Role of HR

Mission, Vision, and Values

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The mantra of mission, vision, and values has been at the core of most modern-day organizations for many decades. Even though many organization’s mission, vision and values statements are sometimes lost from creation to implementation, they are still very important to their success and defined culture.

Many are saying that in the upcoming digital transformation of the workplace, culture will be even more important to organizational success than it is today. According to Edgar Schein, Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management:

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you.”

Many organizations have great products, but if they don’t proactively manage their culture, bad things happen. Remember the Volkswagen emissions scandal?  Here is an excerpt from VW’s mission statement:

“We assume responsibility regarding the environment, safety, and social issues. We act with integrity.”

I think most would agree that knowingly falsifying diesel emissions is not in alignment with the mission statement.  How does an organization’s culture get so off track? If you believe Schein, VW failed to manage their culture and they paid dearly for the misalignment, some say up to $33 billion for the scandal.

Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of Human Capital Management (HCM) Innovation at Ultimate Software, believes we need to reorder how we manage our organizations. Vision still comes first, and she also believes in putting culture before strategy. She believes culture is the true driver of any organizational strategy.  (Click here to read her article)

Discussion Questions

Research a company from a traditional industry and compare it to a new hi-tech company. Compare their mission, vision, and values.  How do they define each of the workplace cultures?

As a new HR professional, do you think workplace culture will be more or less important in organizations that are undergoing a digital transformation?  Support and defend your position.

Talent Management Expertise

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While Recruitment and Selection is usually linked together and included as one of the many functions within a Human Resources department, it is one of the few programs that can be implemented as a successful stand-alone business option.

There are numerous recruitment services across Canada providing support to organizations that need or want to use external expertise in order to find solutions to their staffing concerns. There are firms that provide immediate or short-term staffing solutions, such as temporary agencies supplying specialized workers for daily, weekly, or mid-terms assignments. There are also high-level talent management agencies (headhunters) that work with organizations to fill senior or executive level positions. In either case, these companies are focused on making the link between what an organization needs and what the marketplace of potential candidates offers in order to fill those needs.

As with any business, productive talent management firms thrive on passion and commitment to best practices in recruitment strategies. A recent interview with Erica Briody (Senior VP, Global Talent Acquisition) provides us with an excellent overview of what success looks like as a leader in this field.

Click here to read the interview.

Of the key messages that Briody shares through the interview, one is the need for Talent Acquisition and Human Resources to be proactive and aligned with the organization’s business practices. In addition, Briody, advocates for well-designed recruitment plan in order to meet the needs of the business, which may not be a one-size-fits-all strategy.

On the one hand, the proactive response needed from Human Resources to ensure that recruitment efforts are aligned with business needs do reinforce sound corporate practices. On the other hand, adapting recruitment design to fit a specific organizational need may be more of a challenge. As Human Resources practitioners, we are trained to provide objective and systematic approaches in recruitment in order to avoid or diminish potential discriminatory, illegal or subjective practices. We are trained to not place the organization at risk through the implementation of overly creative practices.

Perhaps a take-away from this expert is the reinforcement of the view that the role of Human Resources is always a bit of a balancing act. What saves us from falling is the commitment to passion, trust, and integrity in our chosen vocation.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does recruitment design impact business success?
  2. What impact does a successful hiring decision have on both the individual and the recruiter?
  3. What are some of the fundamental Human Resources practices that Erica Briody uses at a global level?
  4. When you think about your own career in Human Resources, what excites you the most?

HR is More Important Than Ever

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The HR profession has evolved drastically over the years. HR professionals have seen a general shift from a transactional focus to a focus on strategic activities. HR also has an increased presence at the executive table and can truly influence an organization. In fact, HR may be more critical now than ever—indeed, not having an effective HR system in place may be the demise of an organization.

The quest to hire and to keep employees is at a critical juncture in North America: organizations that are able to retain employees will prosper, while those that are not will perish.

The statistics coming out of the USA are alarming. The Seattle Times states that American workers’ willingness to quit their jobs is at a 17-year high, and that “there are now just 0.91 unemployed workers for each available job, the lowest on record”.

Click here to read more about the hiring crunch.

These statistics are alarming for any employer that is trying to hire or keep employees. The potential supply of employees is small, meaning companies will have to do things differently to be successful — and HR has to be at the heart of this activity.

The activities HR must do differently include the following:

  1. Speed up the hiring process. Would-be employees do not wait for HR to get back to them, employment candidates move on very quickly.
  2. Focus on turnover rates. Find out why employees are leaving and address the issues.
  3. Be flexible. Millennials and older members of the working population represent two of the largest available hiring pools, but both of these groups want flexibility in the employment relationship.

