Thanks to Randy Glasbergen for a brilliant take on what HR needs to deal with at times.. If you're smiling, you must be from HR!

In my earlier post on HR I had promised a more detailed note on the role of HR and, as I read the Economic Times article on HR this morning, I was once again reminded of the dissonance between HR and employees, and the unfairness of it all inspired me to immediately put this down.

The primary role of HR is NOT to be a people-facing function. There. Let’s start with that.

Just like any other function, HR brings a core competence to the business, which the business must recognize and leverage. The primary problems are:

1. Business is unclear what to expect from HR. As a result HR gets neither credit nor necessary empowerment. And ends up with a lot of blame, because the function with fuzzy, unaccountable goals always gets in trouble. Look at any organization that has a great HR track record and you will realize that in those organizations, Business GETS IT. They GET what HR must deliver.

2. Quality of HR Talent. Trained on and brought up on fuzzy expectations/norms, the HR Talent world is woefully thin. And since most HR professionals themselves are unable to clearly articulate/educate for the business, what they bring to the table. The cycle continues. 

The role of being people facing, of looking after employees’ best interests, of ensuring employees are treated fairly, managed well, appraised effectively and rewarded financially and non-financially belongs to each manager and each function head, and finally the CEO.

HR’s job is to ensure the following:

1. Raw Material supply: Just like an SCM function is responsible for sourcing and bringing raw material in. So also the HR team is expected to help the business bring in the talent and staffing required to run the business appropriately. This is a partnered role, where HR will ensure that key processes are in place, but the final outcome depends on the final interview and assessment conducted by the business i.e. supervisor/function head. It is the role of HR to ensure that there is a well developed capability across the organization to interview effectively and that assessments are consistent across various interviewers. It is HR’s job to ensure that the cost of hiring is within established benchmarks/goals.

2. From Raw Material to Finished Goods or Ready goods for the next process: Once the SCM function has brought in the goods. They are handed over to manufacturing to be processed. Similarly, the goal of effective performance management is to ensure that each employee receives input that enables her to perform at her best, and to grow and develop in resonance with the organizations values and culture. Once again, the primary role belongs to the manager of the employee. HR’s job, is to ensure that there is a clear, well-defined, proven process. And that the manager is effectively competent in the process and skills required to do the above. It is also HR’s job to provide MIS on the health of the process and the health of the talent across the organization.

3. Quality Check and Quality Assurance: From time to time, HR must establish whether the Input-Process-Output is performing as per design and expectations. Hence it must perform the role of Quality Check at key points. And work in the Quality Assurance role, alongside the managers to help them raise their levels of capability.

4. Conscience keeper: In addition to the above, HR plays a vital role in being the conscience of the organization. And for this HR is accountable for Truth-telling. If the organization is going astray from it’s values. If the culture is not supportive of the strategy or if there is a departure from the Mission, HR must speak up. In this role it needs to work closely with the CEO and the Leadership team and must be unflinching in it’s ability to tell the truth.

5. Metrics and other transactional areas: Just like the finance team is accountable for certain core financial processes, so also the HR team is responsible for some things purely HR: keeping compensation benchmarks up-to-date and providing input on how the organization compares. Ensuring consistent and transparent policies are available to employees. And there are a few more. 

I would like to hear what you think. Please add to this note, so we can make it more complete.

I would also like you to comment on the capabilities required of HR professionals if the above are indeed their roles.

Related articles

• Hr (learnod.wordpress.com)
• Ed Lawler: Human Resources: It’s Time for a Reset (huffingtonpost.com)

Reblogged from Life, Leadership and Change:

• 

I recently came across the work of Ronald Heifetz, on Leadership and was impressed with the simplicity and power of his work.

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s an extract of his work, and some takeaways I had. Hope they hold meaning for you too.

Mustering the courage to interrogate reality is a central function of a leader. And that requires the courage to face three realities at once.

Read more… 323 more words

Reblogged from Life, Leadership and Change:

• 

When you fail do you: 1. Reflect & Learn? OR

2. Self flagellate & moan?

One of these attitudes will take you to success!

When you succeed do you:

1. Swell up and feel invincible? OR

2. Appreciate everyone involved & reflect to learn what were the key factors that led to success and key decisions that were taken?

