Posts Tagged ‘Changing’
HR Changing all the time Abstract
It is a greatly overused cliché to say that ‘the only constant is change itself’ but it is very clear that business keeps changing and that the HR role within business is changing in many ways.
Business has always changed, of course. The main point today is that change is so rapid. Some industry commentators call the Human Resources function the last bastion of bureaucracy. Traditionally, the role of the Human Resource professional in many organisations has been to serve as the systematising, policing arm of executive management.
In this role, the HR professional served executive agendas well, but was frequently viewed as a roadblock by much of the rest of the organisation. While some need for this role occasionally remains – you wouldn’t want every manager putting his own spin on a sexual harassment policy, as an example – much of the HR role is transforming itself.
In most large organisations, HR is still responsible for ensuring all departments harness the potential of their people and engage them in the successful delivery of organisational objectives.
HR achieves this responsibility not only by providing world-class services and support for individuals, but by working in partnership with the business to execute people strategy, maximising employee engagement, and leading and managing change.
More recently the focus in many cases has been around efficiency and value for money. However, in addition to driving down costs, HR needs to lead departments in improved people management by enhancing and developing skills and capabilities. Providing effective leadership, and helping managers achieve more by working smarter rather than harder.
HR Changing all the time Introduction
It is a greatly overused cliché to say that ‘the only constant is change itself’ but it is very clear that business keeps changing and that the HR role within business is changing in many ways.
Business has always changed, of course. The main point today is that change is so rapid. Some industry commentators call the Human Resources function the last bastion of bureaucracy. Traditionally, the role of the Human Resource professional in many organisations has been to serve as the systematising, policing arm of executive management.
In this role, the HR professional served executive agendas well, but was frequently viewed as a roadblock by much of the rest of the organisation. While some need for this role occasionally remains – you wouldn’t want every manager putting his own spin on a sexual harassment policy, as an example – much of the HR role is transforming itself.
In most large organisations, HR is still responsible for ensuring all departments harness the potential of their people and engage them in the successful delivery of organisational objectives.
HR achieves this responsibility not only by providing world-class services and support for individuals, but by working in partnership with the business to execute people strategy, maximising employee engagement, and leading and managing change.
More recently the focus in many cases has been around efficiency and value for money. However, in addition to driving down costs, HR needs to lead departments in improved people management by enhancing and developing skills and capabilities. Providing effective leadership, and helping managers achieve more by working smarter rather than harder.
The role of the HR manager must parallel the needs of the changing organisation. Successful organisations are becoming more adaptable, resilient, quick to change direction and customer-centred.
There are an incredible number of pressures in today’s organisations including:
Environmental pressures such as increasing globalisation, rapid technological change, and tougher competition; Organisational changes such as new organisational alliances, new structures and hierarchies, new ways of assigning work, and the high rate of change, itself; and Changes in the workforce, including employee priorities, capabilities, and demographic characteristics.
Within these pressured organisations, there is a need for (and opportunity for) the Human Resource function to play a critical role in helping organisations navigate through these transitions. In order to play this role, however, HR has to enjoy a real and perceived value that’s appreciated by managers and workers alike.
The role of Human Resources has been evolving for some time. The shift from “personnel” to “human resources,” for example, was part of the movement to acknowledge the value of employees as an organisational resource, and was an attempt to remove some of the stigma that was associated with slow, bureaucratic personnel departments.
This shift in label was accompanied by a call for HR to become a strategic partner with the leaders of the business – to contribute to significant business decisions, advise on critical transitions, and develop the value of the employees.
Interestingly, the trend of companies outsourcing Human Resource functions continues to gain steam. There is talk that by 2008 outsourced HR departments will be common.
The mere fact that outsourcing is an option, is prompting some people to reassess traditional HR job functions. And, in itself, that’s not a bad thing. After all, being an HR professional is no longer exclusively about handling payroll issues, negotiating contracts and benefits or training supervisors and executives.
It’s more about sitting next to the chief executive, making recommendations about what functions to outsource, developing long-term recruitment and retention strategies and finding ways to save the company money.
HR professionals today need to understand what the products and services are, who the customers are and who the competitors are. It’s essential for the HR professional to get out of the office and be involved in making things happen in the business.
The changing face of HR
Earlier an HR manager’s position was considered to be a highly authoritative position. Every employee developed a sense of tremor in their fingers when they were called into the HR’s cabin. If anybody was asked earlier that who is the HR ? they said that the person ‘who hires and fires’. The role of the HR manager earlier was to select the right candidate, review the performance of the candidates and dismiss the employees who are inefficient or disloyal to the company.