HR has always been the gate keeper for hiring, and HR professionals now have to find ways to draw potential employees in as fast as they can by offering competitive wages and flexible policies.

 

Discussion Questions:

Research whether or not using applicant tracking software speeds up or slows down an employer’s ability to hire?

What can HR do to hire suitably qualified employees in a timely manner?

HR Analytics – Use it. Own it.

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Blue men 3D graphic
Source: 3D_creation/Shutterstock

It is time for Human Resources to own the numbers.  After all, the words ‘Human’ and ‘Resources’ are used together for a reason.  Human Resources is not just about leading the humans.  It is also about the powerful management and leadership of resources associated with what the humans bring to the success of the organization.

Our role, as effective Human Resource leaders, is to ensure that we are constant in bringing forth both the human and the resource elements to the strategic management table.  One of the most powerful resource tools at our fingertips is Workforce Analytics.  Using the analytics tool effectively is key to ensuring both functional Human Resources and operational strategic success.

When we fail to bring both parts of the human and resources equation forward, we fail at our jobs as Human Resources leaders.  Failure is pretty easy as noted by Mark Barry, a successful Human Resources leader in the United States.  Mr. Barry offers us a step-by-step approach to how HR Analytics should be used as the resource tool, from the perspective of learning from one’s mistakes.

Click Here to Read the Article

What we learn from our mistakes, is how to change the outcome from failure to one of success by using HR Analytics effectively.  Of the seven Human Resources lessons learned from this article, there are two in particular that bear closer scrutiny.

First, where does HR Analytics report?  If the function of Human Resources is not responsible for the ownership of resources through understanding the people numbers, implementing the metrics, evaluating the measures, and leading everything that is data driven and comes from the organizational workforce for purposes of decision making, then the Human Resources function is not accountable for any of it.  If the Human Resources function is not responsible nor accountable for analytical resources, then that resource part of the Human Resources equation is lost.

When the power of analytical resources goes to others in the organization, Human Resources will have given up the fundamental strength that comes with workforce planning and development, which must be vested within the Human Resources function.

This leads to the second lesson, Human Resources needs to position itself strategically.  Again, if the Human Resources function is able to leverage the knowledge that comes from owning the resource of analytics, we can influence decision-making based on the powerful combination of putting the humans together with the resources to drive organizational success.

Discussion Questions:

  1. If analytics are not vested in the Human Resource function, where would they reside in an organizational structure? What impact will this have on Human Resources?
  2. What are the benefits of having organizational analytics available through the Human Resources function?
  3. Identify three Human Resources activities that can be measured and link directly to effective organizational performance.
  4. Identify three strategic decisions that HR can influence by bringing forward both a human (workforce) and resource (analytical) based plan or proposal to the corporate table.

Valuing Human Capital the Easy Way

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It is not that difficult. Knowing how, when, what, and why an organization should engage in the financial valuation of resources is something that all companies should understand.  It seems, however, to be something that many organizations forget about when considering their most expensive asset, human capital.

A humorous explanation about the valuation process linked to measuring human capital is shown in the following video clip.

Source: PeopleStreme.  The above content constitutes a link to the source website.  Please click the play icon to stream the video.

From this perspective, we can see how much is invested when following the progress, appreciation, and depreciation of company equipment and materials.   There are numerous actuarial tables and formulas that can be used to evaluate the contributions of hard ‘things’ to the overall financial health of an organization.  Keeping track of Barry the boardroom chair is easy!  Keeping track of what Sammy brings to the boardroom table seems much more complicated!

Why is it so difficult to provide similar value based financial assessments for employees?  When organizations tell their people that they are valued, what is the actual measure of that statement?

As Sammy finds outs in this video clip, the results can be quite shocking when we look at the return on investment that companies make on an individual employee basis.  Perhaps it is time to be as open and transparent with all employees to let them know how valuable they really are as they continue to contribute to the bottom-line financial success of any organization.

This clip ends with a pretty simple message that is, in itself, quite valuable.  Find your people.  Know your people.  Manage your people.  The return on investment will definitely pay off.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Think about your own work experience over the past five years. How much did the company you worked for, pay you?   How much value did you contribute back to the company?  What is the differential?
  2. Upon leaving your current place of employment, do you see yourself as an appreciating or depreciating asset from a pure, return-on-investment perspective?
  3. What types of measures and tools can the Human Resources practitioner put into place in order to value the true cost of employees as part of the Human Capital investment strategy?