Some months ago, I helped facilitate a focus group discussion for a government agency to gather inputs on what the line managers expect from the HR Department if it is to play a strategic partner role. In the process, the participants also learned that the partnership can only work if they participate well in HR's activities. One of the managers approached me saying this; "If line managers like me and HR are to work as partners, we better start understanding what the work entails because at this point we hardly do. You see we didn't get any training." It made sense. It was obvious not just in that government agency but in many other organizations.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I facilitated two batches of "Introduction to HR Management for Line Managers Workshop. " We did it for a printing company in Cavite. HR attended too not just to support the line managers but to catch a few tips in HR Management themselves. It was a fulfilling experience for me. I hope the same is true for the participants.
The first part of the day was spent discussing the 4 major roles of HR as strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert and employee champion as presented by David Ulrich in his book "Human Resource Champions."
The participants realized how ineffective HR can get whenever the line managers fail to do their part in the partnership. What is even more worth noting is that when HR fails, it's the line managers who feel the pain.
The discussion paved the way for a more interesting discussions, workshops and brainstorming exercises on how HR and the line can work effectively together in recruiting, training, performance management, career and succession management and maintaining discipline in the workplace among others. The line managers learned some techniques in screening and interviewing
applicants. The HR staff learned that they need a documented Recruitment strategy and methodology and then train line managers on how to use them. The line managers learned that they have an important role to play in training and development and performance management. I also threw in some quick but very useful technique on coaching using the GROW Model as part of Performance Management. The participants tried their hands at crafting a career path for their employees and then clarified their role in creating, implementing and championing company policies. They learned that the integrity and credibility of these policies depend on their ability to model the way in following and seeing to it that everyone is compliant.
Just before the workshop ended, the participants put together a forward agenda to make sure that whatever they learned in the workshop will be applied at work.
With top management support and an HR Department that is keen on playing a more relevant role as a strategic partner to the line, I can't see how things will not become better.
If you wish to explore how we can help you do the same for your organization, please do not hesitate to let us know.
So, you have a limited training budget and you need to prioritize where you will invest it? Take Pareto's advice. Spend it on the 20% whose performance make 80%(or thereabout) of the impact. Invest it in equipping your managers and supervisors who make strategic and tactical decisions everyday. if you do and if you make sure all the necessary preparations and follow through are in place, the benefits will cascade down to the ranks. If you are asking what I mean exactly by what I just said, see my article on strategic training and development planning.
Which training has the most multiplier effect? Here are my suggestions:
Leadership Training - People perform better when they are inspired and influenced by their leaders. They care more about the organization and the others in the team. A good leadership training equips the leader to communicate goals, build teamwork, establish norms for collaboration, demonstrate the right behaviors and motivate people to align themselves with the organization's goals. It should also equip leaders to be flexible in how they deal with their employees. While many people intuitively do most if not all the things I just said, I don't think anyone will not benefit from validating their leadership practices and then fine tune them. I've heard several times how some hr managers defend the idea that their managers don't need this kind of training by saying, they've gone to a similar ones. I can only agree if these leaders they are talking about happen to practice what they learned from past training. If they haven't, I'd say it's time for some refreshers.
Basic Supervisory or Management Course - if your supervisors or managers are at work without understanding the basics of planning, leading, organizing and controlling, they are driving by the seat of their pants. That is not a comforting situation to any passenger. I suggest that you make sure they know and use these basic tools of management.
Managing Employee Performance - If there's any training that I expect to have the most multiplier effect, I believe this would be it. If your managers and supervisors make the habits of clarifying goals, monitoring performance, developing employees' capacity to perform through training and coaching, appraising performance and rewarding good performance, people will learn how to do their jobs better and perform better. Performance Management is such an important managerial skill. I wonder why very few HR Managers champion it. Really, very few.
Coaching and mentoring - Do your managers and supervisors deliberately use coaching and mentoring tactics when working with their team members or are they driving by the seat of their pants again? Some people mistake coaching to just talking to their employees about performance issues. This is why some managers call scolding sessions as coaching sessions and then they take pride of their so called coaching skills. Don't you think it's time they put this idea of coaching and mentoring into perspective and use proven techniques that help people become better at what they do?
Facilitating problem solving and creativity sessions- Building a culture that breeds creativity requires that leader give enough opportunity for people to solve problems and think creatively. In order for them to perform this leaderly task effectively, they should have some tools they can use to facilitate the discussions. Tools like 8D, Kaizen, Six Thinking Hats and mind mapping comes to mind as great tools to harness the team's brain power. As people are allowed to flex their mental muscles, they become more creative and innovative. All these should benefit the company and return your training investment well.
