We often see posts from business publications trashing Human Resources (HR) for being a nuisance or even an impediment to business.  This is tough on our egos as we feel so passionate about what we do and tremendous pride in our knowledge and expertise. No one wants to believe that our services are not valued or in fact restricting operations.

HR today has an interesting struggle between its multiple personalities really. It must keep supporting the business by managing risk of employment and safety legalities, walking the line between employees and managers, and maintaining core practices to track and pay people.  Layered onto this is the need to be the expert in the latest and greatest practices, controlling salary and benefit costs and staying on top of what is happening within the business.

So at what point is a HR practitioner perceived as adding “strategic value”? Our opportunity lies in moving through the following four phases of progressive HR contribution to become a true executive partner.

1. Keeping the employee house in order —

To most organizations this means maintaining the traditional payroll, benefits, hiring and terminating, policies and legal/safety compliance processes operating without errors, managing costs and minimizing legal risk.  Fulfilling well on these functions earns HR the right to work on other things.  When there are errors, legal issues or complaints HR must hunker down to fix them.  Keeping these administrative activities functioning well is time absorbing and often leaves no room for other types of support to the business.  At the same time, just keeping them in order may mean you are taken for granted and overlooked as a partner to the core business.

2. Counselling employees and managers —

Another role many HR folks often take on is counselling employees on their issues and coaching managers on how to manage issues with employees. Providing this safety valve assistance for employees and managers has some further, but limited perceived benefit to leaders.  Since leaving internal HR, I have come to realize that HR fills this role because there is often a vacuum of effective communications between manager and employee. Being an advisor to employees, employee advocate or mediator isn’t perceived by tough bottom-line or client- oriented Leaders.  HR can build their Leader relationships through “advising”, but it is a stepping stone not an outcome.  HR’s time spent on improving managers’ effectiveness in dealing directly with employees has greater impact than being the actual counselor or go-between. Teach them to fish rather than fishing for them.

3. Improving employee productivity and effectiveness —

Now we are start to talk about areas in which HR can demonstrate real contribution to business effectiveness. Ultimately, Leaders value productivity, cost control, service, quality and client experience, period. This means having the right people, doing the right job at the right time and servicing the company’s clients or internal processes to service clients efficiently. HR processes that help to manage performance goals, collaboration, leadership, hiring, succession, employee feedback and organizational effectiveness truly help the business when done well.

Getting Leaders to understand the value of these programs may be more challenging because they are not traditional and often mean added program costs.  To dismiss Leader doubt HR needs to show program impact through employee and business results analytics. HR demonstrates value when employees have clear goals and are rewarded by feedback, attrition drops, job vacancy time is reduced, internal promotion is evident, managers hold robust conversations with team members and employees report to be engaged. And then when productivity and client experience is increased out of HR driven outcomes.

4. Acting like a strategic business partner —

“Strategic business partner” is a fancy HR term that has been thrown around by industry experts for 15+ years. What it means is acting as a consultant to Leaders by providing strong HR and business-supportive recommendations to demonstrate to them you are “in it with them”.  The traditional HR manager can get trapped when they say no first without providing a creative solution. Demonstrating you are a partner means living in the world of “and”.  For example, when a leader wants something that doesn’t fit with a policy a Partner says, “we have a safety restriction to work within and we can help you find the right solution to fix that problem.”

In this world, a HR partner also communicates strategically to show they understand business needs and priorities.  They interpret HR priorities within those business needs and priorities and think ahead about creative solutions for when the business needs them. Leaders won’t avoid HR partners who bring creative options and results, and count on them for genuine balanced business advice. HR will have earned the right as a respected advisor to hold frank conversations with Leaders. This means giving important input on business challenges and giving feedback to leaders about their personal effectiveness when no one else will. The HR partner negotiates with leaders on how HR’s contribution to the business will be measured and celebrated.  In the end, a HR partner is counted as part of the organizational leadership group and together plays a respected role in planning and driving the business.

