I must confess this is one part of my job that I love, going out and spreading the word about HR and the role it can play in business and the career it can provide. I always feel privileged when I am invited into Educational Institutes and take these opportunities very seriously. I feel that I have a responsibility not only to represent HRINZ but I am also representing the HR profession.

So for me, it is very important that I make a great first impression on these students. I tend to try and make the sessions as informal, informative and as relaxed as I can. I suppose in some mad way it’s like going on a first date; you want to make the right impression straightway as you want them to remain interested in the long term.

The class were great to speak too, as they were enquiring, enthusiastic and great to interact with asking lots of questions about what HR had to offer them and what HRINZ could provide them. The students were a real joy to speak to as they really got it; here was someone independent of the education system who really wanted to talk to them and boy did they make the most of this opportunity.  A good few interview styles came out too!
As nothing is worse than been faced with students who you just know are there, not because they are interested but, because they don’t want to upset their lecturer by not attending, which makes you feel like you are trying to interact with a brick wall.

Anyway, the point of this blog was that even though these students were great, I was amazed at the career expectations they seem to have.

Most of them expect to be HR Consultants or setting up their own HR businesses within a couple of years of graduating. Their career ambitions and expectations blew me away, as I believe they are completely unrealistic.

From a HR practitioner point of view the only HR Consultants (I know and have worked with) who own their business have been in the HR profession have the minimum of 12+ years operational experience, generally are professional accredited by HRINZ and what they don’t know is not worth knowing. Their in-depth knowledge, experience and skill sets has been developed over the years from working in various organisations at various levels, which allows them to demonstrate their HR competence and expertise at a senior level which is what a HR Consultant is.

I did start to wonder where do the students get these ideas that they can be international jet setting HR Consultants from. As I am pretty sure that it is not from their lecturers or professors.  So, is it a generational thing?

Could my point of view that their career expectations are completely unrealistic be because of my generational beliefs? That you worked your way up to the top by building up your knowledge, experience and credibility within your profession? Or is it because I have worked in the real world for more than 15 years and my point of view is grounded in realism? I would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this.

To wind up my blog, I will tell you that by the end of my student presentation, I did ended up feeling like the person who tells small children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. As, I felt it was my duty to tell them that they will need to aim a little lower to get their foot in the HR door, as realistically no reasonable employer is going to employ them as a HR Consultant when they have no HR operational experience (other than the theoretical knowledge they are armed with) and then who knows in several years time their jet setting ambitions could take off.

Every now and again, when you have just read yet another article in an HR magazine where a correspondent whimpers away about the lack of recognition for HR and then indulges in a bout of self flagellation about the perceived shortcomings of the profession, a sigh escapes me.

Bear with me, as I am unashamedly positive about the contribution HR people can make in an organization , not when they are given the opportunity, but when they take the opportunity.

As an HR professional who has lived and worked in senior roles in a variety of organisations, including telecommunications, retailing, food and carpet manufacturing as well as stints in universities, a trade union and a law firm  I have had the opportunity to experience and to learn about how an HR practitioner can influence the strategy of organizations. This has been both through my own efforts and by observing and discussing with my internal peers and externally with other HR practitioners.

Some of the learnings that I have found to be beneficial can be summarised as follows:

i) It is often better to ask forgiveness rather than permission when introducing new practices into organisations, but make sure the basic HR processes are working before you indulge in this practice.

ii) Learn the language of the business and express HR initiatives in those terms. Do not expect the business to learn HRspeak.

iii) Become the confidant of the CEO and the senior team and learn to listen without judging. Always however retain the ability to take distance on issues and on the actions of your colleagues.

iv) Get around the business and become the Company Chaucer, the one with the interesting tales about the people.

v) Find new ideas for the business, from anywhere, about anything and share them with everyone. Become the facilitator of projects built off new ideas.

vi) Plant seeds in the organization, nourish them and celebrate when people come to you with “their” flourishing pot plant of an initiative.

vii) Take on additional responsibilities when they are offered and volunteer for things that no one else wants to do.

viii) Build “frameworks’ and talk benefits not features when you are driving initiatives, especially in any strategic planning process.

ix) Stay on top of the knowledge, read everything, and look to learn from everyone. Most people know more than you do.

x) Do everything with a sense of humour and don’t take yourself too seriously! No one else will…

By the way, many of these learnings can apply to any senior manager in any function…

“Taking” the opportunity is probably the essence of a successful HR role, and doing this enables you to see where you have been in an organization. There are always opportunities to make a contribution in an organization, although often you end up working on things that you may feel do not add the most value and are not, in your own considered view, what the organization ”really needs”.

