Improving Your HR Reputation

I had a chance to speak with three HR people in about the same number of weeks who lamented the lack of their company's appreciation for their contributions. There is also a seeming lack of appreciation of their role because most of the times, HR is not trusted to make HR-related decisions. These of course, make them feel bad. I mean who wouldn't?

Some of those I talked with long for the day when management can fully realize HR's value in the organization while others just resigned to thinking that HR is in deed a thankless job and that HR will always be looked at with some degree of ambivalence. Neither of these two views are correct. First, because how people see HR is a product of how HR projects itself. If HR wishes for others to see it differently, it has to rethink how it plays its role in the organization in a way that adds more value from the perspective of its clients. I say this because there is often a conflict between how HR appreciates itself and how others appreciate HR's contribution. This is often the cause of frustration and the sad thing is for most, it has been accepted as a way of life. This is untenable because this kind of thinking is not good for the organization more than the fact that it is not good for HR.

HR can change this situation by evolving in its role. It is not an easy task but if  we want to be appreciated better, we have to start stepping towards becoming strategic business partners who serve as the company's most trusted allies for people and organizational growth.

I have written about becoming a strategic HR partner in the past. if you want to know more about my thoughts on it, you can read them here. That is not the goal of this post. My goal is for those who feel they are stuck to being order takers to take the necessary next steps towards achieving HR nirvana. I see that the biggest gap is in the mindset, the fear to thread outside status quo and the unwillingness to learn the skills of a trusted internal consultant.

Becoming a reliable strategic HR partner requires confidence and confidence comes with competence and competence starts with knowing. In short if you want to play a bigger role in your organization, you have to start learning how. Take a course, buy a book, go Google or get a mentor. Do whatever it takes to acquire knowledge. As you sift through information choose what you think will work for you and apply them. You can't learn to drive a car just by knowing how it runs, you have to step into the driver's seat and drive.

That is the message of this post; grow out of your comfort zone and grow into a bigger more strategic role and start by learning how now. Strategic HR partners are development oriented and the development starts with themselves.

Strategic Time Keeping?

Alright, you might be laughing and wondering how far out I'm going with this "Strategic HR" sh*t. Wipe that smirk off your face and read up.

If you're with HR and haven't outsourced or automated your timekeeping work, then you must still be in some kind of HR purgatory, mechanically summarizing those time records every cutoff trying to ensure accuracy of payroll. Can be a boring, thankless job right? Well, if you're not yet doing it, I have a few suggestions that could make that job just a little more exciting and might earn you some thanks in the process.

Time keeping records tell a lot of story. If you can mine yours, you can come up with pretty useful information. When I was HR Manager I kept track of overtime, undertime, tardiness and absences. I look at trends that might corelate with productivity, quality, cost effectiveness, etc. There are a couple of things I found that might or might not apply to your organization. I matched my data with production records and found that people are more productive during regular hours than when they are working overtime (provided there is no motivation issue). I also found that tardiness is higher when employees were asked to work overtime the day before which made a lot of sense. I also found that quality of work diminishes after four hours of overtime work and that it was costing us more to have people regularly work long hours than hire additional people. When we put departmental records on tardiness, undertime and absences side by side, we are able to report who are doing well and who need to shape up in their attendance performance. When we show attendance history, we are able to show who is improving and who is getting worse. By making all these information available, we are able to help line managers take action that improves productivity, quality and therefore profitability. If that's not being strategic, I don't know what is. You know what else I found, numbers can be pretty convincing in moving managers' asses to action. I'm sure that if you put your mind to it, you'll also be able to come up with trends and matrices that provide useful information.

One last thing, if you are planning to outsource your payroll or automate it, I suggest that you look for features that will allow you to mine, slice and dice your attendance data with ease. We did it manually then and it was a pain in the you-know-where.

The Strategic Nature of Training and the Transactional Mindset of HR

A number of instances brought me to writing this post. As a training consultant based in the Philippines, I often deal with HR/Training Managers who are looking to fill a request from the line or are securing training providers to facilitate courses as identified in their Training Needs Analysis (TNA) survey.

This is my observation; more often than not, HR/Training Departments are  playing the role of order takers/fulfillers rather than strategic partners when delivering training programs to the line. I imagine the dialogue to sound like this:

Line Manager: I need so and so training for my staff, please find me a good facilitator...
HR/Training Manager: Ok...(after sometime) Here are the choices...
Line Manager: I want to talk to this one...
HR/Training Manager: Ok...
Line Manager: I'm ok with the training provider let's schedule the program/send participants....
HR/Training Manager: Ok...


What's wrong with this scenario? Nothing if HR is only after satisfying a request. If HR is to play a more active role in ensuring return on training investment, then this is definitely not enough.

What should HR/Training Department do then? Several things. First, it  should set the norm for planning training to ensure that there's alignment between training initiatives and strategic direction. HR should then teach managers to communicate expectations prior to sending people to training. Lastly, HR should make both training providers and Line Managers accountable for setting up follow through strategies. Lastly, HR/Training should evaluate the effectiveness of its training strategies in improving performance and make improvements as necessary.

Sometimes I wish I'm talking to business owners when I propose programs that are ready to respond to HR/Training Department's strategic role. That's because I sometimes feel that some  HR representatives are not motivated to take on this role without the prodding of top executives. There are also times when HR wants it but do not have the reputation to play the strategic partner role in the organization, hence the failure to make impactful contribution on employees' learning and performance. Because of lack of interest in ensuring positive training impact on performance, I suspect that some HR/training managers are scared of holistic training solutions and prefer programs that are cheap and does not require so much from HR or the Line Managers. The measure of success is "done/not done" rather than application of learning in the workplace. This to me is indeed the sad state of affairs in many HR/training departments of many companies.

Training should be part of the strategy in enabling people to contribute  to organizational success. It becomes a wasted effort when not much thought is given in ensuring that learning is applied after the training. HR or the Training Department must think strategically and become a major "influencer" in making the company's training strategy work. There is a need for the other managers in the organization to afford HR enough respect to listen to what they have to say about this and consider their recommendations.

I believe that HR will become a strategic partner in the organization when it decides to act like one. That is by listening with the intent to understand the situation, by coming up with strategic solutions and partnering with management in fine tuning those solutions. That is so much different from just taking orders.

If you are with HR and you feel you need help build that strategic partnership with your line managers, I can help. Please see my proposed program here. Increase your value in the organization by shedding off that transactional mindset and take on a more strategic role. Let us help you make it happen.