Leaders, whether they go by supervisor, manager, officer or any other title, play a much too important role to just be left alone without being properly equipped. In these trying times when training money is hard to come by, spend whatever amount you have in training your leaders. Want to make sure the multiplier effect happens? call this number (02)8933199. Look for April or Loren or call me at 639189399294 (Ya, I know, shameless self promotion again, yada,yada,yada!)
If you are just looking for arms and legs to work for your company, you don't need to read this blog.
As a recruiter, I've worked with many clients and have come to observe that recruitment in some companies are not given the importance that it deserves. Many acknowledge its importance but the actions negate that acknowledgment.
Recruitment is important for two reasons. First, recruitment is sourcing. It provides the company the needed talents to work in the organization. Without which, an organization may lose the business. Second, recruitment is gate keeping. While you need people in your organization, you need to make sure that the people you are inviting in are the ones you really need. If you fail to do that, the cost of a wrong hire can be greater than the cost of no hire. Let me share my views on these two points.
You prepare for war by creating a plan or a strategy. You change them as you get more information about the situation. That's the first thing I believe we need to do. We need to understand the current situation in sourcing for candidates.
Recruitment as Gate Keeping
What are the facts? There will be more people applying for a job than qualified ones; while a person is qualified, a mismatch between that person and the boss or the team can cause some dissatisfaction that will eventually lead to separation; many hiring managers are not trained to screen candidates; many hiring managers are not trained to understand test results. What needs to be done? HR or those in charge of recruitment and selection should devise a screening strategy that considers the following:
- Effective ways of describing the position and enrolling requesting managers to use them.
- Tools to use in determining aptitude
- Standards
- Strategies for determining if the candidate possesses the needed competency for the job
- Way of gauging if there's fit between candidate and prospective boss or team.
- Training for all the participants in the screening process to appreciate and use all of the above.
What are the facts? Good talents are fast becoming rare commodities; you need to search far and wide if you want to have enough choices; good talents disappear fast, they are in demand and offered jobs left and right; if you don't move quickly enough, you are likely to lose a candidate; if your compensation package is not competitive enough, you may lose a good candidate.
What needs to be done? You need to create a strategy for searching far and wide or by casting a wide enough net. If you become more stringent with your screening, you will need to screen more people. Your hiring managers need to move faster. Many potentially good catch get away because the hiring managers are too busy to schedule the interview before the candidate gets an offer from another company. When the partnership between HR and the requesting managers is not strong, the requesting managers tend to be oblivious of the significance of the loss. The tide has shifted. The attitude that people must be dying to get the job before you even consider hiring them is old. It only works for positions where there's overabundance of qualified people. Some enlightened managers, adjust their schedules to accommodate a good candidate, invite them to dinner or coffee and go out of their way to show the person that the company is a good one to join in. The difference between them and the managers with the old mindset, they are most likely to get the people they want.
The best way to attract talents is to create a culture that nurtures them. One where teamwork is evident, personal and professional development opportunities abound and where good performance is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. For this to happen, HR will need a strategy for enrolling the rest of the organization in an effort to create the RIGHT COMPANY.
In ExeQserve, we always say, right people, training and company. Find the right people for your company, give them the right training and build the right company for them to succeed as professionals and contribute to organizational success.
Think about it. The only way HR can play a strategic partner role in the organization is if HR practitioners learn some effective ways of managing up.
On many occasions, HR practitioners play the gopher role (gopher this, gopher that... get it?) because of several reasons. First I guess is because they don't have the competence to act at a strategic partner level and another is because they don't know how to shift from that order taker role.
I have written about strategic HR management in several posts. Today, I will focus on suggesting ways to help HR build a cooperative and collaborative relationship between them and Top Management.
In typically top-down organizations, there is a tendency for middle managers, HR Managers included, to wait for top management instructions. While nothing is wrong with receiving and aligning HR strategies with top management directions, it is seldom enough to cover all the areas that HR is responsible for. If top management tends to micromanage, it is even more likely that not all of the HR roles will be covered unless HR is able to influence top management to champion some HR initiatives.
How To do it? Let me share my own take on managing up based on my own experience.
Whenever I start work as HR Manager, I normally ask for a month of acclimatizing and understanding the organization's current state. I look closely into the company's strategy, performance strengths, challenges and culture. After that, I craft a comprehensive plan that demonstrates integrated strategies to help the employees contribute more to organizational effectiveness. Whenever I present my HR plans, I make it a point to make clear the role of top management in championing the initiatives and the handover between HR and other line managers. I always get wholesale approval for my plans and it makes my life easier because top management and my counterparts' commitment come with the approval of the plan.
I always make it a point to level expectations with top management. I bat for open communication. I seek clearance to engage management in a discussion of issues whenever warranted. I ask to be allowed to speak freely about what I know, my opinion and feeling about issues. I believe that establishing this kind of communication relationship help improve the quality of decision and paves the way for informed top management decision.
Managing up on a day-to-day basis.