Whenever HR people gather together and I think a “corollary” of HR people is the correct collective noun, there is always a discussion about how we know what the organization” really needs’. This is often accompanied by knowing looks, occasional sighs and the odd affirming grunt.

This then inevitably leads to a discussion about the lack of recognition of HR and sharing of personal frustration and vexation, usually accompanied by an Evian or a rough red wine.

Back at work this reinforcement by your external peer group of your almost criminal lack of recognition  translates into the development of a moderate siege mentality, expressed as a series of covert hurt looks during the monthly management meeting and begrudging assistance with initiatives which the business currently requires but which in fact they don’t “really” need.

Anyway, the thing is that it does not have to be like this and it helps to look at other functions within the business so that things are put in perspective.

Lets take Finance and IT-the numbercrunchers and the propellorheads. Each should make a contribution to the business at a tactical and a strategic level. In many cases however CEOs are frustrated because their Finance person is good with the numbers but not with suggestions about business initiatives based on trends with the numbers. They often use the IT person to fix their PC when they should be utilizing the knowledge and perspective of the IT guy about their business operation to enhance organizational performance.

The point is that both functions can claim to be misunderstood. The Finance person can claim unreasonable expectations and the IT person can claim to be treated as a technician rather than a business manager. Again, in both cases there are opportunities which are not being taken and in fact where these circumstances exist, there is often an opportunity for the HR person to increase their influence and job satisfaction.

HR people typically have a tendency to put Finance people on a pedestal, something that I feel is singularly unhelpful, both for Finance people and for HR people. Even where HR people report to Finance people this should not occur. Doing this acts as a constraint, putting a handbrake on influencing the organization by the HR person, because they are always awaiting either direction or approval  instead of getting on with things. In addition there is no mystery with Finance people. They simply count the numbers and explain them to the business –they are the scorekeepers, very nice scorekeepers but scorekeepers.

The point is that in every business or indeed every organization there is a requirement for managing various business processes including those relating to people .It is in the latter area that the opportunities arise for HR people.

Typically HR is responsible for ensuring smooth running personnel processes from selection to termination and everything else in between, sometimes known as “hatch, match and dispatch”. These are processes that are essential to the running of organizations and as such should be managed effectively and indeed enthusiastically by any HR practitioner.

For sure, there is drudgery in any job and leafing through the latest updates around health and safety legislation or chasing up managers who have not completed their appraisals ranks right up there in the drudgery stakes.

But once you have these processes ticking over then there is room to expand into the business partner quadrant. This principle applies regardless of the size of the organization.

In short, in today’s organizations where there is a dedicated HR resource there is a plethora of opportunities to make a difference. However, if those same HR people are looking for affirmation of their place in an organization, by virtue of their expertise they will be disappointed. Recognition comes from achievement not expertise.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Paul McCarthy is now a Consultant in the Human Resources field, and specialises in strategic human resource planning, organisational reviews, talent development and performance and change management.

He has had senior level HR experience in a variety of business organisations, including manufacturing (FMCG and textiles), food retailing (supermarkets)  and telecommunications, in both national and international organisations. He has operated at the Executive Committee level in all of these sectors.

In addition, he has had substantial teaching, research and administrative experience in Universities in Australia and New Zealand. He has also worked in a large New Zealand Law firm and as a Legal Officer for a large trade union.

He holds a law degree from the University of Auckland and has a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Queensland. He is also the author of two books on negotiation skills, published in both Australia and New Zealand .

It is a result of the need to answer this question that I came up with the following analogy about the value of HR.

Staff are like cars:

1. You need to pick the right model – the sports car looks very pretty, but isn’t much good if you need to tow the trailer
2. You need to steer them in the right direction otherwise they go off track, and ultimately are liable to crash
3. You need to service them regularly, or performance will deteriorate
4. A specialist mechanic (or HR Manager) will have much greater success at fixing issues properly than the enthusiastic DIY’er
5. Trade-ins can be very costly if you haven’t done steps one to four properly

The wage spend is the single biggest cost centre in virtually any business.  Therefore, as HR practitioners we can have a major impact on the bottom line of the company simply by ensuring that the right models are picked, the steering mechanisms are effective, and the servicing is done properly.

One of the most significant ways we can impact the bottom line is through focusing on productivity.  Productivity in New Zealand is appalling compared to the rest of the world.  This low productivity has a significant impact on New Zealand’s economy, and it is as a result of this that the Department of Labour has launched a major initiative to increase productivity.  If you haven’t already, visit the Department of Labour website and get a copy of the Productivity Starter Pack.

