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I love HR and I hate HR: Adding value
At PeopleStuf we are passionate about Human Resources, what HR can do and what HR’s role can be in organisations. But that doesn’t mean we like everything about HR or everyone who calls themselves an HR professional.
Take ‘adding value’.
What exactly do we mean by this? What does the business mean?
Here’s a thought: the business i.e. everyone other than HR, doesn’t spend their days wondering whether HR adds value. They simply follow our lead and when we beat ourselves up (about adding value), they just join in. Or they simply wonder what the link is between what we do and how it helps them. So ‘adding value’ is an HR stick, used by HR to beat itself up.
We know we used to ‘add value’ when I was in HR – whether helping a manager to recruit someone, showing an employee how to get better at their job, supporting a manager improve an employees performance and so on. I figured that all of my HR colleagues did the same sort of thing. So ‘adding value’ doesn’t mean about helping individuals – although we admit we were always pushy about telling managers and employees how much we had helped them.
‘Adding value’ must be about helping teams and groups – mustn’t it? But to do what? Surely not to save money ‘cause we okay at that (we can outsource with the best of them).
The trouble is, at PeopleStuf we believe that the term ‘adding value’ has become so generic as to be meaningless. We believe that ‘adding value’ is all about helping businesses increase their revenues and we know that every HR team not only does this already but can focus on four key areas to bring unique value to an organisation.
We also know that our communication, our ability to link what we do to the business increasing its revenues, lets us down. But we also know that it’s not what we think that matters – it’s what you and your organisation thinks.
Here’s a challenge for you; define what you think ‘value’ means to your organisation and then figure out how you can improve it. Just promise us that you’ll keep telling your line managers as you go along.
And stop beating yourself up about ‘adding value’.
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4 Comments
Not convinced myself at all. I don't think HR comes under enough of a spotlight for whether it adds enough value to any organisation, and I think many of it's practitioners are beginning to become a little more critical too.
I see so little science applied to HR techniques it worries me. A lot of common practice is either based on flawed research, or worse custom and practice.
We have on another post, an HR practitioner, who sincerely believes his 8 step high maintenance recruitment process is an essential to high quality recruitment, when asked to empirically support this, he quotes a touchy feely claim from Google, and moves on.
I'm not criticising this guy individually, it's just happenstance that he posted in the last two days and it's fresh in my memory.
So when I see another HR professional telling people they are adding value without enabling them to quantify that in anyway, it continues my worry that the profession is self-congratulatory with no evidence to back it up.
You have candidate testing, Myers-Briggs, for example. Expensive and utterly flawed, with a very low dependable repeatable result, yet used in hundreds of organisations thanks to the "value add" of HR. (Source: Life on the Edge, sorry can't remember the author, good scientific stuff though, and the Learning and Skills Council report from two years ago on Learning Styles)
Learning styles, the old, activist, reflector, pragmatist, stuff. Total nonsense, made up with no basis in fact whatsoever. Used by training departments globally as a decision making tool about learners abilities. (Source: Learning and Skills Council report on learning styles)
Assessment centres proven to be no more effective than short interviews, yet still millions are wasted on this kind of nonsense by the profession. (Source: New Scientist)
And so on, and so on. I too love HR, and believe that there are many benefits of well designed, well focused HR departments and outsources, but I see far too much fluff and waste, to be convinced of the value add in most cases.
http://reflectionsonhreffectiveness.blogspot.com/
Where Does HR Stand Now?
I recently read a blog which discussed the ability of HR Professionals to be viewed as respected contributors to their organizations. If I understood the posting accurately the blogger, Ian Cook, Director, Research and Learning, BCHRMA, suggested that HR Professionals understand the components and expected results of their roles but that they are still not considered deserving of respect in the way that they need to be. Ian suggested that perhaps a name change would help change mindsets; He said that “We have most of the answers when it comes to structure, value proposition and strategic drive – so what do we call ourselves….. any ideas?”
My experience over the past 5 years in particular (but similar to my experience over the past 18 years in HR) is that HR Professionals may still have a ways to go on the impressing front. They may have a better understanding now, that they need to be able to drive business results and what those results are, to be able to strategize, provide leadership etc. The question is, have they developed the skills and motivation to actually provide results or is this simply academic?
If I think about several rather disturbing discussions I have found myself in over the past several years, it would appear, that improving results has a long way to go. In various settings, at a party, at an alumni gathering, at a casual dinner with friends, in several workplace settings, with other HR Professionals, with Organizational Development Professionals, I have experienced some negative reactions to HR. It was clear that these people reacting to HR are anything but impressed; disgust, anger, and concern are the some of the reactions I have encountered. If it is true that HR has the ability to drive business results effectively, why is there such a negative reaction? Why do people believe the role of HR is largely administrative, to fire (or layoff), to create bureaucratic policies that may actually hinder productivity?
Integrity is a hallmark of Human Resources Professionals, yet this concept has come under fire in some of the above noted discussions. People have been quick to relate incidents where, in their experience HR has shown a lack of integrity. Some of this may have been perspective-after all, sometimes the work of HR is done under a cloak of secrecy. Secrecy is often necessary to avoid legal complications, protect reputations of innocent people, protect privacy as required by law, etc. Sometimes people see this secrecy as a lack of integrity. Yet, they accept this same lack of information sharing as appropriate from other leaders in the organization. So, what is the difference between the behavior of these leaders and HR? These leaders have earned respect through their technical expertise, a willingness to share their knowledge with others, an understanding of how to inspire and motivate others, proving through action that they know how to create business results, and accomplish goals. So why have HR Professionals not gained the same level of respect? Is it possible that a name change will create a change of mindset or is a significant change in the way HR collaborates with other departments required?
Nik,
I couldn't agree more in the need to quantify what 'value' means - the blog was very much borne out of frustration that we (as HR) spend our entire time talking about something we have not even started to define. The point I was making is that it is the organisation that defines 'value', not HR.
On the separate but related topic of HR metrics I believe that HR should be passionate about quantifying what it does in terms of organisational strategy/objectives and that contrary to common perception, HR is as capable as marketing/finance etc in demonstrating a strong link to the 'bottom line'.
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