The continuing evolution of the people function
Angela Heyroth
Your partner in building engaging and impactful talent programs, teams, and employee experiences | Adjunct teaching faculty | Content expert and speaker in #Culture, #EmployeeExperience, #EmployeeEngagement
Personnel > Human Resources > People > Employee Experience
I used to think that the constant change around the name of our function, and the related shifting focus of what we did and how we did it, was a sign of weakness. Why couldn’t we just figure ourselves out?, I’d think.
But as I've continued to grow up in my own career and expanded my awareness and thought process, I’ve come to a realization that this constant change is not a sign of weakness at all and it is instead a sign of immense strength.
You see, no matter what we've been called and what work we’ve done at the time, the focus of this function – of our function – in a business has always reflected the current tide of what’s happening in society at large. In other words, we evolve as society and business evolves.?This means we are a function that does not stand still, we are transformational by nature.
Instead, when we don’t transform, when we dig our heels in, stand still and fail to reflect the changing tide, THAT is a sign of weakness.?
Looking through the lens of American history at our function’s development in the US, it's really a beautiful and inspiring thing to realize how we have evolved over time.
The Beginning of the People Function – The Industrial Revolution
Our function’s genesis was during the Industrial Revolution at the changing of the last century, and the resulting “scientific management” approach.?During this period, our predecessors stepped in with a paternalistic focus on keeping workers safe so that they could keep working.?Our key performance indicator (KPI) was related to safety and efficiency.?
Looking at this from our lens today, we may be tempted to call this work almost malevolent, but consider it in context.?Having anyone focus on the workers themselves, even in a paternalistic sense, was a seismic shift to how business had been done and moved the focus from solely about profits to realizing that it was people who made the profits possible.
A summary of this period:
Keeping Pace with the Workforce – The Labor Movement
One of the outcomes of the mis-treatment of workers during the Industrial Revolution was a rising tide of unionization as workers called for standards of conduct from their employers. This correlates to the Depression followed by World War II.
Out of necessity, the people function evolved from a paternalistic focus on safety into a focus on labor relations, as the threat of strikes loomed over American business.?Keeping pace with the growing push to unionize meant that those in this function had to both understand what workers wanted and needed, if they wanted to try to avoid a strike, and learn how to partner and negotiate if they did have a strike.?
And so, this was the start of an employee-centric view, a balance in the profession on advocating for both the employer and employee, and a basic understanding of risk mitigation. Our KPI was centered on if the employer was unionized or not, and if it was, how many strikes happened and how quickly we could negotiate an end to the strike, to the benefit of the employer.
A summary of this period:
Modernizing the Function – The Post War Boom
In the middle of the twentieth century, as the post-war economic boom accelerated people’s desire to work in order to fuel their growing prosperity, a rising tide of social awareness against marginalization and inequity was also occurring, typified by women’s liberation and race protests.?As Baby Boomers entered the workforce, they demanded change from employers.?The response was a slew of labor laws including the Equal Rights Amendment and the Civil Rights Act.?
At the same time, the economy was moving away from industrialized jobs and the organizational psychology movement gained momentum.?And so, many in the people function found their role to identify psychological motivators for employees.?While the function had existed before, this is when we first really became known as a separate profession, then known as the Personnel Department.
With all this as a backdrop, the focus the newly named Personnel Department, was mostly administrative in nature, ensuring compliance to the new labor laws and creating related policies, in order to keep the company out of court, while trying to improve conditions and motivators in the face of rising awareness of gaps and the desire for stability and contentment. Our KPI was in how well we policed adherence to these laws and our company policies.
A summary of this period:
The War for Talent – A Time of Excess and Success
As we entered the 1980’s and 90’s, change accelerated, as did desire and drive for achievement in all facets.?More than ever before, people wanted the trappings of success, or at least wanted the appearance of it.?“Yuppies” emerged and people began to flaunt their accomplishments and their prosperity.?Things simply seemed to be getting better.?
Generation X entered the workforce and brought an almost manic workaholism with them. Around this same time, as technology became more widely available and more personal (music players you could take with you, computers you could have at home), the internet became a staple of society.?Thus, the “dot-com” industry emerged and with it, a focus on attracting people from other companies and training people in the new technical skills and in “your” way of doing things.?This is when we saw companies bringing in ping pong tables and other things to both differentiate and keep people focused for longer work days.?
Because business was expanding rapidly into new global markets, people no longer felt long-term loyalties, and the innovation of the internet made job openings transparent and easily findable, and so “headhunting” became a practice and the recruiting function emerged.?As we neared the turn of the century, this became such a focus that the term “war for talent” was coined. The need for finding people with technical skills reached a fever pitch with the emergence of the internet and dot-coms, along with the coming Y2K scare (in which we thought the grid would crash down and world may come to an end because of the computers we had begun to rely on).?
“Personnel” gave way to “Human Resources” because we were focusing on people as key assets to the company who needed to be recruited, trained, compensated, and retained.?We were a service function, focused on providing functional and back-end help to the other, more front-facing organizations.?In fact, this is when we see HR people referring to the other groups as “the business,” as though somehow we were not part of the business. Our KPI was on the transactions of the lifecycle – turnover and time to fill.