While having a good plan helps, new needs surface everyday that either affect the plan or presents a need to change it. There are also instances when top management make decisions that may have adverse implication on HR matters. HR practitioners should be able to come up to top management, make their proposal or raise their concerns. As long as the roles are clear, norms are in place and communication is respectful, this should not be hard to do. I often say "may I speak" or "may i express my opinion" to seek clearance whenever needed. In a Filipino work culture, I believe this is an invaluable way to show respect and still be able to speak up to top management. I say, "I disagree" whenever I do. At times when I disagree and expressed the implications of top management decision and yet top management decides to go with the decision anyway, I accept the decision and communicate it to others as my own. It is imporant to emphasize at this point that managing up is not about getting what you want but doing what needs to get done. When the communications between top management and middle management flow more freely, this is achieved. If communication is hampered, politics grow and mess things up. Politics don't only slow things down, they hurt relationships as well.
If you see managing up as a challenge, I encourage you to explore this topic further. The web is rich with information on this matter. I suggest that you read up. I also recommend that you explore assertive communication because this is an important skill for managing up.
Here's another post I written in the past that you might find useful:
HR Managers Should Learn How to Sell
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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HR Competency Development,
HR Management,
Leadership
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My 2009 experience and my current consulting engagements further strengthened my belief that organizational change and performance improvement are achieved more easily if members of management team are able to demonstrate collective leadership. What are the indicators that your management team has it?
Communication among management team members is unencumbered. When team members communicate with each other, they do so with a great deal of candor without fear of damaging the cohesiveness of the team. They are able to demonstrate collegiality thereby blurring if not totally erasing departmental divide or silos. This helps improve collaboration, problem solving and decision making.
There is unity of communication. If there is anything that best aids the promotion of change in the organization, this would be it. When everyone in management conveys the same message, with the same fervor and conviction, the message becomes crystal clear. Nothing muddles change more than a manager griping about it and washing his hands in front of his staff. When there's unity of communication, the organizational members don't have to second guess priorities and needed results. Work becomes more focused and needed changes are achieved much faster.
There is just too much benefit to building a cohesive management team for any leader to ignore it. Despite its importance, however, why oh why do many of us ignore it? I can only point to two possible reasons; denial and not knowing what to do. Many clients deny that they are slowed down by silos and politics and I understand why. An admission of this is tantamount to acknowledgment of a weakness which a lot of us are not comfortable doing. Admission however, is the first step towards management team rehabilitation.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, please do not ignore it. If you have the power to change your situation, take the FIRST STEP. If you don't have the power, bring it to the attention of the one in power. Set it in motion, get the ball rolling, begin the journey towards building a more cohesive management team. Make it the most important leadership and organizational development investment you will make this year.
Lastly, make it an ongoing process. If you need help, let me know (yes, I know, shameless self promotion :))
If you are with Human Resources Department, know that not too many of other managers will take the initiative towards this. If your Top Management is not thinking about it, maybe it's time to make it your job to let them appreciate the importance of building a more cohesive management team.
See ExeQserve's Team Culture Building Program.
Note: You can download a free strategic training and development plan template at the end of this post.
Most training plans I've seen are products of training needs surveys; hence most of them are basically lists of training programs to be run one after another. What is wrong with that picture? Whether or not you identified the right programs to run and identified the best trainer to run it, there is still no guarantee that training will translate to learning and demonstration of skills. Why, because something is missing. That something is called a strategy.
Training often fail to make a dent in the organization's performance because of two things. The failure of the training manager to think strategically and their failure to build a strong partnership with line management to create the right environment for the new learning to be applied and prosper.
A good training plan in my opinion is one that clearly defines the strategy or strategies for transfer of learning to performance and the partnership between the training managers and line from identification of the needs to making training attendees accountable for the demonstration of the new behavior.
I believe training plans should be able to address two purposes; one is to equip employees to adopt to change and the other is to equip the employees to maintain a high standard of performance or competencies. If we all look at these, we can all agree that it will take more than a few classroom sessions to achieve and then maintain ideal behaviors that support performance. Without strategies and partnership between training managers and the line, it is difficult to convert training to learning and most certainly most difficult to convert into behaviors that work.
So, what should we see in your training plan aside from the usual bundling of training schedules? I drafted a sample training plan to help illustrate what I mean. Please feel free to download and use it if you like it. Here's a deal, let's make this template open source shall we? I encourage you to make some improvements to it, then send it back to me and I will update the document I am sharing here. Fair?
Please check out our literature on team culture building and communication skills enhancement to find out how we at ExeQserve apply the same principles in our programs.
Training too much of a big investment to just go to waste. If you want return on your training investments, start working on your strategy. If you need help, let me know.
If you want to conduct training wish to know more about designing and facilitating workshops, join my Trainer's Training Workshop this coming February 2010. Download the registration form here.
