human resources

what’s it going to take, HR?

I hear HR describe itself as a business partner, internal consultant, and key support function. Listen to me long enough and I’ll start talking about HR as an untapped competitive advantage. We like to describe ourselves though the value we bring.

But, so what… Is all our self-description just wishful affirmations or an accurate description of our value? How do our customers think about HR? How would they describe our central purpose? Business partner or bureaucratic roadblock? Competitive catalyst or necessary evil? At the hub of organizational performance or rule driven box checkers?

Let’s push it further: what would it take for a leader/company to be proud of its HR department? What would HR have to be and do for our company’s key leaders brag to their peers: “Things are great and a big part of it is our HR department. Our people are our advantage and HR has been instrumental in helping  energize this company. They’ve found, developed, and helped us keep some phenomenal people. Our managers see them as a great resource to help make better decisions. I don’t see how we could have done it without them.”

I’m crazy/stupid/naïve/wishful/hopeful enough to believe it could happen. What’s it going to take?

flashback friday: easy or great?

It’s been said that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. Is that good news?

Did the last person you hire make you think, “Man, I’m going to have to raise my game! I love being around people who inspire my best!” OR did you think, “I’m glad that slot’s filled. Next.”

The people you’re filling the company with – the people you’re surrounding yourself with – are pulling you up or dragging you down. There is no neutral, there is no holding steady – they are forcing you to be better or letting you slack. Do you go for easy and comfortable or do you go for greatness?

 

[This was originally posted on July 31, 2012.]

human resources’ top goal?

From time to time I see HR folks insisting that the primary purpose of Human Resources is to keep the company from being sued. This philosophy is at the very core of everything I find wrong with HR.

Yes, HR can play a huge role in preventing or mitigating employment lawsuits. This is an important result of HR, but the top goal? Prevent lawsuits vs. select and train really great people? Prevent lawsuits vs. creating an environment where people actually want to be there? Prevent lawsuits vs. helping managers be the best leaders they can be? It really seems to be putting the cart before the horse. After all, a company can get sued if it mismanages its money but no one ever says that the number one goal of the finance department is to prevent lawsuits. You can get sued for being abusive to customers or false advertising, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest that the primary purpose of customer service and marketing are to prevent lawsuits.

Want to know the #1 way to ensure that HR is never involved in any strategic level conversations? Want to guarantee that your company culture is rife with fear and managers don’t manage? Want to be stuck in the glorious tar pit of HR as bureaucracy? Spend all your time focused on not getting sued.

In the perfect little world in my head, HR’s #1 goal is to help the company perform at its best. Minimizing lawsuits is a byproduct of doing things right; it’s a means to an end but not the end itself. The best processes and practices will help the company perform in a way that comply with all the laws and regulations. However, “not getting sued” as an end goal will never, ever create high performance. It’s like a runner training for a marathon with the #1 goal of not getting injured. Sure, they don’t want to get injured, but the best way to not get injured is to not train. After all, you can’t pull a muscle sitting on the couch. But that doesn’t work because their #1 goal is to perform at their best on race day. Not getting hurt is a part of that, but it’s obviously not the focus. Instead, the runner knows that with good planning, preparation, and execution of a training program they will minimize their chances of getting injured while maximizing the chances of high performance.

It’s an idea worth repeating: HR’s #1 goal is to help the company perform at its best.  And if you do it well, you automatically reduce the chance of getting sued. But that’s an outcome of doing things right not the other way around. For example, adhering to all the anti-discrimination laws does not ensure that you hire great people. But when you are focused on hiring the best people you will naturally seek diverse talent pools because you don’t want to exclude the best talent because of arbitrary bias.

Can we move HR out of the dark ages now? Instead of operating out of continual fear of lawsuit, let’s create high performing companies by helping people be at their best.

 

[This was first posted on November 14, 2011. I’ve reposted it because the issue was on my mind this morning.]

people, profits, and HR

I bought a car a couple of weeks ago, an experience that has inspired several blog posts. One of the things that really struck me was that, amidst a rather amazing and intimidating amount of paperwork, there was a paragraph in fine print where I had to acknowledge that the dealer might be making a profit off of the transaction.

Huh?

Why wouldn’t they? Why should I have to sign an agreement saying I realize they just might benefit? They certainly don’t need my permission. No other store I’ve ever been in has been concerned that I was aware and ok that they were selling me something for (gasp) more than they paid for it. Stranger still, it was in fine print on a two foot long page of fine print – most people wouldn’t notice or realize or even care. Have car dealers had a problem of people suing when they found out the dealers weren’t losing money on the deals?

Actually the boilerplate fine print nonsense is not what has me concerned. It was more the fear behind it. Why on earth, in a capitalist nation proud of its entrepreneurial spirit, would we resent a business profiting? The doors were open, the lights, were on, the and the employees and owners want to get paid for their efforts. That money has to come from somewhere…

It really got me thinking about where else do we resent profits? How often do those of us in Human Resources think that we’re above business and dollars? That it’s not about the money, that it’s about the people? That the HR department is a humanitarian oasis in a desert of cut-throat capitalism? That we don’t need to understand the business because it doesn’t apply to us?