But the role of an HR manager has changed drastically now. An HR manager of a firm has multiple responsibilities. The main objective of the HR department today is to retain the employees of an organization. Even if the candidate wants to quit from the job a number of questions are imposed to the candidate such as ‘ why does he want to quit the job? Or what factors made him dissatisfied about the organization? Or if he is resigning due to his genuine reason, then is he ready to join the company again when needed? The factor of attrition is become a very important to the organization. The companies suffer losses if they loose the candidate.
But today, due to the factor of recession some of the companies are again laying off the employees. But until this September, the opportunities in a business organization were flooding but they were not finding candidates in an organization. Lets hope that the job opportunities again come to the same pace and the employees find jobs easily.
Here are five survival strategies:
Balance Interdependence and Autonomy. The HR manager and department must project an image of operational objectivity and privacy defender while performing their overall management function. The HR professional must also develop a capacity for “detached involvement,” that is, being sensitive to personnel issues and individual employee concerns while resisting the rescuer role. If you’re always taking work home – literally or emotionally – your personal/personnel boundary will start to erode. Reach Out to Specialists and Consultants. Resist the urge to be Rambo or Rambette. This involves taking things too personally, processing a significant downsizing or upgrading a computer system by yourself. Reach out for expert support such as an Employee Assistance Program counselor, especially with seriously disgruntled or dysfunctional employees. For widespread department tension consider using a corporate change/critical intervention consultant. Balance Administrative Work and Human Relating. Beware of becoming a solitary HR number cruncher who’s sequestered in an IT fortress. Don’t lose the human touch. Periodically, walk around your shop and swap stories with folks on the work floor. Bridge the gap between management and employees. Rotating different hats will also help you follow my maxim, “Fireproof your life with variety!” Encourage Independence by Setting Boundaries. These three boundary-setting strategies will enable the HR manager to successfully juggle various roles and responsibilities: Delegation. Monitoring (not micromanaging) employee performance is vital. Balance the Triple A, – Authority, Autonomy and Accountability – which are critical management and stress tools. Education. Help others not to be so dependent on your indispensable knowledge. Training for employees and supervisors on HR-related procedures, Web site information negotiating and self-initiated employee data gathering, etc., is vital in today’s time- and task-driven environment. Separation. Generate the space-time dynamics for optimal performance of HR. Balance accessibility and boundaries with “closed door” time; design a form and function office layout that allows for vital interdependence between HR and employees. One HR department installed a dartboard on a back wall for stress relieving fun and friendly competition. Model the stress management mantra, “Giving of yourself and giving to yourself!”
Maximize Team Meetings.
Productive team meetings are essential to share logistically and emotionally demanding workload for the HR manager and his or her staff. Meetings should to be more than time and task-driven staffing; build in a 15-minute “wavelength” segment. Use this segment for the group to grapple with emotionally tough personnel issues – dealing with pink slips, reorganization uncertainty, turf battles with other departments.
Let’s begin with a list of HR-related stressors:
Availability and Accountability. While HR may be a separate department, it is hardly an island on corporate waters. Company personnel believe they should have some representation through HR and that HR should be at the beck and call of all employees. Beware of HR professionals who establish a rescuer role and take every personnel problem home. Burnout is less a sign of failure and more sign of giving yourself away. Objectivity. The challenge for an effective and widely accepted HR department is to maintain some functional independence. The HR professional must also be somewhat detached from yet, also, be an objective and concerned advocate for management and employees. Problem solving (not just numbers crunching) is an important force in an organization. Multiple Roles. The HR manager/professional often plays many roles – from coach and counselor to cop and confessor. And, if that’s not enough, he or she must also be the organizational or interpersonal safety net or back up when there are breakdowns. For example, manager-supervisor-employee relations, reorganization such as a downsizing, outdated or illegal policies and prejudicial procedures, etc. Disgruntled Personnel. As outlined above, there are HR demands and responsibilities aplenty. The proverbial icing on the cake is negotiating problems with people who have grievances about a supervisor, pay, evaluation and promotion/termination issues. Certainly it can be emotionally and professionally rewarding to rectify a significant personnel problem. Still, chronically providing service to angry customers can all too easily result in a case of “brain strain.”
Transitional Glue. Especially in times of rapid or volatile change – mergers, downsizing, rapid startup and growth – the HR manager becomes a company cheerleader (or that stress confessor). He or she often helps folks sustain morale in the face of an uncertain and vulnerable future. The HR goal is to not allow the company’s “esprit de corps” to regress into an “esprit de corpse.”
The HR Manager may become the messenger, helping employees and supervisors interpret reorganization pronouncements from the management mountaintop. Sometimes the HR leader must assume the Moses mantle while the employee tribes wander for a period in the transitional desert. Anyone for the training class on “Parting Really Large Bodies of Water?”