This is when my HR career began.?I remember starting in recruiting just as that was being treated as a separate, specialized function (called “staffing”), when big budgets were being thrown around to acquire IT people.?I recall making huge offers on the spot to coders simply because they could code (with Y2K looming).?I was definitely providing a value-added service in terms of hiring technical people, but was certainly not seen as – or acting as – a strategic part of the business. That was to come next.
A summary of this period:
Partnering for Strategic Impact - The Digital Age
As the new century began, and as we’d made it through Y2K without any major stoppages, a wave of optimism took over.?While briefly broken by 9/11, even that was responded to by a positive can-do spirit that spread to work. Building on the innovations of the prior decade, major technological and societal change swept across life and work.?YouTube, reality programming, and social media reinvented how we defined celebrity as well as how we connected across borders, and the rise of eCommerce changed our purchasing habits.?At work, we were using intranets, HR information systems, and applicant tracking systems. Everything was becoming more digital.?
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A new approach called “work/life balance” entered the nomenclature, spurred both by this enthusiasm for life and by a new generation entering the workforce – the Millennials. The employee engagement movement was also started during this time, and with it a focus on understanding and cultivating leadership behaviors that in turn retained a workforce that could be more loyal and more productive.?
But then came the financial crisis of 2008.?Unemployment was rampant, training budgets were slashed, and recruiters were mostly out of work. “Are we still in a ‘war for talent’?” we asked.?Looking back, I believe the impact to HR was actually positive – in going from the huge budgets of the Y2K era to this bottoming-out, we had to earn our roles, showcase our impact, and step into a more strategic focus.
The people function continued to retain the “Human Resources” name but matured from being a service-provider to being a self-styled “business partner.”?This is when we mostly dropped terms like “HR Generalist,” “Trainer,” and “Staffing Specialist” and saw the emergence of titles like “HR Business Partner,” “Talent Advisor,” “Learning Consultant,” and “Total Rewards Consultant” along with a drive to “speak the language of business” in order to provide more strategic solutions that just happened to have a lens on people.?We began to understand that recruiting and rewarding was not all there was to our work, and that we also needed to purposefully engage and retain in this new world of balance in order to see the highest return on the strategic investment in people.?
Our KPI for the first time was called a “Scorecard,” reflecting a more business-centric approach, and we tracked retention (often more of top talent than of just anyone), time to identify more than time to fill, and for the first time, employee engagement.
The bulk of my HR career fits here.?I remember the transition from the term “staffing” to “talent acquisition” and the realization that it was more than a shift in monikers but a wholly different way to look at the role of recruiters.?Those in TA, as it came to be called, were beginning to be seen as experts in finding and selecting people, not merely entry-level HR-generalists-in-the-making.?
Later, I shifted into the learning function and found that there, too, a transition was occurring.?Many times in the past, “trainers” had been prior front-line employees who were uniquely suited to teaching their technical craft and were relied upon to do so.?Now, the entire practice of learning and development was being seen as a separate and specialized area related to accelerating performance and retention.?We were realizing the need to design learning programs strategically, beyond developing only the technical skills and now inclusive of leadership capabilities, strengths awareness, and other competencies as part of a holistic development approach.?
This is also about the same time when we began measuring engagement and I remember being part of those early efforts to train my peers and managers across the business in understand engagement.?Understanding that HR effectiveness could be seen and felt and measured – and that those measurements could then be shown to impact other business outcomes like performance and productivity and profitability – made this an incredibly transformational time in the profession!
At this same time, I began to work closely with what were starting to be termed “HR business partners.” These HRBPs were highly experienced HR managers whose role was not to answer the unending series of questions about benefits enrollment from employees, but was instead to come alongside of the leaders of the various functions to guide their thinking about their people.?The HRBPs would then to reach out to the likes of me in a specialized role, to create the programs and next steps needed to move forward in the way that they and their “client” had decided was best. This kind of HR was far from where it was when I had first begun my career!
A summary of this period:
Shaping the Purpose – The Pandemic Era
By the late 2010’s, trends emerged that would unexpectantly shape the people profession in the coming years.?First, a focus on choice and experience in consumerism that people have brought with them to the workplace.?Next, technological shifts made remote work easier and more accepted.?Third, a burgeoning awareness that inclusion isn’t enough, that a drive to equity is the real goal, and that there is power in collective responses, showing first in the movements of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.?And fourth, a realization that people’s whole selves were more than a balance of work and of life, but an amalgamation or blending of elements that needed to be acknowledged for overall well-being.
These four macro societal shifts accelerated in 2020 when the Pandemic forced changes that were already beginning in experience-based design, remote work, equity programs, and well-being initiatives.?Most recently, inflation has outpaced most people’s paychecks, shining a spotlight on compensation and total reward philosophies.
And with these changes, HR has transformed once again.?Today, many modern HR departments are re-tooling to be focused on culture and employee experience, well-being and belonging, and total rewards – with some even changing the name of their department to reflect the evolved purpose.?
