You’re in the Endless HR-Must-Do-More-With-Less Spiral. What Now? (Oops, Did I Think That Out Loud #48)

I am sure we have all heard some variation of the “if they only understood what we do and how complicated everything is, then they would appreciate how little we are working with” sentiment. If we can bend reality, I would love for a world where each corporate function understands, appreciates, and empathizes with the pain of other functions.

However, since reality is not ideal, we need to work with what we have and can control— the HR function and everything in it.

With that in mind, here’s my perspective on how we, as HR (or People Analytics) teams, can help ourselves out of the “do more with less” spiral and start focusing on doing less volume work while delivering higher quality work:

1. Ditch Reality for a Moment and Dream

Assuming there are no restrictions in your role and what you can control over, what would you/your team/your department do? What priorities would they be focused on? How would they spend their time?

As with most strategy and planning exercises, once you have a clear idea of your ideal state, you have something to design and work towards. So, figure that out first.

2. Determine the Distance Between Dream and Reality

Get ChatGPT (or an AI program of choice) to create a work activity analysis survey template by sharing details about your team, function, and typical duties. Ideally, you want everyone to participate by answering how they spend their time at work. However, you can also complete the analysis through observations if in a pinch.

This exercise will give you a perspective of what you are currently working on vs. what you should be working on to reach that ideal state (aka the distance between dream and reality).

3. Do the Uncomfortable Thing and Say ‘No’

You and I both know that there are things you or your team are currently working on either out of necessity or interest that don’t serve much of the current or future goals. Cut your losses, have uncomfortable conversations, and eliminate those things ASAP.

These work activities won’t go away on their own (no matter how much you hope and pray they will), and you need to take some ownership in getting rid of them. While you do this, please remember that not everyone has to love or align with the direction you want to proceed; you only need them to understand the benefit to themselves when they proceed down the path with you.

4. Break Some Habits

Sometimes, repetitive activities comfort us and provide a sense of routine amidst chaos. Also, sometimes, repetitive routines are prime candidates for technology-based transformations, operational efficiency exercises, and, pardon me for saying this, cost reductions.

So, I think it’s best for you, as an HR leader, to break the bad habits of routine administrative and operational work proactively before someone else does it on your behalf out of necessity.

Figure out what work is routine, administrative, and repetitive, and do a quick market scan to see if anything out there will complete the activities on your team’s behalf. Trust me, 98% of the time, there is already a pretty well-established technology solution out there that was specifically designed to address your challenges.

5. Assemble What Remains

Because that is the core stuff that your team should be working on. Usually, at this point, most people will tell you to start writing job descriptions for the new role(s).

I wouldn't say I like job descriptions because they are usually outdated after you finish writing and editing them. If you feel the same way, I recommend listing the remaining activities in a chart and separating them by categories like “things your team can do today” and “things that will require upskilling/reskilling.” The categories' names are really the dealer’s choice, but you’re essentially trying to figure out what you/your team need to learn (or relearn) for the ideal future state.

6. Teach People to Fish

Oddly, this is the one thing we sometimes forget to do when going through transformations. People don’t organically know and understand how they will fit in and adapt to the future state. So, some form of teaching/upskilling/reskilling is always required.

This is the part where you need to teach yourself or your team to “fish” in the future state.

Oh, and don’t forget to measure your results and be your own advocate in sharing those results within your organization.

This is very high-level, but I hope it gave you some perspective on how to start thinking about getting yourself out of the perpetual “do more with less” cycle.