Colborn’s Corner: Should HR make New Year resolutions?

Annie Hayes

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Colborn’s Corner: Should HR make New Year resolutions?

By Annie Hayes

Seasoned HR consultant, Quentin Colborn goes cold turkey on the annual HR detox and looks at whether we should indeed be resolving to do better and be better.

It’s that time of year isn’t it? Diets, shorter working hours, better work/life balance etc. We go back o the office and either make well intentioned resolutions ourselves or hear colleagues doing so. And where do they all end up – usually forgotten by the end of January if they are lucky enough to get that far.

But what about the wider HR community, rather than us as individuals? Do we and should we make resolutions to improve employee satisfaction and enhance our recruitment procedures for example?

I think it’s easy to get carried away and promise our colleagues that many things will be different this year, that there will be improvements in the services we offer. But before doing so, stop and think ‘Can this really be delivered?’ There have been many times when I have seen HR teams who feel under pressure to promise to improve service delivery with little concept of how it will be done. It is simply a means of buying more time when faced with criticism from line colleagues.

In businesses I have seen the whipping boys are frequently the IT and HR functions. When things go wrong in the business, often as not, these are the departments that often take the blame. And our response is that we promise to do better. But how many HR (and IT for that matter) teams take the New Year as an opportunity to realistically appraise the service delivery they provide? Some organisations invest time and effort in balanced scorecards to give a quick view of performance. To my mind these can be helpful tools but only if they measure things that are important and if they measure things that are truly under the control of the HR team.

How much of what is measured in terms of recruitment is the sole accountability of HR? Time to fill the vacancy? Cost of recruitment? Offer acceptance rate? My view is that none of these are the exclusive responsibility of HR – they all depend on the relationships with line management. So don’t let us be pressurised into measures that are not truly under our control.

My view is that our resolutions should not address specifics but rather focus on matters such as relationships with line colleagues and effectiveness as a business contributor. If we have to have resolutions, let them be in the area of greater feedback from line colleagues and providing what they define as a satisfactory service.

The other concern I have about resolutions is that organisations need to change to survive. When talking to business owners I endeavour to impress upon them that they should not expect jobs to remain identical over the course of a year – change is inevitable, indeed desirable, if the business is to develop. In the same way I think the demands on an HR team should be changing during the year and so if New Year resolutions are still in place half way through the year it should give rise to the question as to where the organisation is going.

So let your resolution be no more New Year resolutions, put the focus on developing and maintaining that all-important relationships with line colleagues – that’s the way we really make a difference!

Happy New Year!

Has your organisation set any New Year resolutions? Do you think they are achievable? What’s the worst resolution you have come across. Anonymity can be provided if necessary! Simply post your comments at the foot of the article and share your thoughts, opinions and stories.

Quentin Colborn is an independent consultant who helps organisations address issues of HR strategy and support for HR teams. To contact him T: 01376 571360 or e-mail him at Quentin@qcpeople.co.uk

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