Here is a simple formula I like to use: Profits = People = Profits. Profits are a direct result of people and people create profits. We cannot remove people from the profit equation, so why pretend that we can? Why pretend that they are somehow separate?

Human Resources, at its very best, impacts organizational performance. We hire, develop, and retain great people who care about the business’ success, who deliver great results. We advise and help leaders get the most out of their people and out of themselves. We assist people when there are things going on in their lives that get in the way of them being great. We help create, shape, and support the very personality of the company.

Human Resources at its most mediocre doesn’t understand, doesn’t care about, or resents the connection between people and profit. When that happens, we fill the slot, check the box, file the paperwork, say “no” a lot, and become an irrelevant barrier.

It’s really our call.

hiring by proxy?

A huge challenge we face whenever hiring someone is that we can never have perfect information. No matter how big of a rock star a candidate was in their last position, we have no idea what the future holds or if their skills, interests, and personality will mesh with the job, co-workers, and the company. And that’s assuming that we know they were great. Most often we don’t.

What if they were a diamond in the rough in a past job, just held back by a lousy boss, poor job match, or personal issues they’ve since gotten past? What if they were so bad that their boss and co-workers give them glowing references just to get rid of them? [Yes, it happens. I even once had a team supervisor tell me that whenever they got a bad general manager, everyone would pull together and work hard to make the GM look great so the GM would get promoted and transferred. Apparently, getting a terrible boss promoted was easier than getting them fired.]

Not only will we never truly know what they were like in the past, there are few jobs where we can try them out. Sometimes we can do job simulations, but those can be tricky and still not provide good information. So, we end up using proxy measures where we measure one attribute in the hope and belief that it provides us information about another characteristic.

Assessments are proxy measures. We measure general cognitive ability in the belief that higher scores equates better performance. We assess personality because we think it gives us some sort of insight into their character and cultural fit. We test integrity hoping that there is a good enough correlation between what people say on paper and how they behave in real life. We do drug tests in the thought that if they are straight and sober today they will always be that way.

Past experiences are proxy measures. And dangerous ones because they are heavily influenced by our own biases. We give too much weight to people being just like us (because we rock, so anyone like us should too) or just like our best employees. For example, some managers want the candidates to have a college degree even if it’s unrelated to the job because of what the manager thinks attaining a degree demonstrates. Or they want someone who played high school sports because of what they think it demonstrates. Or, they want someone who comes to the interview dressed to the nines. Or, they think any employment gaps are inexcusable. Or, or, or… Yes, these might demonstrate a person’s commitment, drive, determination, ability to work with others, set and achieve goals, etc. Or it might just demonstrate that they were able to survive off their parent’s money and binge drink for four years. Or that their parents required them to play sports and they loathed every minute of it and only finished because of their parents constant pressure. Or that they are all flash and no substance. Or that they took advantage of being young and unencumbered and traveled (and are far more mature and focused because of it). Or not. It could mean lots of things and we run the risk of overemphasising it’s significance.

As philosopher Alan Watts noted, “the map is not the territory.” The measure of the attribute is not the attribute itself. Proxy measures are useful because it’s often the best that we can do, but it’s important to remember that: 1) it might be measuring something other than what we think it measures; 2) it’s easy to forget that it’s a substitute for the real thing and just an approximation; 3) it can be heavily influenced by our own biases and prejudices. In other words, a candidate who excels on the proxy measures could still be a lousy employee and the candidate who does poorly could still be a superstar waiting to be discovered.

Your thoughts?

hr: bring the noise (repost)

I originally posted  this a couple of months back and am reposting it because I think it is an important topic worth repeating.

 

Gareth Jones recently blogged on the question, “HR: Where’s the Passion?” There are some massively talented, bright, and passionate people in HR. I’ve worked with a few, met a few, and regularly read blogs by a few. There are some really inspiring superstars out there, but on the average…? Gareth got me thinking a bit and maybe you really don’t see much passion overall.

I think HR is one of the best fields there is because it lives at the intersection of Business and Humans. Companies die, survive, or thrive based on the people they attract, retain, and develop and HR is thedepartment that can make that happen. What could be cooler?! (If you want more of my take on the awesomeness of HR, try why HR rocks or human resources’ top goal? .)

Of course, I also wrote why I wouldn’t hire an HR person for an HR job so even though I’m passionate about the field I do have concerns. So, as Gareth asks, where is the passion? I don’t know for sure, but do have a few thoughts:

