HR PASSWORD FOR 2022

By Yunus Mwarab

Being HR is a science of being God, the art of being Satan-No.

It’s not about doing without doing anything or teaching without saying anything as it was stipulated by Lao Tzu. It’s all about practically delivering results by reflecting the organization’s vision, mobilizing human resources to optimal use of other resources.

Working place is like the universe, created to be attained as it was narrated that God created a universe and other stuff than created a man to rule it. Mechanical working place, a place of course and effects. Whether it outstanding or poor performance come after deliberate efforts of planning and execution of all strategic plan that aim to deliver the desired outcomes that are attained through a combination of resources; material, financial, processes and most importantly a HUMAN RESOURCE that is appreciated in a day to day, a resource of other resources. For any success of the business, believe it starts with MENTAL creation where the founder/s comes with Brilliant Idea where a founder comes with a unique idea that will full supply a demand needed in terms of goods or services.

Then comes physical creation where a founder/s integrate the mental creation (brilliant Idea) with technology & operations, nothing is for free and there is no free lunch as our famous Mzumbe lecturer (Dr. Shilingi) used to remind us in strategic HR Management that when the team create or formulate a Profit Formula and finally the marketing of the ideas.

Most of the Human Resource Manager and officers found themselves as UNSUNG HEROS, unappreciated, not part of the business success, cost of the company who do not add value to the company growth but mostly blamed for any staff failures, in disciplinary acts or any poor performance.

As I have told we HRs are in Mechanical Working place where any result has its course for its occurrence. HR Practitioners have a great role to play to make things happen and gain their respect, having their contribution recognized and valued.

Everyone wants to be the best but it’s easier said than done. Few have made it to the top and we have a lot to learn from them, and what if we do not access to learn from them? We have the best mentor and teacher to learn from; our mistakes and bad bosses who do not appreciate what we do and contribute.

Today is a lucky day, and you are lucky because you are reading this article. After all, it’s going to change everything on what you are doing and how you are thinking as an HR Practioner. I call this “HR Password for 2022” because it is going to unlock your HR career as Junior HR or HR who has longed in service for years without tangible achievement.

Be Data Analytics, do not fear numbers, embrace them and be a Master of interpreting numbers/data in making HR decisions and other potential non HR decisions. Let me take you through a few examples of Analytics and decisions I arrived at.

Turnover Ratio

An HR X of Company Y is be attacked/complained that staffs have left the company in a high number of January 2022. How this HR can respond?

Defend your Department by doing the following;

Turnover Ratio = No Of Staff Left / Total HeadCount

*100%

TR = 15 (No of staff left)/305 (Total HeadCount) *100%

TR =4.9%.

For 4.9% as HR you are in a good position in controlling staff turnover and employee retention since many companies aim for 10% but most of them fall into the range of 12% to 20%.

Absence Rate

HR X in company Y needs to measure the Absence rate to measure his/her effectiveness at the working place.

Absence Rate. =No of absent in month/ Average Number of the staff during a month

* No of workdays

AR= 106 (# of absent)/305 (Av of Staff)*26 (Workdays)

AR=9%

For a full-time, employee the average absent rate is 2.9% thus, for the rate of 9% HR seems you are losing control of your team so you can recommend some actions to combat the situation.

?Revenue Per Employee

A manager in company X is complaining and shouting at HR that they have many staffs but no revenue at all, that he is directing the HR Department to reduce the number of staff. As HR how will you respond?

Revenue Per Employee. = Revenue/Total headcount

RPE= 987,527,000 (Revenue Generated)/305 (total No of staff)

RPE= 3,237,793/=

You can develop as many analytics as possible such as cost per hire, % of performance goals, return on investment, yield ratio, etc to accommodate or in making and sound HR decisions, business owners love and are convinced by numbers, get used to numbers and have your seat the high table.

Build your power by understanding numbers and using them in making a decision, data analytics is the most virgin HR area of concentration where you can build yourself and have a competitive advantage.

Manage people and control finance, HRs do not marginalize yourself by sticking to single HR issues, you have been taught to be multidisciplinary being in the organization but you are not mentored or up brought in the organization to manage multidisciplinary tasks apart from human resource issues. Learn how you can add value in the financial aspect of the organization, learn about budget, stocks of the. Organization, data regression and business projection, business score products, interpret financial report, organizational cost reduction and market growth, portfolio analysis.

Go to financial meeting or operation meeting with a new idea about finance, surprise them with great ideas about new trends in the financial world, do little research on one of unit or function’s financial performance and present it by giving solution, be ahead of everyone‘s thought when it comes with giving solutions. Being ahead doesn’t mean being Mr Know it all or Mr Too much know, do not be Too Much know rather than being solution-oriented.

Being social & Organization smart, having the ability to understand, act on, the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of the employees are not enough to make you stand out in the organization. You have been dealing with peoples’ feelings and emotions for a long time but nothing has changed or added, now deal with both; people and organization. Be at advantage by understanding the organization’s needs, thoughts, and physiology, how each department work, perform, and deliver result and what I call “Being Brain behind Business Success”.

Be people’s voice, always keep it in your mind that when employees organize to promote their interests in an organization by application of their group strength, they do so to obtain the determination of their rights as co-workers and management representatives be available and act in time to make sure that you are their voice to the management in the attainment of employees’ rights. Be the voice that can both be heard by employees and the management, the voice to be used to calm the situation during the time of turbulence and storm, the voice that can lift others from their lowest, and not the voice that can be used to drag others down, choose to be the voice of positive vibe of motivating your staff when felt demoralized by the management, co-worker or life experience outside the workplace.

Build visibility of every work you are doing and use the right channel for your work to be seen, possibly it is the experience of every HR to do a great job without being recognized or appreciated by the management, but always blamed for the work perceived as poor. It is clear that staff and management do not get the right information about what HR does and his/her performance. Earlier this morning was talking with my friend on how he perceives HR performance and why he thinks HRs do not perform, and this is how he argues;

For my four 4 years’ experience in this institution (named the company he is working with) have been working with almost 2 to 3 HRs who were terminated, actual all of them were good professionally-delivering what was expected but the problem was their work went on vain or sometimes their credit being taken. Sometimes big bosses/owners get wrong information from the wrong channel of information and act based on the false information they received. How is it possible for the organization to be best in performance without recognition of HR work?, the payment for HR was termination after company’s greatest achievement”.

A company’s performance always depends on the great work of its staff who are all managed and motivated by HR, no company can reach its prime without good management of its people and no excellent staff management can be achieved without a strong HR department, but why after achievement HR seems nothing and worthless? We HRs have no deliberate efforts to be visible for the work we are doing, it is high time now to work up from daydream and come up with strategies of being visible for the work we do for our companies.

Most of all, learn to be calm in times of hardship. We all go through some hard times in our lifetimes, the workplace can be half heaven half hell and everyone has to experience the two. When going through hard times it might be termination expectation, the team does not give you full support as HR, you are being underestimated, or you did a grave mistake that can erode your image and career. Then it’s a time to have a calm mind and do what can be the right thing to ever do for yourself and your career as the famous saying goes “A smooth sea has never made a skilled sailor”, face the storm before faces you, build incredible ability to change your mind when you are wrong, learn from those mistakes or the hardship you are going through and someday you will become the best version of yourself.

?