CASE STUDY 22 - What Does Good HR Management Look Like
CASE STUDY 22 – What Does Good HR Management Look Like
Before looking at what good HR looks like, we need to review what is going wrong.
The first thing we need to make ourselves aware of is the fact that HR is not one-size-fits-all. For instance, the needs of HR in industries like Finance, Legal or Insurance differs to the needs in Industrial, Manufacturing and Logistics.
There is even a need for subclassifications of HR. Among others, HR specialists. IR specialists. HR Administration and HR Generalists. One example of an HR Specialist is in relation to making the workforce more efficient and effective, which is polar opposite to IR, which is more about cleaning up the mess of mismanagement, safeguarding against legal risk, discipline and compliance. Whereas, HR Generalists need to be able to pivot. The mind sets and disposition of those who are great in their respective rolls is significantly different and they are not interchangeable.
As far as this article is concerned, we need this to be viewed in its proper light and I want to ensure that the intent behind what I am about to say is seen for exactly what it genuinely is.
What follows is NOT the words of an angry man with a grudge on a mission. I cannot emphasize this enough. What this actually is, are observations. Nothing more than observation I have made as part of my investigation and the book is not yet closed. There is still more to learn.
The focus of this particular article is not on the broad scope of HR, but where I fit within it. A facilitations specialist. Which for the most part, makes the need for IR almost irrelevant. The focus of a facilitation specialist is to generate and perpetuate the success of the business by way of promoting an efficient and effective workforce. As such. Each point I raise in this article in relation to HR is only relevant to this specialist field.
Decades ago, I began a personal project to observe HR and try to define why so many HR Managers were so bad at Human Resource Management. (One reason, is what has already been specified above), It is ongoing but a couple of things I have discovered relates to the training, the mechanism of selecting the most appropriate people to promote into the role and a wants appeasement focus style of management.
Quite often, those who excel in HR Admin progress into HR Management. Sounds reasonable, but the reason why people excel in HR Admin is because they dot the is and cross the ts. Their focus is on admin and compliance. Consequently, those promoted that excel in these skill sets become good governors. Poor leaders, but good governors. They also haven’t had to engage with the workforce at this point. So, we simply end up with compliance police instead of people who can engage and facilitate the success of the workforce and the success of the business. As such, they would be ideal in IR via Payroll. The kind of people you want across legal/legislation and compliance. Not suitable for workplace facilitation/HR Management; as opposed to IR Management.
Of course, like all of us, when we start in a role we are looking up for direction. Which is another part of our dilemma. This evolves into habit whereby instruction dominates and listening for feedback is dismissed. Top-down communication is wants based. The needs of the business are communicated bottom-up. One aspect of what is at the core of HR is to match what the company wants to the viability of what the company needs. Not the other way around. HR needs to be attentive to operational needs. Most commonly, HR is modeled downward, but communication needs to be omnidirectional. Moreover, when in meetings HR needs to be a representative of those in their charge. Not as a loyalty thing though. Being a representative of the Human Recourse is what is required for the success of the company. That is the job. Unfortunately, most seek to govern with downward directives instead of enable success through facilitation of success.
I have found that training around emotional intelligence, empathy and people engagement is of very poor quality. The focus is off because it is built on an intellectual and leans very heavily on a clinical appreciation of people; which is often acquired in a vacuum, instead of knowledge acquired from people engagement and these methods; that lack people interaction are taught by an institution bound by compliances; control. Those who excel in this training often struggle to connect with workgroups.
There is also a culture with HR whereby instead of addressing issues within the workplace, HR would see the resource as the issue. To be fair, sometimes a poor attitude towards work or others can be an aspect of the individual’s predisposition, but even so, it is far more common for those who do have a poor attitude, to have a reason behind it. It is our job to figure out what that is and rectify it. There is usually a catalyst that stems from the workplace. Something the worker is responding/reacting to.
