HUMAN RESOURCES AND CUSTOMER (COLLEAGUE) SERVICE

Human Resources and Customer (Colleague) Service

Glenn G Jones

GGJ Global Consulting Limited

[email protected]

in collaboration with Tony Williams

[email protected]

Weirdly, the Corona Virus has given HR/People functions around the world a double-edged sword.  On one side, the amount of additional work that has been created has no doubt pushed most HR/People functions to breaking point through additional recruiting, dealing with people with the illness and learning new skills like a mass return to work processes/procedures and the redesign of offices etc.  On the other, depending on the company, they have also taken stock of why HR exists, whom it reports into and restructuring potentially leading to the redundancy of colleagues and HR teams. Today in this article, we are going to discuss the positive element insomuch that HR has an excellent opportunity to push on and redesign a lot of the policies, procedures and systems that are in play.  Since the 2008 banking crisis, there has been a constant message coming through from CEOs and Boards for HR and the other functions to minimize the impact online-managers and colleagues; essentially, make colleagues lives easier so that they can get on with their day-to-day work. However, this has been a challenge as more and more organisations face increasing external scrutiny which inevitably has come with a swathe of new or refined HR policies on aspects such as conflicts of interest, employee behaviour, whistleblowing and so on. 

Notwithstanding, if you were to look at your company today and you were to put yourself in the colleagues/line-managers position using a Growth Mindset perspective instead of Fixed (see Carol Dweck’s work), how easy would you say it is to understand your policies, procedures, to use your systems and to get the real-time help they need from the People Function?

There is a design principle that many people will talk about called User Experience (UX) which is essentially designing (not building before knowing) something which a) the end-person wants and b) should be relatively easy/intuitive (lean) to use.  This links then to Customer (Colleague) Experience (CX), which in this case is the interactivity between colleagues/line managers and HR and Employee Engagement (EX) which is the connectivity between colleagues and the overall company.  All parts of this equation have a tangible cost-saving and in return, heighten the overall positive experience of HR and the company.  Furthermore, with the correct metrics in place that are trackable and demonstrable, this can and should be used to tangibly influence boardrooms when discussing HR initiatives and HRDrs objectives with the CEOs and Boards:

UX + CX = EX

We both wonder whether the challenge that understanding this equation sets is one that is prevalent within companies today? 

POLICIES

A great example of a former HR Director turned CEO and Chair is Mary Barra of General Motors (GM).  Barra took their 10-page corporate dress code and replaced it with (Rosen, 2014):

“DRESS APPROPRIATELY!”

This in turn off of the back of the following message empowered GM’s line-managers to make appropriate decisions themselves without having to resort to a 10-page guide!

“I want them to take ownership of the rules and say ‘You’re accountable to lead your team."

Most people will probably quake in their boots when reading the above and will instantly resort to “we have to have their policies in place to POLICE the minutiae amount of people who might do something wrong”; especially given that external scrutiny we mentioned earlier, however, when was the last time that you reviewed all of your policies to see if you are treating your colleagues like adults or demotivating them by having archaic can’t or must do’s?  Of course, there are some policies that you won’t be able to reduce to two words, but it's an excellent opportunity to review and make changes with the user/employee experience at the forefront of your thoughts when doing so. 

PROCESS, PROCEDURES AND SYSTEMS

One of the main areas that we try and ingrain into our teams/clients is building procedures and systems with the colleague/end-user in-mind; together with the appreciation and interactions with functional internal and external parties.  Also, ask yourself whether or not colleagues can pass the "I understand this, and I can use it test" as Glenn does with his 77-year-old mother!  Also, wherever possible, we both ask them to incorporate business users into the discover and design phases which includes creating 'wireframes' which are essentially a view of the process, procedures and technology to demonstrate what the new screens/technology may look and feel like when using it. By promoting this approach, you are taking your colleagues with you on a journey so that when it comes to the launch of the new product, you have a high degree of confidence in how it is going to actually work rather than waiting for positive and negative feedback.  This method also enables you to start the discussion around any changes that may be required to allow a successful roll-out.  Of course, if you are launching an "out of the box" or "vanilla" solutions or systems, then it's a different conversation as you are essentially saying this is what you are going to get!  If this is the case, then at least you can face into the possible issues that you are going to face, which will allow you to plan, stakeholder manager and communicate effectively.

Failure to do the above will result in you building/creating something in isolation and unless you have a crystal ball on your table is probably not going to end well.

Conclusion:

We live in a world whether we are all on 24/7 and policies, processes, procedures, and systems have to be easy, intuitive and designed to enable rather than disable the end-use. We both know that this isn’t easy in the goldfish bowl world of external transparency & scrutiny where every orgnisation is judged on everything it does. However, leaders of HR/People function’s around the world have to get on this bandwagon as this is what CEOs and Boards expect.  HR/People function has a platform off of the back of the Coronavirus to truly add value and once again raise their game.  When everyone's energy levels return to a new standard, please do take the opportunity of gauging for yourself where you and your teams are; give yourself a mark out of 10 (10 being I know that we are setting our colleagues up for success, 5 – we have a plan and work that we know what to do and 1 – we need to understand where we are and plan accordingly) and move forward with a new standard which will no doubt align to your company strategy.

One quote to leave you all with a quote and today's is by Ralf Speth:

“If you think a good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of a bad design!”

Bios

Glenn is a freelance HR consultant and has worked with Tesco, AXA XL, Bank of America, HSBC, Ecolab and Imperial Brands in multi-discipline strategic and operational roles across the world. Before this, he was employed Eversheds LLP, Accenture, Koorb (NZ) and EON as well as numerous other companies and organisations. He is working his way to his DBA, becoming a future CEO and evolving his HR consultancy business to ensure that he continually adds value to his clients, now and in the future. Glenn is passionate about all things HR/People especially coaching, emotional intelligence and company evolution. His book 'Human Resources Changes The World' aims to disrupt the function of HR and change the traditional approach to who becomes a CEO.

Tony is also a freelance HR consultant focused on business and HR transformation, based out of Hong Kong. He spent 30 years in banking, 20 of those in senior HR roles and lists HSBC and Getronics as his two most recent clients where he focused on leading HR and business change. He holds an MBA, is a Fellow of both the CIPD and the CIB and is currently working on completing his ICF coaching credentials. Tony has co-authored 3 books on and like Glenn is passionate about driving change within the HR function on how it's perceived by business colleagues.