How HR Can Build Better Relationships with Finance

Consider the finance professionals in your office and notice who you can strike up a conversation with easily. Start there and focus on initiating a conversation with the younger or more junior managers. Be sure to go to all the management meetings as well.

These were a few of the suggestions we discussed when examining how to better the HR – finance relationship at the inaugural Canberra HR Meetup I ran on 25 July this year.

HR and finance are two of the most important domains in business. It makes good sense for them to have a solid relationship based on mutual trust and understanding. Cross-functional collaboration is more important than ever - this is one of the reasons behind our exploration of this topic at the meetup.

For this relationship to manifest, there are things HR can do to change the equation.

HR can develop a solid understanding of the financial aspects of the business they support. HR can look to better understand cash flow, learn to read and assess financial documents and develop more than a passing familiarity with financial terminology. Perhaps, consider the goal of determining a number of key indicators of your company’s financial health. Doing this would mean HR is better placed to defend their budgets and align the talent agenda to the business case.

How would they do this? 

Understand the business strategy and goals, outcomes and initiatives. Speak the language of the business, including the language of finance and using business outcomes to measure the success of HR work. As a senior HR leader, organisational advisor and friend of mine, Jenny Ooi used to say, she saw herself as a business person in the HR world, not the other way around.

Chantal said, “Find someone supportive and amenable in finance within your organisation.” This may be a more productive way to start the education process for yourself.

I was privileged to have as my guest speaker, Chantal Atkinson, at this meetup for one compelling reason. The current HR & Finance Manager at Capital Veneering, based in Canberra, has worked in a number of different industries. More importantly, she brings a unique blend of experience in both finance and people management. In her day to day activities, she regularly swaps between the HR and finance hats as she deals with issues or addresses management concerns.

On right: Chantal Atkinson

At the meetup, we examined how HR could build better relationships with finance. Chantal suggested looking for more junior finance managers who can share information and provide insight on questions HR may have.

She made an important point that while there is a wealth of information and resources available online that HR can explore independently in their own time, their greatest challenge would be managing the deluge.

The breadth of information to review may create difficulties in knowing where to start and how to move forward. Chantal said, “Find someone supportive and amenable in finance within your organisation.” This may be a more productive way to start the education process for yourself.

Another suggestion was that HR should go to all management meetings. It’s clear that collaboration between HR and finance can bring significant benefit to the organisation but this can only happen when both sides understand the value each brings to the equation.

People are a critical element in business success. Many problems affecting business can be traced back to culture or people-related metrics. This means that a focus on short-term financial results is simply myopic.

Finance can benefit from HR’s support to better control costs and optimise investments. Similarly, HR can, with finance’s help, drive better talent acquisition and development.

What does this mean for finance? A deeper knowledge of the people issues and how these issues impact the numbers.

What does this mean for HR? It means not just having a better grasp of the numbers but more importantly, learning how to tell the story behind the numbers.

Rob Donkers, a finance manager with more than 20 years of experience in international business, leads finance teams through significant transformation processes. He shared some feedback in an article series I am doing now inviting HR business partners to share what they believe makes for a great HRBP. Rob says. “…financial literacy is important but it is more important to understand the drivers behind the financials, the people, the actions etc…. the financials are an outcome...”

Communication is a big part of this because as Priscilla Vacassin of Prudential reportedly once said, “It is very easy to detect those who couch what they say in terms of business language and priorities as opposed to those who are pre-occupied with just HR language and topics”.

Above: with Chantal Atkinson

Above L - R: Paul Vinay, Jai Ingram and Prue Agar.

Opening the conversation up to the group of HR professionals present, an experienced employment, retention and advancement specialist presented an approach he found effective but which I had not heard before. 

The idea was that when initiating a difficult conversation, you want the other person to remember the emotion underlying the conversation. People forget the issues and scenarios but they do not easily forget how they feel about something and if that can be sustained, you’ve made a deeper impact. As he pointed out correctly, every type of role creates different meaning to different people – this means different ways in which people believe they are affected by issues.

Looking at developments in automation and robotics, we discussed the impact this has on the workforce today.

As an IndustryWeek article on The Future of Work pointed out, “The economics is straightforward: Automation allows people to complete tasks faster with fewer errors at cheaper costs. This increases productivity…” As the discussion ensued, we agreed that automation was not a big thing. It is just a different way of working towards solving a problem.

The rise in automation should be embraced for the opportunities it presents but enough work needs to be done to communicate how the technology will be embraced and how work will change as a result and who will be impacted. Chantal elaborated that as a result of increased automation in her organisation, workers did lose those associated roles but the organisation used the opportunity to redeploy them towards other productive roles.

That is a win-win for both the employee and organisation given that the younger workforce today is not interested so much in a linear track. They are keen to develop a professional stack and organisations that support that and find ways to meet these needs are the truly competitive ones.

All in all, this was a great meetup on many levels and I look forward to running many more such meetups. Contact me should you be interested to join my next HR meetup.

#HR #finance #HRBP #financialliteracy

Mull over the idea that you are capable of significant influence. You can use your talent, leverage your experience and skill-set and put it to good use. You can make the changes you need to see happening within your circles of influence. Feel free to reach out if you're planning to write a book and need a ghostwriter, editor or just help to get started. Connect if you're looking for ways to broaden your network or need help to develop with your LinkedIn profile. You can find out more about me or sign up for my newsletter at rowenamorais.com. Check out my recent short Skillshare class, Build Influence through LinkedIn.

I run Thrive Kuala Lumpur, a meetup for career women, the Kuala Lumpur Human Capital and Talent Professionals meetup and the Canberra HR meetup.