  • Until recently, HR was very administrative as a field and it still is in many organizations. Processing and filing paperwork as the focus of a job does not require passion to be successful. In fact, having passion probably makes you ill-suited for any long term success at the job.
  • HR in some organizations can get overly focused on bureaucracy and make policy enforcement the core function. Again, not a place that rewards passion.
  • HR managers who believe their #1 job is to prevent lawsuits end up with HR departments that are fearful, rigid, and focused on everything you can’t do instead of what you can do. Passionate people want to be engaged and  active and accomplishing, not timid roadblocks.
  • HR theoretically extends throughout the organization yet can end up very siloed or excluded. That doesn’t attract or keep people who want to make a difference.
  • In times past, HR was often a dumping ground: a place for people not meeting expectations who the company didn’t have the heart to get rid of or a place to “promote” secretaries to when the company didn’t know what else to do with them. These were people who didn’t love HR to begin with and were just coasting out the end of their careers.
  • HR is a tough, tough job. Employees and managers are often only involved with HR when things are intense and going badly. Tough decisions have to be made. Laws and regulations are often ambiguous, confusing, or even contradictory. People get nervous when you call them, fearing the worst. Not many people stop by just to say thanks. So, even those who enter the field all full of passion and zeal can get beaten down pretty quick.
  • Finally, because of all this, I think there are very few role models to teach newcomers that it’s ok to be enthusiastic and love your work and do great stuff and HR is the place to do that.

But, I think it’s changing. I’m seeing more and more blogs by folks who see HR as the place to make a difference. Social media is letting like-minded folk across the planet connect and share ideas and see that they are not alone. We are getting more and more role models in the field.

Speak up, make some noise, and rock the HR banner a little higher!

it’s not about HR

It’s not about Human Resources. It’s never about Human Resources. HR is a means to an end, not an end onto itself. It’s about creating great business results by building phenomenally good companies by finding, hiring, developing, and supporting fantastic people so they can make the right decisions and take the best actions.

When we make it about HR we turn inward, build the walls and fill the moat, and start checking the boxes regardless of whether or not they make sense. We hide behind legislation, regulation, and policy. We focus on NOT GETTING SUED. We operate out of perpetual fear and we marginalize ourselves and our contribution. We overbuild processes and policies that weigh people down with complexity.

When we make it about getting really great business results through people (and that’s the only way to get great business results) we become inclusive, expansive, and invaluable. We are aware of and help the company meet it’s legal obligations, but we see that as the start, not the finish line. We build, honor, assist, and create. We push for what’s right and what’s smart. We hold ourselves accountable for performance, outcomes, and results. We understand that people are our customers and provide the highest levels of service. We strive to make things simple.

And we get to choose. Every day we get to choose. What are you going to choose today?

human resources’ top goal? (repost)

From time to time I see HR folks insisting that the primary purpose of Human Resources is to keep the company from being sued. This philosophy is at the very core of everything I find wrong with HR.

Yes, HR can play a huge role in preventing or mitigating employment lawsuits. This is an important result of HR, but the top goal? Prevent lawsuits vs. select and train really great people? Prevent lawsuits vs. creating an environment where people actually want to be there? Prevent lawsuits vs. helping managers be the best leaders they can be? It really seems to be putting the cart before the horse. After all, a company can get sued if it mismanages its money but no one ever says that the number one goal of the finance department is to prevent lawsuits. You can get sued for being abusive to customers or false advertising, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest that the primary purpose of customer service and marketing are to prevent lawsuits.

Want to know the #1 way to ensure that HR is never involved in any strategic level conversations? Want to guarantee that your company culture is rife with fear and managers don’t manage? Want to be stuck in the glorious tar pit of HR as bureaucracy? Spend all your time focused on not getting sued.

In the perfect little world in my head, HR’s #1 goal is to help the company perform at its best. Minimizing lawsuits is a by product of doing things right; it’s a means to an end but not the end itself. The best processes and practices will help the company perform in a way that comply with all the laws and regulations. However, “not getting sued” as an end goal will never, ever create high performance. It’s like a runner training for a marathon with the #1 goal of not getting injured. Sure, they don’t want to get injured, but the best way to not get injured is to not train. After all, you can’t pull a muscle sitting on the couch. But that doesn’t work because their #1 goal is to perform at their best on race day. Not getting hurt is a part of that, but it’s obviously not the focus. Instead, the runner knows that with good planning, preparation, and execution of a training program they will minimize their chances of getting injured while maximizing the chances of high performance.

It’s an idea worth repeating: HR’s #1 goal is to help the company perform at its best.  And if you do it well, you automatically reduce the chance of getting sued. But that’s an outcome of doing things right not the other way around. For example, adhering to all the anti-discrimination laws does not ensure that you hire great people. But when you are focused on hiring the best people you will naturally seek diverse talent pools because you don’t want to exclude the best talent because of arbitrary bias.

Can we move HR out of the dark ages now? Instead of operating out of continual fear of lawsuit, let’s create high performing companies by helping people be at their best.

why we must make HR matter

A quick list of reasons we must make HR matter more:

The organization improves only when individuals improve.

The biggest difference between you and your competition is your people and your effectiveness at leading them.

Nothing happens in business without people. Business = people = business. Or is that: People = business = people?

The customer experience will never exceed the employee experience.

Few things slow the pace of business more than mistrust. Few things expedite business more than trust. Trust doesn’t happen on spreadsheets, it happens between people.

HR touches all areas of the organization. Done well it fosters organizational health. Done poorly and every departments is affected (infected?).

Trends come and go, but the company will always need great people.

Leading is a very difficult job. HR (done right) helps leaders make better decisions.

 

What would you add? Hit me up in the comments.