What "hard truths" must HR pros learn to accept?

Here are some hard truths I learned over my career:
- You earn the credibility and trust of your "customers" one at a time. Respect doesn't come with an office or title.
- Liking people in and of itself won't mske you an effective HR professional.People are necessary to the business, your job is to help link their contributions to the business effort.
- Smart people do dumb things, part of your role is to be sure they don't do repeatedly.
- Compliance is a hygiene factor. If you do it really well people take it for granted. It isn't enough to get you a seat at the table.
- You are a consultant to the business. If you aren't prepared to put your job on the line every day to be sure the values and ethics are followed consistently then look for different work.

The first value that HR can bring is "alignment" within the organization, gathered around the actual vision (not the aspirational one). The theory is that nearly all monies spent on outside marketing activities is waisted if the employees are not on board. Here's a great firm doing that work: http://www.castcommunicationdesign.com. Look especially at their manifestos: http://www.castcommunicationdesign.com/manifesto

The second value that HR can bring is legal protection against wrongful termination or sexual harassment suits, which can be substantial.

The third is to get rid of the occasional evil employee who slips through the hiring process and mucks everything up. The most dangerous employee to any organization is the very talented one who doesn't fit the culture.

I loved Tim's post and love that you posed this question to the Focus Community. Another Hard Truth: The HR Function has a Serious Identity Problem. We have to stop trying to be all things to all people and start focusing on those things that only we are well positioned to do - things that are truly relevant to the employees' career experience at an organization. Everyone else in the world loves to try and define what HR "should be" - we need to stop listening to that noise and start focusing on and driving who it is we "need to be."

I wade into this topic with trepidation, given that I am an amateur OD person fulfilling the role of Chief Revenue Officer of a company. That said, I think the hardest truth for HR professionals to deal with is related to line ownership of certain elements of the HR function. Here is what I mean...the more a company increases its ability to attract and retain great line leadership the more that line leadership will take ownership of the most fun and rewarding elements of the HR professional's job.

Face it - no HR professional got into the function to hammer compliance, investigate foibles and jam performance management documents down people's throat. They got in the role for talent acquisition, organizational development, coaching...essentially investing in the human capital of the firm.

But great line leadership increasingly understands the value of these activities and either is or should take ownership. Releasing these activities and playing a supporting role might be a hard truth for a great HR executive.

The hard truth that many HR professionals will need to learn to accept is that they are no longer an effective function in business. The truth is that many HR departments have become nothing more than an administrative arm of their organizations, adding little value.

Their ineffectiveness stems from their inability to grasp what's important, it's very rare for any organization to have an HR department that can effectively manage the big three, recruitment/selection, performance management and succession planning. Most of them don't even understand these systems, so they bring very little value to their organization. We have placed too much emphasis on the role of HR in an organization, if you reference David Bakers comments, he suggests that it's their responsibility to get rid of the evil employee who slips through the hiring, I couldn't disagree more, it's their bosses responsibility, not HR.

As a cost center rather than a profit center, dealing with that most unreliable and problematic of resources, the human beings that constitute the organization, HR suffers from the double-whammy. HR almost never gets the final say on anything.

Further organization depreciation flows from the additional reality that every executive... nay, every manager... considers themselves an expert in motivation, supervision, employee relations and human behavior. They who make the money that supports our compliance-oriented defensive and totally advisory information-processing function, feel free to dismiss any HR recommendation as inferior to their every random inspriation.

The hard truth about HR is that they are responsible for executing the vision, mission and strategies that create the corporate culture. Without assembling and harvesting talent to fulfill the critical objectives of the company assets are wasted.

They are executive leaders that must convey the value through quantifiable performance reviews that validate the value of individuals responsible to fulfill the work that must be done to operate, sustain and grow business profitably.

Human capital must be fully vested in the companies success. Employees sell their talents to secure their future and the company is the vehicle that enables them to achieve and sustain their interests as well.

HR professionals are the guardians responsible for protecting the assets and resources allocated to employees to get the job done for work to be done. There is no room for employees that waste resources, devalue assets and perform below standards necessary to operate profitably.

Customer experience is a culture not sales and marketing... Protect, cultivate and foster the company BRAND.

I've worked in manufacturing in the U.S. for 30years as an Electronics tech.
In today's work environment HR is a website or an 800 phone number.
From my perspective HR has mostly been the silly rule enforcer, other than that, irrelevant to getting my job done.

The hard truth that most HR professional never face is that they need to think like they are in operations and not in HR..

...that "not all that glitters is gold".

Creative people, leaders and thinkers alike,
are more than found traditionally...
a great number is found when you are courageous enough
not to stereotype and give your "hunches" a chance.

Experience is simply repetition...
and it doesn't take a creative person years to learn
and master things... and naturally "toy" with situations,
ideas, and problems.

This is @TheGreatLight.

An experience repeated is a habit rather than a new opportunity for learning alternative options. Great experience is invaluable due to the far broader exposures gained and the much wider range of potentially appropriate responses tried and tested rather than "only one answer."

Having been in operations (from floor-sweeper to CEO) as well as HR (all segments), I'd say that ops are much easier because making and selling a product or service is far simpler than effectively managing people through persuasion rather than via line authority. That said, HR remains responsible for the human talent who perform the operations and thus should fully comprehend the operational requirements of the enterprise in order to do the best HR job.

I am currently writing some posts that shift thinking about HR from the current outdated concept to something that gets us away from repeating the same tired lines over and over again. I get where Tim is coming from and he isn't wrong but he is addressing the 'missing the boat' style of HR.

I won't get into details here but I wonder who reading this thread has an idea of what is truly the missing link in this thread and hence the reason so much of the HR comunity seems to be spinning their wheels?

Great question, Caty.

First having read the post you cited, I would summarize what Tim Sackett wrote into a more succinct and clear observation, rather than add to it.

The first hard truth HR pros must learn to accept (and take action upon) is that, although immersed in a world of bureaucracy, they must themselves resist the seemingly immutable force to BECOME a bureaucracy. HR can only progressively move forward, adding value to the company they work for and their own department, by serving a function. It will not happen by attempting to control the functions of others.

To that end, the second hard truth HR pros must not only accept but take action upon is the necessity of pushing back at managers who would throw their dumping ground of unwanted assignments at the feet of HR. It is hard to blame HR for attempting the corporate-wide governance of performance, which they simply are not in the best geographic position to undertake, when the department heads with whom such tasks properly reside are not standing up to their own fundamental responsibilities.

Just my two cents. ;)

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

Tim's post is very accurate.
I'd add two things:
1) HR professionals must accept the fact that they can't just be "people" people. They need to be business people who are focused on a specific business resource: People.
2) HR can't make everyone happy or hire only high performers. Every group of people has an portion who are very engaged and enthusiastic about a given situation and some who are disenfranchised and resistant/reluctant.