going to be traumatic - self care should be the top of your priorities . Talk to peers, family, therapists , counsellor , me ! Take care

Omar Farooq

Founder & CEO- AceProHR

omar@aceprohr.com