One of these attitudes will sustain success…

Read more… 257 more words

Reblogged from Life, Leadership and Change:

• 

Diversity. Inclusion. Affirmative action.

10 years ago, few people knew these words. 20 years ago, hardly anyone. In the recent past, these words have come to become prominent in organizational literature and have also become key functions in some organizations. 

What gets my goat is when I hear talk about “A business case for Diversity”.

Why?

Diversity exists in nature.

Read more… 824 more words

As an OD practitioner, this is one of the key challenges, to build a culture of Respect and Inclusion

A colleague was telling me today how an employee walked up to him the other day, and said “HR isn’t doing enough to represent the employees”… Maybe this was once the case. When HR was supposed to “represent” the employees’ interest. Not any more.
 
I firmly believe that “representing” employees, being sensitive to their needs, counseling, coaching, rewarding etc. are all the job of the manager. If line managers “outsource” this role to HR, then that organization will never have a powerful employer brand, nor will it be able to hold onto or develop talent.
 
What then is the role of HR? Is that what I hear you asking? 
 
Why don’t you tell me..
 
All that I will say is, anything that can be outsourced to a third party (payroll, leave management) are no longer the role of HR.

 
Leave your comments and I promise to collate the responses, as well as put up what I think is the contemporary JD for HR professionals. But first, I’d like to hear what you think! Leave a comment.

Read Center Shift at http://joyandlife.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/center-shift/

Happy reading!

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As an OD professional. As an agent of change. Your primary challenge will not be systems or furniture or machines. It will be people. And their motivations. And you must posses a DEEP understanding of human beings and their motivations. And you will achieve this only when you have a DEEP understanding of your own motivations first.

The net is a wonderful place for serendipitous connections. I found this absolutely mindblowing blogpost that gave me goosebumps and I hope will give you a moment of reflection and some idea of what I refer to above.

Read. Reflect.

http://unnamedentity.posterous.com/the-isle-of-man

Image by 姒儿喵喵 via Flickr

Continuing on from diagnosis, it is important to understand that a key part of diagnosis is asking questions.

It may sound cliched, but it’s absolutely true and very relevant, that you will only get answers to the questions you ask. Ergo, the completeness and impact of your OD intervention will depend on the quality of your questions. They’re directly proportional!

That’s why I decided to write a post that focuses only on Questions.

As you prepare for the diagnosis dialogs with members of the leadership team, here’s what you need to understand completely: 

The past – The beginning, the legacy.

The present – Current state.

The future – Desired state.

The Whats-

• What is the present state
• What was it like in the past
  
• What is the future likely to be
• What is desired
• What works
• What should not, must not change
• What most desperately needs to change
• What would be nice if it changed
• What is going on inside
• What is going on in the outside world
• What has been tried and has failed
• What has been tried and has worked well
• What should not be attempted at all
• What are the key performance measures of the business. What were the numbers like in the past? What are they today? What is expected in the future? What impact on those numbers is desired as a result of this intervention?

The Why’s

• Why were we successful in the past
• Why are we successful today
• Why will we be successful in the future. Why not.
• Why is an intervention needed
• Why now

Additional questions:

• Who are the key influencers – at each level of the hierarchy, all the way to the bottom of the pyramid
• How will impact be measured?
• How soon is the change required?
• Are there parts of the organization or team that continue to do well or are different from the norm? Are there islands of excellence here? If yes, what is different about them? Why are they different? What can we learn from them and apply to the larger context?
• What are the causes for being where we are today? Both in terms of the good stuff, and what can be better.

Now here’s the interesting bit. Questions can also be used for more than just gathering information. Questions are very powerful when used to provoke thought. A simple example of a provocative question is “Road tere baap ki hai kya?” (Loosely translated, that means “Does this road belong to your father?”) but of course I use the example in jest. This particular question only provokes a response (And sometimes you need that too!).

Thought provoking questions: 

• What if you were to start this business afresh today. What would you do differently? How would you structure/design the business model?
• What if you had to relook at the market in such a manner that what you currently offer as product/services, is only 5% of the marketshare?
• What would happen if you were to walk away from your bottom 50% customers. How would it impact your business?
• If we had to double our production, but reduce our costs by 25% how do we do that?
• If we have to double our marketshare in the next 2 years, what should we be doing?
• What if we were to do away with the Quality department altogether. How would we restructure the way we manage business then?
• So what’s wrong with being an aggressive culture that doesn’t focus on people practices?
• Why should we change?
• Why can’t we continue the way we are? We’ve certainly done well so far.