Based on international studies the DOL has listed seven key drivers of workplace productivity:

1. Building Leadership and Management
2. Creating Productive Workplace Cultures
3. Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology
4. Investing in People and Skills
5. Organising Work
6. Networking and Collaboration
7. Measuring What Matters

Well just in case you hadn’t spotted it, there is only one thing on that list, Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology, which is not under the direct influence of the HR team.

1.  Building Leadership and Management

HR has significant impact in this area by:

• Ensuring that you have correctly defined the competencies required for the leadership roles in your business
• Ensuring that the leaders have the tools necessary to do their jobs effectively.

Whenever you start recruiting for a position (or are looking at how to increase an incumbents effectiveness in a role), particularly a leadership position, HR should be working with the manager to help them identify, not only the task list for the job, but more importantly, the competencies required to do the job.

All too often I see a great operative being promoted into a management position.  As a manager it is very useful to have a good understanding of what your team do, but, ultimately, the role of a manager is to quite different.  They are required to monitor everyone’s progress, identify where the collective effort should be focused, steer everyone in the right direction etc.  Unfortunately, this is out with the comfort zone of many operatives, and as a result they may have been a great operative, but are often only an average manager.

By working with the recruiting manager up front you will help them ‘define the right model’.  This will then enable you to develop competency based interview frameworks for them to use, and give them a point of reference to check their final decision against.  As opposed to appointing ‘Sam’ because it was easy/they were there/they liked them in the interview/etc.

This will also enable you to identify ‘Sam’s’ development needs (we all have them) to turn them from a new manager into an excellent leader.

2. Creating Productive Workplace Cultures

Bonus schemes to drive the right behaviour and Performance Appraisal system that are user-friendly and add perceptible value are major tools in creating productive workplace cultures.

Unfortunately bonus schemes are often not actually encouraging the behaviour which will create the desired outcome.  For example, a bonus scheme that focus’s purely on turnover, but ignores profitability will result in lots of sales, but often at discounted rates.  You need to clearly understand what actually generates the desired results, and reward that.  For example, customer service is rarely seen in bonus schemes, but more often than not excellent customer service is the key to retaining existing clients and getting their referred business.

I often hear managers describing Performance Appraisal systems as an onerous paperwork task, which just wastes their time.  It is our job in HR to:

• Critically review any systems and eliminate any negative connotations
• Provide an easy to use, clearly value add, system
• Understand any underlying reasons behind why a system is not being used, and take action accordingly.

Frequently the ‘problem’ with the system has more to do with a manager’s reluctance to have a ‘courageous conversation’.  Remove the fear through training and support, and you will often see a significant change in the outcomes.

A robust tailor-able Bonus scheme, easy to use Appraisal documentation, and 1 to 5 definitions of 20 different competencies are available to download from www.hrtoolkit.co.nz .

3. Encouraging Innovation and the Use of Technology

Though this may not be under the direct remit of HR we can certainly influence this by recruiting the right people and putting in place systems to encourage the right behaviour.

4. Investing in People and Skills

Supporting your managers in doing this effectively is the basic fundamental function of any HR team.

5. Organising Work

The purpose of an organisation structure is to enable communication flow and minimise cross-over between roles.  Everyone within an organisation needs clearly defined roles, and clear delineation around when tasks pass from one person to the next.  It is the role of HR to provide this definition and structure in conjunction with the managers.

Duplication of work has a significant impact on productivity.  Therefore, if the delineation between roles if not clear, you end up with two people repeating the same task which wastes time and decreases productivity.

The actual cost of such duplication can very quickly add up:

5 minutes per day X 5 days X 52 weeks = 1,300 minutes per year (21.7 hours)

6. Networking and Collaboration

Providing opportunities to network is not just the responsibility of the Social club, or the sales team.  Training days can be a great opportunity to get representatives from different departments working together.

HR is one of the few departments that works directly with all of the other departments, we are therefore in a great position to identify potential cross-departmental opportunities for networking and collaboration.

The opportunities for external networking and collaboration can also be influenced by HR through:

• Encouraging it through the appraisal systems,
• Defining jobs that include a requirement to for networking, and not just for sales jobs,
• Creating a culture where you pay for staff to attend networking events, as opposed to criticising them for ‘skiving off early’ to attend the latest HRINZ seminar.

7. Measuring What Matters

See comments above under section 2.  This is absolutely critical to the success of any business.

Get in the Driving Seat

As HR professionals, we need to get ourselves into the driving seat to increase productivity.  Together we can change the way we manage our most valuable asset, our staff.

Guest post by Lisa Mackay. Lisa is the Managing Director of HRtoolkit Ltd

Website www.hrtoolkit.co.nz