Crisis Management. The HR manager must realize that when certain crises are outside his or her sphere of “hands on” influence, he or she must resist the “solo savior syndrome” role. Believing you are the center of your corporate solar system is a potential danger because all organizational life depends on your energy source.
When downsizing trauma evoked racial tension and threats in a federal government division – pulling a KKK Web site off the Internet and playing a Louis Farrakhan tape in public – HR called me in. As a critical incident specialist, my role is clear: to stop the vicious cycle before it turns violent and to lay the groundwork for productive conflict resolution and team building.
A specific stressor came to my attention recently: confidentiality. One particular incident involved an HR manager who was unsure of how to respond to a supervisor’s breach.
This supervisor unprofessionally, if not illegally, shared with her employees that a colleague had been hospitalized for mental health reasons. Such a breach is like a computer virus that can contaminate everyone’s operating system and security. The HR manager’s standing as a leader was on the line, not just the supervisor’s.
Ever-changing Technology and Policy. Like other corporate entities, the HR department must keep up with new software and data processing systems. Having an internal website to share key information with employees is critical. And invariably, getting started technologically takes longer than anticipated. Glitch happens!
With policy, there are always ever-changing requirements or cultural diversity/gender issues mandated by the likes of Congress or the EPA. But let’s not overlook the rapidly changing constrictions from the corporate headquarters to field operations. All these systemic forces can undermine a sense of control for the everyday HR functioning.
Training Demands. The HR team cannot possibly provide individual employee handholding for all personnel issues. Depending on company size, HR should have enough time and staff to provide classroom orientation on HR-related matters. HR managers often need to delegate the training function to subordinates. Individuals must be encouraged to do reasonable data gathering or research or else HR will be enabling inefficient, if not dysfunctional, dependence.
HR managers as change managers
The role of HR managers has grown from the ambit of payroll, recruitment and training, to more mature and broader areas like competency mapping, succession planning, and crisis and change management. Renuka Vembu asserts how HR managers need to be good change agents themselves
The ‘change’ factor
As the idiom goes, ‘Change is the only thing that is constant’, it is pertinent more-so-ever in the modern day and age, where organisations have to cope up with a host of factors on the lines of dearth in specialised skill sets, battling attrition, changing business demands and employee needs, increasing competitive edge, etc. The word ‘change’ in itself plays with the psyche of a person. It is certainly not an easy task to change; but then the graver concern is to understand and accept the fact that there is a need for change, and then to embark upon the transformation process. People, the underlying torch bearers and the campaign spear-headers, often contribute to being the key impediment factor. It is about their attitude and mindset towards acceptance, willingness to execute, and readiness to acknowledge the end result.
From crafting to carrying
The concept of leading by example is not restricted to the immediate supervisors of a team, the middle-level cadre or the senior management. It is something that needs to be extended, penetrated and shown prominent evidence across all hierarchical levels, in all job functions and departments. Since the HR is thrust with the job of recruiting, managing and developing the work force, it is of utmost significance that they not only craft a particular process, but also carry it; they have to make the shift from being a distant observer to becoming an active participant.
With the changing business dynamics, the traditional role of the HR team has become more evolved, with concepts like succession planning, change management, crisis management, etc. are coming to the foray. Almost all of these factors have a key role of line and strategic HR personnel in it. Given that, it is important for HR managers to be good change managers themselves such that they can in turn guide the process.”
The organisational impact
As it is rightly said, no organisation can grow without the growth of its employees. Likewise, no effort bears fruit without complete approval and participation of the task force engaged in it. Sharma viewed, “Organisational impact of the failure of HR managers to be effective change managers varies directly with the business impact of the change. Some of the manifestations of such failure can be seen directly in terms of poor business performance, reduction in efficiency and fall in productivity.
Equipping for the transformation phase
When embarking on a change programme, what are the tools that HR personnel should be well-equipped with? Sharma explained, “I believe it starts with an understanding of the business-HR professionals need to be business professionals first-to be in sync with the business so as to understand the before, during and after of any change (planned or unplanned) in a business process. Then would be understanding how much of this change can be impacted or managed. This would be for three groups that go together viz. the strategic think tank involved (need not be the top guys), the line managers and HR.
Conclusion
In today’s 24/7, merging, consolidating, “do more with less” work environment, the letters “HR” could as easily stand for “Hub of Reorganization” as for “Human Resources.” In fact, it’s the intersection of the two organizational dynamics, human exchange and systemic change, that accounts for the challenge and performance pressure for the HR manager and other human resources professionals.
A person, over time, is confronted by rapidly changing requirements and responsibilities especially related to the welfare, safety and rights of others. He or she may lack sufficient control, authority or autonomy to deal with such demands. When this happens, the result is chronic stress.
C.Pavithira,M.Phil Scholar, periyar University, Salem-11
