HR,PAST FORWARD[/b]
Introduction[/i][/b]
It may be the fact that the slowdown in the economy is beginning to lift and maybe be the beginning of a new decade (with a desire to forget the past one), but there seems to be a lot of interest in whether human resources will be different going forward than in the past decade. Will the challenges be different, and will the skills needed to address those challenges be different as well? If we think the HR function is changing, one way to test for that is to see whether the attributes of those running it are changing. And this translates into a question that has great interest to people in any field: What would be the new developments forward in HR and how to increase HR’s functional value and worth??
“Analysts have always tended to measure a society by classical economic and social statistics…Such statistics are important and revealing. But there is another statistic that I think is even more important and revealing. Does your society have more memories than dreams or more dreams than memories?”[/b]
– Thomas Friedman.[/i][/b]
Thomas Friedman distinguishes societies by whether they are driven by dreams or memories. Companies driven by dreams are forward-looking, innovative, open to new ideas and competitive. Those driven by rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia tend to focus all their energies on making the imagined past even more beautiful than it ever was and then cling to these memories of the past instead of dreaming and building a better tomorrow.
Letting go of the past[/i][/b]
Letting go is one of the hardest lessons in life. In life, there's many things that we have to learn to let go. We have to let go of situations, things, memories, people and even ourselves.
It's easy to form an attachment to people and things. When you've formed an attachment to people and things, it can be a very painful experience and feeling when you realized that it's time to let go. Even the mere thought of not having that person or thing in your life just squeezes your heart in pain.
However, there are times where you or that person has changed to the extent that it's necessary to let go of the relationship or friendship, so that each of you can fulfill your life path.
Letting go of your past and memories are also extremely hard. Even though old memories can be tormenting, yet you might hold on to the past and refuse to move forward. However, by refusing to let go of the painful past, it'll serve as a roadblock to the future.
Letting go of your old self and the process of letting the new you emerge can be one of the biggest experiences in your life. But by leaving behind your old self and taking a leap of faith into the unknown, it might just reveal what you are truly capable of becoming.
There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.
Letting go doesn't mean giving up... it means moving on. It is one of the hardest things a person can do. Starting at birth, we grasp on to anything we can get our hands on, and hold on as if we will cease to exist when we let go. We feel that letting go is giving up, quitting, and that as we all know is cowardly. But as we grow older we are forced to change our way of thinking. We are forced to realize that letting go means accepting things that cannot be. It means maturing and moving on, no matter how hard you have to fight yourself to do so.
The same applies to corporations and businesses. Michael Hammer, business guru and author adds, “One thing that tells me that a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. Same with countries. I am glad you were great in the fourteenth century, but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start afresh."
Companies leaving the past behind[/i][/b]
Nokia was the classic example of a company dreaming forward. Nokia started out as a paper mill, abandoned that and went on to make rubber boots and snow tyres before reinventing itself into a mobile giant. When an industry was near expiry, Nokia did not cling to it but dreamt and then built its future.
Likewise, great CEOs like Jack Welch, never gave heed to past glories, even abandoning and selling off ‘sacred’ industries in his early years at GE. While there were numerous cries of nostalgia and talk of how Neutron Jack was a traitor for discarding tradition, Jack had no such sentiments for great industries of the past but focused on the industries of the future and built it.
Apple, a computer hardware company, entered the music business with its iPod and revolutionized portable entertainment growing its market capitalization to over $619 billion. Apple’s market cap is also more than $200 billion greater than Exxon Mobil – the second biggest company right now clocking in at $405 billion. Microsoft, Wal-Mart and IBM round out the top five.
Likewise Intel, abandoned its core business making memory chips (bipolar RAM), and reinvented itself by becoming a microprocessor company. Then CEO Andrew Grove braved and fought off a barrage of internal critics to fulfill his vision for Intel in the high-tech space.
Leaders understand that people are driven by hope. Past glories make a person proud. Pride is usually a recipe for disaster as it blocks your ability to see your true situation. Many pride-filled companies with a chequered past, fail to deal with current issues that plague them as they are blinded by this pride. It is the same in many human resources (HR) departments. You hear the familiar memories of how it was better in our company in the past, and no dreams about how HR can change the game and reinvent the future.
Looking forward[/i][/b]
The ability of HR to add value at a strategic level "is currently more promise than reality. That’s the sobering fact that HR systems and structures are still primitive and administrative in many companies. You hardly see HR leaders dream about reinventing their departments to be talent-focused and more aligned to the business strategy.
If you want to be effective business partners, you need to change the skill set and thinking. This means a total overhaul of HR policies, processes and even HR’s role. HR has to reinvent itself from being an administrative body to be a more strategic business partner. If they don’t, more companies will go the way of large corporations such as Daewoo Corporation, South Korea, Nortel, Canada, Fokker Aircraft, Netherlands, Bugatti Automobiles, France and so on. But yet, in most HR teams, we still look back to the past and not look forward to a strategic new HR driving the business forward.
“World class businesses fail because they are either unable or unwilling to discard old models of businesses when external forces have changed dramatically,” says Jagdish N. Sheth, a distinguished professor. Sheth believes many industry’s legacy and heritage is more of a liability than an asset. The reluctance to change, the natural tendency to follow a “prevailing wisdom”, and look backward to the past is their undoing. “Companies will thrive under tough times by challenging existing dogma,” he concludes.
