Currently, when is it comes to the vanguard of HR comment, you could be forgiven for thinking: ‘same old, same old’, says Denis Barnard.

The same names appear in the ‘most influential’ polls who were there a decade ago. Writers who once were fire-breathers, academics (who presumably eschewed putting their great ideas into practice) and a herd of HR ‘big beasts’ whose credentials in recent years have actually taken quite a dent.

Event platforms are often occupied by people who have barely touched the actual levers of change outside of the rarefied atmosphere of the boardroom.

Similarly, the awards ceremonies for excellence in HR seem to be the exclusive domain of HR departments with inexhaustible resources.

Any organisation with the luxury of ample manpower and flabby budgets can puff up their achievements in the fields of diversity and CSR. How many employers of less than 250 people would have these seriously on their radar, especially when survival is the priority right now?

For all this self-congratulation, is there evidence that HR has advanced in influence in the corridors of power? To judge by the anecdotal evidence coming out almost on a daily basis, the answer is probably no.

If HR had influence, then the never-ending stream of stories about poor employment relations would surely not be happening, assuming that HR had the right policies in place and ensured their sponsoring organisations adhered to them.

Furthermore, indications are that HR’s influence at the highest level has certainly reached a high-water mark for the time being.

In the midst of the current crises, the profession has been unable to capitalise on its strategic position. Perhaps we just haven’t been strategic enough; the received wisdom is that if we had no administration to fill our days, we could all be strategic.

Of more value to anyone really wanting to understand excellence, is the experiences and expertise of those people in the front-line of HR activity; HR managers who inspire their teams, get things done and think up solutions, some of which are all too often achieved against a backdrop of scarce resources, corporate inertia, unimaginative managements and the ‘not invented here’ mentality.

After all, it’s about the walk, not just the talk (and there’s more than enough of the latter!)You’ll find people who have actually done the hard work will be more interesting to listen to than those who just talk about it and then delegate to others to carry out.

Listening to people like Tim Smit (of Eden Project fame) and Gordon Ramsay, is uplifting. There is always something very special about people who do what they say they are going to do. Dia Simms (chief of staff, Sean Combs Enterprises) says: "My best asset is reliability. People are so amazed when you do what you say you’re going to do. It’s the smallest thing in the world, but it’s the hardest thing to find."

A good approach would be to seek out those people who perform well – those who have made learning and development innovations, pioneered a way of managing absence, brought in methods of improving performance and measuring it; maybe even finding people with better than average retention or who find it easy to recruit.

Every successful story is worth examining to see what can be replicated. It doesn’t necessarily mean a best practice story, as there could be any number of causes contributing to success that may have nothing to do with the initiatives in the first place!

Meriting less praise –  but a rare species nonetheless – are the HR professionals who actually do things on time. HR is probably one of the worst professions for time management skills.

I have been an HR practitioner for the past 30 years and have to acknowledge, in that time, I have rarely encountered a meeting with HR involvement that started – or finished -on time. The standard excuse is that we are so very busy, but we let ourselves down with our prioritisation. Let’s hear from some of our colleagues who succeed in what they do and manage their time well.

So, next time someone suggests a ‘forum’ and wants some key speakers and contributors, get out of the comfort zone of the usual suspects and do some serious research outside of the ivory towers – unless of course your target audience is also based in the selfsame towers?

 
Denis Barnard is the CEO of the UK’s first HRIS comparison website, HRcomparison.com. He is an expert on the implementation of HR and payroll systems and worked in the HR industry for more than 30 years.