THE BIG IDEA
Over the past year, as part of my ongoing outreach, I’ve asked nearly 1,000 CHROs a simple question on LinkedIn:
“Who do you have in charge of improving HR?”
Now, before we go any further, I want to be transparent – I make a good chunk of my living from coaching individuals in HR to improve themselves and improve the function, so I clearly have a vested interest; the intent of this question is to cause a reaction and encourage discussion, from which a working relationship may develop.
So, with that in mind, let’s turn back to the question and, more importantly, the responses.
Or maybe that should be “lack of responses”…
You see, of the nearly 1,000 times I’ve asked the question, I’ve received literally a handful of responses.
And, in each case, the response has been “me”.
Now, as I say, this is how I’ve built my business, so I’m very pragmatic about my outreach – there are a number of reasons that could explain why this question encounters crickets:
- CHROs aren’t active on LinkedIn
- CHROs are too busy to respond to messages on LinkedIn
- CHROs aren’t interested in external help to improve HR
All of which are reasonable/understandable.
But here’s something else that is a reasonable/understandable explanation:
CHROs don’t think or act as if improving HR is a priority worthy of planful execution.
Said differently, while a CHRO may want to improve HR, they’re mostly just practicing a strategy of hope that it’ll happen.
Still, the scientist in me remained unsatisfied with these fuzzy conclusions. So I started asking a clarifying question to augment the conversation.
“What’s your #1 priority for improving HR this year?”
And this one got responses!
As a result, I was able to quickly assemble a list of CHRO priorities for improving HR in 2023:
- Recruiting
- Retention/Turnover
- Colleague Engagement
Now, take a moment and review that list again. No great surprise, right?
Well…
Let’s look at the question again: What’s your #1 priority for improving HR this year?
Now look at the list. Do you see it?
The responses aren’t about improving HR… They’re about improving what HR delivers.
And this, it turns out, is a REALLY important distinction!
TRY THIS
Let’s revisit my framework for improving HR:
1 – DO THE RIGHT THINGS
- All competitive advantage is a function of PEOPLE, TEAMS, ORGANIZATION & CULTURE
- WHAT we do to create value doesn’t change much… HOW we do it is ripe with possibilities!
2 – DO THEM WELL
- Strengthen HR capability and capacity to positively impact PEOPLE, TEAMS, ORGANIZATION & CULTURE
- Build the key skillset of INFLUENCING throughout the HR organization
3 – MAKE IT EASY
- Continuously improve processes at all levels of the function
- Remove unnecessary process steps
- Ensure human touch-points only happen where there is clear value-add to decisions
4 – GET THINGS DONE
- Manage ISSUES, RISKS & DECISIONS proactively and rigorously
- Adopt a project management mindset whether you structure work in projects or not
- Stop rewarding the surviving hero(ine)
Through this lens, it’s clear that the CHROs responding to my second question were in the mindset of 1) DO THE RIGHT THINGS.
If that were all it took to improve HR, the function would be perfect… Because we all know that. All of us.
But my first question implies a deeper drive to improve – and the lack of response hints at what we’ve just covered.
I believe that a taking a structural, planned approach to improving HR is an organizational blind-spot.
And therefore a huge opportunity.
DO THIS
Where to start, then?
The answer to that question could be worth a million dollars if we believed that one size fits all. The good news is that it doesn’t! Where you start should be dictated by your needs, and the context within which your HR function is operating.
Here are some thoughts to start the ball rolling…
- Everything in HR comes back to process
The single biggest opportunity to most HR teams is to have a consistent approach, method and governance for the continuous improvement of processes - Project and Program Management
HR projects are different, so start managing them like you mean it
A project management mindset extends far beyond managing projects, and can significantly help CHROs wrangle unruly HR leadership teams - Influencing skills
I wrote about this blind-spot in the last Improving HR article, and would encourage you to read that piece – put simply, given that influencing is HR’s core capability, our approach to growing it has more often than not been “sink or swim” – better to identify the systemic classroom, experiential and coached solutions that can move the needle
As with all substantial change it is better to start than to think about starting. Of course, in the starting is the risk of pain/discomfort and HR, by its very nature, tends to the risk averse – so we quite often fight quietly but persistently to maintain the status quo.
I often talk about the wisdom of battle-scars and those that come from improving HR are no different – this stuff hurts a lot of the time! But make no mistake, this fight is the right fight to pick, and starting small on any of the ideas above will provide a more gentle entry into the arena than trying to fix everything all at once (read about our tendency to “boil the ocean” here).
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
“Turn your wounds into wisdom” ~Oprah Winfrey
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