Improving HR | WHY PROCESS DESIGN?
THE BIG IDEA
It’s Monday morning, and the HR group lifts its collective head from the email inbox to take stock of what else is on the agenda. Someone mentions that a process needs some design work done on it.
All right, we know that’s not how these things come to light.
It’s much more likely that an angry voicemail, email or text has dropped like a bomb and, depending upon the organizational level of the person making the complaint, everyone’s gone into crisis mode to fix what’s broken.
After a flurry of discussion and sidelong glances, things are left with the current process owner to manage, while everyone else moves on to the next fire burning in the inbox.
Sound familiar? For most people in HR this is a fairly regular experience.
PROCESS DESIGN/REDESIGN IS OFTEN A RESPONSE TO A PAIN POINT
This is really important to understand.?
In everyday life, not the halcyon sales pitch of HR Transformation initiatives, HR processes are shaped and flexed because someone somewhere isn’t happy about how HR is getting something done.
Which misses the most important question we should ask…
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS PROCESS?
We could dive deep into the waters of HR history here, discussing the roots of the function in general personnel management and employee relations, how responses to increasing workplace regulation were enshrined in policy and procedure, compliance based training and paper-based administration. We could talk of how management were, for decades, quite happy to off-lay anything that remotely touched people, teams or organizations to the HR function, who weren’t given voice or chance to suggest otherwise.
We could go there, but we don’t need to, because we all know that history, and it’s wide and deep legacy on our self-image and the opinions of others.
Let’s summarize by saying that the prevalent knee-jerk response in HR is:
I'VE BEEN ASKED, SO I MUST DO
Said differently, it’s “Fire… Ready… Aim…”
If we are to break this decades-old behavioral and organizational norm, we have to stop reacting so much. We have to learn to assert our value.
And value begins with asking:?
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS PROCESS?
Reasonable responses to this question might include:
And, of course, any single process might contribute under a number of these headings.
Take a read of the list again and see if you can see what’s missing…
When we ask “why are we doing this process?” the wrong answer, the unjustified answer, the unreasonable answer is:
"BECAUSE WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT..."
You’ve no idea how easy that was to write. And yet, take any process that HR currently delivers, and ask the question… What you’ll hear, no matter how justified and passionate the response, will be some version of “because we’ve always done it.”
领英推荐
As an aside, go one step further and ask “why are we doing this process like that?” and you’ll immediately hear something along the lines of
"BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT..."
Unfortunately, we’ve bumped into the stubborn status quo of day-to-day HR, where boats remain resolutely un-rocked until the complaints and pain points become too much to bear.
Yet, at the same time, we coach leaders who seek continuous improvement, we learn all we can about six-sigma and AGILE project management, we talk a good game of agility and flexibility.
And our processes grind on. And on.
So, let’s go back to our list of “whys” to see how we can begin to break the deadlock of the status quo.
TRY THIS
Fundamentally, these boil down to 3 core areas of focus:
An initial glance at these may feel reductive; is it really that simple?
Well, let’s flip things on their head and turn these into questions:
Do these questions begin to sound like guiding principles to process design? They really should, and when we choose to start well, we ask these questions first, because they not only inform our destination but also the shape and style of our process.
For example, a process designed for legal compliance may include multiple authorization points, signatures and checkboxes (think of your average tax form), whereas a process that enables managers to manage situations based upon circumstances and completely within their own accountability/discretion, may have a much lighter-touch, with very few check-points or absolute decisions.
In redesign, we might use these questions to unpick a legacy process. For example, benefits enrollment. What may have been a lengthy legal-compliance style hangover from paper-based forms can now be considered from the vantage point of how it supports the colleague value proposition, and the resulting process may feel much more like an online purchasing flow (think virtual concierge).
And, of course, there are situations where a process will be some combination of the three areas.
For example, we may focus upon a team-led working culture that proves attractive to colleagues compared to other companies. A process for localized team reward and recognition would bridge both Capability and Value spheres. In fact, there may be an added flavor to such a process in terms of fairness and just treatment - leading to some level of process based upon risk mitigation and compliance.
This quick example shows how important it is to keep sight of these guiding principles - the “whys” of our process - at all stages of any process design initiative.
USE THIS
Try this exercise for any existing process, one that's under consideration for design/redesign, or even to pressure test one that's already in the design process.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
"If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution" ~Albert Einstein
Another great article Vince and right on point. HR processes should be in place and aligned with business strategy and to protect and enable the company's and its employees' success. As a former CHRO I rarely put a major new initiative or process in place without getting feedback from the senior leadership team and from employee focus groups ahead of time. Quite often we also used cross functional teams led by HR to gather employee input. They are the experts and their insights are invaluable. You also get the added benefit of diverse thinking and these team members are usually thought leaders and evangelizers for making needed improvements. They help shape employee views and gain acceptance for change because driving needed change is never easy.