In the summer, Harvard Business Review published articles which were really interesting. Many HR professionals could see them as controversial, since HBR was very straightforward. We mentioned them in this article of ours.
HR managers care too much about everyday operational agendas and administrative tasks. They should be building strategic initiatives and setting visions instead. HR also deals with issues that are not pleasant to some – such as problems and troubles with employees. Furthermore, instructions and policies from HR influence everyone every day. And, when everything is working as it should, then people from other departments ask: “And what is the HR department doing for us anyway?” The Wharton School professor, Peter Cappelli, wrote about that in his article called Why We Love to Hate HR…and What HR Can Do About It.
Right now is a good opportunity to change HR for the better
HR people can now bring more to every business than it has in the last few decades just by concentrating on how the company operates. By helping others to separate the useful from the useless, HR professionals really can help – we just need to focus on issues that are somewhat different from those we focus on today.
When there is a crisis and people don’t have jobs, other departments sometimes feel that HR just makes it more difficult for them to use their employees as much as they could. HR rules and recommendations seem to be superfluous and annoying.The situation is vastly different at times of growth, when keeping employees becomes much more difficult. Then HR is important because it helps others pursue a certain standard of behavior towards employees. After the Second World War, a director who died of a heart attack or was hit by a car couldn’t be replaced fast enough. Some small businesses even disappeared because of similar personal tragedies.
And so the modern form of HR appeared, with all its coaching, development programs, stretch assignments, rotations, 360-degree feedback, assessment centers and succession planning. In its time, that was revolutionary. The HR department was important because, for example, in the US at that time 90% of vacancies were filled from internal sources.
But times are changing, and in the US today only one-third of vacancies are filled from internal sources. Even development programs and plans for managers are slowly being abandoned. There are exceptions, such as General Electric. But more often, the case is that companies, especially in technology, will try to pull trained and experienced staff from other companies rather than to develop them and fund all the training. Managers at lower levels in the eighties began to complain that their managerial duties were taking up time and they couldn't get to the more beneficial activities that were within their specialization. Therefore the emphasis that was placed on evaluations and coaching gradually decreased, at least at certain companies.
Does HR have authority today?
Tasks connected to HR have been gradually changed into the duties of line managers – from hiring to setting the development programs for subordinates to decisions on pay. HR managers are now trying to get line managers to perform certain tasks and to follow certain procedures, but at the same time, HR managers don’t have any direct authority over them. Consequently, line managers sometimes have the feeling that HR is constantly meddling in their duties and that the HR staff is too pushy. Furthermore, many people think that HR provides only temporary solutions for serious issues. Those issues therefore persist until the top executives finally decide to make the topics of talent retention and development a clear priority for all managers.
HR needs to set its own agenda
But what should it include? Those who determine the agenda for HR are often the CEOs, but people from operations and even CEOs rarely have a deep understanding of issues associated with the workplace and workers. HR managers should therefore be able to advise heads of other departments on how to deal with the following areas:
1) Layoffs. In the US, only every third internal HR expert confirmed that he or she was involved when the decision on which people to let go was being made. This is an astonishing lack of influence on one of the key areas of HR.
2) Recruiting. The majority of line managers can’t conduct interviews effectively.
3) Flexible working arrangements.
4) Performance management. Some major firms such as PwC, Microsoft and Deloitte, have already scrapped the traditional system of performance management and regular evaluations. The shift was made to a closer, constant and permanent dialogue with employees, by which they can be developed better.
What is HR missing? Analytical skills
HR professionals should focus on analytical skills, an area the majority of them often perceive as its weakness. Advanced analytical methods allow you to choose the right job seekers (as Microsoft and Google know) or build more efficient teams (which IBM does). HR professionals must, therefore, take this agenda from IT professionals – or collaborate with them intensively. The ability to quantify the costs and benefits of various HR training will change HR decisions into business decisions.
HR has always cared about the long-term impact. Corporate culture, talent development, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and increasing engagement. At the same time, however, its role is to support business objectives, many of which today are still rather shorter-term oriented. These objectives are also rapidly and constantly changing. New HR must be able to support one-time decisions, and provide temporary solutions, but at the same time it must be able to take a step back and watch where all the one-off programs are directed. What needs are emerging? How does it affect the attitude the company has toward talented workers?
-jk-