The objective of this post was to provide an insight into the power of questions, and how you must leverage them as a key tool in your quest to diagnose and design an appropriate OD intervention.

Take it from me. If you haven’t invested at least half a day in building together the set of questions you’re going to ask as part of your diagnosis exercise, you’ve not done a good job.

That’s the level of preparation you require in order to do a deep diagnosis.

Please share some questions that work for you, and leave them as comments. That will add to us all!

Keep reading, keep giving me feedback on how to improve this blog and stay subscribed. I will ensure this series goes on. And there might just be a certificate in it for you ;o)

Aaaah I’m kidding! What the hell would you do with a certificate anyway? That’s the question….

Related articles

• Organization Development – The Process (learnod.wordpress.com)
• 365 Thought Provoking Questions to Ask Yourself This Year (marcandangel.com)
• Diagnosis – The Key to Effective Organization Development (learnod.wordpress.com)
• What is OD? (gautamblogs.com)
• 25 Beautifully Illustrated Thought-Provoking Questions (kozar.wordpress.com)

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Diagnosis is the key!

And why? Because if you get the diagnosis wrong, everything else goes wrong. When a doctor misdiagnoses, the patient usually dies. Ditto for organizations.

A good diagnosis is way beyond an X-ray, it has to be like an MRI or a CAT Scan. So what are the key tips to ensuring this:

• Don’t just accept the first thing you hear – validate it by speaking to more people
• Ensure you cover a broad cross-section of individuals, across teams, levels, and divisions/locations
• Have a mix of one-on-one dialogs as well as Focus Groups
• If you can sense people are uncomfortable with voicing opinion, that itself is a diagnosis! And if this is the case, use some other more confidential method of gathering information
• Ensure you don’t allow your own preconceived notions to affect your diagnosis – we’re all human, and prone to forming quick judgments, be self-aware enough that you avoid this
• Ensure you don’t get swayed by the opinion of power centers. Most often it is the power centers themselves who’re the root of the issue
• It is a good idea to sometimes include vendors/partners/customers as part of a diagnosis

Ensure you validate the diagnosis when done, with the key leadership team.

How to diagnose:

• One on one discussions
• Focus Group Discussions
• Research – read survey reports, market trends, share price index of the organization, P&L trends, market-share (for example, if you did this for Nokia, you would realize that they don’t have the capability to respond quickly to a changing marketplace. The next level of understanding would be that the leadership team is unable to create this capability)
• Use non-verbal techniques. Ask people to enact skits or draw posters that depict what’s working and what’s not.
• Use all your senses. What does your gut tell you? What do you see – cleanliness and order or disorder? Are people and meetings mostly on time or not?

Personally I find Appreciative Inquiry to be one of the best ways to have a diagnosis conversation. For more understanding of Appreciative Inquiry, follow the link. My AI mentor is Sushma Sharma, who is probably the best practitioner in India.

All the above ingredients will add up to a complete diagnosis, and enable you to come up with a more complete solution.

Here’s an example from one of my early engagements. This was for an American company that had recently setup an off-shore center in India. They were facing a lack of effective response from the Indians. I was told to put together a program for ensuring Indians understood American culture and language more effectively.

I decided to diagnose further. I invested time in speaking to the Indian teams, then the American teams, leaders in both India and the US. And I finally realized that since we were replacing Americans with Indians, head for head. The Americans were against the India operation.

No one had told the American teams why the organization needed an India center viz. our primary customer had indicated that if we didn’t cut cost with an India option, they would take their business elsewhere.

To aggravate these issues, Lou Dobbs was putting up his list of American companies that outsource, on CNN primetime daily. John Kerry was using outsourcing as his primary plank for the US election.

On the India side, the Indians were not keeping to time, were missing meetings. Were being insensitive to what the Americans were going through.

This more complete diagnosis helped me realize that this was not a language or culture issue. It helped me realize that it wasn’t just the Indians who needed to be worked on, but that we needed a more global more inclusive solution.

It also helped me identify what the key impact measures of this intervention could be.

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What have some of your diagnosis experiences been like?