I spoke yesterday at HRINZ on change and HR. It was version 1.o of some thinking I’ve started on these two topics. It was a start. One of upsides of the current economic turmoil is that its forcing individuals and organisations to think again about ‘value’.
I often encounter unflattering comments about HR’s value from senior and line managers in organisations. I wonder if HR has become overly preoccupied with process, systems, tools, technologies and frameworks. It reminded me of the IT industry. And led me to thinking about how pervasively we use the web today. It’s a long way from the IT industry I knew in the late 80’s.
The internet has transformed itself from simply a transport mechanism into something that delivers real value to people. The current term being used is Web2.0.
Web2.0 is about technology:
- as a platform for it’s users to create individual value (eg Flickr)
- as an architecture of participation (eg blogging)
- as a means of harnessing collective intelligence (eg Wikipedia)
- providing users with a rich user experience (eg RSS)
- letting users pull information to meet their immediate demands (eg Google)
WEb2.0 has lead to an exponential rise in the use and creativity of the web. No change management plan here!
What would HR2.0 look like?
As a starter I’d suggest that HR 2.0 could:
- insist managers are responsible for achievement of goals aligned with the overall strategic intent of the organisation.
- let individual managers decide what they need (from HR and others) to achieve those goals. And who, when and how those needs are met.
- focus at least 70% of their effort and resources (budget) on meeting the individual in-action needs of managers striving to achieve clear goals.
- work within an organisational framework of clear values, culture and shared sense of accountability.
- offer a suite of useful tools, frameworks and resources without advocating any.
- inspire people to be bolder in their sense of possibility and potential.
Interested in talking with anyone interested in further developing this thinking.
I was in the audience for this presentation and I always think it’s useful to question the status quo or current norms in a useful forum which has people start thinking about their role and how they’re performing it. What I mean by a useful forum is one in which the questions are being asked of the people who can actually have an influence and whose answers are relevant to them.
From the perspective of an Executive Coach, I have clients and ex clients who are in HR, and some of them are quite despondent about their roles and what they can offer to an organisation. What I hear is, “I presented x intervention to y manager and they handled it badly”, or “My expertise isn’t being valued” or “I don’t have the influence I thought I could have in this organisation”.
I commented yesterday, when Bernie talked about HR being overly preoccupied with processes, frameworks etc. that this was maybe an attempt to gain credibility and therefore more influence in organisations.
Maybe what HR practitioners need to come back to is their own vision of what they want to achieve in an organisation, what kind of influence they want and what kind of difference they want to make. Once that is established, then the suite of tools and frameworks will be there to support that appropriately, rather than being the main offering.
I think it would be more useful to contemplate the vision of the organisation and the individual manager and then think how best to help realise that vision. Part of the problem is that HR has a vision and it’s full of processes, tools, frameworks, etc. But it’s not relevant to many consumers of the service.
Also I think more focus on the relationship is helpful. If they don’t take advice, what sort of relationship do I have with the consumers of my service? How well do these consumers believe I understand the real problem? What perceptions of HR do my consumers have? What is value from the perspective of my consumers?