How can HR executives be genuine ‘agents of change’ in their organisations? By playing to their strengths, says Emmanuel Gobillot, Director at management consultancy, Hay Group.
As part of a knowledge economy, people and their skills have become the new weapons on the business battlefield. We are no longer defined by our roles, but by who we are, our values and the skills we offer. Companies that allow innovation and creativity to flourish lead the way: Apple, eBay, Starbucks.
By rights this should put HR in prime position when it comes to effecting organisational change. The new means of production are people’s minds, and HR is the people function, therefore HR is critical to the evolution of the business. Right?
Well, not quite.
Lost in Translation
There seem to be two different perceptions to the world of HR – Hopelessly Resistant and Highly Relevant. HR professionals are too often portrayed as irrelevant to business strategy, as ’soft’ managers focused more on their own internal wranglings than the success of the business they work in. HR is unfit to look after people, they say; HR Directors have no place on the board.
Yet every day I speak to HR professionals who are committed, passionate and knowledgeable business leaders, who often hold the answers to many of the big issues organisations face on a daily basis.
So what’s going on? Why is HR not always seen as having the potential to transform organisations? There are two principal reasons:
- Firstly, as we said above, HR is the people function – and that is often how it is viewed, as a functional support to the business, there to pay, recruit and administer.
- Secondly, and perhaps more crucially, HR suffers from the classic ‘translation’ problem: it can be difficult to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) benefits in the financial terms understood by the board. While sales figures speak for themselves, the effects of innovative HR policies can be crucial, but they are qualitative. The changes HR make may have a fundamental impact on the business, but evidence is abstract and anecdotal rather than quantified.
With the commercial guns pointed at their heads, HR leaders have been forced to come up with metrics which are often irrelevant and flawed, and do little to convince senior executives of their value.
This is why HR directors are so often absent from the board: they are not seen as strategic ‘agents of change’ who will help shape the future of the business.
Becoming Change Agents
So how can HR leaders become a driving force in the evolution of their organisations? The answer is to offer two simple things: credibility and knowledge.
- Be the best at what you do best: HR’s fundamental problem is one of credibility at the highest level. And the best way to garner credibility is quite simply to be good at your job: to deliver excellent results against strategic objectives.
Don’t try to be a ‘business person’ – be an excellent HR person. Play to your strengths. A football manager doesn’t try to run around the pitch, he uses his experience to draw the best from his players.
Well reasoned people strategies delivered with conviction will make business leaders listen up – not ROI metrics. Metrics are essential to ensure you are efficient, but do not make you a change agent.
Expecting HR to play a role in deciding the future direction of the business is asking the Board to take a leap of faith. An excellent HR executive can expect that leap to be taken.
- Develop genuine insight into your organisation: If you want to help shape the business, then you need to know the business. In depth. Not just its HR metrics, but the whole business – its operations, its market, its financials, its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The way it makes money and perhaps more importantly the way it loses money.
You’re no use as an agent of change for an organisation you do not know intimately. And again, demonstrating this knowledge will build your credibility as a change agent, enabling you to carry people with you.
- So while for the Board it may be a leap of faith, for HR directors and executives, it’s a case of sticking to what you’re good at. Don’t wait to be asked, go out, achieve results beyond your remit, become the difference that will make the board sit up and listen. Or as Ghandi put it: “Be the change you want to see.”
Change requires resilience and dedication. Passion for what you do will start you on your way, and passion for the business will help when times get hard. Remember: most changes happen the way an oyster makes a pearl – out of sheer irritation!
1. Do your best at what you do best. Apply your own HR techniques to effect the required organisational change.
2. Don’t pretend to be a “business” person. Accept the limitations of ROI measures and make the case for the power of HR with thorough qualitative evidence.
3. Have courage. Have a compelling vision, engage people and prove in practice the change HR can achieve.
4. Don’t be a stranger. Build coalitions and networks across all organisational functions, work together.
5. Be the change you want to see. You are a change agent – what are you waiting for?
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Emmanuel Gobillot is a Director at Management Consultancy, Hay Group. For further information please contact T:+ 44 (0) 20 7856 7000 / [email protected] / http://www.haygroup.co.uk
One Response
ROI can be difficult to prove from an HR perspective
Your line: The changes HR make may have a fundamental impact on the business, but evidence is abstract and anecdotal rather than quantified.
There is a significant corelation between what HR can achieve and what the business needs.
As the majority of what IS achieved by a company is through the people, then there must be a direct link between the business strategy and the way tasks are to be managed by the people to achieve the desired results.
In the main it is the responsibility of the HR department to understand the roles that people need to play in the overall jigsaw. This is achived through Job Descriptions and Competence Measurement. If the latter can be focussed on the needs of the business and changed over time, then training can be equally focussed on exactly what the business requires of its personnel.
The problem has always been to find a way to implement a measurement of competency that meets the needs of the business as it changes, and is able to apply an objective measure to what is often seen as subjective criteria.
This is now possible.
The other problem is to be able to create a system that is not reliant on a complete competence library being available before measurement can begin, making the task almost superhuman.
This is now possible.
The end result is that management can now focus on primary competencies, and HR can enable an almost imediate and quantifiable return on investment in people training and job role alignment.
The results should be visible to the board through improved output and this can result in the board asking HR to become involved in the “Tuning” of the business strategy to achieve best results through key people in the organisation.
Competence management should of course start at the top of an organisation and filter down through the management to the staff. When all of these are in line and aiming at the same target, then the business will be at optimum efficiency.