We each have two jobs. Many employees excel at their main role. But the reality of the modern workplace means that performance in the second role is often lacklustre. As an HR professional, how well are you doing in your two jobs?
HR’s two jobs
In posing the question, I refer not to your part-time gig as a DJ in Clapham, nor to your duties as a taxi driver for teenage children, but to the shadow role that sits quietly alongside the work you are paid to do.
If your primary responsibilities may be described as ‘functional’, then your shadow role comprises activities that are ‘relational’. For in every work environment, you have to collaborate – or at least get along – with other people.
As champions of employee interests, HR leaders must excel in this second role. Ironically, it is the very relational nature of HR, a ‘profession in distress’ as Dr Jo Burrell puts it, that makes fulfilling these duties so taxing for individuals.
Functional role
The myriad functional responsibilities of HR are familiar. Examples include recruiting new team members, providing learning, managing performance, tracking occupational health, running payroll, writing policy and optimising headcount.
Depending on the role parameters, some HR professionals routinely focus on these functional tasks, whereas others may spend more time on relational work. Likewise, junior roles tend to be more functional, whilst leadership is a relational act.
Teams in other areas have their own parallels.
Relational role
Regardless of department, simple relational activities are essential to meeting goals or KPIs. In HR, for example, you go and talk to colleagues when you are chasing them to attend training, or when they email you about end-of-year bonus payments.
Most people are willing, and able, to carry out basic exchanges with colleagues when these help them directly reach goals for which they are paid.
Discretionary relationship-building
Other interactions are, or at least feel, optional. People struggle with relational work that appears superfluous to KPIs or to the ambitions of the first job. Relationships are, after all, harder than tasks.
This is regrettable: discretionary relationship-building is vital to experiences and performance – at employee, team and corporate levels. Organisations are a venue for specialists to pursue a common goal and so to neglect the second job is to miss the whole point.
Common impediments
Still, you can forgive yourself for not attending to relationships at work. One or more of the following common barriers may be holding you back:
1. Remuneration culture
Most employees, even in HR with its focus on people experiences, are paid only to achieve outcomes set out for the functional job. Whilst a role description may include vagaries about, say, managing stakeholders, these often play second fiddle to more concrete transactions.
2. Economic pressure
As organisations are squeezed by a tight economy, everyone is under pressure to pursue activities that bring immediate returns: agree the training package, call the vendor, set a date. A business partner may have little time to stop and chat.
3. Culture and mindsets
Culture and, in turn, individual mindsets may determine that relationship-building in the absence of a work transaction is a poor use of time. Firms and employees are accustomed to a narrow conception of value.
4. Distress in HR
Engaging with people at work is hard. HR professionals spend all day helping colleagues resolve conflict, navigate legal and other risks, and solve complex human worries. It is unsurprising if little energy is left for wider relationship-building.
Value of relational work
All the same, discretionary work of this kind offers many benefits. These may even, with time, offset the weight of the organisation’s ‘human’ burden.
Spontaneous conversations are a source of new information and a catalyst for creative ideas. Informal exchanges – outside the canteen or before a video call – are moments to show and receive empathy.
Quiet asides and relaxed meetings help you navigate politics and understand how the informal organisation ticks. When interacting with colleagues in this way, you will discover a sense of belonging and may even forge friendships.
Relational activities help build community and so aid both performance and wellbeing. Organisations where everyone sees their two roles as integral to work itself surpass their competitors in many ways.
Achieve a happy balance
If you have a sense that the second job indeed has merit and yet are overwhelmed by functional obligations, how might you achieve a better balance? The questions below may bring the idea to life.
1. How will relational work help my main job?
Ongoing connections with diverse colleagues offer you novel ways to get things done. You will develop political savviness and benefit from taking the pulse of your organisation.
2. How might colleagues benefit from informal exchanges with me?
Colleagues will find value in relaxed, supportive exchanges with you; you can be a role-model for empathy and other values. Members of HR teams often find energy in such ‘giving’.
3. What personal value will my second job bring me?
Over time, interactions will reveal new opportunities for your career, help you see the world in novel ways, and allow you to enjoy social connections.
In summary
As the workplace becomes more complex, more stressful and often more difficult, people and organisations benefit when everyone invests time and energy in their second job. For HR teams, this second role is where the deeper ‘people’ work is done.
Keen to explore further? For 12 practical ways to build a culture where relationships matter, download our short guide Bang Heads No More.