A hot topic in my clients’ world seems to be about the necessity of offering flexible work arrangements. Many of these conversations were stimulated by Yahoo and Best Buy pulling back their flexibility policies at the beginning of the year. Recent debates are amongst Leaders looking to understand the real trends.  I found it surprising after conducting further research how many companies are light-years ahead of the game and others are way behind.  The technology and telecom industries and many global packaged goods companies are convinced that work is “agile” and can be performed from where the employee works most effectively,
In the workforce today we have the “i-generation” entering and millennials moving into leadership roles. Boomers and Gen-Xers in senior leadership are no longer just facing the question on how to provide “choice” of working models but forced to consider supporting “customization” in the work environment. Old school leadership distrust has got to be challenged.

What are the managerial beliefs which create this sense of distrust in flexible work arrangements; are they real and how can they be remedied in today’s style of work?

Being face to face enables you to keep track of productivity.

This belief couldn’t be more out of date given current modes of work.  To quote one employee, “If you are physically in the office you can twiddle your thumbs and nobody will bother you, as soon as you work from home you have to document everything you are doing.” Let’s get real, most managers are usually so busy with their own meetings and own work they are not monitoring employees at every given moment. The luxury of a team member being at a manager’s beck and call because they are down the hall is also a delusion since so many use instant messaging or e-mails to get answers.  In fact, I often hear the opposite story about their manager’s presence; most team members cannot find them when they have an urgent issue to resolve.

Productivity is best measured by outcomes, delivered work and behaviours which made it happen. In the office managers are not watching their team members every move but observing behaviours primarily during meetings or presentations.  Work progress is usually monitored and adjusted through one-on-one update meetings.  Working remotely shouldn’t change these approaches to managing performance.  In fact, studies at IBM and Cisco show that team members who work from home regularly or even sporadically both demonstrate a higher quality of work and expend extra hours on the job for higher productivity.

Collaborating over the phone is less effective at drawing out opinions.

This actually may be true if leaders and team members haven’t had a lot of experience with conference call meetings. However, almost everyone is gaining experience with dial-up meetings. Like every new capability there are ways to build skills and create practices which can make conference calls equally conducive to participation and information sharing. Global and multi-location organizations cannot afford not to conduct business by conference calls because travel is so expensive.  Tools for sharing presentations, posting comments, white-boarding on-line, etc. also exist to enhance remote verbal collaboration. Group meetings should never replace regular one-on-one meetings where hesitant opinions can be gathered post-call and issues resolved.

Skills for conducting effective meetings or working collaboratively as a team are ones which all organizations need to focus on building.  Extra focus on creating collaboration moments in a remote environment is also possible. Managers need to be organized to dedicate time to planning meetings and team building moments along with leveraging multi-media tools for sharing.

Watercooler-like creativity and decision-making moments are lost.

Losing the spontaneity of watercooler conversations is a real possibility amongst remote teams but my position is these discussions are not the best way to sustain businesses. I have a friend who claims she is constantly out of loop because around her office ideas and decisions seem to come up at coffee discussions in which, as an introvert, she doesn’t participate. Everyone in her office works in the same location but even those impromptu meetings or decisions are still not shared consistently.

 There is a fallacy that creativity only happens in the spur of the moment or that all decisions are faster when on the fly.  Knowledge and worthy opinions may not be included and decisions may not be better.  Great creativity can also come from deep and quiet thinkers who don’t freely vocalize unformulated thoughts quickly.  Additionally, even when solid decisions are made quickly not many managers are skilled at keeping everyone in the loop or providing all necessary background on the decision.

When workers work remote from one another watercooler-like opportunities can be simulated through regular one-on-one updates or planned meetings and social gatherings. However, when a decision needs to be made it is important to open up space for creative thinking. For many, creativity and brainstorming may need advance reflection so planned agendas are important.  Finally, managers need to remember that sharing timely information and decisions are critical to their leadership role and the smooth functioning of their team.

Employees take advantage of working from home for personal life management.

This is the mother of all flexible work distrust justifications. It comes from both the opportunity work-from-home arrangements offers and the potential detractions that they bring.  Principally flexible work arrangements help employees to juggle their work and personal life to be more productive.  That may actually mean they are managing their personal life during work hours. However, this doesn’t actually imply they are contributing less or stealing time.

