There are many, too many, organizations out there that view HR as merely an administrative enterprise. Even as the top HR leader in a billion-dollar company, I’ve had client leaders personally tell me, “Just wait until I need somebody fired, then I’ll call you.” Clearly there was work to do in order to gain real respect at the leadership level.
This is not easy stuff. You have to develop a strategic plan and stick with it on a regular basis, and work consistently to try to bring your client groups along in that way of thinking. Dave Ulrich, strategic HR thinker at the University of Michigan, has portrayed a model that shows 4 quadrants for HR competency: Administrative Efficiency, Employee Advocacy, Cultural Change, and Strategic Execution. The challenge for HR is to figure out how to move from beginning to end of that list in order to drive the credibility required to sit with the leaders.
The companies that I’ve worked with who respected HR as a critical thought leader in the organization all used some form of annual review of people or HR. In fact, in one company I had the opportunity to participate just as the process was introduced, and it was actually rather enjoyable to see senior leadership figure out how to have the strategic-style thinking and discussions with regards to people rather than just numbers or expansion, productivity or earnings per share. They learned to speak about leadership bench and promotability, flow within the pipeline, training and development, diversity, and talent. It didn’t take long before these things became part of the fabric of the organization. The annual review began to merge into an organizational overview that talked both about the strategic operational things as well as the strategic people viewpoint. This stuff earns credibility.
From a practical standpoint, where shall we start? If you are in a business situation today that doesn’t fully appreciate what HR is able to do for them, my recommendation would be to begin by holding a ‘contracting discussion’ with several of your chief clients. No, I do not mean a discussion about contracted employees. I mean hold a discussion that has these kinds of questions that you can consider:
- What is the most important strategic issue facing your business or department over the next 12 months?
- What are your expectations for your team members (as a group): hourly, mid-level salary, leadership?
- What “people issues” do you expect over the next 12 months?
- How do you want people to see you as a leader?
- What 3 things do you most need from your HR department as you see it today?
- What one thing do you feel that you need most from me?
If you hold this meeting, be prepared for a couple of things: first, you should expect that the first time you hold this discussion openly may be a bit ugly, as the floodgates are opened for the first time. But over time they get much, much better, but only if you follow the second item completely: whatever you agree to do in this meeting, you must complete it and you must re-visit with your client so he or she knows that this item or items got done. Trust me, it’s important, and it’s about them trusting you to deliver.
Also, learn to influence better. There is some work from the Center for Creative Leadership and others a while back on strategies for influence, and rational persuasion (what most of us use most frequently) is pretty low on the list of gaining commitment from the clients. Much higher on the list are things like personal appeal, consultation, and inspiration. Even exchange (“you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”) and ingratiation (“you’re a wonderful…”) rank higher than rational persuasion. More on this topic as I get enough legitimate information organized to share with you as a future blog, because I find it not only incredibly interesting but also critical to that seat in the boardroom.
Other ways to improve your Human Resources strategic credibility:
- Learn how to say “no” effectively. “We don’t do that here” doesn’t work. Explain how and why this comes back to damage the entire organization or this manager’s department in particular if we do what’s being asked.
- Communicate your current priorities back to the organization on a regular basis. Especially if you have multiple clients, without this they may have no idea what you’re working on for the others. And if you’re at loggerheads, get them in the same room at the same time and hammer out priorities and necessary resource commitments.
- Limit “surprises” on people issues: learn to project downstream issues and communicate them effectively and in advance.
- Communicate “wins” — new hires, awards, successful change actions, department productivity. Goes a long way.
- Get face-to-face on key topics, sensitive issues, and consultation.
- Have enough dialogue with your key clients so that you can deal with emerging issues effectively before it ever reaches your key client’s desk. Gain enough idea of his or her values and priorities by your regular talks that you can be effective and handle these things right. When you don’t, and it goes bad, use it as another discussion point to learn how to handle these kinds of situations going forward.
So again, seek to find ways to push from that administratively efficient individual toward the strategic planner. Continue to be the employee advocate yet seek ways to improve the amount of time and effectiveness you have to deliver on change management and acceleration. Learn what your chief clients are about, their values, priorities, and issues, so you can operate on their behalf in a way that benefits the entire organization. Contract with those clients, use higher level influencing strategies — and slowly but surely work your way toward enough credibility to sit with the strategic leaders in the organization.