Banking is a great example - where most big banks were reluctant to take part in micro-financing – the lending of small sums to the poor, even with its high net margins and profits. Banks held on to their outdated prevailing wisdom and refused to change their policies thereby losing out in the process, until Mohammad Yunus and Grameen Bank showed the way.
Looking back to the past is not a bad thing. But when the past and today becomes a frame that locks you inside its corners, then it becomes harder to look outside the frame. John Maxwell’s “law of the lid” claims that every person or organization has a lid or ceiling. Once a person reaches its limit and hits the ceiling, there can be no more growth. Companies that hit their lid, often look back to the “good ole’ days” instead pushing the barriers of the lid. Growth leaders lift the lid of their organization with a compelling vision of the future.
Over the next ten years the demographic makeup and flow of the workforce is expected to change. In the near future, the workforce will be the most diverse it has ever been in terms of gender, ethnicity, and generation. While each of these diversity areas are important, generational understanding could be the most challenging as each generation brings its own knowledge, skills, behaviours and values to an organization.
As the department with the most influential contact with employees, HR will be faced with the challenge of uniting this diverse workforce. One method to meet this challenge is through the use of social media. Research shows several similarities across generations and leads many to believe that the new workplace will be a more personalized and social leading to increased use of social media at work. While it may come as a surprise, a latest research shows that older generations are using social media almost as much as younger generations. It is without a doubt that social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have revolutionized how we connect with each other and are credited with much of this change. While social connection is quite informal in the public arena, HR should expect to use similar social media programmes in the workplace.
Social media tools implemented in the workplace will drive success on several fronts. The first is that they will help foster collaboration. The tools can be designed and used in a way that offers direct messaging or video-conferencing in a variety of established forums that help drive innovation. Second, they will also allow for relationship building amongst employees and the team members. Social media tools will provide an outlet for employees to learn more about each other personally as well as offer an area for them to publicize events, news about the company and its departments, and other information deemed appropriate and within company guidelines. Third, social media can help HR better engage its employees. It can provide a personalized platform for employees to go through e-learning tutorials, locate company intranet files with ease, or even access a job’s specific FAQ area all in one convenient location. Lastly, as employees use these tools, HR could use analytics to track individual performance and how it is linked to social media.
In going along with the idea of a more personalized work environment, HR could also employ segmentation strategies for their employees that are usually targeted at their consumers. Similar to the way a company like Dell can customize a laptop to a customer’s specifications, interests, and budget, HR could adjust things like compensation and benefits packages, on-boarding processes, and development opportunities to align with the values, behaviors, and expectations that each generation (employee segment) has of their employer.
Those employers that aren’t cognizant of this diverse workforce will not perform well because they will lack the necessary processes and strategies in place to communicate with, retain, develop, and engage this future talent. Those that can understand and adapt to both generational similarities and differences will have a distinct competitive advantage on their peers and will be poised for battle in the war for talent.
Visibility and Engagement
While the previous two considerations of analytics and adaptation are important, they will seldom be noticed if the organization isn’t aware of HR’s progressive work and isn’t utilizing it for strategic purposes. As HR seeks to increase its worth and brand equity within an organization, it will need to ensure the alignment of its initiatives with overall business strategy. Therefore, it is important for HR to be involved in the strategy development with input that is truly valued at all levels. One recent study showed that, “only 22 percent of respondents claim that HR is a full partner in developing and implementing business strategy, and only 47 percent claim that HR does more than simply help implement the business strategy once it has been developed.”
So why isn’t HR providing counsel in important business strategy decisions? In many cases this occurs in an organizational culture created by an HR department that isn’t visible enough. In these situations, HR isn’t actively engaging with and communicating its initiatives, results, and successes with other functions and levels of the organization. This may be improved through the use of annual reports to leadership and through greater interaction with other departments. HR is often siloed in an organization, which prevents it from providing and receiving valuable insight from other departments. To be more effective, HR should be working closely with Finance and Operations, while better understanding talent pipelines and employer branding from areas like supply-chain management and marketing, respectively.
In addition, HR departments that are leveraging the workforce and making sound decisions based on analytics should be informing leadership of this progressive work. In addition to engagement, the use of annual reports should increase credibility, trust, and voice in strategy decisions of HR. Information that is often pertinent to leadership and can drive strategic business decisions are qualitative and quantitative measures like Return on Investment (ROI) for various HR initiatives, workforce evolution and planning, learning and development, and key performance indicators. By including this information in a formal report, it will help leaders understand the overall level of talent and infrastructure that is in place to ensure that strategic initiatives are well aligned withthe general vision of the organization.
The Future Value of HR
Through the implementation of the aforementioned social media tools, analytics and annual reports, HR can earn and receive the credit it deserves. Human Resources professionals will be able to combat comments like “HR is for people who aren’t good with numbers” with showing their use of analytics; or “HR just hires and fires” with fore thought on the future workforce and strategic initiatives like internal social media; or even “They plan parties and don’t contribute any value to the business” with the use of annual reports that quantifiably show HR’s value and will allow HR to take on more of a role in business strategy development. The path for HR improving its brand equity and credibility within an organization is undoubtedly tough. As HR professionals continue to become more strategic and innovative in their practices, they will yield favorable results that increase HR’s functional value and worth in ways that will be difficult to be overlooked.
“To manage people well, companies should … Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy in the organization, and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers build leaders and careers.” [/b]
– Jack Welch[/i][/b]