As long as we see the workforce as the problem, we will always fail to address the underlying problems that will perpetuate, fester and compound the problem. Moreover, if the problem stems from a policy, practice or hazard, these issues will continue to hobble the business.
It is the blame culture that has given us the phrase; ‘human error’. The practice of looking at problems within the company as though there is someone to blame or an error was caused by ‘human error’, is just lazy and ignorant.
Why Analyses are a great tool for looking at the root causes of issues. However, while they are even used in a blame culture, they are often used incorrectly. As soon as a person is identified, the why stops. We need to be reminded, that it is not a Who Analysis. It’s a Why Analysis. Which means we aren’t supposed to stop asking why until all the whys are exhausted.
As for “Human Error”, I’m taking the phrase off the table.
As so many people misuse the Why Analysis, I have provided a check list to assist. It only has four steps, but don’t think it has to stop there. The whys can keep going and everything in the three lists I have provided can be customised to the needs of our investigations. The check list I have supplied is only a guide.
The check list is just a why analysis. Step one, we identify the behaviour. Step two, we define the factors that lead to the behaviour. Step three, we identify the catalysts that lead to these factors. Step four, we ask why these catalysts exist. Step five, we ask why the why exists. That is how a Why Analysis is supposed to work.
At the bottom of the check list are dates and caretaker personnel fields.
At the top of the document, we identify what has happened. At the bottom we date it.? We also date when the assessment took place and who categorised the behaviour. But we have not finished with this document. We must address the issues and action them. What we do to fix the problem takes place in other documentation, but this document goes along for the ride and once we come up with solutions, we can sign off on the action and once concluded, we can sign it off and close the file.
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Here is an example where we may customise our three lists. In this example, only the factor response has been customised:
In this instance we have an exception to the rule of blame. This individual prefers to work alone. They themselves are the issue, but something we can work with. We need them in a role whereby they are responsible for their own outcomes, can be solitary in their work, but we also need to assert that if someone needs assistance from this solitary worker, they need to be pleasant, cooperative and helpful as a role requirement. We should remodel their written official job description to include attitudal requirements of the role. Of course, required/expected demeanour is something that we can attach to all job descriptions before establishing any role. However, we also need to be aware that while we may have behaviours that seem to be one thing, they could actually be misinterpreted. One being the difference between antagonism and protagonism. They are very different but may seem them same if we are what needs to change.
Someone who is hostile may have a reason behind it. This person may actually be your best chance of amending issues within the company. We may just need to listen. They may be acting protagonisticly for the company, we have just been disregarding them and writing off their behaviour as hostile and antagonistic. This doesn’t mean that antagonism doesn’t exist in the workplace. It simple means that there are often cases where we misread intent and need to engage and ask questions.
Here is an example of what may be behind a hostile behaviour and what we may need to tick in a given set of circumstances:
In the previous two examples we identified the factors behind a behaviour. In the next example we will take a look at how one behaviour; not unlike what could happen in the previous examples, can have alternate outcomes. Which is why it is so important to actually engage and consult instead of presume.
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Seemingly the same behaviour and the same catalyst, but we need to elaborate with the why.
In the first example of Laziness, we misread the situation and the individual needs to be stimulated and have a purposeful role. How can we better utilize this person who actually want to do and be more within the company?
In the second example of lazy behaviour, we actually have read the situation correctly. It is simply their disposition and we need to see if there is a more menial role we can place them in where we can still use their skill sets without impeding operations and not have to replace them. Maybe we don’t have a role for them and have to give them an ultimatum. However, as we can see, these scenarios can be easily misconstrued. So, we need to make sure we engage, ask the right leading questions and be attentive listeners.
Our ability to engage and consult with workgroups is critical to the success of HR Management.
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So, what does good HR look like – (for Specialist Facilitation HR Managers):
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So, there it is. I took it upon myself to review why so many HR Managers were so bad at their job and along the way was able to define what was missing and what good HR Management looks like. Of course, this story is not over and their may be somethings I have overlooked.
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