Human Resources - the missing link?

With explosive HBR headlines like “Blow up HR” combined with underwhelming large-scale HR effectiveness surveys (scoring on average a “C” rating over a 3-year period in the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends); one could be forgiven for thinking that HR should be sidelined in businesses pursuit of high performance.

And yes, that sentiment might hold true if HR continues to be perceived and act as a: “champion of admin-trivia, overhead, fun police etc.” In fact, if your HR role is primarily admin based, be careful what the future holds ito AI, self-service etc. The sobering question that needs to be asked by all HR professionals inside organisations is: “Who would buy my services if they didn’t have to?” In this regard we need to think and act like external consultants.

Progressive HR functions however won’t settle for a myopic view of their contribution and have been wrestling with the thorny question of how to add REAL value to their businesses they serve. They have realized that if they don’t, they will not be able to:

1.    Survive the ROI scrutiny that all departments are subjected to in a highly competitive and dynamic environment.

2.    Become a trusted partner and earn their place at the big table (where key decisions are made).

3.    Create a pipeline of highly skilled, engaged practitioners (the analogy of the shoeless cobblers’ children rings true).

So, if this aforementioned logic is so self-evident, why are some HR departments still struggling to provide profound value-add? There are numerous reasons, some include:

1.    Ironically, resistance to change as some HR departments are unwilling to embrace these new challenges and let go of what they have traditionally done.

2.    Overwhelmed by the pressing daily transactional demands at the expense of transformational work.

3.    Skills deficits, little investment in their development allied to archaic methodologies that do not reflect the changing world of work.

So how do we break this doom-loop?

Quite simply by providing a service to the business that is highly valued. And when I say “Valued” I mean: delivering something of importance, worth or usefulness that leads to businesses success.

By really defining VALUE using those five faithful friends: “what, how, when, where and who” we can change our impact on business, and with it how we are perceived.

1)   What is valued?

Is there a clear HR mandate? I was asked to do an ambulance job for an organization, whilst they searched for an HR Director. In my first meeting with the 12-strong HR team, I asked them what HR’s mandate was. It was almost comical, if it hadn’t been so misguided the range of comments I received. From my perspective there are three simple imperatives for most HR teams: a) helping build environments/systems where people can be highly productive and succeed in terms of (ito) business imperatives (a win for the organization), b) whilst ensuring people stay engaged (win for people), c) in a sustainable manner (win for all parties and society). Underpinning this should be a frictionless approach, where HR job preservation does not trump simplicity of solutions and agility in the workplace.

We need to also wrestle with the paradox of delivering in the short-term whilst looking to the future and ensuring the organization is strategically set-up for success.

2)   How does HR add-value?

We need to move to a real business partnering model, where we act like external consultants in terms of practicing the most current and impactful skills, whilst leveraging off the internal consultant’s deep knowledge of the culture and business imperatives of the organization. It requires a blend of real process (facilitating collaboration and insights) and content (expert HR knowledge) skills. Both are important, but most HR folk tend to practice one over the other. For real buy-in and sustainability of people interventions we need to balance these two approaches off against the situations needs. Ironically, by not creating a dependency relationship with line, we gain more trust and respect.

All of this becomes irrelevant though if we don’t conduct ourselves with integrity and a delivery orientation. Just to complicate matters, we have the inherent politics in the workplace.  It is not good enough for HR to stand on the sidelines when there is destructive politics, and angelically proclaim: “I will not be tainted, I just stay out of it.” Instead we need to understand the dynamic, raise it with the parties and try and create a shared understanding of what’s at stake and why people are responding this way, and forge a way forward. Too often it feels like the enemy is inside the organization, when in fact we should be focusing on our competitors, but we become embroiled in toxic internal relationships.

3)   When does HR add-value?

Too often I have heard that HR is waiting for business to tell them what they should focus on. Whilst it is obvious that there must be strategic alignment and pet-hobby horses must be avoided, HR should move from an “order-taker” to “order-maker” orientation. Order-makers are people who make sense of the “mess” and come up with pragmatic solutions that are context relevant. This level of proactivity ups the value of the function and means we take real ownership for our role.

If you doubt this logic, ask yourself this simple question: “Who would you promote? The proactive “can-do” person, or the reactive “show-me” person?”

4) Who can help HR add-value?

We need to become less turf-orientated and build real joint ventures with other internal departments, especially our support service colleagues in Risk, Marketing, IT and Facilities. One of the luckiest coincidences early in my career was being placed next to the Head of Risk, whom had a blood-hound capability for spotting business risks and issues, whilst operating outside the stereotypical policing role. He would often give me the heads-up if he saw strange team dynamics or questionable leadership and I then could go add-value where I was needed most. The companies Employment Value Proposition has huge overlaps with the brand of the company, and it makes sense that those whom are skilled at crafting messages and understanding the clients (aka Marketing department) become your close allies as you position yourself in the war for talent. I remember being involved with a very forward-thinking facilities manager whom grasped the importance of works spaces and its impact on people’s productivity. We ran lots experiments together and were able to ratchet up both the ergonomics, whilst ensuring the look and feel reinforced our organizations distinctive culture. Finally, it is imperative that HR has a strong IT interface, someone whom can leverage off all the functionality of these expensive systems that are purchased but not used.

5) Where add-value?

HR if it wants to be transformational it needs to operate at the individual, team and organizational level like its Organisational Development cousins.

The age-old debate of centralise versus decentralize has its adherents on both sides. A pertinent question to ask is: “How is the organization structured?” If there is a centralization of most resources, then HR centralization makes sense. However, if there is lots of decentralization and variations in environmental demands (e.g. multi-country presence) then decentralization becomes more pragmatic. Ultimately HR should follow the organization structure.

In conclusion:

Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning for HR? How you choose to respond to this question will ultimately determine the outcome. By grappling with the 5 questions listed above AND developing your HRM/HRBP capabilities you create focus, that leads to business relevancy and enhanced credibility, which in turn results in more highly engaged HR people and a pipeline of talent that just might be that missing link. To borrow from my personal trainer: “Weak core, poor output.”

About the author:

Mark set-up the HR-OD capability at a well-known blue-chip organization, and has twenty years internal HR experience, allied to six years external consulting experience. He helps HR sculpt their strategies and runs HRBP/HRM upskilling programmes. If you want to explore options, contact him on [email protected]