The result is that the people function has progressed to be focused on creating a series of integrated employee experiences across the end-to-end employee lifecycle, with the express purpose of driving stronger attraction and loyalty, in order to engage.?HR’s role today is to create and sustain an engaging environment in which people want to come to, want to stay in, and want to do their best work for, which furthers the organization in the marketplace.?
Because we now know that engagement drives profits, HR’s role is becoming more widely recognized as a driver of business strategy and purpose rather than an addendum to it.?While this is a welcome evolution, it has also brought with it utter exhaustion and burn-out on the profession, with up to 98% of HR and talent professionals saying they are emotionally exhausted and stressed. (Source: Survey: Almost all HR pros are burned out — and many are thinking of leaving | HR Dive)
Today, HR is more purpose-driven than ever, with the purpose being a talent-centric one of furthering the organization through its people.?The best HR organizations no longer see employees as “our greatest asset,” but instead as THE driver to business success.?Our KPI is not just measurements on a scorecard, but insights that can be gleaned from that to inform business decisions.
My experience during this period was personally life-altering.?First, I began to be in charge of bigger and more transformational work, and I had the opportunity to integrate all that I had experienced into executive leadership roles that ensured the organization was headed where it needed to be going with the right people in the right roles, supported by the right culture for the moment.?
As 2020 dawned, I began to be more drawn to the idea of taking what I did into an agile freelancer practice but still felt I was a few years away and that so was the need of the marketplace.?As the Pandemic began, I realized that if I was to ever want to jump in with both feet, now was the time.?Today, I work as an external consultant, bringing this focus on furthering organizational goals through a talent-centric approach to all companies, architecting solutions for them that accelerate their results and business success.?
Looking back, I feel fortunate to have been on the forefront of so many pivotal moments in the recent history of HR. The defining moments have shaped me and my understanding of our role and of the role of people in companies.
A summary of this period:
Next on the Horizon
HR functions who have kept up with the pace of change are no longer compliance managers (50s, 60s, and 70s), are no longer service providers (80s and 90s), and have even transformed beyond being strategic partners (2000’s); instead we are purpose-driven in our approach, applying a talent-centric framework to what we do, knowing that it is through a focus on attracting, retaining, and engaging people that business results are attained.?This makes us less focused on what HR “does” and more on the impact HR brings.
Next up, I challenge all of us to move from keeping up with the changes to actually shaping them, becoming the architects of the changes.?In other words, instead of scrambling to keep up, I believe we will be the function that uses a talent-centric approach to anticipate emerging trends and see ahead enough accelerate the creation of value through people.
Our profession has evolved over time, so let’s embrace the changes as transformative.?Often, I see HR and talent people dig their heels in and stand on old norms of tradition, clinging to the old way of doing things.?They wonder why they aren’t considered strategic partners ad bemoan that they aren’t trusted allies.??These are the people who say “we can’t do a four day work week” or “we can’t let everyone work from home” or “we can’t develop all, only high-potentials” or “we need a policy for that” or “our salary structure gets updated every two years, we’re good for now.”?Instead, let’s realize that our roots are transformative by nature so instead of defending against change as an existential threat, let’s be proud of that status and learn to accept growth as inherent and central to our function.?
As you consider where the profession has come from and where it’s going, you have a choice ahead of you:?
Do you stay rooted in the past or move boldly ahead into the future?
This isn’t the leading question it sounds like it is, some of it depends on the readiness of your company as well as your own personal desire to either stay in a background role or take on the role of an activator.?
Look through the summary of where our profession has been and is going.?Glance back through the summary bullets of each era. If you took the dates off, which sounds most like your organization??Which sounds most like you??Which would you rather it be??
If your answer of where you’d put yourself today is different from where you desire to be, then I challenge you to find ways to pull yourself ahead into that next box.?Networking with others who you admire, bringing in outside experts to challenge you and augment your strengths, staying up to date on trends and being open to learning new skills – all this will help pull you ahead.
If where you put yourself is different than where you charted your company, then consider honestly if you are the right person for what this company needs right now from its people function – and if you are, then consider either pushing them forward (if they are behind) or pulling yourself ahead (if you are behind).
If you are where you want to be and where your company needs you to be, then congrats, you are leveraging your strengths and performing the role necessary at this moment in time.?But be ready for a change, because it always comes!
Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around, you may miss it.”?To my HR friends I’d modify that to say “Business and life move really fast, if you don’t get out in front of it, you will be behind.”?
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2 年Fascinating walk through history. It’s amazing to see how far HR as a discipline has come. I think the reason we’re seen as changing titles instead of evolving into new roles that require new names is because the HR function is not the same across all organizations. There are still many places where HR is a few decades behind in focus, purpose, and measuring success. It’s also why when looking for roles in HR can be daunting. Title does not always align with function. You have to do a deeper dive into the overall company and HR within to truly understand what work you’ll do in the position.
Great Article
Your partner in building engaging and impactful talent programs, teams, and employee experiences | Adjunct teaching faculty | Content expert and speaker in #Culture, #EmployeeExperience, #EmployeeEngagement
2 年I specifically looked through the lens of US history and how that has shaped HR in the US - curious if my friends in other nations see similar historical themes and shaping to how HR functions in your nations?