For all the reasons described in #1 face-to-face working is not necessarily more productive. Employees will often flex their time so that they are working earlier or later in the day should they go to an appointment during work hours.  In addition to giving back hours, many people often benefit from working from home because of the ability to focus without office distractions and produce better work in a shorter timeframe.  For the employee, working from home does take strong work habits and extra practice in maintaining communications and collaboration.

To get over most of the distrust Leaders have they must focus their thinking on four bottomline enablers and outcomes which help to ensure flexible arrangements are effective…

1. No matter where they are working, employees must be appropriately responsive to leaders, internal peers and customers/clients as required by their position.  This means effectively responding in both in verbal and written format.
2. Employees need to attend virtual meetings and flex their work location when needed to be available for collaborative work. They are also responsible for sustaining relationships necessary for group membership and the functions they perform.
3.  Managers must enable ways for remote and local team members to interact one-on-one and as a group, in person and electronically, to sustain information sharing, idea sharing, problem solving, creativity, relationship building and collaboration. If they or their teams do not have the skills to do this then providing tools and skills development may be necessary.
4. Employees must deliver upon role responsibilities and key performance indicators, i.e. promised quality, timelines and quantity of work, as well as the appropriate behaviours to get it done.

Old style of management and distrust is not going to stem the tide of today’s expectations for flexible working arrangements in environments where it is reasonable.  It may delay introduction of them in certain workplaces, however, for companies to continue to appeal to and retain new generations it will be necessary to get past old thinking. The definition of what is reasonable and possible in many work environments should be challenged as it is likely old management practices holding things back.  When introducing flexible working arrangements it will be important to build the thinking shift, the electronic tools, and supportive skills training to ensure its success. The ultimate benefits for allowing more flexibility will be employee engagement, greater retention and improved productivity of the business.

I have decided that I love networking coffees. As an introvert the one-on-one mode is easier for me than conferences and seminars. In these discussions I am curious about what others are doing and what maybe I could offer to them.  In the past I was highly focused at my corporate job, slaving my way to get ahead by focusing internally. I probably missed out on a lot of career advancement advice and job opportunities because I didn’t actively network externally. Today networking has become way more common and is a strategic way to get ahead.

Now that I am doing more of my own networking I get more requests to have coffee than ever.  Last week I met with a late-forties friend of a friend who is an executive out job hunting for the first time in years.  We talked about what he will ask for during a networking discussion scheduled for the next day.  “I want to know if he knows of an organization that has a job opening”, was his response.  Funny thing is it made me cringe.

The problem is that asking for a job or for a connection to someone who has a job puts the other person on the spot.  I have finally learned that networking is about building relationships and connections.  Yes, it is a substantially better route to finding a job than internet websites which filter you out, not in.  But it is not usually an immediate results activity. Instead, you want to create awareness about you and establish relationships which will stick in people’s minds for when the next business or job opportunity arises.  “Hey I met a guy who would be good for that last month!” Networking discussions are plays in the career long-game not just the short game.

Networking is your key to learning about industries, learning about organizations and building more connections to further your research for the long-game. It is both a means to a means and a means to the end.  Thus as you reach out to a new connection, request to have a conversation about an industry, an organization and /or an introduction with which to have further exploratory conversations.

Even after you have starting interviewing for a job opening don’t forget to network with others outside of the hiring department or who have left the company to find out more about the job, the department and the company culturally.  This adds perspective for your decision-making which HR or hiring leader will not provide when selling you the job, and support you in making a good job match for yourself.

Two mandatory etiquette pieces about networking are reciprocity and appreciation.  As you are asking for a conversation or introduction from your new contact, think about what you could provide to them. That might be advice, information, a source to find information or an introduction into your network. If you cannot think of something on the spot during the conversation be sure to follow up with a contribution shortly thereafter. Finally, do not to forget to thank them for their time in writing. Make your follow-up e-mail a personal message and relevant to your conversation.

No doubt for the urgent job hunter the idea that networking is not a quick search technique is disappointing.  Nonetheless, your efforts in networking while you are job hunting now will both help you find the right role within the right organization in the short term and also become a new way of life for you in the career long-game.

My bold statement of the day is Sales training not backed by organizational alignment is a wasted investment!

I am at a point where I might start refuse to source new sales training and development tools without my client’s commitment to also align other organizational strategy, communications, processes, roles and systems.  Any good OD service provider knows that training cannot fix all organization ills. It is like putting a cheap band-aid on a gushing amputation.

As you can imagine, the challenge with this new vow is the push-back from leaders.  I consistently hear  “keep it simple, don’t make this harder than it needs to be”.  Sales and Marketing leaders struggle to face the complexity of the challenges which might exist within their organization. They figure it will take too much money or time to remedy issues, if it is at all possible to steer the ship differently.  Unfortunately, that means leaders proceed in layering good people training investments on top of misaligned foundations but still expect stronger business outcomes.

Organizations are complex entities of people, processes, capabilities, technology, legal compliance, communications webs, and decision makers. By the way I haven’t even mentioned customers, branding, servicing platforms, suppliers and partners, etc.  Assessing what dysfunction may exist within the sales, marketing and product delivery structures is important to optimize investments and drive customer efficiencies. That means conducting an ‘organizational fitness review’ of sorts, which highlights areas for improvement.  Some solutions may be easy, like taking vitamins, and others more complex involving time and money, like a physical fitness regime.

Sales and Marketing leader’s approach to this need not be difficult:

1. The first step is to assign an independent internal resource or 3^rd party to cross over department lines and review trends at the McKinsey 7 S level (strategy, structure, systems, skills, style and staff).
2. The second step is to honestly face what is presented in the report and be ready to do something.  As you get older one’s reading vision gets weaker and it gets harder to see things in the mirror.  Same goes for organizational vision!
3. The third step is to be ready to tackle multiple fronts, like strategy alignment/roles/process hand-offs/ and skills at the same time, but do it in phases. Use your standard “Impact vs Cost” analysis matrix, establish owners for driving change and keep things progressing!

Although I suggested that an internal employee could take on this fitness review, the hazard is that person brings a myopic organizational view and will likely feel intimidated in describing any vast challenges to senior leaders.  Consider using a 3^rd party to bring a non-partisan viewpoint and extra organizational efficiency expertise!  Beating the 75% failure odds of change initiatives is not easy. However, the up front investment of fully aligning an organizational behind new change will pay in dividends of efficiency, customer satisfaction and profitability.

I have had many leaders come back to me after a course on “coaching” or “thinking strategically” to say: “why am I trying to learn to do something that isn’t my strength?”  Recently,
Our jobs in HR or talent development are to help leaders be effective.  We have read all the employee engagement studies and leadership models.  We have fully defined “what good looks like”. We have committed to the executive that we will create new leaders which exhibit those organizationally defined expectations through our programs.  But how do we also build flexibility into that development model which helps capitalize on individuals` strengths… isn`t that also what the gurus say accelerates performance and engagement!

I am inclined to say the polishing up what nature leaders is the path of least resistance.  I have little doubt that Steve Jobs participated in very few “leadership development programs“ at the start of his career and yet his natural style, although controversial, drove success.

• Step I is to ensure that the leader is in the right job, not everyone is meant for leadership nor meant for just any leadership role.
• Step II is to tone down the de-railing behaviours.
• Step III is to capitalize on their interests and strengths.

Leadership is about influencing people to follow you and a vision to deliver results.   Although, leadership styles vary, the most sustainable ones are those which: involves, inspires, grows and rewards people for action. Strictly task or outcome-focused leadership has to be going the way of the dodo bird.  People will not follow those styles for very long, and the millennial aged workers for even less time.  A big investment in `training courses` is not always the right approach.  Being highly focused with any combination of targeted feedback, a mentor, on-the-job activities, a special assignment, or maybe a peer buddy could be a lower cost approach.

One of my all-time favourite movie lines was said by Wil Smith in HITCH when responding to a client who was complaining that his new shoes were “not him“. Hitch say “You bought the shoes, you look good in the shoes and you is a very fluid concept right now.‘‘ Trying to be a better leader is like learning any new skill and sticking with a work-out regime. It will feel challenging, if not impossible, at first. It takes practice and persistence.  . You will, however, find a way to fit bits and pieces of those progressive behaviours into your style and shape yourself into your own version of `what good looks like`!